thirty::newlywed::food

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slow sundays. in the christian faith, we are commanded to keep the sabbath. to slow. to settle. to sanctify.

it's been just that. a lazy morning in bed, relishing the time change here in britian, an extra hour today, delightful. and birthday brunch for one of our dearest. we braved the supermarket for the weekly shop and came home to the smell of apples bubbling away in the slow cooker. now, i'm going to change your life. should you not have a slow cooker - go and get one. find one on sale, or on an online swap site, or in the pile of items you received for your wedding and relagated to the back of the closet. do it. now. i'm an official convert. brisket is done. applesauce is made. a quick wash and we're on to a chicken!

at the farmer's market yesterday apples and pears were on three kilos for £3! a kilo was dumped in the slow cooker this morning. after six hours, it's heavenly.

apple sauce was always sitting in the bottom of our freezer at home. grandma kept the entire extended family stocked in apple sauce and canned peaches and pies. on nights in the deep of an ontario february these small reminders of summer were bits of gold. gobbled up, juices dripping down our small chins, bowls cleaned well enough to be returned to the cupboard. i'm not certain how grandma made applesauce, but as the homekeeper on a busy farm, with four children and many men to feed daily, i'm pretty sure there were times things were kept simple. grandma's applesauce was never the light straw colour of the store bought variety, and it tasted deeper, richer.  i can only now surmise this was because the peel of the apple was left on. in my hope to get the apples going before we headed out this morning, i decided against peeling. for one it seemed like a lot of work, for two, i generally believe that most things taste better with the skin left on...

we returned 5 hours later to warm cinnamon, sugar, apple smell. a quick peek told me the apples were mushy but not completely dissolved, i left them for another couple hours while we spent some time napping and reading on this grey late-october day. and dissolved they were. a couple minutes with the immersion blender and i've got the smoothest applesauce. it tastes almost as good as grandma's. but not quite. i expect i'll never be able to exactly recreate the taste of love canned in october and remembered in february.

grandma's applesauce re-interpreted

ingredients:

1 kg apples, cored but not peeled (over here i use cox, at home i'm a macintosh fan all. the. way.)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup water
1 tsp cinnamon
zest and juice of one lemon
1 tbsp butter

instructions:

place all the ingredients, save the butter, in a slow cooker. set to low. leave for 6-8 hours until everything is completely mush and the sauce is a caramel brown colour.

stir in butter. using the immersion blender, blend until smooth.