It's Beginning to Smell a Lot Like Fall!

Last weekend we bought a lot of sweet, crunchy apples at the Glenside Farmers' Market. After eating some sliced up and using others in a Cranberry-Apple Crisp (recipe from Simply in Season), I decided to use some to make homemade applesauce with Ella.

We used a recipe from the October 2008 issue of Cooking Light magazine called Eldress Bertha's Applesauce. Eldress Bertha Lindsay was one of the last surviving residents at Canterbury Shaker Village.

Ella liked trying to catch the apple peels as they fell into the bowl and would cheer me on to try to make a really long, curly peels. She's had apple slices before, but this time she ate nearly a whole peeled apple herself. She also enjoyed stirring in the sugar and mashing the apples after they finishing simmering on the stove.

The recipe was very easy and delicious! One of the best parts was how wonderful the house smelled while the apples were cooking--just like Fall.

biting in to a crisp, juicy apple



still working on that apple



mixing in the sugar and cinnamon stick



the apples, sugar, and cinnamon stick simmering--Can you smell it??



finished applesauce

I also made an inexpensive, simple version of kettle corn yesterday. I placed about 1/4 cup of corn kernels in a brown paper lunch bag and microwaved it for 3 minutes. When the corn was popped, I sprayed a light coating of cooking spray onto it and added a sprinkle of cinnamon and sugar into the bag and gave it a good shake.....I ended up with a yummy treat that was much healthier and less expensive than prepackaged kettle corn ($1.99/100 bags and $1.88/bag of popcorn came out to about 25 cents a serving)! Next time, I am going to try making some "southwest popcorn" with salt, cumin, and cayenne pepper.

unseasoned popcorn after it came out of the microwave



yum!