Fill a cooking pot with ripe apples.
(I pick up the fallen ones from under the trees.)
Williams Pride Apple Drops, August 12 — one of our early apples.
Empty the apples into the kitchen sink and rinse them with water.
Take them out and quarter each apple with a sharp knife.
Throw them back into the pot — peel, seeds, core and all.
Add 1 ½ cups of water and begin to cook, covered.
Enjoy the chunk of apple that didn’t make it into the pot.
Ask that all beings enjoy peace, refuge, and healthy food.
Give a stir now and then to move the apples from the top to the bottom.
Keep a cover on the pot so it’s steamy inside.
When the apples are half-cooked, if you are going to use a sweetener, add it now.
(I added ¾ cup of organic sugar to this first batch.)
Ask that all beings find their own sweet spot.
Cock your head like a robin and listen to the kitchen sounds.
Smell the emanation of apple permeating the house.
It there is too much water, take the lid off and release some of the moisture.
Stir a little more.
Cook until all apples are soft.
Turn off the stove and let the pot cool with the lid off.
Pause to absorb the moist scent of cooked apples.
Laugh out loud, though there is nothing funny about a pot of smushy apples.
Offer gratitude to the trees.
After the apple glom cools, ladle large dollops into a food mill.
Rotate the crank around and around.
Watch as the strained sauce stained pink (from the peel)
eases its way into the large bowl below.
While it cools do something else.
Have the courage to follow your truth.
Fill a bowl with enough applesauce to eat over the next few days.
Fill containers for freezing.
Stack neatly in the freezer in the basement.
Return to the kitchen and enjoy a taste while the sauce is still warm.
