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Thanksgiving Recipe: Easy Applesauce

With Thanksgiving exactly a week away, I thought I'd write about a Thanksgiving family favorite that works perfectly as part of the main course or for dessert on Turkey Day. The great thing about applesauce is that so many flavors can be added to it in order to suit the tastes of dinner guests--chefs can keep it simple with cinnamon and brown sugar or spice it up with orange and lemon zests according to the taste palette of the rest of the Thanksgiving feast.

To produce the simple applesauce base, all you'll need is:

8 apples (varied kinds will give your applesauce a much deeper flavor)
1 1⁄2 cups of water

Peel, core and slice the apples into eighths. Cook in a large covered pot or dutch oven on medium heat for about 20 minutes or until the apples are soft. Use a potato masher or, if you're a perfectionist like me, a food mill to make sure that your applesauce is smooth. If you'd like your applesauce to have a nice pink tint to it, keep a few of the peels on your red apples while they cook. You can remove the peels afterwards, but they'll give a beautiful hue to the applesauce while it cooks.

Some diehard applesauce makers insist on cooking the apples whole to get the most flavor from each apple, but this take on the traditional recipe is definitely a Turkey Day time saver as it allows you to skip the food mill if you're in a rush to get twelve things done as the Thanksgiving celebration progresses.

Now once you've got your "blank canvas," you can add whatever you'd like to make your applesauce especially delicious. Some flavoring options that have worked well for me in the past: butter, brown sugar, maple syrup, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, orange or lemon zest, blueberries, strawberries, raisins or cranberries. Keep it simple or make your apple sauce a little daring by pairing some different flavor options.

No matter how you serve your applesauce this Thanksgiving, there's no doubt that it's the perfect accompaniment to any party of the Thanksgiving feast. Its sweet flavor is a great complement to the more savory main course or as an addition to the pies, tarts and other sweet treats during dessert. Bon appétit!

Enjoy Planning.
Penelope