Applesauce

One of my goals is to start posting recipes for WIC coupon users.  My husband and I are foster parents to a beautiful set of one year old twin boys.  They are super sweet and one of their favorite pastimes is eating!  When they turned one, the WIC coupons went from laid out options of baby food, rice cereal and formula to what I consider a random grouping of foods that I literally looked at and said, "I have no idea what to do with this."

One of the coupons we receive is $6.00 worth of fruits and vegetables.  The twins are totally not picky when it comes to food, they will self-feed broccoli and want more when they have finished what we give them.  However, I know we are very fortunate to have kids that eat anything and am already anticipating the dreaded day that we may have completely different eaters!  One food almost every kid loves though is applesauce!  And the great thing is that it isn't very hard to make at all and you can put whatever you want in it, or don't.

Because I get more for the money, and the kids aren't trying to just eat them, I buy the apples prepackaged in the bags.  My most recent purchase were Red Delicious apples, but I have made applesauce with almost every kind of apple and have not heard a single complaint from anyone!  The first thing to do is wash your apples, I have read some great posts on Pinterest and other sites about soaking fruits in water and vinegar to clean them, but if you are in a hurry just make sure you wash them pretty well.  I peel my apples when I make applesauce for the twins, leaving just a little bit of skin on but not a lot so they won't have any problems chewing their applesauce, but still offering some of the nutritional value found in the skin.  I use an apple corer to slice my apples, it's just more convenient that way, but of course slice however you please :)

The next part shows the simplicity of making applesauce, put the apples in a sauce pan, add water.  I use a medium sauce pan and fill it about 3/4 of the way with apple slices and then add about 1/3 of the way with water.  If you want to add a little bit of sugar or cinnamon, now is the perfect time to do that.  It isn't necessary though, and especially if you are feeding really little ones they will not mind the absence of the additional sugar!

I always enjoyed my grandma's applesauce warm and will usually give some to the twins after it's cooled down a bit but is still nice and warm.  Make sure to refrigerate your leftovers, it should keep for a few days.  I don't make a lot at once because I don't always know how quick we will get to it, but I also have two.

I hope this was at least helpful to one person!  I will certainly be posting more, and more complex ones that will include more of the foods.  I welcome any comments, suggestions, or requests :)