Nothing makes your house smell good quite like homemade applesauce. I have many memories making it with my mom growing up. The stuff from the jar doesn't even come close. 

I picked up some local organic and no-spray apples from a produce shop close by. Little Grabbie McGrabberson always wants to hold something from her perch in the Ergo when we are out running errands. This day she wanted to hold an apple of course. When I loaded her into the car she was still having fun playing with the apple so I let her keep it. As I was driving I heard some interesting sounds from the back seat and discovered when I arrived home that Quinn had eaten a quarter of the apple already! I found her juicy and grinning. It was hilarious. Those eight teeth can really do some munching. (Her dentist appointment went great by the way. She wanted to hold her new toothbrush all day.)

I decided to use the crockpot to make applesauce this time. And now I'm hooked. I peeled and cored the apples and cut them into pretty big chunks, probably about 10 chunks per apple. It took probably 15 minutes total. They really don't have to be pretty. 

These are the ingredients I threw into the crockpot:
- 3 golden delicious apples, 4 granny smith apples, 4 braeburn apples
- a scant 1/4 cup of brown sugar
- a heaping teaspoon of cinnamon
- 1/4 cup of water

You can always add more water later, but you can't easily remove it. No one has ever complained about applesauce being too flavorful. Stir it up and set the crockpot on high. At two hours I stirred it with a fork and mashed it a little too see how firm the apples were. At a little less than four hours it looked like the texture I wanted it to be. I mashed it with a potato masher until it was mostly smooth with some small chunks. It really didn't take much mashing, it was so soft and velvety. Then I put it into glass jars to eat, freeze, and gift. I'll definitely be making more batches, it was so easy!