Making Awesome Sauce

It's like one of those "choose your path" books I keep hearing about but have never seen. First, pick apples or pears. Second, pick sauce or butter. Or don't pick at all, since I'll tell you how to make it all.

To make applesauce or pear sauce:

I used about 1/4 of a Walmart bag full of pears. Whatever you pick, core it and slice or chop it. Leave the peel on.

Then, take a big pot with a thick bottom and put about 1 inch of water in the bottom. Bring it to a boil, then add fruit and simmer until the fruit is tender enough to be squished.

I did the squishing the low-tech way with an old-fashioned colander and pestle, but I've heard there are fancy, potentially more expensive ways of doing this as well.

Add cinnamon to taste. Serve warm or chilled. You can also can this stuff for later use--it makes great baby food and has no added sugar, since the fruit has plenty to spare.

Hint: Orchards often sell their ugly/damaged fruit for super cheap, and ugly fruit tastes just as good!

-OR-

If you want to make this stuff into the butter version (apple butter or pear butter), which is a thick, spiced jelly-like critter that will make you, to use a colloquialism, "wanna slap yo momma," (Translation: it's delicious) then continue down the line.

Per quart of sauce you have, you will need the following:

1/8 t. nutmeg
1/16 t. cloves (a pinch)
1 allspice clove (half a pinch)
1/4 t. orange peel
1/8 c. orange juice (which I didn't have, so I doubled the orange peel and used the juice from the pears)
3/4 c. sugar (I'd skimp on this, especially if you have very ripe fruit. This will be very sweet even with less)

Add all of the above to the sauce and let simmer in a crock pot 6-12 hours, or overnight. The variables will be how thick you want it and how patient you are with these amazing fall aromas wafting about.

This is also can-able (not cannibal, that's not something you eat, that's something that eats you.) I just highly doubt that it will last long enough to be preserved anyway, with the bipedal hounds that ransack the refrigerator on a regular basis.

Enjoy! Happy Autumn!