Apple Harvest

Some how, maybe because we don't use chemicals on our gardens, our apple crop was severly eated by bugs, worms, yucky things!  Yuck is not even the choisest word I would use, but it is what it is, so I had to decide what I needed to to with what I could salvage from our apple crop this year.  The problem is, our apple tree is of the variety called Honey Crisp.  These are extremely crisp apples, but not the sweetest this year.  So my first thought was to get enough slices for a pie, as the not so sweet varieties make wonderful pies.  But my husband and I are overweight, so that option wasn't going to happen (I'm not a pie fan anyway).  So, I figured I would make some applesauce.  I've made and canned applesauce for the last three years, but just as the instructions of most receipies tell you, it is best to use an assortment of varieties of apples, and not those that are tart. But with little choice, I went ahead and sliced them up to be made into applesauce, and prepared to have to add a lot of sugar.

Fortunately, there were more apples that looked and sliced up better than this one in the picture (actually this one made it's way to the chickens.....they were in heaven)

So here is my success of anout 15 apples. The cinnamon that I added helped in the tartness, and I only added a small amount of sugar. Cooking it made the house smell wonderful, and my yeild was a little over 2 pints. I have more apples on the tree, so I will be making more next week!