This weekend Xavier and I, along with a few friends, made a trip to an apple orchard in Indiana, Mowry's to be exact. It was such a sweet and humble little place, family owned and quaint as could be. Ive never been apple picking before, so it was a nice little adventure, and stuffing my skirt pockets with apples made me feel like a little girl again, a nice change of pace, when you have your own little one to care for. Here are some of our apples:
I have golden delicious and jonnies here. The apples were priced at 70 cents a pound, which is ridiculously cheap, I got four pounds and a gallon of apple cider for Xavier. I should have gotten more apples, but the fear or not being able to use them all caused me to come home with about two pockets full. I didn't feel like making a pie today so I decided to make some apple sauce for the bebes, and for me too, maybe. Here is the process, and if you are familiar with making baby food, this recipe is pretty much the simplest, strait forward recipe you could ask for. Its a great one to try if you have never made baby food before either. I recommend trying to find a couple different varieties and try them together, I chose the goldens for their crunchy texture and the jonnies for their sweetness. You can also use the same process for a lot of fruits for baby, peaches, plums, pear, nectarines, Ive used them all, and you can prepare squash the same way.
Ginger Apple Sauce:
2 pounds mixed apples
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp cinnamon
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Preheat oven to 400 Degrees
Wash the apples, and leave the peel on. Leaving the peel on retains the nutrients and fiber in the skin. Chop them in half, or use an apple corer (I don't have one so I just removed the seeds, core and stems after baking). Fill a baking dish with about 1/2 inch of water and place the apples openside down in the dish. Bake for about 30 minutes or until the peels look like this, and the apple is soft on the inside.
Take them out of the oven and leave them to cool and sort of drain, on towels.
Play peek a boo while the apples are cooling
After the apples cool, remove the skins, and if you haven't already, the seeds and core etc. Save the water that the apples were cooked in, as you will be using it in the food processor along with the cooked apple mush, it has all the good stuff from the skin in it too. Put all the apple you could scrape out of the skins into the food processor and add a little of the cooking water. If the apples get a bit stuck in the processor just add a bit more water to help it out. Add the cinnamon and ginger. Pulse or puree to desired texture, since Julian and Omi are 9 months, I left it a bit chunky for them, but for younger babies, I would recommend doing a very smooth puree.
Enjoy!
I love adding spices to the baby's food, and I think they really like it too. Both Omi and Julian enjoyed this apple sauce and I had some too. You could either can or freeze this and it would hold for a few months, which I recommend considering apple prices will go up after the season is over. Or, if you keep it in the refrigerator I would use it with in four days. You could also mix something like this with soaked oat meal, yogurt or even lentils and it would taste great.
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