Crockpot Apple Chunks

 **UPDATE**
I've moved to ladybugsandlattes.com
You can find this post and more here
***

My baby girl loves apples and they were on sale at our grocery store last week. What a perfect opportunity for me to try out this recipe I found for Homemade Crockpot Applesauce (by comfyinthekitchen.com). In the too-short 25 minute nap Cadybug took in the morning, I cored, peeled, and chopped 10 apples (mostly Red Delicious). I don't have a fancy apple peeler - I sure wished I did that morning because peeling an apple by hand - not fun. Peeling 10 apples by hand - really not fun.

This is the equipment I had to work with:

I thought to myself, "Well, I don't have an apple peeler, but I do have a vegetable peeler...same thing, right?"

Wrong.

It took way too long to peel that apple and I nicked too many fingernails, and if I multiplied that by 10? Who has that kind of time anymore (or that many fingernails)? So the 9 unfortunate remaining apples were poorly peeled with a steak knife.

I do, however, have one tool in my kitchen that is a true culinary companion of mine. The Chopper.

This little baby saves me so much time and energy. He may be noisy, but he chops like a pro...and he's dishwasher safe. That's why we're so close. My non-dishwasher safe items end up sitting on my counter for days until I find the motivation to actually wash dishes by hand. Meanwhile, I look at them in disgust every time I walk by.

Then I put all of the apple chunks in my trusty slow cooker and added 1/2 cup of sugar and 1/2 cup of water. The directions say that sugar is optional, and I will probably use 1/4 cup next time instead. But when I read that it was optional, I actually said out loud "girl, in this house, sugar is not optional". (And then I went on cooking and pretended like it's totally normal to talk out loud to my computer.)
The directions also say to sprinkle cinnamon on top. Oh I did this...a little too well. I have shaky hands so a sprinkle of cinnamon is more like a thick dusting. Oops.

Cook on high for 4 hours. Let the delicious aromas fill your nostrils and make you want to eat everything in the house while it cooks because the smells will seriously make you that hungry. When it's done, you can mash or blend it up, but we ate it as sweet, sticky chunks of Heaven.

Now, this is the original picture of completed applesauce from ComfyintheKitchen.

This is mine.

Yeah. I think the darkness is due to me using darker apples...and perhaps the piles of cinnamon I poured over the top. It was good, though. So good. The hubs went back for thirds!

Self-given grade: Nailed it