Homemade Applesauce

The homemade applesauce was a huge hit with the kids. They loved using the microplane to zest the lemon, the citrus juicer to squeeze the lemon and the food mill to turn the cooked apples into applesauce. Quote of the day: This applesauce isn't good...its delicious!"

Ingredients

2 ½ pounds of apples; (I used 5 per batch, feeding 6 kids each.)

Juice from ½ lemon
Zest from ½ lemon
½ c water; more as needed
¼ cup brown sugar
½ tsp cinnamon

Instructions

Roughly chop apples, if you are not pressed for time. Finely chop your apples if you have all dayJ.
Place chopped apples and water in a large, thick-bottomed pot. Add juice, zest, cinnamon and sugar and give it a quick stir. Cover the pot and bring to a boil. Quickly, liquid should start to cook out of the apple chunks, which will help cook them down further.
Simmer apples over low heat until they’re very soft and can be easily mashed with a large spoon or potato masher. Stir apples occasionally, and if necessary, add a small amount of water and/or reduce heat to ensure nothing sticks to the bottom of the pot.
Place food mill over a large bowl and add as much of the apple mixture as will reasonably fit.
To avoid making your applesauce too thin, let the mixture sit in your food mill for half an hour so any excess apple juice can drain out. (You can discard the syrupy liquid or keep it in your refrigerator for flavoring drinks — try stirring some in with your seltzer!).
Turn the handle of your food mill clockwise, pressing the apples through the sieve.
Every several turns, rotate the handle counter-clockwise half a turn; it’ll scrape up any skins and seeds blocking the mesh.
Continue rotating handle clockwise until only dry, tough skins and seeds remain in your food mill. Serve warm for the best results!