Saucy! Apple, that is.

The best apple sauce I ever had was at my Theatre professor's house back in '97. It was deliciously lumpy and tasted like apple pie without the pie.

I set out to duplicate that memory of a condiment-cum-dessert. Surprisingly, I couldn't find a recipe for apple sauce in most of my cookbooks, so I was left to my own devices. I felt like Canada's Test Kitchen.

I knew I wanted a tart apple for a balanced flavour so I chose the organic Spartans available at the Glebe Loeb (which specializes in local produce!). I wanted a roasty flavour, so I decided to bake the apples as-is. I popped them in the oven at 400 degrees and baked for nearly an hour.

After baking they sortof exploded and the skins split and they smelled amazing! My only question . . . what next?? I had planned to just mash them through my colander, but the apples were a little firmer than I expected. At this point I felt really dumb and can offer this advice: It's a whole lot easier to peel them first!!!!

Well, it was too late to peel before baking, and they wouldn't mash through the colander, but the skin came off easily with my fingers (and right into my mouth -- yum!), and the core stayed intact and separated from the flesh. I put the good stuff in a bowl and gave it a stir . . . delicious! The last step was pouring the sweet syrupy juice that had collected in the bottom of the casserole dish into the sauce, and adding a couple tablespoons of lemon juice to keep it from browning.

Here's the what's left of the sauce after we piled it high & deep to accompany our pork chops. I think every one had seconds, and some of us had thirds (maybe even fourths!). Lucky me, it's even better after chilling for a couple of days!