clean the fridge bluepplesauce

Okay.  So I could have called it apple-berry sauce, or berry-applesauce - but bluepplesauce just sounds a lot more fun, don't you think? :)

Anyway - yay!  The weekend is here!  We all wait for these glorious two days where we don't have to get up at an ungodly hour, and trudge our way to our commuter train in the cold and dark for five days in a row, only to come home at night, hunker down to bed, and get up and do it all over again.  (Ummmmm....okay, maybe that's just me, but you get the picture).  Bottom line is, we look forward to time to ourselves so we can do fun things like - clean out our fridges!

Which is what I did this lovely Saturday morning - and in the course of emptying my crisper bins of all manner of science experiments (but responsibly donating them to my green bin!) I discovered I had a pile of apples and a box of blueberries that were on the edge of no return.  There was no way I was going to eat them all today - but what to do, what to do? 

BLUEPPLESAUCE people. 

Now, there are a few different ways to make applesauce - in the past my go-to method has been to chop up some apples, throw them in a pot with a bit of water and simmer them down until they soften - but today, I decided to try another method, from the pages of Meghan Telpner's awesome Undiet Cookbook (page 204 to be exact). Some of you may recall that I played a small part in helping Meghan create this cookbook, which you can read about here - and I've been far too late in mentioning that this gorgeous cookbook was published last fall to (deservedly) great success and rave reviews, and just go buy it, okay? :)

So here's how I did it today - SO quick and easy!

Start by peeling and coring your apples: 

I used about 7 apples of varying sizes and types (some honeycrisp, one mac, and one gala to be exact), because that's what was rattling around in my crisper bin - but of course you can use whatever type you like. A tip - "coring" to me always sounds like a lot of work that you'll need a special tool for - but I simply peel the apple, then cut away the sides of the apple from around the core. Cored!  

From there, I chopped the apples into small chunks, and placed them in a steamer basket with the blueberries (I used a full 6 oz. container of blueberries), over about 2 inches of water:

You can add any fruit that lends itself well to steaming to this mixture - but I had blueberries on hand, so that's what I used.  Cover, and steam for 10 minutes.  While your fruit is steaming, easy peasy lemon squeezy yourself 2 tbsp. of lemon juice:

BEST lemon juicer ever from IKEA

After steaming, you'll end up with something that looks like this:

From here, there are a few things you can do to get saucy with your steamed fruit: a) transfer it to a mixing bowl and mash it up for a rustic sauce, b) transfer to a food processor and let it fly, or c) do as I did, and transfer to a blender: 

(Not the sharpest photo, but aren't those colours pretty?)  Add your lemon juice to the blender with the fruit - and I also opted to add some cinnamon to taste:

And blend away! I believe any blender will do the trick, because after 10 minutes of steaming this fruit is pretty mushy - but if you're using a high speed blender such as a Vitamix (as I did), you DO NOT need to spend a lot of time blending this - I think I gave it a few seconds at low speed at most.

Et voila!  I give you bluepplesauce!!

While the colour is definitely influenced by the addition of the blueberries, the flavour remains decidedly applely (?)... but overall, tart, delicious, and not a drop of artificial flavour or sweeteners!  (And of course I know I don't need to remind you that blueberries are a fine source of antioxidants) :) 

So the next time you're cleaning out the fridge, think twice about tossing those almost past-their-prime fruits - there's a sauce of some kind just begging to be made with them! (strawpplesauce anyone?) :)