 Hi, I'm Nicole, and welcome to the Produce Made Simple Kitchen, we are go-to resource for all things fruits and veg. It's apple season in Ontario, so we're going to make one of the most basic recipes you can enjoy, apple sauce. Everyone online claims to have the very best recipe, and we will have a great one on our website too. But today I'm just going to show you really that you don't need a recipe. You can use almost any apple you have, use your favourites, use just one variety or a combination of several. It's early in the season, so we don't have some really common varieties out just yet, like Ambrosia or Gala, but we do have a really great selection of apples to choose from already. Some of those include Honeycrisp, Cortland, Ginger Gold, Macintosh and Fuji. Another great thing about apple sauce is that it's a great way to use up all those apples you kind of forgot about in your fridge, or ones that maybe have bruises. Just cut the bruises away, and they're super in an apple sauce. The most basic recipe really for apple sauce starts with about 4 pounds of apples. This is a medium sized apple, and it's about a half a pound, so you'd want 8 of these. Again, you can choose one variety or several different ones. To that, add about 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, and that's your base. Then decide what you want to add to it. I usually add cinnamon, but I don't add sugar. So we've cut up all of our apples, and we're just adding it to the pot. I used a variety of different apples, and if you've never really given it much thought before, don't be alarmed if you realise there are different colours inside. Just like on the outside, some are green or red. On the inside, they have different colours too. So this was one of the Fuji apples. It's far creamier and more yellow kind of inside. And this is our Macintosh. It's really white. So we're just going to add the lemon juice, and we don't need that much. I actually squeeze about half of a lemon. Just take some of the seeds out here, because you don't want those in your sauce. And if you find you had a lot of seeds, you could squeeze it into a bowl. But really, there are very few here, so I'm going to squeeze it directly on top. So as I said before, I really like cinnamon. So I'm going to add about a tablespoon of cinnamon to this. Just sprinkle it on top. A lot of the time, I don't add any type of extra sweetener, like sugar or maple syrup. But to be special, we're going to add a little bit of maple syrup here. Again, I would say this is about a quarter of a cup. Just kind of add to suit your taste. The last ingredient you need is a little bit of water. This is about half of a cup. We're going to add about a quarter of a cup first, just to the pot, to keep the apples from sticking when you first turn on the heat. The apples will release their juices naturally as they start to heat up, but you don't want them burning until before that happens. So we'll just add a little bit here, and sort of see how it goes. We're going to cook the apples for about 20 minutes over medium heat. Just stir occasionally to keep them from sticking to the bottom. If you find that your pot is looking a little bit dry, don't add more water. Instead, just pop the lid back on for a few minutes, and the apples will get juicier from the steam. Take the lid back off after a couple of minutes, and you'll find it's much better. As you get closer to the end, you'll find that when you're stirring, you can start to see the bottom of the pan. That's because there's less liquid, and it's a little bit more thick. To check if you're done, use a fork and push the apples against the side of the pot. This should be soft. So remove from heat. If you want a chunkier applesauce, use a potato masher. If you want a really smooth applesauce, use a blender or an immersion blender. And there you have it, your finished applesauce. If you can't resist eating it all right away, it makes a wonderful gift in a mason jar. You can see ours is actually quite a lot darker than you might have expected because of the cinnamon that we added. Okay, now we get to try it. You can really taste the cinnamon, obviously, but that maple syrup adds that little bit of sweetness that I think you'll like. For more information about Ontario apples, ways to use them, selection, storage, and, of course, this delicious recipe, please visit ProduceMadeSimple.ca. So please like, comment, and subscribe for more ProduceMadeSimple. And hopefully we'll see you soon. Bye!