My husband is the applesauce maker in our house, using the windfalls and unripe and over-ripe apples that appear on and under our apple trees (maybe 15 of them?) between August and early November. Rinse off the apples: they’re all unsprayed, and of wildly varying quality. Don’t peel them: cut out the obviously bad (brown) parts, and the core. Don’t be fussy. Cut them into roughly equal pieces, and put into your favorite large cooking pot with a heavy bottom. When it’s 3/4 full, put in water enough so you can see it through the top layer of apples. Cook over low heat, stirring regularly, until the pieces go mushy when you poke them with a fork. Remove from the heat and use a potato masher to make them somewhat evenly mashed. Put a very large, medium meshed strainer over a large mixing bowl, and pour and scoop the pulpy slop into it. Mash everything through the strainer until you have nothing but skins left in it.

Allow to cool, covered with a (clean) towel or cheese cloth, then chill. Scoop into plastic freezer boxes, label and freeze.

Note: Mixing apple varieties is a good plan: a wise woman, skilled in pie-making, once mentioned that she always used 5 different varieties of apples in making a pie. Even two or three offer the mix of the crisp (hard?), tangy apples with the sweet, sometimes mushy apples to create the best flavor.

Fact: if you put sugar into the apples before cooking, it takes more to make them taste sweet. You may not need any sugar once the applesauce has been chilled. Taste and add spices after wards, if desired.

So far this year, there are about 50 pints in our freezer, and many apples have not made it that far!