Homemade Applesauce in a Dorm Room
with Chef Peter Swift

Somewhere around a week ago, my suitemate Clayton discovered a couple of appletrees right outside our dorm.  After coming in and announcing his discovery to me, we scampered outside and grabbed as many as we could hold in our shirts and brought them back in.  The apples were small and sort of gross looking thanks to these trees not being pruned in probably decades, but they tasted alright, so I shoved them in my desk drawer for snacking until today, when I decided to try to make applesauce using a hotpot.

I've made applesauce before at home, using pots and the stove and a proper applesauce strainer.  This would be a little different - the strainer always spit the cores and skin out one end while sending delicious applesauce out the other, so I would have to peel and core these apples by hand, but being so small, and since I didn't have a good paring knife or peeler, I decided to simply cut them, core them and hope the skins came off after cooking.  Here are some pictures of the process:

Here are some of the apples sitting on my couch.

ESPN the Magazine (pronounced esspin) makes for a makeshift cutting board and pocket knives make up for the lack of decent cutlery.

Here are some of the cut apples loaded into my hotpot.  Despite the greenness, these apples were pretty sweet.

Slicing apples for the second batch.

Here's the second batch of apples I did later - I eventually went for halving instead of quartering.

Aaron got a picture of me poking at the partially cooked apples with a fork.  Apparently I haven't shaved in a couple of days.

The apples smell delicious. They are almost fully cooked.

I used a spoon and a fork to remove the apple flesh from the skin.  The flesh was pretty pale, but I added a bunch of cinnamon (and some sugar eventually) and it ended up looking alright.  I managed to swipe the cinnamon from our student union.

This actually looks totally disgusting in this picture.  Very chunky, cinnamony and becoming rapidly oxidized.  Still - the taste was pretty darn good.

The "bent fork masher" works pretty well, though this applesauce still looks pretty gross.  Thankfully the taste is good.

So now you all know it *is* possible to cook applesauce in a dorm room (well, technically the bathroom...don't worry - I sanitized!).  In fact, it is also possible to take a shower while the apples cook.  There's nothing better than lathering up while you're smelling apples boiling....

The verdict is still out on the taste - I decided to chill it and wait for the weekend before eating any real amount of it.  However, from the bites I tried, I have to say that it isn't quite as good as the applesauce at home, but that is probably due to the difference in apple quality.  Still, this is better than musselman's or any other purchased applesauce.  I give it a 3.5/5 overall.

Tune in next week when I try to make rice-pilaf in my hotpot.

Other foods cooked in a hotpot:

[Applesauce] [Chai] [Rice Pilaf (coming soon!] [Italian meal]