Teaching MOMster: Cooking Up A Great Hop!

I am so excited to participate in the Cooking Up A Great Year hop! The kids and I have been preparing for Back to School and one of the (many) topics of conversation has been lunches. They are telling me what they want (and more importantly, what they do NOT want) in their lunches. Their #1 request is Crockpot Applesauce. So, today was the day! We bought our apples, peeled and cored them, and threw them in the crockpot. It is so easy and makes the house smell YUMMY! and, it stores and freezes well, so you can make as much as you have apples for!

I have tried many recipes before, but our family enjoys this one the best. And, it just so happens to be the easiest too. How often does THAT happen!?

You only need apples, cinnamon, and a lemon. We use a variety of apples. It is a little early in the season for many of the apples, so this time we used Granny Smith and Fuji. We had some cinnamon sticks, so I threw a couple of those in. Regular cinnamon works just as well! I forgot to grab the lemon, but we had lemon juice, so I used that. If I buy a lemon, I also peel some shreds of the peel and throw that in too. It gives it a great flavor!

Peel the apples (have the kids help!)

Carefully cut into pieces. The smaller the pieces, the quicker they cook.

Now, it is just time to wait! Turn on the crockpot and enjoy the smell. I have found that Crock Pots vary a LOT, so basically, it is ready when it is the consistency you want. If you like a chunkier applesauce, cook it a little less. There are many times when I put it together while working on dinner and turn it on low overnight.

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All of the apples got me thinking about some of my apple products. So, just for YOU, I decided to give you this FREE sample of my Gail Gibbons lapbook. This is an activity you can do on its own. This is a foldable book that you can use to reinforce the life cycle of an apple tree. There are 3 different versions, so you can differentiate or use the version that best fits the needs of your students. Grab a copy of Gail Gibbons book "Apple" and enjoy!