On Mr. Hawthorne's last trip back to his Mommie's, he came home with a bushel of apples. So today, I'm making apple sauce.

We've got this nifty little gadget that peels, cores, and slices apples. So Mr. Hawthorne started a-peelin', a-corin', and a-slicin' his bushel. I put lemon juice in the bowl and tossed the apple slices so they wouldn't brown.

And here's Mr. Hawthorne, slaving away.

I added the apple slices to a big pot, poured in about 1/2 inch of water, and turned the heat on low.

Next batch of apple slices went into the pot.

Isn't this neat?

Keep stirring every now and then.

Ahh ... the apples on the bottom are getting nicely cooked down as more slices are added.

I filled up a 10 quart pot with apples. It took Mr. Hawthorne almost an hour to peel a bushel of apples.

I kept cooking over low heat, bringing the cooked apples up.

After about an hour or more of cooking, I had about 2 gallons of applesauce and I added in 1 cup of sugar.

I cooked for one more hour. And this applesauce is delicious.

I filled up 8 quart-sized ZipLock bags to freeze

and 1 quart container to refrigerate for immediate consumption.