Food from Scratch: Popcorn and Applesauce

A few months ago, my mom was visiting for a couple of days and got the girls all hopped up on the idea of a Popcorn Party. To those of us who are the wiser, this is simply a bowl of popcorn and dance music playing on the Bose but to a 3 and 1 year old, it is the event of the week! I started getting nervous when I realized I didn’t have any bags of microwave popcorn just as Lucy started chanting, “Pop-corn Party! Pop-corn Party!” I did have some old popcorn kernels in a jar from some project from long ago, though, and showed them to my mom. As I watched her quickly get to work popping the corn, I was amazed at how easy it was. Why hadn’t I always popped corn on the stove?! There’s a good chance that most of you already do this but if there are a few of you who are still using the microwave bags, let me enlighten you. Literally, all I do now is heat 2 tbs coconut oil in a pot on medium high, add 4 tbs popcorn kernels, cover and watch the magic happen. When I hear the popping stop, I take it off heat, put the popcorn in a bowl, add a few tbs salted butter back to the pot that is still hot, let it melt, pour it over the popcorn and add salt to taste. It takes the same amount of time as popping it in the microwave and there is no waste.

Another food I had been buying in packaging for far too long was homemade applesauce. For that, all I do now is cut up apples, fill water 1/3 of the way up the apples, let it simmer until the apples are soft then take an immersion blender to them. After they are all blended, I add a pinch of salt and drizzle some maple syrup in with them. If you’re using a potato masher instead of a blender, you might want to peel the apples first for texture purposes. Another way you can do it, instead of simmering on the stove, is to prepare everything the same way but in a crockpot and set it to low and let it cook overnight. Then blend it all when you wake up.

I knew both of these foods were great homemade but it took me too many years to realize just how EASY they were to make homemade. Once I knew how to do them, it’s the only way we eat them any more.

I hope you all were able to take some time yesterday to celebrate the great Martin Luther King Jr. and all of his incredible work. So much is still to be done but how thankful I am that he continues to serve as an example of how an imperfect human being, like me and you, can fight for what is right.

Happy Tuesday!