Kaia has really loved eating whole apples since she was about 18 months old. Sometimes she will eat the slices when we make her eat the apples sliced, but most of the time, she prefers eating whole apples. And when I say “whole,” I mean she will eat about a quarter or a third of the apple, get bored, and then decide she is done and hand it over to us (oh, the toddler stage!). As you can imagine, Chris and I are not fans of this as it’s extremely wasteful, nor do I want to eat her partially eaten apple (but well, I usually do since I’m anti-waste. Chris could care less, so he just tosses it). So whenever possible, we will slice the apple up and make her eat the slices. In the last few weeks, she’s grown tired of apples and has refused them. At school field trips, the teachers will pack lunches for the kids that include a small whole apple, and she has not eaten them. So she brings them home to us. They’ve gone into the fruit bin in our fridge, along with a couple Pink Lady apples Chris bought. I decided we couldn’t waste the apples (I am not the biggest fan of apples, especially in the summertime when there’s so much good warm weather fruit!), so I decided to use the leftover apples for apple sauce for Kaia. Kaia loves apple sauce. She used to have it occasionally during snack time at her last school. I’ve been buying Trader Joe’s organic apple sauce (the only ingredient, supposedly, is apples) in a large jar to use in healthy baked goods for her. Sometimes when we bake together, she will ask for some apple sauce to eat on its own, and I’ll indulge her and give her a small bowl; it’s her “treat.”

I used two types of apples, some water, and a splash of apple cider we had in the fridge. Even after simmering for an hour, the apple pieces had broken down, but there were still some small soft chunks. It was a bit more watery than the Trader Joe’s apple sauce, but I figured it would thicken as it cooled. I tasted it, and I actually thought it tasted better than the jarred apple sauce — as it should, right, because it’s homemade?

I told Kaia she could have some homemade apple sauce yesterday, and she got really excited. When I presented it to her and she took a spoonful and put it in her mouth, Chris said her face immediately turned, and she didn’t seem to like it. She asked for a “different” apple sauce.

I insisted to her that this was “real” apple sauce, and I said the other apple sauce was “fake” (okay, that’s not really true, but that’s what came out of my mouth). As if she knows what any of this means! She then declared, “I want fake apple sauce!”

I’m not buying the TJs apple sauce for a while, so I said no “different” apple sauce.” Chris force fed her the rest of the homemade apple sauce bowl he doled out for her. I ended up eating the rest of the homemade apple sauce, which I actually found pretty tasty. And it acted as a good after bite while eating Xi’an Famous Foods spicy noodles for me!