Merging Cinnamon Applesauce with Telekinesis and Seaweed

As I left work on Wednesday, before the school shut down for winter break, I was reminded that all electricity would be turned off. This meant one last visit to the team refrigerator. There was a lot of vegetarian food in the freezer, from when my co-worker's son gave up on his vegetarian diet and she donated it to me, and a bag of apples in the fridge. I took the vegetarian freezer items without hesitation but stopped at the bag of apples. Pre-bagged apples are not nearly as good as those that you bag yourself. Probably because they travel longer distances and one bad one can ruin it for all the rest. But the worst crime to me isn't eating food that doesn't taste good but wasting food. So I grabbed the bag figuring I'd find something to do with them later.

It took a drive to Pennsylvania and lots of eating out and people cooking meals for me (Lisa has the same problem when she goes home for the holidays) but I eventually figured out what I was going to do with them. I would make applesauce. After all, as Oso Negro said on his Facebook page, it was one of the easiest things he had ever done. I was limited with what I could put in the applesauce to only what my brother and his wife had in their house. Here is the simple recipe that I came up with, one that I hope to experiment with more this year.

Cinnamon Applesauce
(printable version)

-10 McIntosh apples, cored, peeled and sliced
-1/4 cup sugar
-2 tsp. cinnamon
-1/2 cup of water

1. Combine the sliced apples, sugar and water in a medium pot. Heat, stirring occasionally, for twenty minutes or until the apples have softened.

2. Stir vigorously to make sure that there are no large apple chunks remaining.

3. Mix in the cinnamon and stir.

4. Chill for thirty minutes (or eat warm if you desire).

*This applesauce was had a super strong cinnamon taste. If you aren't a fan you might want to greatly reduce it.

With the exception of a seven year hiatus, Seaweed has been making indie rock music since I was in elementary school (1989). The original band members, Clint Werner, Aaron Stauffer, Wade Neal, John Atkins and Bob Bulgrien, meet in high school in Tacoma. Despite the hiatus and some difficulty with record labels the band never lost their ability to make catchy rock anthems. "Thru the Window," courtesy of current label Merge, has been climbing through my mind the past few weeks and was great for making applesauce.

Seaweed-Thru the Window

Another Merge band that made the applesauce experience greater was Telekinesis. The band, which is masterminded by Michael Benjamin Lerner, is preparing for their second full length 12 Desperate Straight Lines which will be available February 15th. "Car Crash" is the sixth track on the album which you can pre-order here. Thanks to Consequence of Sound for the link.

Telekinesis-Car Crash