We didn't care for these.

Reviewed On: Nov. 14, 2009

I have made applesauce many times, but this is a different approach. Usually I boil the apples first, then pulverize them; this recipe basically reverses that sequence. Instead of shredding the apples, which sounded painful, I used my food processor. Raw apples (with peels) and a wee bit of water were food-processored until they looked like applesauce, (but tasted grainy); then I simmered it for about 45 minutes to soften the texture. I probably could have simmered it for a shorter time if I had removed the peels - but my mom always told me to eat my apple peels. One caution, if you do opt to leave the peels on: Make very, very sure you remove all the little stickers. Picking tiny bits of sticker out of boiling applesauce is not very fun (take my word for it).

Reviewed On: Oct. 31, 2009

I used a real (baking? sugar? pie?) pumpkin - baked & scooped it first, then pureed it in the food processor - but other than that, I followed the recipe as written. (Except, oh, I realized I didn't have evaporated milk so I used regular milk). It turned out really tasty, but a little different from regular pumpkin pie. The difference is the crust -- it was more like eating a thin layer (half-inch) of pumpkin pie filling atop a standard oatmeal cookie. Not bad, but different. My husband called it a "pumpkin cobbler." Of note, the filling was really liquidy when I poured it into the crust - much more liquidy than when I make a pie using canned pumpkin. It was basically the consistency of milk. I was really worried about it setting right, but it did fine (I added about 10 minutes to the cook time). I baked it in a 13''x9'' pan and felt the crust depth was fine as written. (My filling seemed to soak into the crust a bit -- which is probably what made it cobbler-like -- there was almost a middle layer of pumpkin-infused oatmealy yumminess.) I will make this recipe again because it satisfies my pumpkin-pie craving and is way easier than making a crust (healthier, too).

Reviewed On: Oct. 29, 2009