In my early childhood memories, it seems like my mother was always cutting up apples.  Perhaps she was carefully removing the skins so that my younger sister could wrap her toothless mouth around them (allowing me to eat the parts left behind.)  Or maybe Mom was making a "Dan'l Boone apple pie" --- whole wheat crust with barely a hint of butter, apples cored but not peeled, filling mildly sweetened with a dab of honey.  Often, though, it seemed like she was just cutting up apples to be cutting them up, and she never minded me snagging one or two or ten out of her bowl.

Mom's apple sauce was simply stewed apples, skins left on.  Although I heartily approve of eating fruits and vegetables skin-on so that you don't lose the vitamins, I like the texture of skinless apple sauce (which can easily be made at home by stewing apple wedges, then passing them through a Foley mill to remove the skins.)  I invited Mom over to help me cut up our scavenged apples, then experimented with various methods of making skin-on apple sauce.

The best method seemed to be --- cut the apples into quarters, removing the cores; cook in a pot with some water until the apple meat begins to fall off the skins; then blend in the food processor.  You're less likely to scorch the bottom of the pan if you cook up your apple sauce in a skillet rather than a pot and fill at least a couple of inches in the bottom of the pan with water.  The result is very much like storebought apple sauce in texture, but with flecks of skin here and there.  (The photo above shows the result of my experiment.)

I'd be curious to hear if anyone else has a different method of creating skin-on apple sauce.  Meanwhile, if you're overflowing in scavenged apples (and you should be --- it's that time of year), you might want to check out a post I made a couple of years ago about how to make apple cider in a juicer.