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All Things Apple



I have been up to my eyes in apples this past week. So just fair warning, this is going to be a long post. But fear not, there are going to be multiple scrumptious ways to use all the apples in your life this fall.

Every year I look forward to harvesting my parent's apple tree. I always get a lot of apples, but they don't spray (which makes for great organic apples) but I usually can't use all of an apple and the apples with no worm holes get eaten whole. To my dismay, their apple tree is in its dormant phase this year. I think it produced 6 apples. I was really sad about it. But at least I got peaches right?

Wrong.

A little over a week ago, a lady in my neighborhood posted on our neighborhood fb page asking anybody and everybody to come pick apples. So I went. Her tree, put my dad's tree to shame. Plus, they sprayed (not organic, but that's okay, that is what washing and peeling is for right?) But since they sprayed, I could use ALL of EVERY apple I picked.

So this happened.


I want you to know that is a HUGE laundry basket. My son in 32" tall for reference. And, that wasn't all of them. I also had a paper grocery sack full too. And they wanted to give me even more and I had to kindly say, "Thank you. But I think this is all we can handle."

It was a blast to pick them because they were low hanging. I think my son ate about 4 entire apples throughout the day because while we were picking, he would grab one start eating it, drop it, get another one, start eating it, etc. etc. until we were done. He ate an entire apple in the car on the ride home. I found 7+ apples laying around the house while with bites taken out of them. (The basket was too heavy for me to lift to the counter so he had free reign while I worked. But they kept him entertained because he thought they were balls.) Then he ate another entire apple on the drive to pick up dad from work. Needless to say, he hit his fruit intake for the day.

I have been working like crazy. I am grateful I actually enjoy cooking and preserving food. I tried some new things. Some things worked really well. Some did not. But that is the way of the world. So let's dive into it. Here is what I have been working on. I will include all the recipes here with links to individual pages for each recipe for easier use.

Not all are pictured. But here is my list of apple creations thus far.

Apple Pie

Apple Crisp

Apple Sauce

Apple Jam

Apple Cider

Apple Fruit Leather

Dried Apples

Caramel Apples (not vegan)

Apple Smoothies

Apple Oatmeal

Let's get the easy stuff out of the way first.

Snacks

Dried Apples & Apple Fruit Leather

These are really easy. As long as you have a dehydrator. If you don't, you can cook them at 135 degrees for a really really really long time. Maybe 200 degrees, my dehydrator says to do fruit and vegetables at 135, so that is all I know. But if you are in the business of getting lots of produce, get a dehydrator. I have the NESCO American Harvest Food Dehydrator and Jerky Maker (yes my husband has made jerky in it) and it is awesome. I have had it for over 6 years and have never had a problem and I use it a LOT. I bought mine at Bed Bath and Beyond, but you can find it at Target, Amazon, etc.

Anyway, I love to dehydrate apples because it is an easy way to preserve produce and they make for a great healthy snack. If you are craving something sweet or crunchy, these fit the bill.

Instructions for Dried Apples

1. Wash and cut apples into slices

2. Tightly arrange on dehydrator trays. Plug in the dehydrator and let it do all the work until the apples are crispy.

Fruit leather takes a little more work. You are basically dehydrating applesauce. You do all the work for applesauce, and then dehydrate it.


No. Those are not caramels. Tricky aren't I?

Instructions for Apple Fruit Leather

1. Peel and core apples

2. Combine in your biggest pot with 1 inch of water. Cover, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until very soft.

3. Drain excess water, (the apples will release some juice. You will be amazing how much more liquid is in there)

4. Using a high power blender, like my Blendtec, or an immersion blender, blend until smooth.

5. Place on fruit leather trays (one comes with the NESCO), or cover half of a dehydrator tray with plastic wrap. Spoon a 1/8" thick layer of applesauce onto the tray or plastic and dehydrate.

6. After 6-8 hours, when the sauce is thickening, but not hard, do your best to flip the leather. Fruit leather is tricky this way, if you dehydrate too long, it gets hard and brittle. So you have to pay attention to it every once in awhile.

7. Once it is ready, cut into large sections and roll in wax paper.


Beverages

Another easy way to use these apples is to juice them. Confession, I don't have a legit juicer, so I did not make apple sauce. But in the past, after making apple juice, I use the pulp in apple muffins. I will include that recipe, although I did not make them this time around, so no pictures. Sorry. However, I did make smoothies, and I did make apple cider. Not hard cider, you can add that on your own if you desire. Just normal cider.


Ingredients

1 large (2 small) apples

Spinach, big handful

1 Large Carrot

Cinnamon

3/4 c Almond Milk

Flax Seed Mill

4-5 Ice Cubes

*Vanilla Vegan Protein Powder* optional

Directions

1. Combine all ingredients in high power blender and blend until smooth.

2. ENJOY

Apple Cream Dream


Ingredients

1 apple

1 large leaf of green kale

1/2 avocado

1/2 c almond milk

1 tsp flax seed mill

4 ice cubes

1/2 scoop vegan vanilla protein powder

*water to thin if too thick

1. Combine ingredients in high power blender and blend until smooth

2. ENJOY

Apple Cider


This is an easy recipe. Easy because it involves a crock pot, which I love because they do the work for you. You can walk away, leave the house while it cooks and not worry about the house burning down while you are gone.

A few things about this cider. It is thick. You can thin it with water, but you will sacrifice some taste. I also prefer my cider to be more "spicy" than sweet. So if you desire a sweeter cider, add more syrup or sugar if you desire.

Ingredients

10 apples

1 orange

1 T cinnamon

dash of salt

1.5 c orange juice

2 tsp ground cloves

1-2 T pure maple syrup

water


Directions

1. Wash and slice apples, peel and slice orange.

2. Combine apples and orange in crock pot and barely cover with water. Add cinnamon, cloves, and salt. Cook on low for 6 hours.

3. With immersion blender or in rounds with high power blender, like Blendtec, blend until smooth. I did 2 rounds on the 'Pure Juice' function on my Blendtec.

4. Return to crock pot and add orange juice and maple syrup (to taste), cook on low 1-2 more hours.

5. ENJOY

*PS: ever since, I have just been keeping the cider on warm. But you can store it in the fridge too.

Sauces/Jams

Apple Sauce


This is the main reason I harvest apples. I love apple sauce. Especially ever since having a baby. It is such an easy snack for him. And there is only two ingredients: apples and water. However, it does take time, if you make a lot of it. Mostly because you have to peel ALL the apples. And that takes a lot of time. And your house will be really messy if you have a toddler. But that is okay. It is worth it because the apple sauce is so good and smooth. I love it. I wish I could tell you exactly what type of apples these are, but I truly don't know. They are like golden delicious, but not quite as sweet. Almost like a mix between a granny smith and a golden delicious.

Ingredients

A LOT OF APPLES

Directions

1. Peel and core apples. Enough to fill a BIG stock pot

2. Fill stock pot with 1-2 inches of water and fill with the apples

3. Cover and bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until apples are very soft.

4. Drain excess water, leaving not even an inch of water in the bottom. (I use a glass liquid measuring cup to get out the water)

5. Using a high power blender, like Blendtec, blend until smooth. I used the 'Sauce' button on my Blendtec.

6. If you are preserving, follow remaining steps. If not, keep it sealed in the fridge and ENJOY.

7. Sanitize jars and lids.

8. Bring canning pot to a rolling boil. Meanwhile, fill jars with freshly made sauce.

9. Clean rims of jars with a wet rag. Using a magnet or tongs place lids on jars and loosely screw on rings.

10. Using jar grabbers, lower jars into the pot and bring to a ROLLING boil. It must be ROLLING before you start your timer. I water bathed my jars for 50 minutes. According to The National Center for Home Preserving that is the amount I needed for my elevation and the size of the jars.

11. Once time is up, remove from water and allow to cool on the counter and hope this doesn't happen to you.


This has never happened to me before. But my jars are old and go through the dishwasher often because I use them to take smoothies to work, make salad dressings, etc. So I think it is time for new jars.

Apple Freezer Jam

Have you ever had apple jam? I haven't. Until now. Why not? Applesauce is good. And I put applesauce on toast all the time. So why not make jam?

This is the same recipe as apple sauce, except you add pectin. And it is freezer jam, so you don't have to water bath it. Yay. So refer to the apple sauce recipe above for the beginning half of this recipe. I will start from applesauce.


Ingredients

Apples

2 T Pectin

*Sugar or Maple Syrup (optional)

Directions

1. Make applesauce

2. Combine 2.5 c apple sauce with 2 T pectin and stir for 3 minutes.

3. Spoon into jars or small Tupperware and allow to thicken.

4. Keep in freezer or refrigerator and ENJOY

Desserts

Apple Crisp



I don't eat a lot of dessert. Mostly because I stopped eating refined sugars 8.5 years ago. No sugar plus no butter, eggs, or milk = no dessert. I know there are lots of tasty vegan desserts I could make, but I am lazy and cheap and don't want to do it most of the time. But let's face it. Who doesn't like a good apple crisp? Plus, it doesn't have a bunch of weird ingredients you will only use once. This was a spur of the moment make and I had everything in my pantry. Plus, since it is refined sugar free, I didn't feel bad about eating it for breakfast because it is basically granola on top right?


Ingredients

4-5 apples, washed and sliced

1/2 tsp+ Cinnamon, divided

1 c oats

3/4 c whole wheat flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 T Coconut Oil

1/4 c Maple Syrup or Agave Nectar

*I started with 1/8 c and added slowly after*


Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Wash and slice apples and combine with a generous sprinkling of cinnamon in a round cake pan. Stir to coat apples with cinnamon.

2. In separate bowl, combine oats, flour, baking powder, salt, and 1/2 tsp cinnamon and stir to combine.

3. Add syrup or agave and stir

4. Add coconut oil and mash into mixture with your hands until combined, but chunky (it will be wet)

5. Evenly coat apples with topping and bake for 35 minutes.

6. Allow to cool, and ENJOY with some vanilla vegan "nicecream"


Apple Pie

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!


Crust

3 c All purpose flour

2 T sugar

1 tsp. salt

1 c Coconut Oil, room temp.

11 T cold water

2 Graham Crackers

Apple Filling

5 Golden Delicious Apples, washed, peeled, sliced

2 T maple syrup

1/5 T corn starch

1 tsp lemon juice

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp cinnamon

Directions

1. Combine flour, sugar, and salt in large mixing bowl

2. Knead coconut oil into flour mixture a little bit at a time until mixture becomes coarse and grainy with no balls any larger than a pea

3. Using a fork to mix, add cold water 1-2 T at a time until dough comes together in a ball, but is just barely holding together

4. Split mixture in half and form two balls. Wrap each ball in parchment or wax paper and refrigerator for at least 1 hour.

5. Prep apple filling (right before you are ready to roll out your crust)

6. Combine apples, maple syrup, cornstarch, lemon juice, vanilla, and cinnamon in a large mixing bowl and stir until apples are equally coated.

7. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Roll out the dough: Unwrap one ball of crust and place wax/parchment paper on the counter. Place dough in center of the paper and roll out with a rolling pin until 1/8" thick. Pick up paper and hold over pie dish. Quickly flip the paper over to place crust in dish, peel off paper and fold up edges of crust.

8. Grind two graham crackers into crumbs and spread on bottom crust. Cover graham cracker crumbs with apple mixture.

9. Repeat step 7 with the next crust and cover apple mixture. Fold edges together by pinching. Cut vent slits into center of the crust.

10. Slide pie into a brown paper bag (grocery store size). Fold end and staple shut. Place the bag on a baking sheet and place on center rack in the oven. Cook 1 hour at 350 degrees.

11. After 1 hour, cut a large hole in the center of the bag and cook 15 more minutes to brown the top of the pie.

12. Let cool 15 minutes and ENJOY.

Caramel Apples

Disaster.

Well, not really.

I didn't make my caramel the traditional way. I made it the easy microwave way that I do when I make caramels for neighbors and friends at Christmas time. I just didn't microwave as long so it didn't set up as much. As such, the texture wasn't quite right so it didn't adhere to the apples as well. Also, when my husband knocked them over trying to move them and half the caramel slid off because they weren't solidified, they just looked really ugly. So I didn't photograph them. And my husband rejoiced because since they were now really "ugly" I couldn't give them away as originally intended, so he now has 16 caramel apples to slowly plug through. We have just been keeping them in the fridge for him to enjoy at his own leisure. But it was worth a try...

Breakfast

Apple Cinnamon Steel Cut Oats

This is a recipe that I featured on my blog earlier this month. But it is an apple recipe, and since this is an all things apple post, I decided to include it. Since it is already its own post, I am not going to say much about it, other than it is really yummy and filling.


Ingredients (serves 2)

1 c steel cut oats

3 c water

2 small apples, peeled and diced (or you can leave on the peel, I do)

1/4- 1/2 tsp cinnamon

chia seeds

2 T natural nut butter of choice (I used pb)

pure maple syrup, to taste

*You can also use pears for this recipe

Directions

1. In a small saucepan, combine oats and water. Bring to a boil, stir, and reduce heat to simmer for 15 minutes until water is absorbed and oats are soft. Stir occasionally to prevent sticking or burning to the pan.

2. Meanwhile, wash, peel, and dice apples. Place in a bowl and add 1/4 tsp cinnamon, stir to coat. Add more cinnamon if desired.

3. Once oats are done, spoon into 2-3 bowls, depending on if you want a lot or a little. Top with apples, chia, nut butter, and maple syrup.

4. ENJOY

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