Apple Recipes

As promised, here are some of the delicious recipes I made with our hand-picked apples!

Cinnamon Apple Crisp from Gina's Weight Watcher Recipes
Before you dismiss this as a weird Weight Watchers recipe, Justin and I both agreed this may have been the best apple crisp we've ever had.  Ever.  I doubled it and made it in a 9x13 dish, and that was not too much.  Absolutely delicious.  I used maple-flavored agave syrup, but I think plain maple syrup would be just great if you don't have agave nectar on hand.  It would've been tasty with ice cream, as suggested in the recipe, but we didn't have any on hand, and it certainly didn't need adornment.

Cinnamon Apple Crisp
Filling:

• 5 medium apples, peeled and diced
• 1.5 oz raisins (small box)
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 lemon, juiced
• 3 tsp cornstarch
• 1/4 cup agave nectar

Topping:

• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1/3 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar (not packed)
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 cup (half stick) butter, melted

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Combine apples, raisins, cinnamon, agave nectar and lemon juice in large bowl. Sprinkle with cornstarch. Toss until fruit is coated. Place fruit in an ungreased baking dish.
Mix remaining ingredients. Sprinkle over fruit. Bake about 40 minutes or until topping is golden brown and fruit is tender.
Serve with a scoop of low fat ice cream or fat free frozen yogurt. Enjoy!!

Crockpot Applesauce from A Year of Slow Cooking

Elias adores applesauce and eats it every day, so to me that seemed like an obvious thing to do with all our apples!  I've never made applesauce before, though, so I wasn't sure what all was supposed to go in plain applesauce.  This was the first crockpot applesauce recipe I looked at, and this is one of my favorite food blogs, so I thought I'd try it.  I tripled it to fill up the crockpot, and I left out the brown sugar because I figured the apples are sweet enough.  I thought the cinnamon-vanilla applesauce it made was absolutely delicious - to me it tastes a lot like apple pie filling!  However, Elias is used to plain unsweetened applesauce and he didn't like this very much.  Ah well, I hate that I have to eat this whole batch myself!  I'll make another batch for him with just apples, lemon juice, and water.

Crockpot Applesauce
--4 large apples, skinned ,cored, and cut in quarters
--juice from 1 lemon
--1/2 tsp cinnamon
--1 tsp vanilla
--1 T brown sugar
--1/4 cup water

Skin, core, and cut your apples into quarters. Plop the pieces into your crockpot. Add the juice from the lemon, and the water. Pour in the vanilla, and add the cinnamon and brown sugar.  Cover and cook on low for 4-6 hours. When the apples are super tender, mash with a potato masher or large fork.

Apple Pancake Rings originally discovered on Pinterest!
I expected this recipe to be harder than it was to make.  It was actually quite easy, and it was really delicious!  I left the peels on the apple to add a little more nutrition, and that worked just fine.  I also made my own Bisquick mix from this recipe, using white whole wheat flour and Smart Balance margarine.  Only two apples made this whole plateful, and we all really liked it!  I didn't bother with the apple cider syrup - we just used maple syrup, which was delicious!  The pumpkin pie spice really gave it a great flavor.  Also, I didn't have any lemon zest to put in the batter, so I just put in a dash of lemon juice.

Apple Pancake Rings

• 1 Cup Bisquick Baking Mix
• 1 Egg
• 1/2 Cup Milk
• 1 Teaspoon Pumpkin Pie Spice
• Zest of 1/2 Lemon
• 2 Medium Apples
• pared and cored
• Lemon juice and zest (for apple cider syrup)
• Apple cider
• Cinnamon

To make hot apple cider syrup: Add apple cider, lemon juice and zest, and cinnamon to a saucepan and bring to a boil. (Use your own comfort/judgement with how much to mix.) Reduce the liquid to a syrup consistency, by half.
Beat baking mix, egg and milk with rotary beater until smooth. Add pumpkin pie spice and lemon zest to batter and mix until incorporated.  Grease and heat griddle.  Core and cut apples crosswise in 1/8-inch slices.  Using a toothpick dip slices into batter. Cook on hot griddle until golden brown, turning once. Serve hot with apple cider syrup.  

So I'm having a lot of fun with all these apples, and we're having some really yummy stuff around here these days!