Apple Mania!

Simon and I went apple picking last Sunday and had wonderful success despite going somewhat late in the season.

 Here is our stash:

We bought a peck worth of apples; the farm gave us a choice of that or a bushel...which ignited my unrelenting signing of the classic Guys and Dolls song. 

 We also bought an apple corer, aka the most amazing fall kitchen gadget that ever existed. It's easy, fun, and virtually injury-proof.

It also works extremely well:

The first of many brand new recipes I attempted was apple chips. I'm used to buying these at the supermarket in a big plastic bucket or bag and they are always too chewy, too moist, and feel as though they've been soaking in sugar. I used this recipe (at the very bottom of the page). All you have to do is wash and core the apples, slice thinly (she recommends a mandoline slicer - but these are NOT injury proof tools and I've yet to invest in one - so I just used a knife), and arrange on a tray.  

Before baking at 200 degrees for 2 hours, I sprinkled the slices with cinnamon sugar as the recipe suggests. That's it. Literally. Core, slice, sprinkle, bake.  Sooooo easy!

This is what a successful apple chip looks like. They were delicious and made the apartment smell wonderful while baking. I made one mistake in that I didn't spray the pan with nonstick spray thinking the nonstick pan would be enough; unfortunately, the sugars in the apple sealed many of them directly to the tray and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get them off. I'm going to return to this recipe with however many apples I have left over because the chips we did eat were wonderful. The apples were crisp since we baked them at a low temperature for a long period of time; and they weren't overly sweet.

I definitely recommend trying this out.