Too Many Apples

A few weeks ago, my son who is living in San Francisco with three roommates while attending university called. “No one seemed to realize that we had apples already so everyone bought some. We have six bags of apples. I was thinking, you’re someone who knows what to do with things…”Suppressing my desire to bask in the joy of knowing my 19-yr-old child recognizes my talent, I listened with a proud heart as he mentioned he’d already made a pie crust that was chilling in the fridge but hoped I could provide options for ‘what besides apple pie’ might he do with all these apples.Harkening back to the days when I lived in retreat houses with apple orchards (1982-1986) - and the carpal tunnel that resulted from my hours of hand peeling apples to make gallons of applesauce (3-5 gals per week), hundreds of apple pies (15-20 per week), and creatively using any apples that remained - I conjured the many variations of apple dishes I served. Then I added the treats I've enjoyed since living in through the chilly autumn months of the Midwest.I thought I’d follow up on the guest post I wrote for Leanne at Cresting the Hill’s Social Saturday: The Art and Science of Creative Cooking by sharing a few things to do with all these apples:

• Apple pie (a recipe of your choosing)
• Apple sauce (peel - or not, core and cut, add a little water and dump in a crockpot/slow cooker; add sugar and cinnamon if desired)
• Baked apples (core but leave the bottom intact, fill with mix of brown sugar, cinnamon, and raisins – and bake)
• Apple turnovers (buy remade crescent roll dough, cut apples in tiny chunks, mix with cinnamon, sugar, cornstarch; place mixture in flat uncooked dough, dab with butter, roll up and bake)
• Hot Apple cider (juice the apples, pour juice into crockpot, add a bag of mulling spices)
• Apples & caramel sauce (a favorite fall pleasure)
• Apples sliced into sauté starter – with celery, onions, mushrooms, garlic, ginger to flavor the oil when cooking veggies, pastas, or grains.
• Apples in a smoothie – tossing slices or chunks to a smoothie adds fiber and vitamins without changing the flavor much

Do you have any creative, delicious ideas for enjoying an apple-a-day?