Will Run For Apple Chips (& a mandoline)

cinnamon apple chips

When I saw the subject line "4:45 a.m. double crust sandwich" I knew that things weren't good.  My cousin and I use double crust sandwiches as the baseline for a bad day.  Her double crust sandwiches literally involve a double crust sandwich as well as a work week that includes two Mondays (that's cruel), leaving her house at 4:45 a.m. to drive for an hour and working underground as the only girl on her crew.  Now that's a bad day if you ask me.  This particular double crust sandwich involved a dog weigh scale, jeans that didn't fit, and a few other details that I am not at liberty to share (she has stories, and pictures).

The opposite of double crust sandwiches (in my world anyway) are trays of cinnamon apple chips and bowls of thinly sliced beets, carrots, apples, and avocados with white balsamic vinegar.  If you're reminding yourself to tell me to suck a beet chip the next time you see me don't worry it won't be the first time I hear it.  I wonder if Farmer knew that the mandoline she bought me would make me want to thinly slice and eat every vegetable & fruit in sight.

Apple Chips  

3 gala apples

1 tsp cinnamon

lots of patience

mandoline

dehydrator

Wash apples.  Core apples using your apple corer (you could use a knife but the apple corer makes the job painless).  Using your *mandoline (everyone NEEDS one of these) thinly slice apples.  Place apples on dehydrating racks, sprinkle with cinnamon.  Turn dehydrator to 135 F.  Wait 8-10 hours. 

before

It's my birthday!  One little slice won't hurt.

If he gets one I get one too, right?

 Putting your dehydrator on before bed makes the wait less painful and your house smells delicious when you wake up.

8 hours later

While you have the mandoline out you might want to try making some beet & carrot salad.  I used 1 large beet, 2 carrots, 1/4 C parsley roughly chopped, 1/2 an apple, 1/2 avocado thinly sliced with a knife and several tablespoons of white balsamic vinegar.

the reason my hands are pink

Or how about some beet chips?

before

3 hours later (145 F for 45 minutes + 115F for 3 hrs)

Will Run For Apple Sauce

Yesterday was an applesauce kind of day.  It was cool and rainy and I needed something warm and delicious after surviving (no weeds, fish, snakes, geese) a swim in the lake just after the sun came up.   Applesauce isn't something that I usually get too excited about especially when most of the applesauce that I see is smeared on students' desks or has exploded in their schoolbags. 

This applesauce however reminds me more of apple pie (a good excuse to make crumble).  Not to mention that all of the apples came from my mother's apple tree. 

Applesauce

(approximately 3 cups)

*2 LBS apples (peeled, cored, sliced)
1 tsp vanilla bean paste 
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/2 C apple juice concentrate

Place apple slices in a large heavy bottomed pot.  Add apple juice concentrate, vanilla bean paste, cinnamon and cloves.

Bring liquid to a boil and then simmer on low for approximately 15 minutes stirring occasionally.  The less you stir the more chunky and delicious it will be.

* I weighed the apples after they had been peeled, cored, and sliced.

Will Run For Apple Nachos With Chocolate Coconut Sauce

"I don't like to eat out of the blender".  

 "Really? You don't like to eat chocolate coconut sauce out of the blender?  I could get you a bowl.  How about a really long spoon".

  What I was thinking and not saying was, "what's wrong with you"!  Soundbites from our kitchen.

I recently discovered apple nachos.  They are pretty much apple slices slathered with all kinds of delicious toppings.  Apples with caramel sauce, apples with chocolate syrup, apples with melted peanut butter.  Yum.  Why didn't I think of this sooner.

I made mine with coconut chocolate sauce, pecans, cocoa nibs and coconut but you could put anything on them.

I should fill my water bottle with chocolate sauce more often.

Apple Nachos

(serves 1)

1 sweet apple

1 T cocoa nibs

1 T raw pecans

1 T unsweetened coconut

*1/4-1/2 C Coconut Chocolate Sauce

Thinly slice apples.  Lightly brush with lemon juice to keep from turning brown.  Top with coconut chocolate sauce.  Add pecans, cocoa nibs, and coconut or your favourite toppings. 

Coconut Chocolate Sauce

(approximately 3/4-1 C)

1 small avocado

2 T cocoa powder

1 C coconut milk

1 C dates + 2/3 cup water (simmered for five minutes)

pinch salt

1/4 tsp vanilla bean paste.

In a blender combine avocado, cocoa powder, coconut milk, date paste (1 C dates + 2/3 cup water simmered on medium heat for 5 minutes), salt and vanilla.

breakfast?

Ramsey Loop I'll see you next Sunday.  You bring the nachos and maybe a wagon.