clickinmyheels

Apple season is upon us here in northwest Indiana. The orchards I am lucky enough to go to are in southwest Michigan which is just a few miles up the road. I even have certain orchards I prefer for certain fruit. And I prefer to pick my own (fruit, that is ) 🙂 so I do that whenever I can. My favorite apple of all time is the Honeycrisp Apple. If you’ve never tasted one, you really must! Just like the name, they are sweet and have a nice crunch to them. During apple season, I love to have one waiting for me in the car after I leave the gym. There’s something about crunching on that sweet apple with the windows down that just makes any day great! Hopefully all those apple cores that are thrown out the window on my route home will be nibbled on by critters and passed along to sprout more Honeycrisp trees and the magic will continue. I hope that’s not considered littering. Honeycrisp are a little pricey at the grocery store, unless it is apple season and you are lucky enough to get local produce at your grocery store. When that time comes around in a few weeks, I’ll be stocking up on them from the grocery store and making a couple of trips to the orchard for some fresh apple picking! Here are a few pictures from last year and the year before at the orchard.

This was just one of a few trips there to get my fill of apples. When the weekends for honey crisp start to narrow down, I kind of panic and think I need just another bushel more or so and then I’ll stop.  The girls enjoy visiting the horses while we are at the orchard. Stay away from those horse apples!

 

They keep really well in the fridge but since we eat them so quickly, I normally don’t have a problem with them going to waste. I usually slice up Cortlands for freezing and use them for apple pies or crisps throughout the year and reserve the Honeycrisps for daily munching, making fresh crisp or pie, or these yummy cinnamon apples.

If you can’t get ahold of any Honeycrisp or don’t want to break the bank, just use Fuji or Gala for the cinnamon apples and they will be fine.

I don’t measure for this recipe, so please bear with me!

Cinnamon Apples

Ingredients

Apples – at least 1 per person is a good measurement. Sweet apples like honey crisp, fuji, or gala are nice in this.

2-3 TBS butter

1-2 teas cinnamon

3/4-1 C brown sugar

1 teas vanilla

1 C or so of apple cider. (Mine happens to be Honey Crisp Apple Cider from another local orchard). Lucky, I know! Notice a pattern here? You could also use apple juice which I use when I don’t have any cider on hand.

Directions:

Wash, peel, and slice your apples.

Don’t forget to give your little four legged friends some apple peels for treats. Just no seeds!

In a medium sauce pan, melt the butter.

Add the apples in. Stir to coat.

Add in the vanilla, cinnamon, cider, and brown sugar.

Stir over medium high heat until it boils and all the sugar is dissolved. Keep on medium heat and stir occasionally for 10 minutes or so until apples are tender. Sauce will thicken. Turn the heat down to simmer until ready to serve. Adjust seasoning as needed and add more liquid if they become too thick.

I like to serve the apples up in little ramekin bowls.

Your whole house will smell like fall!

These Cinnamon Apples are perfect as a side dish, as a breakfast treat, a yummy addition to oatmeal, spooned over ice cream, or over pork chops. Take advantage of apple season!

Enjoy!