To celebrate my beautiful niece’s seventh birthday our family took a trek down route 66 to Hartland Apple Orchard in Markham, VA. I revel being a city mouse but as a Virginia girl born and raised every once in a while I need a good dose of real fresh air and grassy hills. Fortunately, within a 1-2 hour drive outside of D.C. you can make your way to a number of Virginia orchards and vineyards. It makes for a great outing with kids and fury friends who are free to roam the hills.
Seeing as toddlers prefer to pick the apples already on the ground, I had to dump our bag a few times to get rid of the bruised, mushy apples the boys seemed to prefer collecting. C’est la vie… life with boys. Fortunately I was able to sneak a good amount of ripe apples past them and we made it home with a fine assortment of granny smith, gala, and red delicious apples.
Finding myself up to my eyeballs in apples, I thought I would share two of my favorite apple recipes:
Apple chips:
Ingredients:
- 3-4 apples
- 2 tablespoons cinnamon
- 3/4 cup coconut oil (liquid state)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 200 degrees and line baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Whisk cinnamon and coconut oil in large bowl until blended.
- Wash, dry apples, core, and thinly slice apples into thin rings or slices.
- Place apples in oil cinnamon mixture and toss until apples are coated in mixture. If bowl isn’t large enough you can do this in batches.
- Lay apples in single layer on baking sheet, bake for 2.5 hours. Turn the oven off and leave apples in the oven for 30 minutes to cool.
Apple sauce:
Ingredients:
- 3-4 apples peeled, cored, and chopped
- 1 cup water
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 cup organic coconut sugar *optional
Instructions:
- Combine all ingredients in a medium size sauce pan, bring to a boil over medium heat. Cover, reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes until apples are soft.
- Transfer apples to bowl and use a potato masher to mash apples into smooth texture.
- Serve warm or cold.