Apple Chips

Just in case you're tired of pumpkin baked goods already, here's another fall recipe for you: apple chips.  These chips are 100% natural, unlike what you can find in a bag.  Plus, they're made from apples which are, of course, healthy.

The first step in making apple chips is to slice apples as thinly as possible.  To do so, I used a large sharp knife.  A mandolin would also work.  I found that one apple makes about one serving of chips. 

The seasoning for the apple chips is simple, and can be adapted to your taste.  I mixed together some cinnamon, sugar, and nutmeg for mine. 

Since these chips will be baked, they need to be put onto a cookie tray.  I found that one tray holds about one apple worth of slices.  I have smaller than average trays though, since I have a smaller than average oven. Covering the tray with foil, as shown here, did not prevent the apples from sticking.  Spraying the tray with non-stick spray did a much better job.  After laying out the apples in a single layer, I sprinkled on the cinnamon sugar seasoning. 

Then I baked the apples in a cool (225 degrees) oven for about two hours, flipping the chips over about half way through. 

When the apples come out they should be nice and crispy, just like potato chips.  If the apples aren't quite done they will have a texture more like fruit leather than chips....which isn't all bad either. I gobbled up these chips as soon as I made them.  Even my dad (not a fan of healthy food) liked them!

Watermelon sharks

My family, boyfriend Brandon, and I spent the past week at the beach on vacation.  My dad's side of the family has a beach house, so when we go to the beach, it is a family reunion, including group dinners of about 20 people.

One night Brandon and I thought it would be fun to make a beach-themed dessert.  So, watermelon sharks were born...or created...The idea for this project came from a post on either foodgawker or pinterest a few weeks ago.

The first step was to cut off the bottom third of a watermelon to make it stand up.

 

 Then, we cut out mouths. 

 

Watermelons are actually easier to cut than pumpkins.  They do make a mess when hollowing out, however, because they are so juicy. Here is part of our giant mess. Notice the bowls and bowls (not all pictured) of watermelon flesh.

The next step was to shave off some of the green peel around the mouth to expose the white section of the watermelon.  This allows the teeth to be white.  To create the teeth, we cut out little triangles out of the white section around the mouth.

 

 

We also added grapes for eyeballs (pictured in first photo).  Another small fruit, such as cherries or even blueberries would also work well. All that was left to do at this point was to reinsert the melon into the shark so that it could be eaten.   Brandon and I took different approaches with our final touches.  I added sweedish fish, while he made his shark man-eating by adding sour patch kids. I like the extra color that the sour patch kids add.

 

 

This dessert was a huge hit with the crowd.  Everyone ooed and awed before finally realizing that they were in fact supposed to eat the fruit!   

Peach Plum Crisp

 

At work, all of my team members' birthdays fall in the summer.  Last week I made brownies for one coworker's birthday.  This week, I oet a little more creative and made a peach plum crisp for another coworker's birthday.  My birthday is up next, so I won't have to worry about that one!  I am requesting, however, a dessert involving berries, chocolate, and cheesecake at some point.  Luckily for me, my wonderful boyfriend has that one covered.

Here are the main ingredients in my crisp:  3 plums, 2 peaches, flour, turbinado sugar, brown sugar, old fashioned oats, vanilla, butter, and nutmeg.

 

The first step was to prepare the fruit base.  I sliced up the peaches and plums and mixed them with a little less than 1/2 a cup of sugar, 2 tablespoons flour, a little vanilla, and some nutmeg.  All of these measurements are approximate, as I didn't really follow one recipe. 

I let the fruit marinate, if you will, for about ten minutes while I prepared the crumble to go on top. The fruit got nice and juicy thanks to the sugar and developed a nice syrup. For the crumble, I mixed together half a stick of butter, brown sugar, flour, and oatmeal.  I found that the easiest way to mix everything together was actually with my fingers.  I tried using a fork, but the butter kept sticking to it.

 

I then baked the crisp in the oven for about half an hour.  You can see in this picture that I had enough leftover to create a mini "tester" crisp alongside a pie plate full of crisp. While not on purpose, this worked out perfectly, as I was able to test the product before serving my first attempt at a recipe to a group of people.  Luckily, the crisp was delicious on the first try!  At our surprise party at work, we ate the crisp along with vanilla ice cream. My coworkers were very impressed and the four of us finished all except for one serving of the large crisp. 

Vegan Week Recap--Breakfasts

Good Morning!  After a crazy week, I finally have a chance to recap my vegan week, which ended this Monday.  I ended up trying a lot of new recipes during the week, so I have a lot of pictures to post. I figured why not start with the best meal of the day: breakfast.  So, as of my last post on Thursday I had only had overnight oats for breakfast.  Now, of course there's nothing wrong with overnight oats, but I was getting a little bored eating the same thing for breakfast every day, so I decided to mix it up.

First up is traditional oatmeal--eaten hot off the stove.  This variety has dried cranberries and fresh bananas on top:

 

Next up is rhubarb applesauce.  When I was little, my mom and I would go to the local orchard and buy bushels of apples to make applesauce.  I came to my applesauce idea from a different approach.

I was at WholeFoods and saw rhubarb.  I thought to myself, wow, I've never actually tried rhubarb.  That would be a fun new food for vegan week.  So, I bought a few stalks.  After way too much thinking and debating over what to make with my rhubarb,  I decided to make rhubarb applesauce and bought a few apples as well. 

 

The recipe for my applesauce came from one of my favorite food blogs: Two Peas and Their Pod.  It is very simple.  First you chop up apples and rhubarb in a 2-1 ratio.  Two cups of apples per cup of rhubarb.

 

Then, you put them in a pot on the stove with a little bit of water, and cook until mushy (about half an hour).  You can also add sugar if you'd like.  I added just a couple of tablespoons of raw sugar, and found that my applesauce was very sweet.  I think next time I will taste the applesauce before adding any sugar. 

 

The next and final step is one for preference.  If you like chunky applesauce, then just stir in a little cinnamon, and your applesauce is ready to go.  If you prefer smoother applesauce like I do, then run it through a blender, or use a stick blender to pulverize the chunks of apples and rhubarb. Then, add a little cinnamon, and your applesauce is ready.

The recipe says to enjoy the applesauce at room temperature or refrigerated.  I tasted the applesauce as it was cooling on the stove and found it delicious warm.  In fact, I had a bowl full before the sauce cooled enough to put away in the fridge.  

This recipe was a great success.  It was fast, easy, and fun.  Who wouldn't want to eat hot pink applesauce??

And finally, my third new vegan breakfast recipe was crepes.  The recipe came from my Skinny Bitch cookbook.  I'm sure you're not surprised. The first step was to mix up the batter.  I don't want to give away all of the recipes in the cookbook, so I'll leave this one a mystery.  From my memory, though, it involved almond milk, flour, and sugar.

 

Then, you make crepes just like you would with any batter.  Poor a small amount into a greased frying pan, and then swirl it around so it is nice and thin. 

 

When the batter is bubbly, flip it over and cook until nicely browned.  If you look closely in this picture, you can see me and my boyfriend, who actually did all of the crepe making while I ate them fresh off the stove. :-)

I've always found that the first couple crepes come out a little messy and the crepes made later in the batch are the best. Here are the first two:

 

And the last couple:

 

For toppings I used soy yogurt, blueberries, bananas, and strawberries. Later in the week I also tried a peanut butter banana combination.  The different combinations were very different, but all quite tasty. 

 

 

I will say that this is the only recipe of the week that tasted better with animal products.  The crepes tasted like they were missing something.  If you've ever had any sub-par gluten-free products (not my mom's!), it was kind of like that.  They were still pretty good, and very edible, just not quite there.