Well, I did manage to use up the last 5 apples that were still chilling out in my crisper drawer. Nothing as fancy as the cinnamon apple cake squares I made the other day, but still a yummy use for apples.

I cut the rest of them up and baked them with ground cinnamon, ginger, clove, nutmeg, and a little sprinkle of sugar. I’ve been using them over the weekend to top my breakfasts with.

Shown here: Apple crumble flavored Voskos yogurt topped with baked apples and toasted buckwheat crunchees.

Apple yogurt and baked apples

I’ve eaten something appley like this every day for a week now and I’m still not tiring of it!

Here’s how easy it is to make baked apples:

Easy baked apples

A simple method for baking apples to use on top of oatmeal, yogurt, ice cream, anything!

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 40 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients

  • Any number of apples you need to use up
  • as much cinnamon as desired
  • pinch of clove, ground ginger, and nutmeg
  • sprinkle of sugar
  • squeeze of lemon juice

Cooking Directions

  1. Peel, core, and dice apples.
  2. Add to a baking dish where they will be piled upon each other (to encourage steaming)
  3. Add spices to taste and squeeze over lemon juice. Sprinkle on sugar.
  4. Mix with a spoon and bake at 400 degrees for 40 minutes, stirring once or twice throughout.

Washed down with Jeff and I’s twin teas…

Twin teas

And another example of using up what’s in the crisper…pizza! I had 2 lonely button mushrooms and a tomato that was getting squishy and needed to be used up. So, mushroom and fresh tomato pizza!

Pizza with fresh tomatoes

I always by whole wheat pizza dough from our local farmer’s market and roll it out myself. The first time I bought it I was a little bit intimidated, but now I make pizza like an old pro!

My favorite trick to getting it tasting like a brick oven pizza is to use a pizza stone and put it under the broiler. The edges get that slight charred flavor and the cheese goes all brown and bubbly.

Also this past weekend…a double rainbow!

Double rainbow Decatur

Decatur experienced a light sunshower on Saturday that produced a vibrant rainbow arching completely across the sky. And if you looked closely you could see another fainter rainbow gleaming above it. Everyone in town just stopped in their tracks to gape at it and snap photos.

We saw it on the way to Leon’s for dinner with some friends. Leon’s has recently changed their menu a bit and several of the things that Jeff and I order regularly are gone. :( It was ok though, we got to try some new and interesting things because of it.

Here, the lamb rillettes we all shared as an appetizer…

Leon's lamb rilletteLamb rillette on bread

It was so good slathered on fresh bread studded with the tiny grains of mustard and a glazing of orange marmalade on top. Lamby!

I got a really cool new cocktail called The Wasp. It’s rye whiskey and peach honey and some other stuff I don’t remember, but man it was delicious!

The wasp cocktail at Leon'sSquare cube of ice

I ordered the new side wedge salad with crispy bacon, hard boiled egg, radish slices, and creamy caper dressing. Pretty good, a nice take on the classic.

Leon's wedge salad

And the zucchini casserole with onion jam and salted lemony arugula. I get one of these almost every time we go because it’s just so good.

Leon's zucchini casserole

It wasn’t quite enough food so I ate about half of Jeff’s fries with garlic aioli. :)

Do you have a dish at a local restaurant you order every single time?