Apple Oatmeal Cookies

This weekend my husband and I are going camping for the first time since getting married! Some of my favorite memories growing up are with my family on camping trips in the Tennessee hills. My mother would not pack hot dogs or pre-cooked meals. Oh, no. We'd take food to make every meal from scratch, so setting up our campsite was quite the process! We had every tool you could ever need in our cooking box; we had it down to a science. While I appreciate those memories, I've found that paper plates and meals you only have to reheat are much more my style of camping.

So, here I am, preparing all the food ahead of time. My husband's favorite cookie is oatmeal raisin, but I wanted something a little heartier to sustain us on hikes and fishing excursions. We just bought a bag of apples so that sparked an idea! It then evolved to include craisins and walnuts as well. If I'd had them, I would have thrown in white chocolate chips to finish it off!

My little experiment went well, and we are all set for our trip!

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
Mix together in a large bowl

3/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp cinamon
1 1/2 cup quick oats
Mix together in a medium bowl.
Add dry ingredients to the first bowl, mixing well.
Then add:
1 apple, cored and chopped
1/2 cup craisins, soaked in warm water for 15 min, then drained
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Put your craisins on to soak, then mix the ingredients as directed above.
Scoop out into whatever size you prefer, they don't spread much.
Bake 10-20 min, depending on your pan, oven, and size of the cookie. It'll be easy to tell when they are done, they start to look dry and brown on top. When baking cookies, be sure to baby sit them. Check every 5 min on how the top vs bottoms are cooking, and raise or lower your rack to compensate.

Here's how I did it, then you can use your own judgement. Using Pampered Chef's Large Scoop, I scooped out 15 large cookies onto two pans, a metal and a stoneware pan. The metal pan cooked quickly on the bottom, so I moved to the top rack and it took them 18 min. The stoneware cooked evenly on the middle rack, and took 17 min.

Makes 15 giant cookies, 30 normal sized.

Apple Dump Cake

One of the things I love about cooking is taking an in-season ingredient and transforming it into something amazing. Last fall a friend gave me apples from his yard. I made apple pies and bread and still had some left over, so I peeled, sliced and froze the rest. I recently came across them and decided I would throw them in with some sugar and cinnamon for a quick dessert. Based upon what I had on hand, this is what I came up with, and it was wonderful! My apples were very tender and moist after being frozen, perfect for short cooking time.

5-6 cups of peeled, sliced apples
Hand full of raisins
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ginger
1 stick butter, divided
1/4 cup chopped pecans
1/2 yellow cake mix

Preheat oven to 350 with 1/2 stick (4 tablespoons) of butter in a glass 9x13 pan. Mix sugars and spices in a large bowl, toss apples and raisins to coat. Once butter is melted, tilt dish so that it coats the whole pan. Dump apple mixture in. Sprinkle cake mix evenly over the top. Add pecans evenly. Melt remaining 1/2 stick of butter and drizzle over the top. Bake for 30 min or so on the lower middle of the oven. (don't want to burn the pecans!) If the top starts to brown before you think the apples are done, cover with foil and cook another 10 min.

Apple Cinnamon Bread

Fall is here, accompanied by the fragrance of apples and cinnamon filling my home with the sound of rustling leaves for background music through the open window. A friend of mine gave me a bushel of small, tart apples to feed my cooking fetish, so this is my first try at Apple Bread.

One fall, several years ago, I was blessed to visit the state of Maine during its height of color. The coastline was lined with antique stores, book shops, bead and breakfasts, and bakeries that made me feel like being transported back in time to simpler days. So, when I came across this recipe from Ogunquit, ME, I knew I had to try it. It is every bit as delicious as a slice of New England history should be.

Ingredients
3 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
3 eggs
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup melted butter
1 tbl vanilla
2 cups apples, peeled, sliced 1/4 in thick and cut in half
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 tbl flour

Directions
Heat oven to 350, grease the bottoms of 2 glass loaf pans.
Toast walnuts in heating oven 10 min or until you can smell them. Cool, then toss with flour.
In a medium bowl, mix flour, cin, soda, salt, and baking powder.
In a separate, large bowl, beat eggs for a minute.
Add sugar, butter, oil, and vanilla, stir just until incorporated.
Add flour in quarters and stir just until mixed. Add apples and walnuts.
Pour into two pans, bake for 1 hour, rotating half-way through.
Check 10 min early and then at 5 min intervals until a toothpick comes out mostly clean.
Let cool for 5 min before dumping out of pan.
Savor the smell!