Things to do with Apples

I have finally identified my favorite variety of apple. I prefer the flavor of the Fuji apple for eating. Honey-crisp makes a pretty amazing pie. But for today we will deal with the Fuji. I found a good sale on organic Fuji apples last week at the grocery store. And so I did what I normally do when I find my favorite apples on sale... I bought a bunch of them to play with. When I brought them home I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with them. I could make apple sauce, or even apple butter. But currently my favorite snack is dehydrated apples. So my snack food won out as I was running low.

When I am going to make my apple chips as my 4 year old likes to call them, I simply wash, quarter, core them and then slice them. The apples I was dealing with this time were HUGE, so one apple was filling a tray on my dehydrator.

I let them go for 4 to 6 hours at 135 degrees and then once I turn it off I let them sit. Most often overnight, this completes the dehydration process and leaves them crisp like chips.

Once I take them out of the dehydrator I put them in an airtight container for snacking. Another option is to put them into a freezer bag and seal it. The freezer bag is recommended because of its heavier plastic and keeps air out and the fruit from spoiling.

When you make these you can also sprinkle the slices with a mix of sugar and cinnamon. I normally just let the apple flavor shine through but have tried the other and it was very tasty. As much as I like these for a treat the four year old won't touch them. Some day she will figure out what she is missing.

When I was making these, I found that I had more apples than would fit in the dehydrator. Not enough to do a whole batch of apple sauce, but enough to do for immediate use. There were two large apples, with one I quartered and cored it and then because the four year old doesn't like the peels I peeled one. The other apple just got quartered and cored then I sliced them both into fair sized chunks and baked them. They don't need any added water as they produce their own juice. Once they were cooked until they were soft I let them cool and put them through the blender. Now we have enough apple sauce to enjoy in the short term.