I's apple time! One can buy a whole bag full for a dollar or two – or one just picks them up where they lie and rot otherwise. It is always amazing to me how little people care for food available for no money at all.
When I grew up in post-war Germany, we children were always hungry. The grown-ups probably too. But they didn’t let on. The best food we children could dream of was the hot chocolate pudding sauce served in school (thanks to the Marshall Plan, I think!). Most children had a military mess tin that at lunch break got filled with some indefinable soup. For many it was the only warm meal of the day.
My father did not allow his children to take part in school lunch. Number one, we were relatively well off – patients often paid in naturalia: a kilogram of butter here, a feathery chicken there. But my father also thought – far-sighted physician that he was – that the public lunch was not healthy.
We harvested berries and cherries and pears and apples from the garden. My grandfather made the most wonderful apple jelly each fall which we would eat all winter.
Here’s my favorite apple recipe. It’s very easy to do – and absolutely delicious:
Remove the apple cores - but not the skins. Cut the apples in slices and put them in an oven pan in two layers. Sprinkle nuts and raisins over each layer. Add a few dabs of ghee (butter fat) or a few drops of olive oil.
Bake on low for a long time – at least an hour.
For nuts, all of them work. Yesterday I used sunflower seeds on the first layer, walnuts on the second. Sliced almonds are good, too. Instead of raisins, you can use dried cranberries, dried blueberries, dried cherries.
What do they say? Enjoy! Enjoy it often during the season!