Johnny Appleseed is a famous historical American figure, who's most notable for his spread of apple trees throughout Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. He was a prominent conservationist, business man and religious figure who was well known and liked for his kindness and generosity. Today marks what would be his 239th birthday.
To celebrate as well as use up some of the apples we picked at the five apple orchards last week I put together a "Appleseed" lunch for little S.
Top compartment:
- Four cheese apples- two swiss and two american cheese apples cut using a small clay cutter I found at Target recently.
- Jelly sandwich - this inside out jelly sandwich has two pieces of bread the other is under the top coated in strawberry jelly to give it both dimension as well as a red apple color.
- the apple stem is a red veggie straw inserted between both pieces of bread to hold it in place.
- the leaf is a food coloring and water painted slice of swiss cheese.
Bottom left compartment:
- Cauliflower - little S needed a veggie and he eats cauliflower
- Sunflower seeds in a mini green silicone muffin cup - these were to represent the apple seeds.
Bottom right compartment:
- apple spice apple chips I made this morning from the apples we picked this weekend.
Sarrina's Apple Chip Recipe:
For apple chips you will need:
Several of your favorite kind of apple - I used Macintosh, and Empire that we picked last weekend. Mine were small so I used 6 apples.
2 TBS sugar
2 TBS Apple Pie spice (can substitute cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice)
optional Nutmeg (I use an additional 1/4 tsp of nutmeg)
Baking sheets
Parchment paper to line the baking sheets
Set your oven to 200 degrees and line your baking sheet or sheets with Parchment paper.
Wash your apples and slice them thin. I sliced mine a little thicker than I usually do which makes the end result more like dried apples and less like chips. I also go around the core which gives me large slices and half moon pieces you can slice right through the whole apple just remove any seeds that do not automatically fall out when you place them on the baking sheets if you do. I cut mine in half moons because little S is still small and I don't want him to try to stuff the whole apple slice in his mouth at once.
Lay your slices out on your baking sheets mine looked like this:
Next mix the sugar and spices together and sprinkle it on the apple slices. I do just one side mainly because turning them over is another 3 minute step I would rather avoid but you could do both sides if you want more flavor.
Bake at 200 for one hour, turn all the apple slices over and bake for an additional hour. At the two hour mark check to see how things are going and if the apples are still a little chewy put them in for an additional 20-40 minutes. When the two to two and half hours are up, turn the oven off but leave the slices in the oven. This cooling in the oven is when they become crispy and crunchy and is an important step to having apple chips and not dried apples.
You can see my finished apples in little S's lunch. They are slightly smaller than when they went into the oven and very crunchy.
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