So I cut out the core. This is easily accomplished with a paring knife and some patience. Point the knife down in to the center of the apple, where the stem is. Holding the apple straight up, cut off the top of the apple holding the knife at about a 45 degree angle. Now slowly cut out the center of the apple, removing all of the seeds. Be sure to leave at least a half inch of fruit at the bottom. For this last reason, I don't recommend using an apple corer.
Now put whatever the hell you feel like on these apples. I opted for cinnamon, brown sugar, nutmeg, and a dash of chili powder (because that's always fun) and crowned the whole thing with a big pat of butter. But that's the dessert version.
For breakfast you can fill the apples in with oatmeal (just add water and quick oats and it can cook in the oven!) and top it with maple syrup.
For dinner you can stuff the apples with ground pork sausage and rice. It's just like a stuffed pepper, only 10,000x better.
Anyway you do it, you'll want to heat the oven to 350 F and let the apples bake for at least 45 minutes. There's a big window here, and depending on how big the fruit is the time can be much longer. Try the fork test: if you can stick a fork in it, it's done.
if you were going to do the apples with pork & rice, would you brown the meat before you stuffed the apples?
ReplyDeleteYes. In fact, cook the rice, brown the meat, and combine these along with any veggies you want to throw in. Bake the apples separately, and stuff before serving.
ReplyDeletei actually stuffed them before i baked, & it turned out really well. if you throw some butter on top of the stuffing, that combined with the natural juice of the apples ended up keeping the rice really moist. not to mention, boosted its flavor times a million.
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