Apple Dumplings

When fall is in the air, the oven begs to be used. Which is especially good when you have a fridge full of some of autumn's finest..apples!

Lucky me, we've always have a willing bunch of taste testers in our small group. And this recipe was calling from Pinterest, the fridge, the oven....I was sold. And so was everyone else. Definitely a keeper in my book. The only "problem" is that you need ramekins for every serving. Not that I am ever searching for a reason to buy kitchen utensils... :o)

Apple Dumplings
recipe by Midwest Living

• 5 medium cooking apples, peeled and sliced (5 cups)
• 3/4 cup apple cider or apple juice
• 1/2 cup dark-colored corn syrup
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1 recipe Pastry for Double-Crust Pie

Directions

1. In a saucepan, combine the apples and apple cider. Bring to boiling. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 5 to 7 minutes or until just tender.
2. Stir in the corn syrup, sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla. Combine the melted butter or margarine and the cornstarch. Stir into mixture in saucepan.
3. Cook and stir the mixture over medium-high heat until thickened and bubbly. Remove from heat.
4. Prepare pastry. Roll out 2/3 of the pastry to form a 15-inch square. Cut into four 7-inch circles. Ease pastry circles into four 10-ounce custard cups or baking dishes. Do not trim edges. Roll out remaining pastry to an 11-inch square. Cut into four 5-inch circles for top crusts.
5. Fill each pastry-lined dish with 1/4 of the hot apple mixture. Top with remaining crust, cutting slits for steam to escape. Fold extra pastry under bottom crust and seal. Flute edges.
6. Bake in a 375 degree F oven for 35 to 40 minutes or until crusts are golden. Cool slightly on wire rack. Serve the dumplings warm. Makes 4 servings.

Snickers Caarmel Corn

So one of my new favorite sites to frequent is Pinterest. There are so many great ideas out there and Pinterest makes it easy to find such ideas and even bookmark them for future use. So when I came across this delicious looking snack, I knew I had to "Pin It" for sometime down the road.

Enthused about popcorn! Don't mind Tony,
he's trying to get something he dropped

Then came the day that Angela and Tony came to hang out at our place loaded with popcorn kernals. We were all craving something sweet when I decided to go to one of my boards and take a gander and see if I could find something that we could whip up. And there it was. Something that would use her kernals and satisfy our sweet tooth. And even luckier for us, we had some snickers in our pantry :o)

Shakin' it with all she's got!

So Angela and I set off to try our hand at this chocolatey caramel goodness. Since she's known for her amazing stovetop popcorn, I let her do her thing while I put together the ingredients for the caramel. It eventually lead to a group effort when Tony got involved to do the shaking to coat the popcorn.

And the result? Deeeeliciousness. Man on man I wish I had some right now. The only qualm is that we didn't sort through the popcorn before coating it so every now and then you would have the misfortune of crunching down on a hard kernal. Which was probably good since it made you slow down and not inhale the entire batch ;o) Definitely keeping this one in our files!

Snickers Caramel Corn
pinned from Six Sisters Stuff (Adapted from Cookies and Cups)

4 quarts popped corn (about 1 cup kernels)

1 cup salted butter

2 cups light brown sugar, packed

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup light corn syrup

1 tsp baking soda

1 cup salted peanuts

30 fun size Snickers bars chopped up

3 oz melted choc chips

• Preheat oven to 200 degrees.
• Pop your popcorn and put popcorn and peanuts in a big brown paper grocery bag.
• Over medium heat boil butter, brown sugar, salt and corn syrup for 5 minutes (stirring constantly). Remove from heat and stir in baking soda. 
• Pour over popcorn in the brown paper bag, roll closed and shake well. ( It blends so much easier than trying to fit it in a big bowl and stir.) After the popcorn is coated well, spread onto a cookie sheet. 
• Spread chopped Snickers over top of popcorn and put in oven for 5 minutes. Remove from oven and drizzle melted chocolate over top of popcorn. YUM!

*If not eaten immediately...can be stored in an airtight container.