Well, important dinner engagements or not, two year-old boys will be two year-old boys, and we knew we had to let our son run for a bit, or he would not get tired, then he would not take a nap, and then for all I know the world could end in a big fireball of cranky toddlers. My son is very easy going and enjoys all the crazy adventures that his dad takes him on, but he does have alot of energy (I do not know where he gets it I say as I write this blog in the early morning hours). Since it was a weekend, we stopped at a local school, actually my old elementary school, to let him play on the playground.
As we let him run free across toys too dangerous for a toddler, my wife and I looked around. She asked if it was the same as when I went there, and I remembered the apple tree that had some branches that hung over onto the school grounds from an adjacent property. Lost in memory of foraging adventures as a 5-10 year-old, I said "There used to be an apple tree right there." My wife replied, "You mean the one with the apples on it?"
A minute later I was showing my son how dangerous climbing was from high up in the apple tree, shaking and picking a dozen late winter apples from the higher branches. My son joined right in, gathering all the apples as they fell and taste testing the fruit for quality assurance. But more importantly, now I had an idea of something for my dinner. My wife's family is famous for their invention of the classic dessert called "Peach Stuff", which involves dumping a can of peaches in a pan, sprinkling yellow cake mix over the top, pouring a half stick of melted butter on top, and baking for 20 minutes.
So I took the apples home, and extrapolating on the earlier inventive success of my in-laws, invented "Apple Stuff" - kinda a cobbler, but a little different and easy to make!
Apple Stuff Recipe:
8 apples, cored and sliced
3 cups sugar
2 cups flour
2 cups water
1 cube butter
Add apples, one cup sugar, and water to pot, bring to boil until the apples release their juices
Mix 2 cups flour and 2 cups sugar together
Melt butter and mix with flour and sugar, should be crumbly
Place apple mix in a pan.
Sprinkle flour/sugar mix over apples
Cook for 20-30 min at 350 degrees or until batter is crispy on top. The apples should be fairly runny still, but the dish highlights the taste of the apples with the crumble on top more as a added filler.
The best was using the wild apples. The apples are not the perfectly shaped, devoid of taste as with apples you can find in any grocery store. They have many imperfections, several had worm holes and some had been pecked by birds (I either threw these out for other foraging beasts, or if it was minor just cut around those areas), but all that just means that nature likes them and that no pesticides were sprayed on the tree. The main thing is the taste! Apples are meant to have alot of taste, and the shelf-ripened apples you buy in a store are seriously lacking compared to what is produced by a tree that had to struggle through the summer to make its fruit.
And to close the story, the Apple Stuff was baked in time for dinner and well received by all!
Apple Stuff Recipe
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