When Life Gives You Apples...

Make apple chips!

A few weeks ago the Christian Graduate School Alliance (CGSA) of OSU organized an outing to the Lynd  Fruit Farm at Pataskala, Ohio (about 30 minutes outside of Columbus).

CGSA is an organization for Christian (non-Christians welcome too!) graduate students that meets weekly to discuss how we balance our religion and graduate school life. I was a little apprehensive when I first joined because I wasn't sure how they would react to the fact that I'm a Christian-Mormon. Totally unfounded fears! Everyone there was friendly, even after some of them found out that I was Mormon. Plus it is reassuring to find a community of non-Mormon friends who have faith in Jesus Christ and are striving to live good moral lives as well.

 Anyway... I had a lot of fun! The apples were big and yummy :) You can eat as many apples as you pick but you have to pay for any fruit you take home (they sell them by bag though). I shared a bag with 2 other friends so it didn't cost too much.

Question: What is the first recipe that pops into your mind that uses apple as an ingredient?
Let's see... apple pie? Pork with apples? Apple jam? Apple cider? Apple bread? Apple turnover?










For me, it's APPLE CHIPS! It's my favorite "chip" in the world, not just because they are healthy but extra bonus- they taste delicious as well. They are VERY expensive though, so I decided to try and make them myself. I modified Alex Guarnaschelli's recipe and...

Looks pretty good huh?! However it is extremely time consuming, especially if you only have 1 (albeit large) cookie sheet like me because I am too poor to afford another one for now, and also especially since the fruit slices shrink LIKE CRAZY- 3 apples only yielded about enough to fill a sandwich size ziploc bag... I wouldn't mind making this again but next time, I'm going to make sure I have at least 2 baking trays and a mandolin food slicer.

I also received a pleasant surprise while at the farm- Asian Pears were opened for picking as well.

YAHOOOOO!!!

These Asian pears turned out to be teeny! But oh well, beggars can't be choosers. They were even sweeter than the apples though, and I really enjoyed these pears.

The best thing about Asian pears?

Chinese pear (and apple) soup. Taste of home.

One more thing:

Guess how much this giant baby costs? (yes it's a real pumpkin)

$80!!! 

What do you even do with this?!