White Chocolate Cran-Apple Bars

I have the biggest sweet tooth and would fully agree that sweets and desserts are an important part of any day. With Thanksgiving on the brain, I'm sharing a recipe for White Chocolate Cran-Apple Bars that will knock your socks off. I think cranberry is good in just about anything and it's phenomenal in these fall bars! 

• What You'll Need
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups old-fashioned oats
• 1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 2 sticks of butter
• 1 block cream cheese
• 14 oz sweetened condensed milk
• 2 cups white chocolate chips
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1 TSP vanilla
• 1 can Ocean Spray whole cranberries
• 1 Granny Smith Apple
• 2 TSP sugar

• What You'll Do
• In a food processor, purée the can of whole cranberries. Then add the peeled and sliced apple. Purée again, until smooth. Next add the two teaspoons of sugar. Purée and set aside.
• In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, oats, and brown sugar. Cut butter into chuncks and add to the flour mixture. Using your hands or a pastry blender, cut the butter into the mixture until it is crumbly. 
• Next stir in the white chocolate chips. 
• Measure out 2 1/2 cups of this flour mixture and set aside.
• Press the remaining mixture into the bottom of a greased 13 x 9 pan, pressing firmly with your fingers.
• In a separate bowl, whip (I used a hand mixer) together the cream cheese until creamy. Then add the condensed milk, lemon juice, and vanilla extract. Mix again. Pour the mixture over the crust.
• Spoon the cran-apple purée over the condensed milk layer, and spread it out evenly. 
• Sprinkle the reserved flour mixture/crumble on top. 
• Bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until the center is set. 
• Serve hot or let cool completely and keep refrigerated until ready to serve. 

Baked Cinnamon Apples

It's Friday!! While I'm a bit sad to see the apple recipes go, I'm super excited to see the weekend arrive! This week of apple-inspired dishes has been a lot of fun for me to experiment with. Husband and I have so much fun concocting recipes together. It's the best, being in the kitchen, candles lit, spices, sugars, and flours atop the counters, and aromas from our baking/cooking foods filling the entire house.

I'm looking forward to sharing our Feel Good Fall recipes next week! They're good ones too! For now, some simple baked cinnamon apples, which are a perfect pair to some toast for breakfast, as a side for lunch and/or dinner, or just a snacky treat. With minimal prep work, and simple ingredients this is an easy addition to any meal.

• What You'll Need
• 8 Golden Delicious or Granny Smith apples
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 1/4 TSP cinnamon
• Dash of all spice
• Dash of cloves

• What You'll Do
• Peel and slice the apples. 
• Pour water in a saucepan and add the apples, sugar, and spices.
• Cover the saucepan with a lid and cook for 30-40 minutes on low-to-medium heat (we put ours on '3').

**tip: if you want to make these for breakfast, you can do the prep work the night before. Go ahead and peel and slice the apples. Store them in an air-tight tupperware and before closing the lid, add several splashes of lemon juice to keep the apples from turning brown. Close the tupperware lid and shake so the lemon juice evenly coats the apples. The next morning you can throw them in the saucepan with the sugar and spices while you are getting ready for the day. 

Crock-Pot Apple Butter

Happy October!! This is the very best month around and I'm going to soak up all the amazingness of the next 31 days. Everything from pumpkin patches, Halloween décor and parties, to festive fall foods. 

For the whole month of October I will be posting themed recipes every week! As you know, we said goodbye to September and kicked this month off with the apple-inspired theme. Apples are a timeless fall fruit and I love the smell of them while they are baking away. With September being the official apple-picking month, I opted to begin these themed weeks with those beautiful, round fruits. Coming up, I will be sharing recipes under the following themes: Fall, Tailgating, Pumpkin Everything, and Halloween. 

This week and the following four are going to be SO much fun and my kitchen will be working overtime to turn these October recipes out! It's going to be glorious and my husband is going to love it too (what man turns down home cooked food?!). But for today, I want to share a favorite with you. 

Apple butter takes me back to childhood days; one specifically, at my grandmother's house, when all the extended family gathered to make apple butter in a big iron vat in the center of the summer garden. That day will always be one of my favorites. Because I don't have a huge iron vat hanging out around my house, I decided a crock-pot would do. It would also mean less work, and apple/cinnamon aromas filling my house for hours on a Saturday. This is the perfect recipe for fall, for spending a cozy weekend in, and for toast on Sunday morning. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

• What You'll Need
• 9 Golden Delicious or Granny Smith Apples (about 3.5 lbs)
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 1/2 TSP cinnamon
• 1/4 TSP nutmeg
• 1/4 TSP allspice
• 1/4 TSP cloves

• What You'll Do
• Peel and slice all of your apples. Place in the crock-pot.
• Next add all of the sugars and spices. Stir to coat the apples well. 
• Set the crock-pot on low for one hour. Then turn it to high for an additional five hours.
• In a blender, blend all of the crock-pot contents.
• Once thoroughly blended (no apple chunks remaining), add the apple butter back to the crock-pot, which is off,  and put the lid cock-eyed so the apple butter will thicken. Leave for an hour or until the apple butter as reach your desired thickness. 

Crock-Pot Apple Stuffed Pork

In continuation of our apple recipes week, I'm sharing a new favorite, crock-pot apple-stuffed pork. This pork tenderloin was delicious and I helped myself to seconds; that's a big deal if you know me because I am more of a sides girl. This apple-stuffed pork was SO tender and the perfect combination of sweet apple and saltiness. 

If you're having a large group of people over this would be the perfect entree to serve up. Just double up the recipe and you've got an amazing hit on your hands. It works great as a leftover too. We found serving it up on ciabatta bread with homemade apple-coleslaw is just as amazing. The best part about this dish is the minimal prep work and of course that your crock-pot is responsible for the heavy lifting. 

And for more apple recipes to introduce into your fall meal planning, check out yesterday's post, here. 

• What You'll Need
• 4 lbs. pork tenderloin
• 2 Golden Delicious apples
• 1 1/2 cups apple cider
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 TSP salt

• What You'll Do
• Slice the pork tenderloin every inch, leaving a place for an apple slice to go. Do not cut all the way through.
• Peel and slice the apples. Then insert an apple slice into each cut you've made in the pork.
• Put the apple cider in the crock pot, then add the apple-stuffed pork tenderloin. 
• Put the brown sugar on top of the pork, patting it down just a bit. Pour just a bit of the cider over the brown sugar to get it wet, but not to wash it off. 
• Cook on low for 6.5 to 7 hours. 

This is such a fall meal, and I really hope you give it a try! It goes great with some Parmesan couscous and a fresh, steamed veggie! We'll be making this again on Thursday with some crock-pot sweet potatoes! 

Hot Cinna-Apple Cider

Happy Monday all! It might be rainy and dreary out, but I've got a recipe to change that up! All week long, I will be sharing recipes that have been inspired by our most recent apple picking adventure. We brought home so many apples and something had to be done with them; so we baked, cooked, and canned. Now we have a handful of new recipes to share. I hope you love apples! 

It wouldn't be fall without cider. In fact it's one of my favorite parts about this cozy season, and I can't get enough of the hot apple aroma rising from my cup and the hint of cinnamon dancing on my taste buds. Husband and I have been buying gallons upon gallons of apple cider every fall for three years now and I don't see signs of it stopping. It's kind of a Hill tradition, to keep cider in the fridge all season long. 

When we aren't heating up a mug of it at home, I'm grabbing a caramel apple spice from Starbucks. It's the best treat, but an expensive one. So at the first signs of fall, or rather when the grocery stores started lining their shelves with cider, I decided to take a go at making a hot cider similar to the Starbucks version. It turned out just like I had hoped and you can find me making this fall treat at least a couple times a week. 

• What You'll Need
• 2 cups apple cider
• 4 pumps Starbucks caramel syrup (or another caramel syrup for drinks)
• 1/4 TSP cinnamon
• 1/4 TSP pumpkin pie spice
• Whip Cream (for topping)

• What You'll Do
• Combine the first four ingredients in a microwave safe glass. I use a Pyrex measuring cup for easing transfer into a cup. 
• Heat in the microwave for about two minutes, more if needed to reach desired temperature.
• Add whip cream to the top and sprinkle with cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice if you like!

**This recipe makes 16 oz., enough for a travel mug, or about half of a mug for two people.** If you have more time to make this hot cinna-apple cider, you could heat it on stove top on low to medium until it starts to boil.