Apple Chips

Right now, our little home is filled with the aroma of roasting apples and cinnamon!  Who needs candles and special scents?  Just turn on your oven and make something simple like these Apple Chips!  They're easy to throw together and healthy too!

Addison and I adventured together in making these little snacks and quite by accident we made a perfect batch on our first attempt!  The second batch almost set off the smoke alarms, so we highly recommend that you follow the instructions below:

4 or 5 small apples

2 Tbsp. cinnamon

1 Tbsp. sugar (or less)

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

Large Silpat

Large Perforated Baking Sheet

Preheat oven to 350 F.  Core and slice the apples as thin as you can into rings.  You will need your Santoku Knife to cut thinly.  Mix the dry ingredients in a small bowl.  Coat each ring of apple with spice/sugar blend (the easiest way is to dredge the apple in the small bowl).  Place on Silpat/Perforated Baking Sheet Combo.  Place in oven. Turn oven to 200 F and bake for 30 minutes.  Then turn oven off and let sit in oven until cool.

Now, we're curious if this works the same in everybody's ovens, so please post your results on this blog . . .

Gluten-Free Coconut Cupcakes

So, I only had a few moments to whip these out.  Thankfully, my mom had given me a gluten-free mix that she had had on hand in Oregon for MeiLan (my gluten-intolerant third child).  The brand is: Pamela's Products and it is the Classic Vanilla Cake Mix.  Also at the last minute, I remembered that my mom said she didn't care for the mix by itself - it was a little dry.  Soooo, in un-packing, I remembered that I had collected a ton of shredded coconut and cans of coconut milk!  There was a suggestion for a coconut version of this mix, so I just started dumping and was happy to get rid of some of the excess in the pantry!  The result was a very delicious, moist, and creamy cupcake!  MeiLan's eyes went very large as she tasted the sweet goodness!

So this is what I mixed:

Pamela's Classic Vanilla Cake Mix

Large can of Coconut Milk (about 10 oz.)

4 large eggs

1/3 cup of butter

1/2 tsp. orange flavoring

FOLD IN: 2 cups (or more) shredded coconut

You can bake this in any Flexipan, but for MeiLan I prefer to bake in the mini-muffin tray and only fill the cups about 2/3 full.  Bake at 325 F for about 15 min. (or less).  Don't forget to use the Perforated Baking Sheet before baking!

This was such a hit in our entire family that I have to re-stock the pantry with coconut!

I just made four different meatloafs at once in our new four-loaf tray!

The best thing about meatloaf is that you can put anything healthy in it!  These are made with ground chicken. They each have a good helping of carrots and zucchini shredded into the mixture.  One has ketchup on it and one has cheese and oatmeal mixed into it.  The other two are just meat and veggies.

These are great to freeze and save for another mealtime!  That's why I love the 4 Loaf Tray!

Fresh!

Keep ingredients fresh!

Simple ingredients!

Scrumptious!

Another easy breakfast!

I set the oven at about 375 F and then broke an egg into each cup of the Round Tray (on the Perforated Baking Sheet).  Sprinkle with Sea Salt.  Those baked for about 10 minutes (or less - my oven is hot!).  At the same time, I put the English muffins on the Silpat to toast.  Some had butter and some had sprinkles of cheese on them.

So delicious!  AND FAST!

Labor Day Breakfast with no labor!

Dinner Tonight

After a trip to Costco, nothing looks better than turkey meat nachos on the Silpat!