Tuesday's Food: Crockpot Baked Apples

So I took last week off to get things in order. I am in the midst of my busy season, and I need a few days to just pull myself together before I had a panic attack. My goal was to get back on the horse this week and really  get focused on getting all my "chores" done (including blogging). Then Halloween happened. I don't know what I was thinking trying to put together a blog post on Halloween, but it just never happened. So when I was getting ready to settle down last night to do Monday, Tuesday, and begin Wednesday's blogs, I had an accident. I hit my head coming out of the refrigerator too quickly and had a nasty headache/migraine. Looking at a computer for an hour or so was out of the question. So, here I am, on Wednesday, not even attempting Monday's blog, and trying to play catch up with Tuesday's blog. My goal for tonight is to 1) organize my closet for the winter season, 2) write two articles for Bounty Paper Towels (I'm a web writer for them), and 3) work on Wednesday and Thursday's blogs. So wish me luck! And hey! There is always next week to get on track, right? :) 

So a few weeks ago I told you about having a ton of apples and had to come up with a few apple recipes to use them all up quickly. I blogged my recipes for White Bean and Apple Chili and Apple and Turkey Meatballs.  Both of which I adjusted from Stephanie O'Dea's website A Year of Slow Cooking. Today I'm going to give you my adjusted recipe for Baked Apples (original recipe found here). 

Baked Apples: 

Ingredients: 

• 5 apples 
• 1/3 cup brown sugar 
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1/2 cup pecan pieces (it was what I had on hand) 
• 1/2 cup dried oats 
• 2 Tbsp cinnamon
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 cup water

Steps: 

• Pour the water in the bottom of the crockpot and mix with the vanilla. 
• Wash and core the apples, but dig out a little more for all the stuffing. 
• In a small bowl, mix together the brown sugar, raisins, pecans, cinnamon, and oats. 

• Stuff the apples. I dumped what was left over in the pot around them. I figured it would make decent oatmeal with the vanilla water. 
• Put the apples in the vanilla water. Cook on high for 4 hours or on low for 6-7. 

Those apples WERE washed. They are fresh from a tree, so they aren't going to be grocery store pretty, but so much more yummy! 

I cooked mine for the 6-7 hours. They were a little mushy, so in the future I'm going to try the high for 4 hours. BUT they were good! I love really anything apples, so this was just a great "healthy" dessert (8 pts in Weight Watchers unless you share an apple with someone, then it's obviously 4 pts). 

I love, love, love these and am happy that this colder season calls for such a yummy dessert!