One of our favorite parts of the fall season is apple picking. It’s a fun way to spend a crisp fall day, no matter how old you are. And the best part is you get to go home with lots of yummy, freshly picked local apples! Tammy likes to take her daughters apple picking. It makes a great family outing and it’s fun for kids to eat the fruit they collected!

As much as we love eating apples raw as a snack or chopping them up and tossing them in a salad, when we bring home so many from apple picking we find that we sometimes have trouble eating them all.

One way we use the extra apples is by baking them! Baking apples is a great way to make a yummy dessert or a sweet and savory appetizer or meal, depending on what spices and other ingredients you bake them with.

When we bake apples, we first set the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Then we core the apples, so that there’s space in the middle to add the spices and other ingredients, and place them on a baking sheet. And now is the part where you can get creative. Stuff the cored apples with whatever you like!

If we want to make something savory, we stuff our apples with fennel seeds, fennel bulbs, pecans and onions. Or, if we’re looking for more of a meal than a side dish, we lightly saute a meat or vegetarian protein (we like “turkey” sausage), shallots, thyme, spinach, low sodium broth and white balsamic. We then mix in toasted walnuts and wholegrain breadcrumbs and stuff this delicious filling into our apples.

If we’re in the mood for something sweet, we’ll stuff our apples with raisins and walnuts and sprinkle them with cinnamon and a little bit of brown sugar. After the apples are stuffed, they only need to bake for about 35 minutes, or until they are tender but not mushy.

Have you ever made baked apples? Do you prefer them sweet or savory? What do you stuff them with?