Super Stuffed Baked Apples

Last night's Iron Chef competition was Battle Cabbage! How fitting! It really got me in the mood for my upcoming judging honors. But I need more BSI recipes!!! Email them to christina at dinneratchristinas dot com before Sunday at midnight (Central)! There's two great prizes at stake! Spread the word! Even if you don't like the ingredient, one of your readers might! That's how I found out about this competition - by seeing it linked on another blog!

---

This afternoon I went on a big cleaning spree, tackling the bathroom, the kitchen and vacuumed the entire house. Afterwards, there was nothing more I wanted to do than plop down and watch some TV. So, I did!

Rachael Ray was on, making her 30 Minute Meals "Retro-style," with a tribute to 50s home cooking, but a new twist. I suppose these were the updated apple pie, but I missed the beginning, so I'm not sure. Whatever they are, they looked good, so I printed out the recipe and we made them after dinner tonight.

Super Stuffed Baked Apples a la Mode
Recipe by Rachael Ray

4 large apples, cored
1 Tbsp lemon juice
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 instant oatmeal mix, or rolled oats
1/4 tsp nutmeg, a healthy grating (I substituted Allspice)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
4 Tbsp butter, cut into pieces (I used less - maybe 3 Tbsp?)
1/8 cup raisins, chopped
1/4 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
ice cream of choice
whipped cream

Preheat oven to 425°. Sprinkle cored apples with lemon juice. (We skipped that step!) Mix next 7 ingredients and over-stuff apples. Bake 20 minutes in a small oven safe dish. (It took us a little longer to be tender) Transfer apples to small bowls with a spoon and top with ice cream and whipped cream.

Guys, I cannot even begin to describe to you how good these smelled! Like home, Grandma's house, Thanksgiving, Christmas, a bakery, a candy store, and every other yummy smell memory - all rolled into one!

And the taste! Where do we begin? There's a tender baked apple. Then, the brown sugar almost caramelizes with the oats, so there's this amazing crunch. The raisins form a plump, juicy burst and the nuts are toasted and meaty. It is an EXPLOSION of deliciousness, all tied together with the spices, that makes me want to go find Rachael Ray and kiss her!

I had one, with a little bit of vanilla ice cream. She had caramel ice cream in the episode, but to be honest, I think that'd be overkill. There's already so much going on with the apple and all those flavors - there really isn't room for much more!


Johnny had two apples and the ice cream on top! He also did a great job coring, while I mixed the stuffing together. We ended up using 5 smaller apples because there was so much leftover after the 4!