13 Mostly Apple Recipes to Try: Healthy, Decadent, and/or Easy

Healthy Mostly Apple Recipes First:

🍎Healthy Apple Bran Muffins by 'Rachel Cooks': My dad with Parkinson's needs to up his whole grain game. So I bought some bran, to use with my whole wheat flour, and these look good, though I might cut down on some of the oil, which isn't much, just 3T, just a little, and maybe up the apple flavor with a little applesauce...?

https://www.rachelcooks.com/healthy-apple-bran-muffins/

🍎Whole Wheat Apple Bran Muffins by Food.com: This next muffin recipe is quite a bit more bran-filled; it makes up the bulk of the muffin, in a 3:1 ratio of bran to whole wheat flour, but definitely looks lower calorie, so that can be a plus when you are watching every bit of energy you take in, versus how much becomes stored (as fat on your/my bod).

https://www.food.com/recipe/whole-wheat-apple-bran-muffins-306448

🍔Best Black Bean Burgers by 'Sally's Baking Addiction': Not an apple recipe..., but inspired by apple baking adventures and wanting to use the heat from the oven when baking...I'm trying these tomorrow (I already opened the cans yesterday, when I thought there wasn't enough leftover chili for dinner, but discovered there was excess chili, so then I put the cans in the fridge after pre-draining...so I must!); I am interested in seeing if the special technique of dry-baking the canned, rinsed beans helps make them 'not mushy' and 'the best'!

https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/best-black-bean-burgers/

🍎Quinoa and Veggie Salad, with Apples, Dried Berries, Walnuts and Cheddar by Recipeland.com: Another non-dessert, this recipe could be either an entrée dish or a protein loaded carbohydrate salad when the main dish is a soup. For my octogenarian folks, I might need to pre-cook then cool the apples so they are soft enough; I also probably would use spinach, maybe even kale, as we are not found of arugula.

https://recipeland.com/recipe/v/quinoa-veggie-salad-apples-drie-51653

🍎

🍏Whole Wheat Fresh Apple and Applesauce Cake by Recipeland.com: This one is almost in the decadent category, and there is another bundt featured there, but because it uses whole wheat flour, and no cream in the glaze, I'm calling it (comparatively) 'healthy', but that's why it didn't get a 'red apple' to mark it

https://recipeland.com/recipe/v/whole-wheat-fresh-apple-apple-s-55159

Decadent Mostly Apple Desserts:

🍎Another apple-y dessert, this looks super delicious, and should help satisfy an adult desire for the caramel apple flavor, but in a softer, more decadently refined way (and for those cooking for those who need soft desserts, caramel apples are an impossibility!...upon biting into an ordinary apple, (that had been pre-sliced!) a family member with some dental work literally broke a tooth!)

https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/buttery-caramel-apple-upside-down-cake/

🍎Another "Sallys Baking Addiction" recipe, this one looks delicious, maybe decadent, but in a way that apples and cake are decadent; it *does* have quite a bit of oil and flour, but it's a big, dense bundt, so those are apropos ratios, plus the glaze is rich with cream in it....

https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/glazed-apple-bundt-cake/

Last, but hardly least: Easy Mostly Apple Recipes

🍎Ukrainian Apple Pastries, Pirozhki s yablokami, v hlebopechke by user Irina75 on Sparkrecipes.com: I still miss Sparkpeople, and part of the strength of that site was the great recipes on Sparkrecipes, from both their paid staff, but also users, along with nutrition info...here's one that looks interesting, and probably easy as it appears to be made in a bread machine; it also looks pretty healthy; might make a delicious breakfast alternative to muffins

https://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=3232567

🍎Apple Cinnamon Slab Pie by 'Natasha's Kitchen': I made this next one, with a few changes yesterday, but here's the original, though I would call it more of a strudel than a pie, even a slab pie, and it *WAS* very easy! (also pretty quick) Basically: sauté some sliced apples with butter and sugar, then wrap in store-bought puff pastry and bake...result: an elegant dessert

https://natashaskitchen.com/apple-cinnamon-slab-pie/

🍎

🍲Moosewood's Mojo Sauce: Sounds delish, and made me wish...that I still had my Moosewood cookbooks (they might be in the boxes my ex packed, which I haven't opened yet) but so *glad* I discovered Moosewood has some recipes online; I ate there, decades ago, (in the mid '80s), with a different ex, who'd been a regular customer as a student at Cornell. (Ithaca is gorges!)

https://moosewoodcooks.com/2015/06/mojo-sauce/

🍎

These look good, and my fam is now WAY into soft cookies (after years of only liking hard little bricks!)...I might try these with whole wheat flour to make them a *little* healthy...I think they look quite yummy 😋

https://sp-ao.shortpixel.ai/client/to_auto,q_lossy,ret_img,w_650/https://www.livinglocurto.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/softest-chocolate-chip-cookies-recipe.jpg

https://www.livinglocurto.com/softest-chocolate-chip-cookies-recipe/

Week in Review/Word of the Week (WOTW): Lens; Goal for this week: Progress/Forward

 This past week, there was a theme in the lives of my family that was focused around vision, caring and helpfulness, as there was eye surgery, which gave us all a different lens for perceiving what was important.

We were all happily surprised when the neph got his act together and showed up to help the folks. (We were surprised mostly because he showed up on time, early actually, and without a wake-up prompt). He has been known not to show up in the past.

The surgery was scheduled for midday T, but we started to prep the weekend before, and, especially on Monday, some deep cleaning, so no dust would be flying around. Also some meal planning and then, later in the week (W? Th?) went to the grocery maxi-mart, spending 2 hours purchasing pretty much just groceries. Then the lens switched back to Parkinson's, and after a good deed punished, I found a screaming deal on mums at Lowe's (50% off) and got 6, plus some grab bars and supplies. Then today the lens was on enjoying the pretty day with a trip to the Gull Lake areafor some art, birds, and autumn produce per artsandeats.org I did however miss my little friend Adrian's birthday today though, but couldn't be helped

This next week my goal is catching up on some blogging, coding, arting, organizing, gardening, writing, and working out. There are only so many 'pleasant' days left in this year, in terms of warmer weather, so I will focus on making the most of that time.

NaNoWriMo PrepTober First Steps: Idea Inspiration and Planning (vs. Pantser*-ing)

NaNoWriMo (or nanowrimo) stands for National Novel Writing Month (though it's international); it started out in early internet days, and has grown, a lot. It's held annually during the month of November (which always seems like a weird month for it to be occurring—to me—because, in the US, it starts during Halloween hangovers, (many local groups of folks all over start writing at midnight, which really interferes with any late-night / midnight Hallows activities), then continues (some years, some places, and other years everywhere) during election season (and I've been a paid political operative so I find it impossible to participate those years), then finishes during Thanksgiving & the start of the December Holidaze season, including travel (though writing during a layover or travel delay *could* be productive, but not optimal), and Black Friday.  I've often thought about participating, and have even written a few thousand words here or there (the goal is 50k for a slim novel) on 3 different ideas, but have gotten stuck because I've gone at it like a 'pantser'—i.e.: by the seat of my pants, at the last minute, without much of a plot, or plan, or a 'built world', or well-drawn characterizations—vs. being a planner, which really does make the process easier, because you spend more time on it up front. (Pantser vs. Planner is one of the topics that nano folks discuss, and one of the original Nanowrimo leaders even wrote a book about how to be a 'pantser'!)

Some of the 'Novel Idea Inspiration' techniques I am using to try and be a planner this year for  that I found on the nano site include:

• Brainstorm a bunch of things (I did 50 now, & then did another 50) that I like (or "that make you feel excited, inspired, or curious") including settings, motifs, themes, subjects, interests, genres, etc. Really, I think one is writing this novel for yourself, first...you are your own ideal reader / audience, for most first-time writers.  {This exercise is from the nano Young Writers Prep}  ...I had: cyber, herstorical fiction, gardens, needlework, candles, bodies of water, tarot and survival as some of my 'things'.
• Summarize 3 (at least) favorite books/movies (in 3 sentences or less), including setting, key characters, and plot points to "Borrow a Plot"; then rework those summaries with a few new additions of your own; the example was The Hunger Games; My 3 choices:  The Matrix, and 2nd in Jean Auel's 'Earth's Children' series: The Valley of Horses,  and last, but not least, Margaret Atwood's Lady Oracle:

1.  In Blade Runner, Neo discovers that the world he has been living in is a computer matrix and the *real* world is actually a bombed out world-at-war with machines a century later than the present time. He must fight for independence and the right to live against various software program Agents, like Agent Smith; he fights alongside his ship's team who rescued him,, esp. Trinity, his soulmate and contact, and Morpheus, his ship's captain. The machines' energy source is ultimately human bodies, kept in a fetal state.
2. In The Valley of Horses, Ayla, a Cro-Magnon woman, must survive alone, after being exiled by her Neanderthal adopters, with only a horse and lion cub as company in the harsh Ice Age climate, until Jondalar, on a rite-of-passage journey, travels into her area, injured. They get to know each other as he heals, then decide to continue his journey together, leaving the valley.
3. In Lady Oracle, a parody of gothic romances and fairy tales, Joan Foster, a romance novelist, is revealed through flashback sequences of: her past overweight childhood self, being a mistress to minor nobility, and relationship with a performance artist, while attempting to hide this past from her husband, and then being blackmailed and faking her own death, after publishing a viral success of her feminist poetry.
1. Neo, a physicist, creates a wormhole in the fabric of spacetime and jumps back to the last ice age where he meets Cro-Magnon Ayla and her horse. He falls in love with her and they jump forward to the future, but she hates it, yet cannot escape because the hole back is closed.
2. ....Meanwhile, Jondalar was also picked up in the wormhole but deposited in present-day France. His past is discovered by scientists, and he is trapped for samples and study. Ayla learns about this and rescues him.
3. Joan, an upper-class mystery writer and suffragette, is the prime suspect in her lover's murder. She is jailed after a protest and force-fed along with other suffragettes, which causes her to have flashbacks to her anorexic past, and she realizes that her husband killed himself and framed her. She must prove her innocence.

• "Borrow a Character"..."invent a future/history for someone"...choose a sub-section and then "find the story" within your invention
• Choose a viewpoint of a character from a current event ('News You Can Use') and make up your own details
• "A Whole New World": make up stories from a picture (abandoned or weird places)

The first (brainstorm, then refine) is from the nano Young Writers program: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IKUWhBwf1jQ9_Yw5Px4DDqM96F-uN7avXGbPoNkh3-g/edit#heading=h.cbw7dmb4z42x 

and the other four ideas (borrow a

https://nanowrimo.org/nano-prep-101#week1

Blogtober Content Calendar '21: 50 Blog Post Ideas for October (#blogtober21 day2)

  

OCTOBER means:

• New Moon in Libra, Wed., Oct. 6

• Aries Full Moon, Wed., Oct. 20

• All month...all the: 'tober & 'ween -a-thons...

• Daily Drawing: Draw'tober, Ink'tober, Witchtober, Catober

• Daily Writing: (NANOWRIMO's): Prep'tober, Blogtober

• Daily Stitching: Cowl-o-ween, Owl-o-ween,

• Daily Coding: Hacktoberfest

1. Wallpaper Calendar ✓
2. October Content Calendar (Blog post ideas) ✓  (this post!)
3. First steps in nanowrimo's Preptober
4. Goals; 5% Fall Challenge
5. Mercury Rx!!
6. New Moon in Virgo
7. Preptober Follow-up
8. Friday Finds (Vintage / Thriftstore)
9. First steps in Hacktoberfest
10. Pumpkin spice!
11. Autumn décor
12. Autumn crafts
13. OCTOber...health of our Octos (octogenarians), esp. with COVID
14. Venus in Virgo?
15. ILoveYarnDay
16. Costume Ideas & Planning
17. Autumnal Soups
18. Cooking with Sumac
19. Crockpot or Sheetpan 40 Garlic Chicken
20. Full Moon in Aries, 2021
21. Habit Tracking for Autumn
22. Cute Autumnal Bullet Journal Spreads
23. How to Heat up your Exercise and Movement as the Weather Cools
24. Leaf Love
25. 150 Ideas for Celebrating Hallows
26. Fighting High Blood Pressure, the Silent Killer
27. Upcycle Harvest (milk jugs, ice cream cartons, egg cartons, tp rolls...)
28. Sun in Scorpio...Hello Scorpio Season
29. Venus in Libra?
30. Autumnal Alternatives to Pumpkin Spice: Cinnamon Apple Chai, Sticky Toffee Muffin, Citrus-Kissed Brownies, Plum Cake, Pear Clafouti, Sweet Potato Air Fries
31. Understanding Astrology in 3 Easy Steps
32. Tarot and Future Predictions
33. Green Goddess Dressing
34. Skinny Pesto
35. Politics is Not Done; Engage Politically in Oct'21
36. HALLOWS!!!
37. Decluttering: Death Cleaning
38. Organizing Craft Space
39. Fall Bulb Planting
40. Breast Cancer Awareness Month
41. Zero Waste Heroes
42. DIY Botanica Apothecary
43. Thai it Yourself (easy Thai-inspired recipes)
44. Autumnal Knitting
45. Autumnal Crocheting
46. Autumnal
47. Pumpkin Spice Ice Cream Comparison Taste-Off!
48. Autumn Garden Clean-up
49. Hallows Ritual Prep
50. Hallows Rite: Happy Hallowe'en!

Some Ideas for DAILY themes

• Sundays: SOULFUL; Self-care; Saving

• Mondays: MOTIVATION, MO(o)N,
• Tuesdays: 2forTUES,
• Wednesdays: WORDLESS, WALLPAPER, WONDERFUL,
• Thursdays: THOUGHTFUL, Thankful,
• Fridays: FREE-wheeling, FREEBIE, Favs for ; (5) Five for; FINDS
• Saturdays: ...see Sundays?

LINKS

• *https://www.astrology.com/article/mercury-scorpio-2020-meaning/ (Shadow side work, 2020)
• https://nanowrimo.org/nano-prep-101#week1 (PREPtober)

So many things to write...so many things to do! Have a great blogtober!

Happy October: #FridayFreebie Free October Wallpaper

Happy OCTOBER everyone! Here's a free October wallpaper calendar to kick off October 2021. Just right-click and save:

I am kicking off the month of October as BLOGtober...trying to populate this blogger/blogspot site with daily content, to prove to myself that I can, and that I will. My vision is that the content in my blogtober posts will generally be Autumnal, crafty, foodie-friendly, sustainable/zero-waste and nanowrimo (PREPtober) content.

So enjoy blogtober & grab yourself a freebie calendar!