Week 5: Apples (and a zucchini cookie recipe)

It's snowing here... a lot!  Last time I looked we had about 18".  The kids are out of school and they are bored.  In our house, bored translates into hungry.  So, every five minutes the kids have been in the fridge and wanting something to eat.  How about an apple?  This week I made the permanant switch to organic apples.  Apples have made the EWG's Dirty Dozen list for years.  The dirty dozen are the top twelve fruits and vegetables that are exposed to the most pesticides and other chemicals, therefore being the most dangerous to eat.  Organic food practices prohibit the use of chemicals on plants, so this makes certain organic fruit/veggies a better choice. 

At many of our local grocery stores, apples cost around $1/pound.  One store has organic apples for $1.18/pound.  We use about 6 pounds of apples per week, so this increases our cost by only $1.08.  This is a small increase that I think is worthwhile.  Of course, apples are in season right now, so the cost is lower.  My plan is buy them as long as they are reasonably priced and as spring comes into full swing, berries will start ripening and I can get those instead of apples.

This fall, I hope to pick a few bushel from a local orchard and make my own applesauce and dice/freeze apples for muffins and breads.  I may even dehydrate some apple rings for later use.

This week look for a couple apple recipes.  But, since I had zucchini thawed in the fridge, today I will post a recipe suggested to me by Tara after I posted my zucchini muffin recipe.  She was getting ready to make some zucchini chocolate chip cookies she saw on Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.  Thanks so much!  These are tasty!

Here is the recipe (I tend to paraphrase directions, so if you want the exact directions, check out the link.)

1 egg, beaten

1/2 C. butter, softened

1/2 C. brown sugar

1/3 C. honey

1 Tbsp. vanilla

1 C. white flour

1 C. whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

1 C. shredded zucchini

12 oz. chocolate chips

Combine wet ingredients.  In a separate bowl comine dry ingredients.  Add dry to wet.  Fold in zucchini and chocolate chips.  Bake cookies in 350* oven for 10-15 minutes.

My changes:  I ran myself out of whole wheat flour, so I used 1/2 C. ww flour and 1 1/2 cups bread flour.  12 oz. chocolate chips is way too much for me, so I used abou 6 oz.

I used the Pampered Chef small scoop (1 tablespoon) and was sort of disappointed that the cookies didn't flatten out much, but they taste awesome.  They have a nice crunch on the outside and are cake-like on the inside.  They are sweet, but not overwhelmingly so.  I could've seven cut the brown sugar to maybe 1/3 cup.  This recipe is definitely a keeper, but I think I'll play around with the amount of butter (maybe up it to 3/4 cup) to see if I can get the cookies to flatten out a bit.  It's completely personal preference, but I like a thinner cookie.