After months of unusually hot weather, we are finally beginning to get the kind of winter chill that makes me think of Christmastime even though the sky is still clear and blue and the air is dry. That’s California for you. No change of season when you think about it. It’s either dry and hot or dry and cold.
Our local farmer’s market also reflects the season. We have persimmons, oranges and apples and that’s about it. Some enterprising farmers dried their summer and fall bounty so plenty of dried fruit is also available. With that in mind, I wanted fruit on my pancakes but the kitchen was looking pretty sparse. We have plenty of Fuji apples in the fridge so playing off of a recipe for maple roasted yams that I love, I decided to maple roast some Fuji’s to top our pancakes with. This was an impromptu effort on my part so the following recipe is just an approximation. I don’t think it would be easy to mess these up even with my “pinch of this, pinch of that” instructions. These apples were fabulous on our favorite cornmeal pancakes with yogurt and toasted walnuts. I think they would also make an excellent side dish for pork chops as well.
Maple roasted apples
4-5 Fuji apples, peeled, cored and sliced
Lemon zest from ½ a lemon, approx. 1 tsp
1-2 tsp lemon juice
A generous amount of cinnamon
A miserly amount of nutmeg
Ginger to taste
A generous handful of raisons
2-3 tbsp grade B maple syrup
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
Toss the apple slices with lemon juice and zest. Combine apple mixture with raisons and cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and maple syrup to coat. Roast the apples in the middle of the oven for 20 minutes or until the raisons are plump and the apples are caramelized and soft and lightly browned.
Delectable Tidbits 
scholli2000 said,
December 18, 2007 at 9:38 pm
Oh how beautiful! I love christmassy fruit. I can almost smell it. If I only had 20 pounds less. 😉
Nutmeg sounds interesting. But what’s the white matter? Cream?
mimi9 said,
December 18, 2007 at 10:30 pm
On the pancakes? Plain yogurt. We love to have a little yogurt on our pancakes. It’s nice and tart to go with the sweet fruit and the maple syrup, yum!
scholli2000 said,
December 19, 2007 at 6:07 am
Scholli has had tomatoes on his eyes as we say in german. It’s been in your article.
I like yoghurt a lot. It’s good with almost everything. 🙂
mimi9 said,
December 19, 2007 at 3:51 pm
That is a very cute expression. I like it
scholli2000 said,
December 21, 2007 at 6:33 am
(O_O)
scholli2000 said,
December 27, 2007 at 8:05 am
Merry Christmas and a happy 2008!
Scholli2000