Some truth.

On the menu: Baked Apples

I’d like to interrupt my regularly scheduled recipe post with some truth about my life. There were a couple of reasons why I started blogging a little over a year ago. The first and most important reason was that I wanted to record our culinary experiments. I wanted to remember the fun (and the not-so-fun, while we’re being real here) times that Kevin and I had in the kitchen as we learned more about cooking together. The second and not nearly as fun reason was that I needed an outlet for how awful I felt about my life. Graduate school has sent me into an isolating depression that I haven’t been able to shake over these last two years. Food has been my release. I can be creative and flexible with food in ways that I just can’t be with my research, and the results of my culinary experiments have been so much more rewarding than anything I’ve created on the computer in my lab. Remember when I stopped blogging recently? I was so, so miserable, trying my hardest to make enough progress with my research so I could defend my thesis this fall…and it’s not going to happen.

When I realized I wasn’t going to defend this fall, I got right back in the kitchen. Knowing that we’re going to make a killer dinner or that I’m going to bake an awesome pie definitely helps get me through the day. Sharing what we’re cooking with our readers makes me feel like I’m doing something worthwhile, which is never how I have felt about my research.

I’m getting close to finishing this damn degree, though. I spent two days at home last week furiously editing a draft of the first chapter of my manuscript, and it’s shaping up nicely. My advisor wants to start seeing drafts for the second (and last, thank God) chapter, but as I’m only about halfway through my analysis, that won’t happen for a while. On one of the days I was home writing, I needed some warm, comforting food to motivate me through another few hours of work. I glanced at the fruit bowl on the counter and immediately thought of baked apples. They’re so simple and supremely satisfying. I put one in the oven and had a great autumnal snack 35 minutes later.

Here’s to getting through a few more months of graduate school and all the pies I’ll inevitably bake in the process. Thank you for hearing me out.

Baked Apples
made by me, with reference to the trusty Joy of Cooking

1 apple–I like Cortland or McIntosh best for this recipe.
2 teaspoons brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 tablespoon unsalted butter
1/4 cup apple cider

Preheat the oven to 250°F. Core your apple carefully, making sure not to cut through the bottom of the apple. Place the apple into a small baking dish (I have a 4×4 in square dish that I used) and fill the cavity with brown sugar, cinnamon, and butter. Pour apple cider around the apple. Tightly cover the baking dish with aluminum foil and  bake in the oven for 20 minutes. Remove the foil and bake another 15-20 minutes, frequently spooning cider over the apple. Let cool slightly and serve, adding whipped cream or ice cream if you so choose.