"apple" news and stories

Happy National Apple Dumpling Day!

For those unfamiliar with the term, apple dumplings are pretty much what you'd expect: peeled and cored apples baked in a glove-fitting dough, preserving the shape and flavor of the crisp autumnal produce. Taking the concept of an apple dumpling to an impressive extreme, Flickr user .Heather. created the one-of-a-kind apple dumplings pictured above by fashioning a dough around the plump fruit and adding extra dough supplements to mimic the leaves on a fresh plucked apple.

If you'd like to give it a go yourself, try out this (self-professed) "world's best apple dumplings" recipe. Using fresh farmers' market apples paired with the comforting, delectable cinnamon-nutmeg sauce -- and a photo-by-photo how-to -- it seems positively fail-proof.

Become a member of the Slashfood Flickr pool to get a shot at having your photos featured in Feast Your Eyes.

Happy Eat a Red Apple Day!

With an appealing a fruit as this one, photographed by Flickr user mkrigsman, one doesn't blame Adam or Eve for reaching for the forbidden fruit. Cultivated for more than 3,000 years, apple varieties have now expanded into the thousands. Crisp and tart or sweet and subtle, apples are good sources of vitamins A and C as well as fiber, and act as powerful antioxidants.

So indulge in an apple today -- and keep your doctor away!

Become a member of the Slashfood Flickr pool to get a shot at having your photos featured in Feast Your Eyes.

Growers in the nation's southernmost commercial apple-producing region are fighting a change in crop insurance law, which they claim could wipe out a 200-year-old industry.

Henderson County, N.C. -- a stretch of Southern Appalachia where the first apple trees were planted by a Loyalist on the run from the Revolutionary Army -- today generates about $24 million in annual apple revenue, representing 85 percent of the state's apple crop. But the region's 150-plus growers have been hard hit in recent years by calamities including frost, wind and hail.

"You name it, it's happened," sighs Agricultural Extension agent Marvin Owings.

Owings credits the Federal Crop Insurance Program, which reimburses growers for lost apples at a rate of $9.25 a bushel, with keeping area orchards solvent. He's worried a new proposal to significantly lower disaster payouts for lesser-grade apples could prove devastating.

These visibly sweet and sticky Glazed Apple Bars reinterpret the traditional apple pie in hand-held form. Crispy and crumbly, they taste delicious savored on their own or indulgently paired with vanilla-bean ice cream and topped with caramel, as blogger Sweetnicks relished them.

And the best part? The recipe uses only pantry staples, requiring but a few apples, flour, butter, vanilla, sugar, salt and cinnamon. So get baking, and celebrate fall with this luscious seasonal recipe.

Become a member of the Slashfood Flickr pool to get a shot at having your photos featured in Feast Your Eyes.

Photo: bookgrl, Flickr

It's Apple pickin' season. So what to do with the orchard's abundance of apples? Simplify the iconic apple pie by making an apple crisp -- it's the flavor of fall without the fuss.

We rounded up a few of the best apple crisp recipes spied elsewhere on the Web..

Good Morning America offers a recipe for slow-cooked apple crisp in a crock pot.

"America's Test Kitchen" Host Chris Kimball upgrades this fall fruit favorite.

This apple crisp via The New York Times is topped with tortoni and macaroons.

The Washington Post dishes up lunchbox-friendly apple-crisps -- the "s" makes all the difference in interpretation.