slow cooker apples & granola

Last Saturday when I picked up our Bountiful-Basket I realized we were drowning in apples.  The week before I bought a bag of apples at Kroger because Layla loves them.  Gosh, I ended up with more apples than I knew what to do with.

Last year when I had too many apples I made homemade apple sauce and the kids loved it.  It was a favorite topping for our oatmeal at breakfast.  This time I wanted to make a side dish for dinner similar to the apples you get from Chili's restaurant.  We ate at Chili's a few weeks ago and Layla chose them as a side with her cheeseburger and she LOVED them. 

I needed to make this happen for my little apple lover.

I peeled the apples with a potato peeler and then after I sliced them I cut them into cubes.  I tossed them into the slow cooker and topped them with brown sugar and cinnamon.  I really didn't measure anything, but I chopped about 7-8 apples and probably used about 1/4 cup of brown sugar and a few shakes of cinnamon.  After thinking about it for a minute I decided to mix in some room temperature butter. Everything is better with butter!! 

 I let them cook for a couple of hours and my house smelled edible.  The smell of fresh apples cooking is better than any candle you can buy!

Once they were soft I topped them with granola.  We got fresh granola from our food co-op.  It is so delicious because it is full of pecans, pumpkin seeds and cherries.  I stirred in the granola and let it cook with the apples for another hour or so.

It isn't the prettiest dish I have made, but it was easy and the kids really enjoyed it.  I wanted to drizzle caramel sauce on the kids servings, but I forgot.  They would have loved that!  I did top theirs with whipped cream.  Mmmmm!  Such a great apple treat!

What have you been cooking with apples?