Apples with Honey and Cinnamon: A simple, refreshing and delicious treat!

The last six weeks were spent in Italy, Greece, and Paris with my husband Perry finishing off our extended honeymoon (which explains my absence from blogging). We spent lots of time wining, dining and cooking (oh yeah, and relaxing) and we learned lots of new recipes to add to my collection. From our many hosts, my family in Greece, and just from the various inspirations from the many places we visited, I collected enough recipes, notes and ideas to keep me busy in the kitchen for weeks to come. I will be sharing these recipes as I recreate them so keep checking back or follow me on Twitter to be informed of any updates.

The first recipe was introduced to us on the last stop of our trip: Paris! Our host Eleni, a Greek national studying in Paris, had a fantastic kitchen full of great ingredients, Greek honey included! Greeks love to mix honey with other ingredients and in their deserts. Honey with yogurt, honey with almonds, honey with raki...and now we were about to discover honey with apples. Eleni made this for us the first night we arrived...and we ended up making it for Eleni and her boyfriend Monsuy for the following 3 nights we were there....we are hooked! The best part is, this is relatively healthy and very simple to make AND super satisfying to the taste buds and the belly!

You will need:

- Apples. I use 1 per 2 people because you get quite a large amount once it is sliced. Also, we used Granny Smith apples as the tartness goes well with the honey and cinnamon
- Honey
- Cinnamon

Directions:

1. Slice the apples into thin slices. I start by slicing the apple in half and then half again so you end up with four segments (see photo below). I then remove the seeds and slice each quarter into thin slices.

2. Place the slices on a plate. Try to not layer them too much so that each slice gets a bit of honey and cinnamon on it (think of it like making nachos and cheese...you always go for the tortilla chips with cheese on it, don't you?! So make sure every apple has a bit of the honey and cinnamon on it!)

3. Drizzle honey on top of the sliced apples

4. Lick the spoon. You don 't want that honey to go to waste!

5. Sprinkle cinnamon on top of the apples with honey. There you go! A nice and simple treat or desert that takes 2 minutes to prepare!

Notes:

This is a great snack and/or desert for the summer. For the colder months, you can place the above recipe in the oven and roast the apples (with the honey and cinnamon on top). I tried this as well and it was also nice but I do prefer it colder. What I did like about the roasted recipe though, was that the honey turned syrupy which was nice to "mop up" with the apples . You can also drizzle some lemon juice on top of the apples when roasting for a sweeter taste. Also, a different variety of apples (besides Granny Smith) may taste nicer when roasted as we found they didn't work so well (because of the taste). If any of you try this recipe with a different variety, let me know how it turns out!

Enjoy and happy cooking!!


Click on the photos below for descriptions