Mini-Caramel Apples (Iron Chef America Style)

We were watching Iron Chef America the other day, and the secret ingredient was apples, so the challenging chef made mini-caramel apples (as well as candied and chocolate) and they looked like a really fun idea, so we thought we'd try it ourselves. Today we tried the mini caramel apples, we'll do the others later, but you know what? They came out good! They're really simple, just find a recipe for caramel dip, get yourself some apples and a melon baller, and use the melon baller to scoop out some chunks of apple..

Then stick a toothpick in them and dip it in the caramel!



Viola! You have yourself some mini-caramel apples!



Now *that's* what Willis was talkin' about!

(edit: So, turns out this doesn't work out as well as we initially thought. When we first made them, they looked right and everything, but eventually the caramel dripped off the apple and never hardened. I guess the lack of skin on the apple keeps it from sticking, and it just turned out to be an anti-delicious mess. We're not giving up though, we'll try to figure out a way to make it work!)

Deep Fried Pickles

So we were watching a show this weekend where this guy goes around the world eating bizarre things. With one meal, he was served a side dish of deep fried pickle chips. Well, Scott thought that sounded pretty tasty, so we decided to try and make some. We got some tempura batter, broke out the deep fryer and some pickles. Verdict? they turned out fine, I guess, though they were really nothing special. It never sounded all that great to me to begin with, but I was game. We concluded that while they weren't necessarily bad, they weren't really worth bothering with again.


So we gave up on the pickles, but still had batter left over, so I got an idea. I love the Bloomin' Onion at Outback, so I thought i'd try frying up some onion slices. Turned out pretty good too! Better then the pickles anyway.