This recipe is straight out of a Little House book, Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder.
This ENTIRE book made me incredibly hungry!
Almanzo ate the sweet, mellow baked beans. He ate the bit of salt pork that melted like cream in his mouth. He ate mealy boiled potatoes, with brown ham gravy. He ate the ham. He bit deep into the velvety bread spread with sleek butter, and he ate the crisp golden crust. He demolished a tall heap of pale mashed turnips, and a hill of stewed yellow pumpkin. Then, he sighed, and tucked his napkin deeper into the neckband of his red waist. And he ate plum preserves, and strawberry jam, and grape jelly, and spiced watermelon-rind pickles. He felt very comfortable inside. Slowly he ate a large piece of pumpkin pie.
Almanzo ate four large helpings of apples ‘n’ onions fried together. He ate roast beef and brown gravy, and mashed potatoes and creamed carrots and boiled turnips, and countless slices of buttered bread with crab apple jelly.
“It takes a great deal to feed a growing boy,” Mother said. And she put a thick slice of birds’ nest pudding on his bare plate, and handed him the pitcher of sweetened cream speckled with nutmeg.
Can you imagine eating this way? Wow!
Fried Apples ‘n’ Onions
Step 1: Cut ya’ an onion. A big’un or a med’um. Dice it or slice it, anyway way ya’ like.
Step 2: Cut ya’ some apples in slices about a 1/4 inch thick. Sweet tart ones are best.
Step 3: Gitcha a large skillet ‘n’ fry those onions in butter. Lots of butter.
Step 4: When the onions are good ‘n’ caramelized, add the apples.
Step 5: Cover with a lid for ’round 5-10 minutes, or until the apples are nice ‘n’ soft.
Step 6: Those apples won’t need a thing more! They be sweet! Eat up! Enjoy!
Don’t let the onion part throw you off! The onions, when caramelized, turn into sweet sweet sugary goodness. You have to try it to believe it. It’s just as good as an apple pie!
Featured on Thank Your Body Thursday.
you’d have to do a LOT of farm work to justify a meal like that, but even 1/4 of it would make a delicious Fall dinner! I love this idea for fried onions and apples and will certainly serve it alongside pork when it gets a little cooler.
Thank you very much for sharing such a delicious recipe. Will try it today as part of my preparation for breaking the Fast stuff. Stay blessed.
Love sauteed apples and onions!! Try it with sliced up pieces of kielbasa sometime – all you need for a meal, and it’s delish!
I just re-read FARMER BOY last week. I, too, was drooling over all of the descriptions of food. I will definitely try this.
What a fun idea to make a recipe from the book. I was reading the Little House books earlier this year—I should get back to that. I ran out of steam after The Long Winter. It was really fun reading about all the food and cooking, though.
Almanzo’s family ate so much wonderful food in Farmer Boy. After reading some of the passages, I just sat back in awe of how MUCH food they ate and wondered how on earth they prepared so much in a single day.