We had a busy September moving from Switzerland back to Georgia. We’re mostly settled in now, and it came down to this week to dehydrate a tasty treat for the October Trail Bytes.

I like to stay in season with recipes like pumpkin pie bark and baked pumpkin spice apples, but I wanted to offer a new recipe for this fall.

The idea for a topic came on Monday when Dominique and I were hiking the Pine Log Creek Trail near our home. We were sitting on a bench enjoying our oranges when I noticed that the mosquitoes were biting me, but not her. Ever notice that with your hiking partner?

That lead to a memory from Dominique about how her aunt in France used to stick cloves in an orange and place it by Dominique’s bedside to repel mosquitoes. Hmm… cloves and oranges, a good combination. We put our orange peels back in the bag with our apples and hiked on.

After a mile we turned around when we spotted a large bear crossing the trail ahead of us. That was a first for Dominique. The trail was covered in acorns, a favorite bear food.

Did you know that bears can eat 20,000 calories a day when there’s a good crop of acorns? According to wildlife biologists, bears enter hyperphagia in the fall, a phase where they eat ravenously to build up fat reserves before winter.

We hiked a safe distance in the opposite direction before stopping to eat our apples. The apples took on flavor from the orange peels. Hmm... apples and orange peels, a good combination. And that’s how we got to this month’s topic.

Pumpkin Spice Applesauce Leather

The new recipe shows how to cook the applesauce with traditional pumpkin spices; cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and ground cloves.

For a batch of applesauce using six apples, I grated and juiced one orange into the mix.

The result was wonderful with the combination of warming spices and bright orange zest. We ate the applesauce leather slowly, allowing all those flavors to juice up in our mouths.

But the proof is in the pudding. Would it rehydrate well?

Thirty seconds was all it took to rehydrate one leather into creamy applesauce pudding with one cup of boiled water.

You’re going to love this applesauce as leather or pudding, so I worked out the quantities to double and triple the recipe.

Explore the New Recipe:

Pumpkin Spice Applesauce Leather

Our first visitors from Switzerland arrive tomorrow. We’ll head north to the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee. A day at Dollywood is scheduled, for the kids, of course.

When we get back, I’ll be working on a new menu for the next Action Guide. I’d love to hear your ideas and preferences. So far, there is keen interest in vegetarian options.

Thanks for reading Trail Bytes. See you next month!

Freundliche Grüsse,

Chef Glenn & Dominique

Recipes for Adventure Book Sale

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