Escalloped Cinnamon Apples

Stouffer's produced a product called "Harvest Apples" just once a year, and they did it for decades.  You could be assured of getting a package or two around Fall every year and they were always a very easy but elegant side-dish that went well with a pork roast or Thanksgiving turkey. But supply chain or other issues seemed to have made this product scarce in the freezer aisle of our neighborhood grocer these days.  Or perhaps, it's just incompetent inventory management on the part of their corporate purchasing department.  Whatever the reason, I thought I'd be able to find someone who cracked the recipe online, until I remembered that I found a copycat version of this recipe over a decade ago.

First, it doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure out what's in any processed food because the ingredients are on the package.  What you have to do is filter out the junk that food processors use to extend the shelf-life of their product, and distill the recipe down to ingredients you can easily find. Then, it's just a matter of logically calculating the ingredient proportions.  The original Stouffer recipe contained no butter, no ginger and no nutmeg.  A lot of so-called copycat recipes online today get that wrong. The corporate recipe does include a smidgen of soybean oil, however, I suppose as a substitute for butter, but my recipe uses neither. The original recipe also included ascorbic acid to maintain color.  The copycat version uses lemon juice which does the same thing.

The Stouffer recipe is really very simple as is its copycat counterpart, but I cannot credit the source because I didn't record that when I collected it fifteen years ago.  Its simplicity renders the true taste of Stouffer's Harvest Apples as I remember them.  If you miss the mouthfeel of the fat, add a pat of butter to the recipe at the very end.

Ingredients
4 large Granny Smith apples, peeled and cored
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp lemon juice
pinch of salt
1/2 cup no sugar added apple juice (like, Mott's)
1/2 cup water
1 tbsp corn starch dissolved in 2 tbsp water

The Recipe
Slice the apples into more or less 1" pieces.

Add all the ingredients except the corn starch in a skillet over medium high heat. Gently simmer until the apples are fork tender, about 10-12 minutes.

Add the corn starch dissolved in water and stir well to combine. Simmer until the sauce thickens.