I had the grand idea of giving up chocolate for Lent this year. Actually, to be honest, I initially decided I’d give up all desserts, but then that quickly evolved to only desserts after 8 at night….and then, eventually, just chocolate. It’s come to the point that I really see that little bit of sweetness (or…that lot bit of sweetness, as the case usually is) at night, after the kids are in bed, as my reward for making it through the day with a 4-year-old and a 1-year-old without losing my mind.

Still, I didn’t make it more than four days before E convinced me that it was just a bad idea given how many rules I’ve already put on myself and how much I use chocolate for stress relief. I gave up chocolate for Lent back in 2009 (great timing as it was the same semester I had to finish my thesis and also coincided with my first face-to-face meeting with my mother) and managed to make it all 40 (or 46) days without a single bite of chocolate. And I guess that’s the point of Lent…to rely on God for whatever the crutch happens to be.

Honestly, though, my intentions this time around weren’t all that religious and had more to do with the extra ten pounds I haven’t been able to drop since C’s birth rather than aligning myself with Jesus’s desert experience. So I dropped the idea.

What does this have to do with apple dip? Well, apple dip was one of the preliminary desserts I came up with when I was still not going to do the chocolate thing. My weird Lenten attempts mean your tasty treat!

This is a refined sugar-free version of an apple dip I’ve loved for years. It’s not too sweet, but just enough to bring out the flavors of the apple. It’s incredibly easy to whip up and the ingredients are found in most houses.