Foodblog Challenge - A vegetarian Feast

If you are here for my photohunt post, that is below this one. This is my first food post and is part of a foodblog challenge my daughter is doing.
Those of you who read my blog will be aware that I'm not a foodblogger. As a matter of fact I don't think that I've ever blogged about food before. I'm also not a vegetarian but I have been at various times in my life. I mention that because you don't have to be a vegetarian to take up the challenge. You only have to post about a dish that doesn't have meat in it and the theme is fall/Thanksgiving. The rules are included on Shortcut to Mushrooms: A Vegetarian Feast. That blog happens to be my daughter's blog. She's a relatively new food blogger and the only problem with her blog is that it makes me wish she was close enough to share some of the delicacies that she prepares. I am amazed that she finds the time to cook such lovely dishes, being a law student with a very full schedule. If you follow the link above it goes directly to the challenge post, but you can click on the title banner across the very top of her blog to go to her current posts. She should be posting her dish soon, if she has time, because the idea was to post early enough so she can do a roundup prior to Thanksgiving (when it's celebrated in the U.S.).One of the problems with my participating in the foodblog challenge is I'm a little bit of this and a little bit of that kind of cook. Therefore, I rarely follow a recipe. I'll call this Carver's Cognac almond apples. A word to the wise, if you go heavy with the cognac you might want to serve this as desert with vanilla ice cream on top. Normally if I'm preparing apples for people that have an issue with skin, I briefly boil the apples and slip off the skin. With that method I use some of the juice the apples where boiled in when I bake them and that works well. I've never used cognac before but it worked. However, I recommend that you put a little over a 1/4 cup of water in a bowl and mix with a little less than a 1/4 cup of cognac. I poured cognac over each layer and didn't use water until it started cooking and boy howdy. I could tell from the fragrance that I better add some water which I did. It worked out but with as much brandy as I used, it either needed more brown sugar or to put ice cream on top. It was good but a little strong. My instructions will be how to make it without it being too strong.I sliced the apples with skins on because that's how I like them and it's easy but if you don't like skins, use method outlined above. If they are pre-boiled and skin slipped off you won't need to bake it as long. I greased the dish with a vegetable oil spread but you can use butter or margarine. I sliced the apples and layered them with almonds, a dash of nutmeg, cinnamon, and brown sugar. I also used a little lemon juice on the apples but I don't think it needed it with the cognac. It was fine but not necessary. I poured cognac over each layer but I recommend putting some cognac into the juice and then pouring over the top. With three layers like I had, you need about a 1/2 cup of liquid. On the very top layer, I put pats of the vegetable oil spread (or butter would be good).I baked it in a 350 oven for thirty minutes and it was quite tasty. With as much cognac as I used, I think it would be best as a dessert with ice cream on top. However, if you want it as a side dish with the meal, go light with the cognac. It does add to the flavor but with too much it's rather extreme. I had a 1/2 bottle of cognac left over from last Christmas and I used almost all of it. Waste of good cognac and too much which is why I watered it down after it started cooking. My cooking experiments usually work out well but I think a light hand is best when using something with a strong flavor like brandy has. I temporarily forgot that. The good part was I caught it in time and watered it down while it was still cooking.