Irish Apple Pie

I'm a big fan of autumn, especially all the food-centered holidays. And the warm, spice flavors, and the hearty produce. I love sweater weather. And yes, pumpkins. But one of my favorite fall flavors is apple.

Since I was a kid, we've gone apple picking in the fall, gorging ourselves on apples right off of the tree and cider donuts and hot apple cider from the farmstand. It's something I enjoy doing with our kids too, and they look forward to it every year as much as I do. One of the small drawbacks about having food-conscious kiddos is that they are fully aware of what can be done with delicious fresh produce, so they have a tendency to go overboard and pick ALL THE THINGS. Long story short, every fall, we have plenty of apples. For a small army of hungry fruit addicts.

This recipe for Irish Apple Pie has been one of my favorites since I started cooking. It's really simple to put together, using a food processor to do the hard work. The ingredients are straightforward, and I'm guessing you probably already have everything you need in your kitchen. And the taste is delightful. One of those magical moments where the simplest of things are elevated when put together in the right way to make something so satisfying that you can't help but sigh as you taste it.

Lemon Sunshine Blondies

I have to admit, I enjoy browsing Pinterest more than I thought I would.  And one of the ones that ALWAYS gets me is those lemon brownies.  They are sunny, and yellow, and...either made with a bunch of stuff I don't like or the reviews on them are extremely disappointing.  *sad trumpet noise*

In my head, they are buttery and citrusy and oh so wonderful.  But the reviews always seem to say that they aren't the right texture, or they don't have much lemon flavor at all.  So I made the decision, after a rough few weeks of hard-hitting real life worries around here, that I needed to make the thing that they were in my head exist.

I started with my basic blondie pattern and lemoned it up with real lemon zest, juice, and a dash of orange blossom water.  You know, to keep it from being ordinary.  So it's a quick and easy dessert, with only 7 ingredients.

Heat your oven to 350 and grease an 8 by 8 pan.

Melt a stick of butter.

While the butter is melting, measure out a cup plus a tablespoon of flour into a mixing bowl and add a dash of salt and the zest of 2 lemons.

When the butter has melted, mix a cup of sugar into it.  Then add in a cup of sugar and mix.  Add in an egg.  Then mix in 2 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice and 1 tablespoon of orange flower water (can usually be found in the international section of grocery stores, by the Middle Eastern or Mediterranean foods).  If you don't have or don't want to use the orange flour water, you can add more lemon juice or just stick with the 2 tablespoons.

Add your wet mix to the dry and stir until it is all mixed.

Pour into the prepared pan and then bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes, until it is slightly golden around the edges and set in the middle.

Let cool before slicing and enjoying.

My kids are such culinary critics these days, but they loved these.  My 8-year-old commented that she "really liked the use of the lemon zest", and my oldest kept trying to figure out "that interesting floral taste hint".  Little Mr. Picky just inhaled one, no commentary needed.  And all the adults who were lucky enough to get a taste enjoyed them as well.

They are everything I hoped they would be: bright, comforting, delicious...the essence of sunshine in a baked good.  I'd say more, but I'll keep this post like the blondies: short and sweet.  :)

Honey Cardamom Dutch Baby

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you might already know that I am big on breakfasts.  Bacon is a close friend of mine.  Muffins and I are tight.  Waffles practically stood up for me in my wedding.  You get the idea.  I just love breakfast foods!

So, one of the breakfast foods that I think everyone should make at least once in their life is a good Dutch baby.  And I'm not just saying that because I'm half Dutch.  They are simple, gorgeous, and delicious.  Everything I adore in a breakfast food!

Cookie Making Day!

It's been a hectic month.  Year, for that matter.  And that all seems to culminate in December.  To top that, the weather here has been dreary for the last month or more, which zaps motivation and makes it much harder to get good lighting for pretty pictures.  So posts have been sparse lately, and I'm sorry about that.  Anyways, this weekend, we actually ended up with no plans except for that we are scheduled to teach Sunday School on Sunday morning.  NO plans.  The weekend before Christmas.

At first, the hubs and I discussed heading downtown to see the store windows and lights and visit the market...but honestly, I didn't want to deal with the crowds.  And when I asked the kids, they didn't seem that into it at all either.  So then we changed our plan  to maybe go to a more local Christmas market.  But the more I thought about it, the less I wanted to drag everyone out of the house.  Then, my brilliant husband had a fantastic idea:

Family Cookie Day.

Broccoli Cornbread

There are a few recipes in my recipe book that I've been making for so long that I honestly don't have a clue of where they started from.  Some of those recipes have taken twists and turns along the way as I've cared more and learned more about the food my family eats.  Broccoli Cornbread is a great example of one of those recipes.  It started as kind of a dump recipe...you know, where you dump a bunch of stuff in together and then toss it in the oven.   Then we started eating more natural foods and less processed foods.  Broccoli Cornbread had always been a great dish, a yummy way to get things like broccoli and cottage cheese into picky kids, but I started to feel not-so-great about the cornbread mix.  And using frozen broccoli seemed silly when I had such fantastic fresh broc from the garden.  So I adjusted, and I think the current version is better than ever.

Baked Apple Enchiladas

So, you've made yourself some apple pie filling, or cheated and bought some pre-made stuff, and now you're looking for ideas on how to use it?

How about these here Apple Enchiladas?  Crispy outsides, warm gooey insides...apple pie's delicious cousin.

When I was a kid, my mom would occasionally get apple enchiladas from Market Day.  They were frozen, and before that, I'm pretty sure they were deep fried, and all you had to do was stick them in the oven for a bit and voila - dessert.  But again, I'm a control freak, and I like to know what's in and what's been done to my food.

So I made my own.

Apple Pie Filling: The Start of Something Good

So, it might not surprise you to hear that my family, besides getting our veggies through a local farm's CSA, is also a member of an apple CSA.  Which means that every other week in the fall, I get to head over to our friend Amy's and pick up a huge 10-pound bag of organic apples, picked earlier that week at Earth First Farms, a couple of hours away in Michigan.

Thing is, 10 pounds is a lot of apples.  And even though we love apples here...well, no matter how much I pack them into lunches and use them for snacks, they tend to start taking over.  I can barely close my fridge right now!

Applesauce is a given, and some day I'll get to posting my easy method for that, but this year, I've been looking outside of that.  I'm a big fan of those apples they serve at Cracker Barrel...you know the ones I'm talking about...the gooey, sweet, slightly spiced apples that taste like you're eating pie filling?  But I'm pretty sure that I don't want to know what's actually in them.  Something that good is bound to have something bad, right?

I haven't even tried making those on my own yet, because every copycat recipe I came across online had some ingredient that made my food morals set off warning bells.  But I did come up with my own apple pie filling, and some delicious ways to use it!

Almond 5 Spice Snickerdoodles

There's something about fall and spices that just fits together right.  Spices are like a warming blanket, making your food soul-soothing and deliciously multi-faceted.  Whenever the temps outside start to drop, I start subconsciously moving towards foods with spice.  And it's not just me.  Think about what starts selling in fall: pumpkin SPICE, SPICED apple cider...we're just craving that warm feeling!

One spice blend that I adore is a good Chinese 5 Spice.  You can get it pre-mixed, or find several recipes for making your own throughout the internet.  I suggest getting it from a good quality spice company, for the most complex flavor.  Chinese 5 Spice is a blend of star anise, cloves, cinnamon, Szechuan pepper, and fennel. It's typically used in savory dishes, but I have found that I'm addicted to it in sweets. 5 Spice caramels?  Fageddaboutit.  Simply amazing.

So, once again, my culinary brain gets a bit twisted.  The kids and I made snickerdoodles the other week, and as we were rolling them in cinnamon and sugar, that inner kitchen alchemist in me whispered, "Chinese 5 Spice..."

Honey Nasturtium Muffins

So, I have to admit...the kitchen alchemist in me has been at work again.  This time, I present to you: Honey Nasturtium Muffins!

The inspiration behind this was pretty basic.  Flowers and honey.  I started looking at the nasturtiums growing in my garden and trying to think of new ways to use them.  Nasturtiums have a radish-like peppery flavor, and as I watch a bee dive in and out of flowers, I started thinking about how that might work with the sweetness of honey.

The rest, as they say, is history.

CSA: Summer Week 4 and Ground Cherry Crumble

Week 4 of our bi-weekly CSA share brought a huge bounty, and included some pleasant surprises.  

Beets, carrots, tomatoes, thyme, pattypan, onions, zucchini, potatoes, and summer squash, and u-pick options of both green beans and cherry tomatoes...which also included ground cherries!  Seeing as how we have cherry tomatoes out the wazoo in our home garden, we just went full out on the ground cherries.  I had to stop my middle kiddo from snacking her way through the bush as we picked, because she loves these little suckers so much.

We'll get back to those ground cherries soon, I promise.

CSA - Summer Week 3 and Summer Veg Empanadas with Kohrabi, Kale, and Summer Squash

Week 3 of the summer CSA was a huge haul:

Kohlrabi, cucumbers, zucchini, summer squash, potatoes, onions, lettuce, basil, and kale.  Leaning towards the green side this week, but I had some immediate thoughts as to what would be made in the kitchen.

Maple Coconut Oat Cookies

I'm sure I've mentioned before about how a lot of my childhood foods came out of cans and boxes, so I won't bore you with that again.  What I will say, is that it becomes problematic for me when it comes to comfort foods.

A Twist on Front Porch Gourmet's Rosemary Lavender Yeast Rolls

When Melissa from Front Porch Gourmet asked if anyone was up to do a little recipe swapping, I jumped at the opportunity!  She is one of those people that I can tell is as infatuated with food as I am, and she's always got yummy vittles up on her blog.  The one that caught my eye and my heart...and my stomach, and probably my stomach's heart too...was her recipe for Rosemary Lavender Yeast Rolls.  Yes, please!

Mint and Chocolate Blondies

Screw what botanists may say.  Mint is a weed.

I swear, it's taking over faster than I can keep up.  Right now, it's threatening my chard.  I need to arm my chard with swords and shields (and regular pulls of the mint).  The consistent rain mixed with gorgeous sun is great for all of the garden, but the mint has really been taking advantage lately.  So I've needed to find new way to get rid of...I mean, to use it.

Mint and chocolate were just made to go together, but for some reason, the thought of throwing mint into a brownie didn't really appeal to me. Not that I don't like mint brownies! I do, but usually the mint is done through extract, carrying through the brownie or in a frosting.  But then I started thing about a blondie.  The sweet, buttery base with bits of mint and chocolate chunks mixed through?  Yeah, that's the ticket!

Strawberry Bonanza Part 4 - Basil Angel Food Cake with Strawberry Sauce

I am a total sucker for homemade angel food cake.  And lucky for me, the hubs is as well.  Angel food cake is one of those super-impressive-yet-not-impossible-to-make dishes that I love to whip out on a special occasion.  Like, say, a Thursday.  The week's worn you down, but you still have to get through more before the weekend...Thursdays should totally be angel food cake day.