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 Poached Pineapple

Some things are too good not to share.  But then again, some things are so good that you want to hoard them all to yourself, and hide in a closet eating a whole bowl of them without sharing with anyone else.  I'll let you decide where this one falls, but I will say this: Honey Poached Pineapple is a revelation.

I feel extremely lucky to have a library that appears to appreciate good cookbooks, and I recently checked out Fresh Happy Tasty, an amazing cookbook by Jane Coxwell.  It's a great source for flavor-packed recipes and gorgeous food-porn type photos.  On first skim, there were at least a dozen recipes that I couldn't imagine not trying, but this one stuck in my head the hardest.  The honey poached pineapple recipe looked simple, but my foodie senses were tingling, especially when she mentioned serving it with fresh mint, because mint and pineapple are one of those flavor combinations that make me absolutely swoon with happiness.  So, I grabbed a fresh pineapple and gave it a go!

It doesn't take long, and I know that a lot of people will scoff at the idea of cooking a pineapple in any way, but I'm telling you right now, this stuff is magical.  It's sweet, but has such great depth of flavor.  Your tongue and your belly will both be happy.  Happier than happy.  Ecstatic!

The original recipe called for half a pineapple, but really, what are you going to do with that other half?  Plus, once you taste the poached pineapple, you're immediately going to regret not making more, so why not just go all out and poach the whole thing?

Now, I'm not sure that I can pull off this first prep paragraph without sounding like a spoiled, pretentious snob, so please note the sarcastic tone in which I'm going to throw it all out there like Martha or Gwyneth, and please bear with me.

When preparing pineapple, I find it best to use the method of Hawaiian natives (or a girl who lived in Hawaii that I met once).  During my time on the islands (honeymoon, over a decade ago), our wonderful guide (on one river kayak tour) demonstrated this traditional (or not) method of slicing a fresh pineapple straight from the pineapple fields (or her knapsack), and I was enticed both by her skill and by the deliciousness of the pineapple (probably because I was starving from all the paddling and that was the first food we'd had in an hour or two).  As the scent of plumeria (which it turns out I am highly allergic too and spent a couple of days with a swollen face from sinus issues) filled the air, I knew that I had found my true Ohana (which means family...I learned that from Lilo and Stitch).

But seriously, that woman did wonders with a knife, and I have used her pineapple prep method ever since.

Cut off the top and the bottom of the pineapple.  Then cut it into quarters.  Slice the outside rind off in strips.  Then take out the hard core with an angled slice.  After that, you can cut it however you need for what you're making.  For this recipe, cut it into cubes, about an inch big.

In a large pan, stir together 2 cups of water and 1 cup of good honey.  Someday I'll write a post all about honey and bees, but for now, suffice it to say that my stance is to get your honey locally.  Bring that to a boil.

Add 2 cinnamon sticks, one vanilla bean that has been sliced lengthwise and had the seeds scraped into the mix, and the zest of an orange.

Reduce the heat and add the pineapple.  Give it all a stir.  The next trick is to take a sheet of parchment paper (the book calls for waxed paper, but you know how I love parchment paper) the size of your pan and crumple it up.  Then uncrumple it and place it on top of the pineapple brew in the pan.  It helps keep more of the liquid in the pan, which, believe you me, is a very good thing.

Simmer it gently for 12-15 minutes.  Check it once in a while to make sure that the simmer is not too vigorous.  The pineapple will deepen it's yellow color, and it should be tender.  And it will smell fantastic!

Take out the cinnamon stick and let it cool slightly before serving.  If you want, you can store it in the fridge for several days.  I took a couple of jars to a friend's house for brunch, and it was a hit with everyone who tried it.

The suggestions in the book are to try it over yogurt with a little granola.  Mine never made it that far.  My preferred method is to spoon it into a bowl and then eat every last morsel, including sipping the poaching liquid.

This dish is sweet enough to stand as a dessert as well, and would be great as a healthy end to a meal.  It's full of flavor, and feels like a real treat, but without a ton of added ingredients.  Truly phenomenal.

Beet Blondies

Are you guys sick of blondies yet?  Am I throwing too many out there?  Sorry, but I'm not sorry.  Blondies are dead simple to make, endlessly adaptable, and fricking delicious.  So I'm going to wrap this week of vegetables with a veggie blondie.  Beet Blondies with White Chocolate, to be specific.

Apple Spice Blondies

You all know how much I love a good blondie.  They are quick, easy, and delicious...all the things a recipe should be.  And while they aren't exactly a health food, they are rich and indulgent enough that a small serving can sooth even the most aggressive sweet cravings.

For fall, I've taken my basic blondie and appled it up a bit.  I give to you, the Apple Spice Blondie!

All the flavors of an apple pie, but in a thick, enjoyable, comforting blondie.  Here's what you do:

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..."

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.

Canning Cherries

I love country roads.  You just never know what kinds of goodies you'll find, hidden on those wooded bends, tucked in with the farms and streams.  The Hubs knows that if we see a farmstand on one of those country road drives, we're probably stopping.  And, trust me, he's usually glad that we do.

Such is how I came across all these fresh, sweet, delicious Michigan cherries.

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.

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!

Red, White, and Blue - A Zabaglione Love Story, and 4th of July Round-Up!

Fourth of July!

It's one of my favorite holidays, seriously.  Next to Thanksgiving, that is.  There's a pretty close race between the two.  But the Fourth of July holds many special memories and feelings for me.  My grandmother was born on the 4th of July, and this year will be celebrating her 90th birthday on that day.  The hubs celebrates his birthday less than a week later, so I always relate the holiday to him as well.  We have many special memories together out on a boat watching the fireworks, and the celebratory atmosphere filled with fun and love and food along with the intense sparkle of color seems like a fitting match for our relationship.  This year, I've finally attempted to make a dessert that also says a lot about us.

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.

Pesto for Dessert? Absolutely!

My kids are well aware of the weirdness that dances through my head, and sometimes, they are my best sounding boards.  So when I brought up the idea of a dessert pesto to them, I was expecting some good feedback.  What I got went a little like this:

"Hey guys, what do you think about me trying to make a dessert pesto?"

"Ew."
"Yeah, ew."
"Like with cheese?  Ew"

"No, not with cheese, sillies!  I was thinking of making it with mint."

"Mom, mint is NOT going to go well with garlic!"
"Yeah, totally ew."
"I'm not going to eat that."

Strawberry Bonanza Part 2 - Strawberry Rhubarb Blondies

You know that something is good when you see people's eyes sparkle when they first taste it.  Well, when my kids first tasted these Strawberry Rhubarb Blondies, not only did I see that sparkle, I also got tackled with hugs and praise.  Now if that isn't a seal of approval, I don't know what is!

Blondies are some of the simplest treats to bake up, and adding the trusty duo of strawberry and rhubarb makes them just irresistible!

Strawberry Bonanza Part 1 - Quick and Easy Strawberry Malts

This post is going to be short and sweet.  You see, the kids and I went strawberry picking today, and I may have been a little greedy...we picked 8 buckets of berries, roughly 54 pounds in all, in just under an hour out in the fields.

Turns out, 54 pounds is a LOT of strawberries.  So I've spent most of the day in the kitchen, trying to get them taken care of, because fresh strawberries don't keep well for very long.  So I'm pretty beat.

But after we got home from picking, I made a special treat for the kids.  All right, it was as much for me as it was for them.  Strawberry malts.

Brown Butter Basil Caramels

Oh my yum.

I want to write something witty, I really do, but my brain is not quite all there today.  Long story involving giggly third graders sleeping over and sleep deprivation, and, quite possibly, sugar overload from sampling this recipe of caramels I just made.

Brown butter basil caramels.

Gingery Gingered Ginger Cashews

Do you like ginger?  I mean, really REALLY like ginger?  Here's yet another variation on easy candied nuts: Ginger Cashews.

I knew I wanted to make some candied cashews with candied ginger, and I was trying to figure out what liquid I wanted to use to make the syrup.  Then, something clicked.  Ginger beer!  How many ways could I slip ginger in?  I could use fresh ginger in the syrup too!  And why not just go for the gusto and add powdered ginger as well?  

Rhubarb Cake with Cornmeal

I don't consider myself much a a baker, but that doesn't mean that I can't bake.  I just prefer simple recipes, and most of the things I like to bake are very straightforward and rustic.  In my mind, bakers are the ones who make complicated confections that are meticulously decorated...not that that's true, but in my headspace, that's what I think of when I think "baker".

This rhubarb cake is a perfect representation of my kind of baking.  It uses rhubarb right from my backyard.  It takes only a short time (with a little prep) to throw together.  It might not be the prettiest cake on the block to look at, but you will melt into a satisfied puddle of goo after tasting it.  It's a very moist cake, but the cornmeal gives makes it more interesting for your mouth, and the pops of tempered rhubarb tartness...wow.