Sweet Potato Hash

My little cold from last week morphed into something much grosser, and I have not really felt like cooking at all this week. I've barely felt like eating. But last night I summoned the energy to try out an idea that had been swimming around in my head for awhile. I'm supposed to be eating more sweet potatoes (so says the nutritionist/trainer that visits our little apartment gym once a month) and even though I do love them just baked with a little butter and cinnamon, I wanted to try something different.

The apple might sounds strange, but trust me it adds a great flavor to the dish that works really well with the sweet potatoes and the sage. If you're not a fan of bacon, you could substitute olive oil, but I think the bacon really gives the dish a lot of flavor, so it would probably be better to reduce the amount used before eliminating it all together. We had these with dinner, but they would be a great dish for a brunch. And the recipe is easy to scale up or down based on how many people you are serving.

Sweet Potato Hash
Serves 2

Ingredients:
2 sweet potatoes
4 strips of medium-cut bacon
1/2 medium apple (I used Gala), diced small
2 tsp. fresh sage, chopped

Directions:
-Poke holes in the sweet potatoes and bake in a 400 degree oven for 40 to 50 minutes. The potatoes should give a little when you poke them.
(Shortcut: Poke holes and microwave each potato for five minutes or until softened.)
-Let the potatoes rest until they are cool enough to handle.
-In the meantime, chop the bacon into cubes, about 1/2 inch across. Cook the bacon over moderate heat in a large frying pan, until the fat starts to reduce from the bacon and the bacon gets crispy.
-When the potatoes are cool enough to handle, pull the skin off. (It should come off fairly easy, you shouldn't need a peeler.) Dice the sweet potato into large squares.
-When the fat has reduced from the bacon, add the diced apples and sweet potatoes to the pan, then the chopped sage. Toss (or gently stir) to combine. Cook over moderate heat for 5 minutes, or until the apples become slightly tender.
-Season with salt and pepper and serve.

Fennel & Apple Salad w/Pecans

I never got around to posting that leftover turkey potpie recipe, did I? But I have a good excuse. I made it, but I didn't measure anything or take a picture. Then I was going to make it again to write down the measurements and snap a few photos...but then I realized I was so. sick. of. turkey. O well, you are too, right?

Here is something better--a light and beautiful salad with a really interesting combination of flavors. The hint of licorice flavor from the paper-thin slices of fennel plays off the sweet apple, which is also sliced into thin leaves. The simple lemony dressing brings the salad together, and the pecans add the perfect crunchy compliment. This dish includes seasonal ingredients without being heavy, which can sometimes be a challenge this time of year when the fresh produce lends itself more to hearty, heavy foods.

I served this salad with pan-seared halibut, simply seasoned with salt and pepper and served with ginger butter. Nic decided to make his into a sandwich, and I'm so glad he did. The halibut, ginger butter, and fennel and apple salad made a truly delicious fish sandwich, even if it was not particularly photogenic. Nic loved it so much, he called his dad to tell him about it before he even finished eating. (The halibut came from Nic's dad after all of ours went bad in the aforementioned freezer debacle.)

When my mom left a bulb and a half of fennel in my fridge last weekend, I had no idea what I was going to do with, but I'm so glad that she left it. Otherwise, I would have never thought to make this. I grew up eating fennel or finocchio, the Italian word for this vegetable (I didn't know the name for it in English until I was an adult), but only around Christmas time and usually by itself, picked from a plate with celery sticks and black olives.


I got to use my slicer for the first time to create the leafy apple and fennel slices. You could also use a mandolin, but this little guy is cheaper. You can get one at most kitchen stores, this one is from Williams-Sonoma. You might even be able to use a good vegetable peeler, but I haven't tried that. The best part about dinner tonight? The entire meal came together in 20 minutes.

Fennel & Apple Salad
Makes 2 large servings

Ingredients:
1 bulb fennel
1 apple (about the same size as the fennel bulb)
juice from one lemon
1 to 2 tsp. olive oil
1/8 to 1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup roughly chopped pecans

Directions:
- Cut off the root end of the fennel. Using a mandolin or another kitchen gadget, thinly slice the the bulb of the fennel, stopping when you get to the stalks. (These can be reserved for another use.) Use the tool to do the same thing with the apple, turning to slice all sides and stopping before you get to the core.
-In a large bowl combine the fennel and the apple with the lemon juice, olive oil and salt and toss to combine.
-Plate the salad and top with chopped pecans. Garnish with fronds from fennel top.

Cran-Apple Pie...Better Than Raisin

It's really all in the title, everything you need to know.

This is my replacement for that goofy raisin pie on my original Thanksgiving menu that turned out to be such a dud. But this pie wasn't just better than the raisin pie, it was really great, in my humble opinion. I love the slight sweetness and the tangy tartness in this pie. I like apple pie by itself, but the addition of the fresh cranberries made this a much more interesting dessert with a more complex flavor. I did use the pie crust recipe from the raisin pie though, and it was nice and flaky.

I have been using fresh cranberries so much lately, I don't know what I'm going to do when they disappear from the markets. I think I might have to stock up on them and freeze them to make them last longer!

Cran-Apple Pie
Makes 1 standard pie

Ingredients:
2 1⁄2 cups flour
1⁄2 tsp. salt
2 tbs. sugar+ extra for the top
1⁄2 lb. chilled butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 cup ice cold water
4 cups tart apples, cored and sliced (about 5 medium apples)
1 cup fresh cranberries
1/2 cup sugar
2 tbs. orange juice
2 tbs. cornstarch
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 egg white

Directions:
-Combine flour, salt, and sugar in a large bowl. Cut the chilled butter into very small pieces and add to flour mixture. Cut the butter into the flour using a pastry blender or two knives until the butter is in pieces the size of peas. Add ice-cold water to the mixture a few tablespoons at a time until the dough comes together. Form the dough into two balls, wrap in plastic wrap, and put it in the fridge for at least two hours.
-Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
-Combine apples, cranberries, sugar, orange juice, cornstarch cinnamon and nutmeg, and toss until combined.
-Roll out each piece of dough separately. (This is easier between two pieces of parchment paper.)
-Place the first piece of dough in the pie dish, pour in the fillings. Cover the top of the pie with the second piece of dough and seal the edges. Cut four vent holes in the top of the pie. Place the pie on a cookie sheet to catch any overflow from the pie.
-Brush the top 0f the pie with the egg white and then sprinkle with sugar.
-Bake for 45 minutes. Cover the crust with foil if it starts to get too dark.

NOTE:For a larger, deep dish pie multiply the recipe by 1.5 and bake covered with foil for 30 minutes, then uncovered for 30 minutes more.

Apple and Caramelized Onion Pizza

First, thank you to everyone who commented on their mom's best dishes, it was a lot of fun reading about those. I made my mom guess the five foods I listed (since she rarely reads this blog), and she got most of them right away, although the corned beef and cabbage threw her off. After blogging about all the good food my mom makes on Monday, Monday night I got to make dinner for my mom and dad for the first time in my apartment! They came down to visit for Veteran's Day, and we went to Mt. Vernon and this amazing cheese store in Del Ray called Cheesetique, which I will have to write more about later.

Monday night for dinner I made this apple and caramelized onion pizza with cream of mushroom soup (coming soon!) and salad. The meal turned out really delicious, and everyone liked the pizza, especially the caramelized onions. My mom and Nic both told me that it would have been better with Gorgonzola cheese instead of cheddar, and although I hate to admit when either of them are right, I think it might be true. You couldn't really taste the flavor of the cheddar even though it was sharp because the apples and caramelized onions had such a strong taste. The original recipe didn't call for caramelized onions, but they definitely made the pizza much more interesting than it would have been with just apples. They also made it feel more like a savory dish as opposed to a dessert. And of course, I love anything you can make with puff pastry because it means I don't have to struggle with making my own dough. I will definitely be making some variation on this next time I have company over.

Apple and Caramelized Onion Pizza
Adapted from Gourmet

Ingredients:
1 frozen puff pastry sheet, thawed and rolled out to 15X12 inches
2 tbs. bread crumbs
3 1/2 tbs. butter, divided
3 medium apples, cored and thinly sliced
3 tbs. sugar
dash of salt
2 medium yellow onions, thinly sliced
1 cup grated sharp white cheddar (or substitute Gorgonzola)

Directions:
-Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
-Melt 2 tbs. butter on medium-low heat in a skillet. Add onions and cover. Cook over medium-low heat covered for 25-30 minutes or until the onions are a dark caramelized color. Try not to lift the lid often.
-Roll out the puff pastry on a flour surface with a floured rolling pin. Transfer to baking sheet and poke holes in the surface with a fork. Sprinkle the dough with breadcrumbs.
-Combine apples with 1 1/2 tbs. melted butter, then add sugar and salt and mix.
-Spread thin layer of apples on dough, leaving a one inch margin around all of the sides. Fold the puffy pastry edges up and over the edge of the apples.
-Bake for 35 to 40 minutes until apples are tender. Spread the caramelized onions on top of the apples then sprinkle with cheese and bake for an additional 5-10 minutes, until the cheese is slightly browned and bubbly.

Caramel Apple Muffins

Last weekend we finally went apple picking, on the last possible day before the closest orchard to us in Virginia closed. We had the camera all ready to go, and then forgot it on the kitchen counter. Of course. The orchard was beautiful, and the day was perfect. It was warm and sunny, for early November, and the hills were covered in fall colors. We had a blast pulling the apples off the trees with the hooky basket contraptions they give you. Maybe we had too much fun, because we ended up with 20 pounds of Stayman and York apples (and a gallon of apples cider). I don't know if this happens to anyone else, but when you are in the open air, it never seems like that much fruit. Then when you get it into your kitchen it expands exponentially. How does that work?

I've been eating apples with cheddar cheese, apples with homemade caramel, and apple pie all week. (I'm not a fan of my apple pie. My poppop's is better.) As a side note, making caramel is not nearly as hard as I thought it would be. I read David Lebovitz's Ten Tips for Making Caramel and How to Make Perfect Caramel, got totally freaked out and afraid it would be a disaster/a third degree burn, then proceeded to use this Smitten Kitchen recipe. Easy breezy. No burns, and I even burn myself straightening my own hair in the morning.

So basically after consuming copious amounts of raw apples+topping, I felt like I should bake them into something. My aforementioned pie was still in the fridge less than half eaten, and I didn't want another desert sitting around that I would feel guilty wasting and guilty eating.

I adapted this muffin recipe from the power muffin recipe I usually use, so these are actually a decently healthful breakfast. Since I had the homemade caramel in the refrigerator I decide to use that to sweeten the muffins instead of just sugar. They aren't actually super caramelly because I didn't use that much, in the interest of keeping them from being calorie bombs, but they are tasty. I also made the applesauce to use in the muffins so that I could use up some more apples before they start to get funky. I only used 3 tbs. sugar to 10 small apples this time for the applesauce, so it was not as sweet as store bought applesauce.



Caramel Apple Muffins
Makes 12

Ingredients:
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
2 eggs
1 cup apple cider (or juice)
1/2 cup applesauce
1 1/2 cups apples, diced small
1/2 cup caramel

Directions:
-Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Grease a muffin pan with cooking spray or fill with paper muffin cups.
-Mix the first seven dry ingredients (up to and including baking soda) in a large bowl. Beat the eggs and stir in the apple cider and applesauce.
-Add wet ingredients to the dry mix. Stir until combined, then fold in the caramel and the diced apples. (Microwave the caramel for 20 seconds if it is not runny.)
-Spoon into muffin tin. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Yum.

Cheating Tastes So Good

I had a peck of apples. I thought about pie, I really did, but crust scares the be-geebies out of me. I'm sure I could make it, I'm just not sure I could get it right the first, second, or third time. And I was just not feeling a 10-tries-to-get-it-perfect recipe tonight. So I cheated. I bought puff pastry and made these AMAZING apple turnovers instead.


Holy moly, I don't know if I'll ever even bother with pie after these bad boys. They were light and crispy, tart and sweet, so good I actually thought about not taking them to work to share. (But then I remembered I was supposed to be training for a marathon. I can see these really improving my time.) Nic and I rarely get really excited about sweets. We're more of savory people. But we're both in love with these. There probably won't be many more apple recipes on here in the near future. I might just dedicate all my apples to these. Seriously. SO GOOD. Make them immediately.

Apple Turnovers
Inspired by Williams-Sonoma (A kid's recipe, I might add, that started with "make sure a grown-up is nearby." Check.)

Ingredients:
2 1/2 large, TART apples (1 1/4 lbs.)
juice of 1 lime
1/3 cup granulated sugar+some for dusting
1 tbs. all-purpose flour+some for rolling pastry
pinch of salt
1/2 tsp. vanilla
14 oz. puff pastry, thawed
1 egg
1 tsp. water

Directions:
-Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray a cookie sheet (or two, mine's huge) with non-stick cooking spray.
-Squeeze lime into medium sauce pot. Peel, core, and cube apples and put in pot with lime to keep from browning.
-Stir in 1/3 cup sugar, 1 tbs. flour, and a pinch of salt to apples and lime juice.
-Cook apple mixture over medium heat, covered, for 5 minutes. Stir once or twice. Cook until the juices start to thicken into a syrupy liquid and the apples get a little bit softer. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.
-Sprinkle flour on a work surface to roll out puff pastry. (Keep it in the fridge until the very last minute.) Sprinkle more flour on top of pastry and roll out until double in size. (My puff pastry came in one, large 14 oz. piece. To make this easier, I cut the pastry into four parts first, then rolled out each part individually until double in size.)
-Cut the puff pastry into eight even squares. They should be about 5-6 inches wide.
-Beat one egg with 1 tsp. water for egg wash.
-One by one assemble the turnovers on the baking sheet. Place the puff pastry on the sheet. Spoon about 1/3 cup of apple mixture onto one half of the square, not too close to the edge. (Don't over fill. Make sure you can actually turnover the dough.) Brush two edges of the pastry square with egg wash. Fold half the square over the filling to form a triangle. Use a fork to seal the edges. And repeat seven more times. (There might be a little extra apple filling.*)
-Brush all the turnovers with egg mixture and sprinkle lightly with sugar. Poke a hole in the top of each turnover with a paring knife.
-Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the pastry is golden brown, firm, and dry.
-Cool for 10 minutes.

Try not to eat them all before they cool.

*I used mine in a mini-apple crumb. Just top with oatmeal+brown sugar+butter mixture in a very small baking dish or souffle cup.

Peek-a-boo.

Pumpkin Cake w/ Apple Streusel

My friend MK loves pumpkin. So I knew that I had to incorporate it into her birthday cake somehow. Luckily, I found this recipe in a cookbook I borrowed from the library recently, The New Whole Grains Cookbook. This has to be brief because I am about to run out the door on my way to Baltimore. I only made a few changes, namely I used three apples instead of four, I used gala apples instead of granny smith, I added pecans to the streusel topping, and instead of 2 tbs. of pumpkin spice I made my own spice mixture. So if you want the original recipe you can make those changes back.

The result was a pumpkiny, spicey, pretty heavy cake. You only need a very small slice. But it taste very much like fall, with the two main in-season baking ingredients both part of this cake.

Pumpkin Cake w/ Apple Streusel
Adapted from The New Whole Grains Cookbook

Ingredients:
3 tbs. + 1/2 cup unsalted butter
3 gala apples, peeled, cored, and thinly sliced
5 tbs. granulated white sugar
1 tsp. + 3/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. ginger
1/8 tsp. all spice
1/8 tsp. cloves
1 tsp. baking soda
3/4 cup canned pumpkin puree
1/3 cup sour cream
2 large eggs
1/4 cup chopped pecans.

Directions:
-Preheat oven to 350 degrees and butter and flour a 9" spring form pan (should be at least 3" deep).
-Dice 1/2 cup butter and let it come to room temperature.
-Melt 3 tbs. butter in saute pan, and saute the apples over medium high heat until soft, about 5 minutes. Add 3 tbs. of white sugar and 1 tsp. cinnamon to the apples. Toss and cook until the liquid is thick and bubbly.
-Combine flour, brown sugar, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer. Add the diced butter and mix until the butter is broken up into little pieces. Measure 2/3 cup of the mixture into a small bowl for streusel.
-Add 2 tbs. white sugar, 3/4 tsp. cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, all spice, cloves, and pecans to streusel topping.
-To the stand mixer bowl, add baking soda, pumpkin, sour cream, and eggs. Beat until smooth and pour into pan.
-Top the batter in the pan with the apples, then with the streusel. (I didn't end up using all of the streusel. I just added until the apples were covered.)
-Bake for 40-5o minutes or until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. (Apple and streusel on the skewer doesn't count.)
-Cool and serve.

Apple Cider Bread

In case you missed it, I started baking two weeks ago. Unfortunatly after one successful baked good, I got way too ambitious, and last week I tried to make gluten-free oatmeal chocolate banana mini muffins (sooo many ingredients!) for one of my co-workers who can't eat gluten. They weren't horrible, but they definitely need some "perfecting." They were not good enough to be posted because if anyone made them they would never make one of my recipes again. But the gluten-free baked goods you get in the store must be really horrible, because my co-worker thought these were great in comparison.

I decided I needed to back up and just make something from someone else's recipe. Then I saw this Chai-Spiced Bread on the Sweet Savory Southern blog, and it sounded too good not to try. It went really well with the dinner I made for friends Saturday. One small problem with the recipe. It says to wait two hours for the bread to cool before slicing. That bread was LONG gone before two hours went by.

Well if you can make bread that tastes like a chai latte you should be able to tweak the recipe and make bread that tastes like apple cider right? RIGHT. And it is moist, yummy, not too sweet, and absolutely addicting to eat. I think making the bread with whole wheat flour gives it more substance, and I like the taste better, but you can substitute all purpose flour if you prefer.



Apple Cider Bread
Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup apple cider
1/3 cup skim milk
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/8 tsp. all spice
1/8 tsp. cloves
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. salt
crushed pecans for topping

Directions:
-Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 9X5" loaf pan with shortening or cooking spray.
-Beat butter and sugar in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until fluffy. Beat in eggs, cider, milk and vanilla. Stir in flour, baking powder, cinnamon, all spice, cloves, nutmeg and salt until well combined. Spread in pan and sprinkle top with crushed pecans.
-Cook 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
-Cool on wire rack for 10 minutes. Then remove from pan.

Apples, apples, everywhere

For some reason I thought it was a good idea to buy a "tote bag" of apples last week. I eat one apple a day, max. And Nic is pretty uninterested in apples. Days later I still had a big bowl of apples, a festive center piece, but not going anywhere fast. It was already way too late to make apple pie. (I say that like I would have made a pie if it was earlier. I wouldn't.) But apple sauce, now that I can handle. It must be the easiest thing to make ever. And with apple season in full swing, at least here on the East coast, this is the perfect way to use up extra apples when you're tired of making your pies.


First you peel, core and dice the apples. For this batch I used 6 apples, but that doesn't make very much. Maybe 3-4 servings. So you should double or triple the recipe if you want a lot. (P.S. Taking pictures of hands is not easy! That or I have really un-photogenic hands.)

Then you put the apples in a sauce pan with 1/4 cup apple cider, 1/4 cup brown sugar and 1/2 tsp. cinnamon. Simmer for 20 minutes covered. Mash the apples for a chunky sauce or throw them in the food processor for something smoother.

And you're done!