The Lazy Way to Apple Pie

Apple crisp is easier, less fuss, and, in my opinion, just as delicious (if not more so) than apple pie.  The method is simple: peel and chop some apples, throw them in a dish with a little water or lemon juice, sugar, and cinnamon, and stir.  Top this with a crumble that comes together in about 2 minutes and throw in an oven until browned and bubbling.

That's it.

Over the past couple weeks, I've taken to buying apples at the farmer's market.  The problem is, every week I try a new apple and every week I find myself eating through mediocre apples that aren't up to my (exacting) standards of crispness and sweet-tartness.  This week, however, I picked up some Snow Sweets and THEY. ARE. AWESOME.  Pure white on the inside, extremely crisp, sweet with a hint of tart.  Sort of like honeycrisp but with more character.  I won't have any trouble eating all of these out of hand, and bonus: I had a handful of the previous week's apples left in my crisper drawer.  Apple crisp it is!

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Apple Crisp

Ingredients

6-8 small/medium apples, peeled and chopped (enough to fill your baking pan of choice)

1/4 c. sugar

approx. 2-3 tsp cinnamon

pinch of salt

splash of water, lemon juice, or apple cider vinegar

1/2 c. flour

3/4 c. oats

1/4 c. sugar

pinch of salt

1/3 c. butter, cut in slices

1. Preheat oven to 375.  Peel and chop apples and combine with sugar, cinnamon, salt and liquid in a baking dish.

2. In separate bowl, combine flour, oats, sugar, and salt.  Work butter into flour mixture with your hands until crumbly and clumpy. 

3. Dump crumb mixture on top of apple mixture.

4. Bake until browned and filling is bubbling, somewhere between 30-45 minutes.

5. Serve with vanilla ice cream or frozen custard!

Walnut tart

First off, a disclaimer: I am from Missouri.  In Missouri, we call that the Midwest, but here in Wisconsin people say I'm from "the South," rolling it in their mouth a little to make it come out softer and with a drawl.  In retaliation (or maybe just reflexively), my words come out a li'l more slurred together, I start droppin' g's and syllables an' stringin' ever'thin' all togetha an' gen'rally livin' up t' th' expectations they already have 'bout the South.

Anyway.

The South has lots of great culinary traditions, things that I didn't realize were so embedded in my food culture until I moved away and found out that biscuits and gravy is not, in fact, a given at a breakfast joint, or that Waffle House is not on every highway exit, or that chicken-fried anything but chicken was confusing and needed to be explained.

One of my favorite dishes that make me think of home is pecan pie: ooey, gooey, cloyingly sweet with the generous crunch of pecans and a plain crust for a counterpoint.  Pecan pie has a poor cousin, though, that's equally delicious--the chess pie.  Chess pie is basically pecan pie without any pecans.  Sugar, eggs, butter, all baked together in a pastry crust until the custard is set.  I ran into a few variations of the chess pie via The Kitchn and quickly realized that this is probably the easiest pie to have in your arsenal.  Mix it up, throw it in a crust, bake: no need for slicing, dicing, fruit-pie thickeners, or lattice crusts.  Simple.

So, when I was craving something sweet and wanted to try out my new tart pan, here's what I did.  I used the basic recipe for chess pie here (and general ideas about pie crust from David Leibovitz here) and decided to ramp it up with some walnuts.  Then for good measure, I added chocolate chips.  Jus' cause, y'know?

Ooh, look!  A shiny new tart pan.  I brushed it with oil before
I started because it needed a li'l something to get it all seasoned this first time.

Walnut Tart
Crust
1c. flour
1-2t. sugar
pinch salt
4-8T. butter

Combine flour, sugar, and salt.
Cut the butter into chunks and work into the flour.  You can use a pastry cutter or a food processor or your fingers.
Add about 1/4 c. ice-cold water and mix.  Add cold water 1T at a time until the dough comes together and sticks to itself to form a ball. Cover and throw in the fridge to chill while you mix up the filling.

Mmm, walnut filling!

Filling
3/4c. brown sugar
2T. butter, softened
2 eggs
~1 c. walnuts, chopped

Cream the butter and sugar, then add eggs one at a time, mixing well between each egg.
Stir in the walnuts.

Now--make the tart:
Preheat the oven to 350F.
Pull the crust out and roll it out, or if like me you somehow didn't do it right and it's kind of crumbly, press it into the tart pan until the bottom and sides are covered evenly.

Operation: crust-in-pan is a success!

Pour the walnut mixture into the crust.
Sprinkle the chocolate chips over the top so they're dotted everywhere.

Are those...are those chocolate chips on top of that tart?  Why yes, yes they are!

Put the tart pan on a sheet pan so it's easy to pull out of the oven and bake for 35-40 minutes or until golden brown and puffed and set.

The chocolate chips kind of sink into the rest of the filling,
but don't worry!  They're there.

This is the hard part: let it cool before you eat it!  Or wait until it's partially cooled and cheat, like me.

End-of-summer galette

Nothing says summer like stone fruit: peaches, plums, nectarines--as soon as they hit rock-bottom prices at the store (and once the air hangs heavily with summer humidity), it's time to make pies or smoothies or just eat as many as you can out-of-hand.  My favorites are plums and nectarines.  (Peach fuzz still kinda weirds me out, you know?  But really good peaches are a mess to try and peel...thus, the nectarine.)  I was trying to find something easy to do with some nectarines because I just had tons of them and--much as I love them--I wanted to do more than just quarter them and munch on them as a snack.

My first creative use: salsa.  I forgot to take a picture of it.  (Shame on me, I know.  But I'm new at this!)  My summer research project involved working at a community garden, where they have a weekly cooking demo.  Last week's was fresh salsa, and I was inspired to make a fruity-spicy combo that went really great with plain tortilla chips.

Nectarine salsa (makes 1 bowl, serves 1 for dinner or a crowd at a party)

1 nectarine

1-2 banana peppers

half an onion

half a lime

salt

herbs of your choice

Method:

-Quarter the nectarine, remove the pit, and peel.  Dice medium to fine, depending on how you like your salsa.  I like this one pretty chunky.

-Dice the banana peppers the same size as the nectarine.  Be sure to remove the seeds before you dice them!

-Dice the onion and add it to the nectarine and peppers.  You can use red (a little sweeter, probably better) but I used white in a pinch and it worked fine.

-Juice the half a lime into the bowl of diced fruit and veg and add a pinch of salt.

-Mince some fresh herbs and add to the salsa.  I used a green onion and a few leaves of mint because that's what I had on hand, but the next time I made it I used a little basil and some chives--still good!  They just add some freshness and a brightness to the salsa.

-Mix everything up together and let it sit for a little if you can, or if you're like me just go ahead and eat 2/3 of the bowl right away with chips.

After I made the salsa (twice in two days), I decided it was time to go a little more traditional and make a dessert.  Pie always sounds like too much work, but I remembered that galettes are like pie but without the pan and are a little more forgiving.  I borrowed the base recipe for pie dough and general method from smitten kitchen, but I skipped the complicated parts (the ground almonds and the flour on the galette before I added the fruit).  

So...I couldn't wait.  I had to try a slice right away.

This galette used 2 1/2 nectarines...so almost 3, but I snacked on the scraps.  Basically, I think galettes are my new favorite dessert.  You make a pie dough, you roll it out, and then you slice and arrange your fruit in a pretty circle in the middle.  Leave about 2 inches or a little less around the circumference of the fruit so you have enough to tuck over the sides.  Then, I drizzled some honey over the top of the fruit, folded up the sides into pleats, and brushed the crust with egg.  A quick sprinkle of vanilla sugar and the whole thing went into the oven for I think 45 minutes.  

The directions said to transfer the galette right away to a cooling rack, which I did--the crust stayed nice and firm, with a hint of crackle as I bit into the sugared pastry.  It also said to wait 20 minutes before slicing, which I only barely managed to do.  But then I definitely had a slice.  Or two.  And I may or may not have eaten a big chunk of this for breakfast the next day.  (What?  It was around brunch time when I got up, anyway...)

This was the perfect way to end the summer.  But now it's off to school again...second year and the board exams looming!  

Enjoy the stone fruit while you can!

~Lindsey