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!

Home Is Wherever Your Family Is

This is my first Thanksgiving away from home.

I know many of my friends have spent their Thanksgivings elsewhere--on campus during undergrad, or with their partner's family, or just on their own--whether because travel was too expensive or because their family was in the middle of shaking up the established order of Thanksgiving rituals, or because for them, Thanksgiving was never a huge holiday.  I always felt saddened by this because for me, Thanksgiving is my absolute favorite holiday.

Thanksgiving in general tends to be a warm and fuzzy holiday: good food, family ties, woolly sweaters and maybe a fire in the fireplace, with the weather getting just cold enough outside for the deck to be a secondary fridge for leftovers (well-protected from raccoons and squirrels, of course).  Even better, my family has a tradition of eating the Thanksgiving meal in the early afternoon--usually around 1 pm--so that the rest of the day can be spent in a cycle of napping, playing Scrabble or Trivial Pursuit, and snacking on leftovers.

When I realized I would have to work on Thanksgiving (people get sick on Thanksgiving, too), I knew I wouldn't be able to go home to my family.  Even if I had the day of Thanksgiving itself off, I have to work on Wednesday and Friday, so going home was out of the question.  Luckily, my brother also decided this year that going home was too far for him to travel.  Instead, he is driving down from the UP and will stay with me, and then on the weekend we will visit our cousin who lives in Chicago now (much cheaper & more manageable than going all the way home to KC).

As the days get closer to the holiday, I started to get the itch to make all the traditional Thanksgiving foods--if we can't go home, maybe I can conjure up all our traditions here.  A few quick searches later and I needed  to make a (rapidly-growing) list of items from the store to make the foods that must be on my Thanksgiving table:
-Turkey breast (for my carnivore brother)
-Trader Joe's vegan "turkey" roast (they were sampling it in the store...it was delicious!) for me
-Mashed potatoes (my spin: with roasted garlic)
-Green bean casserole
-Corn casserole
-Dinner rolls
-Pumpkin pie
+/- some optional dishes that seemed like they should appear, though by now my grocery list was a mile long:
-stuffing (inside of acorn squash from my garden?)
-cranberry sauce (maybe I'll go with the can?)

I have a deep, wide ceramic pasta dish that looks like a flying saucer--I'll be able to bake the stuffing, green bean casserole, and corn casserole together.  Make the pie, rolls, and peel the potatoes the night before and I actually think this is pretty doable.

I'm actually excited to give this a try...preparing a meal like this one takes coordination and a considerable amount of hubris, I suppose, to try and recreate my mother's cooking.  I'm also pretty excited to have my own veggie "turkey" option.  But mostly, I'm just happy and thankful that I'll still get to see some of my family for the holiday.  Even if I can't go home, having my brother here and my cousin a short drive away make it feel like home is actually all around me.

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Recipes

Green bean casserole
1 bag frozen green beans, French cut
~4 oz portabella mushrooms, sliced
1 small onion, diced
2-3 T. butter
2-3 T. flour
~1 c. milk, warmed
S&P
French's fried onions (you have to.  It's required.)

1. Saute the mushrooms and onions in the butter.  S&P to taste.
2. Stir in the flour until the butter is soaked up (should be about equal amounts).  Cook for about a minute.
3. Whisk in the milk and bring to a boil, stirring constantly, for a minute until the bechamel thickens.
4. Mix in the green beans and spread in a baking dish.
5. Bake at 350 for ~20 minutes, then top with the fried onions and bake another 10-15 minutes, until sauce is bubbly and onions are toasted (but not brown!)

Corn casserole (also known as scalloped corn, corn pudding, and other names)
1 can creamed corn
1 can corn, drained
1/4 c. butter, melted
2 eggs
1 c. sour cream
1 box Jiffy corn bread mix
S (just a bit) &P
optional add-ins (dice or finely chop):
bell pepper
onions
pickled jalapenos, or a can of green chilis, drained
anything your heart desires

1. Mix together all ingredients
2. Bake at 350 30-40 minutes until a knife comes out cleanly.

Mashed potatoes with roasted garlic
potatoes
butter, cubed
cream
roasted garlic
generous S, some P

1. Peel potatoes if desired and cut into medium chunks (the night before if necessary--just keep completely covered in water)
2. Boil potatoes until fork-tender, then drain.
3. Return to the pot in which they were boiled (this will help them dry off a little) and add in butter, roasted garlic, and a splash or two of cream. S&P to taste.
4. Mash by hand, or if you prefer really smooth potatoes, with an electric hand-mixer.
5. You can also add softened cream cheese, herbs, & other seasonings.

Soft dinner rolls (adapted from several recipes around the web, but it's basically a lightly-enriched yeast dough that you roll into balls and bake in a 9x13 pan)
1 T. yeast
1/2 c. warm water
1 c. warm milk
2 T. sugar
2 T. melted butter or oil
1 t. salt
~4 c. flour

1. Combine water, milk, and sugar in a large bowl.  Sprinkle yeast on top and let sit for a couple minutes until it looks bubbly.
2. Stir in melted butter and salt.
3. Add in 3 cups of flour, then add flour in 1/4 to 1/2 cup increments until a soft but workable dough forms.
4. Cover and let rise until doubled, 20-30 minutes.
5. Flour a work surface and pat into a rectangle.  Cut rectangle into six strips (halve, then each half into thirds). Cut each strip into 4 pieces = 24 rolls.
6. Take each piece of dough and palm it, then roll against a surface til the edges are tucked under and it's nice and round.  Place in a greased 9x13 pan.  Repeat with remaining dough.
7. Cover with greased plastic wrap and let rise until doubled.
8. Bake at 400F for 20minutes until brown on top.  You can also brush them with melted butter before you bake them so they brown even better.

Pumpkin pie
I use the recipe on the can of Libby's pumpkin!  I think it calls for evaporated milk, eggs, pumpkin, spices, and sugar.  Very traditional.
No-roll pie crust from Allrecipes:
1.5 c. flour
1/2 c. oil
1/4 c. cold water
pinch salt
1-2 t. sugar

1. Mix pie crust ingredients together.  Press into the bottom and sides of the pie pan to an even thickness.
2. Pour in pumpkin pie filling and bake according to directions.

Fall Means Apple Butter

When I was little, my mom and I made apple butter every year.  There was a specific ritual to it: we'd go to the apple farm to get a good deal on a huge bag of apples (a peck? half a bushel?), make sure we had new lids for the canning jars, and got to work.

My job was to cut up the apple quarters into tiny pieces.  One of the first times I remember being allowed to help, I must have been maybe seven years old.  My mom and Gammy were much faster--one of them would quarter, core, and peel the apples while the other would chop.  My "job" was really just to keep me busy, I'm pretty sure.

After the invention of the slap-chop thingamajigger, my job became much more important.  Mom would keep the apple quarters coming, and I would slam the handle down in rapid-fire mode until the apple pieces were pulverized.  

The rest of the day only got better from chopping apples.  We would make our apple butter in huge batches in a Nesco turkey roaster oven so that we had enough to give as gifts and to eat all year long, and once all the ingredients were cooking I got to lift the lid periodically and take the longest-handled spatula we owned to stir the bubbly, spicy, molten apple lava.

The end of the day was the best part, though.  If you make apple butter, there is absolutely no way to know that it has been properly made unless you taste it on homemade bread.  Once the apples had been cooking for a long time--usually early afternoon--Mom would make a couple loaves of country white bread. She had a knack for timing it so that the loaves were cooling while we sterilized and canned the apple butter.  There always seemed to be the right amount left for a bowlful of scrapings that we dipped into with spoons, smearing the mahogany-colored preserve over the fresh bread.

The jars of apple butter we processed in a hot water bath for ten minutes, taking them out and letting them cool upside down on a towel on the counter top.  After an hour or so we turned them right side up and I always tried to listen for the pop as the cooling air inside the jar set the seal.

This ritual of making apple butter was so ingrained in my experience of fall that when I went to college freshman year, I woke up one September morning craving apple butter.  When I called my mom a few days later, she actually told me that she had made her yearly batch of apple butter that weekend!  Somehow I must have known it was an apple butter day, even four hours away from home.

If you have a crockpot, apple butter is a cinch to make--prep it in the afternoon and let it cook on low all night, and you can make bread in the morning and have it for breakfast.  If you make it on the stove, it only takes a couple hours for it to come together (and less if you have friends to help you chop apples).

Apple Butter

makes 7 or so jars

1/2 peck + a few apples, any kind*

1/4 c. white vinegar

3-4c. sugar

4 T. cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1/4 tsp salt

Quarter the apples.  These are Golden Delicious
from the farmer's market.

 

1. Peel, core, and chop the apples to small-to-medium pieces.  The bigger the pieces, the chunkier the final product.  If you like yours thick and spreadable, chop the apples smaller.

Seems like I've cut up so many!  Not nearly enough.
Keep going!

This is half a peck of apples, quartered.

This step takes a while.  Cut out the core from each
quarter and peel them.  I ended up using this many plus another 1/3 of this bowl of apples--enough to fill my dutch oven.

Chop the apple quarters into small pieces.  I cut them
lengthwise into thirds or fourths, then chopped them crosswise.

 2. Put all the apples in either a large crockpot or a dutch oven.  Add the vinegar, sugar, and spices to the apples and stir until the spices are well-distributed.

Add the other ingredients to the apples and turn on the heat to medium.

3. If using a crockpot, turn on high until it starts to bubble, then switch to low heat.  If using the stove top method, turn heat to medium.

It only took a couple minutes for them to start getting juicy!

 4. Cook in the crockpot on low overnight or on high 8-ish hours, until the apple butter has reached a pleasing consistency (up to you) and color.  You might have to switch to high heat and take the lid off to evaporate some of the liquid and make it thicken up.

Stove top method: once the apple juices are bubbling, turn the heat to medium-low and stir frequently to prevent bubbling over.

Bubble, bubble, bubble.  Be sure to stir every 5 minutes or so
or you might get scorched apple butter on the bottom.

This is maybe an hour in.  It's cooking down a lot and
the apples are getting softer.

 5. Once some of the liquid starts to evaporate, check out how the consistency is coming along.  If the apple butter is getting thick without changing to a deep cinnamon-brown, you can add a little water, put a lid on the dutch oven, and turn the heat down lower to give it enough moisture to cook for longer.  If it's coming along nicely, skip that part and let the juices cook out until you get a consistency you like.  Be aware that as the liquid evaporates, you'll need to stir more frequently to prevent scorching.

(Almost) finished!  It reduced in volume by about 50%.
I let it cook a little longer with the lid on, on very low heat,
so that the bigger pieces softened up and the butter looked darker.

6. Once the apple butter is done, you're ready to go!  You can can it at this point--and if this is your plan, while the preserves are cooking you might want to wash and sterilize your jars in a big stock pot of water so that hot apple butter goes into hot jars.  Otherwise, you can keep the apple butter in the fridge for a reasonably long time (several months--like a jam.  The sugar/vinegar/cooking helps preserve it).  I have trouble getting jars of apple butter to last that long, though.  This recipe made enough for 7 peanut butter or regular jelly jars (I recycle the glass ones--they make great pantry containers).

7. Enjoy the scrapings from the pot (or whatever won't fit into your jars) on a slice of fresh bread.  Or, you could get a nice rustic loaf from the bakery/store and toss it in the oven on low for a few minutes to warm it up.  If you're feeling super-nice, share with friends.  Otherwise, hoard it til next fall.

Cheater French Onion Soup

If I had to pick one soup to eat for the rest of my life...it'd probably be French onion.  (It might be tomato soup, but I think it'd depend on the day you ask.)  There is something fantastic about the simplicity of it: onions, cooked slowly until they turn a dark, caramel brown; a few simple seasonings; a rich broth; and of course, a toasted, melty, cheesy crust of bread on top sopping up the juices.

There's just one problem.  French onion soup takes a long time to make.  I mean, caramelized onions are no joke--you have to cook them over low heat for half an hour or forty-five minutes before you're even close to ready, and then you have to add everything else and give it some time to simmer together....By the time you're lapping up the dregs from the bottom of your soup crock you've been hungry (and smelling soup-makings) for hours.

Well, I offer you a simple solution: cheat.

That's right, I said it.  Cheat.

Last year I was perusing foodgawker and the like and came upon a wondrous claim: that, by employing the miracle machine that is the crock pot, one could make caramelized onions without any effort or waiting or constant attention.  Turns out, it's really simple.  Combine pre-caramelized onions with a little vegetable (or beef, if you're into that) broth, some thyme, salt, and pepper, and a cheesy toast-thing for dipping, and you're good to go.

Caramelized onions
6-8 large yellow onions
2 T butter

-Halve and peel the onions, then slice evenly in the direction of your choosing.  (I went cross-grain, but you could julienne, too, if you prefer.  Not sure what difference, if any, it would make.)
-Put the butter in the bottom of a large crock pot. Throw all the onions on top of the butter, until the crock pot is full.
-Cook on high for a few hours to get things going, then turn down the heat.  Cook until the onions are caramelized to your taste.*

Yield: about 6-7 cups.  I put a jarful in the fridge, used some immediately, and froze two containers' worth.

*Note: I foolishly started mine at around 6pm, so at around 9 they were just starting to turn pale beige.  I turned the heat to low and went to bed, and they were perfect the next morning.

Cheater French Onion Soup
serves 1
1/4 to 1/2 c. caramelized onions
1 tsp vegetable bouillon mix or 1 veg bouillon cube
S&P to taste
dash of dried thyme
1 to 1 1/2 c. water

Combine all ingredients in a pot.  Simmer until warmed through.  Serve with cheesy toast things. 

Ready to be packed for lunch: in the bottom, caramelized onions.
Top right, dried thyme; bottom right, bouillon paste.

Cheesy toast things
favorite cheese
bread

Put cheese on bread.  Broil until bubbly.

Added hot water, stirred it around, and
let it sit for a few minutes.  Instant soup!

***
Here's how I cheated even more.  I packed this for lunch--our cafeteria has a hot water dispenser, so I put my onions and seasonings into a jar, packed cheese and crackers to eat on the side, and added hot water when I was ready to eat.  No fuss, plus it's warm and comforting when the weather has finally decided it's fall outside and should therefore be drizzly and gray all day.

Pumpkin Pie Smoothie

The autumn air is cool and leads me to daydream of pumpkin pie. This pumpkin-pie smoothie is a slimmer, quicker version of a pumpkin pie. Delicious way to start the day. I prefer not to measure and rather to eyeball.

Combine in Blender:
- Equal parts plain yogurt and canned pumpkin
- 1 splotchy-brown banana (this seems to be the most sugary sort)
- dash of milk--enough to liquify smoothie,
- 1 Tablespoon brown sugar
- A few dashes of pumpkin pie spice (cinnamon, ginger, allspice, nutmeg)

I will admit, it seems a bit strange or perhaps innovative to drink a pumpkin concoction, but delightful all the same.