Apple Pie

Miss El, my middle daughter, called me a few weeks ago and asked if I would be able to come to Wisconsin to see her and my oldest MS. R in their play. They live in a town of about 500 their school is a couple of miles from their home and serves several towns in the area. MS R has been active in her school's theater since they moved up there five years ago, her first roll was a table in Beauty and the Beast, but she quickly moved on to bigger and better rolls. When Miss El called she reminded me that she had a small roll in this one too, the play Jane Eyre A Musical Drama yes you read that right. MS R played Mrs. Fairfax the almost deaf matron of the home, she has a knack for stealing any scene she is in and did well. Miss El was the young Jane Eyre, from her talking I expected her to have a couple of minutes on stage she really was really the only character for the first 10 minutes of the show.

The town they live in (go figure) doesn't have a hotel so I stay in a nearby town, this time I had these luxury accommodations.*


Luxury Suite




complete with Spa



and a downright bacchanalian breakfast buffet

The drive from my hotel to their house is about a half an hour over undulating roads cutting through pine woods, small farms and a bevy of apple orchards. It was the right time of year so I wanted to stop and get some apples this trip and maybe a little fresh apple cider. On the suggestion of MS R I stopped a Sunrise Orchard to pick up a bag of Honeycrisps. If you aren't familiar with them they are a really rockin' good apple a little on the sweet side and have a great crisp texture. I bought maybe a little more than was prudent so it was time to make pie.

This year I am learning how to bake dammit! I enjoy baking, I love baked goods but breads have never been my thing the whole process is too precise for me. I have spoken about my love/hate/therapeutic relationship with well flour and basically all leveners anyway I can probably count on my fingers the number of times that I have made a pie I can count on one finger the number of times I made a crust, so I threw it all in there and made this little baby.

The Crust
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
10 TBLS (1 1/4 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1/2 cup chilled solid vegetable shortening, cut into 1/2-inch pieces I put mine in the freezer for about an hour
4 TBLS (about) ice water

The Filling
About 3 pounds of Honeycrisp apples peeled and cored, sliced thin
3/4 cup sugar
Juice from 1 lemon
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 TBLS all purpose flour
1 TBLS butter

For the crust
Whisk flour and salt in large bowl to blend. Add butter and shortening and rub in with fingertips until coarse meal forms try not to be like me and over work, for the love of god stop. Sprinkle with 3 tablespoons water; toss until moist clumps form, adding more water by teaspoonfuls if mixture is dry. Gather dough into ball; divide in half then flatten into disks about the size of . Wrap in plastic, chill at least 1 hour (can be made 1 day ahead). Keep refrigerated, Soften slightly at room temperature before using.

For the filling
Preheat oven to 400°F. In a large bowl mix apples, sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon, and vanilla in large bowl to blend. Let stand until juices form, about 15 minutes then mix in flour... set aside.

Roll out 1 dough disk on lightly floured surface to 12-inch round. Place dough in prepared pie dish, spoon in filling, dot with butter. Roll out second dough disk to 13-inch round. Drape dough over filling. Seal top and bottom crust edges together; trim to 1/2-inch overhang. Fold overhang under then crimp. Brush pie with milk and sprinkle with a little with a little more sugar. Place pie pan on a baking sheet and place in oven. Reduce temperature to 375°F. Bake pie until crust is golden brown, apples are tender and filling is bubbling thickly, if it starts to get too brown around the edges cover with foil. This will bake for about 1 1/2 hours. Let cool for at least an hour before you cut into it... I know it is hard but well worth the wait.

*I tease a little about the accommodations but I do have to admit that since I make these journeys alone and the only thing I do at the hotel is sleep I tend to find the least expensive place that I can. This hotel though lacking in luxuries is a clean place owned by a nice family.

Key-lime Pie

Every year I see them sitting at the produce stand, usually inexpensive always beautiful, I look at them and think, I really should figure out how to make Key-lime Pie... how hard can it be? Then I tell myself that I will look up a recipe and come back and pick some up. Then I go home, some years I start to look for a recipe, some I don't, always a few days later when I go back to the store to pick up the limes and they are gone.

Apparently the Key-lime season is about 4 days long, it seems that one day there are hundreds of pounds of the tart little buggers in every store then there are none to be found. Anyway this year I turned the tables on fate a little bit, I went to my regular produce store and saw them 2 pounds for $ .99 I jumped over a small crowd of people and grabbed a couple of bags and ran. This year I was going to make it happen, so I took my Key-Limes and went home to study....

I found a couple of recipes and thought, "no... this can't be right?!?" then continued to look, wow this is simple! for all of the mystery that people put behind this dessert it really is the epitome of the Florida Keys *relaxed, laid back, easy going, tart and sassy. There are very few ingredients and it is easier to make than Rice Krispy Treats. I almost feel guilty passing this one along.

Pre-heat oven to 350

The Crust

1 cup graham cracker crumbs from 8 graham crackers

2 tablespoons sugar

5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted 

Begin by chopping the graham crackers in a food processor until fine, then add the butter and sugar and mix. Press into a pie pan until you have it evenly coated. Pop that into the oven for about 10 minutes to toast while you make the filling

 Miss Lu was cool here she juiced about 20 of these little 

buggers.  They don't make a Key lime press so we stuffed

parts into a lemon juicer 3-4 at a time.

The Filling

1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk

4 egg yolks

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons juice from about 20 Key-Limes

Mix the filling all together in a bowl then scrape into the crust and bake for 15 minutes.  When the time is up take it out to cool on the counter for a few minutes then cover and refrigerate overnight (or at least 8 hours).  There you have it.  

When the time comes top with a little whipped cream and you are ready to go.  Now I have mentioned before that pastry isn't really my thing here is an example I don't have a pastry bag or tips (don't bake much) so I piped the whipped cream out of a zip lock bag with one corner cut out.  That isn't that strangest thing though, my beaters had mashed potatoes on them from earlier so I tried beating the cream buy hand (with a wire whip) but quickly ran out of steam.  This is the contraption I came up with for whipping cream... yeah it worked.  Plus it got a laugh out of the visiting parents.

*Oh and I don't know that people from the Keys are actually "easy going, tart or sassy," but it sounded good to me.

Blueberry Pie

I start this post the same way that I have started so many others, I went grocery shopping with my son last weekend. As soon as we walked in the door there were the produce specials I saw 1 pint of Blueberries for $3.77 and right next to them 2 pounds of Blueberries for $3.55. I grabbed the larger package on impulse and put them into the cart, as we were doing the rest of the shopping for the week I was thinking about what I could make with 2 pounds of blueberries.

I have to stop for a second to say I am not much of a dessert person, after a good dinner when the kids have asked me "whats for dessert" my thought is, "well more dinner." It isn't that I don't appreciate a well made Creme Brulee or a perfectly done Mousse, I just don't think about them until after I have eaten the real food and then it is kind of too late to start.

As we were going through the store I was thinking of savory applications for these blueberries, I have made blueberry vinaigrette to toss with a flank steak salad or I could make a honey blueberry glaze for some duck... as I went on I couldn't think of anything that really did it for me. So I started to put the blueberries back, which got the enthusiastic response that I thought it would, "NO! Daddy! I need those!" Which was fine except I had to figure put how to get him to eat these things.

When I got home I was saying to Kris that I bought 2 pounds of blueberries and had no idea what to do with them, she suggested Blueberry Pie. Which makes sense but I was a little wary because I hadn't baked a pie in probably 15 years and as I remember that wasn't one of my most successful culinary adventures. I started to poke around for different pie recipes that might work for me, a relative novice. Most of what I found didn't involve fresh ingredients, after a little bit study I came up with this this:

1 1/2 Cups Blueberries (Fresh)

3/4 Cup Sugar

1/4 Cup Flour

Grated Zest of 1 Lemon about 1 1/2 tsp

Juice from same lemon

tsp Vanilla extract

Put all of these ingredients into a mixing bowl and mix well, be a little rough on them as you want some of the berries to smash a little so you have some liquid. Set the bowl aside and let it stand while you deal with the crust. Now is a good time to preheat the oven to 400.

I want to say that I made my crust from scratch, but I didn't, I really was going to but when I was at the store to get the ingredients my son was a wild thing. I just knew it wasn't going to happen. I looked for the pie crust disks, but couldn't even find those. Go figure that I can find Empanada dough at my local grocery store, but not Pie Crusts, I stopped at another store on my way home and picked up the Pillsbury 2 pack. One crust I balled up on the counter then rolled flat, the other I filled with the tempered blueberry mixture. I cut the crust that I rolled out on the counter into strips and wove them on top of my pie. Once it was all together I painted it with a mixture of eggs and milk and baked it for about an hour and twenty minutes. After about 45 minutes I wrapped the outer crust with a double layer of foil to protect it from burning.

There are different thoughts on my house as to whether this was a successful adventure... I liked it, it wasn't too tart or sweet, the flavor had a surprising depth for so few ingredients, there was almost a nutmeg flavor to it that surprised me. Kris thought it wasn't sweet enough and that nutmeg flavor was odd, but the crust was good (I probably should have let her think I made it but I fessed up). My 7 year old said YUK! made a spitting noise and left the room. Take the comments for what they are.