Mountain of Apple Pie

It seems like just the other day I was writing about baskets of beautiful August tomatoes, and now suddenly it's fall. The boxes of berries, piles of tomatoes and crates of peaches at the greenmarket have been replaced by mountains of apples, bunches of dark greens and stacks of squash. And although I don't particularly like squash, it's every bit as inspiring and happy-making to ogle on my lunch break as summer fruits.

Fall is my absolute favorite season, not least because my birthday is in September (for which Nick gave me a new digital camera, which should significantly improve the quality of the photography here.) And one of the real joys of the season is apple pie - which is Nick's favorite, and definitely one of my top five, if not two. So, despite the fact that I have no food processor (my usual pie crust tool) I was determined to make an apple pie before the season escaped me, as peach pie season did. I figured that would entail investing in a $100 food processor, and was just about ready to pony up the cash. Then last week I decided to make empanadas (I need more practice before they become blog-worthy) mostly because I wanted to eat them. Well, the first step in empanada-making is dough-making and, as it turns out, empanada dough is a whole lot like pie dough. Except the empanada dough recipe I was using said to simply pinch the butter into the flour with your fingers. Which I did. And it was while my floury fingers were pinching butter (and begining to get tired) that I realized the technique was equally applicable to pie dough. Now, it wasn't the first time I'd considered making pie dough by hand, but it was the confirmation I needed that it would probably, most likely, work.

So with that knowledge in mind, I went to the greenmarket last Friday and bought as many apples as I could carry. I usually use Granny Smith for pie - the tartness and texture are both perfect and they don't turn mealy or into sauce in the oven - but apprently Granny Smith are not one of the several dozen apple varietes grown in the greater (much greater) New York City area. So I went for a mix of giant Mutsus and some red-and-green ones I forget the name of, unfortunately. The Mutsus tasted a little too much like Golden Delicious for my taste, but it didn't seem to negatively affect the taste of the pie. The red-and-green ones tasted a lot like Macintosh, which have a great flavor but tend to get a little too mushy in pie. I figured combining the perfect-texture apples and the perfect-taste apples would yield a happy-medium delicious pie, and I think I lucked out.

But of course, before apples even enter the apple-pie picture, you must make the dough. I've made strawberry-rhubarb pie here before, and the recipe is the same. The only thing I did differently this time was mixing everything by hand. So, if you don't have a food processor, here's what you do:

Whisk the dry ingredients together to blend. Cut the butter into small pieces, about 1/4 inch on each side, by standing it on its end and slicing twice, at right angles, lengthwise (so you have 4 long, skinny sticks of butter). Hold the sticks together and cut into 1/4 inch slices. The smaller you make them, the less tired your fingers will be later. I would also advise using a very sharp knife - cutting cold butter with a butter knife makes it break and takes more work, which warms up the butter. You want to keep you butter as cold as possible.

Dump all the little butter pieces into the bowl of dry ingredients and start pinching and squeezing it into the flour. It's an imprecise process, but you'll figure it out. Just keep breaking up the butter until the dough resembles coarse meal. The only piece of advice I have is to keep your hands in the bowl at all times, so the butter gets coated in flour as you squeeze it. When you've got your coarse meal, slowly pour in the ice water while mixing with a fork. When the dough is uniformly moistened, turn it out onto a clean counter and proceed as usual.

I use my mother's recipe for the apple filling, which is very simple and mostly apples. Peel the apples and cut them up into large chunks. I like to keep the pieces nice and big so they stay together in the pie. Toss the apple chunks in a VERY LARGE bowl with:

1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup flour
the juice of 1/2 a lemon
and 2 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon.

Then back to the dough, which has been chilling in the fridge (or freezer if you only have an hour or so.) Roll it out like in the strawberry rhubarb pie recipe, then fill with apples. I like to mound the apples up as high as humanly possible (see photo). My pie was at least 6 inches tall before cooking. I had to take the top rack out of the oven. Don't worry, they cook down a lot.

On top of your mountain of apples, slice 1 tablespoon of butter. Then cover with the second crust. I usually just do a regular solid crust for apple pie. Trim and crimp the edges. And don't forget to poke some holes in it! My mom likes five slits with a small knife, in a circle around the top (so of course I do too.) Then coat lightly with a mix of one egg white and a little bit of cream, beaten together (this was where my lack of kitchen tools became a real problem, I'm lacking a pastry brush and had to use my fingers, awkwardly.) Sprinkle with coarse non-melting sugar, and pop it in the oven! Bake for 15 minutes at 400º, then turn the heat down to 350º and bake for another hour, or until brown.

Enjoy warm, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream if you like. Then go jump in a pile of leaves for me! (I miss real trees.)

Too Many Tomatoes

When my cousins and I were younger, my grandmother used to give us each a little plot in her garden. We could grow whatever we wanted,which usually included lots of beans, cherry tomatoes and sunflowers (for the sunflower contest, of course.) She's since reclaimed most of the garden, but when Addie decided she wanted to grow some tomatoes this year, grammie was more than happy to provide the dirt. Sometime in August, big, red sun-drenched tomatoes appeared by the dozen. At least that's the impression I got from the enormous basket of big, red sun-drenched tomatoes my parents brought when they visited a few weeks ago.

These tomatoes were gorgeous. Like, tomato-hall-of-fame quality tomatoes. But what was I going to do with a garden's worth of tomatoes? It's just me and Nick here, and although we can put away more food than you might expect, this was a lot of tomatoes. It was hard to get the basket up the stairs.


What ensued was several days - a week, probably - of tomato-based meals and the production of tomato products. I became a veritable tomato-using factory. First came a spicy tomato-chicken soup, sort of a hybrid between tortilla soup and chili. It was inspired by the ingredients that just happened to be in my kitchen which, besides tomatoes, included chicken, frozen corn, onions, chicken, blue corn tortilla chips and a lot of chili powder. Combining all of the above in my deep cast iron pan (also from grammie) yielded a tasty, if somewhat too spicy, soupy summery stew.

While the soup was delicious, it had hardly made a dent in the tomato mountain. So I made some bruschetta, which was delicious and easy and, once again, inspired by the contents of my kitchen - and fire escape. I just diced a bunch of the tomatoes and mixed in some olive oil, fresh basil, dried oregano and salt and pepper, then heaped a generous amount of that onto little pieces of toast brushed with olive oil and topped with grated Parmesan. (I might have added a little onion or garlic too, I can't quite remember.)

The bruschetta was delicious but there were still many, many tomatoes left. A project of a larger scale was called for. The obvious answer was tomato sauce.

I make a lot of tomato sauce. It's easy (although it tends to leave my stove and the side of my fridge covered in tomato splatter) and Nick eats it practically by the gallon. I've never used a recipe, I just do what I've always watched my parents do at home (tomato sauce is one of the very few things my dad can cook.) But, inspired by the mountain of fresh tomatoes, I decided to try something different. And the result is what I now call "the best roasted tomato sauce ever."

In all honesty, I have minimal experience with roasted tomato sauces. In fact, this is the first I've ever made. Nevertheless, I've dubbed it the best ever simply because I can't imagine anything ever tasting better. Somewhat ironic, really, since I made it up on the spot based, yet again, on what was in my kitchen. Come to think of it, the ingredients are almost identical to those in the bruschetta. But in a hot oven, doused in olive oil, their flavors combine and intensify, creating the most flavorful tomato sauce I think I've ever had. Amazing, from such a few simple ingredients. I chalk it up to the Cabot Farm tomatoes.


All I did was slice the tomatoes into nice big chunks - quarters or sixths - from top to bottom. Then I wedged them all into a baking dish like New Yorkers on the subway at rush hour. I threw in a few whole cloves of lightly crushed peeled garlic and a bunch of basil leaves from the fire escape. Then I added a generous amount of dried oregano, some salt and pepper and maybe a dash of onion or garlic powder. Finally, and I think this is the really, really delicious part, I coat everything with about a third an inch of olive oil. I toss them to coat everything in oil, then stick them in the oven around 350º for about half an hour, or until the tomatoes are mushy and surrounded by lots of fragrant juice. Then I like to mush them with a metal spatula and stick them back in the oven for a bit. That's it! It's delicious on anything and makes the kitchen smell like an Italian restaurant. And it's a great way to use up a lot of extra tomatoes!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Muffins

America never ceases to amaze. Walking through a convenience store the other day, I noticed something called a "breakfast cookie." Made by Quaker, the oatmeal people, it appears to be nothing more than a large, individually-wrapped oatmeal cookie with the word "breakfast" on it. But I haven't tried it - I suppose it could be more of a circular granola bar. In any case, it struck me as a pretty shallow marketing ploy.

But I may now have to rescind my initial derision. For I've discovered my own - less duplicitous – way to eat cookies for breakfast. I call them: Chocolate Chip Cookie Muffins.

I woke up Saturday morning wanting muffins, but, not having planned ahead and still lacking in many basic foodstuffs, didn't know what kind of muffins I could make. Luckily, I have a book called Muffins A to Z (by Marie Simmons). I've probably had this book for at least 10 years - my mom gave it to me for my birthday when I was little and we used to make the Lemon Drizzle Lemon muffins from it all the time. They're really good. The Devil's Food Chocolate Chip Muffins aren't bad either - probably because they bear a great resemblance to cupcakes.

But back to the chocolate chip cookie muffins. At the back of the A to Z book is a recipe for "Quickie-Mix Muffins" (she needed something for Q) - just a very simple muffin base you can throw anything into. Lo and Behold, I had all the Quickie Mix ingredients on hand. I also had a bag of chocolate chips. Or thought I did... have I mentioned we're having a heat wave here in New York? (At least that's what they say... if you ask me it's just more of the same oppressive heat we've been enjoying for weeks.) But no worries, I broke apart the semi-molten semi-sweet chips to the best of my abilities, and, since my abilities are nothing to shout about, the muffins boasted some nice big chocolaty patches.

Here's the recipe, if you, too, would like to guiltlessly eat large, soft chocolate chip cookies
for breakfast. Pour yourself a glass of OJ and call it a balanced meal.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Muffins

First, make the quickie mix by whisking together:

10 cups flour
1 cup sugar
3 Tb baking powder
4 tsp baking soda
2 tsp salt

Unless you want to make a ridiculous quantity of muffins, measure 2 2/3 cups of the dry mix into a bowl. Store the rest at room temperature in something airtight. You can use it next time you wake up wanting muffins.

Preheat the oven to 400º and coat a 12-cup muffin tin with non-stick spray.

Add another 1/4 cup of sugar to the 2 2/3 cups of dry mix in the bowl.

Then, in a separate bowl, whisk together:

1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1/4 vegetable oil
2 large eggs

Add the wet ingredients to the dry. When almost combined, fold in 3/4 cup of chocolate chips.

Divide the batter evenly among the 12 cups - it won't rise much, so you can fill them up pretty well.

Bake 19-20 minutes, or until slightly browned.

Yummy Pizza

Surprise... more Basil! Also, more prosciutto. Nick has decided he really likes it. Prosciutto, not basil. Although he likes Basil too, thank goodness.

Anyway, this pizza was primarily intended as a vehicle for the aforementioned basil and prosciutto, as well as the remaining mozzarella in my fridge. All three are incredible: the basil is from my fire escape, and the prosciutto and mozzarella are from Italy by way of Agata & Valentina, an absolutely amazing gourmet food store on 79th and 1st. They have at least 4 kinds of prosciutto, exotic cheese offerings and make their own pasta. Needless to say, I love it there.

The pleasant surprise of the evening was how great the pizza itself was. I bought the dough from a pizza place down the street and was a bit shocked to pay $5 for it. Admittedly, it was a HUGE piece of dough, but still. Pizza dough is a dollar in Salem - you could get a whole pizza for $5! But it wouldn't be as good as this pizza.

Because the dough was so big, it was a kind of thick-crust pizza. And although I usually prefer thin-crust, it was really good. Soft and chewy but not gooey - I don't know how I did it. All I know is I used some chunky tomato sauce I made last week, tore the mozzarella over that, grated a bunch of Parmesan on top and stuck it in a 500º oven for about 18 minutes.

Then I tore the prosciutto and basil over after it came out of the oven, and it was great!

Of Butchers and Basil

Two exciting new culinary developments this week.

First, I found a butcher. I've always wanted a butcher. It's nice to be able to get exactly what you want, plus some advice on what to do with it. And I've never been particularly fond of buying meat in shrink-wrapped Styrofoam at the grocery store. It's a kosher butcher, so no pork, but lots of very helpful Jewish men.

Second, I got a Basil plant! I found it at the miniature farmers' market on 92nd street for only $6. I've named him Basil, and he lives on my fire escape. Having a nice green plant waving around outside the window makes me surprisingly happy.

So dinner tonight was in honor of the butcher and the basil. I made chicken stuffed with prosciutto, mozzarella and, you guessed it, basil, and then a cucumber watermelon salad with more basil. Both were based on recipes from epicurious.com, my versions follow.

Prosciutto, Mozzarella and Basil stuffed chicken
Serves 2

2 boneless Chicken Breasts, skin on
4 slices Prosciutto di Parma
1 small ball Fresh Mozzarella
8 large Basil leaves
Coarse grained mustard
Salt & Pepper
Olive Oil

Preheat your oven to 325º

1. First, make a pocket in each chicken breast by carefully cutting a slit three-quarters of the way through, lengthwise.

2. Gently slide 1 or 2 basil leaves under the skin of each chicken breast.

3. Lay your prosciutto slices out flat on a cutting board. Tear or grate some mozzarella over each. Tear some medium sized pieces of basil over the cheese.

4. Roll up each prosciutto slice, then stuff two into the pocket of each chicken breast. Season the chicken with salt & pepper.

5. Heat a couple tablespoons of olive oil in an ovenproof skillet. Gently place the chicken breasts skin side down in the skillet.

6. Spread about 2 teaspoons coarse-grained mustard on the underside of the chicken.

7. Brown the skin side for a few minutes, then flip. When both sides are slightly browned, put the chicken in the oven. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until cooked through.

Cucumber Watermelon Salad

2 cups cubed watermelon
1 cucumber, cubed
juice of 1 lime
1 Tb. chopped basil leaves
1 Tb. chopped cilantro
1 Tb. chopped mint

Combine everything in a bowl. Eat.

Breakfast in New York

I know, I know, I've been away a very long time. Apologies. But I've been busy! Two weeks ago, I moved to New York City with Nick, a very long, very exhausting process that ate up all my time for weeks. But we're here now and somewhat settled into our apartment, which has, I swear, the best kitchen in Manhattan. Lucky me! I've been making good use of it, cooking tasty, if simple, dinners every night. Some of the highlights have been spaghetti and meat balls, blue cheese burgers with cole slaw salad, beef tacos, soba noodle salad with marinated steak and, Nick's favorite, pork chops with mushroom risotto.

The one thing that's been lacking is baked goods - it's about 80 degrees out most days, and the one (tiny) downside to my enormous kitchen is that it's so big, it's hard to air condition effectively with our one window unit. So the heat has kind of deterred me from making anything too oven-intensive. The other obstacle was my lack of baking ingredients - flour, sugar and the like. We live in a 5th floor walkup, so I can only buy as much food as I can carry up 4 flights of stairs. I had to forgo the baking essentials in favor of dinner ingredients for many days. But then yesterday Nick came grocery shopping with me, so I stocked up. And this morning, I made pancakes!

Pancakes are, without a doubt, one of my favorite things to make and eat. I'm a total sucker for breakfast foods in all forms (my favorite words are "breakfast served all day") but pancakes make me especially happy. I think they make other people happy too. And I'm lucky enough to now own a Black & Decker electric griddle, courtesy of my lovely mother, that makes beautiful, evenly cooked pancakes every time. I've never had much luck with frying pan pancakes (ironic, given their name) so my griddle is a godsend. (They're super cheap at Target, if you're in the market.)

I realized that, although I make them all the time, I've never before published my pancake recipe - which is actually my mother's pancake recipe. It's not revolutionary or anything, but it makes super fluffy, delicious pancakes that are the best I've ever had. I'm going to share it with you now, but in return, you have to promise to treat the pancakes well.

That means you can only flip them once - more and they'll get tough.

That also means no store-bought frozen blueberries - they don't taste like anything. My family just happens to have a dozen blueberry bushes in our front yard, which means we have massive quantities of fresh berries in the summer and our freezer is full of flavorful frozen blueberries all winter. Unfortunately most people don't have that luxury and must buy their blueberries at a store. Fresh berries from a grocery store are fine in the summer, but they can be prohibitively expensive when they're out of season. So in the fall and winter, try something else. I love apple pancakes, my mom used to make them for my birthday (in September) all the time. Or just throw in some chocolate chips! They're never out of season, and they're always a big hit. Even better, mash up a banana and make banana-chocolate chip pancakes. Yum.

Finally, whatever you do, don't overmix the batter! Only mix until everything is combined - it should still have lumps in it. If you overmix, bad things will happen. And I will be very sad.

That being said, this is really a pretty simple recipe that uses a minimum of ingredients. You should be able to make delicious pancakes on your first try.

Mom's Blueberry Pancakes

2 cups cake flour (I have to admit, I couldn't find cake flour at the store yesterday, so I used regular old gold medal flour. It works fine, but try to get some cake flour, as it will make your pancakes lighter and fluffier.)
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt (we use coarse kosher salt, if you're using regular table salt you might want a tiny bit less, as it's saltier)
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 cups buttermilk (I usually use light or low fat)
3 Tb melted butter (unsalted, always)
2 large eggs, beaten
3/4 pint fresh blueberries, or other fruit (I've used strawberries to good effect, and I especially like apples.)

Preheat a griddle - I set mine to about 300º, but you might need to experiment to get the best setting for your griddle. The pancakes should take a few minutes to brown, otherwise the center won't cook. Play around and see what works.

1. In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients.

2. Add the buttermilk, butter and eggs and mix just until combined. Use a rubber spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl if necessary. The batter should be thick but still somewhat viscous. If it's more solid than liquid (sits in a ball in the middle of the bowl, say) it won't spread out on the griddle and you might need to add a little more buttermilk. But not too much - it should be somewhere in between cake batter and bread dough, consistency wise.

3. Gently fold the blueberries in with the spatula.

4. Butter or spray your griddle. (Even if it's non-stick.) Scoop about 1/2 cup of pancake batter onto your griddle. It should spread out a bit, gradually, but still retain some height.

5. Let the pancake sit until bubbles begin to pop up on the surface. Gently lift with a spatula to check the underside, when it's a light golden brown flip the pancake over.

6. Let it sit on the second side for a couple more minutes. It should rise slightly as the center cooks. The second side usually cooks more quickly, so when you think it might be ready, take a peek to see if the bottom is light golden brown. When they're done, the pancakes should no longer be floppy. If they're too floppy, the centers aren't cooking and you need to turn your griddle down.

7. Top with some fresh fruit and maple syrup (not fake "pancake" syrup!), and enjoy!

Cooking from "Cooking for Mr. Latte"

I just finished Cooking for Mr. Latte, an engrossing, recipe-filled take on the food memoir genre that inspired me to put down the book and pick up a spatula. Admittedly, it also filled me with envy - what I wouldn't do to have Amanda Hesser's job. The lucky girl was a food writer for the New York Times, where she initially wrote "Mr. Latte" as a series of columns. They were cobbled together into this episodic book, which remains a series of closely related vignettes. They all focus on food, of course, and each concludes with a handful of promising recipes. Hesser has an MFK Fisher-influenced take on food and life, which is to say that life, love, food and friendship are all closely intertwined for her. She writes about food's power to bring people together, to create lasting memories, to challenge us and to define us. She's part of the contingent who truly believe you are what you eat (or cook or bake.)

Inspired by the stories behind her recipes and, admittedly, my envy of her life, I thought I'd try my hand at a few of Hesser's recipes. Unsurprisingly, because I am me, the two recipes I've tried are both baked desserts.

I settled on the first, Amanda's mother's Peach Tart, because I found myself in front of a giant pile of apricots at Whole Foods with the book in my purse. This is a really interesting, sort of bizare tart recipe. First of all, it's made in a square cake pan instead of a tart pan. Second, you mix the dough for the crust right in the pan. Third, there's olive oil in the dough – I thought this gave the tart and interesting Mediterranean sort of flavor, but my mother didn't like it (and she loves olive oil.)

I have to admit I kind of screwed up and mixed what Hesser calls "the pebbly mixture" (sugar, flour, salt and butter) into the apricots, rather than sprinkling it on top. Oops. (See picture, then don't do that.) I kind of liked the effect though, I thought it gave the impression that there was a custard between the apricot slices.

In any case, here's the recipe, the way I made it.

Judith Hesser's Peach Tart, with Apricots

1 1/2 cups plus 2 Tb Flour
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
3/4 cup olive oil (you could use vegetable oil if you agree with my mother)
2 Tb milk (I used skim)
1/2 tsp. Vanilla (the recipe says almond extract, but my mom hates almond extract, so we don't have any in the house)
2 Tb cold unsalted butter
8 or 9 Apricots, thinly sliced

1. Preheat oven to 425º. In an 8-inch square pan, stir together 1 1/2 cups flour, 1/2 tsp. salt and 1 tsp. sugar.

2. In a small bowl, whisk together the oil, milk and vanilla or almond extract.

3. Pour the liquids into the pan and mix gently with a fork, just enough to dampen. Then use your hands to pat out the dough so that it covers the bottom of the pan and goes about 3/4 of an inch up the sides. Amanda says "This will be easy if you pat firmly and confidently, but not if you curl your fingertips into the dough." (I did as she said, and it was easy.)

4. In a bowl, combine 3/4 cup sugar, 2 Tb. flour, 1/4 tsp. salt and the butter. (I might've skimped on the flour a bit because the apricots weren't juicy at all.) Use your fingers to pinch the butter into the dry ingredients until crumbly, with a mixture of fine granules and tiny pebbles.

5. If you're Amanda: "arrange the peaches in rows over the pastry; they should fit snugly. Sprinkle the pebbly mixture over the top." But if you're me, toss the apricots with the pebbly mixture then dump the whole thing into the pan.

6. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes, "until shiny, thick bubbles begin enveloping the fruit and the crust is nut brown." Or until it looks like this:

I thought it was delicious, my mom thought it was a bit too tart and had the aforementioned olive oil issue. Obviously, in order to really decide what we thought of Ms. Hesser, we had to make another recipe. Also, I needed something to give Miranda, who is kindly allowing me to crash on her couch in New York again tonight. We decided on the Chocolate Chunk-Pecan-Coconut Cookies on page 303.

Perhaps because they were devised as a cleaning-out-the-pantry project, these cookies call for a ridiculous amount of chocolate. Twenty-four ounces, to be exact. That's a lot of chocolate. Luckily, my mom keeps industrial amounts of baking supplies around the house. Also luckily, Julia was there to help me chop it all. Although she left before it was time to fold the chocolate, pecans and coconut into the dough, which was exhausting. As Amanda says, these cookies are really chocolate and pecans held together by some shreds of dough. My mom argued that it's okay to mix chocolate chunks in with the Kitchen Aid, but I didn't want them to be chocolate cookies. And the workout was worth it: the shards of chocolate made a nice pattern on the finished cookies that reminds me of straciatella gelato. They're really quite attractive, for cookies with everything but the kitchen sink in them. They're also, and this is key, delicious. The coconut makes them incredibly chewy, even the next day. They're not too sweet, but still have that great brown sugar taste. And, unsurprisingly, the ridiculous amount of chocolate was just enough. Congratulations Ms. Hesser, you've won.

(P.S. I don't have time right now to write out the cookie recipe, but would be happy to if anyone wants to make them. Or you could buy the book - it's awesome!)