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Dutch Apple Pie with Shortbread Crust

A year ago in November, I  had a rigid plastic brace on my on right arm and very limited strength, I just could not roll out pie dough. So, a great option for me was a press in pie crust make in stand mixer. Perfect fit in my Dutch Apple Pie, with crumb topping.  The cookie crust was tender and held together well, wasn’t soggy. Best eaten within 2 days.

If you are not into making a rolled out crust this is a perfect solution for you if you want to make a delish gf crust. I really didn’t miss the rolled out crust; this simple press in crumb recipe by Annalise Roberts is the very best crust for one handers or crust novices!

I used a mixture of apples; a few golden delicious, some granny smith and a few Jonagold.  Using 2-3  kinds of baking apples is the best plan for flavor and structure (doesn’t mush down too much or not enough). This was definitely a great mixture. I am making a Thanksgiving apple pie next week and I will probably use a similar mixture of varieties.  The pie went in tall and settled nicely into a tightly woven pie filling. One thing: please don’t use red delicious; they are not baking apples.

Dutch Apple Pie with Cookie Crust

Ingredients:

CRUST:

1 1/2 cup gf flour (King Arthur basic gf blend)

¼ cup sugar

1 tsp. xanthan gum

7  Tbsp. cold butter

FILLING:

6-7 cups peeled and sliced apples; don’t leave them too fat; thinner is better

2 Tbsp. Tapioca flour

1/3 – 1/2 c granulated sugar

¼ c. brown sugar; packed

1 tsp. cinnamon

¼ tsp. nutmeg

1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice

CRUMBLE:

3/4 cup gf flour

5 Tbsp. butter

1/2 cup sugar

DIRECTIONS: Make crust in stand mixer; put dry ingredients in, add butter and mix on medium until crumbly. Spray 9 inch pie pan with cooking spray and press in crust, heat oven to 375 degrees.

Mix filling in large bowl; dump in apple slices.  Mix the dry filling ingredients in a small bowl. Sprinkle apples with lemon juice and then the dry mixture. Stir and let stand while you make crumbs.

Mix crumbs: use stand mixer: no need to clean bowl. Dump in flour and sugar and mix, then blend in butter and blend well. Gently pour fruit into pie pan on top of crust and sprinkle top with crumble to mostly cover fruit. sprinkle about 1 ¼ cups of crumb mixture.

apple pie in oven

Bake on lowest shelf in oven, 55-65 minutes until lightly browned and applies are bubbling. Remove from oven and cool completely before serving (at least 2 or 3 hours.) Best eaten within 24-36 hours. Vanilla ice cream is a perfect combo with this pie! Enjoy.

apple pie done

apple pie slice

Trader Joe’s Mandarin Oranges

Trader Joe's Dried Fruit SOFT & JUICY MANDARINS Dried Orange Fruit 4 6 OZ BAGS | Dried fruit, Dried oranges, Orange fruit
So yummy!

A few weeks ago, I got to shop at a Trader Joe’s and I discovered a delightful and relatively healthy treat; dried mandarin orange sections.140 calories for 12 pieces. Sweet and tangy. Delightful and I love that I can eat just one or two sections for a tiny treat. Hard to eat half a muffin, half an orange or just a few tortilla chips…. Too bad they are all gone. I live over an hour away from the nearest Trader Joe’s. Longing for the day the move into my area. We are a large population center in Pennsylvania. Kinda mystifying why we don’t have one…. come on Trader Joe’s!! We NEED you here in the Lehigh Valley ASAP, for nothing else, for my addiction to these tangy tasty crescents of citrus flavor.

Roasted Cauliflower and Spicy Oil With Pasta

I love to eat seasonally and fall is cauliflower season. A large fresh head was bought at Valley Farm Market and I ate nearly quarter of it raw, dipped in homemade green goddess dressing, tasty. Eventually I felt a pasta dish might be great comfort food to use the rest of the head for. I was right! This is definitely a winner.  Roasted cauliflower was my starting place but something without too much sauce. This version has olive oil scented with garlic and red pepper flakes. It is topped with freshly grated parmesan cheese. Delicious.

I used gf penne from Aldi’s but you could use any pasta type or shape you want. I also roasted half an onion for more flavor. Up to you. More red pepper; sure. Less garlic…sure.  If you hate onions; leave that out.  I used walnuts as I had no pine nuts. I toasted them for more flavor. They worked fine. I think this would be nice accompanied by a butternut squash soup. Great fall meal.

Pasta and veggies in the pan before cheese gets grated on top.

Roasted Cauliflower and Spicy Oil Over Penne

3-4 servings

Ingredients:

CAULIFLOWER ROAST

1 small head cauliflower; about 4 cups of large flowerets.

½ a large onion cut top to bottom into thin wedges

1 large garlic clove minced

1-2 Tbsp EVOL

Scant ¼ tsp red pepper flakes

¼ tsp. sea salt

PASTA

1 1/3 cup penne

3 Tbsp EVOL

1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

1 large garlic clove smashed

3 Tbsp coarsely chopped walnuts

 1-2 Tbsp. chopped fresh parsley

¼ C freshly grated parmesan cheese

Instructions:

Turn oven up to 450 degrees. Cut the cauliflower into med flowerets; don’t be afraid to cut across the middle of a big clump.  Place on large sheet pan with the onion slices. Drizzle EVOL over them, sprinkle with red pepper flakes and salt and squeeze garlic clove over. Roast 15 minutes, turn over cauliflower and onion and roast 10 more minutes; if browning too much turn oven off and let it coast the last few minutes.

Heat 2 quarts of water in a big pot; salt well. Cook pasta until al dente. Drain; save 2-3 Tbsp of pasta water.

While that cooks, heat 3 Tbsp EVOL in mini wok or fry pan. Add smashed garlic; cook 2-3 minutes; do not brown too deeply. Take out and let cool. Dump in red pepper flakes and cook a minute. Brown the walnut bits in a dry frying pan. Add the cauliflower, pasta, walnuts, fried garlic which you chopped fine and the parsley. Stir well; add the 2 Tbsp water if you want more liquid. Top with parmesan cheese. You can add more red pepper flakes and parsley if desired. Enjoy!

Eating Safely at the Relatives

Hi folks, long time no post. It has been a tough 3 months. My 8 year old grandson left this summer to be with his family in Florida. My mom moved to Massachusetts just before Aiden left. Last week my mom passed to a higher plain. We had celebrated her big 100th birthday on Sept 9th. I brought up a gluten free scratch angel food cake baked the night before. I sliced it horizontally to make two layers. My sister made a fluffy icing of egg whites with boiling hot Karo syrup poured in slowly. I threw shredded coconut all over the cake. My mom ate 2 slices. She ate more for breakfast in the morning.

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My sister and I made our family’s company chicken dish; she used some gf flour to roll the chicken pieces in and for the sauce.  It is served with plain rice.  I made gf crab cakes for my mom the next day as lunch. We had steak tips that night with buttery mashed potatoes. The following day we had a second birthday celebration with wild rice salad that is quite beloved and swordfish kabobs done on the outdoor charcoal grill. I made an Indian cheesecake in the Instant Pot of two ingredients; a can of sweetened condensed milk and a cup of whole milk Greek yogurt. I flavored it with the zest of a small lemon and 2 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice. An uncooked oatmeal cookie crust underneath. Easy peasy baked in the IP for 30 min and chilled for 4 hours. You would never guess it was not made with eggs and cream cheese. Again, all gluten free and really no fuss either. Great food, made gluten free with a minimum of effort and from fresh ingredients.  The swordfish was layered with onion wedges, pepper chunks and cherry tomatoes from the garden. The best quality swordfish my sister could get at the fish market in town. Far better than swordfish I have eaten in fancy restaurants in Boston. My brother-in-law knows how to grill it to perfection; juicy and flavorful.  Our mom enjoyed it all. She had four servings of the wild rice salad; it has plenty of bacon, fresh spinach, red onion and a kick ass vinaigrette on it. We just love the flavors.

I went back up last week to say goodbye to my mom in her last days. My sister made simple food; gently roasted salmon with mashed potatoes one night and a trombolini squash lasagna that had the best homemade tomato sauce ever. No noodles yet flavor for days. The focus of my visit was on our mom and I could relax knowing I was able to eat safely. I made some carrot soup for lunch while I was there and a fig ricotta cake that disappeared before my eyes. A great use of the fresh figs I brought up. Even in sadness there can be tasty safe gf meals. Just takes a bit of planning; my sister keeps a bag of gf flour for when I visit and I brought the cup for cup flour for the fig cake and my own cheesecake pans both trips as using her pans would have been chancy. She bought me a 4 pack of Schar gf ciabatta buns and I got some excellent smoked ham at Trader Joe’s for sandwiches.  She opened a new jar of mayo and marked it gf for my safety. I brought gf oatmeal and cereal for breakfasts.  No fuss, no mealtime stress.  The focus was on our mom and meals were good but simple as no one was up for fancy. My mom loved flavorful fresh food. She taught me how to bake cookies and I taught myself all the rest. I do have several of her recipes and made them gf years ago. She used to say my angel food cake couldn’t be gf as it was so delicious. It was definitely gluten free Mom. I am glad I could bake it many times that way since I had to go gf in ‘13. Rest in peace and I know they have angel food cake up there for you Mom.

Turkish Fig and Yogurt Cake

We enjoyed the most amazing cake last night.  I used 10 of my own homegrown figs in it.  It is sort of like if your cheesecake recipe and your dessert souffle recipe had a baby together: light in texture, delicate orange hints and quite scrumptious. Simply exquisite in my estimation. chicken-gumbo-002

Not that much sugar, lots of Greek yogurt, a few eggs, some flavorings and very little flour.  It was very easy to put together; sort of like making a dessert soufflé. I mixed the yolks with the sugar and then the flour added in bit by bit with a whisk.  My stand mixer made the egg whites into fluff and I folded them into the yolk/sugar mixture.  Spooned into a buttered cheesecake pan and laid the cut halves of the figs into the batter. Bake it and BOOM; an amazing dessert fit for a king and queen!  It does puff up a lot as it bakes; don’t worry; it will sink somewhat; can’t stay puffed when it cools.

The flavor was a lemony, fluffy light cake but the figs were the star attraction.  If you like figs; this is your cake!

The recipe is from fearless dining: here is a link to the original I used to create my cake.  http://www.fearlessdining.com/recipe/gluten-free-turkish-fig-yogurt-cake/.

I made only a couple of changes to fit what I had in my pantry.  This is a spectacular cake to serve to company. Just need those fresh figs and some yogurt. I got mine at Aldi’s.  Their store brand Greek yogurt in a big size has wonderful flavor and texture. Great price point too.

Turkish Fig and Yogurt Cake

Ingredients   (at room temperature)

4 eggs, separated

½ tsp. cream of tarter

½ cup sugar

3 tbsp. gf flour – I used King Arthur blend

½ tsp. xanthan gum (leave out if your flour has some in it already)

1/2 to 1 tsp. lemon or orange extract

1 tsp. water

1/2 tsp. lemon zest

½ tsp. orange or tangerine zest (optional; add if you don’t have orange extract)

1 ½ cup plain Greek yogurt, preferably whole milk

7-12 figs (big ones; only 7, small; use more) Halved

A tsp. of butter for greasing the pan

A bit of powdered sugar to sift on top.

Directions:  see the original post for directions –  http://www.fearlessdining.com/recipe/gluten-free-turkish-fig-yogurt-cake/.fig-cake-006