Tag: apple pie

Latticed Apple Pie

needs a topOr, Using up leftover pie crust and aging apples

Or, another way to put-off doing the taxes

It’s a gray rainy morning, we had to do that inane “spring forward” with the clocks last night so it’s already later than I feel, and my agenda for today includes preparing the tax information for the accountant and filing the remainder of the 2018 paperwork. What an awful start to a morning, right????

apple pie ready for the ovenI made a quiche last weekend and my crust recipe makes 2 crusts. Quiche only needs one crust so all week I’ve been imaging ways to use up the remaining crust. Most of the ideas revolved around a veggie & egg pie but I never got around to doing that. In the meantime I had 4 aging apples that soon would be fit for nothing but the deer or compost. And I really don’t want to deal with my paperwork. What’s a poor girl to do? Make a pie!!!

baked apple pieI still had cranberries and sugar-free orange marmalade, both of which needed to be used or tossed soon. I pureed those with a tiny bit of Splenda brown sugar to help the mixture gel instead of run. I sliced up my apples, removing all the really aged areas. I layered the apples with the puree and sprinkled cinnamon and nutmeg on each layer. I didn’t have enough crust to make a top and bottom crust so I thought I’d lattice the top with however much crust remained after filling the pie plate. I probably could have squeeeeeeeezed out 2 crusts, but I didn’t realize that until I was playing with the lattice. And yes, this is probably the worst lattice you will ever see on a pie. 🙂 I figured once it was baked and we were enjoying the pie, we wouldn’t mind the appearance.

It smelled heavenly while it baked, and it looks darn good to me now that it’s out of the oven. It tastes yummy, too. 🙂

yummy good apple pie

Back to Back Baking

No more falcons, no more live concerts, so it’s back to talking about cooking and baking in the new kitchen. *smile* I got to show it off today to someone new! He said “I want to go home now and redo my kitchen”. We sat in the breakfast room at my fun round bistro table. He loved that handle and the fact that it really can move up and down.

Besides contributing a vegetable side dish for Thanksgiving dinner, I am also “responsible” for sugar free desserts. t-day apple pie This goes back to when my father, who was diabetic, was alive. My father loved desserts and once the diabetes was diagnosed I spent a lot of time learning to make desserts he (and the others with diabetes) could eat. Then a few years ago (2013) Thanksgiving and Chanukah coincided. For American Jews this was a wonderful event and inspired much holiday and culinary creativity. It was known as Thanksgivukkah. Although I fell in love with the rye crust for the pumpkin pie, I don’t really like pumpkin pie. I decided to see what I could do with the Pecan Pie Rugelach recipe.

I made the first batch exactly as called for in the recipe so I could learn the proper textures. Then I began to reduce the sugar AND to remove the dairy – I needed to make it kosher. Since we were having a meat meal, I could not have dairy in the dessert (cannot mix meat and dairy) The dairy for the dough was easy – vegan cream cheese and pareve margerine. pecan pie rugelachThe brown sugar was a bit of a ‘cheat’, but was deemed acceptable by the doctor (who is also diabetic). I use Splenda brown sugar, which is half brown sugar and half sugar substitute. This means that although it’s not sugar free, it has less sugar and fewer carbohydrates than regular brown sugar. When you factor in the lower quantity used, and spread it over the entire batch, it is acceptable for the folks at my table. And even at that, I tend to be stingy measuring the sugar, instead of generous. I’m always VERY generous measuring vanilla extract. 🙂 The other substitution is with the corn syrup. I use agave. If a recipe calls for 1/2 cup of syrup, use 1/4 cup agave and increase the liquids. The first time I made the rugelach the menfolk for whom it was made went crazy. They loved it. And so a tradition was born. I make SF pecan pie rugelach for Thanksgiving.

My father was also why I started making SF apple pies. inside of pieI changed up my recipe for the T-day pie since I wasn’t happy with the puree made with dried apricots. I did put some dried apricots in with the cranberries and the cranberry juice, but I also used sugar free orange marmalade. That gave the puree the correct consistency and liquidity needed to soften the apples and keep the pie filling moist and tender. I did the same layering with apples/puree/cinnamon & nutmeg as I did in my pie the week before the holiday. This one was much, much better although I didn’t get to eat much of it. 🙂

I’ve also made chocolate pecan pie for my sister in the past. She really loves it and it is so easy to make. That one is sugar-full and I don’t usually bring sugar desserts to Thanksgiving. pecan pie Our friends are fantastic bakers and they bring a smorgasbord of great desserts. But I was having so much fun baking and I knew they did NOT make chocolate pecan pie, so I made that one too. I used the fantastic coconut oil crust from the kale butternut squash pie. I have NO idea how the pie came out, since I never got a piece. 🙂 I brought it to my sister’s house but we did not serve it at dinner.

The shortbread was simply me going over and beyond. My sister and I spend a LOT of time talking/texting/emailing as we prepare for holidays. I tried to bribe her to come over and visit me and promised her some shortbread if she came. shortbreadWell she didn’t come but now the idea of making shortbread was in my head. I got up early Thursday morning and made up a batch of shortbread. I sent half of it to her and kept the other half for myself. I can assure you that the shortbread was delicious. I think I used a different recipe this time than the last time I made it. But the last time I made it was years ago – I have no idea which recipe I pulled. This time I looked at 4 different recipes, figured out the commonalities and made 2 pans. Yum Yum Yum.

I LOVE my new kitchen!!!!!