With the odds of a recession next year approaching 110%, and global equity markets seemingly heading straight to zero, it's probably a good time to think of extra ways to save money over the coming months and years.
Here at Casual Kitchen I spend a lot of time writing and thinking about ways to save money on food, and today I thought it would be a great time to run a retrospective of some of our best and most read articles on the subject.
Feel free to peruse the links below for posts on how to cook more efficiently at home, ideas on how to eat well on very little money, and other articles on how to save money in the kitchen.
And if you have thoughts you'd like to share on these subjects, please feel free to leave a comment below or shoot me an email. I'm just hiding under a blanket over here anyway.
Recipe Ideas:
All CK Recipes Filed Under "Laughably Cheap"
Money-saving Tips and Ideas:
Ten Tips to Save Money on Spices and Seasonings
A Simple Way to Beat Rising Food Prices
Mastering Kitchen Setup Costs
Eight Tips to Make Cooking At Home Laughably Cheap
How to Get More Mileage Out of Your Cookbooks
Longer Essays on Food Costs:
Stacked Costs and Second-Order Foods: A New Way to Think About Rising Food Costs
Why Spices Are a Complete Rip-Off and What You Can Do About It
Tips on Saving Money while Eating Healthy:
What's the Most Heavily Used Tool in Our Kitchen? Our Rice Cooker.
How to Make Your Own Inexpensive Sports Drink
How to Create Your Own Original Pasta Salad Recipes Using the Pasta Salad Permutator
Two Useful Cooking Lessons From Another Cheap and Easy Side Dish
Fresh Herbs Part 2: Solutions to the Waste Problem
Cooking Strategies and Tactics:
How to Team Up in the Kitchen
How to Apply the 80/20 Rule to Cooking
More Applications of the 80/20 Rule to Diet, Food and Cooking
Seven Ways to Get Faster at Cooking
Ten Strategies to Stop Mindless Eating
Doing Your Favorite Thing: How to Spend Exactly the Right Amount of Money For an Important Celebration
How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by subscribing to my RSS feed, or submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon.
Curried Pork With Apples
When I published my linkfest of apple recipes last week, one recipe immediately jumped off the page: Curried Pork with Apples.
We're always on the lookout here at Casual Kitchen for recipes that combine regular ingredients in unusual and original ways (dishes like Groundnut Stew and our Mole Sauce are textbook examples). And I could tell that today's recipe, with a spicy curry sauce set off by slightly sweet and tender apples chunks, would have a lot of promise.
It didn't disappoint. And better still, this recipe is easy, quick (prep time is around 15 minutes and total cook time is well under an hour), and relatively inexpensive. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.
***********************
Curried Pork with Apples
(slightly modified from the original at About.com)
Ingredients:
1 pound lean pork, cut into 1-2 inch cubes (can use ground pork)
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 apples, peeled, cored and chopped
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 tablespoons flour
1 to 2 teaspoons curry powder, to taste
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder (or one clove garlic, pressed or minced)
2 cups chicken broth or vegetable stock
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Directions:
1) Brown the cubed pork on all sides in oil, on high heat, in a large non-stick pan, about 4-5 minutes in total.
2) Turn heat down to medium-high. Add apples and chopped onions to the pork. Saute for 4-5 minutes, until starting to brown lightly. Add flour and dry spices, stir well and continue sauteing for another 1-2 minutes.
3) Add remaining ingredients, cover and simmer for 35 minutes. Serve with rice.
Serves 4.
***********************
Recipe notes:
1) We made some minor modifications to the spices; here's a link to the original recipe if you'd like to compare the before and after versions.
2) We ended up adding another 1-2 Tablespoons of flour to the sauce to get it to just the right thickness.
3) Make sure to stir the simmering sauce every 5-10 minutes or so, otherwise it may start to stick to the bottom of the pan.
4) The original recipe claims it serves 4-6, an optimistic claim if I ever saw one. Try "serves 4." But keep in mind that this dish is highly scalable and re-heatable and thus a great double-batch candidate.
5) Finally, a few thoughts on possible modifications that you can make to this dish. First, attention all non-pork eaters: this dish could very easily be made with chicken instead of pork. A vegetarian version could include 1/2 to 3/4 of a cup of chickpeas or perhaps 12 ounces of very firm tofu (although I'd add the tofu in at step #3 to prevent it from breaking up too much). You could also add nuts to this dish to add an interesting layer of textures to the sauce--I'd consider 1/4 cup of mild-tasting nuts like almonds or walnuts.
Related Posts:
Shrimp in Garlic Sauce (Camarones Ajillo)
Spicy Eggplant Ratatouille
What's the Most Heavily Used Tool in Our Kitchen? Our Rice Cooker.
How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by subscribing to my RSS feed, or submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon.
We're always on the lookout here at Casual Kitchen for recipes that combine regular ingredients in unusual and original ways (dishes like Groundnut Stew and our Mole Sauce are textbook examples). And I could tell that today's recipe, with a spicy curry sauce set off by slightly sweet and tender apples chunks, would have a lot of promise.
It didn't disappoint. And better still, this recipe is easy, quick (prep time is around 15 minutes and total cook time is well under an hour), and relatively inexpensive. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.
***********************
Curried Pork with Apples
(slightly modified from the original at About.com)
Ingredients:
1 pound lean pork, cut into 1-2 inch cubes (can use ground pork)
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 apples, peeled, cored and chopped
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 tablespoons flour
1 to 2 teaspoons curry powder, to taste
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder (or one clove garlic, pressed or minced)
2 cups chicken broth or vegetable stock
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Directions:
1) Brown the cubed pork on all sides in oil, on high heat, in a large non-stick pan, about 4-5 minutes in total.
2) Turn heat down to medium-high. Add apples and chopped onions to the pork. Saute for 4-5 minutes, until starting to brown lightly. Add flour and dry spices, stir well and continue sauteing for another 1-2 minutes.
3) Add remaining ingredients, cover and simmer for 35 minutes. Serve with rice.
Serves 4.
***********************
Recipe notes:
1) We made some minor modifications to the spices; here's a link to the original recipe if you'd like to compare the before and after versions.
2) We ended up adding another 1-2 Tablespoons of flour to the sauce to get it to just the right thickness.
3) Make sure to stir the simmering sauce every 5-10 minutes or so, otherwise it may start to stick to the bottom of the pan.
4) The original recipe claims it serves 4-6, an optimistic claim if I ever saw one. Try "serves 4." But keep in mind that this dish is highly scalable and re-heatable and thus a great double-batch candidate.
5) Finally, a few thoughts on possible modifications that you can make to this dish. First, attention all non-pork eaters: this dish could very easily be made with chicken instead of pork. A vegetarian version could include 1/2 to 3/4 of a cup of chickpeas or perhaps 12 ounces of very firm tofu (although I'd add the tofu in at step #3 to prevent it from breaking up too much). You could also add nuts to this dish to add an interesting layer of textures to the sauce--I'd consider 1/4 cup of mild-tasting nuts like almonds or walnuts.
Related Posts:
Shrimp in Garlic Sauce (Camarones Ajillo)
Spicy Eggplant Ratatouille
What's the Most Heavily Used Tool in Our Kitchen? Our Rice Cooker.
How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by subscribing to my RSS feed, or submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon.
50 Delicious Recipes Containing Apples
It's the heart of apple season. And for the past two weeks, I've been on a mission to scour the internet for recipes using apples as a key ingredient. Today's post is the result of that mission: a linkfest of fifty (fifty!) of the internet's best apple-related recipes.
These recipes range from the really easy (Baked Apples), to the unusual (Curried Pork with Apples and Apple and Cumin Lentil Salad), to the downright weird (How to Make An Apple Doll Head--note: that one isn't really a recipe), to the sublime (Apple Stuffed Pork Loin Roast).
A few blogs have multiple mentions here (Smitten Kitchen and 101 Cookbooks are prime examples), and that's simply because those blogs have too many spectacular apple recipes to mention just one.
As with other recipe linkfests I've published at Casual Kitchen, I have looked over each and every one of these recipes with a critical eye for quality. I hope you enjoy this post as much as I enjoyed putting it together.
PS: If you have a blog with an apple-related recipe you'd like to add to the mix, please leave a comment about it below!
PPS: For those of you who arrived here by searching for info on Gwyneth Paltrow's kid, there is nothing of interest here. Move along now.
**************************
The Apple Recipe Linkfest
1-10:
Baked Apples at CheapHealthyGood
Baked Apple Pancake at Apron Strings
Baked Apple Tarts at Hot Off the Garlic Press
Caramel Toffee Apples at Hot Off the Garlic Press
Apple Chips at Blissfully Domestic
Can't Mess It Up Apple Crisp at Stalking Sarah
Caramel Apple Salad at the Healthy Hostess
Homemade Apple Pie at Sweet Savory Southern
Apple Stuffed Pork Loin Roast from Paula Deen at the Food Network
Grilled Apple Sandwich from Paula Deen at the Food Network
11-20:
Estonian Apple Cake at Kitchen Parade
Apple Pierogies with Caramel, Raspberries at R&I Magazine
How to Make An Apple Doll Head at AppleDolls.org
Spiced Honeycake with Caramelized Apples at Baking and Books
Apple Cheddar Quesadillas at Off Her Cork
Red Delicious Oatmeal at For the Love of Oats
Apple Oven Pancake at About.com
Curried Pork with Apples at About.com
Festive Spiced Apple Juice at About.com
Pork Chop Apple Bake at About.com
21-30:
My Apple Cinnymuffins at RhodeyGirl Tests
Apple Cider Pound Cake at Recipes from the Riverside Cafe
German Apple Pancake at The Zachs
Mango Apple Crumble at Chocolate and Zucchini
Apple and Cumin Lentil Salad at Chocolate and Zucchini
Apple and Pistachio Tart at Chocolate and Zucchini
Pork Roast with Spiced Cabbage, Apples, Prunes at Chocolate and Zucchini
Apple and Sausage Pie at Simply Recipes
Apple Squares at The Waking Hour
Apple Bread at Sweet Hour of Prayer
31-40:
Whole Wheat Apple Muffins at Smitten Kitchen
Apple Cranberry Crisp at Smitten Kitchen
Apple and Yogurt Cake at Smitten Kitchen
Simplest Apple Tart at Smitten Kitchen
Homemade Apple Sauce at The Paupered Chef
Fresh Apple Salsa at 101 Cookbooks
Apple Coffee Cake at 101 Cookbooks
Curried Apple Couscous at 101 Cookbooks
Apple Pie Bars at Food&Wine
Apple Dumplings at Food&Wine
41-50:
Spiced Apple Cider Sorbet at TheKitchn.com
Weekend Apple Pancake at TheKitchn.com
Perfect Tarte Tatin at Chefs Gone Wild
Grandma Bernie's Rustic Apple Bars at Vanilla Bean
Hot Spiced Cranberry Apple Cider at Mimi's Garden
Quick Apple Chutney at Veggie Test-Drive
Apple Crostata with Caramel Sauce at BettyCrocker.com
Southern Apple Crumble at BettyCrocker.com
Homemade Apple Cider at Better in Pink
To Die For Apple Crisp at Gather.com
Related Posts:
How to Make an Apple Pie with a Perfect Flaky Crust
Top Ten Most Popular Posts of Casual Kitchen
How to Apply the 80/20 Rule to Cooking
The Crockpot: A Siren Call for Single People
How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by subscribing to my RSS feed, or submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon.
These recipes range from the really easy (Baked Apples), to the unusual (Curried Pork with Apples and Apple and Cumin Lentil Salad), to the downright weird (How to Make An Apple Doll Head--note: that one isn't really a recipe), to the sublime (Apple Stuffed Pork Loin Roast).
A few blogs have multiple mentions here (Smitten Kitchen and 101 Cookbooks are prime examples), and that's simply because those blogs have too many spectacular apple recipes to mention just one.
As with other recipe linkfests I've published at Casual Kitchen, I have looked over each and every one of these recipes with a critical eye for quality. I hope you enjoy this post as much as I enjoyed putting it together.
PS: If you have a blog with an apple-related recipe you'd like to add to the mix, please leave a comment about it below!
PPS: For those of you who arrived here by searching for info on Gwyneth Paltrow's kid, there is nothing of interest here. Move along now.
**************************
The Apple Recipe Linkfest
1-10:
Baked Apples at CheapHealthyGood
Baked Apple Pancake at Apron Strings
Baked Apple Tarts at Hot Off the Garlic Press
Caramel Toffee Apples at Hot Off the Garlic Press
Apple Chips at Blissfully Domestic
Can't Mess It Up Apple Crisp at Stalking Sarah
Caramel Apple Salad at the Healthy Hostess
Homemade Apple Pie at Sweet Savory Southern
Apple Stuffed Pork Loin Roast from Paula Deen at the Food Network
Grilled Apple Sandwich from Paula Deen at the Food Network
11-20:
Estonian Apple Cake at Kitchen Parade
Apple Pierogies with Caramel, Raspberries at R&I Magazine
How to Make An Apple Doll Head at AppleDolls.org
Spiced Honeycake with Caramelized Apples at Baking and Books
Apple Cheddar Quesadillas at Off Her Cork
Red Delicious Oatmeal at For the Love of Oats
Apple Oven Pancake at About.com
Curried Pork with Apples at About.com
Festive Spiced Apple Juice at About.com
Pork Chop Apple Bake at About.com
21-30:
My Apple Cinnymuffins at RhodeyGirl Tests
Apple Cider Pound Cake at Recipes from the Riverside Cafe
German Apple Pancake at The Zachs
Mango Apple Crumble at Chocolate and Zucchini
Apple and Cumin Lentil Salad at Chocolate and Zucchini
Apple and Pistachio Tart at Chocolate and Zucchini
Pork Roast with Spiced Cabbage, Apples, Prunes at Chocolate and Zucchini
Apple and Sausage Pie at Simply Recipes
Apple Squares at The Waking Hour
Apple Bread at Sweet Hour of Prayer
31-40:
Whole Wheat Apple Muffins at Smitten Kitchen
Apple Cranberry Crisp at Smitten Kitchen
Apple and Yogurt Cake at Smitten Kitchen
Simplest Apple Tart at Smitten Kitchen
Homemade Apple Sauce at The Paupered Chef
Fresh Apple Salsa at 101 Cookbooks
Apple Coffee Cake at 101 Cookbooks
Curried Apple Couscous at 101 Cookbooks
Apple Pie Bars at Food&Wine
Apple Dumplings at Food&Wine
41-50:
Spiced Apple Cider Sorbet at TheKitchn.com
Weekend Apple Pancake at TheKitchn.com
Perfect Tarte Tatin at Chefs Gone Wild
Grandma Bernie's Rustic Apple Bars at Vanilla Bean
Hot Spiced Cranberry Apple Cider at Mimi's Garden
Quick Apple Chutney at Veggie Test-Drive
Apple Crostata with Caramel Sauce at BettyCrocker.com
Southern Apple Crumble at BettyCrocker.com
Homemade Apple Cider at Better in Pink
To Die For Apple Crisp at Gather.com
Related Posts:
How to Make an Apple Pie with a Perfect Flaky Crust
Top Ten Most Popular Posts of Casual Kitchen
How to Apply the 80/20 Rule to Cooking
The Crockpot: A Siren Call for Single People
How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by subscribing to my RSS feed, or submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon.
On the Road with Casual Kitchen: Asheville, North Carolina and 12 Bones Barbecue
We made our second stop on our Casual Kitchen tour of the southeastern US in Asheville, NC. This town has the same crunchy vibe as our beloved Ithaca, NY--except Asheville has much better weather and infinitely better barbecue.
We had some of the best barbecue we've ever had in our lives at 12 Bones, a small and unpretentious barbecue joint on the edge of town. We could tell this was going to be world class food before we even walked into the restaurant--you could tell from the dazed and contented looks on the outgoing customers' faces!
Mmmmmm, ribs, with a side of corn bread and mashed sweet potatoes:
Beef brisket, sliced onions, and a side of collards and corn bread:
Here's a happily sated and sedated customer.
Don't forget to bring extra dental floss!
One final note for those of you heading up from Asheville to the Shenandoah Mountains in Virginia: Might I suggest skipping most of the sights north of Asheville? Here's Foamhenge, a must-miss destination:
Instead, high-tail it up to Shenandoah National Park and enjoy some of the glorious views from Skyline Drive:
Tune in a few days from now for a return to our regularly-scheduled programming!
Related Posts:
Paul Prudhomme's Barbecued Shrimp: The Most Glorious Meal So Far This Year
Carolina Barbecue!
Ten Strategies to Stop Mindless Eating
How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by subscribing to my RSS feed, or submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon.
We had some of the best barbecue we've ever had in our lives at 12 Bones, a small and unpretentious barbecue joint on the edge of town. We could tell this was going to be world class food before we even walked into the restaurant--you could tell from the dazed and contented looks on the outgoing customers' faces!
Mmmmmm, ribs, with a side of corn bread and mashed sweet potatoes:
Beef brisket, sliced onions, and a side of collards and corn bread:
Here's a happily sated and sedated customer.
Don't forget to bring extra dental floss!
One final note for those of you heading up from Asheville to the Shenandoah Mountains in Virginia: Might I suggest skipping most of the sights north of Asheville? Here's Foamhenge, a must-miss destination:
Instead, high-tail it up to Shenandoah National Park and enjoy some of the glorious views from Skyline Drive:
Tune in a few days from now for a return to our regularly-scheduled programming!Related Posts:
Paul Prudhomme's Barbecued Shrimp: The Most Glorious Meal So Far This Year
Carolina Barbecue!
Ten Strategies to Stop Mindless Eating
How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by subscribing to my RSS feed, or submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon.
On the Road with Casual Kitchen: Savannah Georgia
Have you ever taken a casual vacation where you have maybe a destination or two in mind but no strict schedule and no set route?
It's not normally Casual Kitchen's habit to talk about our travel plans. But our last vacation, a simple and low-key road trip through Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia, meshed so well with our passion for food, and the entire trip was so relaxed and, well, so casual, that I thought I'd share at least the food-related high points with you, which included visits to Savannah, Georgia and Asheville, North Carolina. I know I have a number of readers from Georgia and the Carolinas, so perhaps you'll know and be willing to share some of your own food stories from these towns as well.
Our first stop was to Savannah, a town so friendly and quaint that it feels like it's from the movies. Oh, wait, it is from the movies--most recently as the setting of the 1997 movie Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, starring Kevin Spacey, John Cusack and a young and weirdly confederate-looking Jude Law.
Here's the best-known landmark in Savannah, the Forsyth Park Fountain:
But let's get to the eating: we stopped into Paula Deen's store/restaurant and had a friendly visit and a booksigning of The Lady & Sons Savannah Country Cookbook
with Paula's son Jamie....
...and then we basically walked the entire historic district by going from candy store to candy store snagging free samples of pralines and buying dark chocolate in countless forms.
It took every ounce of my personal discipline to stop myself from putting my head underneath this glorious river of liquid chocolate:
Our teeth kind of hurt at the end of the day, but it was a good hurt.
Tomorrow: Asheville, NC and Carolina barbecue!
Related Posts:
The Favorite Cookbooks of My Favorite Bloggers
Chocoholics Anonymous
Conclusions from the Chocolate Fast
Top Ten Most Popular Posts of Casual Kitchen
How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by subscribing to my RSS feed, or submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon.
It's not normally Casual Kitchen's habit to talk about our travel plans. But our last vacation, a simple and low-key road trip through Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia, meshed so well with our passion for food, and the entire trip was so relaxed and, well, so casual, that I thought I'd share at least the food-related high points with you, which included visits to Savannah, Georgia and Asheville, North Carolina. I know I have a number of readers from Georgia and the Carolinas, so perhaps you'll know and be willing to share some of your own food stories from these towns as well.
Our first stop was to Savannah, a town so friendly and quaint that it feels like it's from the movies. Oh, wait, it is from the movies--most recently as the setting of the 1997 movie Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, starring Kevin Spacey, John Cusack and a young and weirdly confederate-looking Jude Law.
Here's the best-known landmark in Savannah, the Forsyth Park Fountain:
But let's get to the eating: we stopped into Paula Deen's store/restaurant and had a friendly visit and a booksigning of The Lady & Sons Savannah Country Cookbook with Paula's son Jamie....
...and then we basically walked the entire historic district by going from candy store to candy store snagging free samples of pralines and buying dark chocolate in countless forms.
It took every ounce of my personal discipline to stop myself from putting my head underneath this glorious river of liquid chocolate:
Our teeth kind of hurt at the end of the day, but it was a good hurt.
Tomorrow: Asheville, NC and Carolina barbecue!Related Posts:
The Favorite Cookbooks of My Favorite Bloggers
Chocoholics Anonymous
Conclusions from the Chocolate Fast
Top Ten Most Popular Posts of Casual Kitchen
How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by subscribing to my RSS feed, or submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon.
How to Make an Apple Pie with a Perfect Flaky Crust
Sometimes the fall can be a bit of a depressing time of year for us here at Casual Kitchen. The summer is officially over, the days are becoming noticeably shorter, and darn it all, it's getting cold up here in the northeastern USA!
So it's at this time each year that we give ourselves a big happiness booster
by making the classic autumn dessert: apple pie.
In today's post I'll share with you Casual Kitchen's own apple pie recipe, and I'll also share some bonus photos and instructions on how to make a flaky and delicious pie crust.
**********************
Apple Pie
Pie Filling:
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
dash salt
8-9 medium apples, preferably Macintosh apples
Combine sugar, flour and spices. Peel, quarter and core apples, then slice apples thinly (slices should be roughly 1/8 inch thick) into a large bowl. Shake sugar mixture over the apples and mix. Set aside.
Pie Crusts:
2/3 cup + 2 Tablespoons Crisco (vegetable shortening)
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
4-5 Tablespoons cold water
1) Sift flour and salt into a large bowl. Add Crisco. Combine Crisco and flour using a pastry dough blender.
When the dough is in pea sized pieces, gradually add the cold water, one tablespoon at a time, while fluffing and folding the dough with a fork.
2) After you've finished adding the water, flour your hands and using your hands gently press the dough into a ball.
3) Cut the dough into two equal-sized balls. Gently roll lower crust out and lay into a pie pan. Add sliced apples. Roll out the upper crust and lay on top of the apples, molding the two crusts together over the lip of the pie pan (see photos below for more help on making the crust).
4) Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour at 375F.
**********************
Since there are some unique subtleties involved in making the perfect apple pie, today's recipe notes will be a bit longer than usual:
1) On choosing the right kind of apples: An in-depth discussion of the ideal apple type for a pie is unfortunately beyond the scope of this post. But for the sake of brevity, I'll share our favorite type of apples: Macintosh--if you can get them both fresh and locally grown. With their complex and slightly acidic taste they make a delicious, tangy, and not-too-sweet pie. If you can't get your hands on fresh Macs, we've found Cortland apples and Rome apples (or even a mix of all three) work well too.
There are dozens of different kinds of apples out there, each with its own taste, texture and consistency. It can be a real joy to compare and contrast pies (as well as other foods) made with different types of apples.
2) Note, however, that certain apples might look pretty in your grocery store, but they can taste surprisingly bland and mealy. Some types of apples end up in your grocery store not because they are particularly delicious or good for baking, but because they can survive a long haul trucking journey without looking too beat up to sell once they finally arrive in your store. Macintosh apples, for example, don't keep as long and don't travel as well as the more cosmetic apple varieties like red delicious or granny smith.
But in my view these sturdier and more cosmetic apples can make for a disappointingly bland pie. If locally grown apples are available where you live, use 'em to make your apple pies. You won't regret it!
3) A few thoughts and pictures to help you make the perfect pie crust: First of all, pie crusts are an excellent example of how we divide up labor at Casual Kitchen according to our respective core competencies. Laura has developed over the years a divine gift for making pie crusts (which, by the way, means that most of the pie crust wisdom in today's post comes entirely from her). I'm faster and more effective at the prep work involved in peeling, coring and slicing the apples, so that's my job. And because we do these two tasks in parallel, we can make a pie extremely quickly and efficiently. If you cook with a partner, spouse or family member, try to divide and conquer your cooking labors according to each person's unique skills and interests. You'll be amazed at how applying these principles can make cooking much more time-efficient and fun.
4) You'll also note the use of Crisco in this crust, even though it's typically a forbidden substance here at Casual Kitchen. You can substitute butter or margarine if you prefer, but Laura has found Crisco to give her the best balance between having dough that's easy to handle and dough that tastes great and has an ideal flaky texture. Plus, we can feed this pie to our vegan friends. But hey, let's not confuse pie with health food.
5) Some dough-making process advice for pie crust beginners: Be sure to coat your rolling surface, rolling pin and practically everything else within reach with a liberal coating of loose flour. This prevents the dough from sticking to everything. It also provides the side benefit of preventing the dough maker from having a temper tantrum.
4) Gently roll out the dough. Try not to overwork the crust. The more gentle you are, the flakier and lighter the final crust will be.
5) Use a thin spatula to gently lift the rolled crust up from your rolling surface:
6) Lay the crust out and gently mold it into the pie pan.
7) Add the apples, place the second crust on top, and pinch the two crusts' edges between your finger and thumb for an aesthetically pleasing look:
8) Don't forget to poke a few holes in the top of the pie with a fork to allow air to escape during cooking:
9) Bake, remove from the oven, photograph, and then enjoy your work of culinary art! Be sure to let it cool a bit before eating.
Related Posts:
How to Team Up in the Kitchen
The Favorite Cookbooks of My Favorite Bloggers
How to Modify a Recipe: The Six Rules
Seven Rules To Ensure Mistake-Free Cooking
How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by subscribing to my RSS feed, or submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon.
So it's at this time each year that we give ourselves a big happiness booster
by making the classic autumn dessert: apple pie.
In today's post I'll share with you Casual Kitchen's own apple pie recipe, and I'll also share some bonus photos and instructions on how to make a flaky and delicious pie crust.**********************
Apple Pie
Pie Filling:
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
dash salt
8-9 medium apples, preferably Macintosh apples
Combine sugar, flour and spices. Peel, quarter and core apples, then slice apples thinly (slices should be roughly 1/8 inch thick) into a large bowl. Shake sugar mixture over the apples and mix. Set aside.
Pie Crusts:
2/3 cup + 2 Tablespoons Crisco (vegetable shortening)
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
4-5 Tablespoons cold water
1) Sift flour and salt into a large bowl. Add Crisco. Combine Crisco and flour using a pastry dough blender.
When the dough is in pea sized pieces, gradually add the cold water, one tablespoon at a time, while fluffing and folding the dough with a fork.2) After you've finished adding the water, flour your hands and using your hands gently press the dough into a ball.
3) Cut the dough into two equal-sized balls. Gently roll lower crust out and lay into a pie pan. Add sliced apples. Roll out the upper crust and lay on top of the apples, molding the two crusts together over the lip of the pie pan (see photos below for more help on making the crust).
4) Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour at 375F.
**********************
Since there are some unique subtleties involved in making the perfect apple pie, today's recipe notes will be a bit longer than usual:
1) On choosing the right kind of apples: An in-depth discussion of the ideal apple type for a pie is unfortunately beyond the scope of this post. But for the sake of brevity, I'll share our favorite type of apples: Macintosh--if you can get them both fresh and locally grown. With their complex and slightly acidic taste they make a delicious, tangy, and not-too-sweet pie. If you can't get your hands on fresh Macs, we've found Cortland apples and Rome apples (or even a mix of all three) work well too.
There are dozens of different kinds of apples out there, each with its own taste, texture and consistency. It can be a real joy to compare and contrast pies (as well as other foods) made with different types of apples.
2) Note, however, that certain apples might look pretty in your grocery store, but they can taste surprisingly bland and mealy. Some types of apples end up in your grocery store not because they are particularly delicious or good for baking, but because they can survive a long haul trucking journey without looking too beat up to sell once they finally arrive in your store. Macintosh apples, for example, don't keep as long and don't travel as well as the more cosmetic apple varieties like red delicious or granny smith.
But in my view these sturdier and more cosmetic apples can make for a disappointingly bland pie. If locally grown apples are available where you live, use 'em to make your apple pies. You won't regret it!
3) A few thoughts and pictures to help you make the perfect pie crust: First of all, pie crusts are an excellent example of how we divide up labor at Casual Kitchen according to our respective core competencies. Laura has developed over the years a divine gift for making pie crusts (which, by the way, means that most of the pie crust wisdom in today's post comes entirely from her). I'm faster and more effective at the prep work involved in peeling, coring and slicing the apples, so that's my job. And because we do these two tasks in parallel, we can make a pie extremely quickly and efficiently. If you cook with a partner, spouse or family member, try to divide and conquer your cooking labors according to each person's unique skills and interests. You'll be amazed at how applying these principles can make cooking much more time-efficient and fun.4) You'll also note the use of Crisco in this crust, even though it's typically a forbidden substance here at Casual Kitchen. You can substitute butter or margarine if you prefer, but Laura has found Crisco to give her the best balance between having dough that's easy to handle and dough that tastes great and has an ideal flaky texture. Plus, we can feed this pie to our vegan friends. But hey, let's not confuse pie with health food.
5) Some dough-making process advice for pie crust beginners: Be sure to coat your rolling surface, rolling pin and practically everything else within reach with a liberal coating of loose flour. This prevents the dough from sticking to everything. It also provides the side benefit of preventing the dough maker from having a temper tantrum.
4) Gently roll out the dough. Try not to overwork the crust. The more gentle you are, the flakier and lighter the final crust will be.
5) Use a thin spatula to gently lift the rolled crust up from your rolling surface:
6) Lay the crust out and gently mold it into the pie pan.
7) Add the apples, place the second crust on top, and pinch the two crusts' edges between your finger and thumb for an aesthetically pleasing look:
8) Don't forget to poke a few holes in the top of the pie with a fork to allow air to escape during cooking:
9) Bake, remove from the oven, photograph, and then enjoy your work of culinary art! Be sure to let it cool a bit before eating.Related Posts:
How to Team Up in the Kitchen
The Favorite Cookbooks of My Favorite Bloggers
How to Modify a Recipe: The Six Rules
Seven Rules To Ensure Mistake-Free Cooking
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CK Food Links--Friday September 19, 2008
Here's yet another selection of particularly interesting food-related links from around the internet.
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Ten Spice Rack of Lamb at Chefs Gone Wild:
I had always thought of Rack of Lamb as a dish too far above my station, and I've never quite had the confidence to attempt it here at Casual Kitchen. But that was before I saw this exceptional post that clearly and deliciously explains exactly how to do it.
Easy Focaccia Bread at A Year in Bread:
I'm planning in the next couple of months to teach myself to bake yeast-based bread. Again, until now I've thought of it as an above-my-station kind of thing, but this simple recipe, from a blog dedicated to making a different kind of bread each month, might be the perfect one for me to start with. Readers, what were your first homemade bread-baking experiences? Were they successes or failures?
The Top 10 Food and Drink Hacks at Lifehacker.com:
Time to bring back an all-time classic article. This one taught me how to open a beer bottle with a piece of paper, and it taught me (at least on a theoretical level) how to start a fire with chocolate and a can of Coke. Is there nothing chocolate cannot do?
Food, Frugality, and Fighting Brand Loyalty at CheapHealthyGood:
I'm heading once more back into the archives to bring out one of Kris's all time best posts, in which she writes about why food companies want so badly for us to be blindly brand-loyal and how we can fight back. A real treasure of a post.
The British One Hundred at Food Stories: They say the British kill their food twice: once when they kill it and again when they cook it. Here's a list of 100 quintessential British foods in a list that you can copy on to your own blog. Mark the foods you've tried, the foods you haven't yet tried, and the foods that you'd prefer to die before eating.
One Hundred Pushups
While we're on the subject of things, uh, denominated in hundreds, here's a fun project I've taken on recently. It's a workout plan, for both men and women, to train to do 100 consecutive pushups. I'm up to 45.
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Ten Spice Rack of Lamb at Chefs Gone Wild:
I had always thought of Rack of Lamb as a dish too far above my station, and I've never quite had the confidence to attempt it here at Casual Kitchen. But that was before I saw this exceptional post that clearly and deliciously explains exactly how to do it.
Easy Focaccia Bread at A Year in Bread:
I'm planning in the next couple of months to teach myself to bake yeast-based bread. Again, until now I've thought of it as an above-my-station kind of thing, but this simple recipe, from a blog dedicated to making a different kind of bread each month, might be the perfect one for me to start with. Readers, what were your first homemade bread-baking experiences? Were they successes or failures?
The Top 10 Food and Drink Hacks at Lifehacker.com:
Time to bring back an all-time classic article. This one taught me how to open a beer bottle with a piece of paper, and it taught me (at least on a theoretical level) how to start a fire with chocolate and a can of Coke. Is there nothing chocolate cannot do?
Food, Frugality, and Fighting Brand Loyalty at CheapHealthyGood:
I'm heading once more back into the archives to bring out one of Kris's all time best posts, in which she writes about why food companies want so badly for us to be blindly brand-loyal and how we can fight back. A real treasure of a post.
The British One Hundred at Food Stories: They say the British kill their food twice: once when they kill it and again when they cook it. Here's a list of 100 quintessential British foods in a list that you can copy on to your own blog. Mark the foods you've tried, the foods you haven't yet tried, and the foods that you'd prefer to die before eating.
One Hundred Pushups
While we're on the subject of things, uh, denominated in hundreds, here's a fun project I've taken on recently. It's a workout plan, for both men and women, to train to do 100 consecutive pushups. I'm up to 45.
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