Grandma's Apple Pie

Making a pie from scratch has been a goal of mine for a long time and I've finally done it!

I started out by looking at apple pie recipes online and they looked very complicated...one said I needed to refrigerate the crust dough for 4 hours or ideally overnight! I called my grandma and she set me on the right track. Grandma says that refrigerating the dough is completely unnecessary and her pie crust had 4 ingredients and one of them is water. The one I was looking at online had at least 8 - yeah, Grandma's won.

Ingredients

Pie crust
2 cup flour
4 Tb butter or crisco (grandma says a "good Tb" so you might toss in a little extra)
1 tsp of salt
1 tsp cinnamon *I added this because I'm making apple pie
water, as needed (approx 2 Tb)

Filling
6 apples, cored, sliced
1/2 cup of sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
Additional 2 Tb of sugar

Equipment
Pie plate, 10"
Aluminum foil
Rolling pin

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Mix salt, cinnamon and flour together, cut in butter. Add enough water to moisten the crust as you work it into dough. Kneed for 5-10 minutes. Take half of the dough and roll it out (using a little flour) until it's about 1/4 in thick and place it in the bottom of a greased pie plate. The bottom crust should go up the sides of the plate, trim any excess away.

Place sliced apples in a medium sized pot with 2 Tb of sugar and enough water to cover the apples. Cook on medium heat for about 10 minutes. Drain any excess liquid and allow to cool. Mix the 1/2 cup of sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg with the apples and place them in the pie plate.

Roll the second half dough out until it's a 1/4 in thick. Place on top of the pie plate and press around the edges to seal with the bottom crust. cover the edges of the pie with foil (or a pie shield if you have one) Bake at 350 degrees for 45-60 minutes, removing the foil for the last 15 minutes.

Cheddar & thyme scones

This week, I continued my exploration of bread-products by making scones. I had never made scones before and I was surprised how easy they were. I made them on a weeknight! I'm not even sure they count as bread now that I've made them, since it was so easy!

I looked for a basic "savory" scone recipe that I could play around with, I think the basic recipe could be made with just about any flavorings, though if I was making a sweet scone, I might skip some or all of the sugar.

This recipe for Fresh Herb Scones was the starting point. My recipe for Cheddar & Thyme Scones is below.

Basic recipe

2 cups flour
1 Tb sugar
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup butter
1/2 cup milk
1 egg

Cheddar & Thyme additions

3/4 cup shredded, sharp cheddar cheese
2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp garlic

Cooking Equipment

Pastry blender

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, thyme and garlic in a large bowl. Blend butter in using either a pastry blender (or fork) until well blended and a mixture of course crumbs forms. Stir in milk, lightly beaten egg and cheese. A slightly moist, crumbly dough will form. Knead dough on a lightly floured surface and form in a round, flat mound. Place on a greased cookie sheet and cute into 8 wedges. Separate the wedges and bake for 15-20 minute or until lightly browned.

My whole apartment smelled like thyme, in a nice way. If I make this again I might scale back the amount of thyme I use because it was a little strong but otherwise they were tasty.

3-day weekend = cooking ambition

As memorial day weekend approached, all I could think about was food. What was I going to make on this extra day free from work that I would normally never have time for? I was browsing around on Simply Recipes when the answer found me: foccacia. When on Earth would I ever have time to hang around and wait for bread to rise again? Probably never.

This is the first time I've ever made bread. Do I choose something simple? Nope. I have to choose some complicated Italian bread that I'm not even sure I pronounce right.

The directions from Simply Recipes are below, or click on the link to see some step by step photos.

For my first time making bread, I think this was a huge success. I should have probably used more herbs, it seemed like a lot of rosemary at the time but the finished product could have used more. Also, you might want to think about halving this recipe, that means you'll be using half a yeast packet but it might be a good idea anyway. There was so much bread. I ate tons of it while it was still warm. I gave it to neighbors. I might make croutons with some of it. There was so much!

Directions (from Simply Recipes)

This recipe makes enough for 2 good-sized loaves. Or you can do what we've done, which is take 2/3 of the dough and bake it in a 9x15-inch baking pan, and the remaining third of the dough free-form on a baking sheet. You can make it all in free-form loaves that look like puffy pizzas, or shape them into casseroles or cake pans – there are no absolutes on the shape of this bread. The bread takes on the flavor of the olive oil so use a good quality one. Like most breads, this focaccia freezes well. You can also slice several day old focaccia bread and toast it, serving it with butter and/or honey.
Ingredients:

* 1 package dry yeast
* 1/3 cup warm water, about 100 degrees
* 2 1/4 cups tepid water
* 2 Tbsp good quality olive oil, plus more for the pan and to paint on top of the bread
* 3 cups bread flour
* 4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 Tbsp salt, plus coarse salt (fleur de sel if you have it, otherwise Kosher salt) for sprinkling over the top
* 2-3 Tbsp finely chopped fresh rosemary (can use sage or other herbs such as thyme or oregano, but whatever herb you use, do use fresh herbs, do not use dried)

1 Stir the yeast into the 1/3 cup of slightly warm-to-the-touch water and let it rest for 10 minutes.
2 In a large bowl, pour in 2 1/4 cups of tepid water and 2 tablespoons olive oil. After the yeast has rested for 10 minutes and has begun to froth, pour it into the water-oil mixture.
3 Whisk in 2 cups of flour (either the bread flour or the all purpose, at this stage it doesn't matter which) and the tablespoon of salt. Add the rosemary. Then, cup by cup, whisk in the rest of the flour (both the bread flour and all purpose). As the mixture goes from a batter to a thick dough, you'll want to switch from a whisk to a wooden spoon. By the time you get to the last cup of flour, you will be able to work the dough with your hands. Begin to knead it in the bowl – try to incorporate all the flour stuck to the sides and bottom of the bowl as you begin kneading. Once the bowl is pretty clean, turn the dough out onto a board and knead it well for 8 minutes. You might need some extra flour if the dough is sticky.
Note that a KitchenAid mixer (or some other brand of upright electric mixer) works well for the mixing and kneading of the bread dough. About the time you add the last cup of flour you'll want to switch from the standard mixer attachment to the dough hook attachment. Just knead the dough using the dough hook on low speed for 8 minutes. If after a few minutes the dough is still a little sticky, add a little sprinkling of flour to it.
4 In a large clean bowl, pour in about a tablespoon of oil and put the dough on top of it. Spread the oil all over the dough. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set aside to rise (in a relatively warm spot or at room temp) for an hour and a half.
5 Spread a little olive oil in your baking pan or baking sheet (will make it easier to remove the bread). Place the dough in your baking pans or form it into free-form rounds on a baking sheet. This recipe will do two nice-sized loaves or one big one and a little one. Cover the breads and set aside for another 30 minutes.
6 Dimple the breads with your thumb. Push in to about the end of your thumbnail, roughly 1/2-inch. Cover again and leave it to rise for its final rise, about 2 hours.
7 With 30 minutes to go before the rise finishes, preheat your oven to 400°F. If you have a pizza stone put it in.
8 Once the dough has done its final rise, gently paint the top with olive oil – as much as you want. Then sprinkle the coarse salt on top from about a foot over the bread; this lets the salt spread out better on its way down and helps reduce clumps of salt.
9 Put the bread in the oven. If you are doing free-form breads, put it right on the pizza stone. Bake for a total of 20-25 minutes. If you have a water spritzer bottle, spritz a little water in the oven right before you put the bread in to create steam, and then a couple of times while the bread is baking.
When the bread comes out of the oven, turn it out onto a rack within 3-5 minutes; this way you'll keep the bottom of the bread crispy. Let cool on a rack for 10 minutes before eating.
Makes a large loaf and a small loaf of 1 1/2 to 2 inches thick. How much will this serve? Easily a dozen, but it’s so good you might find yourself eating more than you expect.

A new way to make carbonara

When I was a kid, I always hung around the kitchen. When Mom was baking a cake, I was there waiting to lick the bowl - before my sister got there - and I would chat with my mom asking her a million questions about everything under the sun...needless to say I was kicked out a fair amount.

Little did I know that I was also learning to cook. I would sit at the bar (jabbering away) and she would be cooking on the other side. As an adult, I've always liked going to restaurants with open kitchens and watching what they are doing and learning new techniques and dishes. I was definitely hanging around Jess' kitchen while she was making the guacamole.

So there is this Italian restaurant called Vapiano's, it's a chain operated by a German company I believe and there was a location in Den Haag that I used to go to when I lived there and there are also a few in the DC area. Vapiano's has an open kitchen and they cook pasta dished in front of you. I almost always order spaghetti carbonara.

So I've made cabonara at home too, several times but the recipe I used was sort of hit and miss, it was better from Vapiano's. Plus what they were doing was simpler! I was mixing egg and cream and pouring it on hot pasta, mixing it quickly to cook the sauce. Sometimes it was really tasty and other times I ended up with pasta and scrambled eggs.

After watching the chef's at Vapiano's make my carbonara about 10 times, I thought I can do this, I'm gonna try it and if it doesn't work there is always a Lean Cuisine in the freezer.

Spaghetti Carbonara a la Vapiano's

1 serving of spaghetti/linguine pasta (cooked, hot)
1 1/2 cup cream
1 egg yoke
garlic, chopped
olive oil
chopped bacon
Parmesan cheese (optional)

Pour a small amount of olive oil in a small sauce pan and add chopped garlic and bacon. Cook garlic for about 1 minute until it becomes fragrant. Pour cream in sauce pan and cook on low-med heat until the cream boils around the edges, stirring frequently. Stir in egg yoke (can add additional spices here, basil ect). Reduce sauce, stirring frequently. When sauce reaches desired thickness, mix in pasta and serve. Garnish with Parmesan cheese, if desired.


This recipe was so simple. I actually made this on a whim, I had some extra cream in the fridge from making cinnamon rolls and pasta and an egg are pretty easy to come by in my house. I actually skipped the bacon and just added a bit of salt because I did not have any around, so I guess mine wasn't really "carbonara."

I've always been really interested in what is going in my food so, I've always liked hanging out in kitchens to watch, but for anyone who likes to cook or wants to learn more, definitely watch every chance you get - never know where you will learn something new!

Taste: B+
Cost: A
Wast: A+ (single serving!)

SGG 2010 Resolutions

Since the new year I've been thinking a bit about what my cooking goals for 2010 should be. 2009 brought several milestones:
1. I started the Single Girl Gourmet (SGG) blog
2. I made mussels for the first time
3. I gave a half-hearted and somewhat disastrous attempt at a wine reduction sauce

So what do I want do for 2010?

The first project is something that my cousin prompted me to consider on Christmas. My cousin is something of an armature chef also, though perhaps a bit further along than myself. He actually wants to leave his engineering firm and bake pies for a living. Hilarious. Though, he does make a pretty tasty pie, could give grandma a run for her money! So we were discussing pies and specifically a if it's worth the time to make a crust from scratch, taste-wise. I'm not so sure that it is but my cousin maintains that's the only way to go and as I said he bakes a good pie. So I'm going to try it. I'm going to bake a pie entirely from scratch. When I find an entire day to do nothing but bake that is.

I'm going to give the wine reduction sauces another shot. I think I'm just too impatient to let the sauce cook long enough to reduce. I might have to start cooking before I'm actually hungry. That might help.

This is also going to be the year I finally make Spanish tortilla. I love Spanish tortilla and I've been planning to try and make it for about 5 years. I'll be visiting Spain soon so I'm hoping that will prod me into action.

I also want to try and make my own marinara sauce. I gave a disastrous attempt last year at making fresh pesto. I was doomed from the beginning because I don't have a food processor, or other chopper to use but if my basil ever grows I might give that another go too. However, I can still make marinara!

In summary, SGG 2010 cooking goals:
1. Make a pie crust from scratch (hopefully filling too)
2. Give a wine reduction sauce the college try
3. Finally make Spanish tortilla
4. Make homemade marinara (and possibly pesto)

Four goals that I have an entire year to accomplish, hopefully I won't be doing all four next December.

Quick cinnamon rolls

Love cinnamon rolls? I do. But really I only LOVE my mom's and like everyone else's. Mom is known for her cinnamon rolls. People drive from other cities to buy them from her store and during the holidays, they are overloaded with orders. I, of course, request them every time I visit. Oh if only she could ship them to DC. sigh.

This quicker version is something mom used to make at home, when she did not feel like getting up at the crack of dawn to make the real deal. Waiting for the dough to rise takes forever and at home there is no proofer (an appliance that makes dough rise faster). This was my first try at making them. Something to tide me over until I can have the real deal over Thanksgiving.

I had a phone consultation with mom before I started. Did I ignore her advice? Yes. To my own peril? 50-50. I did not have the exact ingredients that I needed to really make this but I wasn't feeling like going to the store so I decided to wing a few things and it more or less worked out ok, tasted good anyway, maybe too good...I ate 3 already!

Ingredients
pre-made crescent roll dough
cinnamon
sugar
brown sugar
powdered sugar
cream
cream cheese
vanilla

I did not put in the amount of each ingredient because you can adjust based on how many you want to make. Roll out the crescent dough and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar roll them up and put them in a greased pan. You may notice in the photos I used a loaf pan, is there a reason for this? Yea, I couldn't find my 9" round pan. It's important that the pan not be too over sized, when the crescents are cooked and plump up you want them to touch lightly, so I used the loaf pans.




After the crescents are in the pan, prepare the brown sugar topping. This stuff is like crack. The total secret to the amazing-ness of mom's cinnamon rolls. Pour about a cup of cream in a saucepan and mix in a cup of brown sugar, you can make more or less but there should be about a 1 to 1 ratio of cream to brown sugar. Boil the mixture until the brown sugar dissolves and it bubbles nicely. It should be a dark brown, carmel color. You can add more brown sugar if needed and pour the mixture over the rolls. Put the pan in the oven and bake according to the package directions.

This is one place where I ignored mom (yea...there was more than one). I did not have enough cream so I used half and half for the carmel mixture and it worked pretty well. I added a little more brown sugar to make it thicker. No problem.

While the rolls are in the oven, make a cream cheese frosting. Mom uses cream cheese, powdered sugar, vanilla and cream. Like I said, I did not have enough cream and now I'd used all the half and half for the brown sugar topping, so I used milk. I also did not have any powdered sugar so I used granulated. Did it work? Um...not so much really. It tasted fine but did not have the same texture of mom's and was more of a sweetened cream cheese than a frosting. It still tasted yummy and I'm going to use the extra as a dip for apples tomorrow at lunch.


These are perfect brunch fare and soooo much easier than waiting for bread to rise for hours and hours. No thank you. Plus, you can make a few or a few dozen. I made one pack of crescent dough, so 8 and I will def be eating them all. Hopefully not all today...we'll see.

The power of food

Can the way we eat change the world? This question was posed to me last week by a coworker (I work at an environmental org) and myself and another colleague immediately said, "yes."

Since then, I've been thinking about what I eat and the choices I have at the grocery store. Is my environmental guilt escalating? You betcha. Over the years I've made a number of decisions about what to eat and how much based on both health and environment. For example:

1. I try to eat less meat, especially red both because meat cultivation is bad for the environment and red meat in particular should be limited for health reasons. I also have ethical concerns about industrial farming techniques and think some of that could be reduced if everyone was conscious about their meat choices.
2. I try and eat in season. This is good for the environment, healthier and saves me money.
3. I don't eat veal, or as I like to call it - baby cow in a box.
4. I try to be conscious of my seafood choices. This is a tough one because there are so many issues. Seafood is a great source of lean protein, can contain mercury, Omega 3s, some seafood is overfished, or farmed in environmentally harmful ways...sometimes I buy something at the store and then check Seafood Watch and see it's overfished and feel guilty (especially if it's yummy and I want it again). Luckily most of the issues surrounding salmon and tuna I can avoid because I don't like them anyway but I LOVE shrimp. Most shrimp is farmed in South East Asia or Latin America and it's really bad for the environment. I try to resist and definitely eat less than I used to, but sometimes I fall off the wagon.

So those are the things I'm doing pretty well on but room for improvement? Of course especially on:

1. Buying more local/organic produce. Organic produce is especially hard for me because it's much more expensive most of the time and usually doesn't keep as long, meaning I pay more for it and then it goes bad before I even get a chance to eat it. When you cook for 1 a single cucumber might be in 3-4 meals!
2. Health...yea I had hash-browns for dinner a few nights ago. I also eat way too much cheese and too many baked goods but I'm not trying to cut out either of those!
3. Organics/ethical products in general. Package organic food can also be challenging both because of the higher costs and because there is usually not a big variety of package sizes. This is still a niche market and normally only the 'standard size' is available, whereas I would usually buy the small size. I find this to be a problem with cage-free eggs especially. I feel I would like to buy them but they only come in 1dz packages and it's just more eggs than I can use, sometimes the 8-pack of eggs my store sells is too much!
4. Plastic. I recently became aware of the huge environmental problem that is plastic but almost all food comes in plastic. I don't put my produce in plastic bags anymore because there really is no need but past that I haven't made any progress.

I really do think what we eat makes a difference. The power of consumer purchasing is huge, companies will manufacture anything as long as they can sell it and make a profit, making good choices with our purchases shows that there is a market for good, sustainable products. I realize I'm a long way from perfect in my purchasing choices but I'm trying to be aware of the downfalls and slowly move in the right direction.

Mussels al la Marinere

I've been wanting to try making mussels for a long time but have been put off because I did not really know what to do and thought I'd screw them up. Now I'm pretty sure they are virtually impossible to screw up!

Not only are mussels always delicious when I have them in restaurants (and now at home!) but they are also a great seafood choice because growing them has a very low environmental impact, they actually clean the water while growing! Mussels are also healthy and fairy inexpensive for seafood. I bough a bag of probably 50 mussels for $4.99.

I read up on cleaning and debearding mussels before making them but honestly when I bought them at the store they were practically ready to roll. A few still had beards attached but a quick tug and they were gone. This YouTube video shows you how to clean and check the mussels.


At one point, I was a little creeped out because I realized the mussles were still alive and found it a little disconcerting. However, they need to be alive or you don't want to cook and eat them. Still when I went to soak them in water it was weird to see little bubbles come up.

The recipe I made can be found here. I followed the advice someone else left in the recipes comments about doubling the sauce and serving the mussels and sauce over pasta but honestly, I think it was a totally unnecessary thing to do. I was perfectly happy with the mussels and some bread to dip in the sauce. You'll want a crusty bread. I used a multi-grain baguette.


To summarize, my tips for making Mussels a la Mariniere:
1. Serving over pasta not needed
2. Be sure to soak the mussels in fresh water for 20min
3. Do not leave the mussels in a plastic bag after purchasing, they will die
4. Buy two bottles of wine if you want to have a few glasses with dinner, especially if you plan to double the sauce
5. Buy lots of bread, dipping is the best part

Taste: A+
Cost: B+
Waste: A

I'm starting to feel adventurous...

I feel like I haven't cooked in ages. All last week I ate but practically no cooking, and the week before? I'm sure I cooked something, but spent most of the week subsisting on Lean Cuisine and cleaning out the fridge. So now I'm feeling a little spunky.

And I'm thinking mussels. I love eating mussels but I've never cooked them. I've never even seen them cooked by someone else! From eating mussels, I know that the secret is a fabulous sauce. If the sauce is good, eating bread dipped in the sauce can make the actual mussels a side-show. My last attempt at a learning a new sauce was a total disaster, however, a yummy looking recipe I found would fulfill the criteria for all 3 of my cooking goals this year: 1) Try cooking mussels or scallops 2) Learn wine sauces 3) Learn reduction sauces. Seems like it's meant to be.

So I'm doing some reconnaissance on mussel preparation. I read a great article on allrecipes.com about mussel preparation and I'm starting to feel prepared, although I'm still not sure I have the slightest idea how to debeard a mussel. Maybe I will look for a YouTube video on mussel cleaning and give it a whirl this weekend.

A girl, a chicken and a plan: part 2

The chicken is successfully in the oven and really it wasn't that bad! The part that I was dreading, taking the bag of chicken parts out of the chicken was really no big deal. Everything was contained in a neat plastic bag. No fuss no muss!

Before I opened the chicken, I called mom because I was sure I would need assistance but I really didn't. I took the bag out, rinsed the chicken a little and put it in a pan with some water. I sprinkled some spices (pepper, salt, garlic and a chicken seasoning blend) inside the chicken and all around the outside and put it in the oven. The package even said what temp and how long to cook it! It also said to tie the feet together but Mom said I did not have to and Mom trumps package.

It also doesn't need to cook nearly as long as I thought, only an hour and 10 minutes (according to the package), I'm assuming it's because this is a fairly small chicken at about 6lbs. I told mom when I go home for Thanksgiving, we're making a turkey together! She laughed. We'll see.

On that note, I need to go and baste it a little!

If you say "mmm" in the kitchen and no one hears it, is it still good?

I'm a single girl, who likes to eat but it's challenging to cook for one. Recipes are designed for families of four. Package sizes at the store are too big to use for one person. Leftovers are depressing. No one to make "mmmm" sounds when it's really good. The list goes on. There are some benefits, no one to complain when it's bad, and only one person's likes and dislikes to accomodate. Big pluses.

My mom, is actually a chef, she runs her own catering company, so most of my kitchen education as a kid involved watcthing from the bar while I talked to my mom or her kicking me out of the kitchen. She made it look so easy. She never measures and it's always amazing, I call her the "approximate chef." It gave me impossible standards, which I did not realize until I grew up and figured out that not everyone has these amazing abilities.

So the goals are to cook for one person (maybe with leftovers to take to work for lunch the next day), save money, cut out food waste where possible, and make lots of "mmm" sounds, even if no one else around to hear it.