A bushel of apples

Is a heck of a lot of apples. I processed it into about 3 gallons of applesauce and enough sliced frozen apples for two pies. I don't want to think about apples for awhile.

But I did find a good trick. If I start the applesauce on the stove in my Le Creuset dutch oven then cover it and move it to the oven at about 350 it acts as a little pressure cooker and cooks the applesauce a bit faster and requires much less attention than the stovetop method. I love shortcuts!

Mmmm, pizza

But different. Try apple, rosemary, blue cheese, and walnut pizza. Sounds odd, tastes great. This is based on a recipe in our share newsletter a couple of weeks ago.




Apple, Blue Cheese, and Walnut Pizza


The original recipe appears in Dishing Up Vermont by Tracey Medeiros. I've modified by not measuring and using a different crust.


Pizza dough (I used 2 c white bread flour and 1 c whole wheat pastry flour that made 2 pizzas, this and another more traditional pizza)


1 large apple, unpeeled, cored, and cut into 1/8 inch slices
3/4 cup crumbled blue cheese (3 oz)
1/2 - 3/4 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese (2-3 ounces) - I used mozzarella
1 1/2 tsp chopped fresh rosemary, or 3/4 tsp dried
1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts


Preheat oven to 500F and place pizza stone into bottom of the oven.

Roll half the dough to a 13-inch circle on parchment paper. Bake the crust for approximately 10 minutes, or until it just begins to brown. Cover the crust with apple slices, cheeses, rosemary, walnuts to taste. Bake an additional 10-12 minutes, or until edges are lightly browned.



Ben and I loved it, Sam tried it and ended up waiting for the more traditional pepperoni pizza.



Look! I remembered to take a picture.

A compote

Cranberry apple cider is nice but when it hits the 2 week mark, things get a little fermented. I don't think the alcohol level is enough to give me a nice little buzz so I decided to do a reduction and see what I came up with.

I came up with a nice intense apple flavor but I still needed to do something with it. I had some pork chops I was planning to cook for dinner so I decided that I'd make a compote. I have some frozen local cranberries from an earlier share and cranberry apple compote sounded good.


Cranberry apple compote

1 c of reduced apple cider (from about 1 quart of cider)
2 c cranberries
1 shallot, finely diced

Heat reduced apple cider and add the cranberries and shallots. Simmer until all the berries have popped.

Yes, that's it! I dumped the whole batch over the pork chops and served it with a wild rice pilaf and maple carrots.

Grade: Mmmmmm

Making dinner for friends

Apple Pie

Today I made and apple pie using the vodka crust method. It does seem to make the crust more flaky. And why do I start the day making dessert rather than working on the main event? Oh, dessert IS the main event.

Crust:
2/3 c butter
2 c flour
1/2 t salt
Water/vodka mix

Filling:
Apples
1/2 brown sugar, a couple T white sugar
1/4 c flour
cinnamon
nutmeg

Grade: Excellent. Butter crust didn't got soggy this time.

Looks beautiful! Extra crust turned into piecrust pinwheels. They're dangerous.

Applesauce
Buttload (at least 7 lb) apples, peeled, cored
Apple cider (mine is on its way to turning hard)
Maple syrup

Boil - I'll need to throw it in the food processor because even after simmering for over an hour it still has pieces of apple.

Made only about 2 pints of applesauce which is depressing for as much work as it is. Tasted great though.

Grade: Good

Moose whatever - it said shoulder on the bag

Ben shot it, butchered it with a friend. It's moose but mystery moose parts and probably at least 5 lbs.

Brined meat in salt, juniper berries, crushed garlic, water, bayleaf, peppercorns about 4 days earlier. Brining really decreases gaminess.

Rinse brine off (the peppercorns and juniper berries were stuck in the meat like buckshot), add rosemary & onions & water (or whatever flavor profile you'd like) Roast covered at 300 for hours and hours. Cook until it pretty much falls off the bone - about 5 hours this time.

Grade: Very good...keep in mind that my rating is based on my general blah feeling about large pieces of meat. Everyone ate it and liked it, even the kids.

Glazed Carrots

About 2 lbs carrots cut to preferred size/shape - simmer to preferred tenderness

Mix 2/3 c brown sugar, 1/4 c butter in pan. Add cooked carrots, sprinkle w zest of one orange

Grade: Very good

Smashed local mulit-color potatoes.

I put cream cheese in the potatoes to keep them smooth even though they were done early.

These potatoes don't make nice fluffy mashed like Idaho potatoes. They taste good but are kinda heavy.