to do list

I swear, I will make you hate apples before the week is out. Here are a few things I'd like to try with my peck. All three of these were found on smittenkitchen.com.

Apple Pie Cookies

(socuteitmakesmewanttocry)

 

Apple Honey Challah

 

Apple Pancakes

And here are a few low-commitment ideas for the non-bakers out there. From delish.com.

Frisee and Green Apple Salad with Goat Cheese Torts



I wish I was eating this right now...



Pork Tenderloin with Sauteed Apples and Leeks

Has your brain exploded from apple-overload yet? Good, because we have more!

m

a bushel and a peck, etc.

Deciding what to cook with a bushel of apples is not as easy as it seems. Especially when you're allergic to apples, and most recipe only call for one to two apples each. But if you've been keeping up with us for any amount of time, you know that I do enjoy a challenge.

Sanne and I made the applesauce yesterday, which is great for baking. Applesauce can replace oil in most baking recipes. Sanne uses it in her from-scratch brownies, a trick I have definitely adapted myself. It's much healthier, and the flavor is really great.

We also talked about using apple in our upcoming Thanksgiving Test-Kitchen! Yes, Thanksgiving is on its way, so it's time we started thinking about our menu! Sooo excited about this! (Read about part one and part two from last year here.)

So today, I'm on the search for more apple recipes that aren't pie, cake or tarts, and I think I hit the jackpot! Delish.com has a bushel of delicious-looking recipes, and today I'm going to try out not one, but TWO of them!

I decided to start with apple chips. They bake for about an hour and a half, so while I wait for them, I can be prepping dinner, which is what I'm really excited about.

Fill a medium-sized bowl with ice, water and a tablespoon or two of lemon juice. Slice two apples as thinly as possible and let them soak in the ice water for about 5 minutes.

Lay the apple slices on a pan lined with parchment paper, sprinkle with sugar (and cinnamon), bake for 90 minutes in a 200 degree oven.

This recipe was kind of a disaster. Only a handful of apple chips survived, the rest stuck to the wax paper and the pans. I'm not sure how I'm going to get all that paper off...

Anyway, the next recipe is Chicken Breasts Stuffed with Apple and Goat Cheese.

For 4 servings, you will need:

4 large chicken breasts
3oz goat cheese
1t lemon zest
1 large apple; peeled, cored and shredded
flour, for dusting
1 egg
1 1/3c bread crumbs
1/2c grated parmesan cheese
2T unsalted butter
2T olive oil

I used the rest of our grilled cheese bread to make breadcrumbs...

I pulsed them in the food processor and dried them out for about 5-10 min in a 350 degree oven.

 And I used an empty beer bottle to pound the chicken.

Pound the chicken between two sheets of parchment paper. Then season with salt and pepper.
Then shred 1 peeled, cored apple into a bowl. Add lemon zest and goat cheese and mix well.

Spoon some of the mixture onto one side of each chicken breast.

Fold them over and press to form a pocket.

 Then, dredge each chicken breast in egg, flour, and breadcrumb mixture.

Heat oil and butter over medium-high heat. Cook through, about 7-8 minutes each side.

And there you have it. I would definitely make these again, they were awesome.

So that's three apple recipes down, and we have about a peck left. Maybe something dessert-y next?

m

Happy Blogiapplepaloozaversary!

It's our Birth-Daaaay!

It seems that Blogiversary Week has fallen on Apple-palooza this year! This means that all of our celebratory birthday recipes will be flavored with our booty from our pickin' day on Saturday.

booty

While we most likely will be baking with some of these apples, we wanted to try a few things that we haven't tried before. First up, applesauce. Yes, it's simple. But neither of us had made it before, and we want to check it off of our list. So here you go, a simple applesauce recipe for all your baking/baby-feeding needs.

This recipe made two large mason jars-full.

Start by peeling and coring eight apples. We used a mixed variety.

Sam Adams' Harvest Pumpkin ale is a new favorite harvest brew... definitely the best one I've tasted! Perfectly paired with a sliced golden delicious and some pepper jack.

Add your apple slices to a large pot with water and sugar. Cook at medium-low heat until the apples soften. The recipes we consulted said to mash with a potato masher, but that wasn't necessary.

We didn't have any ground cinnamon, so Sanne added a couple cinnamon sticks and let them simmer for a while.

Spoon it into a couple o' mason jars.

This really took no real skill at all. It was probably the easiest thing we've made to date. But homemade is always impressive, no matter the skill level. And mason jars add a little charm.

Diane knows what I'm talking about:

on the go

I've seen these mini egg casseroles, and I always forget about them when I'm cooking breakfast. Yesterday was the perfect opportunity for this breakfast on the go. My friends Jordan and Andrew, Andrew's friend Marie, Alyssanne and I went apple picking. Before we left, I whipped up some egg muffins with fresh basil, heirloom tomatoes, cheese, s+p, and a little chopped ham (for the meat-eating half of our group). I mixed everything together, just like you would any other breakfast eggs, spooned a little in each muffin hole and topped them with a little extra cheese.

Then I baked them at 350 for about 15-20 minutes. Quick and easy and still impressive. Also, delicious.

Tomorrow, we'll tell you all about our apple-picking adventure, and the recipes that have made our kitchen smell so incredibly autumnal. 

preview

Have you done any fall-themed activities yet? What are your favorite things to make with apples?

Happy Blogiversary Week-end: Superlatives!

Our little ol' blog will be a year old on Monday! Recently I was looking back through old posts, so surprised that it's been a year already, and so impressed at all the cool new things we've been able to do this year. I met the great Judith Jones, Sanne went to Cupcake camp, and we both had a private cooking lesson at home. We churned our own butter, invented sauces and toured the chicken coops of the Boston area. We learned to make Indian food from an Indian, Greek from a Greek and Sanne went all the way to Italy to eat genuine Italian cuisine (also, for a wedding).

The votes are in, so let's take a look at the goodest, the baddest and the ugliest of our maiden voyage.

Best Reader Suggestion: Kelli Oglesby's idea for a recipe index. I am updating this regularly, and have even noted vegetarian options. If you can't find exactly what you're looking for in the search engine, try our recipe index. Thanks, Krelli!

Most Missed Sous Chef: Figgaro. It's been about 7 months, and we still miss his human-like expressions, his thousands of nicknames, and him stealing our milk and cuddling on the couch. The Sweetest Fig.

Figgaro Walters
March 1997 - March 2011

Favorite Kitchen Game: This is a tie: the "I'ma Play Your Song" Game, in which the first player tells the second, "I'ma play your song", and then plays the most random sogn she can think of on Youtube. Usually something from the early 90s. This is the reason for the random B52's, Harry Belafonte videos. We spared you the rest. The other favorite game is "Make Something Out Of Nothing", which we have played many, many times...

Most Likely to Shove Her Hand Up A Turkey's Butt: My littlest sister, Katie! Congratulations, Kate!! You Won! You put your hand in the turkey-butt!

Most Likely to Live in a Little House on a Prairie: Alyssanne! Between churning her own butter, marshmallows from scratch and candy-ing her own lemon and orange peel (because she was "too lazy to go to the store"), Sanne kicked some serious Ingalls-Wilder ass this year.

Most Likely to Mooch Off Of Our Meals: Rajiv. And you're welcome to them, Rajiv!
Runner up: Raymond and/or Susie.

Best "Who'da thunkit" moment: cooking seasonally! We kind of do this in Florida, but only to a certain extent. Seasonal cooking up here is so fun! Especially in the Fall (more on that Monday...).

pork tenderloin and roasted root vegetables

pumpkin scones

Most Improved Baker: Mandi. In the beginning, she avoided it like the plaque. Gradually warming up to it, she is proud to say that she mastered Sanne's brownies from scratch recipe and is no longer afraid of homemade pizza dough.

Most Memorable Guest Chefs: So many wonderful people have cooked in our kitchen, how can we choose just one?! Here's a montage of our favorite friends to cook with...

clockwise from top left, that's Lauren, Madaline (with twins IV), Elizabeth, Susie, me  &Kelly & Katie, Sanne & Sam,  Kasia, Neville, and Kelli (with Hannah IV)

Come back, all you you!

Most Used Ingredient: Besides flatbread for pizzas and our never-empty cheese drawer, we love adding citrusy flavors to things. Whether its a bit of orange zest to a batch of cookies, or fresh lemon juice to a pasta sauce, for us, citrus is a comforting reminder of home.

orange chocolate torte

roasted garlic garbanzo beans with mint, feta and lemon

Favorite Theme Party: We love us some theme parties...
Mandi's favorite: Southern Party, of course! Even though it was Josh's Farewell party, the food was ah-mazing, and so much fun to cook. Add in a Becky-mix CD, some accents and stories, and we couldn't be happier.

Sanne's favorite: Indian Graduation party...  Some of our favorite new friends, trying out their cowboy accents moght be one of the funniest things ever. Plus Susie's cooking... you can't beat it!

Those are just a few of our favorite moments from the year. We are sitting in our kitchen now, snacking on freshly picked apples, sipping on harvest pumpkin beer and talking about all of the cool things we've gotten to do since deciding to document our adventures one year ago. It's got us thinking about what our cooking resolutions are for the next year. 

Personally, I have enjoyed being daring and trying new things (I almost won an Anthony Bourdain award in these here superlatives). I would like to continue being adventurous in the kitchen, learning to make dishes I would have never thought to try to make myself. I'd love to do some pickling and have always wanted to make my own flavored mustard (there are some design-ideas behind this, if you haven't heard...). I would also like to cook for all of you. Sanne would like to hone certain techniques from the simple, like knife skills, to the more expert.

What about you, eaters and readers? Do you enjoy the direction we've taken this in? What have you enjoyed the most? What would you like to see more of? 

m&a