Apple pie and root beer

In the name of Halloween and all things sweet and candy-like, let's save one healthy food from the food zealots today.

I like to eat healthy foods, but I enjoy them less when people croon about how "healthy" they are. When I read a recipe for "healthy" apple/pear/walnut salad, I'm immediately turned off. Isn't a salad composed of apples, pears, and walnuts good for you by default? Why do we have to stick a little healthy flag on top? Healthy is the trans-fat-free, Race-For-the-Cure-Pink frosting on top of an already delicious slice of banana bread.

Women's magazines, blogs, fitness journals, and militant vegans wear healthy like a halo. They say if you "eat right" and go for daily brisk, 20-minute walks, you will attain perfection in six-to-eight weeks. What a lie! Why not bill healthy for what it is? A way to strengthen your mind and body, to lengthen your life, and to prevent disease! You are not better because you eat whole wheat muffins; you're more regular.

With all of that hanging in the air to dry, I'd like to dedicate today's blog to one of the most misused and abused healthy fruits in the history of creation: the apple.

Scientists discover a zillion ways that apples are healthy every year. When people talk about "diet food," they usually include apples and baby carrots on their shopping list. Yes, apples are healthy. They're also boring if you think of them exclusively as a diet aide. Newsflash: apples are delicious, and there are hundreds of varieties to try. They're ancient; writers have incorporated apples into mythology, into holy texts and into folklore. Apples have more relevance to the world than some people I know. Who cares if they keep you trim?

My husband and I have been working through a giant stockpile of apples we bought at the Portland Nursery's 23rd Annual Apple Tasting this month. We tasted over 60 varieties of apples and pears before lugging home ten pounds of Newton Pippins, Cameos, Ginger Goldens, Jonathans, and a gallon of cider.

We've been baking them and slicing them and eating them with cheese and grapes, but my favorite way to use an apple is to bake it into a pie. Fruit pies are the perfect healthy goody, especially if you make them with proportions like a caramel apple--mostly fruit, with a small coating of gooey candy.

I hope you're celebrating with apples this Halloween, whether you're eating them baked with cinnamon, covered in caramel, or candied! Since I missed Arkalalah this year, a parade I've been watching and marching in since I was a kiddo, I decided to turn my latest apple pie into candified treat like the ones at the Arkalalah carnival. I've filled it with root beer and sour cherries, then glazed it with more root beer on top. Drizzle a little caramel on top and you've got a healthy--yet celebratory--treat. Happy Halloween!

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Sour cherry apple pie (with root beer)

serves 6

Filling:

• 6 large or 8 medium Newton Pippin (or Granny Smith) apples, sliced thinly with the skins on
• 1 cup canned sour cherries, drained
• 3/4 cup unprocessed cane sugar
• 1/2 cup root beer + 1/4 cup root beer for glazing
• 2 Tb. flour
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp. ginger

crust:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
• 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
• 3/4 tsp. salt
• 2/3 cup cold, unsalted butter
• 8 to 10 Tb. cold water in a small bowl

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees, and set a baking rack in the middle of the oven. Place the water bowl in the freezer to get good and cold. In the meantime, slice your apples thinly (I cut mine into crescents no thicker than 1/2 and inch.) Toss the apples and sour cherries into a large bowl, and top the fruit with sugar, root beer, cinnamon, flour, ginger, and nutmeg. Use a large spoon to coat the apples evenly with the sugar mixture, and set the filling aside.

Cut the butter into small cubes, then mix the butter, flours, salt, and cinnamon in a small bowl. Using a pastry cutter, mash the butter into the flours until the pieces are pea-sized. Sprinkle a spoonful of cold water over the dough, then toss everything gently with a fork. Repeat this process, one spoonful of water at a time, until the dough is moistened. The less you handle this dough, the flakier it will be. Divide the dough in half, and form each half into a ball.

Flatten each ball on a lightly floured surface, and roll the dough from the center to the edges into a 12" diameter circle. To transfer the dough to the pie plate, roll it gently around the rolling pin, and dust the dough occasionally with flour. Prick the bottom crust with the tines of a fork, and trim the excess dough.

Fill the pie with apple mixture, cover the pie with a blanket of dough, and cut some decorative holes in the top crust. My grandmother likes to cut her extra dough trimmings into autumn leaves. She affixes each leaf to the pie by scoring the leaf and crust, by using milk as slip, as if the pie were pottery. Trim any extra crust and brush the top of the cake with root beer, then sprinkle with sugar.

This next trick comes from my father-in-law, Sam: slide the entire pie into a paper bag and lie the bag (on its side) on a cookie sheet. Gently tuck the bag top under the pie, and scoot the pie onto your prepared baking rack. Bake the pie for 40 minutes, remove the paper bag -- carefully, with potholders-- then bake the pie for 20 more minutes, until the crust is brown and the filling is bubbly.

Cool the pie on a wire rack for 20 minutes, then serve warm. Give candy to the trick-or-treaters and keep the pie to yourself.

If you liked this recipe, you might also enjoy:

Apple pie with cranberries

Dried fruit pie

Maple buttermilk pie

Pesto presto, with radish greens

Dear readers,

I'm about to share something with you that nobody, not even my BFF, is allowed to read: my journal.

Yes, I use graph paper.

No, I don't draw parabolas.

Thrilling, no? This little red book actually contains honest-to-God secrets, insights, and, oh yeah, shopping lists. And recipes that I improvise in the kitchen. And lists of presents that I'll make/give for Christmas. And sometimes the breakdown of our household budget. When did I become so exciting?


I've been writing in journals since the late '80s, when a girl called them "diaries" and they came with puny locks on the side - as if an 1/8" of cheap metal could keep out prying eyes. I moved from Lisa Frank to Mead Notebooks and eventually to minimalist Miquel Ruis ones with blank pages with no dates to pressure me into writing about nothing.

Once, while rifling through some grade school papers, I discovered my "diary" from second grade. Our whole class had to keep one for a month, writing in it daily. During this month, I wrote that Brant was in my reading group and Cherity won an award "but everybody likes her because she runs the fastestt and THAT'S NOT FAIRE!!" So I thought. (Cherity was our Washington Elementary class Golden Girl and man, did I detest her. I'm over it now, like I'm over the time she tried to take back the Hula Hoop she gave me for my birthday.)

Recipes crept into my journals when I started this blog. Dishes that I had just futzed together before turned into real recipes once committed to paper; I dissected my chocolate-coconut-flax granola and the recipe took up permanent residence in my home. If sticky notes are weekly-rate sublets, journals are historic homesteads with names. I keep all my old journals, no matter how embarrassing or mundane the observations. They contain my history....and now my recipes.

Like this recipe for pesto. I think pesto is more process than a measured recipe, similar to making gravy with milk and flour and fat. Start with the basics--basil, garlic, olive oil, lemon, Parmesan--and improvise from there. I added some radish tops after being inspired (again) by Clotilde, then tossed in some baby Roma tomatoes from the garden. You may prefer pine nuts and spinach in yours; the key is taste, taste, taste as you go along.

Pick the last of your garden's basil and blend a few batches to keep in the freezer through winter. I spread homemade pesto on bagels and sandwiches and mix it with spaghetti or macaroni and cheese.

Radish top-basil pesto
for Sheree, who requested this recipe months ago
makes 4 -5 cups

• 3 cups fresh basil, washed and dried
• 1 1/2 cups fresh radish tops, washed and dried
• 5 cloves garlic
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/2 fresh lemon juice
• 2/3 cup freshly shredded Parmesan
• 1/2 cup walnut halves
• 1 tsp. Kosher salt
• 10-12 baby Roma tomatoes (optional)

Wash and dry the basil and radish tops. Break long stems of basil down into smaller pieces to avoid testing your blender's patience. Chop the garlic finely and slice the tomatoes. Begin layering the pesto ingredients into your blender's bowl, like a parfait, in roughly this order:

1) a handful of basil and radish greens. Really smoosh them down by the blades.
2) a glug of lemon juice or olive oil
3) a handful of walnuts
4) a handful of Parmesan
5) another handful of basil and radish greens.
6) another glug of lemon juice or olive oil
7) some chopped garlic and tomato and salt


Blend the pesto on high for 30-second bursts. Depending on the age/strength of your blender or food processor, this may reduce the veggies into a smooth, liquidy paste immediately. If you own a blender like my last blender, this process could take days and you will use a spoon to manually stir the pesto between blending bursts.

Keep blending until everything is incorporated, add more lemon juice or oil until you reach your ideal pesto consistency. I like smooth and creamy pesto, as pictured above. Some people like chunkier pesto, a cross between a dressing and a salsa. It's up to you.

Once finished, divide the pesto into one-cup containers. Top each pesto container with a thin layer of olive oil (to seal in the freshness and seal out air) and freeze what you won't use within a week. When one pesto container starts running low, I simply defrost another one and I'm back in the pesto business within 24 hours.


Some recipes that began in a journal:

Pumpkin cream cheese muffins
Cajun potatoes
Easy tamale pie
Caramelized onion and prosciutto pizza
Meringues noir

For peanuts

It's been a week since I flew back to Kansas for a college reunion, and I still haven't completely unpacked my carry-on bag. Unpacking it should take a whopping five minutes, but I've only managed to remove a handful of items. I don't know. Either I've reached a new echelon of laziness or I've just mind-tripped myself into nostalgic oblivion.

Do you drag it out, waiting to completely unpack until there's nothing. else. to. do? I unpack slowly; I sniff my sweater to see if it still smells like Kansas (alas! only dirt and fabric softener!) I realize I packed six pairs of socks for a four-day trip. After retrieving my toothbrush, I let the pound of coffee I purchased sit on the kitchen counter for a week. I forget to unearth the hairdryer and find it buried under a pile of peanuts from Southwest Airlines.....

To me, plain peanuts are not fancy food. They're chalky and leave a aluminimy taste on the roof of my mouth. In peanut butter, they're divine. In a back of snacks on an airplane, they find the bottom of my bag. Instantly.

Before I finally break down and put away the rest of my luggage - which I perhaps whittled down to only a belt and some yarn for plane knitting- I may turn those airline peanuts into something useful. And we all know that most inherently healthy foods can be made "useful" with the addition of sugar and red dye. What? You didn't know that?

Cracker-Jack Peanuts

adapted from Everybody Likes Sandwiches

makes 3 cups

• 3 cups dry-roasted, salted peanuts
• 1 1/2 cups cane sugar
• 5 Tb. water
• 1 tsp. almond extract
• 1 tsp. kosher salt
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1-2 drops red food dye

In a large saucepan, stir together peanuts, sugar, almond extract, dye and water. Heat everything over medium-high heat until everything looks sticky or sandy. The temperature of the peanut goop should reach near 220 degrees, if you've got a candy thermometer handy. Take heart and keep stirring.

In 8 - 10 minutes, you will have a dark golden pool of liquid forming below the peanuts. This is good! Once the peanuts have reached a nice golden-red color, remove them from heat and turn the peanuts out onto parchment paper-lined cookie sheets. Sprinkle the cinnamon and salt onto the peanuts, stirring everything around a little until the peanuts are in a single layer. Break the goodies into chunks once they've cooled, and store them in an air-tight container for about a week.

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy:

Quickie pumpkin seeds
Curried nut mix
Coconut macaroons

Pardon the static

 

Oh, fiddlesticks. Nearly a month has gone by, and I haven't said a word to all of you. Please forgive me. I've been kept up with life, you know--work and a membership drive and a whirlwind visit to my mama in Kansas. You've been in my mind though, honest to Goodness.

I'm dashing off to Stumptown right now, to work on another blog for you. While I'm there, I'll pick up one of their beautiful lattes (like the one pictured above, from my last visit) to keep my mind focused on you readers and on cooking, instead of the dreadful start of the Portland Rainy Season. I think I'll start calling it The Great Hibernation, since that's how I view it. Talk to you soon!

Love, love, love,

Kate