Dutch Apple Pie

This is a true Dutch recipe. It came from my mother-in-law from a 4H exchange student who stayed with them. It is amazing with a sugar cookie crust and tart inside.

Crust:
1 stick butter
1 1/2 cup sugar
3 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
dash salt
2 eggs

Filling:
6 apples, cut in 10ths
juice of 1 lemon

3 tsp sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

1.Cream the butter and the sugar, add the eggs and beat well. Add the dry ingredients and mix to form a dough. You may need to add a bit of water to form a dough. It should be like a cookie dough. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour or overnight.

2. Roll half the dough out with powdered sugar - it will get very sticky, so be careful not to make it stick, Place the dough in a 9in pie pan to form the bottom crust.

3. combine the apples and the lemon juice and put in the pie pan on the bottom crust. Sprinkle sugar and cinnamon on top.

4. Roll out the other half of the dough with powdered sugar to make the top crust. Pinch well around the edges and cut a few vent holes in the top

5. Bake for 10 min at 400 to brown the crust, then turn down to 350 and cover the edges with tin foil and cook 40 min more.

6. enjoy the apple-filled cookie goodness.

Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Brownies

Yep, you read it right. Peanut Butter cookie dough on a brownie. Exactally as amazing as you'd think it would be. Recipe from The Food Network

Ingredients
Brownie Layer:

* Nonstick cooking spray
* 1/2 cup unsalted butter
* 2 (1-ounce) squares unsweetened chocolate
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 1 cup sugar
* 2 large eggs
* 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
* 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chunks

Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Layer:

* 1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
* 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
* 2 tablespoons milk
* 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
* 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
* 1/2 teaspoon salt

Ganache Layer:

* 3/4 cup dark chocolate chips
* 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
* 1/4 cup coarsely chopped salted peanuts

Directions

Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spray the bottom and sides of an 8 by 8-inch pan with cooking spray.

For the brownies, microwave the butter and unsweetened chocolate in a microwavable bowl at high power until the butter is melted, about 2 minutes. Stir until combined, then mix in the vanilla extract. Meanwhile, beat the sugar and eggs in a large bowl and add in the chocolate mixture. Stir in the flour, baking powder, salt and chocolate chunks. Spread the brownie mixture evenly into the prepared pan. Bake until the brownies are set and a toothpick inserted in the center of the brownies comes out clean, about 22 to 28 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool for 30 minutes.

For the peanut butter cookie dough: Add the butter and brown sugar to a large bowl and mix until creamy. Mix in the milk and the peanut butter, then stir in the flour and salt. Spread the peanut butter cookie dough evenly over the cooled brownies.

To make the ganache: In a small microwavable bowl, microwave the dark chocolate chips and heavy whipping cream, uncovered, on high for 1 minute, stirring after 30 seconds. Continue stirring until the chips are melted and the mixture is smooth. Spread the ganache over the peanut butter layer and sprinkle with the chopped peanuts. Refrigerate until the dough and ganache are set, about 1 hour. Cut into 16 squares and arrange on a serving platter to serve.

Multi Grain Bread- Cook's Illustrated

The real reason you made all that turkey? The leftover turkey-stuffing-cranberry sandwich! mmm. And I have the perfect bread to put it on: Multi Grain Bread from our friends at Cook's Illustrated. I am sad to admit that this is NOT a 5-min bread, but sometimes you need to work a bit harder to get a great result. I'm listing the single batch here, but I usually make a 1.5 batch and split it into 2 loaves for a slightly fuller loaf. The key to the recipe is the 7 grain cereal mix. "Bob's Red Mill" is the brand recommended, but I use the store brand in the bulk bin at Whole Foods. Any sort of 7 or 10 grain hot cereal combination should work. Don't use 7 grain cold cereals- you're looking for a grain mixture that wants to be cooked with hot water.

1 1/4 cups 7 grain hot cereal mix
2 1/2 cups boiling water
4 Tbs butter
4 Tbs honey
1 Tbs instant yeast
3 cups white flour
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 Tbs salt
3/4 cup unsalted raw sunflower or pumpkin seeds (or 1/4 cup flax seeds)
1/2 cup rolled oats (optional)

1. Put 7 grain cereal mix in the mixer bowl and add the hot water. Add the butter and let sit 1 hour to cool. (Note, recipe adds melted butter in the next step, but I don't see why you should waste another dish to melt butter)

2. When you can hold your finger in the mixture for a count of 10 add honey, butter if you haven't already, and yeast. Mix well to incorporate the yeast.

3. If you're using a mixer, get out the dough hook - if you're not be prepared for some serious kneading as multi grain takes more work to get the gluten going. Add the flours 1/2 cup at a time and mix with the dough hook. Knead until dough forms a ball - you may need a Tbs or two more or less of flour depending on your climate.

4. Let the dough rest for 20 min covered in saran wrap

5. Add the Tbs salt and knead via mixer for 5 min - this is a long time and a lot of kneading, so don't under do it!

6. Add the seeds and mix to incorporate. The dough hook doesn't do a very good job of this and I recommend you take it out of the mixer and give it a quick knead on the counter to incorporate everything. You can use your creativity with the seeds. Just make sure you get raw ones and not toasted and salted.

7. Place in a greased bowl and cover and let it rise for 1 hour, until doubled in bulk. It doesn't matter if it rises too long on the first rise, so if you need to abandon it, now's the time.

8. Punch down the dough and form into 2 loaves. Place in a 9x5 greased loaf pan. The recipe suggests you use the 1/2 cup of oats to roll the formed loaves so they have a coating of oats. If you're going to show - do it. It looks great. If, however you just want to eat bread, I'd skip it - the oats just end up all over your counter when you slice it.

9. preheat oven to 375. Let the loaves rise about 45 min - until they are peaking over the tops of the pan. It does not gain a lot of height in the oven, so if you need to wait a bit longer to put it in.

10. Bake 35 min until a thermometer inserted in the center reads 200F. Yes, a thermometer really works best. It won't hit 200 until about 8 min after you think it looks nicely golden, so if you don't have a thermometer just wait 5 min beyond what you think is done. This bread is very dense so it takes a bit longer.



11. Slice and top with leftover cranberry and turkey for a delicious leftover lunch!

Can-Am Thanksgiving Part 5: Stuffing

We come at last to the real reason for the meal: Stuffing! Whatever you do don't call is dressing- after all you stuff it IN the bird, you don't dress it on the outside. My chronic problem with stuffing is that the inside of a turkey only holds enough for, well me. You can bake it separately but it's never quite as good. This is another Cooks Illustrated recipe and it is quite a bit better than normal out-of-the turkey stuffing, but I think there is still room for improvement, I would add a bit more liquid- or possibly take it out a bit sooner rather than chatting away with friends and almost forgetting.

2lb bread - I use cheap 'Kleenex' bread
2 large onions, chopped fine
6 stalks celery, chopped fine
1 box Bell seasoning*
3lbs turkey wings
1 qt chicken stock
4 tbs butter
3 eggs

1. Shred the bread into little bits and either toast it in the oven or (if you live in Utah where everything dries out) just leave it out on cookie sheets overnight.

2. Cut the turkey wings apart at the joints if they didn't come that way. Heat 2 Tbs of oil in a skillet. Brown the wings, in batches if necessary. It will take about 6 min per side. (Note, you don't need them cooked, just nicely browned) Set the wings aside.



3. Add the butter to the pan you fried the wings in. When the foaming subsides, add the celery and onion and saute until soft. Add 1 Tbs of the bell seasoning and mix well. Add 1 cup chicken broth and scrap the yummy bits off the bottom of the pan.

4. Pour the celery mixture over the bread and toss well. Add the remaining Bell seasoning and mix more.

5. Beat the eggs in a small bowl with the rest of the chicken stock and pour over the bread - mix well!

6. Butter a 9x13" pan. (or 10"x15" if you have it). Squish all the bread mixture into the pan and then top with the wings.


7. Cover with foil and bake at 350 for 60-75 minutes until wings are 170 degrees (Note, if you prep this dish while the turkey is in the oven you can bake it while the turkey rests for the 30-90 min)

* Bell seasoning - you can't get this in Utah, I've looked. You can substitute poultry seasoning or fresh thyme and sage in it's place.

Can-Am Thanksgiving Part 4: Roasting the Turkey

Now for the day-of fun! It all starts with the turkey, of course!

1. Remove the turkey from the brine and allow it to soak in a sink of cold water for 15 min.

2. Dry the turkey well. Let it sit there while you:

3. Chop 3 celery stocks, 1 onion and 1 carrot, spread them in the bottom of a heavy cookie sheet and cover with a rack. I used a cookie cooling rack.

4. Dry the turkey with paper towels. Mix 1 Tbs Salt, 1 tsp pepper and 2 tsp baking powder together and rub it all over the top of the turkey.

5. tie the drumsticks together so the legs partially cover the breast (see photo)

6. Put in the oven at 275 for about 3 hrs until breast is 160F and legs are 170-175F



7. Remove from the oven and let it sit for 30-90 min - use this time to cook the stuffing. Note the nice golden dry skin from the baking powder.

8. Glaze -
This is from the America's test kitchen website mentioned under Part 2. You can make it at any point ahead of time - even the day before. Just warm it up before you glaze.

3 cups cider
1 cup craberries
1/2 cup molasses
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1 tbs mustard (I would go less as I thought it was a bit strong)
1 tbs fresh grated ginger

Bring all ingredients to a boil and cook, stiring occasionally until reduced to about 2 cups - approx 30 min. Then the directions told you to strain out the cranberry but I just skipped that because it seemed like too much work.

9. After you take the stuffing out of the oven, bring the oven back up to 450. Glaze the turkey with a first coat and put it in for about 7min. Remove and apply a second coat of glaze - 10 more min at 450. Then a final coat of glaze and a final 10 min and you're ready to much.



Transfer the turkey to a serving platter/cookie sheet so you can get at the yummy drippings for the final gravy step.



Carve up the beautiful bird and enjoy!

Can-Am Thanksgiving Part 3: Gravy

The gravy follows the general theme of the Turkey-Giblet pan gravy recipe in The New Best Recipe cookbook. It's really a multi-step timeline but I'll condense it all together.

1. (The day before) Take the neck and backbone from the turkey and put them in a heavy bottomed pot. Add about 1/2 an onion and cook, covered over medium heat for 20 min - until the juice starts coming out. Add 1 qt chicken broth and 2 cups water and simmer for 30 min. Strain out the turkey bits and put in a tupperwear overnight.

2. (while the turkey cooks) - skim the fat off the top of the container and put into a pot to heat to boiling. In a separate heavy bottomed pot melt 4 tbs butter. Add 1/4 cup flour and whisk constantly to make a roux. Keep wisking and cook over medium until it browns - about 10 min. Add 1 cup of the hot broth and mix like crazy until smooth. Add remaining broth and cook ~ 30 min until thickened. Set aside to wait for the turkey to come out.

3. (After turkey comes out): Strain all the juices from the bottom of the pan into the gravy. Squish the veggies in the colander to make sure you get all the goodness out. Bring gravy back to a boil and reduce for about 10 min while you get everything else ready

4. Ladle over mashed potatoes and realize life is good.

Can-Am Thanksgiving Part 2: Brining and butterflying the turkey

Turkey all brined and ready for the fridge. I used a hair elastic to tied the bag up - otherwise it was too big for the turkey and not everything would have been covered. Use a strong cookie sheet -it's heavy!

I had never brined a turkey before, but I keep hearing good things and it seemed worth it to me. Once again I stole the basic recipe from www.thepioneerwoman.com I decreased the salt slightly because I had one of those turkeys that said "injected with a 3% solution..." You really want to avoid this, but it seems to be pretty hard to do. Frozen turkeys especially have this added- go for a fresh turkey if possible.

Here's the directions for brining - note that while she tells you to cool it to room temperature she does not point out that that might take say, 2 hours. You'll want to do this the afternoon before.

1. Make the brine following the direction above. Key point- your largest pot might not hold 2 gallons + 3 cups of liquid - mine doesn't. I put in less water to cook it and then split it into 2 pots to cool adding the extra water to help it cool.

2. While your brine solution is cooling you'll want to prep the turkey. This is the intimidating butterfly step . Aside from being freeky it's not that hard.
a. First, rinse the turkey and take the neck and giblets out. I used the neck for stock but threw out the innards. I hear they improve the flavor of stock but I think they are gross.
b. Figure out which side of the turkey is up- that would be the breast. Got it? Ok, now flip the turkey over. Find the backbone (hint, it's the bump down the middle) Take those kitchen scissors that came with your knife set that are super sharp because you never use them and cut up either side of the bone. It does take some force, but it shouldn't be impossible. If it gets too hard try moving away from the backbone a tiny bit or going from the other end. Put the backbone in the pot with the neck to make stock.

If you don't like my directions you can get the real ones by signing up for a 14 day free trial at http://www.cooksillustrated.com/recipes/login.asp?docid=26397 just remember to cancel within 14 days or they'll charge you. The account it tied to email addresses so you should be able to repeat the trick for as many email addresses as you can find - I'm running out. :(

3. You'll now have a floppy turkey ready for brining. Grab the brining bag you bought at the last second while the brine was cooling. (Yes, it's an overpriced ziplock, but it did allow the turkey to fit in my fridge and it didn't leak which is worth $4 to me)

4. Have your assistant help hold the bag open while you put the turkey in and then pour in the brine. Place the whole thing on a cookie sheet in your fridge. It is super important it is in the fridge so you don't get salmonella so make sure it fits before you get too far into this mess. :)

5. Pour your self some wine and relax while the turkey brines overnight

Can-Am Thanksgiving Part 1: Cranberry

I've decided to post Can-Am Thanksgiving recipes in the order in which I made them - This way if you want to repeat this feat (or parts of it) you get an idea of the timing.

First up: Cranberry Sauce. I debated between just buying a can of the stuff or making my mom's traditional but time consuming version but then I saw a post about Cranberry-Pomagrante sauce on thepioneerwoman.com and decided to do it. I actually followed the directions for once, possible because it's so simple and fast. You can do this a couple days ahead of time - I did it the day before

1 bag cranberries (12-16oz)
2 cups pomagrante juice
3/4 cup sugar

combine in a pot and cook over medium heat for 20 min stirring occasionally to smush the berries. Pour into your favorite serving dish and refrigerate until it's time to eat!

Fall Squash

It's squash time! grab an acorn-ish squash and eat this for dinner:


1 acorn squash (I used some carnival type from the coop)
1 cup cranberries
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tbs butter

1. cut squash in half and scoop out seeds.
2. chop the cranberries into bits and put half the berries in each squash half. Top each squash half with 1/4 cup brown sugar and 1/2 Tbs butter
3. Bake on a cookie sheet at 350 until squash is soft - about 45min

Enjoy!

Double Chocolate cookies

I needed some chocolate, wanted cookies and had a lot of unsweetened chocolate. Here's the result

1 1/2 sticks butter (3/4 cup)
3 oz unsweetened chocolate
3 eggs
1 cup white sugar
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp instant coffee powder
3 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

1. Combine the unsweetened chocolate with 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter in a microwaveable bowl and microwave, stirring periodically until melted.

2. In the mixer bowl cream the remaining 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter. Add 3 eggs and beat on high for 2 min. Scrape the sides and then add the sugar in a steady stream while beating slowly. Increase the mixer speed to med-high and beat until eggs and very fluffy.


3. Combine the vanilla with the coffee powder in a tiny bowl and add to the egg mixture. (if you need to, add a tiny bit of water to ensure the coffee powder is dissolved)


4. Add the brown sugar to the unsweetened chocolate mixture and mix well and allow to cool to room temperature.

5. When the chocolate-brown sugar mixture has cooled, add it in a steady stream to the egg mixture and beat slowly until just combined.

6. mix the baking soda and salt into 1 cup of flour and add it to the dough, add the remaining 2 cups of flour, mixing until well combined after each addition.

Almond Poppy Amish Friendship Bread

If you haven't received a mushy white ziplock filled with Amish friendship bread recently then this recipe won't really work. You can create your own starter (google it) or just swing by my house for some. I had been avoiding this as it uses pudding mix which has never seemed very amish, but I've finally accepted it for what it is - an almost cake sweet bread. I can't leave well enough alone though, I've modified it to fit my poppy seed fetish.


Almond Poppy Amish Friendship Bread
Wet:
1 cup Amish starter
3 eggs
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup applesauce
1/2 cup milk
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 tsp almond extract
3 Tbs poppyseeds
1 large box instant vanilla pudding

Dry:
2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt

1 cup sliced almonds

1. preheat the oven to 350
2. Mix together the wet ingredients in a large glass bowl (the recipe claims you shouldn't use metal, but I think that's a bit bogus)- beat well
3. mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl, use a fork to avoid lumps
4. Combine the dry with the wet and mix well. Crumble 1/2 the almonds and add them to the batter
5. pour into 2 greased and floured 9x5 loaf pans and sprinkle the remaining almonds on top.
Bake at 350 until done - about an hour

Note on pans - the original recipe says 2 loaf pans. I think my loaf pans are a bit bigger than normal so it was too flat in 2 pans. you can also use muffin tins, mini loaf pans, etc. Just adjust the bake time accordingly.

Indian feast

two curries and Naan bread, delicious. Adapted from lots of sources, with measurements estimated.


Red Lentil Curry (hot)
1 diced onion
2 Tbs oil
1 cup lentils
2 cups water
1 15oz can chickpeas
3 Tbs tomato paste
1 tsp red curry powder
1 tsp curry powder
2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp habanero pepper powder
1 clove minced garlic
1 tsp sugar

1. In a frying pan (or the pot you're going to use for the other curry below) saute the onion in the oil until soft

2. put lentils and water in a pot and boil about 8 min while onions brown.

3. Add remaining ingredients and cook until lentils are soft and water is gone

VEGETABLE CURRY (mild)
1 diced onion
3 tbs oil
3 carrots diced
1/2 a head of cauliflower
2 tsp garham marsala powder
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp tumeric
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup water

1. In a heavy bottom pot, saute onions in oil over medium heat for 8 min (take out half of 'em for other curry above), then add carrots and cover for 5 min

2. mix all the spices together, and add it to the pot with the carrots and onions. Mix well to combine.

3. Add cauliflower, mix well to coat spices and then add 1/2 cup water and put the lid on.

4. Allow to cook covered over medium heat until veggies are soft.

NAAN BREAD
1. preheat a pizza stone and the oven to 450F

2. take an egg-sized piece of the bread-in-5-min-a-day dough you have in your fridge. You have some, right? Otherwise go back to THIS POST (do not pass go, do not collect $200).

3.Roll the dough out into a very thin round using a rolling pin - about 1/4 inch thick.

4. put the dough flat on the pizza stone and bake 5 min. Flip and cook another 5 min until there are brown spots just starting to show. It will puff up like pocket bread. This is ok. It will stop when you take it out of the oven. You should use oven mitts to flip it because it's very very hot.

Enjoy!