Single Crust Apple Pie with Streusel Topping

Happy Pi Day!

Made this beautiful apple pie on Saturday but didn't gobble up the first slice until today. The apples that went into the filling were just what was on hand: gala and fuji, two varieties that I enjoy eating a lot. With a streusel topping, this pie can easily accommodate twice as many chopped apples as what the recipe calls for. I really don't care for the salty taste in the crust, so I may omit it next time.

Apple pie fresh from the oven

A slice of apple pie

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Single crust ingredients

1 1/4 c. all-purpose unbleached flour
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp organic granulated sugar
4 oz unsalted cold butter, cut into cubes
1/3 c. ice water (or chilled vodka)

Crust directions:

1. In a food processor, combine flour, salt and sugar. Add the butter and pulse until the mixture resembles a coarsely ground cornmeal. Gradually add the water, pulsing after each addition. You may not even need the entire 1/3 c. of water.

2. Form the dough into a ball and gently roll out to a 1/4" thickness on a lightly floured surface until it is large enough to fill a 9" pie plate. Roll crust onto rolling pin and unroll it on top of the pie plate. Use a unserrated knife to cut away the excess dough from the edge of the plate.

3. You can use the leftover dough crust to make decorative shapes for the top of the pie. I used a heart-shaped cookie cutter for this pie.

4. Put pie plate into the refrigerator until ready to use.

Streusel topping ingredients

1 c. all-purpose unbleached flour
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 c. (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted

In a bowl, whisk together flour, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Add melted butter and mix ingredients with a fork until mixture forms crumbs.

Pie filling ingredients:

4 c. apples, peeled and cored, cut into 1/2" chunks
1/2 c. organic granulated sugar
1 tbsp all-purpose unbleached flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp butter, cut into small pieces

In a bowl, combine apples, sugar, flour, cinnamon, and lemon juice. Pour filling into the pie plate. Add remaining tablespoon of butter. Sprinkle streusel on top of apples. Arrange cookie cut-outs on top of the streusel in a decorative pattern.

Bake for 45 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool on a rack before serving.

Simple Lemon Bars

This is the simplest lemon bar recipe that I know of. Its crust is for an 8" x 8" baking pan.

Lightly sprinkled with powdered sugar

For the crust:

1 c. all-purpose unbleached flour
1/4 c. powdered sugar
1/4 c. (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted

For the filling:

2/3 c. organic, granulated sugar
2 tbsp all-purpose unbleached flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
3 tbsp lemon juice
zest of one medium lemon

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

1. In a bowl, whisk together flour and powdered sugar with a fork. Stir in melted butter until small crumbs form. Empty into an 8 x 8 baking pan and press crust down with a fork.

2. In a separate bowl, whisk together sugar, flour, baking powder, lemon zest, and lemon juice until ingredients are mixed well. Add in eggs and whisk to combine.

3. Bake crust for 10-15 minutes, or until lightly golden on top. Remove from oven and add the filling.

4. Bake lemon bars for 20-25 minutes, until the edges are golden brown and not dark brown. Let cool before cutting into squares.

To add extra zing to the crust, you can split the lemon zest between the filling and the crust. And, to make it more tart, an additional tablespoon of lemon juice can be added to the filling.

Pizza Margherita

No pizza stones were harmed in the making of these pizzas. But, the real reason is that I don't actually own a pizza stone. And while the notion of using the reverse side of my cast iron pan had crossed my mind, I ended up using a heavy baking sheet with parchment paper and a medium-ground cornmeal between the paper and the dough. I've read that one can get an extra crispy crust this way by letting the pizza bake on the middle rack in the oven, directly on the rack itself, for the last 2-3 minutes. Alas, I'm too lazy for that.

These recipes have been adapted from one of Emeril's episodes on pizza with minor tweaks. Number one, I wasn't about to crack open a bottle of cab just to put a few tablespoons of it into the sauce; I used the next best thing on the counter...shaoxing rice wine (Chinese red rice wine). If you are able to ingest onions, they go into oil at the same time as the garlic. As far as whatever differences there are between EVOO and regular olive oil, I really have no idea, but since it all costs the same, my pantry is stocked with EVOO. Also, a lot of my recipes call for sea salt. For pizza you can use just about any type of salt, including kosher salt.

Margherita pizza implies only three toppings that represent the Italian flag are used: tomato sauce (red), fresh basil (green), and fresh mozzarella cheese (white). You'll want to procure some fresh mozzarella cheese for this and slice it into thin rounds. They are just going to melt into blobs on top of the pizza, so whatever shape you do cut them into, that is what they are more or less going to melt into.

If you are going to use a pizza stone, it is important that you let the stone heat up in the oven so that your dough cooks evenly.

1/4 c. medium-ground cornmeal (optional)
up to 8 oz of fresh mozzarella cheese

Basic Tomato Sauce

One (14.5 oz) can of diced tomatoes, no salt added
1/2 c. water (use it in the can to rinse out the tomato particulates)
2-3 tbsp red wine (or xiaoxing red rice wine)
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp minced garlic (roughly 3-4 medium cloves)
up to 1 tbsp dried oregano (or fresh if you have it)
6 fresh basil leaves, coarsely chopped
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 small red onion, finely diced (optional)

Sauce directions

1. In a medium pot, heat oil until it spreads along the bottom of the pot easily. Add the garlic (and onion) and stir until the onion is soft and translucent and the garlic hasn't burned or turned golden brown. The idea is to flavor the oil, I think.

2. Add the tomatoes, basil leaves, wine, oregano, salt and pepper, and water. Bring it to a boil and then simmer for 20-25 minutes.

3. Let the sauce cool before putting it on the pizza dough.

Pizza Dough

This dough uses all-purpose flour which creates a much chewier crust than say, using a high gluten flour. You could also buy gluten to add to the all purpose flour, but that's an extra step and who really wants to run to Whole Foods for just one ingredient. Also, a 4-oz jar of Red Star active dry yeast lasts a lot longer than the packets when kept in the refrigerator.

Ingredients

3 1/2 to 4 c. all-purpose unbleached flour 
1 1/2 c. water, 110 degrees F
2 tbsp EVOO, plus 2 tsp for greasing a large bowl
1 envelope instant dry yeast -or- 2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast (if you have the jar stuff)
1 tsp organic granulated sugar
1 tsp sea salt

Dough directions

1. Combine flour, sugar, yeast, olive oil, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer or in the bread receptacle of a bread machine. While the mixer is running, gradually add the water and mix until the dough comes together. Knead by hand (or if you're lazy, in the standmixer) until the dough is smooth and elastic.

2. Grease a large bowl with the remaining 2 tsp of olive oil, form the dough into a ball, and add it to the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap (or use another equal sized bowl on top, using binder clips to keep the edges of the two bowls together). Let the dough rest in a warm area (roughly 80-85 degrees F) and let it double in size for an hour.

This might be tough to do during the winter. But wait, there is a workaround. Place the covered bowl into the oven on the middle rack. Fill an 8x8 or 9x13 baking pan with boiling water. Put the baking pan on the floor of the oven and close the door. This'll create a warm environment for the dough.

3. Depending on how large a pizza you have baking space to make will determine how many pieces you cut this blob of dough into. I cut it into fourths, so each piece makes about an 8" pizza. You can cut it in half and make two 14" pizzas. After cutting the dough into sections, turn each section as you are about to make it into a pizza, onto a lightly floured surface. Knead it a bit then cover and let the dough rest for 10 minutes.

4. Roll out the dough into a shape that resembles something circular.

Putting It All Together

Preheat oven to 500 degrees F.

1. Take our rolled out pizza dough and spread some of the cooled tomato sauce on it. Be sure to have at least a half inch to an inch gap betwee the edge of the pizza and the sauce. Otherwise, the sauce spills out over the side of the pizza and makes a rather burnt mess.

2. Add thin slices of mozzarella and sprinkle with fresh basil leaves. You could add more dried oregano, but that is totally up to you, since it is already in the sauce. For the first pizza I had the basil on top of the cheese; the second pizza had the cheese on top of the basil. It makes no difference.

3. Bake on the center rack for 8-10 minutes, until the edges are lightly golden brown and the cheese has melted.

The pizza is supposed to cool on a rack, but my first pizza never made it that far. *nom nom nom*

View pics.

Pumpkin Bread (with yogurt)

Whole pumpkins keep for a very long time, it seems. I harvested two sugar pumpkins from my yard in October and only just now hacked one open for this recipe. The pumpkin yielded 1 1/2 cups of pumpkin meat and a ton of seeds that I'll be using to trade for other seeds at neighborhood seed exchange later this month. These pumpkins are the second generation from the same pumpkin source. Two years ago I purchased sugar pumpkins from Trader Joe's, cooked the pumpkins and saved the seeds. Last year I planted some of those seeds down and of the surviving plants with my inept ability to gauge when pumpkins should be planted into the ground, I managed to only harvest two sugar pumpkins. Each pumpkin yields a lot of seeds. I suppose these could be also eaten raw or toasted. I don't know how the original sugar pumpkins were raised, but mine were raised by organic farming methods.. y'know.. water, sunlight, dirt, mulch, pruning, etc. No fertilizers and certainly no growth enhancers like Miracle Gro.

While I have another pumpkin bread recipe on this blog, that one is made with tofu. This one has plain yogurt in it since my tofu seems to be a bit frozen in the freezer. This loaf didn't rise as much as I had hoped, but it smells delicious and tastes great.

Ingredients

1 c. all-purpose unbleached flour
1/2 stick of unsalted butter, melted
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. fresh sugar pumpkin, cooked
1/4 c. plain, organic whole milk yogurt
1 egg
3 tbsp honey
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp each: sea salt, ground ginger, ground allspice

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

1. Use unsalted butter to grease a loaf pan and set aside.

2. Whisk together egg and vanilla extract. Gradually whisk in brown sugar, melted butter, plain yogurt, honey, pumpkin puree, baking powder, spices, and flour.

3. Pour batter into loaf pan and bake for 40 minutes, until the top has a golden brown color and a tester comes out clean.

Squid with Bacon

I was trying to think of fancier names for this dish, like ones you'd find on a pretentious restaurant menu. Here's what I came up with:

Fried calamari with roasted garlic and bacon
Herb roasted calamari with apple-smoked bacon

And then I got to thinking that a lot of recipes have delicious-sounding descriptors, but may not actually be true to how the dish is prepared. Fresh herbs, for example, are almost always added after the dish has finished cooking...otherwise they'd lose their fresh green look and be all wilted. Calamari is the Italian plural word for squid (it's "calamaro" when referring to one squid). When people imagine what squid looks like, they are usually imagining a slimy, angry, beady-eyed multi-tentacled creature wrapping its giant arms around a ship at sea. No? Ok, well, maybe that's just me.

Frying is the fastest way that I know to cook it up. But, it can also be steamed, boiled, stir fried, salted, roasted, etc. Preparation of the squid itself is the hardest part of the dish because there are so many steps to cleaning it before the body gets sliced up. And, if you don't wear gloves, your hands end up all very squid-smelling.

The original recipe ratio comes from Bobby Flay. I have never watched that particular episode, so I had to surmise what he meant by lardon bacon. I'm assuming it's diced, fried bacon, until someone informs me otherwise. Flay's recipe calls for an additional two tablespoons of olive oil after the bacon has fried, but the bacon already yields roughly two tablespoons of lard, so if I do add the olive oil, it would only be to make the finished squid look shiny. Also, since I don't live near the coast, I have never seen fresh squid at the grocery store or specialty asian market; so this recipe uses frozen squid that has been thawed to room temperature.

Squid with Bacon and Thyme

Ingredients

1 lb squid, cleaned and sliced into rings
2 slices of bacon, diced
2 tbsp parsley leaves (optional, for garnish)
1 tbsp thyme leaves
3 garlic cloves, minced
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Directions

1. Prepare the squid.

2. Fry bacon in a medium pan until it is lightly golden brown and most of the fat has rendered out.

2. Add garlic and squid, seasoning lightly with salt and pepper. Cook squid for 2-3 minutes or until just cooked through. The squid rings curl backwards and the flesh turns to an opaque white color.

3. Remove from heat and stir in parsley (optional) and thyme before serving.