Maple Apples with Cinnamon Cream

I debated on even making this recipe tonight since, you know, lazy. Mostly though it was because it already seemed late, what with daylight savings and everything. My mind, however, was made up when I read the directions. Microwave only. Hell, yeah. I can do that no matter how busy I am. So with that decided, I made a nice little snack.

To start off with, anything with so many optional and flexible ingredients is good. And while I thumb my nose at microwave recipes (because I'm a snob at heart), I'm one of those poor schmucks who would eat crackers for dinner instead of going through the trouble of cooking these apples in a pan. Vive la microwave! Really though, that microwave prejudice is usually dead on. I like shortcuts as much as the next person, especially if you're like me and don't plan ahead as much as you should for cooking, but being a microwave chef for shit that doesn't require any culinary skill is usually kind of sad. Unless, it's actually a better, tastier recipe OR you'd rather go hungry than cook. I rest my case.

Verdict on this one: Very nice. Simple, quick, most of the stuff on hand- can't beat any of that. I would suggest taking out the maple syrup and drizzling some honey over the apples while still warm, followed by the yogurt. I was happy to break out my 100% maple syrup that I bought LAST YEAR when I insisted I was going to make maple candy. And it's an apple recipe! Well, I only used one. But I cooked an apple!



Maple Apples with Cinnamon Cream
Source: Walmart recipe card (found in the produce section)
Prep: 3 mins
Cook: 3 mins


3 med. apples, peeled (optional), cored and sliced
1/2 tsp grated orange peel (optional)
1 T maple syrup (I think real maple is best here)
1 tsp margarine or butter
1/2 cup vanilla yogurt
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg (optional)

Put apples slices and orange peel in a 1 quart microwave-safe dish. Drizzle with maple syrup and mix. Dot with butter. Cover loosely and microwave on high for 3-5 mins or until apples are "crisp-tender". Can you do that in a microwave?

In a small bowl, blend yogurt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Drizzle cooked apples with yogurt mix. Enjoy.

Serves 4

Also, I cooked the second batch of potatoes to yesterday's recipe. My pan fared much better when I actually followed the cooking instructions and kept it on medium. I cooked mine mostly without the lid before, so I think maybe the air has something to do with it. Can you believe I used to be a science major? Heh. Also, this pan does not like med-high to high heat. Anything I cook in those temperature ranges burns to shit. Why?!

Warm Lemon-Potato Salad

Another paper recipe today, and a good one at that. I saw this dish and thought it would be lovely with the soup I made yesterday. Initially, lemon with potatoes makes you go "eh?" but I have it on good authority that lemon really brings out the zing in potatoes. It does. Really. So much so that the amount of juice and zest, while it freaked me out at first, could probably be increased. Or I could use fresh lemons. Oh, the novelty.



Warm Lemon-Potato Salad
Source: same unknown magazine

Prep: 10 mins
Cook time: 20 mins

3 T olive oil
2 lbs Yukon gold or red potatoes, cut into bite-sized pieces
3 T lemon juice
1 T lemon zest
4 shallots, minced
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper

Cook potatoes is 1 T olive oil, covered on med-high, for roughly 20 minutes- until they are browned and tender. Whisk together the remaining ingredients in a large bowl. Add potatoes and stir. Serve warm.

Makes 4 servings

Does anyone have tips on burnt frying pans? I mean really, it doesn't matter what I cook or for how long because the bottom of my pan has caked on, blackened food that takes forever to soak and wash. Seriously, this is a picture after I made these potatoes and it's freaking spotless in comparison to most food.

What do I do? Is it the pan? It doesn't matter how much or little oil I use because it eventually ends up the same- sticking to the bottom and burning. It's so frustrating. Plus! I could only fit two medium sized red potatoes in the pan. It's a large pan too, so I don't get recipes that tell me to cook POUNDS of something all at one time. I had to do this recipe in batches. Should I get a pot instead. Meh.




As a side note, I usually snack while I cook. Of course, this generally spoils my appetite and I miss the best moments of the food because I don't get to it until it's cold. Anyways. I discovered a new snack that I figured I'd share. Vanilla yogurt, apricot preserves, salted pistachios, and dried cranberries. Yes, sir. Especially after the yogurt has been swallowed and you're still chewing on the nuts and fruit. Uh-huh, uh-huh.

Tuscan-Style White Bean Stew

It's a real recipe! A real, paper, from-the-stash recipe! I can't tell you how happy I am about that. I also can't tell you how happy I am with this stew, but I'll try. Proof of Paper!



Mostly, I was looking for something filling, easy, and from the pile. This hit all three areas. It tastes good despite- and I'd like to emphasize DESPITE- the fact that 1) I always buy the wrong ingredients and 2) it has italian sausage in it. I'm not much of a sausage person myself. Give me a good summer sausage log and I'll go to town, but nothing else really interests me. Add to the fact that "Sausage" makes anything sound good and my insistance that I might like it this time amounts to more disappointment than I can usually handle. But lo! The seasonings in it actually make this taste better. Promise.

I had to make some substitutions here, as always. I couldn't find sweet summer sausage as the recipe calls for, so I added mild Italian instead. Also, we don't sell cannellini down here. It's against the rules to sell stuff that foreigners might eat. So I dumped in two cans of Great Northerns instead. Aside from that, I didn't have to make any additions for taste, which greatly surprises me. I even ate some of the sausage itself. When it wasn't too big.

Does anyone else think sage smells like a sweaty Christmas tree?

Tuscan-Style White Bean Stew
Source: Magazine unknown

Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 20 minutes

1 lb sweet Italian sausage
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 med onion, chopped
2 19oz cans cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
roughly 2 cups chicken broth or 1 14-1/2oz can
1 T chopped sage
1/4 tsp ground black pepper

1. Cut sausage into bite sized pieces and brown on both sides in a pan. Discard all but 1 T of the drippings. Set sausage aside. Cook onion and garlic in drippings until soft. Add beans and broth- simmer covered for 10 mins. Stir in sage, pepper, and sausage.

Makes about 5 cups.

Ramen Surprise

It's that time again. The phase where pretty much all I eat is Ramen Noodles. This is not a bad thing, just very predictable. I am not one of the multitudes of people who have lost their taste for the stringy stuff because they've had to live on it. No, Ramen will always hold a special place in my heart.

One of the most wonderful things about it is that there is no end to the flavor combination you can come up with. There are even whole websites dedicated to that which we call Ramen. I have come up with many of my own favorite stand-bys and would like to share a few here for the broke and hungry. Before that, I would like to clarify my cooking preference (as we all have one). I always add the seasoning to the water before the noodles. I say you only have one chance to boil noodles, so it should be in something flavorful. I almost always prefer mine as soup. I didn't even know people liked theirs pasta-like until a few years ago. Thankfully, I've gotten over the Picky Ramen phase where I had to strain the broth after I added the seasonings because I didn't like the herb chunks. Truth be told, I still don't, but I'll just brush them off if I see them.


Tomato Ramen Soup

1 package Ramen noodles (I prefer beef)
Ketchup

Cook Ramen with enough water to make soup. Squirt ketchup in the bottom of your serving vessel. I like to mix the noodles with it first because it helps dissolve it better. Add remaining broth. Experiment with how much ketchup you like.

*This is how my dad used to make Ramen and it was the only way I'd eat it for most of my childhood.


Kickin Creamy Chicken

1 package Ramen Noodles
1 packet of creamy chicken flavoring mix
1/2 - 1 packet spicy chicken, or other spicy Ramen flavoring mix
Canned or leftover chicken optional
vegetables optional

Cook Ramen to saucy pasta consistency. Add flavors to your liking, mix in rest of ingredients.


Stir Fry Pork Product

1 package pork Ramen noodles
wasabi- to taste
Soy sauce- to taste
powdered ginger- to taste

As always, I like to flavor my "broth" first. I have tube wasabi, so this helps break it down as well. Add Ramen, cook, leave enough to make it saucy.


Chinese Orange Beef

1 package Beef flavored Ramen
Soy sauce- to taste
wasabi- to taste
Orange flavoring- orange sauce, orange essense, marmalade, ect

Cook Ramen to desired saucy-ness with flavorings. Add orange after.

* This also marks the only time in my life where I've uttered the phrase, "I wish I had marmalade."


Does anyone else know where all the good flavors went? I remember a year or two ago where I found a horde of new-to-me flavors in the noodle world. It even caused my Ramen Renaissance. Now all you can find are the traditional flavors. I've found some of the cooler ones- lime chicken for instance- relegated to the Cup-o-Soup shelves. Where did my flavors go?

Buttery Apple Torte and My Apple Fiasco

First off, here's to NaBloPoMo! And all the headaches this is going to cause me.

Second, I made something! It's the Buttery Apple Torte recipe I listed before from the wonderful Simply Recipes blog. Please visit this site as it's wonderful, one of my old favorites, and is never wrong.

The torte mix itself- the batter-y part- wasn't particularly special. But the apples! I think it's a mixture of cooking them beforehand and the lemon zest, but my apples did NOT have that much flavor and zing when raw. They just popped in this torte and made it taste so good. I mean, look at these babies. They're not exactly in their prime to start with.



So, I was all excited and I ate my little 4x4" slice of torte straight from the dish. This is before I dug in.



Then I was good and wrapped it up for the refrigerator.

Only, two days later max I went to get me some more of that good torte only to find it had mold on it! Two days in the refrigerator and MOLD! I could not believe it. I was crestfallen. All that for a few mouthfuls. Good recipe. Bad memory.

Thirdly, I would like to whine some more. I don't blame the apples. Really, I don't. BUT I think I blame the people at the apple festival. I paid $5 for a half-peck of apples only to find them so bruised I had to trash them a few days later. My mom suggested apple sauce- after I bagged them of course. I don't know what happened. I salvaged another half of an apple to try a Better Homes and Garden recipe for apple hummus, which by the way, blech. But that was it. One moldy torte and another crappy recipe. That makes me a sad panda. I feel like I wasted my money.

The puzzling thing is, my other half-peck is doing great. They're just hanging in my refrigerator, being cool. I will do something with them. I'm just currently mourning my last two flubs and trying to move past them. Maybe one day soon...

Apple Season

This weekend, I like many in the North Georgia area will be headed out to Elijay, home of the Apple Festival. Of course, I'm making the drive from South Georgia, but hey. I went last year (finally) and really enjoyed myself. There were plenty of booths filled with food, crafts, and oddities to keep me entertained. Of course, I went for the food but missed out on the obvious which is buying apples from the local orchards. This year will be different.

I've decided not to pass up the chance to get good local apples and have started stockpiling recipes that take my fancy. I plan to narrow them down by this weekend and then buy what I need. Here are some that have piqued my interest.

For the Sweet Stuff:
Warm Apple Buttermilk Custard Pie
Sour Cream Apple Pie with Streusel
Buttery Apple Torte
Middle Eastern Baked Apples
Apple Salad (4th one down)
Persian Apple Dessert
Apple Kheer: Recipe 1 Recipe 2
Date and Apple Charoset
Seb Rabdi
Apple Enchilada
Apple Crunch Pie with Vanilla Sauce


For the Savory Stuff:
Vegetarian Apple Curry Baked Beans
Pork, Apple, and Sage Ravioli with Sage Butter
Indian Apple Chutney
Apple Gouda Quesadilla
Savory Middle Eastern Stuffed Apples

And two that don't use fresh apples:
Turkish Apple Tea
and Apple Coucous.

Now if I can just decide what to make that doesn't require more apples than I can transport...

Pumpkin Cheesecake as Promised

Yes, I did make it. Yes, I was proud of myself. Oh, he liked it too.

I got the recipe for this marbled pumpkin cheesecake at Allrecipes.com. Now, while this was a very good recipe enjoyed by all, I don't think I'll be making it again. It tasted just like pumpkin pie, only much thicker and creamier. Not at all bad, but not usually what I want when I make cheesecake. I'm ignoring the fact that I made it for someone else. Also, the reviewers were right in saying that it didn't have enough spice. I added more cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice, even cayenne trying to get the spice I wanted, but to no avail. Again, not bad but I would have liked more punch. The cheesecake recipe itself, before you add the pumpkin, was really good and so user friendly. I'll probably use the base again for other flavors.

Making this damn thing was a test of patience as well, since I had to deal with this- pre-molded cheese. I could have done this myself, thank you. Following this were two calls to store managers and running out to buy even more cream cheese. I was not at all happy while making this cake.



I added the gingersnap crust into the "fern" colored dish I bought for him since he doesn't have anything to bake in. He was impressed with my ingenuity, oh yes.




The two batters had great color, but they didn't swirl as nicely as I would have liked. I even added food coloring, but it didn't make a bit of difference. Look at the beaters though! Very pretty.


And the finished product.

Fresh Start

It's near the end of my day, but I needed something to make me feel better. Today went downhill drastically and rapidly, turning me into a zombie. That's never good. I was going to curl up in front of my monitor with a cup of coffee and a leftover sweet potato muffin from a local bakery I just found. Well, I'm doing even better than that now.

I've been semi-stalking every Yogi Tea vendor in South Georgia for a while now. I've managed to pick up three boxes: two in an organic store in Florida and one here at Big Lots of all places. I had yet to try my Piccadilly Breakfast yet. I discovered the thrill of spicy-hot tea a few months back and thought this might be too bland. Oh-ho! It's anything but.

After my water was ready (microwaved, thank you), I steeped the tea for about 3 minutes. It was overbearingly bitter. I thought all was lost. Yet, after the normal amount of honey and evaporated milk were added, it was probably the best cup of black tea I've ever had. Not to say I'm an expert, but I've had my share of bland, watery cups that can't stand up to anything that's put in them. This blended so serenely with my condiments and improved on them. It's such a full-bodied tea, flavorful and comforting, that I even skipped the muffin. Dessertless? How's that for good tea?

If you're a tea fan, I urge you to pick up a box of this and give it a try. And now, to the best tea picture I've ever taken. Live to Share.