Apple Crisp

I feel like Apple Crisp is always something that makes everyone smile.  Very hard to not make delicious and a happy dish that adds warmth to even the coldest of hearts.  Though always good, the main ingredients I feel make this dish are of course the apples, the spices, and oats.  Nuts make a nice touch too.

A very good variation from strictly apple crisp is to do an fruit crisp.  My favorite is one with apples, peaches, and blackberries.  Just adjust the fruit ingredients and still  follow directions below.

Time
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Bake Time: 45 minutes
Ready in: 1 hr 5 min


Servings
A 13 x 9 in Casserole or Baking dish's worth.  About 6-8 servings.


Ingredients
Topping
2 cups rolled oats
4 tablespoons of all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons of whole wheat flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon salt
7 tablespoons of unsalted softened butter cut into 1/2 inch pieces
3/4 cup chopped walnuts (optional: if you like a bit of crunch to your crisp)

*Side note* If you want to make this recipe a little bit healthier another good way to do it is adding 1/2 cup of maple syrup or honey to the mixture instead of large quantities of butter and sugar.  However, when adding sugars such as these to the topping-be careful-because if you add too much honey the topping becomes more of like a solid chunk of oats and things so the crisp can easily turn into more of an upside down apple cake.

Filling
4 medium Granny Smith Apples
2 McIntosh Apples (adds for a little bit of sweetness when paired with Granny Smith)
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
2 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (I just kinda sprinkle around till it looks good)

Procedures
1. Preheat oven to 375 Fahrenheit
2. Peel and cut apples into 1 inch cubes.
3. Toss apples into baking pan or casserole dish, spray and mix with lemon juice.  This helps preserve the apples so they don't turn brown while you are doing other stuff.
4.  Add lemon zest and sugar mix around.
5. Proceed to making topping.
6.  In large bowl mix well the oats, flours, sugars, spices, and salt.
7. Beat in the butter.
8. Mix in walnuts with wooden spoon if adding.  Be careful not to over mix here or topping will be slightly mushy.
9.  Place topping mixture over apple mixture and bake for 40 minutes.
8.  If you like your apple crisp a little less mushy and more crunchy, take out here and let cool, otherwise proceed.
9.  Increase temperature to 400 Fahrenheit and bake until fruit bubbles, about 5 more min.
10. Take out of oven, let cool for a few minutes and serve warm.

*Goes well with vanilla ice cream on top and a glass of milk or white wine*

Cranberry Orange Walnut Bread

This bread is a delicious winter treat that is altogether fairly healthy AND tasty.

Prep Time: 15 min
Cook Time: 1 hr
Ready In: 1 hr 15 min

Servings
1 regular 9' x 5' loaf

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups (roughly one small package) fresh cranberries
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/3 cup of softened butter (easy way to do this is set on top of pre-heating oven)
1 cup white sugar
1 egg
3/4 cup of orange juice
1 1/2 tablespoons of orange zest

Procedures
1. Preheat oven to 350 Fahrenheit.  Grease 9' x 5' loaf pan.
2. Whisk together both flours, baking soda, salt.
3. Add orange zest to this mixture and whisk.  Then set aside.
4.  In a larger bowl beat together on low speed the softened butter and sugar.  Add egg and beat until smooth.  *Tip: Whisk egg by itself first, makes for a more even consistency*
5. Stir in Orange juice.
6. Gradually add the flour mixture while continually beating.
7. Add the cranberries and walnuts (easiest to add at this stage because any earlier and the beater will launch them across the kitchen-trust me) and mix well either with wooden spoon or hands.
8. Pour bread mixture into greased loaf pan and bake for approximately 1 hr. Check bread at 50 minutes by looking to see if top is browned, bread springs back after lightly being touched, and by inserting and removing a tooth pick.  If there is no residue on tooth pick then bread is done.
9.  Let cool for 5-10 minutes.
10.  Transfer to cooling rack and enjoy!!

*Goes well with a Raspberry beer or milk :-) *

Beer Bread!!

This recipe is inspired by the thing that I love most in the world...beer :-)

So there is one rule, only one rule to this recipe.  You must follow it otherwise you will FAIL!!  and the bread will not taste as good.    The one rule, the one and only unbreakable rule: you must drink beer while you bake!

Time
Prep time: 10 minutes
Bake time: 45-50 minutes
Ready in: 1 hour

Servings
1 normal 9 x 5 loaf of bread

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
4 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons of salt
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons of honey. A sweet honey
1 tablespoon of melted butter
1 typical bottle of beer.  Dundee's honey brown works the best but others will do!

Procedures
0.5 Preheat oven to 350 (175 degrees Celsius).
1. Combine all dry ingredients except the brown sugar first.  Mix very well with whisk or fork, add brown sugar and whisk.
2. Add beer.  This is a very important, in fact the most important ingredient of this recipe!!  Choose a sweeter, lighter beer.  Stouts = bad! Pale ales, ehh not the best either.  But I always don't spend too much money on beer unless you're gonna drink it!  Any lighter, sweeter beer will do but once again Dundee's honey brown tastes the best.
3.  Add the honey.  The honey is also very important here.  A sweeter honey such as sunflower, buckwheat works well.  I like orange blossom as a honey myself but is too strong for this recipe but works wonderfully in pound cake or angel food cake!
4.  Mix dough, will likely need to knead a bit with hands.  Just put some flour on those babies and get workin!
5. Put in a 9 x 5 loaf pan, pour melted butter over bread and stick bun in oven!
6. In 45-50 minutes it should be a little brown on the top, take it out, let it cool if you can stand it and enjoy!

*Goes well with, well, beer.

Chicken Milanese With Tomato and Fennel Sauce over Basil Risotto

So this recipe was inspired from the beautiful, freakishly large headed Giada De Laurentiis. Actually that is a total lie. I tried this recipe of Giada's and it sucked. It was terribly bland and really just not the best. Even my partner in food crime a.k.a boyfriend at the time (who I made this dish for because of is unrequited love to Giada) thought it was bland. Which btw, Giada, you can regretfully have him, though I don't think he likes your food very much. Anyways, here is a recipe that will make a delicious Chicken Milanese, not over nothing, but over a sweet & spicy, corn, tomato, and basil risotto. So there it goes.

My advice is to chop and place all your ingredients for each dish aside. When you are ready to begin cooking, start with the Risotto, for it takes the longest.

Servings
I made it as a nice dinner for two, but I'm guessing it lasted about 3 more meals, thereafter.

Time
Prep time: 15 minutes of good ol' chopping!
Cook time: 40-45 minutes
Ready in: roughly 1 hour, maybe a little more depending on agility with blades.

Risotto

For Risotto you must use a short grain rice!! Arborio works the best in my opinion, short brown or white rice will do. Other short italian rices are good as well. Look at the bag/box and decide how many servings you will need and measure rice accordingly. Set aside. This recipe uses a cup of short grained brown rice, roughly 4 or so portions if you eat like a normal American.

Ingredients

-1 cup of rice (see above)

-1/3 cup of white wine (must be warm when add to rice or will shock the rice and no one likes to be shocked. Ask Milgrim.)

-1 12 oz can of chicken broth

-Roughly 1 cup of chopped fresh basil

-1 large minced onion

-8-10 minced fat garlic cloves

-Between 1 1/2 - 2 cups of cherry tomatoes, sliced into 4ths. Use your own judgement here.

-2/3 cup of frozen corn.

-1 1/2 cups of freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

Procedures

-Saute the garlic and onions in olive oil. *Tip* Do not use extra virgin olive oil, it burns quite easily and makes your food wilted and unhappy. Fat makes people happy, well that is until you become too fat, and then you will be unhappy. But don't be afraid of fat. Be afraid of becoming fat.

-Add the rice and saute until relatively translucent, about 5-7 min on medium heat.

-Add the wine.

-Add the basil.

-Add about 1/4 cup of chicken broth (continually feed increments of this amount to the rice as you let it simmer. It's like feeding a baby-small bites and you do it all the time. *Tip* Make sure there is always a bit of liquid in the pan as the process goes, otherwise the rice will become dry and flakey.

-Add the frozen corn (no need to thaw) and the tomatoes after about the 2nd addition of broth.

-Continue to add broth, stirring frequently until rices comes to al dente! About 30-40min.

-Add cheese, stir, cover, and serve!

*Tip* Remember Risotto is a needy child, it needs tender love and care, and attention!

The Chicken

Breaded chicken. Mmmm. Yum, Yum in my tum tum. Instead of Procedures I will use the term "Operation" here because I feel that it is more of an operation than a procedure.

Ingredients

- 4 medium sized chicken breasts. Please save yourself the trouble here and do not use the $6.99 bag of frozen chicken breasts from Giant Eagle-they are terrible for you and your mouth.

-2 Eggs beaten. Always be choosey about eggs, they make a difference.

- 1 1/2 cup standard breadcrumbs, whatever you like.

-2 tsp of dried Basil

-1 tsp of dried Thyme

- 3/4 cup of freshly grated Parmesan cheese

- 1 1/2 cups of flour

-salt and pepper to taste.

Operation

- Order ingredients this way, each in a shallow bowl: 1. Flour 2. Eggs 3. Crumbs, seasonings, cheese.

-salt and pepper both sides of the chicken.

-Place chicken first in flour, coating both sides, then do the same in the eggs, and then the crumb mixture.

-Saute chicken on medium heat, flipping chicken once. Roughly 3-4 min on each side.

-Remove from heat and place in oven heated to 150 to keep warm.

The Sauce

This was the killer of Giada's recipe, so here is a little bit to make it better.

Ingredients

-1/2 cup Mascarpone cheese, no more!

-2 Fennel bulbs, trimmed and thinly sliced. Disregard the core!

-2 1/2 cups of cherry tomatoes, halved

-3 minced cloves of garlic

-1/2 chopped onion

-2 tsp thyme

-1/4 cup chopped fresh Basil

Procedures

-Saute the fennel bulbs and garlic in oil over medium heat for a few minutes.

-Add the onions and thyme and saute for a few minutes.

-Add the tomatoes and Basil, saute for about 3-4 min.

-Add cheese, stir, and remove from heat.

Putting together the whole meal:

Take the chicken out of the oven, place over Risotto, pour sauce over chicken and serve!

When making begin with Risotto, as Risotto cooks, begin the chicken, as chicken, finishes, begin sauce, Risotto should finish about at the time the sauce does.

White wine goes well with the meal, and as always so does beer.

I quite liked this meal and hopefully will make more creative and good meals soon. Although I no longer have my partner to help or taste test my food, I am hoping to have a new addition to the Random house family soon, who hopefully help in the tasting!

*And no, no one is pregnant*

Not Bland Pumpkin Soup

Pumpkin soup is often an October/November experiment that can be successful and delicious or more often than not, go horribly awry, resulting in a bland and pasty soup. In my case, my attempt was both magical and messy. Although I am still trying to get splatters of pumpkin soup off the side of my refrigerator, when kept in the bowl, the soup is delicious, excellently spicy, and highly calorie consuming.

Time

Prep Time: 5 min

Cook Time: Approximately 20 min

Servings

Enough for a large family

Ingredients

2 tablespoons of butter

3 tablespoons of all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons of red curry powder

4 1/2 cups vegetable broth

1 (29 oz) can of pumpkin puree

1 1/4 cups half-and-half cream

1 1/2 tablespoons of soy sauce

1/4 cup of chopped fresh sage

unspecified amount of cumin (preferably before scorching lips level a.k.a the entire container)

salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Melt butter in a very large pot (all ingredients will eventually be in here)
2. Add flour and curry powder
3. Stir and cook mixture until smooth, begins to bubble, and gives off a non-burning aroma
4. Gradually add vegetable broth, whisking continuously
5. Cook until thickens (roughly 5-8 minutes)
6. Stir in pumpkin puree (Be careful has potential to splash all over refrigerator!)
7. Stir in half-and-half
8. Continue to whisk
9. Add soy sauce, sage, cumin, salt and pepper

*Note: The key to non-blandness is the cumin. Start by adding 2 teaspoons and go from there.

1. Simmer of medium to low heat (High heat will cause bubbling and splattering similar to what a witched brew would look like-will burn) roughly 10 minutes
2. Garnish with sage, remove from heat
3. Eat!

*Goes very will with sage and thyme infused biscuits and well, beer.