Pies for the win

Bill's office decided to have a little bake-off this week. And if there's one thing we cannot walk away from, it's a cooking competition! So, Bill was hell-bent on a classic apple pie. And I threw together something involving Pillsbury crusts, canned Oregon fruit and a few handfuls of Bill's carefully peeled and sliced apples.

Here is the recipe we found on Allrecipes.com. And the one we found on OurBestBites.com.

And this is what Bill did with them:

Recipe for double pastry crust

2 Tbsp butter

5 Tbsp flour

1/2 cup water

3/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

8 apples

1 1/2 Tbsp lemon juice

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

Preheat oven to 350F.

Melt butter in saucepan. Stir in flour. Add water, sugar and brown sugar. Bring to a boil. Reduce temperature and let simmer.

Spoon over apples, coating them well.

Place bottom crust in 10" deep dish pie pan. Fill with apples, slightly mounded. Top with second crust.

Seal edges of top and bottom crusts. Cut vents in top crust.

Bake 45 min.

4th of July Jell-o

My friend Jenn posted this recipe on her blog a very long time ago, and although I haven't made it in years, I remembered it being a big hit at potlucks. And we were unpacking the kitchen all morning so it wasn't such a pain to keep up with all of the layers! So, I thought it was time to revive this one:

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1 box (6 oz.) berry-blue flavored Jell-o
1 box (6 oz.) raspberry flavored Jell-o
2 packets Knox plain gelatin
1 (6 oz.) container Yoplait mountain blueberry yogurt
1 (6 oz.) container Yoplait red raspberry yogurt
1 (6 oz.) container Yoplait vanilla yogurt
water
½ cup sugar

1. In medium bowl, stir 2 cups boiling water into blue jell-o until jell-o is dissolved. In another medium bowl, slowly stir 1 cup of the blue jell-o into blueberry yogurt. Pour yogurt mixture into 13x9-inch (3-quart) glass baking dish. Refrigerate about 1 hour or until set. Meanwhile, stir 2/3 cup cold water into remaining plain blue jell-o; let stand at room temperature.
2. When blue yogurt layer is set, carefully pour plain blue jell-o over yogurt layer. Refrigerate about 30 minutes or until set.
3. Pour ½ cup cold water into a bowl. Sprinkle with two packets of Knox plain gelatin; let stand one minute. Add 1 ½ cups boiling water and stir until gelatin completely dissolves. Stir in ½ cup sugar. In another medium bowl, slowly stir 1 cup of the gelatin mixture into vanilla yogurt. Pour mixture over blue layers. Refrigerate about 30 minutes or until set. Stir 2/3 cup cold water into remaining plain gelatin; let stand at room temperature.
4. When white yogurt layer is set, carefully pour plain gelatin over yogurt layer. Refrigerate about 30 minutes or until set.
5. In medium bowl, stir 2 cups boiling water into raspberry jell-o until jell-o is dissolved. In another medium bowl, slowly stir 1 cup of the raspberry jell-o into raspberry yogurt. Pour yogurt mixture over layer of clear gelatin. Refrigerate about 30 minutes or until set. Stir 2/3 cup cold water into remaining plain raspberry jell-o; let stand at room temperature.
6. When raspberry yogurt layer is set, carefully pour plain raspberry jell-o over yogurt layer. Refrigerate at least 2 hours until set.

Bona Fide

Tonight I had a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese. Next time I'll need to remember this classic Italian version!

Macaroni Salad

We were invited to a Memorial Day barbeque and I knew that all I wanted to bring was macaroni salad. I'd never made one before, but I found this recipe at Allrecipes.com It turned out very well. I accidentally forgot to buy a green pepper, so I replaced that with peas. And next time I might cut back on the sugar just a tad.

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4 cups uncooked elbow macaroni
1 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup distilled white vinegar
2/3 cup white sugar
2 1/2 tablespoons prepared yellow mustard
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 sweet onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1/4 cup grated carrot

Place the chopped onion in a bowl of ice and let set in the refrigerator about 30 min.

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add the macaroni, and cook until tender. Rinse under cold water and drain.

In a large bowl, mix together the mayonnaise, vinegar, sugar, mustard, salt and pepper. Drain excess water from chopped onion. Stir onion, celery, green pepper, carrot, and macaroni into mayonnaise mixture. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours before serving, but preferably overnight.

Sicilian Blood Orange Salad

It's blood orange season! Yum! I got so excited to see these beautiful things in the store that I bought quite a lot. And for dinner I tried this recipe from The Splendid Table for a Sicilian Blood Orange Salad..something I only vaguely remembered from my mission days. It was delicious and beautiful.

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ice
water
1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
2 blood oranges, thinly sliced
1 navel orange, thinly sliced
1/2 cup kalamata olives, roughly chopped
1/4 cup orange juice
2 tbsp olive oil
very smalll quantities:
black pepper
salt
paprika
cinnamon

Place the sliced red onion in a bowl of ice and water, leave in the refrigerator at least 20 minutes to take away their "sting".

In a shallow bowl, mix the different colored orange slices. Drain and pat dry the onion slices and mix with oranges. Add juice and drizzle with olive oil. Add olives. Season to taste.

Nutella Day and the Great American Snowpocolypse

I spent a few days huddling under a blanket on my couch because the newscasters--and my mom--all told me DON'T GET ON THE ROAD. IT'S BAD OUT THERE!

Bill and I tried to hold off on going to the grocery store and pretty much subsisted on very warm things like chili and chowder.

Oh, and Nutella.

It was a happy day when I got to the grocery store and I bought some bananas to go with my Nutella. Nutella with bananas is the best.

That was Friday. And just in time to celebrate Nutella Day on Feb 5th!

Not that I really celebrated (Bill and I do have a Nutella limit, turns out), but I DID enjoy browsing the sites of these bloggers who whipped up something special for the occasion.

Do yourselves a favor and just look at these gooey, chocolatey, sweet...yummmmm!

And one day I may have to try this recipe for homemade Nutella submitted to the site by pastry chef, David Lebovitz:

Texan Chicken Fried Chicken

Bill has been really great about taking on dinner lately--which is awesome. I love to watch him in the kitchen.

On Saturday he was very excited about a food convention that was in town; Zest Fest--sponsored by Chile Pepper Magazine. (who knew?) It was a convention of the spiciest food products out there. Of course Bill and his friend participated in the Atomic Hot Wings eating contest

and stepped up to sample the outrageously hot Jolokia pepper hot sauce

but he also brought home some locally made dry seasonings for barbecue dry rubs, etc. and decided to test it out in some down home fried chicken. It came out great, very moist and juicy and the seasoning was really yummy.

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4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

3 cups flour

3 Tbsp Angelo's Poultry Seasoning

(we're gussing a little paprika, salt, pepper, cumin, garlic powder would do just as well)

2 eggs

1 tsp vinegar

4 Tbsp shortening

1/2 cup oil

Between two sheets of wax paper, pound chicken to flatten and tenderize.

In a shallow bowl, combine flour and seasonings.

In a smaller bowl, beat eggs and vinegar together.

In a deep skillet, heat shortening and supplement with oil until 1/2" deep, covering the bottom of the skillet, on medium-high heat.

Alternate dipping chicken breasts first in egg then in flour mixture, so that they are dipped in each mixture twice and well coated in the dry mixture.

Toss chicken into the oil--if oil is not immediately bubbling and sizzling around the chicken, turn up the heat!

Cook until deep golden and flip chicken breasts to cook the other side. When both sides are golden and crispy, check chicken to see that it is cooked through. Serve with veggies!