Pi Day - Apple Pie

And now for round two, my mom's recipe for apple pie! This recipe bakes up into a beautiful pie that is just the right amount of sweet without being overpowering.

Apple Pie

Ingredients

Pie crust - 2 crusts

- 2 c flour

- 2 tsp salt

- 2/3 c + 2 Tbs Crisco or shortening

- cold water

Apple Pie filling

- 4-6 firm, tart apples (Granny Smith, McIntosh, etc.), peeled and sliced

- 3/4 C. sugar

- 1/4 C. flour

- 1/2 tsp. nutmeg

- 1/2 tsp. cinnamon (or a little more)

- dash of salt

- 2 Tb. butter

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 F (for glass pans) or 400 F (for metal pans).

2. Prepare the bottom crust of one pie. Use the same directions as for the 1 crust pie, except at the end gather it into two balls instead of 1. Roll out one of the balls for the bottom crust (the other is for the top crust).

3. Prepare the apples; mix the dry ingredients and toss with the apple slices.  Put the coated apples in the pie pan lined with bottom crust.*

4. Dot the butter over the top.  Roll out the top crust; moisten the edge of the bottom crust with a little water on your fingertips; put on the top crust.  Trim edges; crimp.  Cut some holes in the top crust to let steam escape.  (Make it pretty!!) If your top crust doesn't roll out well enough to do one big sheet, you can also do a lattice top, which is more forgiving of the falling-apart pieces.

5. Bake 40-50 min. at 375 to 400 degrees (depending on your oven; I like 375 for glass pans).  Pie should be golden brown and smell delicious. Great hot or cold.

*It may look like a LOT of apples, but as it bakes they reduce in size by about half. I fill my pie shell pretty full so that my finished pie is still quite substantial.

Enjoy!

Pi Day - Country Fruit Pie

In honor of pi day (tomorrow, 3/14), I have decided to post some of my favorite pie recipes for your pleasure. In the past I've already posted about pumpkin, coconut cream, and key lime pie, so I'll skip those ones, but let's be honest here, there are LOTS of other kinds of pie out there. So let's start off with a classic passed down from my grandmother, ideal for fresh blueberries, peaches, mixed berries, or any other soft fruit that sounds promising to you. (I usually use blueberries or frozen mixed berries if the season's all wrong for fresh berries.)

Country Fruit Pie

Pie crust:

- 1c. flour

- 1 tsp salt

- 1/3 c + 1 Tbsp Crisco

- Cold water (the colder the better, as long as it's not ice)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Mix flour and salt.  Cut in Crisco/shortening until it is in pea-size pieces. (A pastry blender works well for this, but if you don't have one you can use two table knives.)  Add cold water a Tbsp or two at a time, mixing gently with a fork.  Keep adding water until dough begins to form a ball*.  Finish molding it into a ball with your hands.  Do NOT over-mix.**

Roll out the crust on a lightly floured surface.  Transfer to a 9-inch pie plate and cut off any excess pastry hanging over the edge.  If desired, make a pretty edge by pinching the crust around the rim of the pie plate between your thumb and first finger.

Put 2 pints blueberries/mixed berries or 5-6 sliced fresh peaches in the unbaked 9 inch pie shell.

Mix:

- 2/3 cup sugar

- ¼ cup flour

- ¼ tsp salt

- ½ tsp cinnamon

- 1 cup evaporated milk

Pour over fruit; bake 40-45 min at 400 degrees F.

* How much water you add will change depending on the humidity and temperature outside. 

** Making pie crust is a delicate art, and it's pretty easy to screw up. Take comfort in the fact that you will get better with practice. I found it easier to do it after watching someone do it.

Stay tuned for more great pie recipes throughout the week!

Book Review: The Rook

I've been hearing good things about The Rook by Daniel O'Malley lately. My brother obtained a copy from the local library and liked it, and I heard from someone in writing group that it was good as well. The premise as posited on The Big Idea (on John Scalzi's blog) sounded interesting: a highly placed member of the supernatural arm of the British government gets amnesia. What happens to the woman who wakes up in her body?

Let's just start off with a fact, shall we? I picked this book up yesterday afternoon... and finished it around midnight. It's long, but I could not put it down. Consequently, we ate a late lunch, and then I read until I finished it, and then we ate some dinner and went to bed. Totally worth it.

Our main character, Myfanwy (rhymes with Tiffany) has some supernatural powers, and she is also frighteningly good at administration. Match made in heaven: she has a high administrative office in the Chequy, an organization in Britain devoted to handling supernatural... issues. Unfortunately, she makes some enemies in the organization that lead to her losing her memories completely. That's where the book starts. New Myfanwy now has to use her brains, powers, and the very thorough notes left by her predecessor to track down her enemies and find the source of corruption in the Chequy. Or she could run away and start a safe new life. But that wouldn't make for much of a book, now would it?

Though this book has a large cast of side characters, I felt like O'Malley did an excellent job at giving them enough depth without spending too much time on each one. Old Myfanwy's notes on her colleagues work very well to help pull this off. Whenever another colleague entered the scene for some substantial interaction with Myfanwy, she would frantically consult her binder and review the summary of that individual so that she (and we) knew who they were. While this tactic could fall flat on its face, the summaries are interesting enough in their own right to keep the story moving forward, even though they interrupt the plot. There was only one character who felt a little disappointing to me (no spoilers) and that was mostly because Myfanwy didn't get much chance to interact with her (since she was not a coworker), so the interactions we do see all play a fairly large role in progressing the plot. Given Myfanwy's alarming number of crises that arise at work, this is not surprising, but it is worth noting.

I felt like The Rook struck just the right chord with its mix of mystery, urban fantasy (or is it scifi?), and political intrigue. The story was complex and compelling, and the pacing (both of plot and of world building) was quite good. I was perpetually learning more about the world and Myfanwy's abilities while unraveling the source of corruption in the court, and the balance worked really well for me. 

I can tell already this is one of my favorite books of the year. If any of the above piques your interest, go read it right now. I even liked it enough that I forgive it for giving me extremely bizarre dreams about politically ambitious chess pieces. 

Hawaiian Haystacks

I really like recipes that a) taste good leftover, b) are easy to make, and c) are versatile. Enter: Hawaiian Haystacks. From scratch. The easy way to make this is to throw some chicken in with some cream of chicken soup and serve it over rice. But... honestly, canned cream of chicken soup kind of makes me icked out a bit. (Maybe it's because I buy the off-brand stuff that retains its can shape when you dump it out.) So you get this recipe instead. Lucky you!

Cream of Chicken Soup (makes about 3 cups, or 2 cans)

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups chicken broth

1/2 teaspoon poultry seasoning

1/4 teaspoon onion powder

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

1/8 teaspoon black pepper

1/4 teaspoon salt (or less; taste to test)

1/4 teaspoon parsley

dash of paprika

1 1/2 cups milk

3/4 cup flour

Instructions:

1. In medium-sized saucepan, boil chicken broth, 1/2 cup of the milk, and the seasonings for a minute or two (longer if using fresh onions or garlic).

2. In a bowl, whisk together the remaining 1 cup of milk and flour. Add to boiling mixture and continue whisking briskly until mixture boils and thickens (this should only take about 5 min at most).

This can be frozen in 1½ c amounts if you make it ahead of time.

Recipe obtained from here. 

Hawaiian Haystacks

Ingredients: 

1 cooked chicken cut in bite sized pieces (I use 3 large chicken breasts)

2 cans cream of chicken soup (see above recipe)

1 cup chicken broth

2 cups milk

3/4 cup flour

1/4 cup butter

Instructions:

Mix all ingredients in a pot until thick and bubbly. I usually cook the chicken ahead of time and dump it in after everything else is mixed together. I also normally make the cream of chicken soup right before I make this, but you can make it ahead of time if desired. You will probably need to add salt to taste, but I normally don't bother and just add some when I eat it.

Serve over rice and Chinese noodles, then top with any combination of the following (see, versatility at its finest, perfect for picky children):

grated cheese

sliced almonds or cashews 

shredded coconut

chopped tomatoes

crushed or chunk pineapple

celery

green pepper

green onions

bacon bits

and anything else you want.

I'm not really sure how many servings it makes, but probably 8-10 at least. A LOT. We ate it every night for a week.

I personally prefer a combination of chicken goop, cheese, cashews, coconut, and pineapple chunks on my crunchy noodles and rice, but to each their own. It makes great leftovers (though I highly recommend adding the crunchy noodles and cashews right before you eat it or they get soggy) and also works well for parties, since it feeds a lot and you can assign people to bring toppings if it's potluck. 

Enjoy!

Book Review: Crossed

I finished reading Crossed by Allie Condie a few days ago - the sequel to Matched which made such a big splash a while back. I enjoyed Matched (though I had a few reservations about it - mainly I found it hard to believe that she would give up a life with her childhood sweetheart to chase after someone she barely knew, but that's neither here nor there), so I was excited to read the sequel.

Overall, I quite enjoyed Crossed. I read it in two days and was annoyed when my lunch break ended with only 50 pages or so left (always a good sign). The plot twists were interesting, and it was cool to see more of the world outside the Society's perfectly controlled cities. The characters (Ky and Cassia particularly) were developed to a higher degree, and we got to learn more of Ky's backstory (and a bit of Xander's too).

It suffers a bit from being the middle book in a trilogy though. Without giving any spoilers, a lot happens but I finished it and felt like the overarching plot hadn't actually progressed a whole lot. Maybe the third book will prove me wrong, but it ended and I felt like the characters were still in the exact same situation as before. I can recognize why this is, but I can't explain it in any detail without HUGE SPOILERS so I'll refrain. Here's my attempt at explaining it in no detail at all: I felt like Condie's choice of where to end the book played a big role in why I was left with that sense of non-progression. If she had ended it just a bit sooner, or tweaked it a little, I would have found it a more satisfying ending.

Now for some miscellaneous thoughts. I'm pretty sure Ky is the sanest one out of our batch of main characters. I was glad that Condie didn't feel the need to raise the stakes of Cassia's love triangle by having Ky pressure her into anything more than kissing. (I do find it a little amusing that neither one of them even considers sex an option, but then I guess I can chalk that up to their upbringing in the Society.) I hope we see a lot more of Xander in book 3, because in this love triangle business Ky hasn't really had much competition, and even though I really like his character, I am still a little hung up on the issue that I had in Matched mentioned above.

Anyway, despite all my little nitpicks, I did like the book and thought it was worth reading.

Have any of you read it? What did you think?

Baby Shoes

At long last, it is time to unveil the latest crochet project...

Crocheted baby Converse shoes!

In honor of my brother and sister-in-law's newest addition (who could realistically arrive any day now), I decided to finally try this pattern. (You'll probably need a ravelry account to download the pattern; it's not posted online anywhere that I know of.) It was a bit trickier than I am used to - well, okay, not really trickier, but it's very different crocheting shoes than it is plushies. For some reason shoes are more daunting. But I'm pretty happy with how they turned out, overall. I left off the little star medallion on the sides because when I tried it, I didn't like how it looked (even though the pictures online make it look really awesome), but other than that I followed the pattern almost exactly.

The real question is: how long will they actually fit the baby once s/he arrives?

REALLY EXCITING THINGS!

This is my 100th post. And you know what that means....

Giveaway time! 

Here's the deal. I couldn't decide what to give away. I took a poll a while ago and it was a pretty even split across the board between something crocheted, something baked, and a book. So rather than crochet a book and then bake it... I'm going to give away a sweet little package of three unrelated things! (Or shall I say, seemingly unrelated. Since they do all have my interest in common.) 

Item 1:

One of these little guys! Winner can choose the color of the top and spots and I will customize it (as long as I already have those colors - and I do have a LOT of colors). The eyes will be closer together too. Every time I see this one I think his eyes are too far apart.

Item 2:

One copy of N.K. Jemisin's Hugo nominated book The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. I read this last year and really enjoyed it, and I think you will too.

Item 3: 

One dozen non-blurry chocolate cookies with white chocolate chips. If you live outside of Utah, I cannot guarantee their freshness, but I will bake them within 24 hours of mailing them. 

There. Hopefully that appeals to most of my audience...

Now for the rules. US only (not that I think I have any readers outside of the US, but you never know - and now I really don't since I've gone and alienated them). To enter, leave a comment naming a book or game or link to a recipe you enjoyed recently. If you tweet about this post or share it on Facebook, you can earn up to one extra entry, but let me know in your comment if you did (and mention me in your post to make it easy on me - I'm @WombatWife on Twitter). Lastly, the giveaway closes in ONE WEEK because that puts us right on the ides of March. So comments close March 15th at 9pm MST and I'll post the winner that night in a new post. Winner will be chosen by a random method not yet determined.

And now... I think I should probably consider eating something besides toast for dinner. Yes, it's been one of those evenings.