Homemade Apple Pie

Apple pie is not something that was made from scratch in my house -- up till now. The idea of apple pie is so uniquely American that I always bought it at the store before. It's not an ancestral recipe with me. But I really admired Julia's rustic cinnamon apple pie, as described here:

http://eyeonlifemagazine.com/food-drink/julias-rustic-cinnamon-apple-pie-recipe

For years, I intended to try to bake this apple pie, according to the directions described in the link above, but I never quite got around to it. And then finally I did -- yesterday afternoon.

Vacuum County & eight Jonathan apples plus a stick of unsalted butter

I set aside the apples and allowed the butter to stay out at room temperature, right to next to a copy of Vacuum County, and then I made the dough, rolled it into two balls and refrigerated them.

The dough was made of 4 cups of flour, one cup of milk, one teaspoon each of sugar and cinnamon

Then I started cutting up the apples.

I also cut the stick of butter up into individual pats of butter and let them get even softer by standing a while at room temperature.

Can you see that butter almost melting?

Then I started to mix the ingredients for the pie filling.

I used two tablespoons of coconut flour on top of the apples

The flour I used for the dough had been regular flour, but I decided on coconut flour for the filling.

I added the pats of butter

After the flour, I added the butter. 

I then added one teaspoon each of cinnamon and nutmeg and half a cup of sugar

I used sugar in the raw along with the nutmeg and cinnamon.

After mixing all the ingredients for the filling, I rolled out the bottom half of the dough with a rolling pin between two sheets of wax paper.

I then put the bottom layer of dough in the pie pan.

Bottom layer of dough in pie pan

Next, the filling went into the pan.

The filling in the pan

Then I flattened the other ball of dough and covered the pie. 

I sprinkled some sugar and cinnamon on the top.

I made a few slits in the top layer of dough and then baked.

It was not as beautiful and perfect as Julia's pie, but I was happy with it.

Cuttting a generous slice

The slice of pie crumbled a little more than I would have liked, but when I served it to Bow, he did not complain.

Bow really enjoyed his slice of pie and so did I.

In twenty-four hours, between us, Bow and I managed to consume half the pie.

I had better not eat any more, or I will not be able to fit into my Vacuum County T-Shirt!

The last piece of pie

RELATED

http://mystories.sweetbeariesart.com/2012/10/31/making-apple-pie/#comment-37466

Marzipan Strawberry Pie

During the great flood of 2017, Bow and I felt very cooped up. There was nowhere to go and nothing to do, and we got a little tired of the same music and the same sights and sounds. But luckily we had at home the makings of marzipan strawberry pie. Miniature marzipan strawberry pie, that is.

The Finished Product

My mother and I had been talking about marzipan lately. It is one of my favorite sweets. During my childhood, when we didn't have  chocolate doled out as a special treat, we got marzipan. It is one of my favorites and evokes good memories. But here in the U.S., you can't find marzipan along with chocolate in the candy aisle at WalMart. "I haven't seen it in years," I said to my mother. "Maybe they call it something else."

And then one day I found it, in the baking section, on a very high shelf next to the poppy seed filling. Sure enough, it was not called marzipan. It was just plain old "almond paste."  That made it sound very unromantic, I must say. Can it possibly taste the same if you call it almond paste?

In addition to the almonds, sugar is the major ingredient, That's why when I was a little girl, it was doled out after a meal in very small doses, just like chocolate.

Americans, apparently, don't indulge in marzipan as a sweet, but they use almond paste -- which looks and tastes exactly the same -- in baking macaroons and other pastries . For Bow, during those rainy days, I decided to use ready made graham cracker pie crusts and strawberries to add more substance to the marzipan.

The marzipan can be made into any shape 

I always have fresh strawberries on hand.

I just cut them into small bits and added them on top of the marzipan. Marzipan is sticky, so they were firmly in place.

Now all I had to do was serve this confection to Bow. He was happy. He did not care at all whether it was called marzipan or almond paste. It was all the same to him.

Pure Black Sesame Powder

This time when I visited my mother in Indiana, I got a new container of 100% pure black sesame seed powder at the local Chinese grocery store. I was used to getting black sesame porridge in small pouches, already mixed with sugar. I remember it fondly from my days in Taiwan when I first discovered Sesame Seeds and Joy.  A very important character in my novel, Our Lady of Kaifeng: Courtyard of the Happy Way, is even called Mr. Sesame or 芝麻老師.

The pure black sesame powder with sugar added on top

I asked the woman at the grocery store for the black sesame porridge in pouches, but she said: "This is better. This is pure ground sesame -- nothing else." Well, she didn't have it in any other form, so I bought it.

Now, many people add either rice or flour along with sugar to their black sesame seed powder to make porridge, but this time around I contented myself with just adding boiling water and sugar. The powdered black sesame seeds contain a lot of very healthful fat.

The idea of adding too many extra carbs besides the sugar to sweeten it did not appeal to me. So I kept it simple.

Bow loves sesame seed porridge, But this time I made it a bit watery, so it was more like a drink, and that's how Bow treated it.

Whether you drink it or eat it, black sesame porridge is always good.

Health Benefits of Pickle Ice

Bow's friend has been bringing him Pickle Ice, and he has been enjoying this treat very much. It's delicious!

But many people may not know that there could be health benefits to enjoying this salty treat. Pickle Ice consists of frozen pickle juice. And pickle juice is made of water, salt and vinegar. There are no calories in it at all.

Sodium is good for hydration, so having some Pickle Ice on a hot day is much better than a sugary popsicle.  But there's also another surprise benefit I had never heard of before I researched the topic.
There is said to be an antiglycemic effect to ingesting pickle juice before mealtime. As I understand it, that is the vinegar at work. I am not sure as to the validity of this health claim, but if you look at the second reference I have listed below, you can read the abstract by the authors from Arizona State University  and perhaps research it yourself.

You can buy the Pickle Ice treats at your local grocery store, or you can make your own in an ice cube tray by using leftover pickle juice.

Related Articles

http://www.medicaldaily.com/pickle-juice-4-health-benefits-drinking-green-juice-278780

http://bobspicklepops.com/health.htm