Apple Crisp (and the answer to the contraption challenge)

15 Oct

Yesterday I asked if you knew what this was:

Peel Away Peeler, Corer, and Slicer, courtesy Hatti Langsford.

And I got numerous responses, most of them correct! The hair removal comment was pretty funny! (Thanks Conor from One Man’s Meat)

It is indeed an apple corer, which can be set to peel and slice as well. Want one? Click here to shop around….

My dear friend from college (The New School, if you’d like to know), Hatti Langsford, whose recent “sustainable” wedding  to Chris Moratz, was covered in these pages, gave it to Leandro when we were visiting them in the New Paltz area last fall. It has since traveled, not just home to us, but to Leandro’s school during Apple Week last year! The kids (and teachers) loved it! And it is a terrific way to get kids eating fruit and involved in the kitchen!

It is a marvelous contraption, that Hatti wants me to remind you can also be used for peeling potatoes, and it can be used for pears as well. It came in particularly handy for this simple apple crisp recipe, as the spiral slice was the perfect thickness for the dish (1/4 inch); all I had to do was slice each apple once in half from top to bottom after Ashley and Leandro had peeled, cored and spiral sliced them.

Make sure the butter is well-distributed through the dry ingredients or you’ll have dry patches. I eliminated the dry patches by covering with foil; the heat finished the topping!

I made it in two 8×8 baking dishes so that I had one to take to this month’s Single Mother’s By Choice meet-up (where it met with general approval and most people took seconds), and one to keep! You could also do one large baking dish.

Yum!

Apple Crisp (adapted very slightly from Betty Crocker!)

10 small-medium cooking apples (we used Gala this time), cored and sliced (peeling is optional)

1.5 Cups mixed brown and white sugar, packed

1 Cup all-purpose flour

1 Cup quick-cooking oats (old-fashioned can also be used)

2/3 Cups butter, softened

1.5 tsp ground cinnamon

1.5 tsp ground nutmeg

Whipped cream or ice cream, if desired

Heat oven to 375°F. Grease bottom and sides of two 8×8 or one 8×13 rimmed baking dish with shortening.

Spread apple slices in pan(s). In a large bowl, stir remaining ingredients except cream, wetting thoroughly with the butter. Spread over the apples.

Bake 30 minutes (add five minutes for glass baking dish), or until top is golden and apples are fork-tender. Serve warm with cream.

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Do You Know What This Is?

13 Oct

Instrument of torture? Medical gizmo? Unmentionable item from the adult entertainment store?

Take a guess in the comments and you will get the answer in the next couple of days!

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Cioppino Latino (San Fran Seafood Stew, Caribbean-style)

12 Oct

This Cioppino recipe includes an element of redemption.

Ají dulce…home-grown on Long Island!

Adriana — my dear friend from way back when in Puerto Rico, and now another single mom by choice and an essential part of my New York life,  has made numerous appearances on Hot, Cheap & Easy. But even more of our fantastic meals together have never made it to these pages. We like to blame it on the kids. It’s one of the things children are good for.

Sofrito

It’s not as though we don’t try. We start out dutifully recording the ingredients; me glaring across the counter at Adriana waving the appropriate measuring implements at her, grabbing the bloody and limp plastic wrap from the butcher as she is trying to throw it out so I can write down the exact weight of the meat, and giving her the evil eye every time she starts to improvise before I have a chance to count the peppercorns or the coriander seeds, or, the grains of salt, she would say. Continue reading →

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Offering Today’s Post (and Prayers) for 14-year-old Pakistani Blogger Malala Yousafzai

9 Oct

Corrected photo credit – I hope this is right!: Malala Yousafzai in Islamabad, Pakistan, on 8 March 2012. Malala was shot and wounded by Taliban gunmen in Swat on 9 October. Photograph: T Mughal/EPA

The Taliban today attempted to assassinate a 14-year-old Pakistani girl who blogged in defense of education for girls.

Malala Yousafzai is now fighting for survival with bullet wounds to the head and throat. According to the BBC and NBC News she may very well survive, but she may never regain her speaking voice.

So today, I offer this post in tribute to her bravery and the importance of equality and education for women and girls.

Examples of Malala’s posts

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7 Oct

(A note on this re-blog: It is Hot, Cheap & Easy’s Number One searched-for post in the late summer….a dead simple recipe that demystifies the pattypan squash! So as a public service, I am re-posting!)

Natalia at A New World of Writing's avatarHot, Cheap & Easy

These summer squashes — with their tam o’ shanter shape and luscious colors — look more pretty than edible, but they are really tasty, so have no mercy, grab them off that fall centerpiece and cook ’em up while they are fresh and tender!

This is a really basic recipe for roasting that I used recently when packing the oven with four different veggie dishes. You can boil pattypans, stuff them (Click here for a gorgeous and simple stuffed pattypan recipe!) , even grill them (brush with lemon and mint, yum, yum), but this will do the job if you just want to get the job done simply.

I do recommend scooping the seeds if there are a lot of them and you have the time.

Roasted Pattypan Squash

2 medium pattypan squash (about 1.5 lbs), quartered, seeds removed if desired

2 -3 Tbs extra virgin olive oil

1…

View original post 38 more words

Lasagna Latina: Tortillas, Beans, and Shredded Chicken

4 Oct

The start of the semester for me and kindergarten for Leandro has me in a tizzy.

One month in, the days seem never-ending and yet never long enough. I am up at 5:30 a.m. every day. Eighteen hours later, I still find myself vertical, eyes open, preparing food, washing dishes, cleaning the bathroom (!), folding clothes, laying out everything for the morning in a semi-headachy fog, wrinkling my nose and wondering, in the words of David Byrne, “How Did I Get Here?”

Scenes from the Farm

So when — oh s**t! — the Restoration Farm End-of-Summer-Potluck came roaring up, I was sort of astonished, and not a little dismayed. Continue reading →

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Zucchini Fritters, with Manchego, Rosemary, and Thyme

1 Oct

What am I gonna do with this!?! Basta, ya! As enormous bats of zucchini continue to be a big part of our C.S.A. pick-up this summer-into-fall, we start to get desperate for different ways to prepare them. I generally grate them into salads (I dislike raw zucchini, but grated into a salad makes it much more texturally appealing for me!), my dad grills them with just a bit of oil, or we roast them.

Grated zucchini

As much as I adore absolute simplicity in food — from both a preparation and a consumption standpoint — enough is enough. One does need to mix it up a bit, and try new techniques, too. So it was time to be inspired by a recipe for zucchini fritters I saw recently at Emmy Cooks, and another one for zucchini latkes at Deborah Rivera Pittorino’s chef’s blog, Seasoned Fork (full disclosure – you will find book reviews I have written there; The Big Oyster is my favorite). Both recipes seemed simple enough, a lovely change for us over here, and as they are pan-fried, I thought I was in with a chance at getting Leandro to try veggies this way. Continue reading →

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29 Sep

Ahead of a possible apple-picking excursion tomorrow – a favorite recipe from last year, and a glimpse of last September 11th. Sorrow and comfort.

Natalia at A New World of Writing's avatarHot, Cheap & Easy

The start of the school year makes me think of cozy sweaters, red wine and apples. There are good things about the end of summer and those are three of the best.

It is also the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and a little comfort food is in order.

View original post 353 more words

Roasted Green Beans (Salvaging and Sweetening When Less than Farm Fresh)

27 Sep

We’ve had piles of green beans this season, both from Restoration Farm and from our own little beds. This means that sometimes they stay in the fridge longer than we meant them too.

Then, when the season is over, we’ll probably buy from the supermarket (ssshhhhhh – not particularly seasonally virtuous, but I am working on it) and they won’t have that snappy-sweet farm freshness that we have become used to in late summer. But now I have a new way to make them taste much, much better. Continue reading →

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Easy Stir-Fried Rice (with the secrets for tasty, good-looking egg bits!)

25 Sep

I have always loved stir-fried rice, but as I’ve gotten older, I am less and less satisfied with the greasy stuff at the Chinese takeaway. And as I’ve gotten older, I cook more meals and therefore have more bits and bobs laying around getting ugly in the fridge. You know, half an onion here, a bit of cold rice there, some veggie bits that aren’t quite enough for one serving on their own, but make a pretty good pile if thrown together. And I always have eggs.

Just pour the lightly beaten egg in and leave it cook on medium.

Stir-fry, therefore, is perfect. It uses everything up (virtue), fulfills my veggie quota (more virtue), and gives us a vacation from my usual seasonings to go more Asian (variety). And now that I know the easy secret of how to get the egg bits looking and tasting great, well I think I am positively gourmet. It’s already vegetarian; vegans can skip the eggs and pan-sear super-firm tofu instead. Continue reading →

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