Canadian Apple Pies

What to do with a basket full of apples from your own garden? Apple pies of course! My mom used to bake a batch of them at Fall and freeze some for the holidays. Mmmmm it smelled so delicious in the house, and of course, tasted delicious too!!! For some reason, I had never baked them myself, so I thought it was about time I tried my hands at it.

My husband and I spent a lovely afternoon working on the project and managed to bake 4 beautiful pies with our own apples.

Canadian Apple Pies

Crust (for 1 pie)

- 250 g all purpose flour
- 125 g butter
- 2 eggs
- 100 g sugar
- a pinch of salt
- pie plate!

1 - Combine flour, butter and sugar in a big mixing bowl.
2 - Add the eggs and salt.
3 - kneed until smooth and flexible. You may need to add some flour if the dough is too sticky.
4- Wrap in waxed paper and plastic film and place in the refrigerator for a minimum of 30 mins.
5 - When the dough has cooled down, roll half of it into a thin layer and carefully place inside the pie plate. Set aside.

Pie

- Apples (oops, I forgot to count my apples!)
- brown sugar
- cinnamon
- nutmeg
- 1/4 cup (about 60 ml) maple syrup (preferably Canadian, of course... )

1 - Peel and cut the apples into boats of about 1 cm at the thickest.
2 - Place the pieces in the pie plate / dough. The apples must fill and be higher than the side of the plate, as it will reduce during baking.
3 - Add grounded cinnamon and nutmeg to taste.
4 - Add the maple syrup.
5 - Sprinkle with a little bit of brown sugar.
6 - Roll the other half of the dough into a thin layer. Fold in half and make small cuts on the fold.
7 - Carefully lay to cover the pie.
8 - Press the sides all around with your finger or with a fork, for the bottom and top dough layers to close together.
9 - cut the excess dough.
10 - Brush milk everywhere on the crust.
11- Bake at 350 F (175 C) for about half an hour, or until the crust is golden.

Serve warm with a little bit of whipped cream or vanilla ice cream!

Trick: Some apples make a lot of water. After about 20 mins of baking, take the pie out and pierce a little hole in the crust somewhere on the top and side (where the dough is pressed together) and tip it gently over the sink. If there is excess water, it will leak out. When that is done, stick the pie back in the oven for the extra 10 minutes or so. :)

Enjoy!

Pumpkin delights

I really like pumpkins! They look like they came straight out of a fairy tale or a fantasy world. Have you guys ever seen a pumpkin field? So cute with all the orange spots! I think they look magical, but this may just be my little girl's heart speaking and dreaming. ;)

Pumpkins make great decorations around Halloween, but they are also delicious! I bought one single medium size pumpkin very recently, and here's what I did with it. 

Pumpkin soup (Or the Witch's potion.... if served at Halloween!)

2 cups pumpkin in cubes
1 cup carrots in slices
1 big onion, minced
2 tbsp fresh ginger root, minced
1 cup lentils
1 can cubed tomatoes
approx. 1 cup tomato juice
approx. 4 cups chicken bouillon
(liquids can be adjusted)

1- Cut open and clear the inside of the pumpkin.
Note: Set the seeds aside for later use.

2- Cut the pulp in cubes. Use approx. 2 cups for this recipe. Set the rest aside.
Note: I made sure to keep the bottom half of the pumpkin intact to use as a serving bowl!

3 - Prepare the carrots, onion and ginger root.

4- Put everything together in a cooking pot. Bring to a boil, lower heat and simmer until the carrots are tender.

Enjoy the delicious taste and comforting warmth. :)

Note: Can be frozen. 

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Time to use those seeds we put aside.
Note: I kept some of the seeds to dry and store for next year's gardening season!

Mine are a bit too salty! Don't make the same mistake. ;)

1- Preheat oven to 150 C. (300 F)
2 - Separate the seeds from the pumpkin fibres. Clean under cold water if necessary.
3- Toss the seeds in a little bit of vegetable oil.
4 - Place in a single layer on a cookie plate. Sprinkle with a little bit of salt.
5 - Bake until golden (20 to 30 mins)

Eat the roasted seeds whole. Yummy little evening snack!


Pumpkin Cookies

One can not talk of pumpkin delights without talking of pumpkin cookies!

1/2 cup (125 ml) melted butter
1/2 cup (160 ml) brown sugar
1/2 cup (160 ml) white sugar
2 eggs
1 ts (5 ml) vanilla extract
2 cups (500 ml) grated pumpkin
1 1/2 cups (375 ml) flour
1 1/2 cups (375 ml) oat flakes
1/2 ts (2 ml) grounded cinnamon
1/2 ts (2 ml) grounded nutmeg
1 pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 180 C (375 F)

1 - Mix the melted butter, sugars, eggs and vanilla together.
2- Add the pumpkin. Mix lightly and set aside.
3 - Mix together the dry ingredients (flour, oat flakes, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt)
4 - Add to the wet ingredients and mix thoroughly.
5 - Place on a cookie plate and bake for 10 to 15 minutes.

* * *

I still have half a pumpkin to use, and I am thinking of trying to make a pumpkin pie. I've never tried it, as my grandmother makes the best pumpkin pies in this entire Universe! But now that I live in a different country, I can not enjoy the yearly pumpkin pie meeting (aka: Thanksgiving), so I'll just have to learn to make my own!

Happy Halloween to those who celebrate it!

Fall Cream Soup

Remember the pumpkins (red kuri squash) that I grew from seeds? (click here) Well, they grew and I ended up with 3 beautiful ripe squashes and I couldn't wait to taste them! Today being a very Fall'ish rainy day, I decided to make a lovely, warm and yummy cream soup.

Simple and easy cream soup for rainy Fall days

Ingredients
- 1 red kuri squash
- 1 big onion
- a few carrots (6-7 small)
- 1 big potato
- a piece of fresh ginger (I use a piece about the size of my thumb from tip to where it first bends)
- Chicken bouillon (preferably real)
- salt and pepper

Cut the squash in quarters, remove the inside part, peel the pieces and cut in cubes. I use a small knife and a spoon to cut out and scrape the inside, and an ordinary carrot/potato peeler to peel the outer part off.

Red kuri squash

Peel and cut the carrots, potato, onion and fresh ginger in pieces. There is nothing precise here. Just cut them out and throw them into a cooking pot. Add chicken bouillon until it just covers the veggies. Add salt and pepper.

Squash, carrots, potato, onion, ginger, chicken bouillon, salt and pepper. 

Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until the vegetables are tender. Remove from heat and blend together. You should obtain an even, fairly smooth texture.

Blend together when all the vegetables are tender.

 That's it! Serve with a sip of cream and a piece of bread. I personally enjoy eating cottage cheese with my vegetable cream soup. Try it! It's not bad at all. :)

Yummy!

En Papillote

With the summer months come delicious grill cooking and experiences for the taste buds. Our grill has been out for a couple of months now and we've cooked several meals on it, but none as good as the one we had today! My favorite way of preparing vegetable is by far "En papillote" (in parchment), where vegetables are cut and placed into an aluminium pouch that is then carefully closed and put on the grill. The steam created allows the content to cook perfectly, and the taste is just awesome! One can choose pretty much any combination of vegetables for a papillote. My combinations are usually dominated by root vegetables.

Vegetables En papillote, served with a yummy, tender steak

I prepared such a papillote today, and both my husband and I were pleasantly surprised at the result, as I tried a combination I had not tried before. Here is the recipe:

(For 2 papillotes / 4 big portions)

- 2 big sweet potato
- 3 big potato
- 2 big parsnip
- 4 small to medium carrots
- a few broccoli pieces
- 1 big onion
- fresh ginger (to taste)
- fresh garlic (to taste)
- fresh chives (to taste)
- fresh oregano (to taste)
- butter
- salt
- pepper

Before grilling

1) Lay out 2 big pieces of aluminium foil.

2) Cut the potatoes, parsnip and carrots in cubes, sticks or slices (Do not mix together)

3) Split each veggie portion in two, and place in layers on the aluminium foil in this order: Parsnip at the bottom, carrot, potato, sweet potato.

4) Cut the broccoli in bite size pieces. Place on top of each pile.

5) Cut the ginger and onions in small fine pieces and sprinkle evenly on top of each pile.

6) Cut small squares of butter and place at various places on top of each pile (3 squares each papillote)

7) Garnish with fresh chive and fresh oregano leaves.

8) Add salt and pepper to taste

9) Close each pouch, folding the paper carefully so all the steam can be contained.

10) place and the grill and cook for 30 to 45 minutes.

And you're ready to enjoy a wonderful bouquet of flavors!

Happy grilling!

Oatmeal Cookies

Mmmmmm oatmeal cookies. This is a recipe I got from a friend of mine about 20 years ago. It is simple to make, tastes good, can be modified easily and is fun to bake with children!

You will need:

1/2 cup - (110 g) softened butter

1/2 cup (100 g) - sugar

1/4 cup (55g) - brown sugar

1 ts - vanilla sugar or vanilla extract

1 egg

1 cup - (130 g) whole grain flour

1/2 ts - baking soda

1/2 ts - salt

1 cup - (90 g) Rolled oats

Mix together the butter, sugar, brown sugar, vanilla and egg. 

Incorporate the flour, baking soda and salt. Mix to obtain an even texture.

Add the oats. Here, I added more oats than the recipe requires.

The dough must stick together without sticking too much to the fingers.
Place lumps / balls of dough on a cookie pan. Flatten to obtain cookie shapes/thickness.
You should end up with 18 to 24 cookies.

(In this case, I had to cook it in two batches)

Place in the oven at 175 C. (350 F) with convection for 9 minutes.

And Voilà! Enjoy your freshly baked oat cookies! :)

Notes:

- I like to reduce the sugar quantities by half and up the oats quantity. I add oats until the dough is quite solid and reacts as mentioned above: It sticks together, but not too much to the fingers.

- You can easily add raisins, cranberries, chopped nuts or even chocolate chips / chunks to the dough to vary the taste and nutritional values.