Sunday, October 20, 2013

Johnny Pie - SW meets NW

I love apple pie. But with my husband's new allergy to wheat, making a traditional apple pie simply isn't something that I do anymore. Mourning the loss of apple pie as I sliced up apples to dehydrate, I decided to try to make a pie that we could both eat. I didn't want a traditional apple pie recipe because I've discovered that trying to take a favorite recipe and make it wheat free usually has disappointing results. I didn't have lemon juice to soak the apples in to keep them from turning brown, so I was using lime juice. And my mind just went from there. What if I created an apple pie with a Southwest meets Northwest twist?


I sliced up some more apples using my handy dandy apple peeler/corer (I LOVE that thing!) and then squeezed fresh lime over the top of them. 
 Next, I grated two jalapenos into the bowl.

Then, wanting some color and because my husband loves them, I took a quarter cup of cranberries, diced them up and threw them in. 




And then, just because cheese and apples go so well together, I took a chunk of Tillamook Hot Habanero cheese from the fridge and grated it into the bowl. It was probably about a quarter cup worth. I added 2 tablespoons corn starch, a quarter cup of white sugar and a half cup of brown sugar, and stirred it all together.


The crust, however, was the true challenge. I mixed 1.5 cups barley flour and  1.25 cups corn masa, cut in 2/3 cup Crisco shortening and added 8 tablespoons water.
I tried to roll half of it out to make a bottom crust and it just wouldn't roll without falling completely apart. I finally resorted to taking the pieces and pressing them into the pie pan to make the bottom crust.  It wasn't pretty, but it worked.
I turned the oven on to 425 degrees, pricked the crust with a fork, and then pressed a piece of aluminum foil in it to keep it from puffing up. I stuck it in the oven and cooked it for six minutes, then removed the foil and cooked it another 4 minutes for a total of ten minutes so it was partially cooked. I took it out of the oven, poured the apple mixture in and dotted it with butter. I knew, after trying to roll out the bottom, that there would be no way that I could do a traditional top crust, so I added about a fourth cup of brown sugar to the dough crumbs and just sprinkled the crumbs on top. 
I stuck it in the oven and cooked it for about 15 minutes at 425, then turned it down to 350 and cooked it another 30 minutes. It looked good and it smelled good when it came out, but would it taste good?
When John got home a couple hours later, I told him I had made him a pie. We cut two pieces, and gave it a try. OH MY GOSH!! That pie ROCKS! It is unlike any pie I've ever eaten, especially with the corn flavored crust. And the heat from the jalapenos and the Tillamook Hot Habanero cheese is exquisite. A scoop of ice cream finishes it off. Yum. Here's the recipe. You're welcome.

Johnny Pie
Filling:
5 apples (I used Golden Delicious)
juice from one lime
1-2 jalapenos
1/4 cup cranberries, chopped
2 tablespoons corn starch
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup Tillamook Hot Habanero cheese
2 tablespoons of butter 

Crust:
1 1/2 cup barley flour (you could probably substitute gluten free oat flour if you wanted it to be gluten free)
1 1/4 masa (corn flour)
2/3 cup Crisco
8 tablespoons cold water
Take about half of this mixture and pat it into the pie pan. Heat oven to 425 degrees. Poke crust with a fork and press a piece of tin foil onto the crust to keep it from puffing up. Bake it for six minutes with the tin foil, then remove tin foil and bake it another 4 minutes. Remove from oven, add apples and dot top with the butter. Add
1/3 cup brown sugar to the remaining dough mixture and sprinkle over the top.
Cook at 425 for 15 minutes, then turn down to 350 and cook another 30 minutes.


Friday, July 12, 2013

Smokin' salsa

I was really craving some salsa, so I decided to whip up some. Salsa is very easy to make and home made tastes so good you'll never want to go back to store bought. I perused the veggies in my fridge and came up with three tomatoes, a jalapeno, and a walla walla sweet onion that I had to cut the mold off. We put whatever kind of veggies we have into our salsa, and have added zucchini, broccoli, spinach, tomatillos and even asparagus before. Salsa is a great way to use up veggies that are a bit past their prime, or even a little wilted. I tossed what I had into our BBQ pan, and added two cloves of garlic.
I fired up the BBQ on medium high, put the pan on and closed the lid. The trick with this is to have the proper kind of BBQ pan, the kind with the holes. It allows the heat to come through, as well as the flavors already on the grill. After letting it grill about seven minutes, I turned the veggies over.
All together it cooked about 15 or 20 minutes, until the tomatoes were soft and the jalapeno was blackened. The blacked bits give it a lovely smokey flavor. Then it all went into the blender, although I fished the garlic out first and popped the soft garlic out of the hard garlic husk. I also added a handful of cilantro and squeezed in the juice from a lime.


Blend it up until it is the consistency you like, add salt to taste, and you have a salsa with amazing flavor! It is even better the next day. I didn't have any chips, so I used Trader Joe's rice crackers. Yum!



To finish off dinner, I BBQ'd corn on the cob and grilled up some carne preparada, a delightful thin steak that we get at our local Mexican carniceria


Since summer is here and I have a bit more time on my hands, I'll try to keep this blog updated more frequently. We had a non heat eater living with us for awhile and we stopped cooking with jalapenos while he was here. Now we're back to the spice!