Happy Thanksgiving!

If you're like me, you're full just thinking about Thanksgiving right now. But then again, you probably haven't been trolling tastespotting.com all day either. So many starchy pumpkin-y things in the world!

Before we part to pursue our various Turkey Day preparations, let me share one piece of advice I learned the hard way last night. Sometimes convenience foods are bad and not worth it, i.e. Easy Mac, Lean Cuisine, frozen pizza. Sometimes convience foods are so very, very worth it. This is a short list since I like to take the long route and time is not a factor in my meal preparations whatsoever. The only thing I don't have the patience to try to figure out, as I mentioned before, is pastry, and I'll probably break down and try that out soon enough. And breadmaking as well, though I do make occasional forays there.


But as of last night, there's a new shortcut to the list. Whatever you do, do not buy a pound of whole pecans and attempt to shell them yourself out of a desire to make a truly "from scratch" praline cheesecake. You see, they make these little packets, and even bigger 2-cup bags, of shelled nuts. And you can buy them halved, or chopped, or slivered. Any which way but loose. I had ascribed to that form many Thanksgivings previous, but this time....oh, this time.... I figured I'd take the hard route. And my thumbs paid dearly. You see, despite my kindergarten memories of cracking pecans in the playground, pecans are not that easy to crack. Hence the expression. They aren't edamame, let's just say. And a nutcracker isn't something a person of my age and income bracket has just sitting around. So last night, much to my neighbor's pleasure I'm sure, I was forced to whack each and every pecan with a hammer two or three times until they cracked. I think one split well enough to get two halves out. The rest were little bits. And lots and lots of nut dust.


So, you're welcome. I did it so you don't have to. And I hope my nut cracking adventures have made your holiday season a little easier!

Apple Pie

I know, I know. You missed me! Well ,'tis the season now, so I've gotta get on the ball with my food blogging. This one I made right before Halloween, but apple pie is appropriate for at least two months after that. So here you go.

I used the good old frozen pie crusts, mostly because I didn't make time to figure out whole pie crust bit (nor did I own a pie plate at the time). Pastry is one area where I am totally fine with cutting corners. Plus, I took one of the pies down to our buddies in Brooklyn, and so the fact that the pie came in an alumnium pan they could dispose of without having to ship it back to Rochester seemed make ready-made pie crusts the obvious solution! Of course in reality, I left a bunch of stuff at their apartment that had to be shipped back anyway, but let's not worry with that.

So you take a bunch of apples, Macouns here, probably 8 or so. I still believe in leaving the skin on, but of course the core doesn't party very well, so you want to remove it and the seeds. I don't slice these too finely either. I think apple pies should be hearty fare.

Take your apple slices and mix them with brown sugar and a little flour, until coated. Use your hands for that one. Add in cinnamon, nutmeg, all those fall spices. And just a little lemon juice. Since the hard part was already done in some bakery-factory somewhere, all you have to do is dump the apple mixture into that defrosted pie crust and bake it according to the crust maker's instructions. If you want to do the old Grandma-style double crust, you should have two crusts and the directions there. So you don't need me to hold your hand through that.

Myself, I went for a little streusel topping. First I cooked the apple pie for about half the time, topless, shall we say. During that time, I melted some butter, added oatmeal and brown sugar to it, and then took the pie out and spread it on top. It needs to just get toasty colored and it's good to go. You can cover your pie crust with foil if you have a problem with the crusts burning. I forgot that but my crusts didn't burn. As with everything cooking-related, it's all about the watchful eye...