A momentary pause from the rain.

It’s been nothing but rain here for quite a few days, and will be for quite a few more days to come. The garden needed the rain, but not this much! I’m just thankful that we’re not in an area where rising rivers are threatening our homes. Friends near the Mississippi, we’re thinking of you.

Speaking of the garden, some of the veggies are just getting more beautiful every day. We’re also probably only a few weeks away from getting deliveries from Farmer Rich, so that’s exciting, too.

Here’s the broccoli and peas in the bottom bin, and carrots in the top bin.

The peas are actually starting to get a couple of flowers on them!

The apple tree is getting more and more leafy each day…

The chives in the yard are beautiful and flowering a gorgeous lavender color.

I didn’t even realize it, but the green onions from last year got put in the ground, and they’re up again.

Here’s the first look at the burgundy beans…

And here’s a picture of my rogue tomatoes, if that’s what they are…

I sowed a whole bunch of corn, but it hasn’t come up yet, as well as the soybeans, but I’ll just try to wait patiently until the weather sorts itself out. Until then…

Gorgeous weather for gardening.

The weather in the tri-state area has been just gorgeous lately. We spent most of the weekend sitting outside on the back deck, enjoying the greenery that has finally decided to appear on the trees (as well as getting a nosefull of pollen!).

The container garden that I’ve started is mostly doing quite well. The kohlrabi can’t decide whether it wants to live or die. The lettuce and spinach did die while I was in New Orleans, but I resowed it and hopefully we’ll have that come up. All of the tiny tiny seedlings that were in the trays inside didn’t make it (due, it would seem, to someone in the house, I won’t name names, wanting to be helpful and watering a bit too much). But, just about everything did ok outside, so I haven’t had to replace much. The only thing I really had a hard time with was the peppers, and I’ve started them outside again this week.

The carrots are doing wonderfully. And take a look at the broccoli and peas! Can you believe it?

Also, in the short week that I was in New Orleans, my apple tree (that looked little more than a skinny stick in a bucket of dirt when I left) grew a whole bunch of leaves! Check it out!

It’s warming up enough here to start sowing some stuff directly into the ground. We’re still not sure what our plans are for moving, but since we live with my partner’s mom, who also likes gardening, we can always just leave her a yummy harvest if we find a great apartment mid-summer. So, Sunday, I put in a short row of soy beans and a short row of royal burgundy bush beans.

We started talking about plans for a triangular trellis for the sugar baby watermelons, which I started inside today. Another summer treat we’ll have is corn. Today, I sowed about a 3.5′x3.5′ patch (I know that Charlie is going to tell me that I’m way off in my estimate, since I’m terrible at them) of corn. I have space on either side of the patch to do more corn, too. One of the sections needs to be cleared of forget-me-nots and weeds, and the other is ready to go. I’m planning to plant the corn in succession so that we don’t have a glut all at once. So, in two or three weeks, I should be ready to plant the next patch of corn. I may also plant my pumpkins over there, both because there would be room for them to vine and because they give important nutrients to the corn. We’ll see – it’s early for that.

I actually planted a handful of flowers, too. Usually I stick to veggies, but I had a wildflower mix that I decided to toss in a window box, and I’d gotten some painted daisy seeds from the seed library. I was planning to plant them in a pair of old polka-dotted rain boots, but they’re MIA at the moment, so I started them in pots that would set just about properly in the boots, and I’ll look a little harder for the boots in the next few weeks.

One last funny note about the garden. As you might have read, we had some hoop houses to keep the kale warm when it was very chilly. Well, I uncovered the hoops when I got home from NOLA, and the kale was doing ok, but I had some really healthy looking tomato plants, perfectly spaced out! It was pretty funny. I used compost to get that area going, so there must have been a few seeds that snuck in that our wormies didn’t process. They look so healthy that I think I’ll let them grow! With any luck, they’re seeds from the heirloom tomatoes we get in our CSA share.

A container apple tree!

Did you know that you can grow apple trees in containers? I found this out in a book sometime during the last year, and ever since then, I have been dead set on getting one. They have to be planted on a certain rootstock so that they don’t accidentally get to be 15 feet tall or something, but if you buy the right variety, and it’s planted on a rootstock that is fairly small (these are called “dwarf” trees), you can get a fair amount of fruit from a container apple tree.

I’ve been doing a lot of research on it, and I’ve gone back and forth on what variety to buy. Apples that are best for eating, or for cooking? What about their storage qualities? It should be a tree that’s fairly disease resistant, and one that’s partially self-fertile, since otherwise, I’d need to have multiple trees in order to get it pollinated. Maybe I was asking too much…

And then, it struck me. When I lived in England, I used to go to a fruit stand in Borough Market in Southeast London, and there, I had the best apples I have ever tasted in my life. They were a beautiful russeted color, with a sandy skin like a pear instead of a shiny skin, and the taste was unlike any grocery store apple I’d ever had in the USA. In fact, I’d never seen an apple like that in a store in the USA.

Here’s a photo of them that I took when I was living in London.

I wanted to grow those apples.

Problem was, I wasn’t quite sure what those apples were.

I knew the name of the farm in Kent, a place that folks like to call the Garden of England. They have an email form on their website, but I couldn’t get it to work!

“Would it be ridiculous if I were to call England to try to find out about this apple tree?” I asked Charlie one day.

“Yes,” he said.

“But I have Skype credit,” I told him.

“Ok,” he shrugged.

And so I called and left a voicemail with my email address, and a very sweet person called Joyce emailed me. “Lovely of you to think of our juice when you are so far away!” she wrote.

She told me that they grow Egremont Russets, which they find to be lovely for both juice and eating, and I must agree.

I then began my hunt for an Egremont Russet tree, but as I mentioned, Russeted apples aren’t very popular in the USA. While I did find a place or two that carried them, they were not only sold out for this season, but they only had them on a larger rootstock, meaning a tree much larger than I could manage in a container.

I sent an email to Orange Pippen Trees, asking if they might have it on a smaller rootstock next year. [Due to when you're supposed to plant apple trees, they generally ship in springtime only.] I got another kind email back, this time from Richard, who told me that they only did the Egremont Russets on the larger rootstocks, but he recommended a St. Edmund’s Russet, which will be available on a B9 rootstock. It’s another English Russet variety, he told me, that is very similar. He offered to set up a reservation for me for next year.

The St. Edmund’s Russet is partially self-fertile, but apple trees that are partially self-fertile tend to produce more if they have another tree around. This left me wondering… should I get a second tree?

I’d been considering the really, really small apple trees that only grow to be a few feet tall. Check out this video from Gurney’s…

A tree that tiny would be manageable (it’s barely the size of some houseplants!) and it would help me get a better crop on the Russet, which is what I really, really want. These dwarf trees tend to be a little more expensive (I’ve shopped around quite a bit), but Gurney’s is having a sale for $25 off a $50 order, so last night, I took the plunge and bought one. I figured it would also be good for me to get acquainted with caring for an apple tree in a container before the one that I’m really jonesin’ for arrives.

I ordered the Honeycrisp Apple Lil’ Big Tree Deluxe. (I got a pack of Jack-Be-Little Pumpkin Seeds to push the order over $50 to qualify for the coupon.) I love getting honeycrisp apples from the grocery store, and I can’t wait to taste them from my own backyard (even though it will be a long wait until I can taste them!). Orange Pippen’s site has a great feature that lets you make sure that the trees you’re getting are good pollinators for each other, and that helped me choose Honeycrisp as a variety.

The tree should arrive in April or May, and I’ll be sure to post pictures when it gets here! I’ll have to wait til next year for the St. Edmund’s Russet, but that should give my little guy a bit of time to get settled, grow, and get strong.

How exciting is this??

Getting excited for gardening.

I know that there’s approximately two feet of snow on the ground, but I’m getting excited for gardening already. And, quite honestly, if you’re in my area (zone 6) and you’re planning to grow some veggies that enjoy cooler weather, like kale, cabbage, broccoli, and brussels sprouts, it’s time to start ordering seeds! If you’ll be doing indoor starts like I am, it’s actually going to be time to begin those for the cool weather veggies very soon.

One thing that’s going to be different about the way I garden this year is that I’ll primarily be doing container gardening instead of planting things directly in the ground. This is because we’ll likely be moving sometime during the growing season, and I don’t want to give up gardening entirely. I’m not sure when we’ll be moving, or if the space we’ll be moving to will have a garden, or access to a community garden, or if I’ll just be able to have some containers, but having containers will be my bare minimum, so I figure I’ll be able to take them along.

Last year some of my big problems with my garden were timing (I started much too late) and pests, particularly a groundhog, and I think that will be alleviated a bit by planting in containers and keeping them in areas where he’s not comfortable going, like our deck. I need to get my hands on some containers, so if any of my buddies who read this have some that they’re not planning to use, I’d love it!

Here’s the design I came up with for my containers. (Yeah, I made a cute little sketch… sometimes I miss art school, ok?)

In case that’s illegible, or you’re a person with a visual impairment, it’s a picture of a rubbermaid container. I’ll be drilling holes in the bottom (or taking someone’s that they don’t want anymore because it has a crack in the bottom) so that it has drainage. The back side of it has chickenwire that is supported with simple wood poles on either end, and that will be my trellis for things like peas and beans! I’ll also have a thin pipe that will go to the bottom of the container that I’ll water the plants through, since from what I’ve read, if you water from the bottom, the roots are more likely to grow down instead of spreading out, which is really ideal for small spaces like container plants. Pretty neat, right? Is there anything I’m forgetting or that you can think of to improve about it?

I got my seeds this year from a really incredible local source. I joined the Hudson Valley Seed Library, and when you join, you get 10 free packs of seeds. I chose almost all things that can go in containers in case we move (one or two things can’t really, but I couldn’t resist).

Here’s a picture of all my seed packets laid out. Some of them are “garden packs” from responsible wholesalers, “art packs” that have beautiful designs by New York artists, and “library packs,” which have seeds grown right here in the Hudson Valley by small, sustainable farms. I can even send some seeds back that I’ve saved after my harvest this year!

Here’s what I got:

• Royal Burgandy Bush Beans

• Shirofumi Edamame Soybeans

• Di Ciccio Broccoli

• Parisian Carrots

• Forest Green Parsley

• Vates Blue Curled Kale

• Dinokale

• Tom Thumb Lettuce

• Sugar Ann Snap Pea

• Doe Hill Peppers

• Sugar Baby Watermelon

• Long Island Cheese Pumpkin (Google a picture of these, they’re cute)

I also have Bloomsdale Spinach and Purple Vienna Kohlrabi, and a Painted Daisy Art Pack that I already ordered from them, as well as the a beautiful variety Radish Art Pack that they sent to people who signed up for membership. :)

Cool weather growing starts sooner than you’d think! I’m also thinking of buying a fruit tree, like an apple tree, to keep in a container, but I’m working on finding the right orchard and the right variety (dwarf, self-pollinating, with apples that are versatile and/or store well). So, lots of research is going into that. I know that I won’t get fruit from it right away, but it’s a long-term investment that I’m happy to make. And if, for some reason, I were to move someplace that apples didn’t do well, or I absolutely couldn’t live someplace where I had space for a dwarf container tree on a balcony, it’s the type of thing that I’d be happy giving to a good home… I mean, wouldn’t you be delighted to get a tiny apple tree in a pot as a gift?

Anyone else thinking about gardening yet? What zone are you in? What are you going to grow?

Apple Walnut Salad with Grilled Portabella

Just thought I’d share an incredibly amazing salad that I just threw together consisting of almost all local produce. In fact, I think the only veggie in here that isn’t local is the portabella mushroom.

I got a bunch of great salad-y things in the farm share today, and Charlie (not the biggest salad eater) won’t be home for dinner. I basically started throwing things in until this monster was born. It’s got protein (including a tiny little bug I just fished out… hmmm, guess I should wash the lettuce more thoroughly next time) and good fats and it tastes incredible.

leftover grilled portabella mushroom (in a soy sauce marinade)
red leaf lettuce
carrots
celery
sweet peppers
cutting celery (it’s a really green, almost herby thing)
small apple, chopped
couple tablespoons of walnuts
tablespoon or two of pepitas (shelled pumpkin seeds)

I’d originally thought about throwing some cheddar cheese in there, but it just didn’t need it. The smokiness of the mushroom, the sweetness of the apple, and the depth of the walnuts, and since my pepitas were salted, the saltiness of that… It was awesome! Highly recommend you try it… minus the tiny bug.

On another note, we went apple picking a week ago, and I have nearly a half bushel of apples still. I did make turnovers, and I did make two mini pies, but you see, that baking was done when our friends Ben & Emily came to visit after they were in the area apple picking. So, we really didn’t use many of our apples since they brought a ton with them, too.

My Harvest Fruit Crisp has been on my brain (I can almost taste it), but I’m definitely going to have apples left after that. If all else fails, I’ll make Overflow Apple Butter and give it away, since clearly, for me, it’s all about the actual experience of picking apples rather than the need to have nine million apples in my house. I’ve made it abundantly clear that I prefer pumpkin for my fall baking and cooking.

So what should I do with all these apples?

This is what we’re working with, here. You can see there’s even a few extra hidden back there in my bowl of squash. Do you have a favorite recipe that I should try? Or is there something you wish you knew how to make that you want me to experiment with?

Cooperative Apple Muffins

This is another recipe from the archives. In fact, it dates all the way back to 2008! Sorry I don’t have a photo of these. I’ll have to make them again some time as they are way delicious. Grating the apples is key.

Here’s the original text from before I even had a blog. They were the first ones to introduce me to the concept of a co-op or a CSA or a farm share.

My friends Anne and Neil get fruits and vegetables from a co-op each week. It’s extremely locally grown and delicious food! The best (and sometimes worst) part is that you never know what you’re going to get… When you show up to pick up your food, they say, “Ok, take one bucket of cherries and four handfuls of spinach and three cucumbers,” or whatever the foods of the week are.

I’ve been lucky not only to eat dinner at their house on nights that the co-op has been picked up, but also to receive cast-offs like cucumbers, which they don’t like, or, in this case, apples, which they received another 4lbs of before they could eat the previous week’s. So, I had a bunch of what I think were Cortland apples to cook in a hurry.

Since we’re going to PA to campaign for Obama this weekend, I didn’t want to bake a pie… it’s not as transportable as some food items. Instead, I baked Apple Muffins with Crumb Topping. The great part about this experiment was that the recipe called for grated apples, not chunks. Sometimes if a fruit is too moist, it leaves that sort of really squishy bit of cake/muffin/bread around it, which also makes it fall apart easier. Grating the apples, however, made them cook up without that squish but with the same fresh fruit taste.

Since Milo’s coming with us, this is a vegan recipe, but you can hardly tell. These are whole-wheat and not very sugary, but they have a lovely texture.

The original recipe is here, but I had to make some changes based on ingredients I had in the house, as well as the fact that the recipe calls for honey, which is in fact not vegan by most people’s standards.

Ingredients

3 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
pinch salt
2-3 tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger (optional)
1 tsp nutmeg (optional)
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 cups grated apple (I probably went a bit over on this as I was using up the apples I had from Anne)
1/2 cup oil (could use sunflower, olive… I used canola)
1/2 cup apple cider
a large splash of vanilla
a large splash of vinegar (apple cider is preferable, but I didn’t have any so I used rice vinegar)
1 cup almond milk (you could use real milk or soy milk here)
Splash of lemon juice

Crumb topping:

a bit of flour (perhaps 4 tablespoons)
a bit of brown sugar (about the same)
about 1 1/2 tsp of cinnamon
two teaspoons of Jungle Shortening (you can use earth balance or soy butter or real butter)

Directions

While grating apples, add a splash of lemon to the bowl to keep from browning. Mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, brown sugar, and grated apple together in a bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk the oil, apple cider, almond milk, vinegar, and vanilla together.

Fold wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Put into greased muffin tins.

Prepare crumb topping by running a fork through the flour, sugar, cinnamon, and shortening until crumbs form. Sprinkle over the tops of the muffins. Cook at about 350 for about 15 minutes for mini muffins and about 20-25 minutes for full sized muffins.

The yield on the recipe I glanced at before starting says 18 smallish muffins, but I ended up with 12 smallish muffins, 24 mini muffins, and a small loaf pan, so that’s a bit different…

Harvest Fruit Crisp

*Note: I don’t usually consume much of the sweets I’ve made. Mostly, I bake for other people. This crisp, however, is so delicious… well… let’s just say that I won’t have to worry about distributing any at work in order for it all to get eaten. This is another recipe with the sugar cut back, but make sure you taste your apples – if they’re very bland, you may want to add a bit more sugar.

Today was our last farm share delivery of the season, and we got yet another harvest of apples. As I mentioned in this entry, autumn is a great time to take advantage of local harvests. I haven’t done any baking with apples lately, though, so ours were accumulating. I’d meant to make a crisp last week, and this week, I was low on energy after working and picking up the share, but, well, I’d thrown a pot of vegetable stock on to boil, and I had some free time on my hands. And thus, the Harvest Crisp is born.

I was really dying to stir in about a half cup of pumpkin puree with the apples, but I didn’t want to open a whole can when I only have the huge ones.

This recipe is kind of like stone soup. You can substitute what you have and adjust what you don’t. I’m going to throw in some suggestions, but feel free to improvise. I’ve bolded the choices that I made.

Ingredients

5-8 medium apples, preferably of mixed variety, peeled, cored, and sliced
2-3 pears, peeled, cored, and sliced (optional)
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
A handful of walnuts or almonds (optional)
A handful of fresh cranberries, dried currants, or raisins (optional)
A handful of sunflower seeds

And, everyone will need:

1/3 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
2 tablespoons natural sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup quick cooking oats
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
a bit of lemon juice (to keep the apples from browning)
1 stick unsalted butter or soy butter, cut into chunks

Directions

Toss the fruit in the lemon juice, and, if using, the pumpkin puree.

Arrange the fruit in the bottom of an oven-safe casserole dish or 9×13 baking pan.

In a stand mixer, or, with a pastry blender, cut the cold butter into the dry ingredients (oats, cinnamon, nutmeg, flour, natural sugar, brown sugar, salt). Mix until large crumbs are formed and the mixture has an even texture.

Stir in any miscellaneous ingredients such as, in this case, the cranberries and walnuts. Spread the oat mixture over the fruit evenly so that the fruit is completely covered.

Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes or until the crisp is brown and the fruit is bubbling. Serve warm with whipped cream or ice cream.

Apple™ Crumb Pie (and Thoughts on Local Food)

Charlie’s been making this pie for a while, and he always gets extremely rave reviews with it. (This photo is from when he and Ben made the pie for me once!)

You may have noticed when I posted the recipes from All Over Your Face, I omitted the apple pie recipe. That’s because when we made our pies, we weren’t happy with the quality of the apples we were able to get during the first week of August. It really wasn’t quite apple season yet. I decided to hold off and post this recipe during peak Granny Smith apple season, since that’s our apple of choice for pie-making. In the New York area, that’s about the third week of September.

Our process with the assembly line pie-making madness for the pie-eating contest was that Charlie would make the dough, I would peel all the fruit, and I would put together the spices and sugars and flavors for the filling. He almost took over on the apple crumb pie, but it ended up being a team effort. I made the filling, and he made the crumb and the dough. Although this is a recipe that he often is wholly responsible for, I’ve taken the liberty, for the purposes of this blog, of making the adjustments that I would make were I making the pie entirely on my own. That is, his version is quite a bit sweeter than mine, but otherwise, it’s essentially the same.

A few more notes on picking your apples… We’re fond of the Granny Smiths because they’re a bit tart and they’re sturdy, so they won’t break down into mush in your pie. You definitely want to avoid Macintosh, as even though those are great for eating, they’re not ideal for baking pies with. Some good options for acquiring your apples are at farmers markets, pick-your-own farms, or leeching off a friend’s CSA. Farmers markets will have a live person to make recommendations about which type of apple from their crop they’d recommend for pie. Pick-your-own farms usually have a map of the orchard with a “Good for eating vs. good for pies” breakdown. Farm shares might have a website or an email that they send out regarding their harvest, or you might just have to guess. In general, you want a firmer, somewhat tart apple.

If you’ve always wanted to try out buying from a farmers market but never did, autumn is the time to do it. Last year I was horribly depressed about our food production situation in this country because I walked into a chain grocery store in September and saw the beautiful displays of apples, of varieties that are local to New York state, but upon closer examination, the apples that were on the shelves were from Washington state, thousands of miles away.

Farmers markets have produce that is local to the area, often organic, and it’s obviously a much closer connection to your food if you’re able to talk to the people who grew it. Although farmers markets sometimes are rumored to have notoriously high prices (these rumors have some truth and some fiction), depending on where you live, apples are often even cheaper at farmers markets than at the grocery store during peak season.

Pick-your-own farms are a really fun alternative to shopping at the grocery store. They’re another way to get fresh, local produce, and have an adventure. This Pick Your Own website can help you find a pick-your-own farm near you. Produce often ends up being super cheap because the farmers don’t have to pay for labor. Some of the farms are quiet, family places, and others are monstrosities with corn mazes and petting zoos and country stores and live music, so you can choose whichever you feel is appropriate for your adventure.

Another way to get local food into your pies is if you have a friend who belongs to a farm share, or Community Supported Agriculture organization. They sometimes get more apples than they know what to do with during this time of year. Let them know that you’re planning to bake, and they’ll likely share the bounty with you when they end up with 30lbs of apples over a couple of weeks. We belong to Catalpa Ridge Farm’s CSA and we love it. (I’m pretty sure I’m going to use all my apples, though!)

Onto the recipe…

Ingredients

1 pastry for double-crust pie (I used Charlie’s Consistent Win Pie Crust)

Crumb Topping:
1 sleeve crushed graham crackers (plain is recommended or it will be quite sweet)
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
3 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1/3 cup butter

Filling:
6 to 8 apples, peeled and sliced
1 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1-2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg

Directions

While you’re slicing up the apples, keep them floating in some water and the lemon juice so they don’t turn brown. When you’re ready to start, drain off the water. Next, add the cinnamon, sugar, nutmeg, and flour, and give it a good stir. If you don’t like things very sweet, add the sugar a little at a time and taste it as you go.

Next, in a separate bowl, prepare the crumb topping. Mix graham cracker crumbs, brown sugar and flour. Cut in butter with a pastry blender or a fork until crumbly. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 375.

Roll out half the dough and place it into the pie pan. Give the apples another good stir, then dump the mixture into the pie crust, mounding them in the middle if possible.

Wash your hands, since we usually do this next part with our hands. Carefully pour the crumb topping into the center of the pie crust, leaving about an inch of apples showing around the edge in between the crust and the topping. Pack the crumb fairly tightly, again, creating a mound in the center of the pie.

Next, roll out the rest of your pie crust, making strips to form a lattice top crust. If you need detailed directions on how to make the lattice crust, they’re also in Charlie’s Consistent Win Pie Crust recipe. Optional: For complete irony, cut out an Apple logo and affix it to the center of the pie. Brush an egg wash (one beaten egg and one tablespoon water) over the top lattice crust if desired.

Bake at 375 for about 45 minutes or until the crust is browning and the apple filling is bubbling. Depending on how much filling you have or how picky you are about having a clean oven, you may want to set your pie tin on some aluminum foil or on top of a baking sheet covered in parchment to catch any drips of sticky fruit.

Sneaky Apple Pancakes

This morning I woke up before Charlie did, so I snuck out of bed (not an easy feat, since I sleep on the inside next to a wall) and got to the kitchen. I haven’t been able to do a lot of independent cooking and baking lately because my arthritis in my hands has been flaring and I’ve actually had worse pain since getting some epidurals for my herniated discs this week. I loathe relying too heavily on others, despite the fact that Charlie is wonderful and helps me out immensely when I need it. In spite of my reluctance, I have actually decided to ask some friends to help me out with some things from now on.

But, since I wasn’t feeling awful this morning, and since I managed to sneak out of bed without waking him, I decided to get some pancakes going before he woke up. We had the first round of apples in our farm share this week. A few of them have been munched through already, but we had a few left standing for pancakes. I made the batter in my new KitchenAid Mixer, had a cup of coffee, woke up Charlie, and he made the pancakes.

These pancakes are sneaky not only because I had to sneak out of bed to make them, but also because the apples are grated and aren’t in huge chunks, so they’re a bit of a delicious surprise.

*Note: If you’d like to make these pancakes vegan, simply substitute 1 tablespoon flax seed + 3 tablespoons warm water, mixed well, for the egg, and your preferred unsweetened non-dairy milk.

Ingredients

1 large apple, peeled and grated
1/2 cup 1% milk, plus a little extra to thin batter if necessary
1 egg, beaten
3 tablespoons canola oil
1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 1/3 cups whole-wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

Directions

Combine the wet ingredients in a small bowl. So, toss in your grated apples, your oil, your beaten egg, milk, and applesauce. Give it a good stir.

Combine all the dry ingredients in another bowl, in my case, my stand mixer bowl. So, your flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, brown sugar, and baking soda. Mix your dry ingredients well.

Add wet ingredients to dry and mix just to moisten.

Lightly grease a non-stick skillet with spray oil and heat griddle on medium heat. Working in batches, spoon 1/4 cup batter onto the grill. If the batter is too thick, add a bit more milk or water to the remaining batter. Cook until golden and bubbling (2 to 3 minutes), then turn and continue to cook 1 minute.

Serve pancakes with the traditional warm maple syrup, or do what I did, and top with warm applesauce, a bit more cinnamon, and sprinkle a few chopped nuts on top. Yum!

All Over Your Face 2009

Yesterday, we held the first annual “All Over Your Face” hands-free pie-eating contest and BBQ. I mention this here because, well, it’s ridiculous, and because over the next few days, you’re going to see a lot of recipes related to the contest. The “competition sized pies” were seven inches and each had a double crust. They came in blueberry, strawberry, apple, peach, and lime (for our friend, Jack, who “does not eat of the cooked fruit” – you may remember zir from the Mocha Pillow Cookies recipe). There also obviously had to be plenty of pies just for eating, too.

The thing is, though, that Charlie and I baked all the pies from scratch. We figured it would be cheaper, more delicious, more fun, and so on and so forth. Over the course of seven days, despite my recent back problems (two herniated discs), we managed to make twenty 7″ pies and five full sized pies. We had a little help here and there, but mostly, Charlie made the crusts and I made the fillings. That includes peeling about six pounds of apples, hulling four pounds of strawberries, peeling nine pounds of peaches, and zesting and juicing ten limes.

We also made macaroni salad, gluten-free pasta salad, mini cupcakes, a watermelon keg, and a cucumber tomato salad, so, there will be recipes galore related to this contest.

For now, please enjoy a few pictures of the contest. Charlie’s going to make a video as soon as everyone sends in their footage.

The winning pie.

That’s my partner, Charlie. He almost edged out Mike for third place, but Mike took it.

Fortunato is looking up in awe at Joseph, who won the contest, seated to his left.

Our first, second, and third place winners, after the awards ceremony. Joseph, Micah, and our local Councilman, Mike.

These photos, I believe, were taken by our lovely friend, Gina R Snape.