The Other Woman Cooks

One of America's fondest stories tells about Johnny Appleseed. John Chapman was born in Leominster, Massachusetts in 1774. His family moved to Pennsylvania where he left his father's carpentry shop to travel barefoot, using a saucepan for a hat. He preached a simple philosphy of life and lived as a vegetarian. He made it as far as Fort Wayne, Indiana, where he died in 1845 at the age of 71. John Chapman planted about 10,000 square miles of orchards. From the Garden of Eden to Greek Mythology to the discovery of the health benefits of apples, everything you ever wanted to know about apples can be found  here .  Fun reading while this delicious apple cake bakes! APPLE CAKE 2 eggs 1/2 cup olive oil 1 cup white sugar Dash of salt 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 1/2 cups Bisquick baking mix 1 tablespoon cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest 2 cups peeled cored sliced apples Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour one round 8 inch cake pan. Beat oil and eggs with a...

Only one ingredient matters when making applesauce. Pick sweet apples like Gala Fuji, McIntosh or Honeycrisp – forget Granny Smith's. They make great pie but sour applesauce. Use at least two different varieties. I have McIntosh apples and Bartlett pears from our own trees so I add a pear or two instead of a second variety of apple to enhance taste. I didn't need to add any sugar. You can pick your own, or buy them at an orchard or grocery store. Here in western Massachusetts, the UMass Cold Spring Orchard  reasearch and education facility sells all kinds of apples. If you are buying your apples from a commercial orchard, ask for "seconds" or "drops". Apples with a bruise or odd shape make great sauce and cost less than perfect apples. Not all orchards sell "seconds", but they're a bargain when you can get them. A half bushel of apples will yield about 12 pints of sauce. Get the jars ready before you start cooking the apples. The dishwashe...

No doubt young Isaac brought that fallen apple straight into the kitchen and his mom baked it into something delish before setting it before the lad with these words, "Apples are good brain food." Obviously correct because some years later, Isaac Newton came up with the Law of Gravity. Probably while his mother furiously searched for ideas on how to cook something new with all those damned apples falling off that tree! And now here I am, more than three hundred years later, facing the same dilemma as Mama Newton. I've sauced 'em, canned 'em, baked 'em, baked tarts and even a few pies with 'em. There are a number of good apple almond cake recipes out there but I wanted something just a little different and really easy. According to my live-in taste testers the experiment was a success. AMARETTO APPLE CAKE 1/4 cup slivered almonds 4 ounces unsalted butter, melted 2 large eggs 1 cup granulauted sugar 1 ounce shot of amaretto liqueur 1 cup all-purpose flour 1 ...

Came home late last night from Austin, Texas. Had a blast but have no time to tell you about it today. There are apples everywhere here. I've been at it all morning. Canned 'em in cinnamon sugar, made applesauce and baked yet another galette . Raspberries instead of blueberries added for color and taste because our backyard raspberries are abundant this week. As for my adventures in Texas: for a hint go ahead and google "Pinetop Perkins " and I will regale you tomorrow or Tuesday - once the apples are under some kind of control! Cinnamon Sliced Apples 4 cups sugar 1 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon ginger 3 teaspoons cinnamon 10 cups water 3 tablespoons lemon juice Half fill a large pan or bowl with cold water. Slice a whole lemon and drop into cold water. Peel, core and slice enough apples to fill 6 quart or 12 pint jars already prepared for home canning. Drop sliced apples into the cold lemon water as you go until you have enough slices to begin packing. Make a syrup of s...

Paul peeled while I cooked and crushed about a half bushel of apples into apple sauce. Our first failure of this canning season happened when the apple jelly wouldn't gel. Four eight ounce jars of what has the consistency of maple syrup instead of toast ready jelly. We might try it on pancakes this weekend. The whole apple cooking and canning endeavor kept us busy for several hours and still, we've barely made a dent in the fruits of our harvest. As much as we've given away is replenished daily. I'll miss the bounty when it's gone but for now it's slightly overwhelming. All this talk about apples probably has you wondering what's up with the pizza picture. There was no time for flipping open The Silver Palate last night. It was pizza right out of the Almost Homemade cookbook instead. One of our local bakeries sells great dough for two bucks, add a jar of supermarket sauce, a handful of shredded mozzarella, crumbled goat cheese, a few fresh toppings from the ...

My husband, Farmer Paul (aka Fisherman Paul, Hiker Paul and all variety of other vigorous and productive activities), and I sat on the patio after dinner (The Silver Palate Cookbook, page 187 - Red Snapper with Butter and Shallot Sauce), sipped a little white wine and admired our garden. A plopping sound cut through the quiet. "Apple down," he said, jumping up to snatch a beautifully ripe and pretty big Macintosh from the grass under the laden branches of our supposedly (another story for another day) dwarf variety of self pollinating apple tree. "Let's go in and bake a pie." I haven't made an actual pie in a long time. My youngest son hasn't lived home since college and a whole pie is just too big for three of us to eat before the crust goes soggy. What you see in the picture here is a piece of last night's Apple Blueberry Galette with a side dollop of homemade creme fraiche. Galettes are my specialty. Sounds fancy, doesn't it? So around here...