Apple Crisp

My great-grandmother, like most people who live long enough to become great-grandparents, has become somewhat of a family legend.  Affectionately known as Little Gram, she and her family immigrated from Austria when she was just 12 years old.  At just 4’11″ and probably 90 pounds soaking wet, she gave birth to three 10-pound babies at home, and outlived the doctors who told her she just had a year to live when she was in her forties.  (She lived to be 93.)  She wasn’t exactly known as a health nut, downing RC Cola every day and always keeping Butter Rum Lifesavers in her purse, but she did believe in moderation.  She told my mom, “One time, I ate too much.  It was terrible!”  She also firmly believed in an afternoon nap.  For years, I’ve relied on Gram’s apple crisp recipe, and it’s a quintessential Gram creation:  nothing too fancy, nothing too crazy, and usually made with ingredients you have on hand.  Of course, she never measured anything, and just taught her children and grandchildren how to cook by showing them:  ”You mix it up until it looks like this, and then it should feel about like this.”  So, the “recipe” came into being after her death:  we finally took measurements and wrote them down.  She simply refused to give out instructions for everything, though – she wanted to be needed, and so when my mom asked for her recipe for rye bread, for example, Gram told her, “You don’t want to bother making that.  When you want that, you just send someone to come get me, and I’ll make it for you.”  Her expertise, incidentally, was not limited to the kitchen:  she evidently taught my mom (her granddaughter-in-law) how to re-pot plants, clean just about anything, and how to pluck what appeared to be porcupine quills from a dog’s snout.  They turned out not to be porcupine quills and actually the dog’s whiskers, but my mom knew better than to question the almighty wisdom issuing forth from her husband’s grandmother’s mouth.

I barely knew Gram when she was alive; she died when I was just 6 years old.  But obviously, she lives on through stories and traditions.  Because of the apple crisp tradition, I’ve been reluctant to try another recipe until I started this project.  Ina Garten’s recipe (on p. 226 of Barefoot Contessa Parties!) was just different enough that I didn’t feel like I was betraying family tradition, but it was familiar enough that it still tasted like apple crisp should taste.  I can’t say that I’ll abandon Gram’s recipe (posted below), but this new variation (which includes citrus zest and juices) could be a nice addition to the rotation.  The wonderful thing about apple crisp is that it’s not as complicated or involved as a pie, and it can be whipped up pretty quickly.  Besides, with oatmeal and apples, who can resist it for breakfast?

Gram’s Apple Crisp

4-6 cups apples, peeled and sliced
½ c sugar
1 tblsp. cinnamon
2 tblsp. flour

Mix together and place in bottom of greased 8×8 or 9×9 pan.

1/3 c brown sugar
1/3 c oatmeal
1/3 c flour
3 tblsp. butter or margarine

“Cut” these ingredients together with a fork or pastry blender. Spread this mixture on top of apples. Bake for 40-50 minutes at 350 degrees.

We use the same recipe for peaches, with less (or no) cinnamon, and sometimes less sugar, depending on how sweet the peaches are. The peach crisp will probably take less time to bake, depending on how ripe the peaches are. Mom told me this recipe was from Little Gram, but she could have just told me that to make me want to learn how to make it.

Sweet Potaters

I don’t know why, but we didn’t grow up eating a lot of sweet potatoes.  I moved to the South around the time of the last low-carb fad, and sweet potatoes seemed to be coming out of hiding.  They replaced white potatoes for a lot of our family meals, and ordinarily I just bake them in their skins and we eat them that way.  I’m not picky about my sweet potatoes, though (as long as marshmallows and curry stay the h-e-double-hockey-sticks away).  The recipe for Smashed Sweet Potatoes with Apples (Barefoot Contessa Parties!, p. 186) required a little more effort than simply baking the sweet potatoes, but the extra effort was well worth it.  My one disappointment (and this has nothing to do with the recipe and everything to do with my own impatience) is that the apples should have been more browned before putting the entire dish into the oven.  I think it would have made the final product more attractive, and the consistency of the apples would have been closer to the consistency of the potatoes.  The photo of the finished product is in my flickr photostream, but I can’t bear to muddy up this post with that photo and tarnish the good reputation of this recipe, which is so very tasty.  So instead, I’ll present you with the raw ingredient:  the giant 2-lb. sweet spud that started the whole deal. You can barely see my bananas peeking out from behind it, cowering in fear.

Apple Crostata

I love apple season in Minnesota.  Home of the Honeycrisp and the Zestar, we’re surrounded by orchards that offer the season’s finest.  The fact that the season is relatively short makes the picking seem even sweeter.  The only problem (if you can even call it that) with being surrounded by this much beautiful bounty is that I often get overzealous in my picking and buying, and the next thing I know, we’ve got bushels of apples pushing us out of the kitchen.  I usually freeze lots of applesauce, and make some desserts as well.  The apple crostata on p. 176 of Barefoot Contessa Parties! is going on the favorites list for sure.  It’s like an apple pie, but easier, and I would even venture to say, tastier.

I’ve mentioned that I cooked as therapy in law school.  During that time, I perfected the art of pie crust.  Not surprisingly, I had several willing guinea pigs who helped me eat the not-so-pretty attempts at the perfect pie, but I found after a little practice that it wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it was, especially with the help of an electric stand mixer or better yet, a food processor.  So, shortly after I graduated, I met my now-husband.  To impress him for our first official date, I made him a triple berry pie.  It was late spring, and the berries were perfect.  I rolled out a beautiful homemade crust (when really, I should have been studying for the bar exam), and I must say, the results were impressive.  The new-date-now-husband complimented the pie, and then proceeded to eat the filling and leave the crust on the plate. Had I known him better, I would have eaten up his leftover crust right then and there.  Despite this obvious failing of character, he turned out to be a very nice guy, and needless to say, we went on more dates.  I just learned not to make more pie unless there would be someone around who had the good sense to eat it.  All of it.

This apple crostata, however, passed the taste test of the previous crust-waster.  The dough is just ever-so-slightly thicker than a traditional pie dough, and the result is somewhat rustic.  The apple flavor really came through, and we both gave the final product two thumbs up.

Crostata Dough on the pastry board

Apple Crostata, before baking

The Finished Product

Ready to eat!

Applesauce

I’ve made homemade applesauce dozens of times, never really using a recipe.  In fact, it’s one of the first collaborations that my dad and I ever made in the kitchen.  The entire family would go apple picking, and we’d bring the bounty home to sit in front of a football game while we peeled pounds upon pounds of apples for pies, crisps, and applesauce.  My dad liked to add raisins, which are OK, I guess, but sometimes the classic raisin-less applesauce is all a person needs.  So, one time when I was about 10, I hauled a bucket across our field to a lonely apple tree, and picked enough for applesauce without raisins, please, Dad. Our family “recipe” consisted of apples, water, cinnamon, and sugar.  Sometimes, we’d use “red hots” (cinnamon candies) to flavor and color the applesauce.  Just to let you in on a little family dysfunction (don’t worry – there’s more where this came from), my dad actually likes to watch The Grapes of Wrath when making applesauce.  He says that stocking the freezer with quarts of applesauce makes him feel like our family won’t suffer the same fate as the family in the movie.  I swear, he’s not a conspiracy theorist or even all that crazy.  Promise.  And if a little John Steinbeck action brings more applesauce to the table, then who am I to argue?

Homemade applesauce is the first food my mom makes for new baby grandchildren.  In fact, I made gallons of it last year for my then-9-month-old son, careful that no sugar or artificial preservatives touched the all-0rganic sauce.  This year, he ate two apple doughnuts on our way home from the orchard, two weeks in a row.  Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

This version of applesauce (The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, p. 155) required me to actually measure the ingredients, including the apples.  What a new experience from dumping it all in a pot and seasoning to taste!  It also called for baking the applesauce in the oven, rather than simmering on the stove.  I had my doubts that the apples would actually bake down enough to make a smooth sauce, but I was pleasantly surprised.  The finished product was easily mashed with a whisk.  The Barefoot Contessa version also added a new ingredient to my applesauce repertoire:  allspice.  It may be a little too “different” for small kids, but I liked it.  And yes, there is butter in the applesauce.  Who knew you could add butter to applesauce?

The lovely apples for this applesauce were hand-picked by my family in Deardorff Orchard, near Waconia, Minnesota.  I highly recommend Deardorff for a low-key family experience.  It’s a small family-run farm, with a smattering of farm animals (horses, goats, rabbits), free admission, and free tractor rides.  It’s not crazy-busy, at least first thing in the morning, and the setting is breathtakingly beautiful.  They have the famous Minnesota Honecrisp and Zestar apples, which tie for my favorite eating apples.  (If you haven’t tried these varieties yet, you’re missing out.  But hurry – the season is short!)