Strangeblue on 16/2/2006 at 03:03

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OK, so... I'm no GBM, but even I can have a kitchen adventure with my brand new stove/oven thingy. I haven't had a functional oven in 8 years, so I'm busy getting reacquainted with the hot little thing. (and it is little--boat ovens are about 21"on a side on the outside and maybe 16X12X12 on the inside.) At this very moment, I am roasting a 5-pound chicken in said stove, but what's really nifty is the ovenly shenanigans I got up to last night.

With Apples!

And Cinnamon!

And Cayenne Peppah!

Yes, you heard right: cayenne pepper. In apple pie.

It it mucho fabulouso.

You see, it was Valentine's Day and I wanted to make something appropriately sweet, tart, spicy, and highly edible :angel: (ahem). Now, don't ask why I settled on Apple Pie--I haven't made a pie from scratch since I was 12 and that's a while ago--but, what the heck--life's an adventure, right?

Now, I find most apple pie bland. I like cinnamon and spices with my apples, and not just a hint. But if you get too much cinnamon, it just tastes nasty instead of spicy. So, how to make the pie more "spicy"? Taking a page from the ancient cultures of Central and South America, who also loved cinnamon I dove in.

First I wandered all over the grocery store finding stuff, getting lost in the stacks of last-minute Valentine's crap-chocolate in stupid boxes and Significant Single Red Roses™. The apples were very small... so I took extras. And I bought the crust--'cause I'm lazy. And some cinnamon, nutmeg, flour, walnuts...

Home again, and discover I don't have a peeler thingy and have to pare off the tough green skins the old fashioned way with a paring knife (funny that: paring knife for paring... never thought o' that...) This I discover only after attempting to peel said apples with a much larger knife, then a scissor (half of a pair of scissors, you beasts.) One would think that by now they would have gene-engineered these things to have a zip-open tab. But no.

In the middle of that, I realized that I needed to soak the raisins so they wouldn't be hard little nasty things. I pull out the nearly-empty bottle of Woodford Bourbon, but at the last second I decide that's overkill--not to mention there's not enough to soak the raisins and have drink. So the raisins get plain water.

Back to the apples and eventually I have a heap of slimy green peels and two bowls of chunky-sliced apples. And a dish of ghastly, swelling alien seedpod-like things which I'm assured are raisins. That's what the box says, at least....

One more thing to make.

You will recall that, living on a boat, I have very limited storage, thus I have very limited things and one thing I don't have is tons of cooking gear. So I make due in this case with soup spoons and one mixing cup, into which goes the sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cayenne, a touch of salt and the chopped up nuts. There is much sneezing as the powders puff about. Cinnamon is not your friend when snorted. Luckily, I avoid a similar fiasco with the cayenne. And I decide not to eat the rest of the nutmeg, just in case it really does have hallucinogenic properties. Ok, I'm a wimp.

Then I drain the raisins and toss all the mess togther until all the apples and raisins are coated with the sugary goo and spoon this into the pie crust, slam on the top crust, poke it with a knife and shove it into said oven.

Forget to brush egg on the crust. Pull the pie--groaning in the el-cheapo foil pan under it's own tremendous weight--out of the oven, brush with fake-egg and ease it back in, as the pie writhes around under the top crust. Is there something live in there? Maybe those raisins really are alien seed pods....

or maybe it's just the massive pile o' apple glop shifting seismically every time I move the freakishly flimsy pan.

At last, the pie is settled on the miniscule shelf in the minature oven.

45 minutes and two flung cats later....

What may be the ugliest apple pie on the planet emerges from the oven. It is lumpy, unevenly golden and sienna, one edge breaks off and plummets to the cabin floor as I remove it from the oven. The cat goes for it, but gets the boot. But it smells so heavenly.

And in spite of being utterly ugly, it's delicious.

However... what do I do with the remaining 2/3 of a pie? It's HUGE!

The recipe for the pie is here, for you spicy-food fiends:
(http://www.katrichardson.com/litter/litter.html#pierecipe)

Havvoc on 16/2/2006 at 04:33

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mmmm pie.

I love pies. Mostly chicken pies or beef pies, but blackberry or cherry pies are good too. I'm just a meat & potatoes kinda guy. I've always wanted to learn how to cook pies. I made a blackberry one once under my mother's guidance, but that's it. The rest I microwave.

Anyway, Weebl & Bob rock.

Agent Monkeysee on 16/2/2006 at 05:44

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Hmmm... I'm forming an image...

jtr7 on 16/2/2006 at 08:27

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I'm re-reading Robin Hobb's Farseer Trilogy for the second time. It's better than even the first time. It's got me curious about ginger cakes. I asked Robin to recommend a recipe so I, as a fan, could taste these "ginger cakes" that a wolf could like so much. She deflected the question, saying that ginger is great in anything. Ah well. So I ask here. What's a simple (simple enough for a medieval period), tried and true recipe for ginger cakes?

:confused: :cheeky:

d0om on 16/2/2006 at 10:19

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Pics? ;)