The Best Apple Maple Pecan Pancake Topping Ever!

The weather is getting chillier and apple season is approaching!  This has of course presented itself in my kitchen with many new and delicious apple recipes, including this yummy recipe for Apple Maple Pecan Pancake topping.  Of course, it doesn't have to be for pancakes, you could also use it on waffles, oatmeal or as a delicious ice cream topping. The possibilities are endless, and the great thing about this recipe is that it is super easy to make, it's super delicious, and even though it's not low fat by any means...you can feel good that you're adding some fruit and nuts to your breakfast instead of just topping your pancakes with syrup!

Apple Maple Pecan Topping

5 Apples, peeled, cored and diced
6 Tbsp Butter
1/2 cup chopped Pecans
1/2 cup Brown Sugar
1 Cup Maple Syrup
 

 Heat the butter in a pan over medium heat until melted.

Add the diced apple and cook until just beginning to soften, about 3-5 minutes. Be sure to stir them occasionally so they don't burn!

Next, add the chopped pecans, the brown sugar, and the maple syrup to the pan.

Cook the apples in this mixture for another 3-5 minutes.

When the apples are done, the mixture will look like the top picture.

You will notice that there is quite a bit of liquid in the bottom of the pan, as in the bottom picture. This is apple flavored maple syrup!

To serve, top your pancakes with a scoop of the apple nut mixture, and then drizzle with the syrup.    MMMmmm, Delicious!
What's your favorite way to incorporate fall apples in your cooking?

The Perfect Omelet

The humble omelet is a delicious breakfast staple that should be in everyone's repertoire of cooking techniques, yet for many it is an elusive and difficult recipe to master.  The most common problem encountered is that the bottom of the omelet burns or browns before the top of the omelet has a chance to fully cook, leaving you with a rubbery and runny mess of an omelet. With a few simple tricks however, you too can make a delicious creamy and fluffy omelet right in your very own kitchen.

Poached Chicken

Many recipes call for poached shredded chicken, including my recipe for Chicken Enchiladas, which I'm going to post about later.  Before I do that, I want to show you a quick and easy way to poach chicken which can be used in any recipe calling for cooked shredded chicken. As a side note, you can poach a whole cut up chicken using this recipe just by doubling the ingredients called for!

Poached Chicken

1 Pound of Bone In Chicken, it can be Breasts, Thighs or Legs
3 Cups of Water
1/4 Onion, Chopped Roughly
1/2 Tsp Salt
2 Bay Leaves
1/2 Tsp Poultry Seasoning

Put the Onion, Water, and Salt in a saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat.  Lower the heat to medium high and add the chicken. Skim off any foam that rises during the first few minutes of cooking, then add the Bay Leaves and Poultry Seasoning.  If you need to add more hot water at this point to cover the chicken then please do! Lower the heat to medium, partially cover the pan and leave the chicken to cook for 13 minutes.  Once the time is up, you can leave the chicken in the broth mixture to cool if there is time, otherwise, remove the chicken from the pan and place it on a cutting board to cool enough so that you can handle it for shredding.  Once the chicken is cool enough to handle, bone and skin it if necessary, then shred it into bite size pieces. Now you have delicious shredded chicken to use in your favorite recipes!

Apple Turnovers That Melt In Your Mouth, Made With Whole Wheat Flour!

There's nothing quite as delicious as warm spicy apple filling encased in a buttery pastry crust.  My husband especially enjoyed these apple turnovers, which he proved by eating six of them...  At the time that I made these, I was running out of white flour and the only thing I had left was whole wheat flour... The good news however, is that the addition turned out to be delicious, and it gave these buttery pastries an edge in the health department! Now, on to the recipe!

Flaky Apple Turnovers,
adapted from "Cook's Illustrated Holiday Baking, Holiday 2006"

Ingredients

Puff Pastry
1 1/2 Cups White Flour
1/2 Cup Whole Wheat Flour
1 Tbsp Sugar
1 Tsp Salt
16 Tbsp Cold Unsalted Butter
6 Tbsp Ice Water
1 Tsp Lemon Juice

Apple Filling
1 lb Granny Smith Apples (3-4)
1 Cup Sugar
2 Tsp Lemon Juice
1/4 Tsp Salt
1/2 Tsp Cinnamon

Cinnamon Sugar
1/2 Cup Sugar
2 Tsp Cinnamon

Egg Wash
1 Egg White
1 Tbsp Water

To start out, you need to make the puff pastry.  Put the flour, sugar and salt into the bowl of a food processor and add 4 Tbsp of the butter.  Pulse this until the butter is chopped into dime sized pieces, by the way, it should only take about 4 seconds.  Then add the rest of the butter and pulse the food processor for 2 more seconds.  Your butter will be really chunky, but don't worry, that is what we want.  Place this mixture into a medium sized bowl.

Next, combine the ice water with the lemon juice and add 3 Tbsp of this to the flour butter mixture.  Toss until it is just barely combined, then add the remaining water and toss some more.  Make sure you mix it only very lightly.  The point here is to end with large chunks of butter still in your dough.


Then turn your dough out onto a floured work surface and press it together as best you can.  In short brisk strokes you are going to take the palm of your hand and push it down and forward in the dough, until you have worked every portion of the dough and it is all spread out again.  Gather the dough back together and repeat.  Gather the dough back together again, wrap it in plastic wrap and chill it in the fridge for 30 minutes.

 While we wait for the dough to chill, we are going to prepare the apples.  Peel the apples, cut them in four pieces and core them.  Then you are going to grate them, being careful not to grate your fingers in the process.  Put the grated apples into a bowl and add the sugar, lemon juice, salt and cinnamon. Mix it all up and put this mixture in a colander set over the bowl you just used. Cover this with plastic wrap and set it in the fridge.

By this time your dough should be just about ready.  Remove it from the fridge, unwrap and place it on a floured piece of parchment paper.  Roll the dough into a 15x10 inch rectangle...

Then fold it lengthwise into 3rds...

Now roll this piece of dough from right to left (or left to right), until you get something that looks like this...










If the dough is starting to get soft and sticky then you want to put it back in the fridge to chill for 10-20 minutes until it firms back up.  To make flaky dough you must maintain the integrity of the cold butter in the dough.  If it gets too warm, these butter pieces melt and your dough will be more hard than flaky. When the dough is ready, repeat the process of rolling the dough into a 15x10 inch rectangle, folding it, and rolling it up.  Again, you may need to stick it back in the fridge after this second rolling to make sure it stays cold.


Finally, you are going to roll the dough into an 18 inch square. Then use a ruler to cut the dough to a precise 15 inch square. A pizza or ravioli cutter works great to make nice straight cuts!

After this is done, you are going to cut the dough into 9, 5inch squares...

At this point my dough was getting soft again, so I separated the pieces with parchment paper and popped them in the freezer for 5 minutes to firm them up. Now is the time to preheat your oven to 375 degrees F.

Remove the dough squares from the freezer, and place 2 Tbsp of the apple mixture into the centers of each. Using a pastry brush, lightly brush the edges of the pastry with egg wash. Fold the pastry in half over the egg mixture, and press the edges with the tines of a fork to seal.  Then carefully place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper using a spatula, and pop them back in the freezer for 5 minutes.

Remove them from the freezer after they have had time to chill, and brush each one with egg wash.  Sprinkle each turnover with cinnamon sugar mixture, and cut a slit in the tops of each to allow hot air to escape.  Finally, pop them in the preheated oven for 18-22 minutes until they are golden brown and delicious!






Now sit back, relax, and enjoy! My family of four ate all nine of them in under an hour! I love apple desserts! What are your favorite fruit desserts?

Handmade Salsa & Tortilla Chips

 The one type of food that my husband and I missed when we lived in Arizona was good Chinese food.  There really weren't any good Chinese places to be found, and we tried a lot of them.  There were however an abundance of delicious Mexican restaurants serving up authentic and delectably spicy fare.  Now that we are in Washington, we have the opposite problem! There are a ton of wonderful Chinese places, in fact there's also Japanese, Thai, Laotian, Vietnamese, Asian Fusion, you name it we got it! But the Mexican restaurants seem few and far in between and the ones we have tried so far seem bland and boring compared to what we are used to.  So now I have made it my quest to create delectable and authentic Mexican food at home, starting with the most basic but utterly delicious homemade salsa and tortilla chips.  In this case, because it's a fresh uncooked salsa, it would be called Pico de Gallo or Salsa Mexicana. First, lets start with the salsa which should be made first so the flavors have time to meld and mingle.  

Salsa Mexicana with Homemade Tortilla Chips,
Recipe adapted from
"Authentic Mexican, Regional Cooking from the Heart of Mexico" by Rick Bayless

1 Large Ripe Tomato

2 Chiles Serranos

1 Small Onion

1 Clove Garlic

Handful of Fresh Cilantro

1/2 tsp Salt

1 Tbsp Lime Juice

8 Corn Tortillas

Enough Vegetable Oil to Fill a Pot to a depth of 2 inches.

Salt

Finely dice the tomato, chiles, onion and garlic, taking care to wash your hands after dicing the chiles.  Otherwise you will get hot pepper juice on your face the next time you go to wipe the hair out of your eyes and a lovely burning fiery sensation will follow! Mix these finely diced veggies together, then chop up the cilantro and add that to the mix, and finally add the salt and lime juice.  Set aside and get ready to make the tortilla chips.

To make the tortilla chips cut the tortillas into wedges.  Heat the oil to a temperature of 380 degrees F in a large stockpot or dutch oven.  Once the oil has reached the proper temperature, add a handful of the tortilla wedges.  You don't want to add too many at a time, there should be enough room so the tortillas won't touch.  Stir the tortilla wedges constantly for 45 seconds to 1 minute until they are crisp, then remove them to a paper towel lined plate to drain.  At this point you can sprinkle them with salt if you like. Continue cooking the batches of tortilla wedges until they are all crisp and delicious, then serve them alongside your Salsa Mexicana, and enjoy!

What is your favorite Mexican Recipe? 

Monster sleep mask for kids

 My oldest son has a fear of monsters as many kids do... Anyway, one day he saw me knitting a sleep mask for myself using this pattern.

He said, "I want one of those! But put eyes on mine so the monsters will think I'm a monster and will be scared!"





 So I created a modified version of my sleep mask for Corbin. This one is double sided to block more light, and it is green so it looks like a monster! It also of course has eyes to scare away the monsters.  Corbin is now very happy and says it keeps the monsters away at night!

Homemade Mac and Cheese

One of my kids all time favorite foods is Macaroni & Cheese, and because I discovered a long time ago that it tastes so much better from scratch, they have never eaten boxed Mac & Cheese! This is my recipe for homemade Mac & Cheese, and once you get the hang of making a Bechamel sauce, this becomes a quick and easy supper that you can make with only a few simple ingredients!

Homemade Mac & Cheese
1 pound pasta of your choice, penne or elbow macaroni work well
4 tbsp butter
4 tbsp flour
2 - 2.5 cups milk
2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese


Before we make our cheese sauce, you will want to boil a pot of water and start cooking your pasta.  This sauce doesn't take very long! If your pasta is done before your sauce, then simply drain it and set it aside until you're ready for it.




First, we will make a roux with butter and flour.  Cut your butter into 3 or 4 pieces and add to a pan set over medium heat. 

Once the butter has melted and has stopped foaming, add 4 tbsp of flour to the pan.

Whisk the butter and the flour together constantly until the flour is thoroughly cooked.  I would say 2-3 minutes is good.  What we have here is a white roux.  Roux's are cooked to varying levels of darkness depending on what they are being used for.

 Next, we are going to add 2 cups of milk to our roux.  Now, this is where the tricky part comes in! If you have never made a bechamel sauce before, I highly recommend warming your milk up before adding it to the pan.  If you do use cold milk, you will have to whisk very very quickly as you pour to ensure that no lumps form in your bechamel sauce.

Pour the milk into the roux, and while you are pouring, begin whisking as quickly as you can to incorporate the roux and the milk.  Do not dump all the milk into the pan and then try to whisk it! You will definitely get lumps this way! Pour the milk slowly and whisk as you pour.

After the milk is incorporated into the roux, it must thicken.  This takes between 3-5 minutes for the sauce to fully thicken, and once thickened, you have what is known as a bechamel sauce! Bechamel is a french mother sauce that is used as a base to create many other sauces, but today we will be making a cheese sauce!

Slowly add your shredded cheese to the bechamel about 1/2 cup at a time until it is all fully incorporated.

 At this point the thickness of the sauce may be perfect, or it may need to be thinned down a little bit.  If you look at the picture here and the one below, it should give you an idea of the thickness we're looking for.  If the sauce seems too thick, go ahead and add the 1/2 cup of milk to thin it out.

Once your sauce is the right consistency, season it with salt and pepper to taste.  I also like to add about 1/2 tsp of mustard powder to mine, but this is entirely optional.

Finally, pour the sauce over your cooked pasta and mix.

Now eat your delicious Mac & Cheese!