Grandma Ople's Apple Pie, prebaking

These are pictures from last year's Thanksgiving.  Actually, they could be pictures from any Thanksgiving we've had in the last thirteen years because this is my standby, must-have, Thanksgiving-would-not-be-Thanksgiving-unless-I-made-this pie.  This year, we are driving back from Rome to England and will be stuck in a hotel outside Calais on Thanksgiving day.  But, if we were at home --- or if I had a kitchen --- I would be making this pie.

Grandma Ople's apple pie pre-baking

Remember way back when food and recipe websites were fledgling entities limited to CakeRecipes.com, PieRecipes.com, and FoodTV.com?  I was one of the early adopters, absolutely amazed with this idea of being able to share recipes with people all across the world, and one day, while searching for an apple pie recipe, I found Grandma Ople's Apple Pie .

Pouring the caramel on top

Well, years have come and gone, gray hairs have been found, weight has been gained and lost, and countries have been traversed, but this recipe has stuck it out on our Thanksgiving table.  It's one of those pies that gets demolished near instantaneously despite the fact that everyone claims that they're too stuffed to have even one more bite on Thanksgiving Day.

Grandma Ople's Apple Pie, baked.

What I love is that it is simple, can be made the day before, yet remains a show-stopper on the big day.  (See that up there?  Show stopper, right?)

Grandma Ople's Apple Pie baked

From start to finish: thinly slice apples; mix said apples with cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and allspice; heap apples into a pie crust; create a lattice crust on top; make a ridiculously indulgent caramel sauce; pour caramel sauce on top; bake.  Stare at your beautiful creation.  Pretend that you are the world's greatest master chef and speak in loving tones of the legendary Grandma Ople .  Eat.  Receive praise.  Blush modestly while you describe the agonies you took to make this creation.  Eat some more.  Watch covetously as the last Polite Piece (that's the piece that everyone wants but worries will be impolite to eat) goes into the refrigerator to be consumed by some intrepid pie-thief before braving the throngs on Black Friday.

Last year's Polite Piece

Yeah, I'm going to miss Thanksgiving this year but I hope that all of you have a wonderful, wonderful holiday celebrating with the people you love and the food that makes us hunger.

Grandma Ople's Apple Pie

Adapted from Grandma Ople's Apple Pie at Allrecipes.com
Time: 1.5 hours (depending on how much of a perfectionist you are with lattice-making)
Serves: 8 people

Ingredients

1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie*
5 Granny Smith apples**
2 Golden Delicious apples
1 Red Delicious apple
1/2 lemon, juiced
3 tablespoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons freshly ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon cloves
1/2 cup unsalted butter***
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup water

Directions

1.  Peel, core, and very very thinly slice all the apples.  You want your apples to be in slices about 1/8 inch thick.  (I find that a food processor with the slicer blade works well and fast for this task.)  Place apples into a large bowl.

2.  Mix apples with lemon juice (to prevent browning), cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and cloves.  Mix well so that the spices cover all the apple slices.

3.  Melt butter in a saucepan at medium-low heat.  Stir in flour to form a paste.  This will take some time but keeping it at medium-low heat will help you get a beautiful caramel topping.  Add white sugar, brown sugar, and water; bring it to a boil at medium-low heat.  Reduce temperature and simmer for at least 5 minutes or when the caramel coats the back of your spoon.

4.  Meanwhile, butter the bottom of a 9-inch pie pan lightly.  (Please use glass or ceramic pie pans --- aluminum foil pie pans will not hold up the weight of the apples.)  Place one pastry crust into bottom of the pie pan.

5.  Mound apples on top - your apples should create quite a heap.  Create a lattice work crust with the remaining pie crust.****

6.  Place your pie on an aluminum-foil covered cookie sheet.  (Please, for the sake of your hands and your cookie sheet, cover it with aluminum foil because the caramel WILL drip off.)  Gently pour the caramel over the pie crust.  Pour slowly and steadily so that the caramel evenly covers the entire crust.

7.  Bake 15 minutes at 425 degrees.  Reduce temperature to 350 degrees and continue baking for 35 to 45 minutes or until the pie is a lovely golden brown.

* I have used this pie recipe which is pretty basic stuff --- flour, butter, salt, and ice cold water --- but, often I cheat and use Pillsbury's Refrigerated Pie Crusts which you can roll out onto a work surface and smooth out.  The homemade crust has a better flavor and flakier texture BUT I find that Pillsbury's version stands up better to the hot caramel poured on top.  If you're in a timecrunch, Pillsbury's is a perfectly acceptable substitute for this particular pie.

** The original recipe calls for 8 Granny Smith apples but over years of experimentation, I have found that we prefer mixing Granny Smith, Golden Delicious, and Red Delicious.  The Golden Delicious apples become quite mushy while the Red Delicious and Granny Smith retain their firm texture, creating a lovely mix of applesauce and apple slices in the finished pie.

***I have tried substituting margarine for unsalted butter and found that the caramel did not form as well with margarine rather than butter.  Stick with butter.  It's only Thanksgiving once a year.

****A latticework crust is one of those incredibly simple things that looks extraordinarily difficult to make (like creme brulee ).  There is a very good instruction explanation here , but what I do is cut my pastry crust into long strips and weave the strips back and forth across the pie, as if I were weaving a basket.  I keep the weaves quite loose until I get to the end, at which point I pinch all the "connections" so that the lattice crust looks pretty and stays together while baking.

Meyer lemon budino

A few months ago, Patrick and I went to see Anthony Bourdain speaking in Atlanta.  There were times when I found myself nodding my head with what he said and other times that I totally disagreed with his opinions but I remember one thing in particular that he mentioned.  He said that he liked how "good food has become accessible."  I like that, too.

For example, a few years ago, I found a Meyer lemon recipe that sounded just about perfect; but, I couldn't find any of these slightly sweeter sisters of the regular lemon.  Finally, I went to Whole Foods and found one for $1.99.  One Meyer lemon for almost two dollars!  I choked back my disappointment and walked out of the store.

Last week, my mom came home and showed me her find from the local Wal-Mart in rural Alabama:  5 Meyer lemons for $1.99.  Five!  Five gorgeous, bright yellow, sweet-sour, citrusy ovals of lemony goodness for only $2.

Squeezing Meyer lemon

I went back to Epicurious and pulled out this Meyer lemon budino recipe that I had been craving for all those years.  A budino means pudding in Italian and, yes, there were a few moments when, after all that waiting, I worried that Meyer lemon pudding would be completely gross.  But, I made it anyway, relying on the commenters at Epicurious who raved about the flavor and texture.

Meyer lemons, squeezed and zested

I liked that there is nothing fancy about this recipe.  Aside from the Meyer lemons, I used basic ingredients I already had on hand: eggs, sugar, flour, milk, and a pinch of salt.

. . . keep reading meyer lemon budinos after the jump

Gingerbread muffins

Strangely, Patrick and I don't have any food-related Christmas traditions.  We do for Thanksgiving: I have been making the same apple pie every year since we first started dating (the best apple pie ever), we always make my mother-in-law's sweet potato souffle , and, of course, there's turkey.  For Christmas, we make something different every single year because we haven't found a Christmas recipe that has completely wowed us (though this spiced hot chocolate came awful close).

Molasses

We have other Christmas traditions, though.  On Christmas Eve Eve, we watch Love Actually .  I know all the scenes, practically all the words, and the way the story ebbs and flows throughout the different characters.  Last night, we finished watching it and I turned to Patrick, sighed, and said, as I do every year, "Love actually is everywhere."  Tonight, on Christmas Eve, we'll watch It's A Wonderful Life , one of my all-time favorite movies and one of the few movies that, without fail, makes me cry every single time I watch it.  Tomorrow, we'll open presents and cook.

Spices

We're trying a whole bunch of new recipes tomorrow: a mushroom stilton galette, sticky toffee pudding, and cornish hen.  My grand plan for Christmas morning is that we're going to get out of bed in our silk pajamas, sit in front of a roaring fire, eat gingerbread muffins and pomegranate yogurt parfaits, and decorously open our presents.  I suspect our morning is going to be something more like: wake up in our holey t-shirts and shorts, rip apart our presents, leaving scraps of wrapping paper everywhere, dog toys covering the floor, and expensive human toys in our hands.

Muffins

However, there will be gingerbread muffins and pomegranate yogurt parfaits, not because I plan to make them in the morning but because I made tomorrow's breakfast today.  The verdict on the gingerbread muffins is mixed: the copious amounts of ginger and cinnamon warmed us up and we liked them, but they were dense and missing a little zing.  I made them in paper baking cups and they stuck like crazy so, please, if you make this recipe, use a well-greased muffin tin.  We both thought they needed something a little extra . . . maybe raisins or cranberries.  They were good but won't be hitting our holiday table next year.  We are still on the search for the perfect Christmas traditional food.

We hope that you and yours have joyful holidays, full of old traditions and new. Merry Christmas!

. . . keep reading gingerbread muffins at The Road Forks

It's been one year since we started this little website.  Deep breath.  We can hardly believe it.  A year ago, we didn't know what we were doing and, more importantly, what we were getting ourselves into.  Oh, how things change.  On the upside, we have rediscovered our love for photography , writing , and web development, all very, very good things.  And, we have joined an incredible community of travelers and food-lovers from all across the world.  Thank you for tagging along on our journey and for being such a wonderful part of our lives.

On the other hand, we now find ourselves discussing whether an activity or recipe is blog-worthy and obsess over minutiae like title tags and spacing .  Yesterday, when we were feasting on an amazing tofu dinner (and, no, that is not an oxymoron, tofu naysayers), we blinded the other diners because we kept pulling out the camera to capture every dish in the 5 course meal.  They were giving us evil looks which we withstood, all in the name of this blog.

Other things have changed, as well.  A year ago, we were in Jacksonville, wrapping up our jobs , ready for the trip that would begin in September .  Now, we are enmeshed in our travels and have new plans.  Big plans, I say --- plans that we never expected to make.  We thought that this trip would be over in October 2010 and we would come home and settle back into our lives.  We had set aside money to buy a house and reintegrate ourselves into our careers.

I can pinpoint the exact moment when that plan changed.  We were in the Marlborough area in New Zealand in early November, searching for Pinot Gris amidst the green, lush vineyards.  We parked our campervan and watched the stars quietly for a little while.  Then, Patrick said, "Wow.  This is the life.  I wish we could keep doing this for longer than just the next ten months."  Maybe it was the wine or those sparkling New Zealand skies but that idea took hold of both of us.  For the last five months, we have been trying to figure out how to make this a lifestyle rather than a year-long hiatus.  And, we think we have a plan to make this traveling thing work for longer than one year.

. . . keep reading cherry amaretto granola after the jump