Apple Pie

Ingredients

• 1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 8 Granny Smith apples - peeled, cored and sliced

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Melt the butter in a saucepan. Stir in flour to form a paste. Add water, white sugar and brown sugar, and bring to a boil. Reduce temperature and let simmer.
2. Place the bottom crust in your pan. Fill with apples, mounded slightly. Cover with a lattice work crust. Gently pour the sugar and butter liquid over the crust. Pour slowly so that it does not run off.
3. Bake 15 minutes in the preheated oven. Reduce the temperature to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Continue baking for 35 to 45 minutes, until apples are soft.

Shaken Not Stirred - Guest Post

This time of year it seems as though everyone's dance card is filled with holiday parties and commitments.  It's a chance to dress up and a time to share a little bit of the holiday cheer.  For many years we hosted a big Christmas party and it was a wonderful chance to slow down, enjoy the season, and to share all of our decorations with friends and family.

Since we moved into our new home and have been in almost constant renovation mode, we've only hosted one party, and that was last Christmas.  Our first party was scheduled for the weekend that we got hit with a huge snow storm, but the second date went off without a hitch, and we had a wonderful time.

About a month ago, our daughter sent me an email saying that she and her roommate were planning to host their own Christmas party this year.  The apple doesn't fall far from the tree as the saying goes, and she has definitely inherited the entertaining gene from my mother.  My mom loved having a beautifully decorated home this time of year, and a houseful of people to share it with.

This morning, I got a full report saying that my daughter and her roomie/friend had hosted a very successful cocktail party at their new apartment...complete with signature cocktails and a menu no less!  She's never been a drink to excess kind of child...thankfully, so I knew when she said that she would be hosting a cocktail party that it would be more like a Martha Stewart event than a 20 something style fraternity party.  Just to let the girls know we were thinking of them last night, Mr. Tide and I sent a small floral arrangement of fresh greens, white hydrangea and red roses because it's always nice to have fresh flowers when you are hosting a party. 

Today my daughter sent me pictures of the party, and I was so impressed by everything she and her roommate "B" had done to make this a memorable event for those invited.   She also asked me if I would like her to do a guest post to explain the evening and a little bit about how cocktails evolved...of course I said YES...and I hope you enjoy reading it!

Hi I'm Kat's daughter...affectionately known as Angelfish by my parents.  My roommate and I recently moved into a new place in Northern Virginia, and we decided it was high time we threw a cocktail/housewarming party for our friends in the area.  We bought some light hors d'oeuvres, libations, and set up our wonderful party playlist (I highly recommend this New Yorker inspired playlist).  We found cute cocktail napkins, set out some plates, and waited for our guests to arrive.  Though I'm not as legally minded as my roommate, who aspires to law school, cocktail parties still tend to put me in mind of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution.

You, too?  No?  Don't know what the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution was?  Don't worry, you're not alone. This is probably due to the fact that the Eighteenth Amendment was repealed in December of 1933.  That's right, this amendment, along with the National Prohibition Act, or Volstead Act (as Andrew Volstead was the Senate Judiciary Committee chair who sponsored the legislation), started Prohibition in the United States.  The legislation for Prohibition was vetoed by Woodrow Wilson in October of 1919, but he was overridden by Congress and the law officially went into effect in January of 1920.

From 1920 until late 1933, the citizens of the United States were restricted from purchasing or consuming alcoholic beverages, and the government was to regulate the manufacture, production, use, and sale of high-proof spirits for 'other than beverage purposes'.  As you might imagine, from Prohibition stemmed some grave problems - among them, bootlegging, binge drinking, and organized crime.

Forced to distill and produce their own alcohol if they still wanted to drink, people turned to very creative ways to disguise the taste of the poor quality alcohol they were making (this is where terms like 'bathtub gin' come into play).  Prohibition era cocktails made great use of the mixer, an element of cocktails we consider commonplace today.  Mixers with strong flavors, such as orange juice and cream, became in vogue among those in the speakeasys who were trying to make their drinks palatable.

While my roommate and I were not serving bathtub gin, we are just out of college, and thus top-shelf liquors are not yet within a comfortable price range for us.  Anything with a good mixer is a perfect drink for us.  We found some great cocktail recipes in a book I have that was given to me by a good friend of mine for my twenty-first birthday, called Pocket Guide to Cocktails - The Essential Pocket Book of Cocktail Recipes.  It's a Parragon Publishing book and was first published in the UK; it has a great selection of classic cocktails, modern drinks, and a non-alcoholic section for any teetotalers in the crowd.

I made a bar menu with three 'specialty cocktails' that contained great seasonal spirits and colors that put people in mind of the holidays.  My friend J is an avid 'mixologist', and he helped me behind the bar all evening (he and his wife, D, even brought along their great Boston shaker bar set!).  All three drinks were a huge hit with our guests and I asked my mom if I could guest post today in order to share them with you!

Seeing Red

Ingredients:
1 measure red vodka (we used Skyy, not red vodka, and it turned out well)
1 measure peach schnapps
3 measures cranberry juice (if you're a fan of sweet drinks, regular cranberry juice is a dream.  If you're like me and prefer your drinks on the dry side, try organic cranberry juice with less sugar content)
crushed ice
soda water
frozen cranberries (fresh work just as well)

1. Shake the first three ingredients over ice until well frosted.
2. Strain into a tall chilled cocktail glass, top up with soda water, and float a few cranberries on the top for garnish.

Christmas Cocktail

Ingredients:
1 cube sugar
splash brandy
generous splash cranberry juice, chilled
champagne, chilled (we used cava which is generally less expensive and works well)
fresh raspberries, to garnish

1. Place a sugar cube in the base of a chilled champagne glass.
2. Add the brandy and allow to soak in, then splash on the cranberry juice.
3. At the last moment, top up with champagne and float one or two raspberries on the top.


Cider Punch

Ingredients:
17 fl oz/500ml dry sparkling cider (we used Woodchuck Amber hard cider, but you could use non-alcoholic sparkling cider here for a less strong mix)
5 fl oz/150ml cognac or brandy (we used brandy to overlap with our other drinks)
5 fl oz/150ml Cointreau
ice
apple slices, to garnish
10 fl oz/300ml soda water or dry ginger (I highly recommend using ginger ale)

1. Mix the first three ingredients together and chill in the refrigerator until required.
2. Pour into a large punch bowl with ice, apple slices, and the soda water or dry ginger.
3. Serve in small cups or glasses.

Note: We found that we had to add more ginger ale than it called for, to avoid the mix tasting too much of Cointreau.  To alleviate this problem without adding more ginger ale, simply reduce the amount of Cointreau (unless you adore the taste of Cointreau, in which case, have at it!).

Yesterday evening was quite a success, and now we're going to have to throw another party to share all of the lovely bottles of wine our guests brought.  I hope that you all are having a wonderful holiday season, and next time you settle down to a nice cocktail, turn on some Prohibition era jazz, dance the Charleston, and think about how lucky we are not to be drinking liquor made in someone's bathtub!

Something In The Water

All over Blogland people seem to be nesting, baking, and making yummy stick to your ribs meals these days.  Kim at Savvy Southern Style recently made some yummy soup...where does that girl find the time to paint AND cook?!  And the lovely Jane from Blondie's Journal made the cutest acorn sugar cookies!!  There must be something in the air...or something in the water that's making us all want to cook and bake!

If you come from the land down under I'm sure all of this seems silly since you are coming into your warmest months.  But for some of us, it's getting chilly and downright yucky outside.  Today it rained cats and dogs here and I had to wear my big warm coat to take the dogs out.

Miss Kylee hasn't been feeling up to snuff this week so I've stayed close to home just in case she needs me.  Today was more of the same, and with the bad weather I decided it would be a good time to make something to warm us up for dinner.

A big pot of chili sounded just right, so I made some using my mom's famous chili recipe.  My son Bugs loves it when the weather gets chilly, because he would eat my mother's chili every day of the week if he could!

It was just Bugs and me at home for dinner tonight and after he ate his bowl of chili, along with a big hunk of french baguette, he suggested I make something yummy for dessert.  As much as he loves my mom's chili recipe he also loves her apple nut cake recipe.  After a little persuading I agreed to make it for him and he was happy as a clam!

My mother was a wonderful cook, just like her mother, and she taught all 4 of us how to cook, including my brother.  When I was young I would watch my mother cut up vegetables as though she were a sous-chef at a busy 5 star restaurant.  Even Mr. Tide once commented on how quickly and efficiently my mother could cut up celery, carrots, onions...anything.

 

When I got married I would often call my mom and ask her for this recipe or that recipe and she would always give me the directions over the phone.  Usually the next time I saw her she would have the recipe neatly written out on a recipe card for me to add to my collection.   Her apple nut cake is one of those beloved recipes that still bears her handwriting, something I now treasure.

This cake is delicious, and the frosting will make you need to take a nap it's so sweet...and oh so good!

Apple Nut Cake

1 1/2 cups Wesson Oil

2 cups white sugar

3 eggs

1 Tablespoon cinnamon

1 Tablespoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 cups finely chopped apples

1/2 cup finely chopped nuts (I've used both walnuts and pecans)

3 cups flour (not sifted)

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees

Finely chop the apples and place in a large bowl with the sugar

Add the eggs, oil, and vanilla

Stir in cinnamon, soda, salt, and nuts

Add flour and stir until thoroughly mixed

Pour batter into a greased tube pan and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out cleanly and the top is a nice golden brown.  Let cool.

Brown Sugar Frosting

1 cup brown sugar (packed)

1 stick butter or margarine

1/2 cup evaporated milk

Combine all ingredients in a medium sauce pan and boil for 4 minutes or until it reaches soft ball stage.  Let cool for 10 minutes and glaze the top and sides of the cake.

My frosting dripped quite a bit because a certain someone was too impatient to wait for it to cool.

It was a yummy meal tonight I must admit, but one small slice of apple cake is plenty for me...it's very rich!  I'd love to hear from any of you that decide to make this delicious apple cake!

And don't forget to enter to win my latest Giveaway... simply click HERE!!!

I heard this song recently and I thought it was cute...enjoy!

Recipe for Love

With all the devastation in Haiti it's hard to really get my mind around idle chit chat about decorating.  I know that life goes on and I can't undo the earthquake and all it's destruction, but it really brought home how very fortunate I am to have so much and to have those I love happy, healthy and safe.

My parents are both deceased, my mother died over 5 years ago and my father just over 2 years ago so I understand loss in a way I didn't before their passings.  Although I miss them dearly, and there isn't a day that goes by when I don't, I feel their presence around me constantly.

This past Christmas I had Mason jars filled with little white lights with greens tucked around them on the windowsill in my kitchen and every so often a tiny bit of one of the strings in the bottom of one of the jars would go "off" and then "on" for some unexplained reason.  Now, common sense says the darn things were overheating but my heart told me otherwise.  My sister has had similar experiences with the candles in her windows that will only go off and on when she enters a room, then they magically turn on again, like they are winking hello to her.

This was the first year in our new, nearly completed kitchen and it's a kitchen that my mother and my father would have loved.  It's timeless and and light filled, which my mother would have loved, and it has quality craftsmanship, good flow, and lots of practical storage, all features my father would have admired.  So I think they were using my little lights as a way to convey their approval  of our new digs.

My mother was a wonderful cook, not an elaborate gourmet cook, but a solid consistent sort of cook who made dishes that became family favorites over the years.  She inherited her abilities from her mother and I hope that I was able to get a smidgen of their talent and pass it on to my own children.  The mason jars I used for my holiday decor were actually those that my "Nana" used to can vegetables, house her famous pickles, and to hold her yummy homemade ketchup for which the recipe is sadly, hopelessly lost.

We still own the house I grew up in, (long story!!) so as caretakers, my sister who lives close by and I have watched over it since my father passed.  We haven't really removed much except the more valuable items such as pieces of furniture, china, crystal, and some holiday items we inherited.  Our two older siblings have left it to us to keep vigil over the house for over 2 years now and we are growing weary of the task.  So she and I have decided to move some of the most treasured items to our own homes, in case someone would break in, until everyone can get together and decide on who gets the remaining items not designated in the will.

So imagine how excited I was the other day when I brought home my mother's entire recipe box and began leafing through it.  These are the sort of items still left in the house.  They don't hold great monetary value, but if someone were to break in they would undoubtedly be tossed about, or worse...destroyed, and their sentimental value is priceless.

Like a child with a new toy at Christmas, I sat down with the little house shaped box that always sat on top of the antique jelly cupboard in her kitchen, and began reliving parts of my childhood with each passing recipe card, slip of paper, and newspaper clipping.  There was the recipe from the Bakers Coconut packaging that held the secret ingredients to my favorite cake, German Chocolate.  I have had German Chocolate cake every year for my birthday since I can remember, my mother made all four of us our favorite cake on our special day each year, a tradition I have continued with my own children.  Mr. Tide even baked me a special transfat free version with that decadent, gooey homemade coconut pecan frosting for my birthday last month that had me reminiscing about all the yummy things my mom used to make and led me to the recipe box in the first place.  When I found the recipe in my mother's box I asked him which recipe he used and he said "the one on the bakers coconut package," no wonder it tasted just like home!

There were recipes torn out of magazines and newspapers, some of which were smudged and tattered.  Even the old operating instructions for a Sears ice cream maker.  Recipes from friends and other family.  Recipes dictated over the phone or from the recesses of someone's memory like my grandmother's refrigerator rolls.  Or the one for bread and butter pickles, a top secret blue ribbon winning recipe held closely to the chest of my Great Aunt Margaret.  There was even a shopping list scribbled on the back of one piece of paper and on the front a list of the women from her "Girls Group" who would be attending one of their monthly get togethers at our house.

 

One recipe made me smile the instant I saw it.  It wasn't something my mother made often, as a matter of fact I can only remember her making it a handful of times during her lifetime, but it brought back one of my favorite stories about when she and my dad were first married.

My parents had a whirlwind romance, they met when my mother didn't show up to a blind date and my father came looking for her at her parent's home!  That was April of 1953 and just a few months later they were engaged, and then married in November of that same year.  My father, a young Navy sailor at the time, was shipped off to North Africa and his blushing bride flew to meet him. It was her first time ever on a plane leaving behind everything she had ever known, and I can only imagine how my grandparents must have felt watching their only child winging her way across the world to start her new life.

 

My mother had studied French in high school, still the primary language in Morocco at the time, so they rented a small upstairs apartment off base from a french family.  They would often recount how much they loved that apartment and their motherly french landlady.  It sounded like such an exotic adventure to me growing up and we often played dress up in the jewelry she brought home, some of which I now own.

Cooking in a country with a French influence was heavenly for my mother and she talked about buying fresh bread from the boys who delivered it on their bikes and the bay tree just outside the house where they would pick fresh leaves to flavor their dishes.  One year during the holidays they decided to make divinity as a special treat.  This delicious white confection is a typically southern treat but has been made for generations all over the country and world for that matter, so they were excited about making some in their new home.  Apparently they were lacking a candy thermometer so they had to "eyeball" the mixture to try and get it to the right consistency.  What resulted was a tastey but nearly inedible concoction, the kind you could throw at passing vehicles and likely break a window as my father described it!  But the landlord's and other neighboring children LOVED it and gobbled down every bit.  Throughout the rest of their time in Africa the neighborhood children would frequently ask if they would make them some more, something my parent's never forgot and found amusing.

That's how food is though.  It's a way for people to connect, a way to create memories, a way to embrace your heritage and your past.  Some might wonder if reading through the recipe box was difficult or sad, but it wasn't.  It was sentimental and seeing certain recipes made me yearn to have my mother make them again for me, but in a way she is making them for me and with me!  The very fact that she wrote them down and saved them in this box was her way of making them for me and ensuring that I would make them for my own children and grandchildren.

That's me, the baby on the right!

Seeing her handwriting on tiny scraps of paper and knowing that she must have been so harried trying to raise four active and demanding kids makes them all the more special.  Knowing how much love went in to each and every one of them, whether they were made for family or close friends only adds to their sentimentality, each one like a tiny window into her all too short 69 years on this planet.  I cherish each and every one of them, even the tomato aspic, which I dearly detested!

The three amigos, my mother, my daughter and me baking in our old kitchen.

As I keep my own special recipes tucked into a basket by my stove I feel an even greater sense of happy duty and joyful obligation to continue adding to it as the years progress so that one day...in the very distant future I pray, my children, grandchildren, great grandchildren will also find comfort in "my" comfort food.  A perfectly straight, computer generated, alphabetically organized recipe box may look pretty, but I will always prefer a handwritten recipe on a timeworn piece of notebook paper, complete with flour, sugar, and vanilla stains!