Posts Tagged ‘apples’

First Day of Fall

Posted on September 23rd, 2012 by Tonia 4 Comments

It’s full-fledged fall around here. These past couple weeks have been pure heaven for fall-lovers like me: The colors are changing, the days are sunny but there’s a nip in the air, I’ve broken out the wool socks, we’ve made soup with one of the massive squashes in our garden, and apples are ripe and ready for the pickin’! And pick we did:

Saturday morning we headed out with a few friends into the neighborhood to poach apples from peoples’ yards.

That sounds way more bad-ass than it really was. Explanation: The apple trees on our property are in their off year {apple trees naturally produce fruit every-other year unless they’re manipulated via pruning to produce every year}, so we called around town asking neighbors if they’d be okay with us picking some of their apples. The answer was ‘yes’ in every case. We ended up only needing to visit two trees, and we filled the whole bed of the truck!

No husbands were harmed during the climbing of this tree….

We headed back to our place to eat lunch, press cider, and play a little touch football in the field. I made the winning touchdown. I’m not even going to re-structure that sentence to sound less gloat-y. It was a big moment for me. Sadly there is no photographic proof.

This year’s cider is sweeter than last year’s. It’s incredible how different it tastes depending on the mixture and variety of apples you use. We pressed 16 gallons of cider from all these apples, some of which will be fermented into apple cider vinegar and hard cider.

A toast to my favorite time of year: May the nip in the air remind you you’re alive, make you snuggle closer to the one you love, and provoke a feeling of gratitude for the simplest pleasures and privileges in life- the roof over your head, the food in your belly.  Happy Equinox!

Fika

Posted on November 18th, 2011 by Tonia 4 Comments

…The Swedish word for time spent drinking coffee with something sweet.

Don’t mind if I do.

Flognarde, also known as clafoutis, is a traditional French dessert made of sweet batter poured over a layer of apple or pear chunks and baked in the oven. You can eat this dish as a hot pudding or a cold dessert.

Ingredients {serves 6}:
3 apples
3 large eggs
1 ½ cups {350 ml} milk
½ cup {90 g} sugar
½ cup + 1 tbsp {70 g} flour
2 tbsp vegetable oil {or any neutral oil}

Preheat the oven to 400ºF {200ºC}. Peel and core the apples then cut into chunks.

Grease the tart tin with butter and sprinkle some flour. Place it on a baking sheet. Spread the apple chunks evenly in the tart tin.

Gently heat the milk until warm. In a mixing bowl, whisk the eggs until blended and foamy. Add the sugar, flour, oil and whisk until smooth. Gradually whisk in the warm milk.

Using a ladle, carefully pour the liquid batter over the apple chunks in the tin, filling up to the rim.

Bake for 30 – 45 minutes until the flognarde is puffed and golden.

Make time for “fika” with someone you love this weekend.

Cider Again

Posted on October 27th, 2011 by Tonia 4 Comments


We couldn’t help ourselves…we made cider again. The tree in our yard with beautiful yellow translucent apples finally reached prime ripeness, and obviously we needed to taste what kind of cider they made.

My family came to join in the fun.

This batch will probably end up as hard cider, fermenting in our basement this winter. So it wasn’t completely off-base for me to choose the Punch Brothers’ song “Rye Whiskey” as the tune for this little video:

Apple Fritters

Posted on September 9th, 2011 by Tonia 3 Comments

Apple Fritters
From ad hoc at home, serves 6 {if you decide to share…}

Ingredients:
1 cup AP flour
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 large egg
1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon whole milk
3 large Fuji, Gala or Golden Delicious apples {or whatever apples you have growing in your yard, as long as they’re sweet!}
Canola oil for deep-frying
Powdered sugar for dusting {optional}

1. Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, ground cinnamon and salt in a bowl. Set aside.

2. Lightly beat the eggs and milk in another bowl and whisk the wet into the dry ingredients until combined. Batter can then be covered and refrigerated for up to 3 hours.

3. Peel the apples and slice the fruit from the core. Cut the apples into 2″ long x 0.25″ thick matchsticks. Fold the apples into the batter.

4. Heat 1.5″ of oil to 325 degrees F in a wide deep pot. Using 2 forks, lift up about 5 – 6 of the apple matchsticks from the batter, allowing the excess batter to drip back into the bowl {it’s okay to have irregular shaped fritters!} Add to the oil and fry for 5 minutes turning the fritters from time to time until crisp and golden brown.

5. Add more fritters one at a time being careful not to overcrowd the pot.

6. Remove the fritters from oil using a slotted spoon and transfer them to a cooling rack covered with paper towels over a baking sheet.

7. Serve the fritters immediately, dusting them with powdered sugar if desired. Vanilla ice cream or honey would also work well as accompaniments!

Enjoy! Have a great weekend, everyone!