Apple Pie a la Nana

I remember Nana making her famous apple pie and knowing how much Richard loved it and had a non-pie-making wife, she would think of ways to send it to us when we lived in California. Papa flew for a corporation that came to Cali often, so when she baked a couple of pies, she would send one with Papa for us. I would drive to little executive airports many times to pick up a delicious pie. What a wonderful memory to cherish now.

–Sherry Kanaga Harmon

Deep Dish Double Crust
Ingredients
2 1/2 C. Flour
2 T. Sugar
1 t. Salt
1/2 C. Cold Shortening
1/2 C. Cold Butter (diced)
3 T. Apple Juice
3 T. Cold water (more if needed)
 
Directions
In a food processor with the chopping blade on, combine flour, sugar and salt.
Cut in the shortening with 7-8 pluses and add the butter. About 4- 5 more pulses should produce a pea like texture. Add the water and juice mixture and do a few short pulses, just until it starts to come together. Turn onto a bread board and push it into a ball.Wrap the ball in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 15 minutes. It can stay in the fridge longer if you don’t get to it right away.

Apple Filling
Ingredients
8-9 mixed variety apples
For a mix of naturally sweet and tart varieties, try these: Bramley, Cox, Pippin, Fuji, McIntosh, Stayman Winesap, Jonagold, Rome, Cameo, Jonathon, Honeycrisp and Pink Lady. If unavailable, try Red Delicious or Gala. Granny Smith were Nana’s favorite to mix in as she liked a tart apple pie. You want flavorful, aromatic and firm apples. Always use a mixture - never just one type. The Fuji's and Gala's give it an aromatic flavor!

1/4 C. Apple juice (or balsamic vinegar)
3 T. Butter
2 t. Vanilla
1-2 C. Sugar (1 part can be brown)
2 T. Cinnamon

Optional additional spices to add are:
1/4 t. Nutmeg
1/4 t. Ground cloves
1/4 t. Ginger
1/4 t. Allspice

Nana was not a fan of ginger or allspice for sure, only sometimes would add a little nutmeg and maybe a dash of cloves if she were in the mood. Experiment and decide what combinations you like.

3-4 T. Ultra Gel (can use flour or cornstarch for substitution)
2 T. Butter (to dot top of apple filling in the pie)

Directions
Peel, core and wedge the apples. Place into a large frying pan with butter and juice on medium heat. Cover for about 8 minutes, or until just barely tender. Remove from heat, add vanilla and allow to cool. Mix Ultra Gel, sugar and cinnamon. Sprinkle over cooled apples and toss. Place apples into bottom crust in a deep pie dish. Dot with butter and cover with top crust. Cut a few slashes in top crust to allow steam to escape while cooking. Trim edges to 1/2” bigger than the pie dish, fold excess under itself and crimp edge down to seal in the filling. Paint top crust with cream and sprinkle sugar over top. Egg wash can be used, but doesn’t brown as well.

Bake at 375º for 20 minutes in lower half of oven. Then reduce heat to 350º and move to center of the oven. Bake another 30-40 minutes. This will insure the bottom crust gets nice and done for a flaky melt in your mouth crust and should keep the crust edges from getting too brown.

When pie is nice and golden brown, remove and cool on wire rack.

Tip: Sometimes I use foil to make little shields for the crimped edge of pie. Keep in place for first
30 minutes of bake time and then remove. This will keep the crimped edge from getting too brown.
 
Tip: Sprinkle 1 T. of lemon gelati over apples before adding the top crust. Flavor is delicious and gelatin helps to prevent spillovers.

A apple a day, or 10 boxes in a month!

It seems like Jade, Tawna, Tracy and I have been doing apples for a month. Wait, we have been doing apples for a month! Not every day. We did 10 boxes of apples this year in our family and I lost count how many Tracy ended up doing. The squeezo was a great investment and I highly recommend it. The pie apples are much better this year and are prettier too. We opted for wedged sliced instead of the easier spiral slices we did last year. Jade and I made our rebellious non-sealing 7 quarts (out of 55 quarts) into apple pie. I think I may have made an apple pie like 20 years ago, so I'm going to say this was my first attempt at doing apple pie. Jade remembered lots of Nana's little tips, so she was a better student than me by a long shot. I found a good recipe online for pie apples, so used it to can our pie apples. I'm posting it here for anyone who wants to try it. It's been fun.

Choosing your apples
Select apples depending on how tart you like your apple pie. The more tart varieties like Granny Smith result in a tart pie unless you add more sugar.

For a mix of naturally sweet and tart varieties, use from these groups: Bramley, Cox Pippin, Fuji, McIntosh, Stayman Winesap, Jonagold, Rome, Cameo, Jonathon. If you can't get any of these, then try Red Delicious, Honeycrisp, etc. You want a flavorful, aromatic and firm apple (Golden Delicious and Galas are too soft, for example). Always use a mixture - never just one type. The Fuji's and Gala's give it an aromatic flavor! Honeycrisp and Pink Lady are also excellent, sweet, flavorful apples.

Preparing Jars and Lids
Now's a good time to get the jars ready, so you won't be rushed later. The dishwasher is fine for the jars or you can wash the containers in hot, soapy water and rinse, keep the jars hot until they are used. Leave the jars in the dishwasher on "heated dry" until you are ready to use them. Keeping them hot will prevent the jars from breaking when you fill them with the hot apple pie filling.

Put the lids into a pan of hot, but not quite boiling water (that's what the manufacturer's recommend) for 5 minutes, and use the magnetic "lid lifter wand" to pull them out.

Preparing the apples

Fill your sink or a large container with water to wash the apples. The fastest way to peel the apples is an “apple, peeler, corer, slicer” (but with the corer/slicer function off). With firm apples, it takes about 20 seconds per apple. These apple peelers don't work well on soft, mushy apples or apples with soft spots on them. In that case your stuck with a hand peeler!

Once they're peeled, remove any remaining brown spots. These apple peelers work absolutely great on firm apples, pears and potatoes. They don't work so well on apples that are mush or have soft spots. There are 2 types of peelers: those that have a suction base and those that clamp on to the edge of a table. I prefer the suction type as you can use it more places.
Slicing and coring the apples is next.

You can use a knife, but the $5 corer/slicer you see in the photo is the easiest way to do it. The apple corer/slicer, available at almost any large grocery store, kitchen store, Bed Bath and Beyond, Target, Wal-Mart, etc. With this or an ordinary knife, any slices that are between ¼-inch and 1/2 inch thick will do.

Remove seeds, stems, any hard parts near the seeds and brown or soft spots. Now you are ready to blanch the apples. Place sliced apples a batch at a time in a large pot with at least 1 gallon of boiling water - the larger the pot and the greater the volume of water, the better! Boil each batch 1 minute after the water returns to a boil. You're not really "cooking" the apples - just blanching them. Blanching means heating them at high temperature for a brief time to stop the enzymes that can cause the flavor to degrade during storage.

Drain and keep the hot fruit in a covered bowl or pot.

Pie Filling

In a large pot combine:
7 1/2 C. cold water (or 2 1/2 C. water and 5 C. apple juice for more flavor)
3 C. granulated sugar (Yes, you can vary the amount of sugar. You could use organic sugar or honey (about 3/4 cup of honey to replace each cup of sugar)
1 T. Cinnamon
1 t. Nutmeg
1 t. Cloves ( I use half this amount because I'm not a big cloves fan.)
Optional additional spices you could add are 1 t. each of Ginger and Allspice.

Stir almost constantly while cooking on medium high heat until the mixture begins to bubble.

Mix 1 1/2 C. Ultra Gel
with 3/4 C. Bottled Lemon Juice and add this to the juice in the pot. Boil 1 minute, stirring constantly, until it starts to thicken. Then remove from the heat./ It ought to be pretty thick, but still able to drip.

(I buy Ultra Gel at Shar's Kitchen) or you can use a product called ClearJel. You can also use cornstarch but know the following: According to the USDA's National Home Food Preservation Center at the University of Georgia, ClearJel® is a corn starch that has been modified to give it special and unique characteristics when used in food products. It is recommended by the USDA for making pie fillings because it does not break down in the acid food mixtures and does not thicken enough during heat processing to interfere with the intended effect of the heat on killing bacteria during canning. In other words it reduces spoilage and is safer than corn starch. It is preferred for thickening canned pie fillings as well as other foods over other corn starches because it has less or no aftertaste, the thickened juices are smooth and clear, and foods thickened with ClearJel® may be frozen.

Filling Your Jars
The best way to fill the jars is pictured here. Because the filling is on the thick side, layering is preferred so the filling is present through the jar. Fill to 1/2" minimum headspace. I like about 1" better. A thin spatula down the sides of the filled jar will release any air pockets present. Prepare lids and bands and close the jars.


Water Bath Method
Put them in the canner and keep them cover with at least 1 inch of water and boiling. For our altitude here in Arizona, boil pint and/or quart jars for 30 minutes. After processing time is achieved, remove jars to a draft-free counter and allow to cool, usually overnight without disturbing. If all goes will you will hear the lids ping, or pop down to form the desired seal. If they don't seal, refrigerate and use, or apply a new prepared lid and reprocess.

Steam Canner Method
Follow manufacturer's directions to prepare the canner and water level. Place jars on rack and close canner. Once the steam is a steady 8" or so plume from both sides of canner start timing for 30 minutes. At the end of 30 minutes, turn off burner and allow to sit 3 minutes. Remove jars to a draft-free counter and allow to cool, usually overnight without disturbing. If all goes will you will hear the lids ping, or pop down to form the desired seal. If they don't seal, refrigerate and use, or apply a new prepared lid and reprocess.

Pressure Canner Method
Follow manufacturer's directions to prepare canner and water level. After jars are placed in canner and the lid secured, again follow the direction's for exhausting the air from the canner. After the weight is placed, allow the pressure to build to 6 pounds. Reduce heat to maintain pressure at 6 pounds for 8 minutes. Remove from heat and allow pressure to fall on it's own. At that point, remove weight and lid and allow the jars to stay in the canner 5-10 minutes. Remove from canner to a draft-free counter and allow to cool, usually overnight without disturbing. If all goes will you will hear the lids ping, or pop down to form the desired seal. If they don't seal, refrigerate and use, or apply a new prepared lid and reprocess.
You can use your pressure canner as a water bath also. Follow manufacturer's directions for this process.

Finishing
Now your jars are all done, cooled and hopefully all sealed. Remove the bands and put them in hot soapy water. Take each jars and gently wash the band threads to remove and sticky residue from the canning process. Set them on a towel to dry or wipe dry and date the lids and label if you need to. I reapply the clean, dry bands for storage, but you don't have to.
Apple pie, apple crisp, over ice cream, there are many ways to use this wonderful filling.

Corn & Potato Chowder...

Ingredients:

2-3 cans sweet cream corn
1 yellow onion chopped
1 clove minced garlic
1 cube butter (1/2 cup)
1 large carrot
2 cups potato flakes
4-6 cups milk
2-3 cups chicken broth
3-4 TBLS parsley flakes
1 jar Hormel "REAL" bacon bits (or crumbled)
Salt & pepper to taste















Melt your butter in a non-stick frying pan and add in your chopped onions and minced garlic. Then take a potato peeler and with short strokes peel the carrot into the mixture and saute all of it together. Add your parsley to the mixture.

Transfer this mixture to a stock pot and turn the heat to high. Add your chicken broth and milk and bring to a boil. When boiling turn down to low heat and add in your potato flakes and stir well. Bring the soup to the consistency that you wish by using milk to thin out or a few more potato flakes to thicken. When the consistency is of your liking then add your corn and then the jar of bacon bits or crumbled bacon last.


Stir well and serve.

I served with garnish of cheese croutons and it was yummy!!!
















Side note: You can choose to use real potatoes in the soup rather than the flakes. If this is your choice then use 4-6 medium potatoes cubed, and saute in with the onions, garlic, carrots and parsley. Saute until the potatoes are tender.
Once tender transfer to stock pot and add the chicken broth the recipe calls for. Then you'll need to make a white sauce to use for the soup base. To do this, in a medium mixing bowl whisk together 4 cups of milk and 3/4 cup flour and blend well. Add to stock pot and continue on with the above directions from there. Either way it is yummy!

Granny's Homemade Whole Wheat Bread...

Ingredients:
2 TBLS salt
10 -15 cups freshly ground whole wheat flour
2/3 cup canola oil
2/3 cup honey
3 TBLS dough enhancer
1 cup high gluten flour
6 cups warm water (110º - 115º F)
3TBLS saf-instant yeast

Preheat your oven to 150º. The lowest settings on some ovens is 170º. If that is the case on your oven, set at 170º and when you place your loaves in to rise, leave the oven door cracked open a bit. Sometimes if you turn off the oven as you begin to put your loaves in to proof, by the time they are all in the oven has cooled just a bit. It is probably closer to 150º now, so just shut the door and leave it off.

Place all of the ingredients in the order listed above, and 10C. of the flour in the bosch. Make sure the yeast goes in last on top of the flour. Also, make sure that your water is the proper temperature. If it is not warm enough it will not properly activate your yeast and if it's too hot it will kill your yeast!

Turn on the “moment” speed of your bosch two or three times. Now turn to “1” and add more flour to "clean" the sides and bottom of the bowl as it is mixing. You will probably have somewhere between 13-15C. of flour (total) in the dough. If you get too much flour in, just add a smidgen of water until it loosens up to the consistency you prefer. Let the bosch do it's thing (mixing away!) for 10 minutes on a timer.

While the dough is mixing, grease your bread pans generously on the bottoms and sides. For added nutrition you can use liquid lethicin (sp?) in place of shortening.


Remove the dough from the bosch and shape into loaves. Place the loaves into the pans and slit the tops about 3-4 times on the diagonal with a single edged razor. This helps the bread to rise UP instead of OUT.
Place your bread pans in your oven to let them raise to double in size. This process is called "proofing". Set the timer for 30 minutes and check often. When dough has doubled in size, (sometimes it takes longer than 30 minutes, sometimes it is faster than that) set the oven temperature to 350º. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the interior bread temperature reaches 200 degrees.Temperature may be checked by inserting a thermometer into the center of the bread.



Turn loaves out of pans immediately and butter (or shortening) the tops. I use a stick of butter or I rub margarine over the tops. After about 10 minutes place in the bread bags, but leave the end open. This way the crust stays soft. When mostly cooled, slice and re-bag securing the end to keep your loaves fresh and soft. If there is a lot of moisture left in the bags I dry them out with a paper towel before re-bagging the loaves.

I usually wait about 30-40 minutes before I slice the bread. But, that's up to you!

This recipe will make 4-6 loaves, depending on the size. I always get 5 loaves.

Individual Meatloaf Balls...

A different way to make meatloaf... Originally Granny's or Nana's Cheesy Meatloaf Recipe only seperated into individual servings!

Ingredients:

3-4 lbs lean hamburger meat
2 cups italian bread crumbs (more if needed)
2-3 eggs (to make everything stick together)
1-2 green peppers chopped
1 large yellow onion chopped
1 can tomato sauce (or alternate sauce for top of meatloaf)
1 large brick of mild cheddar cheese
1 cube butter (1/2 cup)
garlic powder, salt & pepper to taste


In a large mixing bowl add together meat, garlic powder, salt & pepper, green peppers, onions, eggs, and bread crumbs.

Cut the block of cheddar cheese into large cubes. Pull off a chunk of meat mixture and place on the cutting board. Put the cheese right in the middle. Take another chunk of mixture and cover the cheese, like a big meatball. Place the meatloaf balls in whatever pan you are cooking them in side by side on top of 1 cube of melted butter.

Once all of your meatloaf balls are in the pan, pour whatever sauce you choose or the tomato sauce over the top. If you have a pan that sits on top of your counter like this (electromade??? not sure what it's called) then put the lid on and it will cook for about 45 minutes to an hour on about 350 degrees. Just check the centers to make sure cooked through. If using your oven, then I would say to set at about 350 degrees for the same 45 min to an hour.

The cheese melts inside and everyone gets their own cute little meatloaf. This was Kevins spin on Granny's cheesy meatloaf!

We all love the burned bottom side of the meatloaf and the cheese burns a bit too! Growing up we all fought over that part...

The gravy that you make from the drippings is a little bit of a cheese flavor also, but I add in some beef boullion and it's awesome beef gravy because it's diferent than the same old thing.

YUMMMMMMM!

Mom's Broccoli Cheese Soup...

This is my all time favorite soup!

Ingredients:
1 large yellow onion chopped
1 clove minced garlic
1 medium head broccoli crown chopped
1 cube butter (1/2 cup)
4 cups chicken stock
5 cups milk
3/4 cup flour
1 t dry mustard
8 oz brick of cream cheese
4 cups mild shredded cheddar cheese (more or less as you choose)

Saute chopped onion, clove of garlic and broccoli in the cube of melted butter. When tender, transfer to an 8qt stock pot and add 4 cups chicken stock. In a medium mixing bowl whisk together 4 cups of milk, 3/4 cup flour and the dry mustard and blend well. Add to stock pot. In another mixing bowl whisk together 8oz cream cheese and 1 cup of milk. Set aside.

Bring to a boil to thicken the mixture to the desired consistency, to make thicker add milk or cream, and to thin out add water or chicken broth. Once it starts to boil reduce the heat. When mixture is thickened to desired consistency add in the shredded cheddar cheese and the cream cheese mixture. Keep at medium heat until all of the cheeses are melted in. Add salt & pepper to taste.

Garnish ideas: Sprinkle some shredded cheese and green onion on top... this soup goes great with Mom's homemade bread too!!! Or crackers or rolls...

Ali's Pumpkin Spice Cookies...

These cookies are great and I got the recipe from my cousin Ali. Thanks Ali! I doubled the recipe, because I always do when I make any kind of cookies. I figure if you're gonna go to all of the effort to bake you might as well bake extra and spread the wealth!!! It made about 3 1/2 dozen cookies. I also ran short of time so I didn't make the drizzle for the top. I cheated and opened up a Betty Crocker vanilla frosting, opened it and put it in the microwave for 30-45 seconds then spread a little on the top of each. Cream cheese frosting would be yummy on top also!



2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract

Icing:
2 cups confectioners' sugar
3 Tbls milk
1 Tbls melted butter
1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F; Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt; set aside

2. In a medium bowl, cream together the 1/2 cup of butter and white sugar. Add pumpkin, egg, and vanilla to butter mixture, and beat until creamy. Mix in dry ingredients. Drop on cookie sheet by Tablespoonfuls; flatten slightly

3. Bake for 15-20 mins in the preheated oven. Cool cookies, then drizzle glaze with fork

4. To make glaze: Combine confectioners' sugar, milk, 1 Tablespoon melted butter, and 1 tsp vanilla. Add milk as needed to achieve drizzling consistency.

Applesauce made easy!

Jonagold apples, a cross between Jonathan and Golden Delicious



Rome apples. I wish I had a picture of the cut ones. They had bright red swirls inside. Really pretty. They made the deepest pink applesauce I've ever seen.





The Squeezo Strainer is high on my list of most loved kitchen tools. Jade, Tracy, Papa and I made applesauce on Monday from 6 -48 pound boxes of apples. Five boxes were JonaGolds and one box were Rome apples. The apples are so beautiful this year and I love that the whole house smells like an orchard. The garage too since there are still apples out there waiting to be delicious pie apples and applesauce. We followed the instructions that came with the Squeezo and in about 4 hours we processed all 6 boxes into applesauce. After the fiasco we had last year trying to get apples into jars, this was a breeze. No peeling, coring, slicing. Just steam the apples tender and push them through the Squeezo for beautiful applesauce. The sauce comes out and goes down the funnel thing and the garbage goes out the other way for dumping. We used the regular size screen that came on it for the first 2 boxes. Then we put on the pumpkin screen for a coarser pulp and we liked that better. The Rome apples came out very very pink. I ended up mixing my 2 JonaGold boxes with my 1 Rome box for a pink blushed applesauce. I only added about 1 cup of sugar and a dash of cinnamon to a 12 qt. bucket of applesauce. The apples were really sweet enough on their own unless you have a sweet tooth. Tracy took her 3 boxes of JonaGolds home to can and I did my 3 boxes here into the canners. Three boxes of apples yielded 50 pints and 14 quarts. Maybe I will be crazy enough to try tomato sauce someday. Not any time soon though. I love this stuff.

Chicken La Paloma

This recipe is from my wonderful mother-in-law. She first made it for me when I had just given birth to Faith and she was in town for a few days helping out. It was so yummy that It has been one of my favorites ever since. Nathan and I don't always have cheesy-casserolish type dishes, but this is a favorite comfort food or for when guests are coming over. Missionaries really love it!

Ingredients:

2 cans of Cream of Chicken Soup

1 cup of mayonnaise

1/2 tsp of lemon juice

1 tsp curry powder (or more or less depending on how much you like)

6-7 chicken breasts, cut into cubes and cooked with salt, pepper, and garlic powder (or can be barbecued on the grill and then cut up and added)

2 pkgs of (8 oz ea.) of California Blend frozen veggies (cauliflower, broccoli and carrots)

1 8 oz package of shredded cheese

1/4 to 1/2 cup of butter or margarine - melted

corn flakes

Blend the soup, mayo, lemon juice and curry. Add the cooked chicken and vegetables and mix until well coated. Spread evenly into a casserole dish (sprayed with cooking spray). Top with the shredded cheese. Crush corn flakes and add to the melted butter until coated, stirring with a fork. Spread corn flake mixture on top of the cheese. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes. YUM!