Apple Pie Pockets & the Tastes of Childhood

The taste of foods from my childhood bring me zooming back to being a kid again, a time machine, if you will, to a place less burdened by adult responsibilities, chores, and bills. I like to go back to those foods and try to recreate them. If they were store-bought, I like to try creating homemade versions. It's one of my little adventures with food.

About a year ago, I had a craving for a yummy dessert-type treat. With apples sitting on my counter, I started thinking about those apple pie pockets I used to love as a child. There were two kinds: one was a half-moon shape (Hostess, I think) and the other had two squares and were covered in a yummy glaze (Drakes). The filling was "apple"...though the contents were so jellied and gooey, I am not sure how long ago it was an actual apple, if ever. Even so, they were delicious (and what did we know in the 80's anyway?). Figuring they were little apple pies, I went to work.

Basic ingredients you will need:

• Apples
• Butter
• Pie Crust
• Cinnamon
• Sugar
• Powdered sugar
• Milk
• Vanilla

First, the crust - make your own if you have time or in a pinch, you can always use store-bought. If I am making one, I normally do a quick search on a reliable recipe site like Epicurious and use what I find there. Dough for a 9" pie crust will make 4-6 pockets.

Roll out the dough to about 1/4" thickness. I cut mine into rectangles - about 3" wide by 8" long, but you could do larger or circles to make the half-moon.

Peel and dice your apples. Toss them in a large bowl with some cinnamon and sugar. I mix cinnamon sugar separately to taste and then just evenly coat the apples.

Cut up your butter into small pieces (easier to do right out of the fridge before it gets too soft).

Take a scoop of apples and place it on the bottom half of the dough. Add a couple of dots of butter on top of the apples.

To seal the pockets, dip your finger in water and run it around the outside edge of the dough. Gently, fold the top over the apples, stretching it just slightly if you need to, and press the edges where the dough meets with a fork. Make a few slashes across the top to vent the pocket while baking.

Place on a cookie sheet and bake at 425 degrees for 25 minutes, until golden brown.

While the pockets are baking, mix together the powdered sugar (about 1/2 cup) with some milk (start with a small amount - about a tablespoon), a dash of cinnamon, and a small splash of vanilla (very technical measurements, I know). Mix together to a creamy, paste-like consistency. It shouldn't be too runny.

When the pockets are done, remove from the over and let cool for about 5 minutes. The drizzle the glaze over the pockets until coated.

Eat!!! Enjoy!!!

Food Musings and Adventures of a Redhead - the renaming of the blog

I started this blog a few years ago. I realized I kept finding little shortcuts in life that I thought would be worth sharing. It became apparent quickly that I was not an endless supply of tips and tricks! I started thinking about those things in life that are constant, always evolving, and that I feel like I will always have something to say about. One of the ever-present things in my life (and all our lives) is food. Between the magazines, cookbook collection, websites, and other assorted food-related information, I am constantly reading, learning, cooking, and trying new recipes. Of all the things I talk about, food is at the top of the list.

After thinking this over (while a batch of rolls was rising in the kitchen with that smell of dough in the air), I made a decision: just turn this into a food blog. Gone is the Tips and Tricks title, replaced by Food Musings and Adventures of a Redhead. The old posts are still there (I still like those tips and some of them are food related!).

Full disclosure: I don't really write my own recipes. I tend to use recipes others have already come up with, sometimes following exactly, sometimes substituting. This will probably be the way this blog goes. If I ever use a recipe from somewhere else, I will make sure to provide the source and proper credit. I'll let you know what was good, bad, easy, or hard about a recipe and let you know of any ideas I might have about alterations (and if they failed miserably or not). I will do my best to include photos when I can. I will post about recipes- making them, finding them, my favorites, and other times I may just decide to talk about food - a specific food, where to buy food, buying responsibly (organic, local, etc.), among other food musings. And who knows...maybe a random tip now and again just to spice things up.

I hope you enjoy the musings and adventures.

KDW

My new favorite thing: The Farm Lady

I have become informed and I also have become disturbed. I have been learning, reading, listening, and absorbing all of this information about how our food is processed, how animals are treated in industrial farming, and how we have destroyed our food culture. And I decided that I needed to try and get myself out of the destructive food chain as much as possible.

I started looking for local farms and CSA (farm share programs - you give them money, they give you some of what they grow). In my research, I found localharvest.org - great resource with a lot of information on how to find local farms near you. As I wandered around the pages looking for farms and CSAs, I came across a farm that mentioned a delivery service that works with area farms. Genius! I call it "the Farm Lady", but it's actually called CT Farm Fresh Express. Now, before you go on about the carbon footprint of my delivery service...this is a local service that drives within the local area to pick up local products. None of the foods traveled 1500 miles just to get to them like in the grocery store. For me, it all balances out.

On to the good stuff: CT Farm Fresh Express is a wonderful company operating in the state of Connecticut. They work with tons of local farmers, bakeries, coffee roasters, etc. The farms are mostly organic farms using sustainable agricultural methods. They work with animal humane farms that treat these amazing creatures who will give their lives to fill our plate with the dignity and respect they deserve. These are small, wonderful farms. The products are fresh, delicious, and amazing. The difference in the food that comes from these places compared to what you purchase in a grocery store is astounding. It really opened my eyes to how far from real food our grocery stores have gone. It is quite sad really.

So, if you live in CT, I highly recommend giving them a try. Their store is open online from Friday through Tuesday's at noon and deliveries are every Friday. You can find them at http://www.ctfarmfreshstore.com/Default.asp If you are not in CT, use your resources and find those local farms, farmer's markets, and other local purveyors. The cost might be a little more for some things, but the quality and the karma are worth every penny!

Here are a few other things that I recommend:

• Read "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto" by Michael Pollan (plus ANY of his other books)
• Watch Jamie Oliver's TED awards speech. I love his passion for the food revolution and fixing the food we are feeding our families, especially in schools.
• Watch Food, Inc. (if you can handle it - it may be traumatizing for some. Read about it if you can't watch it).
• Become informed and understand what is in your food, what industrialization is doing to our food and our health, and find a better way.

Glow, baby! Glow!

This is more of a product recommendation than a tip or trick (though if you don't tell anyone that you are using it, it could be considered tricking them).

Dear Pasty People of the World (or those who like a little summer tan),

If you have not already gone out and bought yourself a bottle of L'Oreal Sublime Glow tanning lotion, I highly recommend it! It gives you a natural looking tan that appears gradually as you use it. The lotion also has a beautiful golden shimmer that makes your skin luminous, on top of the tanning benefits. And for those of you with fair skin: you do not need to buy the "fair skin tones" bottle. Go medium if you want. It just gives you a slightly deeper tan (it doesn't get weird and orange-looking like some brands), and who doesn't want that ?

Once I was told that the only tan I could get was an Irish tan (which pretty much means that the sun brings out all of your freckles and there are so many of them that they start connecting and looking like a tan). Now, this fair-skinned, redheaded, freckled girl has a lovely shimmering tan without the skin cancer risk or the bathing suit trauma.

The Story of the Lampshade and the Three Cats

Once upon a time, there was a lampshade. She was pretty and off-white. She sat happily upon her lamp. Every now and then, she would say hello to her twin across the room on the other lamp. One day, lampshade begin finding unwanted body hair. "What is all this fur on me?" she asked. The fur began to get thicker and thicker. She had a hard time seeing her poor twin sister, who was suffering the same fate. Then she saw them....frolicking around the room in the same fur that seemed to be covering her: three cats! Long-haired, short-haired, grey, white, tan, brown, black, fur of every kind getting everywhere. Her despair increased as she realized that those cats just kept growing and shedding all that fur. She thought her beautiful off-white sheen was lost forever. She would never create the soft glow from the light she was supposed to. Alas, what was she to do?

Then, one day, brightness came. Along came her giant owner with a little roll-y thing in her hand. Zip...zip....zip...went the roller down her sides. With each zip, the fur was pulled away. Her beauty was again revealed and her soft glow appeared. She was so happy. She saw her twin, who also was beautiful again, and rejoiced. And they lived happily ever after. The End.

The moral of this story: Lint rollers are not only good for getting pet hair off of clothing. They are great for cleaning off lampshades, too!

A Wrinkle-free World

I do not iron. I hate to iron. I am not good at ironing. For years, I would wander around with my wrinkled pants convinced that gravity would make the wrinkles fall out. Alas, gravity, though powerful, could not defeat my wrinkles. And then came Downy Wrinkle Releaser. A quick spray, a little smoothing, and I was a happy wrinkle-free girl! You can even spray this stuff on when you are wearing the clothing (as I often do when I am running out of the house in the morning). Even my husband "irons" his clothes now. Truly a miracle product. If you haven't done so already, go out and get yourself some Downy Wrinkle Releaser. You may never plug in your iron again!

Hello, Weeknight Meatloaf!

Meatloaf is one of those meals I used to not cook on a weeknight. By the time you did all the work to make the meatloaf, you still had an hour and a half left before the thing was done cooking. I don't know about you, but I don't like dinner at 8 p.m. One night I was seriously craving meatloaf and knew that I must find a way to cook it faster. When I want something, I will find a way. So, I am rummaging through my kitchen cabinets and I see my ramekins!

Ramekin

The ramekins are about 5 - 5.5 oz. each and are oven safe. Fill them most of the way, and you have a perfect little personal-sized meatloaf. So, I fill up about 6 ramekins with the meatloaf mixture, pop them in the oven on a baking sheet at the same temperature for the whole meatloaf. And voila! Meatloaf in 30 minutes and perfectly portioned. You can take them out of the ramekins to serve (use an oven mitt - they get very hot...being in the oven and all). They are adorable and yummy at the same time. Hello, Weeknight Meatloaf!

p.s. If you love sweet ketchup-y sauce on your meatloaf, mix about 1/4 cup of ketchup, a tbsp of mustard, and 1-2 tbsp brown sugar. Spoon this on 10 minutes before the meatloaf is done cooking. mmmm....