Apple Pan Dowdy

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Okay, so I found this recipe and had to make it because I have always loved the song “Shoe-Fly Pie” (and Apple Pan Dowdy, make your eyes light up, your tummy say howdy!)  Here’s a link to Dinah Shore singing it.

But it turns out that it’s really good, and even better with ice cream on top!

4 1/2 cups peeled, cored and sliced apples, placed in a 9 x 12 baking dish

1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup apple cider (or water)

Mix in a saucepan and cook for a few minutes until it’s thickened a bit. Remove from heat and add:

1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp vanilla
1 Tbsp butter
Sprinkle of cinnamon and nutmeg

Pour over apples.

1 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
3 Tbsp baking powder
3 Tbsp butter
1/2 cup milk

Blend dry ingredients, cut in butter until crumbly. Add milk and gently blend. Drop by the spoonful onto apples. Smooth it out a bit so it’s more evenly distributed.

Bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

Penne Adriana

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1 lb. penne pasta
1 Tbsp Olive Oil
1 package spicy Italian sausage
1 package mushrooms, thickly sliced
1/2 cup beef or chicken broth
1/8 tsp freshly ground black pepper
3 cups fresh spinach, roughly chopped or use baby spinach
3 Tbsp parmesan cheese.

Cook pasta to al dente in salted water. Heat olive oil in a frying pan, and cook sausage and mushrooms until sausage is cooked through. Remove from heat and slice into 1/2″ thick slices. Add back into frying pan, and add broth, and pepper. Stir well, and add spinach. Cook until spinach is just wilted.

Serve in bowls, and sprinkle with parmesan and another twist of black pepper. This makes me hungry just thinking about it, and rated a “Yum!” in 2003.

Update:  This looked so good that I made it for supper last night.  I only had smoked sausage, and no mushrooms, so I added more pepper and a pinch of red pepper flakes.  It was so amazingly delicious.  We’ve grown to really love cooked spinach and I think you could add 4 or even 5 cups of spinach.

Sunburst Peach Tart

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This is such a pretty dish. I first served it at a National T.T.T. Society Holiday Tea at my house in 2002. Maya was about 3 and greeted each guest at the door with a curtsy. I have no idea why – but everyone loved it!

6 oz. butter (1 1/2 sticks)
1 1/4 cup sugar
6 eggs
2 1/4 cups flour
Juice of half a lemon
1/8 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
large can sliced peaches, drained
4 oz chopped pecans or hazelnuts

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time. Add everything else, except nuts, folding gently. Pour into a large springform pan, and arrange peach slices in a sunburst pattern. Sprinkle with chopped nuts, and bake at 350 for 45-55 minutes. Serve with pouring custard. 

Samir’s Favorite Kitchiri

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Kitchiri is a wonderful mix of rice and lentils that is a great, filling vegetarian main dish. It is kind of based on kedgeree, which is more soupy. But it’s easy, quick and definitely worth trying. It is also, as per the title, one of Samir’s favorites.

1 cup red daal, soaked for 30 minutes, rinsed and drained
1 1/2 cups chopped onions
1/2 stick butter
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp garlic puree
2 cups basmati rice, rinsed and drained
2 tsp ground coriander
2 tsp ground cumin
2 cloves
3 cardamoms
2 bay leaves
1 stick cinnamon
5 cups water (or 5 cups chicken stock if not worried about being vegetarian)
2 tsp vegetable stock
2 Tbsp tomato paste
1 1/2 tsp salt
black pepper

Saute onion and garlic in butter and oil for 5 minutes. Add rice and spice and saute for 1 minute. Add all else, stir well, cover and cook on low heat 20 minutes.

Chicken Paprikash

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Note from August of 2002 – Kumy loves this.

1 1/2 lb. boneless, skinless chicken, cut into bite-sized pieces
Seasoned flour: 1/4 cup flour, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp black pepper, 1 tsp paprika
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 red pepper cut into bite-sized pieces
1 onion, quartered and cut into thin slices
3/4 cup chicken stock (or 3/4 cup water and 1 tsp chicken base)
1 tsp garlic puree
1 1/2 tsp paprika

Toss chicken in seasoned flour. Fry in oil until golden. Remove from pan. Toss in garlic, saute 2 minute then add onions. Cook a couple of minutes, then add pepper and paprika. Cook for a minute more, and then add back chicken and stock.

Simmer over low heat for 2 hours, and serve over pasta.

Thai Sticky Rice

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We met Tao because her son Benson was a really good friend of Samir. She is a great cook and shared her Thai Sticky Rice recipe with me. Super easy and super delish!

2 cups sticky rice (it’s a sweeter rice but you could probably make it with jasmine rice, too or even regular long grain rice if you don’t have an asian market close by.)
water
1 1/2 cups coconut milk (not coconut cream)
1/2 cup plus a little more sugar
1/4 tsp salt

Soak rice in a glass dish in plenty of water for 30 minutes. Drain until there’s just a little water left. Cover and microwave on high for 4 minutes.

Remove from microwave. Stir coconut milk, sugar and salt in a bowl and blend gently into the rice. You can add a drop of food coloring to the sticky rice if you like.

Put the cover back on and microwave for 5-10 minutes until the rice is done. Fluff gently with a fork and serve.

Corn Bread

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1 1/4 cup flour
3/4 cup corn meal
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup olive oil
1 egg

Mix dry ingredients in a bowl. Mix wet ingredients in another bowl and gently blend the two. Pour batter into a glass pie pan and bake at 400 for 20-25 minutes. Serve hot with butter and a drizzle of honey.

Curried Couscous

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I have a note with this recipe – great with roast chicken.

1 onion, chopped
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp butter
1 1/2 cups couscous
2 1/2 cups hot chicken broth
1 1/2 Tbsp Curry powder
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp tabasco sauce
2 Tbsp golden raisins

Saute onions in oil and butter until translucent. Add curry powder and cook for a minute more. Take off heat and add lemon, tabasco and raisins. Mix chicken broth, couscous and salt, then cover and let sit for a few minutes. Fluff with a fork, and dump into onion mixture. Stir well and serve.

Spaetzle

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Spaetzle is a delicious soft pasta that’s made fresh and then fried in butter.  It’s a German staple.  My  mom used to make Spaetzle when I was younger, using a metal colander and wooden spoon to push the super soft dough into a pot of boiling, salted water.  I have a way cool spaetzle maker (thank you Colleen B!) that looks like a grater with a hopper on top, but the colander and spoon method works just fine, too.

2 1/8 cup flour  (500 gms for anyone who cooks that way.)
1 cup water
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp nutmeg
Butter

Mix the dough really well. It will be very sticky and soft. Start a large pot of salted water boiling, then turn down to a simmer. If you’re using a colander, dump about a cup of the dough at a time in it, and holding the colander over the simmering water, start scraping the wooden spoon back and forth across the bottom, so the dough drops out of the bottom holes. The noodles cook very quickly, so have a slotted spoon ready to take them out of the pot.

Meantime, melt some butter in a frying pan. When you pull the noodles out of the boiling water, shake as much water out as you can, and drop them into the melted butter to fry for a minute or so.

If you have an awesome spaetzle maker like mine, you just put the grater portion on top of the pot, dump in the dough in the hopper and slide it back and forth over the water.

Makes a ton of noodles and is so delicious.

Alfredo SAuce

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1 Tbsp Olive oil or butter
1 Tbsp flour
1/2 cup half n half
1/2 tsp crushed garlic
1 Tbsp fresh parsley or 1 tsp dry parsley
Parmesan cheese

Blend oil and flour in a saucepan, and heat it on medium heat until it’s starting to bubble. Add half n half and cook for a couple of minutes, stirring constantly. Add parsley and garlic and cook for another minute. Add parmesan and remove from heat. Serve over pasta.