If you think of apple pie as having two crusts and a filling of apples combined with sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg, some of the regional variations may surprise you. Apple cobbler, apple pandowdy, apple puff, apple crisp, apple brown betty are all variations of apple pie in different regions. The prevailing apple recipes for any region may be affected by the variety of apple that’s hardiest and most popular in that area, as well as the style of cuisine that’s prevalent.

In New England, for instance, most apple recipes call for Pippins, Granny Smith’s or other firm fleshed, sweet varieties of apple that cook up well and lose little moisture when being baked. In Maine, it’s not uncommon to find blueberries in your apple pie. In Massachusetts, cranberry apple pie is a favorite. In Vermont, the apples may be sweetened with honey or maple syrup. And in many restaurants on Cape Cod, rather than vanilla ice cream, your piping hot slice of heaven will be served topped with a slice of melting cheese.

In the Southern states, with their predilection for creamy, lightly spiced foods, the most common apple pie recipes include Apple Cream Pie (made with sour cream) and Apple Bourbon Pie, with raisins soaked in bourbon. Raisins soaked in rum are another popular addition to ‘apple pie’ in the South, especially in New Orleans. Other additions include rhubarb, diced peaches and walnuts.

Midwestern Apple Pie is the classic apple pie – two flaky crusts packed with thick, sweet, juicy apple slices mounded high and vented to let the fragrant steam escape. In Kansas or Missouri, your apple pie will satisfy any purist – served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream that melts into the syrupy filling and adds the perfect touch of creaminess to the mix.

In the South and Southwest you’ll find deep-fried apple pie, a variation that matches melt-in-your-mouth flaky fried crust with sweet, diced apples in a syrupy sauce. And in Pennsylvania, the home of the Pennsylvania Dutch, Apple Crumb Pie and Apple Pandowdy take the place of Apple Pie a la Mode on most restaurant menus.

As American as Apple Pie … from coast to coast, Americans have done what they do best – taken a classic and adapted it to suit the ingredients and tastes that surround them. Whether you top it with a sprinkle of cinnamon, a dollop of whipped cream or a slice of sharp cheddar, there’s no other food that comes close to being the All-American dessert.

About the author:
This article provided courtesy of http://www.health-food-shopper.com

I knew they were the world’s best pickles the moment I tasted one. That first taste took place around 1950, and I’ve tasted a lot of pickles since, am a pickle hound in fact, but I’ve never come across anything else as good.

They came to us by way of my Uncle Ronald Smith, who was an electrician in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana where I grew up. One day he was doing electrical work for a Bulgarian family, and they rewarded him with a sample pickle. He liked it so much he got the recipe and gave it to his wife Gladys, who gave it to Grandma Glidewell, who made it and gave some to me, and I thought I’d died and gone to pickle heaven.

And thus, although they became an old Glidewell family recipe, they are really an old Bulgarian family recipe. The Bulgarian family, whose name I do not know, told Uncle Ronald that in Bulgaria, when the first heavy frost kills the tomato vines, they put all their end-of-garden vegetables –- including those green tomatoes — into a barrel, fill the barrel with pickling brine, and eat the best pickles in the world all winter.

It turns out, though, that the pickles’ travel from Bulgaria to the U.S. was only one leg of a more ancient journey. Because I mentioned them to an Iranian woman, and she said, “My family has always made pickles like that! Exactly like that, except we add tarragon.”

Iran being the new name for the ancient kingdom of Persia, who knows how many centuries these pickles go back?

There’s more: I later lost the recipe’s brine proportions. Gave some thought to its travels between Persia and Bulgaria, looked in an Armenian-American cookbook (Treasured Armenian Recipes, published in 1949 by the Armenian General Benevolent Union) and there they were, under “Mixed Pickles No. 2.” Turns out the world’s best Armenian pickles are just like the world’s best Bulgarian and Persian and American pickles, except they include dill, and sometimes green beans and coriander seed.

So this is an old, old recipe belonging to the whole human family.

END-OF-GARDEN PICKLES

Vegetables:

Green tomatoes*, cut in half or quartered if large
Carrots, peeled and cut into strips
Cauliflower, separated into small florets
Baby onions, peeled, or larger onions halved or quartered
Green peppers, cut into broad lengthwise slices
Garlic, two peeled cloves per quart jar
Medium-hot peppers, two small whole peppers per quart

You can also add unpeeled and unwaxed small cucumbers, zucchini, or lightly cooked green beans, though we never did. The hot peppers add adventure and zest, but if you prefer to save your tears for really sad occasions, why not?

Amounts and proportions depend on what vegetables you have and how many quarts you plan to make. You don’t have to have the green tomatoes, and the other things can be bought in a grocery store. But you do need a variety of vegetables, and you have to have the onions and garlic, or you won’t have the world’s best pickles. You will have the world’s so-so pickles, and that would be a shame.

Armenian-Persian-Bulgarian Brine

To one quart of water add 1/4 cup pickling salt (salt that isn’t iodized), and one cup of white distilled vinegar. Bring the mixture to a boil. This is enough brine to cover two quarts of mixed pickles, with a little left over.

Processing

Follow the canning instructions in a good, standard cookbook. Or, if you plan to eat them right away, pack the vegetables into clean quart jars, pour over them the hot brine, and keep the pickles covered in the refrigerator. Some of the more impressionable vegetables, like zucchini, will be ready to eat in only two or three days.

About the author:
Go STEAMIN’ DOWN THE TRACKS WITH VIOLA HOCKENBERRY, a storytelling cookbook — and find Montana country cooking, nostalgic stories, and gift ideas — at Janette Blackwell’s Food and Fiction, http://foodandfiction.com/Entrance.htmlOr visit her Delightful Food Directory, http://delightfulfood.com/main.html

Flour is in truth, fine powder milled from different seeds including wheat.  When adding a few grain types and milled together, it makes tasty whole wheat flour.  All wheats are not created equal, though.  Some flour have high gluten which is contributed by the presence of the wheat germ.  Gluten could make a cake tough. Therefore, for dessert purposes, usually pastry flour is best.  But All-purposed flour can be used both to make bread and cake and easily available so just choose the best option for you.

Back to making the dough.  One of the secrets to make a pastry flakey is to separate the flour and butter.  Use cold butter and grate to tiny pieces.   4 or 5 tablespoon of water added is enough to mix them together.  After balling up the dough, keep refrigerated until required.  When doing so, ensure you spread some flour on the board before rolling the dough flat.

A tip that I took from Jamie Oliver in Jamie At Home is that, when rolling out the dough, you may want to use a baking paper sheet large enough to cover the flattened/rolled out dough and roll on top of the baking paper instead of directly on top of the dough.  This is so if you accidently make a tear/break off a piece of the dough while rolling/lifting it, rolling on top of the baking paper would mend it easily and would leave no traces of having been broken off or having suffered from tearing.

Fancy This:

This was what I heard from Chef Manu Feildel of the TV show Ready, Steady Cook in Australia.  I have no idea if he was pulling our legs.  He told Pete Everett the show host, that the tarte tatin was named for the sisters Tatin who were baking an apple tart for the King of France.  While lifting the tart from the oven or something like that, one of the sisters accidentally dropped the tart on the floor.  Not having enough time to do another, the Tatin sisters lifted the fallen tart off the floor, and serve them upside down.  Hence the name that goes with the style of presentation.

Try Ending the splendid dinner affair with a simple upside down apple tart or Tart Tatin as the French calls it.

All you need is a cup of sugar heated on the pan and place sliced apple the way you want the tart to be seen.  But you also need the base of the pastry and you could make it simply from scratch or have a ready-made pastry dough, it’s up to your convenience.

Once the sugar caramelizes in the pan and the apples turn golden, just place the pastry on top, tuck the edges neatly to the inside of the pan and bake at 350 deg F or 180 deg C for about 20-30 minutes.  When serving, just pull out the pan and carefully place on top of the pan, a plate with a size larger than the pan’s diameter, and turn over.

What I have seen on the Cooking It TV show hosted by chef Jun Tanaka, is that the tarte tatin is done in individual ramekin-sized copper pots.  He taught the culinary-challenged student on his show how to dress the tart up by placing a clove and a whole star anise on the very bottom of each mini pot before covering it up with a half (cored) apple and the sugar, so that when the tart is turned over, the spices would be beautifully displayed on top, as well as  lending a nice flavor combo of spices to the dessert.

To read more on the pastry side of the recipe, look out for the next installation of Tarte Tatin.

The simplest of salad dressing require only 4 items:

A type of acid – vinegar/vinegrette, tangy fruit juice like lime, lemon

A type of fat – EVOO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil)

Seasoning – usually pepper and salt

Once you watch too much “The Naked Chef” the 4 things will be repeated, over and over.  At least for salad dressings, that is.

To add spice to your dressing, do use herbs like fresh sage and basil, rosemary and thyme , depending on what type of salad you have.  And for Asian dressings, an extra element of sweetness is desired.

Now, you can substitute the 4 things thus way:

The Acids – use of tomato juice/ketchup and even orange juice

The Fats – how about sesame oil, truffle oil, even chilli-infused oil or cream.

The Seasoning – for salts, try fish sauce, soy sauce (balance it out if you have dried/salted bacon, cheese etc.) for pepper, choose fresh, chopped chillies, or paprika and again, check for spicy elements in your salad

Here are some ideas of dressings:

Simple Asian Salad dressing:

a) Shallots or onions, peanut, chillies – all of them fried.  It is best pounded together instead of being blended. Add salt, palm sugar and tamarind juice.

b) Chopped green onions and chillies, vinegar, a few drops of sesame oil, soy sauce and palm sugar.

c) Dried/salty anchovies, onions – sauteed quickly. Add coconut cream, salt and white pepper, stir on low heat. Don’t let it boil, or the cream will split.

Simple western dressing:

a) Lemon juice, EVOO, salt and pepper

b) Mayonnaise: egg yolk, EVOO, salt and pepper, lemon juice, sugar or honey – blend everything together, minus the EVOO. While blending, pour in trickling amount of EVOO until properly the dressing is properly creamed.

Recently, I read an article in the health and fitness niche on the importance of having a good easy-to-digest carb food immediately after a workout session, in order to build muscles. And bananas fit the bill and was specifically mentioned.

Apparently, if you do not eat a fast-digesting carb like bananas, your muscle tissues will break down to fulfill the energy required by your body, post a good workout.

I remembered thinking to myself – what a good way to start the day with a workout session followed by a banana milkshake. Well, we do need plenty of liquid after a tiring workout, right?

After reviewing all the milkshake recipes I had, I settled on a strawberry banana one as strawberries are in season right now. Furthermore, the combination of both strawberries and banana seemed to give the taste bud a packing punch.

Here is my recipe:

Strawberry Banana Milkshake

2 bananas
1 box frozen strawberries, partially thawed
2 cups milk
2 pints Strawberry yogurt (for the creamier version, use strawberry ice cream instead)

Directions

Combine sliced bananas, strawberries, milk and 1 pint of the yogurt in blender. You may need to use a large blender, as the whizzing action may splash some out if the container is too small. If not, blend in batches.
Blend until smooth. Top with scoop of remaining yogurt.

To your toned muscles!