Tarte Tatin, a Fall tradition!

Hello, everybody!! Mary Jane is back with one of our traditional Fall recipes. We're gearing up for the balloon stampede here.

                                           
The Walla Walla Balloon Stampede is a forty year old tradition where balloonists come from all over the world to float the bright blue skies of Eastern Washington. This will be our fifth year crewing, which means we get up long before dawn, work fast and hard to get the balloons inflated, and then either help the school kids get a chance to get in the basket, or send them off on a beautiful ride over the wheat fields!

 We have so many wonderful memories...

 

 This was a special IMAX movie made at a vineyard. They tethered the balloons above the vineyard and spent a few hours getting sunrise and early morning video. It was kind of funny because as the drone went by, my kids had to crouch in the basket so they weren't seen.

 This was one morning last May when we'd had a cold snap. There was frost on the ground and we weren't even sure they balloons would be able to go up, but by the time the sun rose, it was warm enough for them to lift off!

 

A funny thing happened this year: the organizers said that they needed a design for their Tshirts, and they wanted it made with a specific piece of clip art. The prize was a jacket and a balloon ride for two (worth $500) My artistic sixteen year old jumped at the chance... and won! The people who chose the art had no idea it was a person who'd been crewing for the stampede for years, so when we showed up... Surprise! LOL. It's a fun twist to a family tradition...  Our usual crewing shirts will be her design. :D

 

Oh, before I forget, be sure to stop by Seerkerville on the fourth of October where I talk about the "Ten Ways Seekerville Made me a Better Writer"!

 

 

Anyway,  this is what we're up to... besides Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, WW Choral Society, sports, service projects, church classes, First Communion classes, learning to drive, getting driver's licenses, checking out colleges, taking SAT and PSATs, being an RCIA sponsor, setting up etsy stores, and youth group... ETC. (I'm forgetting something. I know I am.) But we still find time to cook!!

 

 

On to the Tarte Tatin!!

1)  France. Specifically, the city of Lyon. I didn't live there but I lived in a town like it, about forty minutes away, toward Troyes.

 

 

 

2) These apples. You can't really celebrate Fall without apples. You can eat them raw, or caramel apples or.... well, you can see all the ways from the cartoon we all remember of Johnny Appleseed, Disney version here!

 

3) Chuck Norris. I read a really funny Chuck Norris joke. (Hi, Jimmy!) You know, those ones like "the boogey man checks under his bed for Chuck Norris" and "Chuck Norris doesn't dial the wrong number, you answer the wrong phone" and "Chuck Norris has a grizzly bear rug in his bedroom; the bear isn't dead, it's just afraid to move".

Well, I read one that said, "When life gives Chuck Norris lemons, he makes an apple pie, and it's the best steak you'll ever eat."

 

I don't know why that struck me as SO FUNNY. But it did. And I started thinking about making an apple pie that wasn't a pie. We've had apple pie here twice lately and but I still have lots of apples and lots of hungry, dessert-loving kids!

 

 

 

So, that brings us to Tarte Tatin!

If you're not sure how to pronounce it, here's the phonological description:\ˌtär(t)-tä-ˈtan, -ˈtaⁿ\

Oh, that's not helpful? Well, I guess we all can't have linguistics degrees, I suppose. (OW! Julie just poked my ego with a sharp stick! Fine...)  I kept saying it to my husband until he told me, "That sounds like the end of a song." HA! Okay, true. Dun dun-DUN.

 

Anyway, moving on!

You'll need:

 

For the filling-

8 TBS butter

3/4 cups sugar

6-8 apples

 

For the crust-

1 stick plus 2 TBS butter

2 TBS sugar

2 eggs

1 1/2 cup flour

pinch of salt

2-3 TBS of cold water

 Like so. What a pretty bowl! It's had an adventurous life so far. Something about a very friendly dog...

 Two eggs from the chicken coop. And a walnut. Not sure why that was brought to me when I asked for two eggs, but kids are funny that way.

 Make a well with the flour, salt, sugar. Add in the eggs and the butter.

 Mix with your fingers. Ok, if Chuck Norris can do it, we can, too! (Don't even ask if he can rub eggs into flour without feeling squicked out. He's CHUCK NORRIS.)

 Add cold water a TBS at a time until the dough forms a ball. Wrap it in plastic and put it in the fridge to chill for 30 minutes. It seemed like it was an awful lot of dough for crust. I mean, it's actually just one crust, not even two and it's the size of a kitten. And heavy. (Hold me, Chuck! I'm scared I'm doing this all wrong!)

 Add the butter and sugar in a cast iron pan.

 Stir as the butter melts. (Or employ a child to stir so you can go check your e-mail and read more Chuck Norris jokes.) Medium high heat seems way too hot for this, but this is really the way to go. Stay the course approximately 15 minutes. We're trying to get...

 Caramel. YUMMY. Resist the urge to eat it out of the pan. For one, it's SUPER HOT. Two, we need it.

 Chop apples in half. Skin and core. Layer onto the caramel. (Like how I said that so fast? As if chopping 8 apples takes only a few seconds? That is the genius of a food blog, my friends.)

 Now, several recipes did NOT mention this, but one did, and it was from an actual FRENCH recipe site. (I'm assuming they know what they're doing.) They said add 2 TBS of lemon juice. Sounded good to me. I'm pretty sure it's not so the apples won't turn brown. Boil the apples for 15 minutes on high, turning once.

 It probably seems like a recipe for a disaster. (ha! Recipe! Get it?) Boiling sugar on high for 15 minutes without really stirring?? But, don't wimp out and turn down the heat. The apples will cook more slowly if you do, and then you'll have a huge sticky mess clumped to the bottom of your pan.

 Take the dough out of the fridge and roll out it, so that it's  a couple inches bigger than the diameter of your  pan. (It actually wasn't that much dough so I told Chuck Norris to buzz off. He was getting a little clingy, anyway. I mean, once you've seen a few of those karate moves, you've seen them all, right?) Preheat the oven to 375F.

 Turn off the heat and let it cool for ten minutes. Tuck the crust around the top of the apples but be careful not to burn your fingers. Even thought it's been cooling, these pans stay hot, hot, hot. I have to admit, at this point I was wondering if something had gone wrong. This looked like an apple pie's ugly barbaric cousin.

 Cook about 35 minutes or until the top is browned. (Now I was really sure I'd screwed it up. I was already thinking, "Hm, I wonder what else I can make with all these apples.")

Cool for approximately 20 minutes and invert. You can slip a plate on the top and flip the whole thing over, but that takes some muscle. I actually did a slow slide, turning the Dutch oven until the pie turned gently onto a plate. I had to replace a few apples but it saved my wrists. (And you KNOW how I watch those wrists! These are my writing hands! Must... save... the hands....)

 SHOCKER! It looked so pretty! I was very surprised at how beautiful it was!

 I cut a piece and admired it some more. It held its shape but wasn't tooth-breakingly hard. The apples had softened the caramel and the caramel had seeped into the apples and the crust was like a very sticky cookie, but a bit flaky, too.

 Another shot of the goodness....
I was thinking it didn't quite taste like the Tarte Tatin I remembered from France. I thought it could have used some cardamom or cinnamon or vanilla or... something. But I searched and searched and no recipe ever mentioned any other ingredients (well, unless it was some crazy SoHo New York City one that needed goat cheese and pistachios). So, it's probably just how the memory is better than the reality. Even though the reality is AWESOME.

And here is a last shot of what was left after ten minutes. Mmmm-hmmmmm.
I'll leave you with one more Chuck Norris joke:

 

Chuck's gmail account address is:

gmail@chucknorris.com

 

This took me a second. I assume you'll get it a little faster since I'm overdosed on Tarte Tatin!

 Until next time!

Easy Fried Rice and other Favorites

Hello, everybody! The Fresh Pioneer is back and I've got a super easy dish for those nights when you need to go grocery shopping but don't have time. But first... the weather has changed!
                                             
Which was tough when we got up at 4AM to help out with the hot air balloon festival. They moved it from May to October and I was NOT ready for 1) the dark and 2) the cold. Nothing like trying to find the tabs and straps in the pitch darkness!
                                              
When the sun finally rose, it didn't really warm things up. Crunchy field grass.
                                 
But my kids were troopers (I was the one whining, as usual) and here they are waving off Mr. Tick Tock. (Yeah, we know he's sort of creepy looking but the school kids just love to see him flying over their schools.)
                                     
They also had tethered rides for kids who could come before school. Here are our friend Ingrid and Rorique and Bill giving little rides to the kids. After helping inflate, the volunteers help act as "balast", pulling the balloon down and weighing down the basket so people can get off and on. Maybe the only time when a few extra pounds works in your favor!
                                           
Oh, and we celebrated Halloween early because our old friend Mindy came to visit from Montana! Here are Edward (skeleto man) and Ana (as our dear Miss Jane Austen) getting ready to run through the corn maze.
                                         
So, I've been running toward a deadline so I'm not putting as much thought into cooking as I usually do (which isn't much, hahaha). I've just been grabbing items from the pantry and throwing them together. This is what we made a few nights ago and it was delicious! I realized that although I've posted about quick shrimp stir fry, healthy low carb egg rolls, California sushi,  , I hadn't posted anything about fried rice, which we eat pretty often. Missy posted about fried rice  but hers looks way nicer so... don't follow the link!

 So, I didn't take pictures of every step, which is BAD, BAD, BAD blogging! But I'll explain what's happening in this shot. We chopped carrots and celery into teeny tiny pieces and sauteed them for about five minutes with a TBS of oil. Then we scrambled three eggs into the veggie mix.

 This is the rice I made for the stir fry and I am VERY proud to say for once, I did not make sticky rice! Hooray!

 Add four cups of rice to the veggie mix and fry on medium high with 2 TBS of oil. Turn lightly and carefully with a spatula because it's really easy to make a big pan of mush at this point. (Don't ask me how I know.)
Oh, here's one of our sweet new kittens! They are so playful and into everything, we really have to watch out for them under foot. The other night I was removing a pan of chicken from the oven and one of the kittens puts its paws right on the inside of the door! Poor kitten. All it was thinking was the delicious smells, not the 400F heat. It didn't seem to be hurt but scared me to death, so now we're extra careful when we're cooking.

She's my new editor... So hard to please. So critical! All she wants is stories about tuna and tummy rubs. *sigh*

 Add two packets of fried rice seasoning an gently combine. I told you this was easy!

 Someone has come to inspect dinner... Here we added chopped chicken.

 One more shot of the sumach in the yard. SO pretty. I want to bring it inside!

Until next time! Be sure to stop by my author pages at Mary Jane Hathaway and Virginia Carmichael, or my blog at The Things That Last! 

Green Chili Cornbread in Cast Iron Plus Quick and Easy Caramel Sauce!

Hello, everybody! So, those two dishes don't exactly go together but I couldn't decide which to use for the post because they were both SO GOOD!
                                                 
So, I'm not going to give a corn bread recipe because I think everyone has their favorite and we don't want any ugliness, lol.
                                                       
Just use the one you love, and add 4 TBS of mild green chiles to it. You can even use medium chiles. Or the spicy ones. See how easy I am?

 Clearly, I have ulterior motive for posting this recipe and it's not really the recipe.

 (Obligatory dinner shot. This is roast beef, the last of our summer tomatoes, a little salad.)
                                          

Did you catch it yet? No? Well, the post is all about my cute little cast iron pan! Cast iron is hard to find here in the PNW. What we have, we keep. And anything corn bread related is extra hard to find because most people just don't eat cornbread. Not our thing. Never has been. Biscuits, maybe. Fresh baked bread, definitely. Cornbread? Not so often.

 I'd just dropped my boys off with my sister for a fun fishing trip and decided to stop in a little thrift shop. I never go in this shop because... well... four boys under twelve around antique dishware didn't sound so fun for anybody. But I found this little piece and was so excited! I've never seen one "in the wild" and it was only $10! Total score.

 Break for balloon picture. The stampede is still going on I'm telling you, that 4AM wake up is not my thing.
                                           
But I consoled myself with home made caramel sauce! I saw it on Pinterest and was a little skeptical, but it worked. I boiled a can of sweetened condensed milk on a pot of water for three hours. Delicious! Make sure the water covers the cans at all times. After three hours, remove the cans and place in cool water for about twenty minutes. Open and enjoy!

 And a final picture of someone MUCH sweeter than caramel. My little goddaughter, Franny. She's our babysitter's baby. (I introduced you all here during the artisan savory pumpkin rolls. ) Her daddy, a cellar master, is in the middle of "punch down" at the vineyard so we didn't get to see him, but we'll catch up with him next time.  Anyway, every time I see her I want to squeeeeeze her! Those little chubby arms, that soft baby hair, that tiny voice and those sparkly red mary janes... I didn't get a picture of the mary janes. She was too busy playing with our old Fisher Price toys. I played with them, my kids played with them, and now the "next generation" is loving these great toys. And soon, Franny's new baby sister or brother will play with them!

 Until next time! Feel free to drop by my facebook page at Pride, Prejudice and Cheese Grits or my blog at The Things That Last!

When You Give A Friend Nutella ... and cover reveal.

Hello, everybody! The Fresh Pioneer is back and I've got a few yummy deserts to share. 

I was going to share my apple crisp but a friend got me this and well.... when a friend gets you a six pound bucket of Nutella, you're obligated by the laws of chocolate to use it!

Behold... friendship.

 So, the first recipe is really easy but was so delicious I might just add Nutella to all my mochas. Make your latte how you usually do... whether in Mr. Latte (my BFF) or simply by heating milk and espresso together.

 Melt one TBS of Nutella and 4 TBS of milk in the microwave for 30 seconds and stir until smooth. Pour into the bottom of your mug.
                                           
My kids decorated these mugs with oil based Sharpies and then we baked them in the oven to "set" the paint. Anyway, this mug... whenever I look at it I think of all the wonderful verses about the beginning of a new day... or it could be , "Better start praying, Mama's coffee is gone."

                                              Pour in the latte. Simple, right? But it gives it an incredibly smooth taste, almost like Mexican hot chocolate, but not as sweet.

 Top with whipped cream and slivered almonds and more Nutella sauce, if you wish.

 Another shot of the mugs. I love kid art. I always want to put it up in the cabinet so it doesn't get broken, but then they wouldn't get the fun of using their special creation.

 So, the next recipe is very easy. Nutella stuffed doughnut holes, but they're baked, not fried. (I think that's because the Nutella would leak because every recipe was baked, and I don't think that so many people care about added grease. You'd think somebody would have tried to fry them. So, even though you may want them fried, I'd recommend baking.)
1 cup flour
1 tbs sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
Mix all dry ingredients together and make a well in the bowl. Add in the wet ingredients and place in a greased cupcake tin, about 1/2 full.
2 tbs oil
1 large egg
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup milk
Bake for 350F for 15 minutes or until a knife comes out clean.

Fill with Nutella using a frosting applicator. Melt butter, toss in sugar and cinnamon. Enjoy!!

 And as for us, it's that time of the year. Not grape time, but balloon time.
                                           
                      We get up at 4AM (some of us are more perky at that hour than others),

                                            and drive out to the vineyards or the fields. The major festival is this weekend and there will be launches every morning and then a night festival, but today they were filming a move for an IMAX-type Disney ride. It was an interesting experience because as they filmed, we had to duck and run, or hide behind trees as the camera flew by (on a drone). So, instead of just the usual ground crew tasks, we also had to play hide and seek from the camera. Of course, the little people loved it.
                                        
Usually three balloons this size would take a crew of thirty, but they needed it to be small (because of the camera and not being able to hide that many people) so fifteen people doing the work of thirty was quite a work out.
                                                   
Here, after unrolling, attaching ropes and the top vent, they're opening the envelope, getting the fan running.

 When it all checks out, they attach the basket and light it up. Cue Fall Out Boys, except we try not to light anything on fire, especially ourselves.

 The first one standing up is always a special moment.

 We got good exercise running up and down the hill. The second balloon went up and was tethered.

 The third balloon needed a lot of heat to stay upright and out of the nearby trees, which means it needed more weight before they could safely rise any higher. My older boys had to be "dead weight", haha, but they also had to duck out of the way when the camera flew by. Pretty funny to watch them. They looked like groundhogs, up and down, up and down.

My favorite moment: I was holding  the lead rope (which guides the balloon upright as it's filling). You have to be very strong and run whichever direction at any moment and it might be the only time you ever wished you weighed more than you actually do. 

Anyway, I really wanted a picture of the sunrise and so I asked my ten year old to grab the rope... and he worked like a champ! Right before he slipped and got dragged down the field. Fifty thousand cubic feet of hot air will show you who's the boss. We're still laughing about it. (This is also why you wear leather gloves and all your gear.) 

And I almost forgot... a cover reveal! (I thought I'd shared it here, but I just looked and I don't see it. It must have been just facebook and my blog. But if I have and I'm not seeing it, I apologize for spamming. LOL.)

The fourth Cane River Romance is titled A Star to Steer By. Our plucky heroine spends most of her time in a big foam cupcake costume. It's one of those stories where someone has an awesome secret identity, except hers isn't so awesome. Coming Oct 31st!

Feel free to stop by my facebook page Pride, Prejudice, Cheese Grits or my blog The Things That Last! 

Until next time!