Has the rabbit made you happy? Buy her some banana chips!
Yearly Archives: 2013
Tonka
Yesterday, I left the house very early in the morning and drove up the coast of Maine. I did not go to see the iconic harbor scenery.
Nor did I go to see the burnished red blueberry fields.
But, I did get to see that vista on the back of this boy.
His name is Tonka, and come December, he’ll be my horse. Tonka will live at a friendly, well-kept barn two miles from my house. So, there won’t be a HorseCam, but you’ll be hearing a lot about him.
For now, (especially for you horse people out there who I know want the details immediately) here is a sketch of my horse: He was born and raised in Texas (Steve also spent his childhood in Texas, so now I have two Texas men.) A kind and gentle woman bought him as a four-year old, and she has trained him and loved him for the last four years. He’ll be 8 years old in February. Tonka is 14.3 hh, and a true black and white paint. Tonka has good feet and goes barefoot. He has sturdy, large-boned, legs with short cannons. He’s compact and correct. Tonka has perfect barn manners, plays well with others in the pasture, and is an easy keeper (meaning he can maintain his weight on good hay, no grain.) He has three comfortable gaits in the ring and is steady and quiet on the trail both in company and alone. I’m sure that Tonka has his quirks and foibles that I’ll discover over time, but with his solid upbringing, I know he’s sane and trusting. I’m smitten.
I think that Tonka will like me. His owner no longer has the time for him, and he’s the sort of horse that thrives on attention. But I think that he’ll miss cantering through those blueberry fields.
The Best Apple Pie
Forget what you might know about apple pie, those gloppy fillings that taste more of sugar than fruit. Forget the pies that taste like candied apples. The best apple pies have a balance of sweet to tart, they have a sharp fruit flavor that has you thinking of orchards and rain. The crust flakes and crumbles in your mouth and the apples somehow have bite and yet are soft. That’s a perfect apple pie. Here is how you make it:
First of all, you need the right apples. Pass by the Delicious, the Braeburn and the Fuji. If the only baking apple options at your market are Romes and Cortlands, get those. Macintoshes add sweetness, but they turn to mush when baked, so use only a few. Better yet are the older varieties of apples, the Golden Russet, Northern Spy and Winesap. If you can, add a few Macouns to the mix. These apples have true apple flavor, not the one-note sweetness of the supermarket offerings.
Don’t worry if, after washing the apples, they all get jumbled up and you can’t tell them apart. Start with the right varieties and you can’t go wrong, no matter the proportions.
You will need 8 cups of peeled, cored and sliced apples. The slices should be thin and uniform so that the filling cooks evenly and all the way through. The best way to do this is to use a nifty
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You will need a 9-inch deep pie plate, and two pie crusts, one for the bottom and one for the top. Use this recipe.
You will need sugar. You can use regular white granulated sugar, but the flavor is just one note. I prefer demerara or organic sugar which tastes more complex, but without the heavier molasses flavor of brown sugar.
You will need a thickener. Some use flour, but I think that gets gummy and tastes raw. You can use modified food starch, which yields a silky and clear filling. Or, you can use instant tapioca, which is readily available at markets. Don’t use too much, or the filling will be more like candy gone wrong more than a classic pie.
The Best Apple Pie
2 pie crusts, for top and bottom
1/2 cup sugar, preferably demerara or organic
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon fine, instant tapioca or 1 tablespoon clear gel (modified food starch)
8 cups peeled, cored and sliced apples
optional: 1 tablespoon maple sugar and/or 1 tablespoon minced crystalized ginger
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Place the bottom crust in the pie plate and put in the freezer while prepping the rest of the ingredients. Filling a frozen crust keeps it from being soggy when baked.
2. In a small bowl, combine the sugar, cinnamon and tapioca. Mix evenly.
3. Stir the sugar mixture into the apples to coat.
4. Put the apples into the crust, mounding in the center. Drape the top crust over the apples.
5. Trim and flute the edges of the crust. Slice vents in the top.
6. You can put a cinnamon stick in the center if you wish. If you like a brown and glossy crust, brush with egg wash. For a soft crust, brush lightly with cream. You can dust with a bit of sugar. But, you don’t have to do any of these things and pie will still be lovely.
7. Bake for 45 minutes, or up to over an hour. Insert a sharp paring knife into a vent to test for doneness. It should slip right in without resistance. The length of baking time will depend on the freshness and moisture content of the apples.
Enjoy!!
The Best Apple Pie
Forget what you might know about apple pie, those gloppy fillings that taste more of sugar than fruit. Forget the pies that taste like candied apples. The best apple pies have a balance of sweet to tart, they have a sharp fruit flavor that has you thinking of orchards and rain. The crust flakes and crumbles in your mouth and the apples somehow have bite and yet are soft. That’s a perfect apple pie. Here is how you make it:
First of all, you need the right apples. Pass by the Delicious, the Braeburn and the Fuji. If the only baking apple options at your market are Romes and Cortlands, get those. Macintoshes add sweetness, but they turn to mush when baked, so use only a few. Better yet are the older varieties of apples, the Golden Russet, Northern Spy and Winesap. If you can, add a few Macouns to the mix. These apples have true apple flavor, not the one-note sweetness of the supermarket offerings.
Don’t worry if, after washing the apples, they all get jumbled up and you can’t tell them apart. Start with the right varieties and you can’t go wrong, no matter the proportions.
You will need 8 cups of peeled, cored and sliced apples. The slices should be thin and uniform so that the filling cooks evenly and all the way through. The best way to do this is to use a nifty gadget which peels, cores and slices with the turning of a crank. You can read all about it in this post.
You will need a 9-inch deep pie plate, and two pie crusts, one for the bottom and one for the top. Use this recipe.
You will need sugar. You can use regular white granulated sugar, but the flavor is just one note. I prefer demerara or organic sugar which tastes more complex, but without the heavier molasses flavor of brown sugar.
You will need a thickener. Some use flour, but I think that gets gummy and tastes raw. You can use modified food starch, which yields a silky and clear filling. Or, you can use instant tapioca, which is readily available at markets. Don’t use too much, or the filling will be more like candy gone wrong more than a classic pie.
The Best Apple Pie
2 pie crusts, for top and bottom
1/2 cup sugar, preferably demerara or organic
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon fine, instant tapioca or 1 tablespoon clear gel (modified food starch)
8 cups peeled, cored and sliced apples
optional: 1 tablespoon maple sugar and/or 1 tablespoon minced crystalized ginger
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Place the bottom crust in the pie plate and put in the freezer while prepping the rest of the ingredients. Filling a frozen crust keeps it from being soggy when baked.
2. In a small bowl, combine the sugar, cinnamon and tapioca. Mix evenly.
3. Stir the sugar mixture into the apples to coat.
4. Put the apples into the crust, mounding in the center. Drape the top crust over the apples.
5. Trim and flute the edges of the crust. Slice vents in the top.
6. You can put a cinnamon stick in the center if you wish. If you like a brown and glossy crust, brush with egg wash. For a soft crust, brush lightly with cream. You can dust with a bit of sugar. But, you don’t have to do any of these things and pie will still be lovely.
7. Bake for 45 minutes, or up to over an hour. Insert a sharp paring knife into a vent to test for doneness. It should slip right in without resistance. The length of baking time will depend on the freshness and moisture content of the apples.
Enjoy!!
Behind the Scenes with Angels
I thought that you would probably like to see how I got the goats to wear their costumes and look so angelic.
I’m a pretty decent animal trainer. I readied myself with a sliced banana, a food that they love but get rarely. When I train, I tell them when they’ve done what I want with a sound marker – a clicker – which enables me to communicate with precision. I slipped the clicker (that I have attached to a bracelet) onto my wrist. I brought the props and the treats into the barn. The goats are always excited to see me. They’re always optimistic that something good, or at least interesting is going to happen.
However, to be a really good animal trainer you must think through every, small step. Perhaps I hadn’t had enough coffee. Perhaps I was being a tad casual about this. I had carried the bananas out to the barn in a plastic bowl, which I set down onto a fence post while I organized the costumes. I turned my back on the goats.
Pip tipped it onto the other side of the fence. As the saying goes, Close, but no banana. Given the opportunity, he won’t make that mistake again.
The halos were surprisingly easy to get on the goats. I rewarded the boys for wearing them and they didn’t seem to mind.
However, at one point Caper was wearing both halos. I have no idea how that happened. He didn’t get double treats.
The next step was to get the wings on. Once again, the goats were enthusiastic.
Before the photo shoot, I hadn’t actually checked to see if the wings fit. As it turned out, the elastic straps didn’t stretch as far as I had thought they would (perhaps I underestimated the boys’ rotundity?) The best that I could do was to lay the wings onto their backs, which was not the look that I was going for.
Their was a brief moment when all of the stars aligned and wings and halos were on, but it didn’t last.
Besides, having their wings on required me to hover over the angels, which marred the angelic goat image that I was trying to get. (By the way, notice that one “angel” has his nose in the treat bag.)
In the end, I decided that a photograph of the goats wearing only the halos was as angelic as I could get. A better trainer (and elastics that fit the goats’ bellies) would have been able to get them fully winged. But, who cares? We all had fun.
(If you missed it, the Angelic Goats photograph is in yesterday’s post.)
