Pie vs Crisp

A nice day with Edie, took her to Occupy Wall Street and the Imaginarium playground in the morning and a 2 yr old friend's b-day in the afternoon, with pie making bracketing Edie-time.


TODAY'S COOKING
Apple Pie: Wanted to make pancakes this morning, but not enough ingredients. Made pie dough instead using this recipe (I was too lazy to dig up a proper pate sucree recipe in my c-school journals), with shortening I had in the freezer. Freezing it made it easy to cut the fat into the dry ingredients in a quick moment in the food-processor, without it becoming paste - the key to a light and flaky crust, little pockets of fat that melt into the flour and leave pockets. I could cut by hand, but that would take minutes instead of seconds, he he. The dumb recipe says hold in the fridge 10 minutes, but I know that's wrong -- you'll have a sticky mess with warm dough like this, so I did it in the morning and held until the evening.

Betsy wanted me to make crisps to give to a few friends, but I wanted to go full-throttle on pies for two reasons: 1) any buffoon can make a half-decent crisp with minimal work and 2) I need to refresh myself on pie-filling, because all cheese & fruit knishes can be regarded as one part unique simplified cheesecake, 1 part pie filling. For the apple knish I pan-fried some apple slices in butter and seasoned with salt, brown-sugar and cinnamon, but it didn't have the thickened sweet liquid that really makes a pie so unctuous.

Granola: I've pretty much got this recipe down to a science. This recipe, with these adjustments: 4 cups oatmeal instead of three, 1 cup of raw cashews instead of 1.5 cups pistachios, 1 cup slivered almonds added, 1/3 cup maple syrup and 1/3 cup brown sugar as the total sweetener, 1 tablespoon vanilla extract added. Replace fruit with 1/2 cup dried cherries, chopped. Damn good.

AM SNACK: 7:45am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST: 8:15am, organic cornflakes, dead milk, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5


LUNCH: 12:30pm, 2 small hamburger, a handful of fries, diet coke, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACKS: 3-5pm, a few bites of chicken quesidilla, diet Dr. Pepper, a handful of chips, half a cupcake, 3/4 of a slice of cake, a few stuffed grape leaves, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5


DINNER: 6:15pm, wholewheat boboli pizza, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
My dad was a fan of this product, and I saw a whole wheat version, so I gave it a whirl. Topped with my own spaghetti sauce, cut up some of Edie's string cheese, dried oregano and basil, shaved some romano on to it. Crust still tasty kinda meh.


EVENING SNACK: 9pm, small bowl of ramen noodles, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5