[127] Damsel’s Heirloom Sour Cream Apple Pie

I’m just saying, blame Toni.

So, how did the PIE turn out? And how did I make it?

It turned out delicious! I won’t deny, I was pretty dubious about an apple pie with sour cream in it, but when I poked Toni for advice on apple pies, she mentioned her go-to recipe has cream in it and that baked in dairy often gives an “a la mode” flavor without the melty ice cream.

Well. I wouldn’t NORMALLY be in favor of skipping ice cream, but I knew the judges weren’t going to go for me demanding they not try my pie without ice cream. So why not?

I made the pie by doubling and tweaking the crust for Alton Brown’s pecan pie, and then using it for this particular sour cream pie in The Pie Town Cookbook straight.… Continue reading →

[125] Greek Lemon Soup – Meatless Monday

Cover of The Joy of Cooking (1997 reprint of 1975 edition)

Have I mentioned I’m resolved to try to participate in “Meatless Mondays”? I’m doing it mostly for personal health reasons (I’d also like to lose some weight and such), but also environmental reasons. Finally, it’s a surprisingly large challenge for me. I count anything with a face as “meat” and I aim to be completely meatless one day a week. So this means no fish, no fowl, no mammals in the most obvious form – meat – but also in less obvious forms, such as broth and stock.

I’m not always good at this. It’s been touch and go since I started the challenge. I haven’t managed it every week, but I think I’ve managed more weeks than I haven’t. Of course, since I hadn’t been tracking this in any way until a couple of weeks ago, I can’t actually say.… Continue reading →