Apple & Sausage Pie

Here is another recipe inspired by the need to use up some apples! It took me a while to find something I liked. I finally settled on a recipe from Peaches Please because I figured it'd be easy enough to work with. If you follow the link and compare it to my recipe, you will notice several differences. One of the more obvious being that I made one pie in a normal sized springform pan vs. four mini ones. I did this (1) because the mini pans come in sets of three…at least at Target… and (2) I really don't like rolling out pie dough that much. However, if you've got the supplies and time, the four mini pies are so much cuter. 

This pie smells divine. And it tastes amazing. Definitely a winner. It's perfect for fall or winter. Mine is obviously not that pretty. I was kind of pressed for time so I didn't even actually weave the lattice top or make the edges pretty. Luckily, its looks have nothing to do with the taste. Have I mentioned? The taste is fantastic.  

Apple & Sausage Pie

For the crust:

1 1/2 cups AP flour

1 1/2 cups WW flour

1 tsp Salt

3/4 cup Butter, very cold & cut into small pieces

1/4 cup Plain Greek yogurt

10-ish TBSP Ice water

• Whisk together the flour & salt. Cut in the butter using a pastry blender or fork until you get an almost sandy texture. Stir in the yogurt and 3 TBSP water. Slowly add the rest of the water until the dough comes together. You may use more or less than 10 TBSP. Make sure it doesn't get too wet. Cover and put the dough in the fridge to rest for at least 30 minutes. 

For the filling:

1 1/4 lb Italian sausage (I like spicy chicken) 

3 Apples, peeled, cored & roughly chopped

1/2 cup Yellow onion, chopped

1/2 cup Celery, sliced

1 heaping tsp Sage

1 oz Apple cider vinegar 

1/4 cup Hard apple cider

Salt & pepper to taste

•  Remove the sausage from their casings and cook in a nonstick skillet on the stovetop until cooked through & browning. Remove the sausage from the pan and place in a large bowl. Make sure to leave some of the grease for sautéing the onions & celery.
• Saute the onions & celery in the sausage fat until they soften. Add the chopped apples, sage, ACV, and your salt & pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the apples have softened. You may want to cover your pan for a couple minutes.
• Add the apple mixture in with the sausage & stir. Be sure to leave the juices in the pan. Deglaze the pan with your hard apple cider (I used "The Saint" variety from Crispin). Reduce the pan juices & cider until thickened & pour them in the bowl with the apples & sausage. 
• Preheat the oven to 350*F. Prepare your springform pan(s).
• Separate the dough appropriately & roll it out to fit your pan(s). Trim the excess off the edges…you will need it!
• Fill your pan(s) with the sausage & apple mixture.
• Roll out the remaining dough & cut into strips to cover the pie. You can do a real lattice top & weave or do a faux one like me. You can just squish the edges together or make them look pretty, whatever you like/have time for.
• Bake for about 40 minutes, ideally until the pastry has slightly browned. If it doesn't seem to be getting brown enough, you can crank up the oven to 400*F for a few minutes. If it's getting too brown too quick, cover the edges with foil.
• Remove from the oven & let cool in the pan for about 10 minutes. Then, you can release the springform. Continue to cool until your mouth & hands won't get burned. 

Enjoy!

Birthday Week Adventures

It's been a great birthday week! I've had a few nights off to recover from the crazy amount of hours I put in last week. Yea for sleep! I FINALLY went to see "Frozen." It's pretty fantastic. Very musical. Good storyline. Hilarious. Literally laughing out loud, hilarious. I was like, "I'm 23, I should not be this captivated by an animated film." It's that good. If you haven't seen it, you definitely should. This will obviously be added to my movie collection.

On Monday, I ran around Mitch Park a couple times. I think that's like 5.6 miles. It was nice and sunny, and I finished up right before the wind got really bad. It was a great way to enjoy a pretty day! And because it's fun for me, I also got in some X2-Core before cleaning up & heading out to dinner. 

I polled my Facebook friends for a good place to go for birthday dinner. I always try to pick somewhere I haven't been. All the suggestions were great! In the end, I went with Inca Trail (partly because I couldn't talk the family into going downtown and partly because it was the most different...I've NEVER had Peruvian food before). It was delicious! It looks a little sketchy, and it seems like one guy does everything. But the food is good. I make it a point to get the sampler app platter (above) when I go someplace new, especially if it's a new kind of cuisine. I'm a huge fan of the calamari. I ordered the ceviche mixto (below), which was recommended to me by a work friend. Excellent. I was kind of nervous about the raw, chopped fish thing...which is weird since I like sushi...but anyways it was fantastic. Served up with yucca, corn, onions and a clam. Yum!

That was followed up with the perfect birthday cake. I went back to the basics with this one. White cake, buttercream frosting, and sprinkles. You can see my full post with links to the recipes by clicking here. This is the first time the smoke alarm has gone off when I blew out my candles...

Yesterday, I got a massage and partied at Zumba. I've also managed to catch up on all the errands I've been needing to run this month...like getting a new driver's license. And I've finally finished up the P90X-3 workouts, so at some point I will have a post up on those. I've already repeated some, but I was holding out on a couple because they're mostly chest and back, which isn't really my favorite thing. It's been a nice and relaxing time! And I'm so thankful for all the birthday wishes I've received! 

The Best White Birthday Cake…SERIOUSLY!

It has been a great birthday week! I will have to share the details with you later. The birthday cake is the priority here. And while some people may take issue with baking their own cake, I'm not one of them. I love making cake...I'm also a fan of eating it. I guess I have a tendency to choose more extravagant cakes to make. You know, the kinds with filling, frosting, and ganache. More than one flavor. That kind of thing. But I also think there's something quite lovely about a simple white cake with buttercream frosting. And I wanted a really classic birthday cake-cake. I found the perfect recipe from Add a Pinch.

I cannot tell you how good this cake is. It's seriously amazing. I wish there was enough to share with you! It has a great texture. Perfectly moist. Excellent white cake flavor. The buttercream frosting compliments it beautifully. Although, white-cake-purists be warned: this recipe uses whole eggs (not just whites) and regular vanilla (not clear). Still, it's the best white cake EVER. Seriously. 

I jazzed it up a little by adding sprinkles! I mean, nothing says 'birthday cake' more than sprinkles, right? There's probably a better way of doing it, but I made my own stencil of sorts to get the numbers on the cake and leave space for the candles on the edge. It makes for a pretty fun cake. But sprinkles are to baking as glitter is to crafting, and I'm pretty sure I will be finding sprinkles in the kitchen for the rest of my life.

• To get the recipe for the cake, click here.
• To get the recipe for the frosting, click here. (I made 1 1/2 times the recipe and had just enough)

Grilled Apple, Bacon & Cheddar Sandwich

Here is another attempt to use up some of the mass amount of apples I have. It only got rid of one, but these sandwiches are SO GOOD. Grown-up grilled cheese perfection. With a side of Sprouts Organic Baby Kale mix to make it healthy…kind of. 

There's really not a science to putting these together. And you just use as much bread, cheese, bacon, & apple slices as you want for however many sandwiches you're making. But here's what I used for two:

• 1 small gala apple, cored & thinly sliced
• 4 slices hickory smoked bacon (like real bacon)
• Sprouts white sandwich bread (I usually get their wheat, but they were out last time I needed bread. I really like Sprouts bread. It tastes way less processed. No artificial flavors, colors, or preservatives.)
• Velata cheddar cheese
• Butter (If you're one of those people that use mayo when making a grilled cheese, consider yourself judged. Butter is better.)

Now, there are plenty of ways you can go about putting everything together. This would be my recommendation:

• Cook your bacon in a fry pan as directed on the package. Use a paper towel to soak up the majority of the grease (or pour it in a jar). But make sure to leave a bit of grease in the pan--it will add a lot of flavor to you sandwich.
• I spread butter on the "outside" part of the bread slices.
• I slathered Velata on the "inside" part of the bread slices, so that there would be a layer of cheese, then bacon, then apple, then another layer of cheese. 
• Grill it up until it's warmed through & your cheese is melty. 

Things at work have been crazy lately. Respiratory season has definitely hit, and so my floor is having to take the overflow of sick kids in addition to our surgical kids. I'm totally good with like blood & gore, CSF, chest tubes, and JP drains…but I. hate. mucus. so. much. It was also challenging working Monday night, and then staying over on Tuesday until noon for education stuff. I was awake for almost 24 hours. Took a 3 hour nap & went to Zumba. And then crashed for another 10 1/2. I will (probably) go back tomorrow night & then I've got Friday & Saturday before a 4-day break. Happy Birthday to me. I'm so looking forward to Mexico in March… Hope everyone else's week is wonderful!

{Slow Cooker} Italian Chicken with Potatoes & Carrots

I made real food! I came across this recipe from Crock-a-doodle-do on Pinterest. I was pretty excited about it because I had everything on hand. I mean, it probably would've been better with red potatoes. But it was still pretty tasty. The chicken was perfectly juicy and tender. It's a great one-pot meal. The only bad thing is that it has already disappeared. So much for having leftovers. 

Italian Chicken with Potatoes & Carrots

4 chicken breasts (mine had been frozen)

1/2 cup shredded Parmesan

6 small potatoes, scrubbed & cut into wedges or cubes

1/2-1 pound baby carrots (I used almost a full bag)

16 oz Italian dressing 

Italian seasoning to taste

• Pour a little bit of the dressing into the bottom of your slow cooker. 
• Place 2 chicken breasts in the slow cooker. Top with a little dressing, 1/2 of the cheese & sprinkle with Italian seasoning.
• Place the other 2 chicken breasts on top of those, topping them off with the rest of the cheese.
• Pour in the carrots. Add a little more dressing & seasoning.
• Add the potatoes. Pour the remainder of the dressing over the top. Add seasoning to taste.
• Cook on low for 8 hours (adjust the time if your chicken is not frozen). 

Enjoy! 

Apple Cinnamon Muffins

I'm SO excited that I'm feeling better after getting kicked by the flu. It was bad. Like, I had to force myself to drink coffee so I wouldn't also have a caffeine headache. And I didn't workout for three days and did not care. Bad. But, I was finally able to drag myself into the chiropractor, which made a huge difference. Shout out to Family Tree Chiropractic. And I started taking apple cider vinegar, which strangely seems to be helping. 

My work week began on Wednesday night, so I stayed up Tuesday night. I got in a couple X3 workouts, did a little laundry and cleaning, and whipped up these muffins. Somehow we ended up with a million apples. And I'm VERY picky when it comes to eating apples raw. They have to have the perfect texture and crunch. Of course, the apples we have are ones I don't like. So I made muffins. And you can probably expect several other apple-related recipes in the near future.

While they're not super pretty, these apple cinnamon muffins are super yummy! Also pretty healthy. I snagged the recipe from Butter Baking via Pinterest. It calls for plain yogurt, but oddly enough I only had Stonyfield Fat Free French Vanilla. It worked well! I would, of course, recommend plain Greek yogurt. Keep in mind that the texture & the way the muffins bake may vary by which yogurt you choose. You could also add about 1/4 cup of raisins, if you're into that. 

Apple Cinnamon Muffins

1 cup rolled oats

1 cup pain yogurt

1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened

2 1/2 TBSP brown sugar

1 egg

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup all purpose flour

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

pinch of salt

1 large apple, peeled, cored, and diced

1/4 cup raisins (optional)

• Preheat the oven to 350*F and prepare a 12-cup muffin tin with non-stick spray or use the little muffin/cupcake liners…I also recommend spraying those too so they don't stick. 
• In a medium bowl, stir together the oats and yogurt; set aside.
• In a large bowl, cream the butter & sugar. Beat in the egg. Stir in the applesauce. Add the oat & yogurt mixture; stir to combine. Stir in the flours, cinnamon, powder, soda, and salt until just incorporated. Do not over mix! Mix the apples and raisins through gently. 
• Divide the batter evenly between the muffin cups.
• Bake for about 20 minutes or until done.

Enjoy!

Christmas Cookies

Well, this post is long overdue! Christmas has come and gone. Although, it didn't really feel like it happened. Every year, since I can remember, I've gone to Minnesota with the family to be with all the extended family for Christmas. This year, I was left behind to work. But I had some pretty sweet patients, and the family had left me some pretty fun gifts…so I guess it wasn't too bad! With Christmas comes lots of baking, and I wasn't about to forego that tradition. Three different cookies. Plus Oreo balls. It was quite the production:

I remade two recipes from last year: Eggnog Cookies and (my personal favorite) White Chocolate Peppermint Cookies. I figured the perfect holiday trio would include adding something on the gingerbread side. I'm not a huge fan of like actual gingerbread men or houses. But I do enjoy a nice, soft, ginger cookie. I came across a pretty good recipe on My Baking Addiction. I'm assuming everyone else thought they (well, really all of the cookies) turned out pretty tasty. Baking three different recipes results in obscene quantities of cookies. But between family, work, and the brother's friends, they have disappeared. Also, the dogs thought they were really good too…it's a good thing they're cute. If you want the recipes, just follow the links above!



And I don't think that a box of Christmas goodies would be complete without Oreo balls. And if that's too much chocolate for you (well, first of all, WHO ARE YOU?!), you can use Nutter Butters or any other sandwich creme cookie. My only issue is that the packages of Oreos have gotten substantially smaller, which has affected the Oreo-to-cream cheese ratio. So, if anyone knows exactly how many cookies that packages have shrunk by, please tell me. 

I hope everyone's new year is of to a smashing good start! I had a lovely time with some friends on NYE, but have since been slammed with the flu (and, yes, I got my flu shot). Hopefully this means I will be done being sick for the year once I'm over this. And, once I'm not sick, I can finish trying out all the new P90X-3 workouts so I can tell you about them!