Apple Pie 







The thought of a homemade apple pie always takes me back to Friday night dinners at my Nan's house when we were growing up.  The meal was always simple but delicious - a roast and a pie. Occasionally pavlova, but usually pie.  One of my biggest regrets is that I haven't got the recipe for her pastry - it was buttery and more like a cake consistency than this one. And so delicious.

When my husband requested Apple Pie for dessert last night I went straight to the doyenne of Australian home cooking, Margaret Fulton,  in the absence of my Nan's recipe.  But I did go and buy an old-school enamel pie dish in Nan's honour - just like the one she made countless pies in. Nothing else would be quite right.

I have added an extra teaspoon of cinnamon to this Margaret Fulton recipe from her Encyclopaedia of Food and Cookery (2005) because I love cinnamon, so you can adjust the spices to taste.

I served this with Jock's Vanilla ice-cream. If you are going to eat this meal, do it properly!

Sweet Rich Shortcrust Pastry

2 cups Plain Flour
1/4 cup caster sugar (plus extra for sprinkling before the oven)
Large pinch of salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
185g cold butter
1 egg yolk
1 Tbs iced water
Squeeze of lemon juice

Combine the butter, flour, baking powder and salt in the food processor until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.  Whisk together the egg, water and lemon juice and add to the flour-butter mixture while the motor is running. Process until the dough comes together into a ball.

Remove and make into a ball shape, cover in glad wrap and refrigerate for one hour.

Pie filling

6 granny smith apples, peeled, cored and sliced
3/4 cup of caster sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
Pinch of salt
30g butter
1 egg whisked

Preheat oven to 220 degrees Celsius.

Combine the apples, sugar, salt and spices and allow to sit for 10 minutes, mixing every few minutes.

Roll out 2/3 of the dough and place on the bottom of the pie dish.

Add the apple mixture in an even layer in the pie dish over the dough.

Roll out the remaining dough and place over the layer of apples. Cut a slit or a hole in the middle to allow the steam to escape.

Place in oven for 10 minutes. Then drop oven temperature to 160 degrees Celsius for 45 minutes.

Remove and allow to sit and cool and serve warm. With ice-cream. Or cream. Or both. Yes both.

Mr Wolf Pizza Dough

Mr Wolf Pizza Dough

It has been ages since I started this blog - but I am yet to post a recipe. Not that I haven't been thinking about it. I have. Thinking about which recipe will be first cab off the rank. I just haven't been able to make a decision...

So, a few weeks ago I came across this recipe by Karen Martini and it has been on extra high rotation since. Like constant rotation.  So it has become my premiere recipe! 

It is the semolina-flour mix plus the extra fancy addition of mineral water to this pizza dough mix that makes this one (in the words of Jamie Oliver) THE BUSINESS.

This recipe makes six medium pizzas  - in our house a medium is a one person (or two small people) pizza. I roll up the excess pizza dough into portioned balls, wrap in glad wrap and freeze.  Makes a super quick dinner any time.

Karen Martini also suggests making grissini with the left over dough - I haven't done this yet, but I will...

Oh and get yourself a pizza stone to turn your kitchen into a pizzeria. I bought ours a few years ago from Barbeques Galore (don't ask why...) and it even came with a crazy large pizza spatula. 

For a cheat's tomato sauce I whizz together 1 tin of tomatoes, whatever herbs are handy (fresh or dried) and a couple of cloves of garlic with a stick mixer. Easy.  I have even been known to blitz up some spinach into it to give to the kids (but that is just a crazy mother thing to do...)Then I freeze the excess for another time - again helps to make a quick dinner.

Ingredients

800g flour

250g semolina

20 grams salt

2 sachets dry yeast (14 gs)

600mL mineral water

50mL olive oil

Method
Whisk the yeast, mineral water and oil together and set aside.

Combine the flour, semolina and salt (preferably in a mixer with a dough hook). Add the yeast-water-oil mixture. Work together until it makes a soft dough.  

Keep working in mixer or by hand until you create a soft, smooth, springy dough.

Work the dough into a ball, place in a bowl, cover and place into a warm spot to prove for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Preheat the oven (and pizza stone if you have one) to as hot as your oven goes. Mine is 220 degrees.

Take the now very spongy dough and 'knock back'.

Make 6 balls of dough and roll out as thin as you can. I place on baking paper too to make transferring easy. (You could use flour if you are more coordinated than me...)

Add your toppings and bake until it looks ready.

Never buy pizza again...

Here goes...another food blog!

Starting a blog has been on my mind for years, but I just couldn't think what I could add to the already crowded blogosphere.  I am inspired and entertained by so many uber-talented bloggers, that although I have been jumping out of my skin to join the conversation, I have been also very, VERY intimidated.

So I have decided to stop over-intellectualising and just get to it and learn on the blog, so to speak.

So what is whattofeed all about?

My idea is that this blog will serve as an archive of all of the recipes I have used to feed myself, my family and friends. I am always planning, researching, shopping and cooking to serve this purpose so it makes sense to keep all of this intel in one handy place.

I have hundreds (possibly thousands) of recipes all over the place - maybe this blog could help me finally have one master file. Even better, a master file I can share.

Maybe it will help solve the eternal question of whattofeed?