Up to the challenge

While I do try to live a "paleo" lifestyle I have been a bit more relaxed about it all for the last few months.  My sister and I have attempted not one, but two Whole30's that really were more like Whole5's...not exactly a giant success.   So when word came down that our gym would be doing a 6-week nutritional challenge I begrudgingly signed up.  Begrudgingly because it spans the height of lake/boat/pool/beach season and July 4, who wants to be the girl not enjoying a cocktail during those events?  Not I.  Despite all of that serious enthusiasm (insert sarcastic look here) I signed up anyway to give me the shove over the cliff back into a lifestyle that I know makes me feel good and perform well.    I did take a little bit of advantage of the impending challenge start date to enjoy some things I wouldn't be able to during that time, some vino, a grilled cheese and popcorn at the movies last night.  The grilled cheese might've been the worst idea in that list.  Heading into the week I planned a list of meals that will make life a little easier for me, they are all good for me and even better, I actually will want to eat the leftovers.

First on the list, left over Wild Boar Ragu (yes this was the vino on my pre-challenge list), originally I had it over zucchini "fettuccine" and tomorrow night it'll be over some spaghetti squash.

Wild Boar Ragu:
1 Lb Ground Wild Boar
8 pieces thick cut bacon, diced
1 8 oz Package Baby Bella Mushrooms, sliced
1 Medium Onion, Diced
1 Cup Diced Carrot
1 Cup Diced Celery
28oz Crushed Tomatoes
4 Cloves Garlic
1/4 Cup Dutch Processed Unsweet Cocoa
4 Bay Leaves
2 Springs Rosemary
1 Tsp Anchovy Paste (you won't even know it's in there)
1/2 cup chicken stock or red wine (*if you use chicken stock add 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar as well)

1. Mix ground boar and diced bacon, put in the bottom of a crockpot.  Cover the bottom completely with the meat mixture.
2. Sprinkle onion, carrot, celery over the meat mixture.
3. I used fresh tomatoes vs. canned since it's in season but either works well. Add tomato, garlic, cocoa, anchovy paste, salt and pepper and puree in a blender until it's relatively sauce-like. I prefer a little less smooth sauce but you can puree to your hearts content. Pour tomato/garlic mixture over the veggies.
4. Add  sliced mushrooms over sauce, then pour wine or stock + vinegar over the mushrooms and put the lid on it.
5.  Cook this on high for 1.5-2 hours or on low for 4-6 hours.

In addition to this I've got a handful of other easy but yummy recipes planned, a fajita recipe from the PaleOMG cookbook, Cinnamon Beef Stew from Well Fed a green bean salad with shrimp and grilled chicken with fresh tomato, bacon, leek sauce.  Hopefully between those and the breakfast "casserole" (a word I hate) I'll have plenty of options to keep me from wandering from the path this week.

Thanks Adrenaline

It's the eve of the second attempt this spring at a "competition" for me...this one is much more for fun than the last one but being the type-A girl that I am the words sticking in the back of my head are "competition" and "crossfit" not "fun." Last time around I was so excited I couldn't help but be a little nervous.   In my past life nerves was a good thing for me, it usually fueled the competitor within and pushed me, what I learned at the last competition I entered is that those nerves fueled adrenaline and the adrenaline ran out quick...like real quick.  The last competition I did had three separate workouts, during the first one I very clearly remember hearing my boyfriend and my coach each screaming "slow down" over and over as I (apparently) flew through my first 21 deadlifts and burpees, somewhere around the next 15 deadlifts I felt like I'd lost the willpower to even pick my feet up, much less continue rolling through the remainder of that one workout (or two more!).   Let's just say Event 1 wasn't that great for me, not because I wasn't capable or ready for it but because I burned out faster than I even knew possible, thanks adrenaline.

This time I decided that I need to approach the whole thing differently, partly because I don't want to burn out quick this time around (I only get one workout to prove myself tomorrow) and partly because it's a partner workout and my partner is a grade-A badass who I would hate to disappoint.  So instead of spending most of my day today thinking about competition, considering what I need to do in the morning to be ready or even going to bed ridiculously early I decided I will treat tomorrow as a normal workout...none of this crazy build up to something that my nerves get in the way of, nothing to stress about, just another Saturday morning workout with friends.  No idea whether this will pay off or if I'll be knocked to smithereens by some burpees and wall balls tomorrow but I figure it can't be worse than burning out in the first five minutes either.     I don't know what I made for dinner before the last competition but it certainly wasn't this, so that's good too right?

Paleo Thai Shrimp Salad

1/4 cup thinly sliced red onion
1/4 cup shredded carrot
1/4 cup thinly sliced celery
1 large bell pepper, thinly sliced
1 seedless English cucumber (or 2 regular large cucumbers), sliced with a spiral veggie slicer or a julienne slicer
1-2 cups cooked shrimp
3 tbsp fish sauce
3 tbsp fresh squeezed lime juice
1 tbsp fresh squeezed orange juice
1-2 tbsp Asian chili garlic sauce or dried chili flakes
1 big clove garlic
A handful of cilantro leaves
Sliced lime, extra cilantro and crushed cashews for garnish
1 small Thai chili and lettuce – optional

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the fish sauce, orange juice, lime juice, garlic, chili garlic sauce and chopped cilantro leaves, set it aside to blend flavors. The dressing should be the balance combination of salty, sweet, tart, and spicy, however, you can adjust it to your own preferred taste
2. In a large bowl, add cucumber, chopped celery, red onion, shredded carrot, and cooked shrimp - Pour the dressing over and mix well. Let stand to mingle the flavors for about 3 minutes before serving on chopped lettuce/cup with a sprinkle of toasted cashews and/or more Thai chili if you like it hot.

Two years and counting...

Five years ago I started writing about what I was cooking, regularly I searched out new and interesting things to cook and increasingly difficult methods of cooking.  I subscribed to many cooking magazines, blogs and read cookbooks for fun.   Two years ago my sister talked me into coming to Milestone Crossfit with her...somewhere among the wallballs, pushups, squats, burpees, pullups and olympic lifting my life shifted gears. I still love to cook, I still look for interesting and innovative ways to prepare the stuff I eat but my respite from the daily grind of the office is no longer cooking, its working hard to push myself beyond my comfort zone every night at Milestone.

June marks two years for me, in that time I have found myself cutting out grain (not 100% of the time, but a lot of the time), switching from cooking from the likes of Gourmet and Bon Appetit to PaleOMG, Health-Bent, NomNomPaleo, and Well Fed, drinking club soda at work happy hours, re-arranging my schedule to fit in workouts and spending more money on workout shoes than I do on heels.  What do I have to show for all this?  I can push 165#'s over my head, deadlift 325#s, do pull-ups, run a faster mile than I could as a kid, I don't have pain or aches where old injuries used to exist (other than the soreness that let's me know I did good work the day before) and I've made some amazing friends along the way.   No, I'm not always thrilled to drag myself out the door but getting there I feel happy and at home.  Yes, I do occasionally miss the simplicity of getting a sandwich for lunch when they are ordered in for the office, but when I decide to eat that sandwich I remember just how much I didn't love sandwiches to begin with.  On the whole, I have found that I am capable of so much more than I ever knew before June 2011 and I look forward to what two more years will bring.  
My sister conned us all, she got me and her fiancee and her soon to be brother-in-law and our mom involved.  It's become a family affair with us.  It is funny how the simple act of my sister asking me (ok, repeatedly asking) to go with her snowballed into so many of us doing it.  As I sat with her at the South Central Crossfit Regionals on Saturday watching some of the fittest people in this country do amazing things I realized just how much I owe her a major thanks.  Without her I'm very certain I'd be sitting on the sidelines thinking about how crazy all these "crossfit" people are...now instead I'm one of them.  Not quite sure that's something I would ever have even wanted but I love what I have proven to myself thus far in this journey.

I still get all the random cooking magazines because I enjoy reading them, I obsessively watch Anthony Bourdain (both his new and old shows), read Chef biographies for fun and  I enjoy cooking way more than most normal people but on a day like today where I am frustrated and worn out after work there is nothing that leaves me feeling more accomplished than walking out of the gym after my workout. It doesn't matter that I still hate burpees (really, who likes them) or that I am a million miles from being what I would deem "good" at Crossfit, what does matter is that I feel satisfied leaving the gym knowing I accomplished more today than I did yesterday. 

Kicking off 2013 with some luck

As 2012 comes to a close I start to plan for the last 'holiday season' meal, one that many people may not celebrate quite the same but it is definitely tradition in my family...New Years Day.  As as kid I grew to expect black eyed peas (gasp, not paleo!) every New Years Day and as an adult, regardless of my typical diet I expect them all the same.  I always knew it was for luck in the new year but didn't really know much else, I just kind of accepted that.  Because I'm a huge nerd when it comes to stuff like this I started digging to understand why they are considered good luck, one of my favorite lists of good/bad luck foods for the new year was here on Epicurious.  It just lists out legumes (again, paleo eaters gasp!) in general as luck around the world for a few reasons but here's the reason why we consider it so in the US:

"In the Southern United States, it's traditional to eat black-eyed peas or cowpeas in a dish called hoppin' john. There are even those who believe in eating one pea for every day in the new year. This all traces back to the legend that during the Civil War, the town of Vicksburg, Mississippi, ran out of food while under attack. The residents fortunately discovered black-eyed peas and the legume was thereafter considered lucky."

Some of the other descriptions I found on the internet were a little less detailed, things like, "they look like coins" and so they are lucky...I'm not so sure I agree, black-eyed peas don't look like any coins in my pocket but oh well...they are clearly an agreed upon 'lucky' item.  So this year I'll make them the way I was taught, with a big old smoked ham hock.

New Years Day Black-Eyed Peas

24 oz Fresh Black-Eyed Peas
1 very large or two medium sized smoked ham hocks, or the bone-end of the Christmas Ham with some meat still attached
Salt & Pepper
1 clove minced garlic
2 onions, diced
1 can chopped, fire-roasted tomatoes
Springs of cilantro (optional but great for garnish)

Place black-eyed peas and ham in 8 quart pot. Add enough water to fill pot 3/4 full. Stir in diced onions, and season with salt, pepper, and garlic, add tomato. Bring all ingredients to boil. Cover the pot, and simmer on low heat for 1 to 1 1/2hours, or until the peas are tender. Garnish with cilantro.

We always start with fresh peas in our house, I think because it's something you can really always find in the south at this time of year but really they are the best way to start.   In addition to black eyed peas we always have some kind of greens, the basic idea being that greens symbolize money and wealth into the new year.   We'll be having some greens with our peas and the last (but probably my favorite part) key piece of our meal will be to have some pork.  Not only because I love pork in all of its incarnations but because pigs root forward as they move, symbolizing moving forward in the new year.  By the same token, Epicurious lists out some 'bad luck' protiens, lobster and chicken because these two move backwards...and who wants to go backwards in the next year?  We'll be indulging in a braised pork belly recipe based on Emeril's Asian Style Pork Belly.

What will you enjoy on New Years Day?

It starts with one step...again and again and again

Being healthy is a long journey filled with many steps in the right direction and some in the wrong direction.  I remind myself that it's a journey on a regular basis but also stumble often enough too.  In my quest to be stronger, faster and healthier I strive to fuel my body with wholesome, healthy foods and to challenge myself many nights a week at Milestone Crossfit. I've been on this path for a while now, a year and a half, and know it's not a destination, that it's a journey you constantly walk and a for me, someone who loves food and cooking it's also a fight.  It's a fight to do what I know is best, what makes me feel best and perform best vs. doing what is easy, comforting in times of stress or what just plain looks good. 

This summer I struggled a lot, not with any one thing but with it all.  I'm the type of person that throws themselves into the things they love so when I started Crossfit in 2011 and found out that I loved it, I embraced every facet of it and jumped in head first.   Going 90 to nothing for a year and a half is a little rough, I am the girl who doesn't move a workout unless it is absolutely necessary (i.e. I have to travel for work and must accommodate that schedule), I am the girl who can empty all the "bad" food from her pantry and have the strongest will and the strictest diet without turning back.  I am also the girl who takes on misstep and says, "eh, I'll get back on track on Monday" and maybe never does get back on track.  I think it would be an understatement to say I can get derailed, I think it's more like the train flips over, rolls down the embankment and never rights itself.  I didn't go completely nuts and start eating funnel cake for breakfast and stop working out...more like it was a gradual slide into seeing crackers in the pantry, bread on the counter and having some major apathy about my workouts.

Apathy (also called impassivity or perfunctoriness) is a state of indifference, or the suppression of emotions such as concern, excitement, motivation and passion.  Thanks Wikipedia, that about sums it up. I spent most of this summer with a very large amount of apathy, don't get me wrong this only applied to my life in crossfit and somewhat with nutrition.  I still enjoyed all the other things that make me tick, spent a lot of time with family, friends, my boyfriend...got to do a little traveling and did some fun "Austin" things.  But at the end of my summer of apathy I started to really question what I was doing and why I was failing.  Yes, I know how obvious the answer to that is...failure was a direct result of my level of giving a damn.  But for some reason that didn't quite occur to me...I felt some need to assess whether what I was doing made sense and if I should continue down the path I had been on.   Then I read a blog post by someone I have major respect for, a blogger I love to read each day, PaleOMG. (If you are not familiar with Juli Bauer's blog RUN to get there!).  Juli writes for a few sites but on the Again Faster blog she posted something that really resonated with me.  To give you some context Juli is an amazing paleo blogger but she is also a Crossfit coach in Denver, CO and a competitor.  Her post called Creating My Crossfit is all about her struggle to feel as excited about Crossfit as she once had.  Seeing someone who has infinitely more skills, has dedicated herself to training others and is clearly committed to the healthy lifestyle struggle with a similar set of feelings made me think twice about abandoning my course.

It took me some time, thinking about it all, remembering why I got involved in this in the first place and realizing how stupid it would be to truly abandon something that has given me a new view of what I am capable of and a place that has introduced me to some of the best people I could ever meet.  I realize I am very hard on myself and that my apathy came in part from my struggle to meet my own expectations.   It is very hard to do something day in and day out only to feel like you are not measuring up to what you think you should be able to do.  Ironically, I actually reached some major milestones this summer, I managed to deadlift 300lbs+, I got my first kipping pullup and I set PRs (personal records) in nearly all of the other things we did (benchmarks, various lifts and even sprint/running related things).  Somehow I ignored all of that in favor of feeling like I hadn't done enough, like I wasn't able to do more and then getting angry and eventually apathetic.   All the stuff that makes me who I am, all of my personality quirks that make me good at my job and make me pretty decent at the hobbies I enjoy turned against me to some extent to make me hate something I loved because I felt like I wasn't good enough (according to the one important expert, me).  Wow, that's absurd.  After a summer of apathy and some over-thinking I realized the only way I was going to get anywhere was to ignore the part of me that constantly told me how I was failing to measure up.  Not so easy, believe me. 

Starting the week before Thanksgiving (told you it took me a long time to think through it all) I decided to throw myself back in.  About that time our coaches decided to beat us to a pulp so in addition to my renewed effort I was barely walking that week.  So here I go, a few weeks before New Years, my resolution is to not be so hard on myself.   Besides, my dedication to and love of Crossfit has been embraced by my family too (not gonna lie, my sister started this for all of us) but so much so that our Box even laughs about it...

So I guess the path of least resistance (and most to an extent) is to keep rolling and get back on track again. 

90 degree Spring?

Somewhere the weather here took a turn for summer much faster than it should have, perfect illustration of that fact: yesterday my sister, mom and I met up with my grandmother in San Antonio for the day.  We packed a picnic, wandered some of our favorite thrift stores, a normal  spring day I could've gotten by with a t-shirt and jeans and not been sweating to death...no, yesterday I wore a tank top and shorts and there were a few times where I think I might've been overdressed still.  It's a really good sign that it's ungodly hot here already and it's just April 2.  Needless to say cooking with a stove hasn't really been at the top of my list in this weather, lots of grilling, plenty of cold meals and salads. 

I'm kind of picky about salad, I hate iceberg lettuce, it's void of any flavor in my opinion, isn't quite as nutritious as it's pretty dark green cousins (or red ones for that matter) and frankly it's boring.  No wonder I don't love salad, iceberg, ick.  For years salad meant pasty looking iceberg lettuce to me, no my mom (who is an amazing cook) didn't force-feed us iceberg but it's just what I associated salad with.  As I've learned to expand my definition of salad I've become a bigger advocate of them, you'll see, perusing any salad recipes I post, many don't even have lettuce in them but iceberg is definitely not featured here!   This salad is no exception, a few weeks back I was getting head after head of cabbage in my Farmhouse Delivery boxes, green, napa, red, you name it, I got it.  So I made slaw, a lot. I wouldn't call this a slaw since I feel like slaw is another one of those terms with not so pretty connotations but I'd say it's a cabbage salad instead. 

Asian Red Cabbage Salad with Pan Roasted Chicken

Salad:
1 Small Head Red Cabbage, Chopped
1/2 - 3/4 Cups Green Onions, Chopped
1/2 Cup Chopped Dried Pineapple (no sugar added)
2 Tbsp Black Sesame Seeds
2 Tbsp Hemp Hearts

Dressing:
1 1/2 Tbsp Coconut Aminos
2 Tbsp Coconut Vinegar
1 Tbsp Rice Wine Vinegar
2 Tbsp Sesame Oil
1/2 Tsp Minced Garlic
1/2 Tsp Minced Ginger

Chicken:
3 Chicken Breasts
1 Tbsp Sesame Oil
1 Tbsp Rice Wine Vinegar
1 Tbsp Coconut Aminos

1. Coat chicken in sesame oil, rice wine vinegar and coconut aminos, let it marinade for at least 30 minutes.
2. Once chicken is ready, head a cast iron skillet over medium high heat with 1 Tbsp Sesame Oil, once skillet is hot add chicken and brown well on each side, cooking time will vary based on thickness of chicken but mine took about 8 minutes on each side before it was cooked through.  As it was cooking I poured the leftover marinade over the chicken.
3. Once chicken is cooked, slice and set aside. 
4. To make dressing, mix vinegars, coconut aminos, garlic and ginger together.  Slowly add oil in, whisking continuously so that the oil is well incorporated and doesn't separate.
5. Toss salad with dressing, top with sesame seeds, hemp hearts and chicken.

A quick note about one of the salad toppings listed above (and shown below), Hemp Hearts.  I stumbled across these in my local Whole Foods recently, they are a great nutty, crunchy topping for things and I've just started using them.  I loved the nutty flavor and they have super healthy benefits, they are rich in Omega's with a great balance of Omega-3 to Omega-6 and also are a great source of gamma-linoleic acid which has been shown to support healthy skin, hair and nails. Tasty and good for you, double win!

Tagine Tuesday?

I am always on the lookout for new and interesting ways to cook things, my family (who knows this) gave me a very cool birthday gift this year (aka a new way to cook stuff), a tagine.  Tagines are a North African/Moroccan earthen ware pot that traditionally is made out of heavy clay.  Not all tagines are glazed but some are beautifully painted and some are glazed, thankfully mine is, it made clean up a breeze.  These days you can find a fantastic tagine at any good kitchen store in material ranging from clay to enameled cast iron.  Tagines are great for braising tougher cuts of meat, they slowly let the contents simmer away in their juices while the dome provides a crock-pot like environment where the steam stays trapped inside the dish.  The result: deliciousness!  

Image from Emily Avila

Last week I was feeling inspired (and needed to use a whole chicken I'd purchased) and cut up a chicken and veggies and seasoned it before I went to CrossFit.  There is nothing better than walking in the door after a hard-fought workout to the smells of a simmering dinner.  The possibilties for the tagine are endless, the spice, protien and veggie combos are infinite, I can't wait to cook up something else new, I have a feeling that I might start seeing the tagine in action a lot more.

Moroccan Chicken Tagine

2 teaspoons paprika

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon tumeric

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

2 Tbsp olive oil

1 chicken, 3-4 lbs, cut into 8 pieces

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 onion, chopped

1 lemon, sliced into 1/2 inch thick rounds

1 cup green olives, pitted

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup chicken stock

1/2 cup dried apricots

1. Combine all the spices in a large bowl. Pat dry the chicken pieces and put in the bowl, coat well with the spice mixture. Let the chicken stand for one hour in the spices.
2. In a large, heavy bottomed skillet, heat the olive oil on medium high heat. Add the chicken pieces, sprinkle lightly with salt (go easy on the salt, the olives and lemons are salty), and brown, skin side down for five minutes. (If you are using a clay tagine, you will skip the browning step, and bring oven up to 325F.) Lower the heat to medium-low, add the garlic, onion, apricot and liquids.  If using clay tagine, bake in oven for 3 hours instead of simmering.

Canning Summer

The last two summers Mom and I have spent a lot of time canning, everything from jams and jellies to various dilled vegetables. This summer was a little slower than last because with the hottest summer on record (ever, anywhere) there wasn't an abundant source of veggies in my backyard like there had been in years past. Don't get me wrong, we managed to do a few batches of pickles, plenty of jam for gifts and even some interesting things like prickly pear tuna sauce but it wasn't the bounty of last summer. Early in the summer one of the local farms, Johnson's Backyard Garden had a glut of tomatoes (I know, horrible problem, right?). So what to do with super priced, super ripe tomatoes? Can them of course!

I'm not usually one for step-by-step photos but given the simplicity of a written recipe for canning tomatoes I felt it was appropriate here.

For each quart jar of tomatoes you will need:
Approximately 3Lbs of Plum or Roma Tomatoes, we canned San Marzano's
2 Tbsp Bottled Lemon Juice or 1/2 Tsp Citric Acid
1 Tsp Salt

1. Wash your tomatoes very well, then mark an X on the bottom of them and plunge them into boiling water. Allow them to sit in the water and blanch for 30-60 seconds. Put the tomatoes into an ice bath after they have been removed from the boiling water. Core them and peel away the skin with a small paring knife.



2. Put the lemon juice (or citric acid) and salt into clean, sanitized jars. Pack the tomatoes into the jars one at a time, press firmly enough to compress the tomatoes and release a little juice but do not crush the fruit.


3. Cover full jars with liquid (either tomato juice or water) so that only 1/2 inch of space exists between the top of the jar and the liquid.


4. Place jars into a pot of boiling water to seal them, process for 85 minutes.



Canned tomatoes are a great way to preserve the best of summer and enjoy the ripe tomato flavor anytime.

Crossing my limits

It's been a long hot summer here in Texas, so hot I've barely been doing much cooking....and when I do get around to cooking there isn't much blog-worthy. We're approaching a record number of 100+ degree days, yipee! Seriously, who gets excited about breaking a record like that?? So what do I choose to do in this scorching oven known as my home-state? I joined a group of fitness crazed folks and have started going to CrossFit. I'm not sure if you know what that is or if you do know if it elicits images of crazy people doing boot camp-esque workouts but it doesn't matter, I love it. I blame my sister and her boyfriend for getting me involved in this, as you can see, Jackie is just as involved as I am (or obsessed).

What is CrossFit you say? Well according to the CrossFit website it's a strength and conditioning program built under the principle that you shouldn't specialize in any one thing but that you should excel at many. Everything is scaled to suit your own fitness level so an elite military or law enforcement officer can do the same main workout that say an out of shape food-blogger can do...we might do different amounts of weights or a variation on the same exercise but it is the same workout regardless. Why CrossFit? Because it's addictive, the competition it fosters (you vs. you), the shared goals among your classmates and team environment as well as the sense of accomplishment you get after pushing through a workout that you thought you would never be able to complete. That coupled with the fact that it's helped me get into much better shape (miles to go still but in the short few months I've done it I've seen immense changes) makes me a devoted follower these days.

Enough preaching about CrossFit....I shared this because while working out I have also started to adopt the eating habits that are prevalent among CrossFitters...which is a combination of the 'paleo diet' (basically lots of fruit and veggies, gluten free and good proteins) and a zone diet (again, lost of fruits and veggies, limited grains, if any, and quality lean protein). Being food-obsessed this was a bit tough for me at first, I have no gluten sensitivity and frankly love to try new things so the thought of limiting myself to these confines really bothered me at first. Slowly though I have adapted, partly because our CrossFit gym (much love to Milestone Crossfit!!) set up a 6-week challenge which I eagerly joined and partly because I have seen what the combo of this diet and CrossFit does for people. In four weeks my 'cravings' for grains and super-sweet candy, etc. have dwindled (not going to lie here, I would still kill for hot-buttered fresh baked french bread!) and I feel great. So again, why am I sharing all this? Because it will color a lot of what I will be posting in the near term, most of my coming posts will be recipes that have been made since the beginning of my 6-week challenge and will be reflective of ingredients that are 'zone-paleo' friendly. So be wary those of you who aren't so excited about 'healthy' food, these things will all be slightly better for you than most that I have posted in the past but none of them will taste like 'health' food, I refuse to give up good food for just healthy food.

To that end, the first recipe I want to share is a re-vamped version of something I have posted before, Mustard Green Pesto with Chicken Meatballs, only this time instead of pasta it is served over Spaghetti Squash.

Spaghetti Squash with Mustard Green Pesto & Chicken Meatballs

1 lb Mild Turkey Breakfast Sausage or Ground Chicken or Ground Turkey
1 lb Chicken-Apple Sausage*
3 Tbsp Almond Meal
1 1/2 Tbsp Rubbed Sage
1 Tsp Salt
1 Tsp Black Pepper
1 Cup Apple Cider, reduced down to 1/4 cup to create a syrup
2 Lg Bunches Baby Mustard Greens
5 Cloves Garlic
1/4 Cup Olive Oil
1/3 Cup Pecan Pieces, Toasted
1 Tbsp Cider Vinegar
1 Tsp Salt
1/2 Cup Pine Nuts, Toasted
1 Red Bell Pepper

‎1. Cut the spaghetti squash in half, scoop out the seeds and rub 1 Tsp olive oil around the inside, sprinkle with a touch of salt and pepper. Roast at 375 F until fork tender.

2. Fold bulk sausages together wtih 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp pepper, rubbed sage and reduced cider. Do not over work the mixture, shape into balls and place in a greased 13 x 9 pan. Bake at 400 F for 25 minutes. Can be baked concurrently with spaghetti squash, squash will be ok at 400 F.

3. Remove squash from oven and let cool for 5 minutes and use a fork to scrape out the flesh of the squash with a fork. Place in a large bowl/dish.

2. While the meatballs are baking, blend the mustard greens, garlic, olive oil, cider vinegar, 1 tsp salt, pine nuts and pecans.

3. Slice bell peppers, leave raw. Toss meatballs, pesto and bell peppers together and serve on top of cooled squash flesh.

Hot Summer Cold Dinner

I don't know about where you are but where I am it's lethally hot, literally between May and June we already have exceeded our annual average number of 100 degree days (average is 12) by 3 days and it's not even officially summer yet! What is a girl to do? Well aside from barricading myself in my house, shutting the blinds and cranking the AC I have to find ways to make due. Part of 'making due' includes trying to keep the stove turned on as little as possible so I've been making a lot more salads and no-cook meals.


Cool as a Cucumber Tuna Salad

2 Large Cucumbers, Peeled and Sliced into half-moons
1 Fennel Bulb, sliced thinly
3 5-oz cans Tuna packed in olive oil, drained and flaked
2 Tbsp White-truffle Dijon Mustard (or Dijon would substitute fine)
2 Tbsp Champagne Vinegar
2 Tbsp Olive Oil
2 Tsp Poppy Seeds
Salt & Pepper to taste

1. Place veggies and tuna in a large bowl together.
2. Whisk mustard, vinegar, olive oil, poppy seeds and salt/pepper together.
3. Pour over tuna and veggies, mix well, serve!







Someone I have yet to introduce, the newest member of my family, Sam. He joined the family the day before Easter and has been finding his place in the house quite easily.



He's certainly enjoying himself (nagging my dad). His brother Jack has adjusted quite well to him (thank goodness) too. Now if I could just get him to quit using his loud-high-pitched puppy bark...that'd be a trick!

Beets....a stain on my heart (or face and hands)

Many moons ago when I was a baby my parents fed me beets, the photo lives on in infamy...really it's haunted me for years at many a family gathering.

So I ask how does one overcome such humiliation at such a young age? Beet 'em of course! Ok so that was pretty bad beet humor but oh well. In my zeal for local produce I've found that beets are ever-present this time of year at our farmers markets, not quite up to the challenge yet I ignored them last year and then early this year I tasted an amazing golden beet salad at Whole Foods, that was it, the hunt was on! I have taken to oven roasted beets with a variety of different oils/vinegars/spices atop them. One of my favorites is a salad similar to the golden beet salad I loved at Whole Foods...

Golden Beet Salad with Goat Cheese and Sage
3 Medium Golden Beets, diced (approx. 1 inch cubes)
Olive Oil
1/2 Cup Sage, sliced in a chiffonade
3 oz Goat Cheese
2 Tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
Salt & Pepper

1. Preheat oven to 375 F
2. Toss beets with olive oil and salt and pepper to taste
3. Place beets in 13x9 oven dish and roast beets until tender, approximately 30-45 minutes.
4. Remove beets from oven and let cool 10 minutes.
5.Chop up goat cheese (or crumble) as best you can. Place beets in a large bowl, top with sage and goat cheese, drizzle with vinegar.

While I adore this salad and have made a handful of variations on it, including adding blanched green beans, roasting the beets with various vinegars in the mix, using smoked salts, etc. I definitely tired of it. I started investigating the other ways to eat beets...(hear the sound of crickets??) there aren't many, at least not that I found appetizing. So I came back to the fact that I really like them roasted but needed something else.


Another variation on this included Chioggia, Golden and Red Beets, it's beautiful while it's being roasted (and then eaten!). I also swapped out basil for the sage.




Because I really liked the way the beets were off-set by the flavor of the goat cheese I decided to serve roasted beets alongside a goat cheese risotto.

Basil, Speck and Goat Cheese Risotto

Ingredients

2 tbsp olive oil
4 small shallots, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup Arborio Rice
1/2 cup dry White Wine
2 1/2 cups Chicken Stock
1/2 cup Goat Cheese
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup diced Speck
Spice Globe Basil, thinly sliced (chiffonade)as garnish

1. In a large skillet heat the olive oil over medium high heat.
2. Saute shallot until soft. Add the garlic and saute for another minute more.
3. Add the Arborio rice to the skillet, making sure to stir it around in the olive oil so that each granule is coated, and toast it for about 2 minutes.
4. Next add the white wine and stir the rice. Wait until all the wine has been absorbed and then start adding the chicken stock 1/2 cup at a time, making sure not to add more until the previous addition has been absorbed.
5. Once the rice is just tender, add the Goat cheese and let it melt in, mix well. Remove from heat and season with salt and pepper to taste and sprinkle with the Spice Globe Basil and Speck.




It's funny, sometimes the things you think you hate the most come back as favorites.

Pyrex...my favorite cooking gear, a slight obsession

For years as a kid I would watch my mom (many of you know her as Texas to Mexico) feed her dish/kitchen gear obsession through trips to vintage and thrift stores, eventually her hobby became employment when she turned her interior design and collecting skills into a booth at a local antique store. I never put much thought into her collection because really as a kid who cares about old furniture and plates and such?

Truth be told it has rubbed off on me. It first struck when I was in college and started grabbing bits and pieces of Harkerware until I ended up with a nice large set of plates, serving plates, small bowls and other odds and ends. The Harkerware fit in neatly with my love of 1950s/1960s style kitchen stuff, at the time I was convinced I would one day have a kitchen full of vintage appliances, etc. Funny how the ease of finding modern pieces supplanted that! Next on the list came Fiesta dishes, which I adore but I came late to the party when it comes to collecting Fiesta and the prices are already higher, so it's more of a splurge for me.



Of late I haven't actively searched for a lot of specific types of dishes but when my great-grandmother passed away two years ago I did inherit some neat pieces, including some Pyrex Visions cooking pots, at the time I thought, sure I'll see if I like them but didn't think much about it. Silly me, the two pots I inherited from Nana have become the backbone of something I have found to be an invaluable tool on a near daily basis.

I have always loved the colorful array of mixing and serving bowls that have been made by Pyrex,I'm currently lucky enough to have two sets of them, one is a great multi-colored set of mixing bowls, of which I just adore the ad that went with them originally:




I've also got a beautiful turquoise and white collection of 'Cinderella' bowls, again, I love the original ad...I'm a bit of a vintage ad junkie : )

Pyrex is fantastic because it comes in a variety of kitschy vintage colors and patterns but also because it is durable, easy to clean and easy to cook in. Outside of the pretty Pyrex live my favorite, the Visions cookware, it's not the most beautiful dishware you've ever seen but it is fantastically durable and has been fantastic, especially lately with the candy, chocolate, etc. that gets cooked up around the Christmas holiday!

My set of Visions cookware has been used and abused so I went searching for an image just to show off what it looked like originally out of the box (not that I ever saw the box):



I have an array of pots, skillets and even a well loved double boiler. So, after my lengthy rant about some of my favorite vintage kitchen goodies I thought it would be prudent to share a few of the candy recipes I made in my favorite pots, enjoy : )


Fleur de Sel Caramels
*Adapted from Martha Stewart's Recipe

1 cup heavy cream
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 teaspoon fleur de sel*
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1/4 cup water

1. Line bottom and sides of an 8-inch square baking pan with parchment paper, then lightly oil parchment.
2. Bring cream, butter, and fleur de sel to a boil in a small saucepan, then remove from heat and set aside.
3. Boil sugar, corn syrup, and water in a 3- to 4-quart heavy saucepan, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Boil, without stirring but gently swirling pan, until mixture is a light golden caramel.
4. Carefully stir in cream mixture (mixture will bubble up) and simmer, stirring frequently, until caramel registers 248°F on thermometer, 10 to 15 minutes. Pour into baking pan and cool 2 hours. Sprinkle about 1/2 tsp Fleur de Sel over the top.
5. Cut into 1-inch pieces, then wrap each piece in a 4-inch square of wax paper, twisting 2 ends to close.



Brandy-Caramel Truffles
*Adapted from Cooking Light
3 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons evaporated whole milk
1 tablespoon golden cane syrup (such as Lyle's Golden Syrup)
Dash of salt
1 tablespoon brandy
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3.5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
1.75 ounces milk chocolate, finely chopped
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa

1. Combine brown sugar, milk, cane syrup, and salt in a saucepan over medium-high heat; bring to a boil. Cook 1 minute or until sugar dissolves.
2. Remove from heat. Stir in bourbon and vanilla extract. Add chocolates; let stand 1 minute. Stir until smooth.
3. Pour into a shallow dish; cover and chill 4 hours.
4. Heat a tablespoon measure with hot water; pat dry. Scoop chocolate mixture with spoon; dip in cocoa. Roll into balls. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.


Both of these were tasty and fabulously easy to make, I'll be adding them to the annual cookie/candy list for sure, what I love about the truffle recipe is you could swap in just about any liquor you like and change the flavor to the tune of infinite possibilities!

Not so shameless self promotion....

I say not so shameless because it's not really self promotion (ok maybe a little), just wanted to point you all in the direction of a really cool blog that just did a feature on Mom and I making cheese :)

Check us out on Cheesemaking Help, News and Information. Earlier this fall I got interested in making mozzarella cheese and found a fantastic kit, from there the rest is history (or read-able on the blog!)

Short post but wanted to share!

Oktoberfest, Ja!

I routinely mention my Texan heritage (something I'm fiercely proud of) but that's not the whole story, behind my Texas roots lies a history of immigrants from many places, a large part of that is German (you'll find them on both the maternal and fraternal family trees). I first started to explore my German heritage as a bit of a rebellion in high school, everyone took Spanish, why would I want to be like everyone else? So I took German...for many years in fact, it bled into my college courses as well! It's taken a little time, mainly because my cooking continues to evolve, but finally the German roots are starting to bleed into my cooking as well, first among my January 09 posts with spatzle and red cabbage and now with rouladen.

Rouladen is a classic German staple usually consisting of bacon, onions, mustard and pickles wrapped in thinly sliced beef, then cooked to perfection. What, may I ask, about that combination isn't to love? Oh, and did I mention a pan gravy, that's right, it can get better! Now, my post may be a little late for Oktoberfest but you'll enjoy this all fall long, it's got a delicious flavor and is perfect for a chilly fall night.


1 1/2 lbs Thinly Sliced Top Round Beef (if you have beef milanese available it's perfect for this)
Salt and Fresh Pepper to taste
2 Tsp Dried Marjoram
2 Tsp Dried Thyme
Whole Grain Mustard
1/4 lb Thick Sliced Bacon, cut into 1/4 inch cubes
1 Large Onion, finely chopped
1/4 Cup Parsley, finely chopped
1/4 Cup Chives, finely chopped
Six 1/2 inch dill pickle strips
4 Tbsp Butter
1 Carrot, finely diced
1/2 Cup Beef Broth
1 Cup Dry Red Wine
1/2 Tsp All Purpose Flour
1 Tsp water


1. Sprinkle salt, pepper, marjoram and thyme over beef, spread mustard over the tops as well.
2. Combine 1 Cup bacon, half the onion, all of the chives and parsley and toss. Lay even amounts on each beef slice. Place a pickle slice over the top of each, roll and secure with toothpicks.
3. In a sauce pan, melt 1 tbsp of butter over moderate heat, add carrot and remaining onions and bacon, allow veggies to brown for about 10 minutes.
4. In a large, heavy skillet, melt remaining butter over moderate heat and add meat, brown on all sides, remove from skillet. Add broth and wine to skillet and stir to loosen the bits. In a small bowl, blend flour and water then add to skillet and mix well. Return meat and vegetable/bacon mixture to the skillet, cover and reduce heat slightly. Cook for an hour, turn rolls once.


So the same way I whole-heatedly embrace my Texas-roots I proudly salute my German ones too with a Shiner Oktoberfest and a plate of spatzle alongside the rouladen. Prost!

Fresh Express: Fresh Pizza Fast!

As a Foodbuzz Featured Publisher I get occasional offers to test out delicious products, recently I was given the chance to test out Fresh Express Salads, among the usual delicious salad I was searching for some creative ways to use some of these terrific ingredients and decided to turn my favorite sandwich into a pizza.

I lucked into getting mom into making the crust, which she did a terrific job on! With her help the pizzas came together in a flash!. We pulled together the crust and then covered it with a simple and tasty spinach-walnut pesto (featuring a bag of Fresh Express Baby Spinach) and then layered sliced tomato, mozarella cheese and of course, chopped bacon atop the crust and popped it in the oven!

Spinch-Walnut Pesto
1 Bag Fresh Express Baby Spinach
1 Cup Walnuts
1/2 Cup Olive Oil
1/2 Cup Parmesean
2 Cloves Garlic
Salt & Pepper to taste


Combine all ingredients in a food processor (yes, I took the easy way out), mix until desired consistency.



In addition to the BLT pizza I served a Roasted Veggie and Goat Cheese pizza, we pan fried a fresh eggplant and roasted a red bell pepper then layered them atop a pizza covered with a mixture of 1 4oz container of whipped softened cream cheese, 1 3oz roll of goat cheese, softened and then over the fresh vegetables we layered additional parmesean cheese, after the pizzas came out of the oven we topped this one with freshly chopped basil.

Family pizza night for grown ups - or a sneaky way to get some veggies for your sophisticated kiddos!

Missing an Ingredient? No Problem!

Ingredient substitution, it's something we all do, but is it really always a good idea? In my family the phrase "I didn't have....so I used...." is infamous, my maternal great-grandmother (who was a home-ec teacher for many years) was notorious for her substitutions. I have childhood memories of our family sitting around the table at her house and my grandfather (her son) saying, "Mother, what is this?" about dinner, her response was something to the effect that we were eating a tuna salad, although she wanted to use mayo in it and didn't have mayo so she used Cool Whip! Or, one of my mom's least favorite substitutions, if something called for tomato and she was out, it might have been topped with katsup instead.

While these are definitely extreme examples, and hopefully one no one can identify with :) it illustrates just how confusing things can get when you start searching for a substitute for an ingredient. Some of us do it because we lack a specific ingredient (who doesn't get home from the grocery store without a key item occasionally?) or we do it because we want a healthier recipe (maybe subbing apple sauce into a baked good?), either way if you aren't extremely good at it, your recipe may be ruined. Because of the family jokes I am usually pretty leery of substituting things, the older I get the more adventurous I am but something about being ridiculed by the family makes me look for only the best substitutions. The internet offers a wealth of options, one of my favorite substitution charts can be found on the Joyofbaking.com, maybe it will help you too, or if you have a better resource please share! Well for all of you substitute-rs out there, good luck!

In the spirit of substitutions, my recipe for Lemon-Raspberry Muffins with sour cream instead of all that butter!

Lemon-Raspberry Muffins
2 Eggs
1 Cup Sugar
1/2 Cup Vegetable Oil
1/2 Tsp Vanilla
2 Cups All Purpose Flour
1/2 Tsp Salt
1/2 Tsp Baking Soda
1 Cup Sour Cream
1 Cup Raspberries
Juice and Zest of 1 Large Lemon

1. Beat eggs, sugar, oil and vanilla
2. Mix dry ingredients in a separate bowl.
3. Slowly add dry ingredients to the egg mixture alternately with the sour cream.
4. Fold lemon juice, zest and raspberries into mixture.
5. Bake 20 minutes in a 400F oven.

Makes 12 regular sized muffins

To Can or Not To Can...

For the record I had never touched canning equipment or even had a clue how to can until this past summer, thanks for my mom (and my own interest in some more traditional cooking concepts) I learned exactly how to can this summer. The produce available all summer long made the task so simple, everything from onion relish, onion marmalade, spicy tomato chutney, peach preserves, vanilla peach jam to tomatillo jam, strawberry rhubarb jam and of course many veggies that ended up in pickling brine! For a glimpse at the many things we canned, check out this set of pictures on mom's Flickr stream. By no means will this be the end of my canning adventures, merely the beginning, I think there might be some canning coming up for Xmas gifts too :)

Canning used to feel like something that maybe my great grandmother would have undertaken, it didn't interest me all that much because to me there were so many options for cooking with the fresh products available to me, why can them? Part of the allure for me comes from the fact that it's one of those lost arts (in my mind), something that historically speaking everyone used to do but it kind of fell from popularity. It seems the current economic situation has brought preservation of food back into vogue as this summer canning supplies were easy to find and canning was easy to see on TV cooking shows and in magazines. So how did it come about?

The canning process dates back to the late 18th century where the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, concerned about keeping his armies fed, offered a cash prize to whoever could develop a reliable method of food preservation. Nicholas Appert envisioned preserving food in bottles, like wine. After 15 years of experimentation, he realized if food is sufficiently heated and sealed in an airtight container, it will not spoil.

Nicolas Appert, developer of the canning process.

Oh the French, well thanks to Appert for his experimentation and development of the method, as all good things do, canning went through many iterations with the British using tin cans beginning in 1813 and some of our own American countrymen developing wholesale canning operations for commercial canning around the same time.

So the basic process here is that you cook/create the substance you plan to can (brine the pickles, make the jam, etc.) then you tightly put the lids on the jars and you boil them for a set amount of time. I have oversimplified things a bit but the idea is the same regardless of what you are canning. Canning can be done in one of two ways, first via a pressure cooker (those foods that must be canned this way include most veggies, meats, seafood, poultry and dairy products), or second, with a boiling water bath (foods that can be canned this way are highly acidic ones with a pH below 4.6,[1] such as fruits, pickled vegetables, or other foods to which acidic additives have been added).

While we canned lots of things and will likely be reprising our canning fiesta later in the year, for now we're just enjoying the fruits of our labor. To that end, I wanted to share a tomatillo jam that has been the dark horse of the canned goods here, it was the unexpected and yet very well liked recipe. It's delicious on warm cornbread, pork or poultry (not the fanciest picture here but it's sitting on a tasty pork tenderloin).


Tomatillo (or Ground Cherry) Jam
From The Joy of Jams, Jellies, and other Sweet Preserves by Linda Ziedrich

3 lbs Tomtillos
4 Cups White Sugar

1. Remove the husks from the fruit, quarter or half them (depending on how large they are).
2. Place fruit in a large sauce pot, set pan over low heat and cover the pan. Cook the fruit, stirring occasionally, until it is soft. Mash it briefly with a potato masher. Remove the pan from the heat.
3. Stir in the sugar. Over medium heat, heat the mixture until the sugar is dissolved. Raise the heat to medium-high and boil the jam until a drop mounds in a chilled dish.
4. Ladle the jam into pint or half-pint mason jars. Add lids and rings, and process the jars for 10 minutes in a boiling-water bath.

New Job, New Blog and New Homeowner??

Times they are a changing for me...mid-July I started down a course of making a job change and am happy to say that as of August I am employed with a new tech company here in Austin. I was not originally in start-up land, starting my career out of college in big (massive) companies but now that I'm here I have no plans to leave. The last job I held as well as my current position are with start-up companies, the creativity, collective intellect and hardworking folks that fill these companies inspire and challenge me with the new place being no exception.

Around the same time I signed on with the new gig I received a note from the company that manages the house I rent offering that the investor was looking to sell the home, so while I began the transition to a new job I also began investigating home-ownership...a little bit of life change? Yep! This process is a little more involved than the job change but over the next few months I'll see how it plays out, maybe becoming a permanent resident of my current abode.

Now, for the last bit of news...well it's news for me :) My Mom, Texas-to-Mexico, who has been integral to my culinary education (as well as a driving force forcing me to blog!) and I have joined forces to undertake a new endeavor, a joint blog exploring the best of the fresh, delicious treats available in our beloved Texas. Our intent is to use the new blog, Fresh from the Heart of Texas, to share the results of our wandering, market exploration and just general love of the fresh and amazing items available here in Tejas! Please stop by and take a look!

Going to the Dogs

As many of my photos and post suggest, I'm a big animal lover and keep good company with my sweet yellow lab/whippet mix Jack, however in my family there are three well loved puppies who frequently come to visit, Jack, Molly (an Australian Shepherd) and the newest to the pack, Bella (a Yellow Lab).

Jack, enjoying a siesta on freshly folded laundry...bad dog!














Molly, engaging in her favorite pastime, watching people eat.














Baby Bella (she's much bigger these days) being given a stern talking to by her cousin Jack, he's a little possessive of his toys, including the blue bone Bella's lounging next to.














In honor of my four-legged family members I decided to bake some tasty treats just for them. Jack has always had a very sensitive stomach and I wanted to seek out treats that were low-cost and also that had easily recognizable ingredients that I knew were healthy and wholesome, so away my fingers flew on the keyboard searching for treats that fit the bill.

A few of the finalists were found online:

The Daily Drool Recipe Collection

Bark! Magazine

But eventually I settled on a recipe I found in a bargain of a cookbook (scavenged from my favorite website, half.ebay.com), The Ultimate Dog Treat Cookbook by Liz Palika.

Sunflower Sensations

2 Cups All-Purpose Flour
1 Cup Ground, Roasted Unsalted Sunflower Seeds
3/4 Cup Cornmeal
1 Tsp Salt
2 Large Eggs
1/4 Cup Evaporated Low Fat Milk
1/4 Cup Vegetable Oil
1/4 Cup Molasses

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a large bowl, mix together all the ingredients. Knead with your hands until the dough is smooth and easy to work.
3. Form the dough into a ball and place it on a floured breadboard. Roll it out to 1/4 inch thick.
4. Use a 30inch dog bone-shaped cookie cutter to cut the rolled dough into shapes.
5. Place the cookies onto a greased cookie sheet.
6. Bake for 20 minutes, or until bottoms of the cookies are golden brown.
7. Remove from the oven, let cool thoroughly, and store in an airtight container.

For crispier treats, when all the cookies have been baked, turn off the oven. Put all the cookies back on a cookie sheet and return them to the oven. Leave them in the oven for several hours (while the oven cools) or overnight to harden.

I also was sans sunflower seeds and so I substituted 1 cup of oatmeal and it worked perfectly!



Previously I've made the Gingerbones recipe found on the Bark website, I wasn't able to take any photos (ok I forgot) but they were a big hit around here and they smelled like heaven while they baked! I haven't been brave enough to make any of the treats that have meat in them, I'm a little concerne they'll make my little house stinky but these meat-free cookies are big hits with the pooches!

St. Patricks Day Fail (and Success)

St. Patricks Day is typically spent eating corned beef and some potato dish at my parents home, the past few years we've seriously missed this tradition as they've been in Mexico....this year it returned! Mom asked that I bring a dessert and some bread, well at least one of those two happened :)

The luck of the Irish was not with me this St. Patricks Day as I attempted to make some Guinness bread (re-make coming soon along with a post), the bread stuck to the pan despite mucho Pam being involved and thus broke before it could be eaten. The crumbs were tasty, so much so that I'll be re-making it this weekend. Success was mine however with this delicious dessert:

Apple-Brandy Irish Tart

1 Package Puff Pastry

Filling:
1 Tbsp flour
1/2 Cup chopped nuts
1/4 Cup flour
2 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp brown sugar
2 Tbsp margarine or butter
2 Tbsp Brandy
1 large Granny Smith apple, cored and thinly sliced
1 large MacIntosh apple, cored and thinly sliced

Glaze:
2 Tsp margarine or butter, melted
2 Tsp lemon juice
2 Tbsp apple jelly

Heat oven to 425°F. Place rolled crust in bottom and up sides of pan. Trim edges. Do not prick crust. Partially bake crust for 15 minutes. If crust puffs up, gently press back to bottom and sides of pan with back of wooden spoon.

For the filling, combine nuts, flour, sugars and margarine with fork. Stir in brandy. Sprinkle sugar mixture evenly over bottom of pan. Arrange apple slices over nut mixture alternating red and green apple slices. Bake for 20 minutes.

For glaze, Combine melted margarine, lemon juice and apple jelly; brush over tart just before serving.