Apple Tart

My goal was to use up the apples left from last week's fruit share before picking up more apples for this week. A great deal of what I cook is to use what I have on hand.

So I threw together an apple tart. I already had pie crusts ready. A few weeks ago, I made 6 and put them in the freezer. Then, I can put one in the fridge and use it whenever. (One went to an amazing onion tart last week.)

First - pie crusts. I use butter and lard. BUT, (and that's a big but), my lard is from pastured pig, nearby. I rendered it myself. It seems that a lot of the crap in meat (antibiotics, toxins, whatever) tends to settle in the fat of the animal. This makes it really important nutritionally to use fat of pastured animals. Not to mention myraids of other reasons to do so. Also, I read that lard that you purchase from a grocery store (I actually saw it in Food Lion) has probably been hydrogenated so it will keep better, and that's not good. So, I get fatback, chop it up in my food processor, and warm it in a frying pan til it melts, then strain into a jar, and put in the fridge. It's wonderful pure stuff. It actually has a good bit less saturated fat than butter! And, for cooking at higher temperatures it's good because it has a high smoking point.

Of course you shouldn't eat too much of it. It has a lot of calories. It also has a lot of stuff that's good for you. I'm a believer.

I use good butter too. I might use organic butter, or Homestead Creamery butter (available at the South Main Kroger), or, sometimes, I even use butter I've made myself from my own raw milk. I usually don't have a lot of that, though, and it's so tasty I like putting it on veggies or bread or popcorn.

I use about half butter and half lard for my pie crusts. I give the fats and the flour a few bursts in the food processor, dump the stuff in a bowl, add some ice water and work it just a little with a fork until it can all stick together. Then I take one crusts' worth of dough and make a ball (about softball sized), flatten it just a bit, wrap in plastic, and freeze. (If you want to use it the same day, put in the fridge for an hour.)

So I took my crust which I had put in the fridge the night before, and I rolled the pie crust out with a rolling pin, into a nice big circle. I use one of those silicon mats, which are great. I then flip the whole thing over onto a piece of parchment paper. My life has not been the same since I started using parchment paper.

So I've got this large circle of dough laying on a piece of parchment paper on the counter. There's no pan. I build a tart without a pan. This whole process, by the way, I learned from Alice Waters in the The Art of Simple Food, the book that has had the greatest influence on my cooking.

Today, I mixed about a half cup of peach preserves that a friend made (from local peaches) with a spoonful of orange marmalade, and smeared that mixture on the crust, leaving the outer edge, about an inch and a half, without the preserves on it. Then I arranged the apple slices nicely all over the preserves - in a nice circular pattern. I try to cover all the preserves in a fairly even layer. Then I folded the edges up over the apples.

I slid a cookie sheet under the parchment paper, picked up the whole thing, and slid it into the oven (preheated to 400) onto the stone in there. You could cook it on the pan, but I love the stone. It does a nice job on the bottoms of crusty things. It was probably in there 45 minutes.

It was divine.

You can use any kind of preserves and any kind of fruit. I've made a lot of pear tarts (from local pears I canned) and I've used blueberry preserves. But I think this apple tart was the best ever.

Smoothie, best ever

The smoothie, with blackberries included, was awesome.

Today's smoothie:
frozen peaches (local, I froze them)
frozen bananas (not local)
frozen blackberries (picked nearby)
frozen raspberries (from my parent's garden, in wv)
an apple, peeled and cut into chunks (local, from my fruit share)
grape juice (my dad canned, from his grapes)

I put all the frozen stuff in the blender and let it sit for a half hour or so while I drink my coffee, then pour juice over it, and put the apple in just before blending (so it doesn't brown). Then, blend away. My blender is pretty good with the frozen stuff - there is a "crush ice" mode which I start with.

The result - an amazing, cool, thick delicious blend of fruity goodness. I think this morning's smoothie was the best ever! (Although I often say that.)

I often put some yogurt in smoothies, which is good, but lately I've been experimenting with the fruit only smoothie. Spinach is also great. If you have never put spinach in your smoothie, you must try it before you judge. Really.

A word on juice - I like putting some sort of liquid in the smoothie. It actually seems to need some to blend properly. I use a variety of fruit juices. My dad's grape juice is delicious and I use it when I have it, even though it does have some sugar in it, I believe, and I'd rather not put any sugar in the smoothie (it doesn't need it!). I sometimes use some enticing looking fruit juice from the store (pomegranite/blueberry for example) but if I buy juice I make sure it is 100% juice with no added sugars or corn syrup. The other day I used watermelon juice from a melon I had- mmm! Don't think the liquid has to be sweet, necessarily. I haven't done so yet, but will use whey sometime when I have some.

Blackberries!

I had the good fortune today to pick some blackberries - I had been wanting some to add to the morning smoothie. I have a great collection of frozen fruit for smoothies - peaches, raspberries, strawberries, sometimes blueberries, and some bananas.

No, the bananas are not local. In fact, I often don't buy bananas for that reason. But a small amount of frozen banana in a smoothie (about half a banana per 2 smoothies) is a wondrous thing. And these particular bananas were organic and on sale for 35 cents a pound at Eats - likely to be thrown out the next day, and I saved them! I peel them, break them into pieces, put the pieces in a baggie and the baggie in the freezer.

And now, really fat juicy blackberries to add to the mix.