I just removed an apple tart from the oven, something quite improvised that satisfies on a number of levels. I downloaded a recipe for a low-fat apple tart that uses phyllo dough, plus a homemade syrup to replace the usual butter and sugar.
I had the apples sliced and ready to go, but the phyllo dough I had removed from the freezer to thaw slightly was obviously over the hill. It refused to unroll in sheets, instead tearing into parchment fragments.
Undeterred, I placed the shards in the bottom of the glass pie plate to cover the surface and poured part of my already prepared syrup over it. The syrup contained:
1/3 cup Da Vinci sugar-free pumpkin pie syrup with Splenda
1/3 cup sugar-free maple syrup with Splenda
1/4 cup agave syrup
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. freshly ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp. dried lemon zest
1/3 cup white wine
I placed 4 cored and sliced apples as the medium layer, then managed to cover the top with 3-4 semi-intact pieces of phyllo that had thawed after they still remained sealed in a waxed paper cylinder in the badly outdated phyllo box.
I tucked them in over the apples slices and poured the remaining syrup over them, tucking in the edges and adding a few squiggles of Smart Squeeze, which I refer to as "faux butter."
Into the oven it went at 350 for about 25 minutes. I checked it, and cranked up the temperature the last 10 minutes to 375.
It had browned, and the ingredients had melded with the other ingredients to form a delightfully rich cohesion. A spoonful of Umpqua low-fat vanilla ice cream with Splenda was added while still warm. Ersatz sin.
I tried something similar with phyllo last Thanksgiving using home-canned green tomato mincemeat. However, the syrup component was not yet in play, and it was a bit dry and pasty.
Now I have a magic combination to try. While there are not enough green tomatoes this year to attempt another batch of green tomato mincemeat, I have two remaining pints lurking on the shelf. They will be sacrificed.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Nearing Thanksgiving....
It's almost Thanksgiving again, and another anniversary is nearing.
Pan back to 1982, Brooklyn. It's dark and cold as I walk home from the Park Slope subway stop. I have invited three people to share Thanksgiving dinner, but I have not yet bought a turkey or any of the trimmings due to work and time pressures. As I walk toward President Street, every mom and pop bodega is closed. My heart sinks with each echoing step. My roommate is in Pennsylvania with her parents. Rather than face my favorite holiday alone, I have invited a couple who were each my friends before they met and married, plus a new boyfriend I've known less than two weeks. I met him at the insistence of my girlfriend, who said he was “spiritual.” He is shiny bald when he finally takes off his hat. I like him well enough, but he is moving a little too fast for me.
In despair over the turkey situation, I recall there is a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week Safeway, a 12-block walk into uncharted territory. At 10:30 p.m., I am willing to risk it. I reason as I scurry along that I will take a cab back, as I’ll have too much to carry. I can't afford a cab both directions and buy groceries, too. As I arrive, the manager is pulling down the metal gates and won't let me duck under to grab a few things. "This is the only night we close," he tells me. Now that I wish I had a cab, none are around.
I brace myself for the cold walk back, and see predatory shadows near the store. Launching myself toward home, my senses are on high alert. I manage to negotiate the first couple of blocks safely, but there are four or five of them, and they are dangerous young wolves, circling as they close in. I duck into a house turned apartment building with an unlocked front door, crouching below the window in the foyer. They search nearby yards and doorways. Unable to get past the inside door, trapped, I ring doorbells at random. Finally, a man in a bathrobe comes downstairs and I explain the situation. He agrees to call me a cab, and I wait, crouching and shivering until it comes. Home never felt better.
The next morning, a neighborhood grocery offers two chickens and other provisions. I set to work making sweet potato and apple pies, yeast rolls, cranberry sauce with orange and ginger, real whipped cream and cornbread stuffing from scratch. As the oldest of seven children with grandmothers from Kansas and Missouri, I can cook.
The potatoes are mashed when he arrives nearly an hour late. He plops himself in front of the TV and turns on a football game as I work. At 3 p.m., it is clear my friends are not showing, and we begin to eat when the phone rings. Miriam is calling from a subway station. They have had an on-platform shouting match; he is going to his mother's. I ask her to join us, but she is too upset.
We save the pie for later. He settles in front of his football game while I wash dishes. No offer of help from him; he doesn’t even carry his dishes to the sink. After a decidedly unspiritual remark about the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders, something snaps. Still in my apron, I hand him his hat and point him down the stairs. He protests, "What about the pie?" He calls for a week, but I will not speak to him.
Every year at Thanksgiving, I acknowledge yet another notch on an ever-tightening chastity belt. I seem to have lost the knack.
Pan back to 1982, Brooklyn. It's dark and cold as I walk home from the Park Slope subway stop. I have invited three people to share Thanksgiving dinner, but I have not yet bought a turkey or any of the trimmings due to work and time pressures. As I walk toward President Street, every mom and pop bodega is closed. My heart sinks with each echoing step. My roommate is in Pennsylvania with her parents. Rather than face my favorite holiday alone, I have invited a couple who were each my friends before they met and married, plus a new boyfriend I've known less than two weeks. I met him at the insistence of my girlfriend, who said he was “spiritual.” He is shiny bald when he finally takes off his hat. I like him well enough, but he is moving a little too fast for me.
In despair over the turkey situation, I recall there is a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week Safeway, a 12-block walk into uncharted territory. At 10:30 p.m., I am willing to risk it. I reason as I scurry along that I will take a cab back, as I’ll have too much to carry. I can't afford a cab both directions and buy groceries, too. As I arrive, the manager is pulling down the metal gates and won't let me duck under to grab a few things. "This is the only night we close," he tells me. Now that I wish I had a cab, none are around.
I brace myself for the cold walk back, and see predatory shadows near the store. Launching myself toward home, my senses are on high alert. I manage to negotiate the first couple of blocks safely, but there are four or five of them, and they are dangerous young wolves, circling as they close in. I duck into a house turned apartment building with an unlocked front door, crouching below the window in the foyer. They search nearby yards and doorways. Unable to get past the inside door, trapped, I ring doorbells at random. Finally, a man in a bathrobe comes downstairs and I explain the situation. He agrees to call me a cab, and I wait, crouching and shivering until it comes. Home never felt better.
The next morning, a neighborhood grocery offers two chickens and other provisions. I set to work making sweet potato and apple pies, yeast rolls, cranberry sauce with orange and ginger, real whipped cream and cornbread stuffing from scratch. As the oldest of seven children with grandmothers from Kansas and Missouri, I can cook.
The potatoes are mashed when he arrives nearly an hour late. He plops himself in front of the TV and turns on a football game as I work. At 3 p.m., it is clear my friends are not showing, and we begin to eat when the phone rings. Miriam is calling from a subway station. They have had an on-platform shouting match; he is going to his mother's. I ask her to join us, but she is too upset.
We save the pie for later. He settles in front of his football game while I wash dishes. No offer of help from him; he doesn’t even carry his dishes to the sink. After a decidedly unspiritual remark about the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders, something snaps. Still in my apron, I hand him his hat and point him down the stairs. He protests, "What about the pie?" He calls for a week, but I will not speak to him.
Every year at Thanksgiving, I acknowledge yet another notch on an ever-tightening chastity belt. I seem to have lost the knack.
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Pause that refreshes
taken at Trout Lake Arts Fest
