Chewy Molasses Cookies with Einkorn and Teff

Your basic molasses cookie, but tweaked to include a blend of einkorn and teff flours for fewer allergens and far more nutrition. Healthy enough to be a post- or pre-workout snack! And DELICIOUS, too, with a perfect texture: tender and moist inside, delicately crispy outside. Not too sweet. See explanation below for more info about the ingredients.

Ingredients:

5 ounces einkorn flour
3 ounces teff flour
1/4 cup Stevia, the fluffy kind that is designed to measure 1:1 with sugar, or equivalent sweetener
1 1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves
1/3 tsp allspice
3/4 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking powder
6 tbsp softened butter
1 egg
1/3 cup molasses

 Combine dry ingredients in a bowl and stir.

 Put the butter and the egg in a food processor and process until slightly fluffed. Add the molasses and process until combined.

 Add the dry ingredients to the food processor in three batches (one third of the dry mixture at a time). Each time, process until just smooth. Note that, due to the low gluten content of these cookies, you don't have to fear overmixing them. They will not get tough.

Scoop out into a bowl and refrigerate for 30 minutes or so.

 Preheat oven to 350.

 Divide the dough into four pieces. Roll each piece into a snake about as long as your hand. Cut each snake into 6 pieces. This will give you 24 cookies of equal size with no need to bother measuring them--neat, huh?

 Roll each piece into a ball. Now, you have a choice. You can place them on the cookie sheet as-is, OR, you can roll them in sugar first. Believe me when I say they are delicious even without the sugar. I am chowing down on a plate full of them right now. However, many people feel that the texture of the sugar is a vital part of this kind of cookie, and far be it from me to deny you this pleasure if you want it!

Whether you've rolled them in sugar or not, either way, you will now bake them for 11 minutes or until set. DO NOT OVERBAKE or they won't be chewy anymore!

 Enjoy :)

Ingredient explanations:

Einkorn: Einkorn is a primitive wheat. It is grown mainly in Italy, where it was used for some traditional foods, and thank God for that or we might have lost it!

 Einkorn has been selectively bred to increase its yield and so on, but it has never been hybridized (cross-bred with other species). As a result, it has a less complicated genetic structure and a different gluten protein. Many people who cannot tolerate modern gluten have no trouble with einkorn. Now, if you have a wheat allergy, I do not recommend you go overboard on einkorn, even if you think you can tolerate it! Reason being, allergies are flexible things and you could easily develop an intolerance to this gluten, too. Instead, I suggest you preserve it for special occasions, like pies, birthday cake, and Christmas baking.

 Einkorn flour also happens to have a delightful silky texture, lovely soft-gold color, and a richer, almost tangier flavor than modern wheat. The only tricky thing about using it is, it doesn't absorb as much water as modern flour, so you will need to reduce the amount of liquids you use. With cookies, however, this is not an issue as there is no added liquid.

 I use Jovial brand of einkorn flour, but that's because I haven't found any others, not because I specifically prefer that brand.

Teff: Teff means "lost" and refers to its tiny size. It is the world's smallest grain. This is significant because it means the ratio of starch to "good stuff" is better.

Teff has more protein and more minerals than any other grain, and a lot of fiber, too. It's especially important for its magnesium content. Considering more than half of Americans get way less magnesium in their diet than they need, and considering what a deleterious effect low magnesium can have on mood and mental functioning, it's pretty awesome that one serving of teff contains 45% of your entire day's magnesium requirement!

Teff also happens to be incredibly flavorful, with a lightly sweet and fruity aspect that reminds me of cider and makes it perfect for this kind of cookie. I also love to add it to pancakes.

I use Bob's Red Mill brand of teff flour, and that is important because milling teff is not easy. I have tried other brands and they are gritty, as though sand or dirt got in with the tiny teff grains. So, not all teff flours are created equal. Bob's is worth the slightly higher price.

Traditional Flan

This isn't your chef's creme caramel.

The apple pie, and indeed the pie in general, is American. It's a colonist's interpretation of an old world dish, namely a tart, but made with the available ingredients and techniques. Pie crust is the commoner's pate sucree. Similarly, this is the flan of the people, created with the ingredients available in tropical places like Mexico and the Philippines. It is not healthy.

Ingredients:
1 can evaporated milk
1 can sweetened condensed milk
8* egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup sugar (organic is ok)
2 tbsp water

Preheat the oven to 325. Grease a pie plate or similar ceramic or glass oven safe container. Prepare the filling by heating the canned milks in a small pot to almost boiling. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks and vanilla lightly.

When the milks are hot, pour into the eggs in a thin stream, whisking constantly. Set aside.

Make the caramel sauce by mixing together the sugar and water. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and cook without stirring until the sugar turns golden-brown.

Immediately pour the caramelized sugar over the bottom of the greased pie plate. It will turn rock-hard as soon as it cools, so try to pour it all over the plate and not in a mound in the middle, although don't worry about getting it evenly spread. It will melt and spread out while cooking.

Pour the egg filling on top and bake gently for half an hour, or JUST until the center is set. If you see the edges begin to puff up, you're overcooking it and must take it out immediately. However, this flan is much more forgiving than regular custard, since the canned milk does not curdle.

Variation: Reduced sugar

To make a reduced sugar version, simply replace the can of condensed milk with an additional can of evaporated milk plus about 1 cup of Splenda or equivalent heat-safe sweetener. You must use real sugar for the caramel, though.

* About the egg yolks: This number of yolks is a guideline. Some families use a whole dozen!! It's possible to use as few as 5. Basically, 8 is just the compromise number, so use however many you like.

Delicious Blueberry Compote-slash-Syrup

This is great on pancakes, ice cream, angel cake, and as a topping to spice up less flavorful fruits like cantaloupe.

It is an excellent way to use frozen berries, which are much cheaper than fresh, and available year-round. They may also be more nutritious, since they haven't been sitting on a shelf, but instead were frozen and preserved right after being picked.

Ingredients:
1 bag frozen wild blueberries (about a pound)
1/4 tsp cinnamon
Sweetener to taste
Optional: Lemon zest, OR orange zest, OR 1/4 tsp orange oil

Place the blueberries and the cinnamon in a small pot over medium heat. No need to thaw the berries first. Cook and stir.

The berries will burst and give up a lot of juice. As long as you keep stirring, the berry syrup will become thicker and thicker. There is a "sweet spot" where the berry syrup has become concentrated and intensely flavorful, but hasn't become too thick or gritty from the seeds. Exactly how thick is up to you. Just keep spooning some out and looking at it. You will know when it's done because you will look at it and say "I wanna put that on my ice cream." (When it's too thin, you will look at it and say "Ick, that looks watery.")

Take it off the stove and add the sweetener at this time. It doesn't matter what kind you use, but do make sure it has cooled before you add nutrasweet (phenylalanine) if that's what you use. The flavor of the berries is strong enough to cover up the flavor of stevia if you choose to use it. How much you need will depend on the sweetness of the berries, which varies from bag to bag. Start with 1/4 cup (or equivalent) and taste.

If you chose to use the zest or flavoring, add it now.

NEXT: Some people like this as a compote, which means there are whole berries floating in a relatively thin syrup, while other people like it better as a thick syrup with no chunks, ie. a smooth puree. I like puree, Ariel likes chunks, so I puree half of it and then store the results in separate jars.

Note that this syrup is different from store-bought in that it has no preservatives. This will keep for only 2-3 days in the fridge. If you want it to keep for longer, then take it out every day or two and bring it to a boil, then cool and return to the fridge. Every time you boil it, you stop the bacteria and yeast from growing, and reset the shelf life.

WHY AND WHEREFORE:

Why wild blueberries? They are higher in antioxidants and have a stronger flavor, and are a little more tart, which I like. They are also a little more expensive, so feel free to use regular blueberries if the wild ones are too pricey.

Why cinnamon and citrus? That's just the traditional "berry cobbler" combo. You can also use 1/4 - 1/2 tsp almond flavoring, which is sophisticated and a nice treat. Also, you can include other berries, such as blackberries, to make a more complex flavor. Ginger and lemon is another fun twist. I haven't tried it, but I have seen fruit recipes that use 1/4 cup of zinfandel wine, too.

Brown Rice Pudding with Brandy

Out of the blue, I acquired a craving for rice pudding. I insisted on brown rice for health purposes.

I've read that it's better to pre-cook the brown rice in water and then add it to the milk; I haven't tried this yet, so here's the traditional recipe.

Ingredients:
2/3 cup brown rice, uncooked
Optional: 1/4 cup golden raisins
3 cups milk
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp fresh ground nutmeg
3 tbsp butter or margarine
1 tbsp brandy
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup splenda or equivalent sweetness

Combine the rice, milk, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a small pot. Bring to a low boil, then turn down the heat and simmer gently. Cook, stirring frequently, for 45-60 minutes or until the pudding thickens to your preferred texture.

Add the brandy. Whisk in the butter, a tablespoon at a time. Then continue to cook, stirring constantly since it will burn easily at this point, until the alcohol from the brandy has evaporated. You can tell because the steam will stop smelling like booze.

Stir in the splenda and vanilla.

If you don't serve it immediately, this will thicken as it cools. It will also acquire a skin. To prevent this, place a sheet of plastic wrap directly onto the surface of the pudding.

Note on butter: The reason for the butter and the brandy is to cover up the bitter bite of the brown rice. I personally don't like the taste of brown rice on its own. The fat from the butter tempers bitterness, and whatever shines through anyway is swallowed up by the brandy. Spiced rum would also be tasty. I made this with 2% milk, so it's possible that using whole milk would not need butter.

Note on milk: You cannot substitute rice, almond, or soy milk effectively in this recipe. Soy milk will produce a runny pudding, though still edible; rice milk will not set at all but stay liquid like congee. I think, however, that the newly available coconut milk (not the kind in a can, the kind you buy in the milk department) might work well.

Next, I think I'll try this with wheat berries, or maybe farro!

Kabocha Squash Pie

I made this without a crust, so it's more like a flan than a pie, but you can make it with a crust. I recommend this crust: Flaky Tender Pie Crust

Kabocha squash is also known as a Japanese pumpkin. It doesn't look like a pumpkin, since it's green and flattened instead of round, but its flesh is orange and very smooth and sweet. In my opinion, kabocha is better than pumpkin if you are preparing a pumpkin recipe from a fresh vegetable instead of canned puree. Fresh pumpkins are irregular and often underripe, watery, or stringy; kabocha squashes are almost always sweet and fine-textured, and taste very similar to pumpkin. This is a Pumpkin pie recipe at heart.

Ingredients:
1 kabocha squash


Kabocha squash
3 eggs
1 can evaporated milk
2/3 cup Splenda or equivalent sweetness
1 tbsp dark corn syrup (optional if you don't have it)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp allspice
1 tsp vanilla

To prepare the squash, cut it in half from top to bottom, and scoop out the seeds and guts with a large metal spoon. (Metal so that the hard edges can scrape it out.) Place cut-side-down on a baking sheet or plate, and roast at 400 until it's very tender, about 45 minutes but don't skimp - it won't overcook.

Turn the oven down to 325 and remove the squash. Scoop out the orange flesh and put in a large bowl. If there is a greenish, less-ripe layer under the skin of the squash, don't use it. Usually there is more than enough meat on one of these squashes that you can afford to be picky.

Add all the remaining ingredients and beat well with a spoon. If you have an immersion blender, this is a good time to use it. Don't use a food processor or blender, though, since that whips in too much air.

Spray a pie plate with cooking spray or rub with butter. Pour the filling into the pie plate and put in the oven. Cook for 30 minutes or until the filling is set. If it puffs up, you've overcooked it so take it out right away. It might be a little watery but it will still be very delicious so don't worry.

This can also be made with less seasoning and no Splenda, for a side dish you can serve at dinner instead of for dessert. It's delicious, easy and healthy.

Butterfinger Ice Cream

A huge hit with the Ariel contingent, this recipe contains creamy peanut butter and a butterscotch jell-o for thickness, plus cocoa powder for... well, because chocolate is awesome. The resulting flavor combination is very similar to butterfinger candy bars, except it doesn't get stuck in your teeth.

Ingredients:
1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/3 cup Splenda or equivalent sweetener
2 cups milk
1/2 packet sugar-free butterscotch instant jell-o pudding

Place the peanut butter, cocoa powder, and sweetener in a mixing bowl. Add about 1/4 cup of the milk and mix into a paste. Add more milk, a tiny bit at a time, as necessary to make a smooth paste, stirring with a whisk or a fork. Then keep adding little bits of milk until it's the thickness of syrup. At that point, you can add the rest of the milk all at once.

Add the jell-o powder and mix thoroughly.

The mix is complete! Now just put it into the ice cream maker and freeze according to the directions. This is a good candidate for Smucker's excellent sugar free caramel sundae syrup, or my homemade hot fudge sauce.

Hot Fudge Sauce

Why the heck can't anyone make a sugar free fudge sauce worth eating?? Everything on the market tastes like licking the floor in the Dow chemical factory. I have my own incredibly simple, no-cook recipe. This does not keep in the fridge, so make the amount you plan to eat right then.

Ingredients (for 2-4 servings depending how much sauce you want)
1 ounce baking chocolate (Ghirardhelli is the best, but regular Bakers brand is fine)
4 packets Truvia brand stevia sweetener or equivalent sweetness
2 tbsp milk (low fat or skim is fine)
1/2 tsp vanilla

Chop the chocolate and pour the small pieces into a microwave-safe cup or small bowl. Add the sweetener and 1 tbsp milk, and microwave for 15 seconds.

Attempt to stir the sauce. If the chocolate isn't melted enough, microwave longer, 5 seconds at a time, until it's all melted. This will depend on the power of your machine.

When it melts, stir very thoroughly with a whisk or a fork. Gradually add the remaining milk and the vanilla and stir very thoroughly. If you want to thin it at this point, you can, using tiny amounts of milk at a time. If it gets too thin, let it cool in the fridge, and it will thicken.

If you want it to be hot, serve it promptly. But if you're going to put this on ice cream, you should cool it somewhat first. Put it in the fridge while the ice cream is making, or approximately 20 minutes. When it's cooled, it will be thicker, so you might want to add more milk, a teaspoon at a time, until it reaches the desired consistency.

Again, don't keep this in the fridge. The milk will dry out and form a crust. If you do want to store it, it would keep without spoiling for 2 days, as long as you get a piece of plastic wrap and press it down over the surface of the sauce, so there's no air on the sauce that might cause the milk to dry and form a crust.

I think you will agree that this sauce is incredible.

Note: If you're really intensely watching your calories, it is also possible to make it using cocoa powder, which reduces saturated fat content considerably. To do this, start with 1/4 cup cocoa powder and add the milk very very slowly to form a paste. The sauce will go from too thick to just right to too thin with the addition of just a few too many drops of milk, so go slowly. If you make it too thin, you can't fix it by cooling it, either - the cocoa won't thicken, unlike the chocolate. I find this harder to make and I like the fudginess of the chocolate, but it's a very nice option for dieters to have something sweet and decadent without breaking the calorie budget. It can also be quite high in fiber depending on the brand of cocoa used.

Festive Candied Yams

This is a guilty pleasure, a relic of childhood, and I'm pretty much the only one who eats it at this point (well, Ariel does, but he eats almost anything).

This year I tried a variation with the intention of making the yams a little more grown-up and their sweetness a little more approachable. Here's the result. It worked pretty well - people ate about half of it, though that was with a lot of help from my friend Elana's twin toddlers. Hooray for a new generation of kids + yams!

Ingredients:

1 large can cut yams in syrup
1/2 bag of regular-sized marshmallows (Nothing wrong with the minis if you prefer them. I just like the big ones' tenderness.)
1/2 cup sugar, either the evaporated cane juice kind or packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup cranberries
1/3 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp allspice
Dash cloves
2 tbsp butter

Pour about 2/3 cup of the yam liquid from the can into a small pot, and discard the rest. Spread the yams into a baking dish in one layer. Warm the yams in the microwave.

Add the sugar to the yam liquid and bring to a boil. Cook down into a syrup that stretches from the (heat safe!) spoon like corn syrup, stirring often. Then turn the heat down and add the cranberries, stirring until they pop and become soft. Stir in the spices ad the butter. Pour the sauce over the yams.

Spread a single layer of marshmallows over the yams and place under the broiler. Broil until the tops are darkened to the degree you prefer.

Pumpkin Cheesecake

Ariel requested a cheesecake for Thanksgiving, and of course that meant I had to put pumpkin in it. This is a reduced-sugar version of this recipe by Cooking Light, and can be made wholly sugar-free by simply omitting the crust. It'd be good without the crust, I only add it for the benefit of guests who expect crusts.



Ingredients:

50 vanilla wafer cookies
2 tbsp butter or margarine
4 blocks 1/3 reduced fat cream cheese
1 can pumpkin
1 1/4 cup Splenda
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
2/3 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp cloves
2 tsp vanilla
4 eggs
1 tbsp molasses

Crush the wafers - a food processor is good for this, but you can also crush them with a rolling pin inside a plastic bag. Melt the butter and mix it into the crumbs, then spread the crumbs in the bottom of either a springform pan or a silicone cake pan at least 3 inches deep. Pat the crumbs down and bake at 400 for 8 minutes.

Combine the Splenda and the spices in a small bowl, stirring with a whisk. Put the cream cheeses into a large microwave-safe bowl and warm up in the microwave, 10 seconds at a time, until they are easy to stir. Stir in the pumpkin, the vanilla, and the eggs, followed by the Splenda mixture.

Important note about stirring: If you beat air into a cheesecake, it will puff up and curdle when you bake it and you won't be happy with the results. Stirring must be done with care to avoid this. I don't use a machine - a food processor is wildly inappropriate for this, and a mixer gives (heh heh) mixed results. Use a spoon and be careful, or use my special cheesecake secret: An immersion blender! You can stick the immersion blender into the batter, carefully to avoid trapping bubbles, and then stir the batter with the blending stick (while blending) and as long as you don't lift the stick up too high, it won't whip any air in and you'll have a perfectly smooth batter.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan, and bake at 350 for 10 minutes. Then turn the oven down and bake at 300 for 50 minutes. The cheesecake is done when the outer inch or two is beginning to turn golden and puff slightly, but the inside is flat. Cracks are okay, they happen to everyone and no one will care because it tastes AMAZING.

Pumpkin Flan

There's a delicious recipe for butternut flan in Cookling Light, but it has serious flaws. Butternut squash, though delicious, is annoying to process, and the recipe produces a watery, bland result when followed exactly (reviewers agree).

I have a different version made with canned pumpkin. You might use fresh pumpkin, but I don't, not for pies: Fresh pumpkin is an unpredictable product, sometimes stringy and watery, sometimes picked unripe and allowed to turn orange off the vine, resulting in a flavorless result. But the biggest issue is the irregular moisture content.

Canned pumpkin has a good and predictable flavor, a low moisture content, and is very easy to use. The disadvantage is the slight "canned" flavor, which is not noticable in a highly spiced recipe, but unpleasant (to me) in a recipe where the flavor of the pumpkin is the dominant flavor, like pumpkin soup.

Thus, I use canned for pies and breads/muffins/cookies/etc., and fresh for soups and anytime I intend to use it as cubes instead of puree.

But all this is beside the point. The pumpkin flan is essentially a pumpkin pie, but instead of a crust, it has caramel flan sauce on the bottom! The filling can be made with Splenda (custards are one of the best times to use artificial sweeteners), and with no crust, there's no white flour or butter, so the end result consists mostly of wholesome milk, eggs, and pumpkin.

Filling:

1 can unsweetened plain pumpkin puree (NOT pumpkin pie filling)
1 5-ounce can evaporated milk
1/2 cup milk
2/3 cup Splenda or equivalent
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cloves or allspice
3 eggs
1 egg yolk

Sauce:

1/3 cup sugar (raw sugar is okay)
1 tsp corn syrup (you can leave it out if you don't have any)
3 tbsp water

Coat 6 custard cups (ramekins) with butter or cooking spray. Preheat the oven to 325. Place 6 cups of water on the back burner and let it heat up while you're working.

Make the caramel sauce by putting the ingredients into a small pan, ideally stainless steel or heavy anodized aluminum, and stirring over medium heat until it melts together. Then leave it to boil, NOT stirring, until it turns golden. Then, immediately pour the hot sugar into the ramekins, working quickly because it will harden and become unusable if it cools. Fill the pot with water once you're done, and leave it to soak so it will be easy to clean later.

Combine the filling ingredients in a bowl and stir well. Don't mix air into it - that means be careful if you use a whisk, and don't use an electric mixer or blender. If you have an immersion blender, however, this is a great time to use it, provided you insert the blender carefully and keep it under the surface to avoid whipping air in. The reason to avoid stirring in air is because if you do, the filling will puff up and have an odd texture.

Place the ramekins onto a jelly-roll pan (baking sheet with a lip around the edges, as opposed to the kind that is totally flat) and pour the filling into them. Then place the pan into the oven. THEN, carefully pour the hot water you've been boiling into the pan, so that the ramekins are sitting in the hot water. Depending on the size of your pan, you might have to add more water; you want it to be almost full, such that the ramekins are sitting in water about halfway up their sides.

Bake for 25 minutes, then open the oven. Remove the ramekins carefully, putting them on a cooling rack, and leave the hot water in the oven until it's cooled off and is safe to remove. Don't try to take the whole pan out at once! It will spill and you might burn yourself!



Weird things I did and why:

1. Why some whole eggs and some yolks? An authentic flan is made with all yolks, but that's pretty rich and unhealthy, and then I never know what to do with the whites. But you can make it with 6 yolks instead if you like.

2. Can I make this non-dairy? Yes. Replace the evaporated milk with plain non-dairy liquid creamer, and replace the regular milk with your favorite milk substitute.


3. Why the immersion blender? I love my immersion blender. It is easy to use and easy to clean. It's good for custards because it will blend up the albumen (egg white stringy bits) so the custard has an even texture, without whipping air into it. Just slip the blender in carefully to avoid trapping air, and turn it on, keeping the head underwater. I also use this for mixing cheesecake batter for the same reason. Air bubbles are the enemy of cheesecake.

You can serve the flan by upending it over a plate, but I find that difficult, so I just eat it out of the ramekin. Yum!

Delicious Almond Milk Drink

I tried making homemade almond milk recently, grinding the almonds in my blender. It tasted great, but the texture was gritty and straining it through the cheesecloth was a pain.

So I tried commercial almond milk, specifically Almond Breeze (Blue Diamond's almondmilk). The flavor wasn't as good as my own, having an oddly metallic taste that I suspect comes from the vitamins and minerals added to make it a better substitute for cow's milk. But I've been enjoying playing with it nonetheless, and have settled on a favorite Indian-inspired recipe for it.

Makes 1 serving

1/2 cup Almond Breeze
1/3 cup whole milk
2 packets Ideal, Truvia, or whatever sweetener you like, or 1 1/2 tbsp Splenda or sugar
Honey to taste, optional
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
Dash cinnamon
1/4 tsp almond extract
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Just mix it all up in a cup and you're good to go. Indian food lore says the combination of almonds, milk and cardamom is an excellent restorative and cooling drink. I say it's really tasty.

Very Best Pie Crust, Very Favorite Apple Pie

Well, it's that time of year again. Specifically, it's suddenly okay to use an entire stick of butter for anything, when during the other three seasons such a thing would be unthinkable. My favorite use for butter is pie crust, and I have a favorite pie crust recipe.

In my family, only the grandmother makes pie. She is Pie Empress, Pie Matriarch, Bringer Of All Things Pie, and final word on pie-related matters. My father learned to make pie by watching her, but could not practice while at home because GOD FORBID a MAN make pie in Her Kitchen. As a result, Pie Making was a holy and elite art.

When I was old enough to help in the kitchen, I was taught to make pie crust. This was a mystic ritual involving a great deal of care and attention, careful rolling, patching of holes to create a perfectly round disc of dough and plenty of sharp commands to "Be careful! You'll ruin it!" Still, nobody but my granmother would dare bring a pie to Thanksgiving, Christmas or Easter. (No other holidays or gatherings had pie.) Even so, there was one Thanksgiving when there were more pies than people. It was a good year. Thanks was assuredly given.

Then I went away to college. I had my own kitchen. Autumn happened. I made a pie, with a recipe from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook.

It was awful. It took hours, it was exhausting, I was terrified I would ruin it and it did, in fact, come out tough. So I stuck to pumpkin pie, where the crust doesn't much matter, for years.

Until one day I vowed I would break FREE of Pie Tyranny!

I went to the trusty old Internet. I asked Google to find me a recipe for pie crust that would taste good and be easy. And I discovered Kitchen Parade's Flaky Tender Pie Crust. A large part of the secret, she said, was to use a metric butt-ton of butter and/or shortening. The other half of the secret was to not give a damn about how it looked - just roll that sucker out every which way and slap it on your pie, nobody will care as long as it's delicious and IT WILL BE as long as you don't fuss about it. And add enough butter.

Sounds good to me. I tried it.

It was amazing.

I tried it a couple more times, just to see. It was amazing then, too. Now I have a new pie crust recipe, my dirty little secret because it uses almost twice as much butter and four times as much sugar as the family recipe.

Recently, a family tragedy tore us apart. My faction, to which I belonged by default since I wasn't personally involved in the disagreement (other than to occasionally comment on how crass it was to squabble over a dead man's meager will), was facing the smallest Christmas in my memory. That's myself, my husband, my dad, his wife, her two kids, my uncle John, his wife, and their two kids. And no Grandma.

No pies.

NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Pearl, my dad's wife, rose to the occasion marvelously. She was the hostess, and created pies for us and a special gluten-free pie for my dad - he had been reduced to eating the fillings out of Grandma's pies after he developed a gluten intolerance (that's no way to live). Considering Pearl had only been in America for, I think, six years at that point, having grown up in the sadly pieless Philippines, she did a great job and we were all delighted with her pumpkin and cherry pies.

I brought an apple pie.

I was terrified that Grandma or Tia would forgive us and come to Christmas anyway, which was really not in the Christmas spirit and did not do either of them justice because they've always been kind to me. But I was afraid I'd hurt their feelings by daring to bring my non-standard pie. Not only was the crust different, but I have a favorite apple and spice blend that was also a bit of a deviation. AND, I made the filling with Splenda, not sugar.

There weren't any leftovers.

I won't try to reproduce the crust recipe here. You really should go to Kitchen Parade and read it there. The instructions are wonderfully precise and easy to follow, and you can't go wrong with them. But I will tell you my opinion on the filling.

6 apples. The variety of apples makes a huge, huge difference. Always use more than one kind of apple; they are more than the sum of their parts. And always use half Cortland apples. If you can't get Cortlands, try Braeburn. The other half can be any kind, but I prefer old-fashioned, full-flavored varieties that are often overlooked because they aren't as juicy or sweet or crisp as new ones. But this is a pie! They don't have to be sweet or crisp, they only have to be flavorful.

3/4 cup Splenda, a little more if you use very sour apples

3 tbsp cornstarch

Spices:
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp cloves
1/8 tsp nutmeg

1 tbsp lemon juice

Peel and slice the apples.

Mix the Splenda, cornstarch, and spices in a bowl, then sprinkle over the apples. Toss to coat.

Add the lemon juice and toss to coat.

Ta-da!

Another thing I like to do: I make mini-pies, using custard cups, with only a top crust. They bake for 40 minutes at 375 and are perfect for a single serving. They can be frozen raw and baked whenever you want a fresh pie, without the temptation of a whole pie sitting in the fridge.