Wayne: So, if you had to pick just one thing to eat for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Me: Is that like one really specific thing or a genre?
Wayne: Like what?
Me: Meat.
Wayne: What kind of meat?
Me: Yummy meat?
Wayne: You have to pick one thing.
Me: Ok, curry.
Wayne: What kind of curry?
Me: I can’t answer this question. What would you pick?
Wayne: Probably stew because it has vegetables and stuff in it.
Me: What kind of stew?
Wayne:: Beef. With bread.
Me: There’s no bread in stew.
Wayne: And a glass of milk.
Me: Ok, now you’re cheating.
Wayne: Well, you didn’t even answer the question.
Me: As any teacher will tell you, there is definitely a difference between cheating and not answering the question.

I couldn’t pick a fruit I’d want to eat exclusively either – I like too many! The first strawberries of spring, ripe peaches and berries in summer, and bodywarming mikans (aka satsumas, clementines, and tangerines) and pears in winter. Apples would probably be the strongest contender; Honeykrisp, Jonagold, Granny Smith, Fuji – I’ll snarf down pretty much any apple as long it’s not a mealy Macintosh from school lunches of yore.

This is dessert does a good job of accommodating people with food allergies/sensitivities – by default, it is low-sugar as well as egg, wheat and gluten free. You can leave out the sugar entirely or substitute honey for it. You could also also omit the butter and use apple sauce and a bit of vegetable oil instead as well for milk allergic folks.

The quantities in this recipe will fit neatly into 2 IKEA Smarta dishes. Double it for a 9×9 baking dish or triple it for a 13×9 baking dish.

Ingredients

• 2 medium hard apples
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger (or 1 teaspoon dried)
• 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 tablespoon packed dark brown sugar
• water
• 1/4 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
• pinch of salt
• 2 teaspoons cold unsalted butter, cut into bits

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Peel and core apples. Cut into thin slices and place in a bowl. Grate ginger and add to apples, along with ginger, half the cinnamon, nutmeg and lemon juice. Lay in dishes – the arrangement is up to you. Go for the fancy spiral pattern or try the “leave ‘em where they fall” Jackson Pollock method. Sprinkle with about a teaspoon of water. Place dishes on a baking sheet, place that baking sheet on the center rack of the oven and bake for about 20 minutes, until apples are crisp-tender.
2. Toss oats, remaining half of cinnamon, salt, and sugar in a bowl until combined. Cut the butter into little pieces and mix in – the goal here is to create spice encrusted butter blobs. Sprinkle topping evenly over apples and bake again until a nice golden brown, about 25-30 minutes.
3. Let cool slightly before serving. Keeps well in the fridge for a few days (I can honestly vouch for it keeping well for 2 days after baking. I imagine 3-4 days would also be okay but I can’t keep the researchers out of it long enough to test the data.)

1. The main ingredient had to be chocolate.
2. It had to be baked in Smarta dishes.

Brownies seemed obvious from the start. I imagined them as little chocolate wheels cut into adorable wedges, served on tiny dishes and possibly sprinkled with powdered sugar or drizzled with caramel. Or perhaps an artful sprinkling of nuts on top.

Side note: Like nuts but live with someone who doesn’t? Put the nuts on top of your baked goods so that, when your nut-hating friend/partner/spouse starts whining about how much they don’t like nuts, you can just scrape them off and add them to your own nut pile. Be sure to follow up with a genuine gesture of gratitude for harmonious brownie ingestion.

I have to say, until embarking on this epic journey, I had NEVER messed up a batch of brownies. But I completely destroyed two batches in figuring out this recipe. The first time, a horribly undercooked gooey mass lurked underneath a gorgeous smooth crust. The second time, after knocking a proffered piece on his desk first, my boyfriend refused to even try to bite into them.

The third time, however, was the charm. When I pulled them from the oven, they had actually puffed up and over the edge of the Smarta but they deflated thereafter into lovely, dense, rich things that I honestly didn’t want to give away. I HOPE YOU APPRECIATE MY SACRIFICE, KELLI SHEWMAKER ;)

I adapted this recipe on Epicurious, mainly modifying amounts specifically for Smarta dishes. Lastly, I decided to call them “wedgies” because of their shape.

Ingredients

• 1 stick unsalted butter
• 3 oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1/4 cup coarsely nuts (walnuts, pecans, etc.)

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 325°F. Grease 2 Smarta dishes* with Crisco, butter, etc. and set aside. Place butter and chocolate in a bowl nesting in a saucepan with water. Bring water to a boil and melt slowly, stirring until chocolate & butter mixture is smooth. Set aside to cool.
2. Beat eggs and sugar in large bowl until light and fluffy. Beat in chocolate mixture, vanilla and salt. Add flour and mix until just blended.
3. Notes for nut fans: If you want nuts in your brownies, fold them in and pour batter into greased pans. Alternatively, you can sprinkle the nuts artfully across the surface of the brownies. This greatly diminishes the amount of heretical nut-hating during brownie consumption as nut-haters can easily pick the nuts off the top.

Bake for about 30 minutes, or until knife comes out mostly clean. Let dishes cool down completely before brownie removal. To remove, cut into brownies into 6 tiny adorable wedges and remove gently from the dish. Serve only to the deserving.

Side note: I never a picky kid. My favorite food as a kid was liver and onions. Seriously.

My grandmother was very picky about what went into her cottage pie – only beef. and only potatoes. and whatever other ingredients were listed in her dogeared copy of Erma Rombauer’s The Joy of Cooking. Never lamb nor rosemary, since that was shepherd’s pie, which is another dish entirely.

In my grandmother’s taxonomy, shepherd’s pie and cottage pie were two complete and distinct species who didn’t intermingle or cross-pollinate. In my taxonomy, they’re just different varieties of the same animal Yummy Potaticus Meation.

What I’ve included here is a basic cottage pie recipe that can be baked either in a 9″ round baking dish or 2 small Smarta dishes from IKEA. Consider it a broad canvas on which to paint your own masterpiece, be it a combination of sweet and regular potatoes for the crust, the addition of paprika for more smoky flavor, carrots or parsnips for sweetness, olives and red wine for a spanish twist, etc.

Ingredients

• 1/2 pd ground beef
• 1/2 good sized onion
• 1 big carrot, peeled and chopped
• 1/4 pd brown mushrooms, chopped coarsely
• 1 pound of potatoes
• 2 garlic cloves, minced or grated
• 1 tbsp fresh rosemary or 1/2 tsp dried
• 2 tbsp Worcestershire or soy sauce
• salt and pepper to taste
• optional and completely non-traditional: finely grated cheese of your cheese

Preparations

1. If you don’t like skin in your mashed potatoes, peel ‘em. Boil the potatoes until tender. Mash with a fork and add whatever you like to add to mashed potatoes – butter, milk, mayonnaise, etc. Season with salt and pepper.
2. Preheat the oven to 350°. Chop the onion and saute until semi-translucent. Add ground beef, carrot, rosemary, Worcestershire/soy sauce, salt, pepper, and garlic. Saute until meat is cooked through. If using Smarta dishes, the potatoes will heap quite a bit higher than the edge of the dish itself. You may worry about losing some potato goodness but fret not, it will simply yield a greater surface area for crispy potato goodness.
3. Using a fork, cover the meat with mashed potatoes. For extra fancy, create a hatched pattern on the top of the potatoes with the fork. If you’ve opted for the cheese, sprinkle it on the top of the potatoes.
4. Put the baking dishes on a cookie sheet and place in the oven, not on the topmost rack but the one just beneath it. Bake for 25 minutes, or until potatoes are golden brown and meat nice and bubbly. Serve piping hot on a cold, windy day with a nice green salad, red wine and some kind of spiced apple dessert.

Have a favorite Yummy Potaticus Meation recipe? Do share in the comments!

• 1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ginger
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 5 apples, preferably a baking variety
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 stick unsalted butter, straight from the fridge

Canon EOS 5D with ST-E2 transmitter. 180 sec @ f/6.7, ISO 200. 580EXII @1/8th power bounced off back wall.

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 450°F. Peel & core the apples and cut into thin slices. Grease a 9×9 baking dish or similarly sized pie pan (or 3 small IKEA baking dishes). Combine brown sugar and spices in large bowl. Add apple slices, toss until evenly coated and put in baking dish/pie pan. See apples with coating and without in topmost pic.
2. Mix flour, sugar and butter in medium bowl. Using a food processor or your fingertips to blend ingredients until they resemble a coarse meal. (It is worth fighting the urge to just plunge your hands into the bowl and knead that dough into a textureless, sticky blob. It’s great fun but doesn’t produce great pastry.) Spread flour mixture evenly over apples. See pic above for example.
3. Bake on oven middle rack for 20 mins. Reduce oven temperature to 350°F and continue baking until the crust is golden brown and apples are bubbly, about 30 minutes. Let stand 15 minutes before serving.

Postprandial Notes: The apple part was a little sweet for me – next time I make this, I will omit the sugar for the apple mixture (and use better quality apples!). I will also make the crisp part in the food processor – I think I made the dough too consistent for a nice crumbly texture. I thought these apples needed a bit of lemon juice for tartness but a nice baking apple might not need it.

You could also definitely experiment with adding walnuts, dried ginger, dried cranberries or raisins, or mixing in other fruit like peaches or rhubarb (ok, not exactly a fruit but…).

Camera Notes: Canon EOS 5D with ST-E2 transmitter. 180 sec @ f/6.7, ISO 200. Background flash: 580EXII @1/8th power and wide angle diffuser. Cutting mat for gobo. Key light: 580EXII, gridded and zoomed to 108mm @1/4th power. White bowls for stand-ins.

The combination of tiny baking dishes with a luscious AND easy crust recipe seem to have triggered some kind of fruit tart obsession recently. Although, honestly, I’m about ripe for a new obsession (no pun intended… *snrk) since last year’s exhaustive study of cupcakes.

August is also the perfect month for fruit tarts here in DC – I can’t go to a farmer’s market without being beckoned by pints of sexy, little blueberries, blackberries, raspberries or baskets of swelling, globular peaches and plums, their seductive seams coyly upturned in a come-hither stance.

Of course, I rarely make anything without wondering how it will photograph. Peaches and blueberries seemed like an obvious combination (complimentary colors – orange and blue – instant awesomeness!). Plus they taste good.

Crust

• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 stick of unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
• 2 tablespoons ice water

Filling

• 3 good-sized peaches
• 1/2 pint of blueberries
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 375°. Mix the dry ingredients for the crust and put in a food processor. Add butter cubes and pulse until the mixture loses its fine consistency and looks like coarse corn meal. Add water and pulse until the mixture makes moist clumps.
2. Remove the dough from the food processor, roll into a ball and flatten into a disk. Place the disk between two pieces of parchment or wax paper and roll out to a 1/4″ thickness (placing the roll pin above the top piece of paper). Cut a circle about an inch wider in diameter than your pie pan. Gently peel the dough from the paper and place it in the pie pan(s). Let the dough drape over the edge of the pie pan, if you can. If you’re using two small dishes, repeat the process.
3. Slice the peaches, leaving the skins on, and put them in a bowl. Add the blueberries, vanilla and cinnamon. Mix until the slices are well-covered. Pour into the pie pan.
4. Put the pie pan(s) on a cookie sheet and place in the center rack of the oven. Cover loosely with tin foil and bake for 20 minutes. Then, remove the tinfoil and bake for another 25 minutes. Crust should be golden brown and fruit bubbly.
5. Remove from the oven, let cool, and enjoy!

If my neighbor hadn’t “forced” me to take a sack of incredibly ripe and juicy plums from Toigo Orchards (find them in DC at the H St and Dupont Circle Farmers’ Markets) this morning, I would have simply squealed in delight and moved on. But I could already imagine myself pulling them from the oven, with a golden crust full of hot, bubbling sliced plum goop… and into my shopping bag, they went.

I was inspired by this recipe on Epicurious. Of course, I modified it for an open-faced tart. Follow the link above for the original recipe; my modified recipe is below:

Crust

• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 stick of unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
• 2 tablespoons ice water

Filling

• 12 small plums
• 1/3 cup plum jam
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 375°. Mix the dry ingredients for the crust and put in a food processor. Add butter cubes and pulse until the mixture loses its fine consistency and looks like coarse corn meal. Add water and pulse until the mixture makes moist clumps.
2. Remove the dough from the food processor, roll into a ball and flatten into a disk. Place the disk between two pieces of parchment or wax paper and roll out to a 1/4″ thickness (placing the roll pin above the top piece of paper). Cut a circle about an inch wider in diameter than your pie pan. Gently peel the dough from the paper and place it in the pie pan(s). Let the dough drape over the edge of the pie pan, if you can. If you’re using two small dishes, repeat the process.
3. Slice the plums, leaving the skins on, and put them in a bowl. Add the jam, vanilla and allspice. Mix until the slices are well-covered. Pour into the pie pan.
4. Put the pie pan(s) on a cookie sheet and place in the center rack of the oven. Cover loosely with tin foil and bake for 20 minutes. Then, remove the tinfoil and bake for another 25 minutes. Crust should be golden brown and fruit bubbly.
5. Remove from the oven, let cool, and enjoy!



Canon EOS 5D: 1/180 sec @ f11, ISO 1600. Hotshoed 580EX II set at 1/32 power and bounced.

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