Fun in the Kitchen.

So now that you have seen my awesome kitchen I can show off some of the stuff I have made in it! I have been baking a lot of pies lately as I tend to do every time the seasons start changing form summer to fall. I had to take a picture of this bad boy because it turned out so pretty and so delicious!

Oh yeah, om nom nom. I will give you my quick-and-easy apple pie recipe at the bottom of the post. Also, I don't know if I mentioned this but Dennis has been on the low-carb diet for a few months now and is doing great! He has lost a lot of weight and it is really fun having him be more involved in the kitchen, seeking out new recipes for us to try, etc. He found this low-carb pumpkin cheesecake recipe and it turned out fantastically! We changed it a bit and used pumpkin pie spice instead of the blend of spices they give. The almond-meal crust was an ingenious substitute for graham cracker too!

And lastly, for my birthday I made yet another apple pie:

Why is it pink, you ask? No, there is no food coloring involved. There is a new variety of apple on the market called a Pink Pearl that has hot pink flesh! I remembered reading an article about 6 months ago about the guy who spent years and years breeding this apple and how it was finally being sold as saplings, and just recently they showed up in the organic market up the street from my old work in San Francisco. I bought one and tried it and it really got the gears turning in my head. It tastes almost exactly like a granny smith, super tangy with very firm flesh that isn't super juicy. When you cut into them and leave them out, instead of turning brown like most apples do, the pink color only gets darker and more vibrant, which would make them a great choice fr fruit salads, etc. But I wanted to know if they kept their lovely color after being cooked, so I made my birthday pie out of them (and yes there is rainbow sanding sugar on top), and there you have it! I cannot ait to use them to make pink apple bread next. And just for fun, here are our sweet, wonderful friends Aaron and Star goofing around in the kitchen waiting for pie:

I love my happy home, it is filled with so many good things. Anywho, here is my apple pie recipe, taught to me by my mother. We usually don't use measuring cups and just eyeball everything, but if you are a recipe person I have approximated the amounts.

Quick Apple Pie

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2-pack frozen pie crusts

6-8 apples, mixed varieties or all sour

1/3 cup sugar, plus a little extra for sanding

2 tablespoons cornstarch

1 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice (yes, I know...)

Generous drizzle of maple syrup

2 tbsp cold butter, cubed

1 egg

1/4 cup heavy cream

1. Peel and quarter the apples, remove the cores, and slice them 1/4 inch thick.

2. Place apples in a big mixing bowl with sugar, corn starch, pumpkin pie spice, and maple syrup, and stir until all the slices are coated. If there is still a lot of watery juice at the bottom of the bowl, add more cornstarch.

3. Take your pie crusts out of the freezer and pour the apples into one, and toss the cubes of butter on top. Drizzle with more maple syrup if you like.

4. In a small bowl beat the egg together with the heavy cream, then brush some around the rim of the pie crust. Place the other frozen crust on top and press down gently. Brush the egg/cream mixture over the top crust and sprinkle with sugar. Be sure to cut 3 long slits in the center of the top crust to let steam out, but be gentle since the crust is frozen and it can fracture easily.

5. Place in the 350 degree oven on a cookie sheet to catch drips, and bake for 35-45 minutes, until the crust is an even golden brown all over. Enjoy!