Yesterday Liza got to work on the apples and pears.
10 apples were peeled, cored, chopped, and coated with lemon juice. This morning they were put in the crock pot with sugar, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg, and cooked all day long turning into beautiful apple butter. It’s currently still cooling in the kitchen, and the apartment still smells like an apple pie, which Liza’s roommate Chris said was a major distraction all day. When it gets smeared on some toast, there will be a picture.
After the apple chopping, a few of the pears were turned into a pear pie. The crust was an old faithful recipe belonging to Liza’s Aunt Margie, and the filling came out of an old issue of Gourmet magazine. Paul came over last night and enjoyed a slice with Liza and Chris.
Tonight Paul invited Liza and Chris over for a last minute dinner of a delicious (and healthy, if we don’t think about the butter) strata. It was accompanied by a Pacific Rim dry Riesling wine for Liza and Paul, and a Ninkasi Tricerahops beer for Chris. For dessert we finished off the pear pie, paired with caramel ice cream from none other than Alma Chocolate (for a refresher on the Community Supported Ice Cream deal, go here). Nothing goes together like pie and ice cream, and pear and caramel is a perfect match.
The smell of apple butter, an impromptu strata dinner, and the 3 of us finishing off an entire pear pie in two sittings is a pretty good start to the week.
