Recipe Box: Apple Day

Ok, so it took a while, but I finally have the recipes ready for your perusal! I am sorry that it took this long to get them out on the interwebs so everyone can make these delicious foods!

Here we go! Without further adieu:

Strawberry and Apple Fruit Salad

Ingredients:

1 lb. Fresh Strawberries
2 Large Apples (I used a Granny Smith and a Red Delicious, but any will work.)
2 - 3 cups of Whipped Cream
1 - 2 containers of flavored Yogurt.

Instructions:

1. Wash the fruit, and then cut the strawberries and apples into little pieces, and place in a large mixing bowl.
2. Add the whipped cream to the bowl, followed by one package of the yogurt, and mix until well blended.
3. Add more whipped cream or yogurt to the mixture to taste, as necessary.

Spiced Apple Ginger Alfredo with Apple Marinated Pork Medallions

Ingredients:

2 Large Golden Delicious Apples
2 tsp. of minced Garlic
1 tsp. Cinnamon
2 tsp. of finely grated fresh Ginger
1 Tbsp. of Butter
2 - 3 cups of Heavy Cream
3 Tbsp. of cooking Sherry, or equivalent
1 lb. of cubed Pork
1 package of Pasta, any variety.
Salt and Pepper, to taste.

Instructions:

For the Alfredo:

1. Peel and core the apples, and then place them in a food processor and blend them until as close to a puree as you can get it. Set a quarter of the apples aside, keeping the rest inside the bowl.
2. Add the garlic, ginger, and cinnamon to the apples in the processor and mix until well incorporated.
3. Add the butter to a skillet over medium heat, until melted and add the apple mixture from the processor. Let the apples cook in the butter for a few minutes, until heated through and partially caramelized.
4. Pour the cream, one cup at a time, into the apples until you achieve the desired consistency.
5. Let the sauce cook on medium heat for several minutes, stirring occasionally.
6. Serve over a bed of pasta, topped with the Pork Medallions.

For the Pork Medallions:

1. Take the pork cubes and place them in a bowl.
2. Add the cooking sherry and coat the pork.
3. Take the pureed apples you separated from the processor and add them into the bowl with the pork, stirring until well distributed. Let stand for about an hour.
4. Add some butter to a skillet, over medium heat, and let it melt; adding the pork/apple mixture to the pan.
5. Cook to temperature, and serve over the Alfredo.

Apple Cinnamon Quesadillas


Ingredients:

1 large Apple (I used a Granny Smith), sliced.
1/4 cup Sugar
1 Tbsp. Cinnamon
4 oz. Cream Cheese
3 Large Flour Tortillas
1 Stick of Margarine

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. In a sauce pan, add the cream cheese with a pinch of sugar and cinnamon, over medium heat until creamy.
3. Mix the cinnamon and sugar in a large bowl.
4. Use the stick of margarine to coat one side of a tortilla, and then rub it in the cinnamon sugar.
5. Spread the cinnamon cream cheese mixture on one side of the uncoated side of the tortilla, and place several slices of apple on top, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar, and then fold over.
6. Repeat until all 3 quesadillas are prepared, place on an ungreased cooking sheet for 10 minutes.
7. Let cool for 5 minutes before eating.


So there you have it! Now you can have an Apple Day of your own! Please respond and let me know what you think, after you've made some of these dishes for yourself!

And I promise that I will be much quicker about getting my recipe and write-ups posted in the following weeks.

Thanks for reading!

Apple Day!

So Apple Day was pretty successful if I do say so myself. I had my friends Matt, Amanda, Jessica, Madeline, and Nick over to try my food. And their opinions seemed fairly positive.

I know that it might seem a little self-serving to have good friends come over to taste food and give opinions on it, but I figured it would be easier to get them to come over rather than, say, my mortal enemies and thought they could provide more helpful criticisms than perhaps a stray animal would. I imagine that a starving, world weary dog would tell me whatever I wanted to hear in order to try what I had cooked, and I wanted some feedback from people who would not have a problem with lying to my face about stuff I cooked just so they would be invited over again for the next week's meals. That way, I can take whatever they said, invert its meaning, and know their true feelings.

First, I guess I should start with the menu. This week's letter was 'A' and the ingredient of choice was 'Apple'. I knew immediately what I wanted to do for a dessert, and I had come up with a pretty simple yet delicious fruit salad to have for an appetizer. The problem came with deciding upon the entree. I knew that apples went well with pork, because the mellow flavors complimented one another. I didn't want to do something obvious, like Apple Pork Chops, so I racked my brain a little bit and came up with something that didn't seem very ordinary. It felt good creating a dish that didn't show up on a google search no matter how many times I rearranged the words, and it felt better yet that my friend's were going to have to eat it, no matter how disgusting it could have turned out.

THE MENU:

Appetizer
Strawberry and Apple Fruit Salad


Entree
Spiced Apple Ginger Alfredo with Apple Marinated Pork Medallions

Dessert
Apple Cinnamon Quesadillas

Obviously the appetizer was served first, and that went over well. Most of my friends, except for Nick, tried it and had positive things to say about it. Everyone loved the entree, which kind of surprised me, because it seemed like apples and garlic and alfredo sauce and ginger wouldn't really work well together and I was expecting that it might have turned out kind of strange, but it turned out really well. The quesadillas were very delicious, and they turned out better than I imagined they would in my head.

~*~*~

Madeline

Appetizer: "I enjoyed the whipped cream/yogurt in combination with the apples and strawberries."

Entree: "The pork was very delicious with the marinade. The sauce was light and I enjoyed the cinnamon."

Dessert: "I enjoyed the hot apples mixed with the cream cheese filling and cinnamon. A+++" (I guess Madeline thought that she was leaving feedback on ebay...)

Matt

Appetizer: "A fluffy, delightful medley of fruits that overloaded my pallet with both taste and texture. Wonderful appetizer!"

Entree: "Light and tasty! The egg noodles were perfect as a compliment to the spice and cheese of the sauce and pork medallions. More cinnamon next time!"

Dessert: "A little sour and tart for my taste, and I wasn't a fan of the heat. But I feel that if served chilled with a dollop of whipped cream, it would be lovely."

Jessica

Appetizer: "A delightful melody of fruit. Loved the salad; different, light, and awesome."

Entree: "Great use of apples! I enjoyed every bite! Loved that egg noodles were used. It was light but filling."

Dessert: "Loved it! A cinnamony apple delight!"

Amanda

Appetizer: "Very light and fluffy. The fresh fruit readied my palette for the entree."

Entree: "Wonderfully filling, even though it was a pasta dish. I didn't feel uncomfortably full. PERFECT!! YUM!"

Dessert: "A little too sweet, but loved the crispiness of the tortilla. 7 out of 10."

Nick

Appetizer: "I don't eat raw fruit because I'm a freak, but the whipped cream yogurt topping was delicious."

Entree: "The dish was great. The sauce was light and all of the ingredients worked. The egg noodles complimented the pork."

Dessert: "The taste of the dessert quesadilla was phenomenal, but the texture was a little chewy. It would have been better fried instead of baked."

~*~*~

So there you have it: all of the lies that my friends said about my food. I still have to finish up the recipe write-up, but they should be up by tomorrow night (for real, this time).

Thanks for reading!

Success!

So it turned out that Apple Day was a major success, and the recipes all came together and were delicious! I am beyond tired at the moment, but I will definitely be posting the write up, the reviews, and the recipes tomorrow after I wake up. Thanks for your patience.

And thanks to my friends for being such gracious liars-- Your checks will be in the mail to you tomorrow.

Apples, Apples, Apples!

And so begins week number 1, and the start of my courageous use of apples. I have never really been a huge fan of apples, aside from dipping them in yogurt occasionally when I feel fat and don't wanna hate myself for opening up another bag of Doritos right after I finished the first one.

All that aside, this has been a pretty easy menu to build so far. I have decided on what I will be making, and I am now entering the experimental phase. As it stands, my first few attempts of the entree have proven promising, and I think I am already on the verge of finalizing its excellence.

I know that all three of my readers are dying to know what I have planned, but I will only leave you with this little hint to tide you over until the actual tasting:

A is for Apple (and "AHMYGODWHATAMIDOING?!")

Welcome to my first ever blog.

My name is Travis Richards. I have a nose, two eyes, and enjoy eating turkey sandwiches. I also like to cook. And, after watching the movie 'Julie and Julia,' I have decided to create a cooking challenge for myself and blog about it.

I have no formal cooking education, but people have always said that experience is the best teacher, and so I hope that through this undertaking I will learn a lot of things that I never knew as well as solidify my current cooking knowledge. On top of this, I would like to make good food, but we will see how that goes.

So here it is. My cooking challenge:

I will be spending the next 26 weeks (starting today until the week of October 17th) making three different courses (a Beverage/Appetizer, Entree, and a Dessert) with a common ingredient found within each course. Each week will also have a letter of the alphabet assigned to it, and the main ingredient of the week must start with that letter. For example, if the letter is 'B' and the ingredient is 'Banana' then the beverage/appetizer, the dessert, and the entree must all contain banana in some way, shape, or form.

Also, I will be creating the recipes on my own (with inspirational help from the interwebs, as necessary).

At the end of the week, I will be having friends over to taste the food (Lord, bless their souls.). I will publish their thoughts, as well as plenty of (hopefully) appetizing pictures of my journey through the week.

As is the nature of blogging, I will be updating you on my progress throughout the week, and will be checking in with updates on my recipes, what has/hasn't worked throughout the week, and how much closer I will be to killing myself if the eighth recipe I've tried to create fails.

Now that the premise has been established, I will be announcing that for the first week, my letter will be the letter 'A' (What a surprise!) and the ingredient I have chosen to start off with will be 'Apple'.



I decided on the Apple because it seems to be a versatile ingredient, and is a relatively easy one to start with. I could have picked something weird like Arugula to make it interesting and then quit this project before the next update, but I resolved to actually continue this endeavor into the 'B' week.

Thus, 'Apple'.

Let the challenge begin (and hopefully not end until the week of October 17th).