Day 16 - Leftovers --and Apple Crisp!

Leftover Spanish Rice and Chicken

Steamed Broccoli finished with Black Salt

Baguette and Happy Acres Family Farm (Templeton) Goat Cheese

Apple Crisp with Greek Style Honey Yogurt

Sigh. Leftovers again. How sad. I finished off the last of the torta for breakfast this morning. You can just call it grits if you like. We did have mere leftovers from last night for dinner tonight, although I discovered some broccoli lurking in the vegetable drawer to add to the plate. I love all the fancy salts you can buy now. I sprinkled a little black salt on the broccoli. We bought a nice baguette at farmers market this morning and served it with the goat cheese I bought last week. I just can't get Randy to get excited, or even particularly to like, goat cheese, but I just love the stuff. We are so lucky to now have a local producer of fresh chevre. I'll continue going to the Templeton farmers market just to buy the Happy Acres chevre. It's delicious.

The Big Deal in cooking today was Apple Crisp. Although Alice gives a recipe for peach crisp with a nut topping, I've had a yen for some fall apple crisp. To me, apple crisp needs the traditional oatmeal topping, so I used the marthastewart.com recipe. The recipe says prep time is 20 minutes. They lie. By the time you do the mis en place, it's more like 1.5 hours, believe me.

I used Winesap apples, recommended by the See Canyon growers. For the first time I used convection baking in our new oven. Mostly it's an energy and time saver. You lower the recommended cooking temperature by 25 degrees and reduce the cooking time to 75% of what is recommended. The crowning touch was my own moment of inspiration. I shopped for ice cream at Trader Joe's, but didn't think any of their offerings were suitable, so I topped the crisp with Greek style honey yogurt. Oh! It was heaven! The tangy-sweet flavor and creamy texture played off perfectly against the crispy and sweet flavors of the apple dish. Good thing I got plenty of the yogurt. I foresee apple crisp for breakfast. And lunch. And dinner. After all, I have about 8 servings of the stuff. Well, 6 now.

Otherwise, we took a trip out to Las Pilitas Nursery near Santa Margarita to purchase a flotilla of manzanitas and ceanothuses which Randy planted under one of our oak trees. He's doing vast amounts of planting and replanting, all with native plants. Las Pilitas has been very helpful with the project.

Carry on! Happy Halloween! Happy Dark & Gloomy Evenings!