Mushroom Pilaf

All right. It looks like I won't have all of the recipes up on the blog before the end of November, but I will have actually made them by the end of the month. All of the recipes will be posted, just not in the idea time frame.

This recipe is also from the Beekman cookbook. I can't find anything similar to it online, so I'm going to post the process and ingredients here, but I won't use the exact text from the book.

Ingredients:

1/2 lb Shitake Mushrooms
1/2 bl Cremini Mushrooms
2 garlic cloves, smashed and peeled
1/2 tsp sage
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/3 c finely chopped shallot
1 c long grain white rice
3/4 tsp salt
1 carrot, shaved into long slices
1 c frozen peas, thawed
1/2 pecans, toasted and broken into smaller pieces

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

First you have to create a mushroom broth. To do this, you separate the stems from the mushrooms and let them boil in a pot of water with the garlic and the sage. You add 2 1/2-3 cups of water to the stems. You'll need about 2 cups of the broth for later, and some will boil down.

We didn't have enough stems to do this, so we used some of the caps too. Our broth had a heavier mushroom flavor as a result. If you love you some mushrooms, use some caps too.

In a pan, saute the onions in the olive oil for about 5 minutes. Then add the mushrooms and saute those until they wilt, which should take about 4 minutes. 

Strain the broth into a separate pan, and measure out 2 cups. If you don't have 2 cups, you'll have to add water. Stir the rice into the saucepan with the mushrooms. Add the broth and salt and bring to a boil. 

Cover it and put it in the oven. Cook for 20 minutes or until the rice is completely cooked through. Stir in the carrots, peas, and pecans with a fork. Cover again and let sit for 5-10 minutes before serving.

I'm not a huge fan of mushrooms, but I tried some anyway. I usually don't like them because of the texture, but in this recipe I found that the texture of the rice and the mushrooms kind of blended together and didn't bother me as much. It had a good flavor, and I'm glad I gave it a shot.

Chicken Succotash

I thought Chicken Succotash was going to be difficult to make, but once you separate the chicken, it's not so bad at all. Really, I don't even have room to complain about the chicken because Jess dismembered the one, and Rachel brought hers pre-cut into sections. I just stood there and watched. If you've never seen it happen before, imagine "The Walking Dead" with knife-wielding chickens. The Clucking Dead. (Someone, get on that. It's a cooking show waiting to happen.)

The Beekman recipe for this isn't available online, but I found a quick version of the vegetable succotash. The only difference I can tell is that the Beekmans have added chicken to their recipe to make it a full meal instead of just a side. 

I found the recipe for the vegetables here.

After the chicken has been taken apart, you brown it in the Dutch Oven.

Ingredients:

2 tbsps butter

1 small red bell pepper, chopped (We used green.)

1 small onion, chopped

2-3 small tomatoes, peeled and chopped

1 c frozen corn, thawed

1 c frozen lima beans, thawed

1 c chicken broth (low sodium)

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

1 chicken 3-5 lbs (We needed two chickens because we doubled the recipe.)

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Our preparation is different than what the recipe linked to, mostly because of the chicken. So here is what we did below:

After you separate your chicken into 8 pieces, you brown it in about 2 tbsps olive oil in a 5 quart dutch oven.

Here is some already browned and some browning. 

Meanwhile, boil the tomatoes for about ten seconds until the skin looks like it's wiggling loose. Remove them and put them in ice cold water. This stops them from still cooking and getting all mushy.

Then you can peel the skins off easily. 

You have to cook the chicken for a while. Depending on the size of the piece, you want it about 3/4 of the way cooked through, because you're going to want it mostly cooked before you add the vegetables. 

Once it has hit that point, you add your vegetables and broth and let them cook until the vegetables are softer and the chicken is cooked all the way through.

I found that if you wind up eating all the chicken, the stuff left over can make a pretty good soup. If it thickens, just add more broth to it, and you're good to go.

It's a full on meal, easy to make and satisfying. 

Cheese Toast Topped Onion Soup

This is the last of the fall soups from the Beekman cookbook. After this, we'll only have five more fall recipes to go, and then this season will be done.

The recipe is featured online here.

   Ingredients:

• 2 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2 1/2 pounds large yellow onions, halved, peeled, and thinly sliced (8 cups)
• 4 springs fresh thyme or 3/4 teaspoon dried
• 3/4 cup red wine
• 2 tablespoons sherry
• 6 cups chicken stock or reduced sodium canned broth
• 1 teaspoon salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 8 slices crusty country bread (For this, we used a baguette.)
• 1/3 pound Blaak cheese or Gruyere cheese (We used Gruyere.)

   Directions:

1. In a 5-quart Dutch oven, heat the oil and butter over medium-low heat. Add the onions and thyme, cover,     and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are soft, about 20 minutes. Uncover and cook, stirring frequently, until golden brown, about 35 minutes.

2. Stir in the red wine and sherry, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Ad the stock, salt, and pepper to taste, bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook for 30 minutes to concentrate the flavors.

3. Preheat the broiler.

4. Divide the soup among 8 soup bowls. Cut each slice of bread in half and place on a baking sheet or broiler pan. Top with the cheese. Broil the cheese toasts 4 to 6 inches from the heat for 2 minutes, or until the cheese has melted. Place 2 slices in each bowl of soup.

This soup is really easy to make, and if you like French Onion soup this one has a strong flavor. The bread soaks up the broth, and the combination of that and the cheese is delightful. Give it a shot. Tell me what you think. :}

Roasted Pork Loin with Gingerbread Stuffing

Here's the recipe I mentioned in my gingerbread post. As you can tell from the title, the gingerbread is going to be used as the stuffing for the pork loin.

I found the recipe online here.

Ingredients:

5 pound bone-in pork loin, hinged and butterflied (have your butcher do this for you)
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon rubbed sage1 teaspoon dried rosemary, crumbled1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil1 medium onion, finely chopped1 apple, peeled and coarsely chopped3 cloves garlic, minced2 1/2 cups crumbled Orange Gingerbread1 large egg

Directions:

Ok, before I even start, I'm not going to even pretend I have the money for a bone-in pork loin or a butcher to hinge and butterfly for me. So, instead I bought a regular old pork loin and then after pretending I knew what "butterflied" meant, I cut it open like this:

Essentially, I cut it so that I can unfold it and roll it back up like a swiss cake roll. 

1. Open the pork like a book. Season the pork with 1 tsp of the salt, and the sage, rosemary, and pepper, rubbing it all over, on the inside and the outside. 

2. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

3. In a small skillet, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onion, apple, and garlic and cook, stirring frequently, until the onion is tender, about 7 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and add the gingerbread, tossing to combine. Add the egg and remaining 1/2 tsp salt and mix again.

4. Pack the stuffing into the open pork. Roll the pork up toward the bone side, enclosing the stuffing. Tie the roast in several spots to keep it closed. Place in a roasting pan and roast for 30 minutes. 

Reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees and roast for 30 to 35 minutes longer or until an instant-read thermometer registers 145 degrees. (The temperature will rise as the pork sits.) Tent with foil and let stand for ten minutes before slicing. 

Variation: Make this with cornbread instead of the gingerbread stuffing. You'll need 2 1/2 cups crumbled. 

This was really good. The sweetness of the gingerbread worked with the juiciness of the pork. Plus, it was far easier to make than I had thought it would be given all the butterflying and hinging the recipe said would need to be done. (Granted, the butcher would do it for you, it still sounds like a heavy duty job.)

Also, I have a picture of it on a plate from the side view, but the plate is messy and my shadow is looming over it. Nobody wants to see it. But imagine a pork swiss cake roll with a gingerbread swirl, and you've got the point. 

Thankful

I feel like I'm a pretty appreciative person all year round. I like to take the time to enjoy the simple things, and I take pleasure in what I do, not only when I play, but when I work too. Regardless, it doesn't hurt to put it all down on a list on the day we're meant to seriously consider all that we're thankful for.

So here's a list in no particular order:

1. My family. There's countless reasons to be thankful for your family. For instance. today my mother took me out to lunch. We had pleasant conversations, and she complimented me multiple times. She even bought me apples for a pie I'm going to make tomorrow. (Yes it's from the cookbook, and yes it will be on the blog.)  My niece and nephew visited last weekend to show me her new uggz, and while they were here, my nephew busted out his impression of my cat. There's my sister who supported me during my entire young adult hood. And of course,there's my father who does so many little things to help out everyone simply because he can. (I'm hope that's a trait he passed on to me.)

2. My friends. I'm not an expert cook by any stretch of the word, and without them I'd be clueless about how to make some of these recipes. Of course, I'm not saying I'm only hang out with them to improve my cooking skills. They're a solid group of intelligent people with keen wit and good hearts. People like that are hard to come by, and yet all of mine are that way. I must be an awesome magnet.

3. My cat. He stares at me all the time. Flattering or creepy? You decide. (Sometimes he also licks my hair, which is nice? Gross?)

4. Jason Statham. I appreciate how he doesn't take himself too seriously and can consistently up the ante in his action scenes from movie to movie. I am working on my Statham impersonation, but without the chiseled jawline and shiny pate I fear it will never be good enough.

5. Cooking. I always thought of myself as an unlikely chef when I was younger, but I'm glad it's a hobby I picked up. There's something very therapeutic about laying out all the ingredients, cutting them neatly, cooking them just so, and then eating a delicious meal made by your own hands. It's also healthier for you too.

6. Cooking for other people. Sharing the experience only makes it better.

7. My job. This includes my students. They're a sweet bunch who make everything worth it. Seeing them grow has been more rewarding and has helped me grow. I'm pretty sure no other career path would have been as beneficial for me.

8. My blog and the people who read it. I think it's really cool that through a blog of me cooking stuff, I'm reaching people all over the world. I have readers in various countries, and I have over a thousand page views so far. This blows my mind completely.

9. Books. I highly value the power of the written word, from a simple blog post that shares an experience across the internet to a secret scribbled on the back of a postcard to a cherished novel by an author that travels over time to touch readers from generation to generation.

10. Music. I play guitar and ukulele, and I feel like I'm super cool once I learn a song. (Right now, I'm working on getting good at fingerstyle, and "Blackbird" by the Beatles.)

So there's ten things I'm thankful for. Today I'm off to a Thanksgiving meal with my family at a restaurant. Originally we'd been planning to eat together at my sister's house, but that fell through. I'll admit I'm a little bummed about this since I was looking forward to cooking things for the meal and taking pictures for the blog. But, it is also kind of nice to not have all the pressure of making things on your shoulders.

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Orange Gingerbread and Bourbon Custard

This recipe is actually from the winter section of the Beekman cookbook, but the gingerbread is used in another recipe from the fall section. I figured it would be easier to kill two birds with one stone and make enough gingerbread for both desert and the recipe. So, I'll be showing you desert long before dinner, which was everyone's wish as a child.

I did find the recipe on the internet here.

Ingredients:


Gingerbread

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled*
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon mustard powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 cup molasses
• 1 teaspoon grated orange zest
• 1 cup orange juice

        *You do this by spooning the flour into a measuring cup and then leveling it off with the back of a knife.

       

Custard

• 4 large egg yolks
• 1/3 cup sugar 
• Pinch of salt
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 1 tablespoon bourbon

Directions:

Gingerbread:

1. Preheat the oven to 350. Grease and flour a 9-inch square baking pan.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, mustard powder, cloves, and salt.

3. In a separate bowl, mix together your orange juice, zest, molasses, and egg. 

4. Combine the two into a far less icky looking blend that looks like it'll actually turn into gingerbread. 

5. Pour the batter in the baking pan. Bake for 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  (When I baked it, I actually had to leave the cake in for longer since it was still sticky in the center. It took an extra 5-7 minutes until a toothpick came out clean.)

6. Let cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then turn the cake out onto a rack to cool completely. (Either I turned my cake too early, or my cake was not meant to be flipped. Eventually, when I did flip it, it came out in two parts. This worked in my favor since the other recipe I needed it for needed crumbled gingerbread.)

Custard:

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, sugar, and salt until well combined. In a medium saucepan, heat the milk over medium-low. Be careful to stir it while it heats to avoid the formation of skin on top .Whisk about half the warm milk into the egg yolk mixture; then whisk the yolk mixture into the milk in the saucepan. Cook, whisking constantly, until the custard is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. This should take 10-15 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the bourbon. (We used a maple whiskey.) Cool to room temperature, and then chill until ready to serve.

Drizzle that goodness on your gingerbread and enjoy.

Variations

• For a dairy-free cake, swap in a total of 8 tablespoons oil such as walnut, coconut, etc in place of the butter. You could do a combination of two nut oils, or perhaps some olive oil. The book suggests 3 tablespoons walnut oil and 5 tablespoons vegetable oil, but I don’t recommend using vegetable oil – best to avoid those trans fats.

• Make buttermilk gingerbread by swapping in buttermilk for the orange juice.

HAVE SOME ACTION SHOTS OF FURIOUS WHISKING:

Baked Apple Dumplings

I know I've been doing mostly Beekman recipes lately, but I'm hoping to not only get all of the fall recipes done before the season ends, but to get them up here as well.

This recipe is featured right on their website .

Ours came out looking absolutely nothing like theirs. They were still mighty tasty though. (In fact, can I say that I thought ours looked better? Well, I did.)

Ingredients:

4 apples of your choice, peeled (We used honeycrisp. I really like those apples.)
Basic Pie Crust

Possible Fillings:

Walnuts, Pecans, Cinnamon, Brown Sugar, Unsalted Butter, Caramel Candy Cubes, Raisins, Cranberries

For our version, we used cinnamon, brown sugar, and unsalted butter.

Instructions:

1. Prepare your crust and cut into squares that are 10" x 10".

2. Core the center of the apples.

3. Now, butter the bottoms and sides of a baking dish. Place your dough inside, and then place the apples on top. Working one dumpling at a time, place your pre-cut dough in the dish. In the center of the dough, place the apple. Fill the center of the apple with the fillings.

4. Bring all of the edges of the dough up to the center top of the apple, twist, and pat to close completely.

5. Sprinkle with cinnamon and brown sugar.

6. Place into the oven at 450 degrees and bake until the crust is golden brown. (45 minutes)

Optional: Create an eggwash using 1 large beaten egg with 1 tbsp water. Brush the eggwash over the top of the pastry.

Note: We found that our apples were waaaaay too large for a measly 10" of dough, so we cut the inches in half across the width to make a shorter apple.

See, these are my little halved apples with the brown sugar, cinnamon, and butter inside. You can see that I tried shaving down the sides first, but that didn't work, so I had to halve them as well.

And here they are all wrapped up with their eggwash on.

This is our final product with a fancy little apple garnish that Jessica made out of leftover apples thinly sliced. 

I think I'm going to try a version without the crust where I just bake apples with good stuff inside to see what happens. When I do, I'll let you know how it goes. (Just in case you were wondering, these were super good.)

Basic Pie Crust

Being able to make a good pie crust is important if you ever want to make a good pie. This Beekman recipe for their basic pie crust is perfect and easy to make. It's from the Spring section of the cook book, but it's required for the next recipe to be featured on the blog and for another future recipe, so it was made early. I feel like it's a recipe I'm going to be using a few more times as I work my way through this cookbook though.

The recipe can be found here if you scroll down further on the page. It's also found here as part of a recipe for sour cherry pie.

Ingredients:

2c flour (spooned into the measuring cups - it makes a difference!)
2 sticks unsalted butter
1 tbsp sugar
Pinch of salt
3 to 4 tbsps ice water

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, and salt. With a pastry blender or two knives used scissor fashion, cut in the butter until pea-sized lumps remain. (I also precut the butter into small cubes before mixing it in to make the process easier.)

2. Gradually add the ice water until the dough begins to come together but doesn't clean the sides of the bowl. Add just enough of the ice water so the mixture holds together when pitched between two fingers. (I mixed it together with my hands.)

Cubed butter, it's super interesting.

And there's my pie dough. 

This recipe didn't yield as much as I expected it to, so if you want to use it for a larger pie, you should double the batch. Possibly even triple it. 

Butternut Squash-Filled Lasagna Rolls

I apologize for the lack of pictures with this post. We were cooking multiple things at once, and sometimes I get so absorbed in the cooking, I forget to take pictures. I don't have any of the actual process, which is unfortunate since it would make for more interesting pictures than some of my other posts. Also, there was a chow-down on pasta session when we all ate cooked lasagna because it's awesome.

I found the recipe online here.
Anyway, here are the

INGREDIENTS!

2 lbs butternut squash
8 lasagna noodles
1 1/3c grated parmesan cheese
1 large egg
1/4c blanched almonds, finely ground
1/4c panko crumbs
1 tbsp dijon mustard
2 tsps light brown sugar
1 tsp finely chopped fresh sage or 1/2 tsp dried
1/2 tsp dried
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
3/4c heavy cream

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Halve the squash crosswise, separating the narrow neck from the bulbous bottom. Cut them both in half lengthwise; scoop out and discard the seeds. Place the squash on a rimmed baking sheet, cut side down, cover with foil, and bake for 45 minutes, or until the squash is tender. (Leave the oven on.)

3. Scoop out the flesh of the squash and mash. Measure out 1 1/2 cups and freeze the rest for later use. (When we made it, we used all of the squash and just wound up with a couple extra lasagna rolls.)

4. Grease a 9 x 9 baking dish. In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook the lasagna according to the directions on the package. Drain and run under cold water.

5. In a medium bowl, stir together the squash puree, 2/3c of the parmesan, the egg, almonds, panko, mustard (I used the two bears provisions mustard that I blogged about before.), brown sugar, sage, salt and pepper.

6. Place the lasagna noodles on a work surface with the short ends facing you. Spread the squash mixture over each noodle. Roll the noodles up into compact bundles and place them, seam side down, in the baking dish. Pour the cream over the noodles and sprinkle the remaining 2/3c parmesan cheese over the top. Bake for 25 minutes, or until the cream is bubbling and the top of the dish is lightly browned.

Here we are spreading the mixture over one of the noodles before we roll them, and here

is what they look like all rolled up. When they were done for us, they looked like this

They were really good, and I liked how neat they were to eat. The flavor of the mustard added a sharp kick that I liked a lot. We also had fresh sage thanks to Alissa (since she'd just picked it).

This recipe isn't what I normally think of when someone says lasagna, but my friend John mentioned later that he thought he might prefer it to "the kind with all the sauce", whatever that means.

Red Wine and Spice Poached Pears

I thought I was going to totally hate this recipe because it sounded weird. Pears and shiraz? A dry bitter wine with a sweet pear?

But, this is possibly one of my favorite recipes so far. The smell of the wine simmering with the spices lasted for hours, and it made my home smell so good.

I'll have to thank Jess for coring the pears. She did an excellent job.

This recipe isn't online either, but here's a very similar one created by Ellie Krieger which can be found here.

Ingredients:

2 cups dry wine (We used a shiraz, but you could also use a merlot.)
1/4c plus 1 tbsp sugar
1 orange, juiced (In the Beekman recipe, instead of an orange there was allspice.)
1 strip orange zest
1 cinnamon stick
2 cloves
4 firm, ripe pears (We used Bosc.)

So, Jess cored the pears LIKE A BOSS, then Nick peeled them ALSO LIKE A BOSS.

We mixed all of the ingredients together with the pears and places them on a stove at a simmer for about 30 minutes. We wound up using far more wine than the recipe called for to cover them as much as possible. We also rotated them with a spoon as they cooked.

In the cookbook they suggested covering them with a circle of wax paper. I'm not quite sure why, but we think it was supposed to keep them down. How a piece of wax paper would manage that is beyond us, so we didn't do it. 

Steamy.

After about half an hour we removed the pears from the liquid and waited for it to boil down to a sauce.  

I really liked the color, and they smelled heavenly. A variation offered in the Beekman cookbook was to stuff  them with blue cheese, which I happened to have hanging around. Of course we did it. 

When the sauce was done, we let it cool for a bit and then poured it over the pears. They were delicioso.

Plus, they could look super fancy at a holiday party if you have that plating skill. I'm not sure if I do since I don't try to make things look like a professional photographer is going to take pictures of them for a magazine. I feel like that road leads to madness.

Hungarian Pork Goulash

Before I begin, I wasn't able to find this recipe online from the Beekman cookbook. I did find a similar recipe on this  website. Instead of beef, the Beekman recipe calls for pork. (I used pre-cut shoulder pieces.)

I floured my pork first before browning it, as you can see above. In another skillet I sauteed the vegetables, mixed in the spices and the tomato paste. 

It looks super appetizing, I know. 

Then I put it all together in a saucepan with water and let it hang out in my oven for an hour and fifteen minutes. It gave me time to relax on my couch, hanging with my cat, watching some Netflix.

Eventually I had to get up and add potatoes. 

When it was done, it looked like the above. It was incredibly hearty, and it was a simple enough dish to make. I think it'd be a good dinner for a cold evening when you plan on staying in. 

Broccoli Cheddar Soup

This is yet another recipe from the Beekman cookbook. It's the best Broccoli Cheddar soup I've ever had.

I don't know exactly what it is that makes this so good, (is it the cayenne pepper? the texture? the fresh ingredients? I'm going to go with all of the above) but this is a recipe I'm going to use again and again.

The recipe was previous published online here.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 medium onion, chopped
2 tablespoons long grain white rice
2 cups vegetable or chicken broth
1 head broccoli (1 lb), end trimmed
2 cups milk
2 cups (8 ounces) shredded sharp cheddar cheese
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Directions:

1. In a large saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring frequently, until the onion is tender - about 5 minutes. Stir in the rice, add the broth, and simmer until the rice is tender - about 12 to 15 minutes.

2. Separate the broccoli florets from the stalk. Peel the stalk and thinly slice. Coarsely chop the florets.

3. Add the milk to the onion and rice mixture along with the sliced broccoli stalk and cook for 4 minutes. Add the florets and cook until still bright green but tender, about 4 minutes longer. Remove the pan from the heat.

4. If you have an immersion blender, use it to puree the soup right in the pan until smooth. If not, working in batches, transfer the mixture to a food processor or blender and puree until smooth. (use caution when blending hot liquids). Return to the pan and reheat.

5. Remove the pan from heat. Add the cheese, salt and cayenne and stir until the cheese has melted. (I actually added more cayenne than the recipe called for because I'm tough like that.)

Honestly, best I've ever eaten. No lies. Try it for yourself.

Apple Butter Turnovers

This recipe is from the Beekman Cookbook, and it's incredibly easy. I did it this morning soon after waking up, it's that simple.

First, you go buy yourself some puff pastry. That's right, you don't have to make your own.

For some reason, blogger insists on putting these on here in the wrong direction. I hate it when it does this. But, anyway, there's the puff pastry I used. I thought the shells might be easier for me since it would make a little container for me to put the apple butter in. They also have puff pastry sheets, which are what the Beekman boys suggest using. Pepperidge Farm makes the only kind I could find, and they were tucked away in the freezer aisle.

Then the recipe calls for you to melt one tablespoon of butter and add cinnamon, cardamom, a teaspoon of sugar, and a pinch of salt to it. You use this to coat one side of the pastry. (If I used a sheet, I would assume that this would be on the inside.) Over the top, you use an egg wash of one beaten egg and a bit of water. I added some cinnamon and sugar to my egg wash since I was using it on the top of my turnover, and I wanted the sweet flavor too.

In the original recipe, you fold the pastry over the apple butter inside and make your little pocket. Since I used the shells, I had to bake them for 25 minutes at 350 degrees.

There they are, getting all puffy in the oven.

Once they were all baked, I took them out and popped their centers out, and they made little pastry bowls.

I filled these bowls with apple butter. I bought the apple butter in a store. If you want to make your own though, you just make applesauce (you can even make the cinnamon ginger applesauce from before if you want) and boil it down until it's so thick you can stand a spoon up in it.

Pop the tops back in and you're all done. Simple as that. I think adding the cinnamon and sugar to mine burnt the tops a little, so you might want to be wary of that. Otherwise, they taste fine and were a quick desert to make if you have company coming.