Individual Apple Pies, Bleu Tuna Melt and Brazilian Jaboticaba

It seems like we've skipped Spring and gone straight to Summer here in Southwest Florida, with temps (and humidities) in the mid-to-high 80s. I went down to the Farmer's Market the other day and met my friends from Pine Island Botanicals, who always seem to have something new and different to share. This week they had:

Jaboticaba

This southeastern Brazilian fruit is sometimes called the Brazilian Grape. But Jaboticaba don't grow in bunches, or even at the ends of twigs. They grow directly on the trunks and branches of the mature trees!

These large berries -- about the size of scuppernog grapes -- are purple-black in color with a firm skin and small seeds. Taste-wise they most closely (to me) resemble scuppernogs, too. But when you bit into one, an explosion of really much more complex flavors hits your tastebuds! Although I've yet to try it, I'll bet they make a really special jam, and I understand they are common as a juice drink as well. We enjoyed just eating them out of hand, and you will too, if you can find them.

Individual Apple Pies

This recipe is based on one I discovered years ago in a copy of the 1870 Willamette Farmer, the late 19th century agricultural newspaper of the Willamette Valley in Oregon; at the time the breadbasket wheat supplier to the eastern states. Back in the very late 1990s, I collected a large number of recipes from the first year the newspaper was in print, and published them as The Willamette Farmer Cookbook. If you can find a copy, you'll see some interestingly different recipes. I may re-release the book later this year as an e-book along with my second historical fiction novel set in 1880.

Like my culinary hero, Alton Brown, I'm not fond of uni-taskers.  But for this recipe, you really need an apple corer to do it right. Trying to quarter the apples and then re-assemble them is a LOT of work, and the $6 or $7 you spend on the corer well worth it, as you can later core pears as well. I'm still looking for other uses for the tool...

1 Apple per person -- I like Honeycrisp for this, or any sweet apple, not a Granny Smith or Red Delicious.

Pie Crust - make your own, or buy the frozen rolled up crusts and use about 1/2 crust for each apple

Brown Sugar -- a couple tablespoons per apple

Ground Cinnamon -- call it a 1/4 teaspoon per apple

Preheat the oven to 350.

Core the apples and set them aside. Mix together the brown sugar and cinnamon. Thaw and unroll the pie crust dough (or make and roll out your own).

Place the apples, small hole down, on a flat surface, and spoon the core holes full of cinnamon sugar. Pack it tight. Cut the dough into pieces that can be wrapped around each apple to completely cover it, without stretching to dough very thin. Wrap each apple in dough and set them on a silpat tm or non-stick baking sheet, and bake for 30-45 minutes. Serve. Try plating in a bowl with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or English Custard.

You could also do this with seeded half-apples. Spoon a 1/4" thick bed of cinnamon sugar onto the dough, set the apple cut face down on the sugar and pull the dough over to seal.

Bleu Tuna Melts

Sally had never heard of a Tuna Melt before she met me. It rapidly became perhaps her favorite sandwich. She prefers mustard in her tuna salad.  I preferred ordinary mayonnaise, until a few years ago when the fridge was bare of mayo, but there was a bottle of bleu cheese dressing... Try it, you'll like it.

Heat skillet or griddle to medium.  No oil, as the bread is buttered

1 or more cans Solid White Tuna (Not 'chunk'. Solid gives you more meat and less water per can.)

1/2 stick of celery per can of tuna.

'some' Bleu Cheese Dressing

Cheese - whatever you like. We prefer white cheddar

Bread - whatever you like. We like a nice multi-grain...

Butter

Make the tuna salad -- chop the celery, drain the tuna. Combine tuna and celery with the dressing as the binder. You know the drill. Slice the cheese about 1/8" thick.

Butter both sides of each slice of bread. Gently lay down the cheese and tuna salad, and top with the second slice of bread.

Transfer to the hot pan with a turner, and cook a few minutes until the bottom is GB&D. Gently, carefully flip the sandwich and repeat. Can be served with chips, a nice dill pickle slice, or several other possible sides like soup or beans.

Oven Smoking

I love smoked meats, cheeses, you name it!  But I've never had a smoker, or for that matter one of those oven smoker pans int which you put chips and food. The other day I was at the mega-mart and found these heavy foil smoker bags, complete with chips, on the remainder table. For half price I decided to give them a try. 

 I thawed two chicken breasts, dusted them with a bit of Everglades tm Seasoning, tucked them in the bag and rolled up the end.

As I said, it's gotten hot around here lately, so I didn't want to fire up the oven. I used my electric skillet and set the temperature about 25F lower than the package recommendation for a conventional oven. I also cooked to temperature (using a meat thermometer at the recommended time to check for correct temperature). The result was very flavorful, not overpoweringly smokey, very moist chicken. I'll be using these again!