I have a lot of guilty pleasures ... one of them is old church or community cookbooks. The contributors, usually women, provided their best recipes for these fund raising books. The older the books, the better I like them, less store bought ingredients and the more interesting things can be. Recently at a thrift store, I found one from a Methodist church - circa 1961. Some time later I'll post their favorite bits about the size hat you should wear depending on the frame of your body, and how long your gloves should be ...
The recipe I found was between some sticky pages, always a good sign, and was from a newspaper. The name and date of the paper are missing, but the recipe is AWESOME! (Yes, jumping up and down and using too many exclamation points - that excited!)
My idea of apple pie is something that is too sweet, too complicated, and has a lattice cover. Since I have never made a pie dough, the thought of that was beyond me and my ambitions.
This recipe spends no time on the dough (hence I got help from the lovely people at Pillsbury) and is all about the apples.
Oh.
And the brown paper bag.
A little sugar, flour, nutmeg, lemon juice, and a store bought crust and you can make HEAVEN on earth.
I followed the directions - almost. Forgot about the bag. Should have either turned down the oven a bit or shortened the cooking time.
The result was truly perfect. And I even did it with Splenda.
The question about a recipe is always, would you do it again?
Heck yeah, I would. I'd even branch out into other fruits and use the same technique.
Whatever is old is new again ... and I feel like I'm stuck in a time warp - this is the 1950s, baby. Meaning, my FIL would have still been alive and he was very much the cook on board multiple Navy ships.
I have eaten base food, not eaten on board any ship.
Additionally, since there is no way of telling whether or not FIL would have ever made it, I don't know if he is indeed the Arthur referenced in the recipe.
Yes, gearing up to the point. Several days ago, I stumbled on a sauerkraut balls (fried) recipe ... if I am going to make it - and I have been dared to make it - I ought to make the sauerkraut myself. No?