Excuses, Excuses, Excuses...

So, if I still have any readers, you may have noticed my absence. Or maybe not. I am prone to disappearing occasionally. So here are my excuses.
Excuse number one: I moved recently.
Excuse number two: I've been busy. (No, not really.)
Excuse number three: I haven't done anything new. (Flat out lie.)
The truth: I just keep forgetting. I forget to take pictures of my food because I forget about my blog. By the time I remember, I've either eaten the food or I've mangled it beyond the point where it's at all photogenic.
So, here's what you've missed that I don't have pictures of; stuffed peppers, cod with browned butter (it was amazing), pulled pork (AMAAAAZING! I promise I'll make it again and take pictures this time), lactose-intolerant/carnivore stuffed shells, etc.
Recipes may or may not show up when these things cycle back around. Or I could post them soon because I do write this stuff down. The stuffed peppers weren't my cup of meat (and rice), but I've been informed that they were very good.
So, tonight I finally remembered to take a photo. It's a crappy photo, but a photo nonetheless and I suppose it kind of gets the point across.


Care to guess what it is?

Pork Chops with Applesauce
Serves 2.

2 pork chops (or other cut of pork)
1 Macintosh apple
1 1/2 cups apple cider, divided
cinnamon
allspice
nutmeg
cloves
thyme

Directions:
1. Core and dice apple (whether you skin it or not is up to you, I left the skin on), place in a frying pan with 1/2 cup of apple cider.
2. Add alllll spices and herbs (and 1 tbsp butter if you're not lactose intolerant or cooking for someone lactose intolerant).
3. Cook down until apples are mushy and mash with a potato masher. Add remaining cider and wait until it bubbles decently.
4. Add pork! Cook thoroughly, while rotating sides periodically and covering with applesauce. (By the end there will be very little applesauce remaining.)
5. Serve hot.

I served this with a mix of noodles and vegetables (which is apparently not a great pairing). I was slightly disappointed in this dish, overall, because the applesauce was fantastic but pork doesn't exactly infuse nicely with flavor the way beef does. At least, not in my experience.
So, I don't think I'd make this again. I'll always make apple sauce, I just don't want to make pork. Unless it's bacon.
So, here's a pretty pretty distraction that was lurking around on my camera:


Mmmm, pretty sandwich. Mozzarella, basil leaves, and cherry tomato grilled sammy (on oat bread). I could go for one now, that would make me forgive the stupid pork.

Apple Coffee Cake

My very obviously undercooked, second attempt at coffeecake.

Okay, admittedly this didn't start off as my recipe. It was snagged from Simply Recipes ages ago, but it needed to be fixed as soon as I tried it.
In my kitchen, there are lots of foods that are bought with enthusiasm and then go unloved and bad. Things like celery. Or lettuce. Or, in this case, apples. I do love apples, but there are only so many I can handle in a given time period. I've had my eye on those apples for a while, trying to figure out how to get rid of them. So, I chose to make something I had all the ingredients for (well, duh Caitlin). Apple coffeecake.
For starters, this was dead simple. Ever make pancakes? It's about that hard. Yeah. Simple.
I've technically made this twice, the first time I sort of followed the recipe. Proportions and everything were correct, but I'm terrible at following directions and missed something somewhere. It ended up okay, but it didn't feel like there was enough batter for the bottom and the top. It came out of the oven as this golden brown thing on the sides, but my cinnamon on top had gotten moist and dark brown. Icky looking.
So the peanut gallery (my brother and company) is there talking about how it looks like someone sh*t on it, cutting himself a slice, starting in on how ugly it is. Then he tastes it. He immediately stops and says "Oh my god." Insults ended there. Furthermore, he goes on to inhale at its gloriousness, and inhales some sugar and cinnamon, causing him to choke. Revenge of the coffeecake!
Anyway, the coffeecake very quickly disappeared into the mouths of two teenage boys, so I felt the need to make another one. I decided that this time, I'd double the amount of batter (using the same 9" pan with a carefully placed cookie sheet). The result was a fluffy, moist, slightly-undercooked (but not in an unpleasant way, and mostly in the middle) square of deliciousness.

Apple Coffee Cake
Modified from Simply Recipes by Caitlin
Should serve about 9, but we're all greedy here.

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt (I didn't change this from the original recipe, I don't like salted baked goods)
1 cup sugar
2 tsp. cinnamon
11 tbsp. butter, room temperature
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup milk
2-3 medium sized baking apples, peeled, cored, and sliced*

*I cheated and used Macintosh apples. They're so much yummier than the Granny Smiths that were sitting in the pantry and turning yellow.

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Grease a 9" square baking dish or a pie pan of equalish volume.
2. Mix together flour, baking powder, and salt. This is where Simply Recipes should've told me to set this aside and where I screwed up, I think.
3. In a separate small bowl (Oh, there it is.), mix 1/2 cup of sugar with cinnamon and set it aside. (No, I guess that wasn't it then...)
4. Beat butter with the remain sugar (Right, that's it). Beat in the eggs until blended. Add flour in THREE additions, alternating with milk, beating after each addition until combined. That's where I messed up, obviously, but it doesn't seem like it mattered a whole lot.
5. Pour half the batter into the bottom of the greased pan. You'll have to spread it out to make it fit, and you'll undoubtedly worry that you'll have too little or too much. Fear not, it's not so important as it seems.
6. Layer apples (coated in two thirds the cinnamony sugar mix) over your batter, fearlessly layering if necessary. We're aiming for one layer, but really, aren't apples delicious?
7. Pour over the remaining batter, which will also need to be spread. Sprinkle with remaining cinnamony sugar and stare in awe for 45 seconds at its beauty before you realize it's not ready to eat.
8. Bake in oven for 25-35 minutes (I recommend about 30-35 minutes, since this is kind of thick), or until golden brown and apples start to bubble at the edges.

In the future, I would not be opposed to having multiple, thicker layers of apple. The apple can easily go unnoticed in this dish (both ways that I made it), and I feel deserves a larger role. Regardless of the apple content, this dish isn't going to last more than a few hours in any house that has more than two people, so don't ask me how long it'll keep.
It's also worth noting that the cake itself is unspiced, which I found to be mildly upsetting. In the future, perhaps I'll see about spicing the cake. Spiced coffeecake sound good to anyone else?