As I drifted off to sleep last night, visions of delicious cookies made with dried apples, cinnamon, and oats danced in my head. I've never made cookies with that particular set of ingredients, but I am 100% confident that they will be damned delicious. I'll post the recipe later in the weekend once I've baked.

I have no idea where this craving came from, as usual. Sometimes it seems like my subconscious mind is wholly occupied with food cravings. Or maybe it was the fact that earlier this week, I had a lunch meeting which came with a bag lunch, and the cookies for dessert were so unsatisfying.

There's something about generic storebought cookies that just depresses the hell out of me. They have this weird neutral background flavor, no matter what type of cookie they are. Mix cookies taste the same way. I will never in a million trillion googleplex years understand why anyone would use a mix to prepare baked goods. Homemade tastes so much better, and takes at most 15 minutes more (and that's a generous assessment.)**

Earlier this year I was explaining this to Otis, who despite his incredible cooking skills, doesn't bake. He was somewhat skeptical, and to prove it I hit pause on Survivor (yes, I watch it...no I don't want to talk about it), got up, and returned in less than 20 minutes with warm homemade brownies. i think they were the utterly simple recipe from my ancient copy of the Good Housekeeping Cookbook that I stole from my mother. Allow me to summarize here: melt butter and chocolate. Add eggs, sugar, vanilla. Add flour and baking powder. Stir. Pour in pan. Bake.

Seriously, it's that easy.

My attitude, obviously, gets me in trouble sometimes at pot lucks and such. I have a really hard time controlling my face if I bite into something and can tell that it's storebought or mix-based. I don't know what I look like under those circumstances, exactly, but I imagine it's a mixture of incredulousness, surprise, and disappointment. So, if anyone reading this has been the recipient of such a face, I apologize. It's not personal. And if you ever want to come over and bake with me, please do. It'll be fun. We'll get flour everywhere and drink wine.

** Of course I realize there are baked goods that take a long time. The delicious lemon curd cake Jenn made earlier this year, for example, must have been extremely time consuming. I made some chocolate concoction from Cook's Illustrated that took about an hour to prep over the holidays. But here I'm talking about your baking basics: cookies, brownies, loaf cakes, muffins, etc.

My husband has a sweet tooth that constantly surprises me. Not only does he love candy of all kinds, and would cheerfully eat dessert with every meal, but he also demands that his desserts be very sweet. It's a constant battle because I'm the opposite-- even though I love to bake, I can usually take or leave sweets, and only really love rich chocolatey things to be very sweet.

So, Otis really doesn't like the apple-oat bars I made after my cinnamon daydream. I think they're especially tasty, but I've promised him cupcakes to make up for the disppointment.

Apple-Oat Bars

Ingredients

2 sticks unsalted butter (if you can get it, try Kate's Homemade butter. Yum.)
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 t vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
1 t baking soda
1 1/2 t salt (a little more salt than usual brings out the apple flavor)
2 t cinnamon
2 cups old fashioned oats
3/4 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup dried apple, cut into small pieces

1. Preheat oven to 350°
2. Cream the butter and sugars
3. Mix in the eggs, one at a time
4. Mix in the vanilla
5. Mix in the flour, soda, salt, and cinnamon
6. Fold in the oats, walnuts, and apples
7. Spread into ungreased 13 x 9 pan
8. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until slightly brown on top
9. Let cool for 5 minutes before cutting into squares

A couple of weeks ago, I was a bit down in the dumps, and perhaps a wee bit whiny. Happily I have great friends who instead of thinking I was being a pain in the butt, instead gave me a homebaked apple pie! There's really nothing as cheery a warm apple pie with vanilla ice cream...and what a pie it was. I've always been proud of my apple pie, but this one was the best I've ever had by miles. Thanks Heidi and Ira!

Heidi (the baker) was nice enough to share the recipe with me. It's her mom's recipe. Try it!

Apple Cranberry Pie with crumb topping
(Recipe makes 2 pies)

In bowl, toss:
14 sliced apples
2 t. lemon
1 t. cinnamon
dash of salt
3/4 c brown sugar
4 t flour

In saucepan, heat:
1 can jellied cranberry sauce
1/3 c. water
1 T tapioca
3/4 c brown sugar
reduce, stirring often

Cool cranberry mixture and combine with apple mixture.

Pour into 2 pie crusts

Make crumb topping:
1 1/2 c flour - I use a mix of whole wheat and white
3/4 c brown sugar
1/3 c sugar
dash salt
1/2 t cinnamon
1 1/2 butter - cut up
Mix together with your hands and squeeze some crumbs together.

Sprinkle on top of pies.
Place on cookie tray covered with foil.
Bake 15 minutes at 400
Then bake 35-40 minutes at 375.

YUM

I must admit that I am a serial pie crust philanderer. I'm never quite satisfied with the crust I've made in the past, and always feel the need to experiment with a new recipe, just in time for the holidays. This year, I found an overly complicated recipe that went along with another pie recipe in Saveur Magazine. Boy, was it horrible. It turned out to be the toughest pie crust I've ever had. Poor Walter, who was serving the pies at our otherwise flawless family Thanksgiving, had to saw, saw, saw just to cut off slices. Just awful.

Happily, however, the pumpkin pie filling I made was so delicious, so sublime, that it almost made up for the hideousness of the crust. I combined a few ideas and recipes I found on the web and those that were sent to me by friends, notably one recipe that featured fresh ginger. Yum.

Another fun thing to mention is that the pumpkin I used for the pie was a Long Island Cheese Pumpkin, an heirloom variety that's excellent for baking, which we got from our CSA over a year ago. It's been sitting on our kitchen table ever since. I was somewhat apprehensive to use it, but once I cut it open it was clearly fresh and ready to eat. I guess that's why squashes are considered storage vegetables!

The below recipe will make enough filling for two pies. Use a store-bought crust.

Ecstatic Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients

1 medium sized baking pumpkin, or 2 small [or 2 cans-- I think-- pumpkin puree]. Should be about 4 cups.
2/3 cup light brown sugar
2/3 cup dark brown sugar
2/3 cup white sugar
4 T white flour
1 t salt
4 t ground cinnamon
1/4 t ground cloves
3/4 t ground ginger
3 T ginger, pureed or minced very fine in a garlic press (for reference, I used about 2" worth of ginger root to get that much)
2 T molasses
1 1/2 t vanilla extract
6 eggs
1 1/3 cup heavy cream

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350.
2. Cut the pumpkin in half or thirds and scoop out the seeds.
3. Lightly oil a baking sheet and put the pumpkin parts on it, with the skin side up.
4. Bake for abut 40 minutes, or until the flesh is very soft.
5. Remove from oven and let cool slightly.
6. Scoop out the flesh into your food processor (if you don't have one you could use a blender. You want the pumpkin to be well-pureed and smooth. I made the whole recipe in the food processor but you could easily just do the pumpkin in batches in the blender and then do the rest in a large bowl.)
7. Pulse in food processor until smooth.
8. Add the sugars, flour, and salt, and pulse until well blended.
9. Add the spices, including the ginger, and the vanilla, and pulse until well blended.
10. Add the eggs 2 at a time and pulse until well blended.
11. Transfer to a large bowl and add the cream, and stir well.

-- here's where I popped it in the refrigerator overnight and made the pie in the morning after letting the mixture come up to room temp. Or you could just proceed directly to the next step.--

12. Turn the oven up to 450 and put a baking sheet in to preheat.
13. Once up to temp, fill the pie crust ((sigh)) and place onto the sheet in the oven.
14. Bake for 10 minutes, then lower the oven temp to 350 and bake for 45ish minutes, until the center is set and it's a bit puffy.
15. Cool on a cooling rack and serve with fresh whipped cream.

Here's a photo of my father-in-law, Walter, just before his heroic pie-cutting efforts.