Wednesday, November 4, 2020

Thanks To Lady M

 One of the interesting things about blog surfing is that there is always new things to learn. I can drink my morning cup and take a short trip around the world. There's always some darn thing that I've never heard of and I usually wind up tumbling down a 'rabbit hole' as I google for background information. 

One blog is Magnon's Meanderings. One recent post referred to his prized bramley apples and Lady M.'s masterful creation of something called a Tarte Tatin. Never having had such a thing, but having an abundance of apples from our own trees, I slipped off down another google rabbit hole. It sounded like something that I could manage. I printed off a recipe for myself. 

Yesterday was an overwhelming sort of a day. I kept myself busy and away from the television set. But then the laundry was done, and the cryptogram was done, and I studied next weeks lesson for awhile, and organized the bedroom, packed away the camp linens for when we open things back up in the spring. 

Running low on entertainment, I remembered my recipe. 

It took me a while, but I went carefully step by step. My apples were small, so I did a lot of peeling, and a lot of arranging.

but

in the end

TADA!


It is a rustic dessert, I've read.Mine is probably more rustic than most, because when I went to tip it out of the cast iron I nearly lost the whole thing.  That part, I'll have to practice a bit more. It's not pretty.

 I discovered a solitary pack of tenderloin venison in the freezer from last year. I thought I had cleared it all  out to make way for this year's venison. Apparently, I missed one.  I  made a nice broth and let it simmer to make a gravy with.  I served it with mashed potatoes and some beans I'd frozen and tucked away for the winter. 

Tim walked into the house after work he said, "It smells good in here."
I said "I tried a new recipe." He looked a little wary. 

(My last experiment was Butternut Squash Soup. Turns out Tims are not fans of butternut squash soup.) 

When he pushed away from the table today, he said in a very satisfied way, "Boy, that was great! 

I said, "It kept my mind occupied." 

He never complains about what I cook, but when he's happy with something, he makes sure I know it. Today, I knew it. 

I don't think that his stomach would mind if this election uncertainty dragged on a bit longer.



8 comments:

  1. Sounds good to me. Glad your Tim appreciated it.

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  2. It is good to try something new!
    Grandmother always said "learn something new every day..if not why not?!!" Still did until her late 90s
    Someone else commented lately, a day without learning is a day wasted.

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  3. It was wonderfully distracting, just tricky enough to keep my mind on what I was doing!

    When things get too big, I need to take a breath and focus on the details.

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  4. That looks dee-licious, Debby!! ~Andrea xoxo

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  5. His stomach may not mind a prolonged election, but MINE certainly will!

    Glad your tart and venison worked out well. Dave makes a tarte tatin every once in a while, too!

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  6. When my wife makes a Tarte Tatin which she only does occasionally, she will cut the apples in slices keeping them in chronological order (so to speak) and then fan them out like a hand of cards over approximately every portion. It really looks beautiful that way. But as I always say, it all looks the same inside my stomach.

    We had some butternut squash soup this year and it was fantastic so I guess Ed's like it. The only thing about it is we try to limit the batch size because it seems really nice to eat soup on night one, but nobody looks forwarding to eating it the next two nights.

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  7. Oh we love Tarte Tartin!!! It was a feature on one of the Masterchef Challenges a few years ago and so we made it (we cheated on the pastry though!)

    https://10play.com.au/masterchef/recipes/maggie-beers-tarte-tatin/r190614rsxqd

    I am off this weekend to the parents place to see what needs to be liberated from their freezer for a cook up or two to help them. Let us hope that the unearthing and the recipes dreamed up have the same effect on them.

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  8. Ed, these apples were tiny ones. The largest of them no more than 5 inches in diameter. They are from our woefully neglected trees. We hope to bring them back, but it will take awhile to see the effects. We will be doing some major trimming this winter.

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