Roasted Artichoke Salad with Capers and Grilled Red Pepper

Roasted Artichoke Salad with pickled okra on the side. 

Today our Fabulous 80s women's basketball team enjoyed our belated Holiday Luncheon.  Host Judy prepared ham sliders, sweet potato casserole, and drinks.  The rest of us took a favorite side dish or dessert.  Since I had a jar of artichoke hearts in my pantry I decided to prepare a roasted artichoke salad.  After googling for recipes, I chose to use Ina Garten's recipe which I tweaked just a bit. 

Ingredients:
4 boxes (9 ounces each) frozen artichoke hearts, defrosted.( I used a 32-ounce jar of artichoke hearts.)
Olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 shallot, minced
3 tablespoons of lemon juice
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
5 tablespoons white wine vinegar, divided (I used rice vinegar that I had on hand.)
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil leaves
6 tablespoons capers, drained
2 roasted red pepper, sliced thin (I used a 12- ounce jar of grilled red peppers.)
1/2 cup minced red onion (I omitted because I didn't have one.)
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley leaves (I omitted.)
2 pinches hot red pepper flakes, optional (I omitted.)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Place the artichoke hearts in a bowl with 1/4 cup olive oil, 1 teaspoon salt and 1 grind of fresh black pepper and toss until the artichoke hearts are coated.  Dump the artichoke hearts onto a sheet pan and spread out into 1 layer; roast in the oven for 20 minutes.  (I had to roast for 30 minutes until they were charred.)

Roasted artichoke hearts. 

Meanwhile, make the vinaigrette. Place the minced shallot, lemon juice, mustard, 1 tablespoon vinegar, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon black pepper in the food processor.  Process for 5 seconds.  Add the basil leaves and process into a green puree.  With the processor running, slowly pour 1/2 cup olive oil into the bowl through the feed tube until the ingredients are finely pureed.  Set aside.

Basil vinaigrette. 

Place the roasted artichoke hearts in a bowl and toss with enough vinaigrette to moisten.  Add the capers, red peppers, red onion, parsley, 4 tablespoons vinegar and toss gently.  Sprinkle generously with salt and pepper and let stand for 30 minutes for the flavors to blend. (I refrigerated the salad overnight.) Serve at room temperature.

Roasted artichoke salad ready to serve. 

I garnished the salad with a row of pickled okra around the edge.

There was quite an assortment of delicious dishes, and a good time was had by all of us senior basketball players. 

An Old Fashioned Dried Apple Pie

Dried apple custard pie. 

I was puttering around in my pantry this morning to see what I might want or need to cook today when I spied a little bag of dried apples that I had bought at the Farmer's Market back in the fall.  Those reminded me of dried apple custard pies that my grandmother used to make.  In fact, my grandmother would often dry the apples herself by spreading them out in the sun on a sheet during hot days and taking them in at night or on damp days.  In a few days or weeks (? I don't remember I was not interested in drying apples myself back then), the apples would be dry enough to put away for use when there were no fresh apples available.

Dried apples. 

Several recipes came up when I googled for a recipe that I thought might be close to what my grandmother used to make.  I combined several of them to come up with my own recipe.  First I covered the dried apples with water and brought them to a boil and cooked them until the apples were soft.  After straining off the water, I had about two cups of apples.  Let the apples cool and discard the liquid.

Straining the cooked apples. 

Recipe for Dried Apple Custard Pie

2 cups apples (Prepared as explained above.)
4 eggs
1/2 cup of white sugar
1/2 cup of brown sugar
Juice of one lemon
3 tablespoons of melted butter
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/4 teaspoon of fresh nutmeg
2 cups of milk
1 10-inch (large) pie crust (I used Trader Joes)  These are my favorite. 

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.  In a bowl, beat the eggs slightly.  Add the sugars, lemon juice, butter, salt, nutmeg, and milk.  Mix until well blended. Stir in the cooled apples.  Pour mixture into unbaked pie crust. 

Stir apples into the egg custard mixture. 

Ready to bake. 

Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes.  Reduce the heat to 350 degrees and bake another 1 to 1 1/2  hours or until knife inserted into the center of pie comes out clean.

Out of the oven.

When cool it slices nicely. 

Ready to eat.  A dollop of whipped cream would be a nice addition. 

Store in the refrigerator and can be eaten cold or at room temperature. Enjoy!

I just remembered that my husband gave me a dehydrator some years ago which I have never used.  I think it is up at Chatfield.  I'll have to get it out and dry some apples myself one of these days.

Meyer Lemons in January

Lemon Parfait.

I'm always happy when I see Meyer Lemons for sale in the early winter, and this week I grabbed a bag of them at the grocery.  Meyer Lemons are a cross between a regular lemon and a mandarin orange and are a wee bit less tart than the regular lemon.  Before deciding how to use them, I replaced the Christmas centerpiece in the dining table with the Lemons and oranges.  The pretty yellows and oranges brighten up cold winter days.

A sunny centerpiece of Meyer Lemons and oranges. 

As it would happen, I fortuitously received an email from my favorite food blogger https://www.italianbellavita.com/2017/02/mini-meyer-lemon-parfaits/ with a recipe using Meyer Lemons to make a lemon parfait.  You can check out the recipe on her blog.

Meyer Lemon parfait. 

I was expecting guests on Sunday, so I made these for our dessert.  I used small dessert bowls rather than the mini parfait glasses that Roz used.  For the cookie crumb layer, I used Trader Joe's Meyer Lemon Cookie Thins

A bouquet of yellow flowers on the table added a sunny ambiance to the day.

Meyer Lemons certainly can brighten up a cold winter day!