- Apple Upsidedown Tart

Dear Fans of Hounds Who Cook,

We have so many apples fragrancing up the house, as we have mentioned, that we have been google-hounds searching out the best of all possible things to do with Apples. Here's one. We found it and we knew right away it was a good one. Our elder woman liked it so much, she didn't want to have supper, just dessert. (And then when she had finally tasted it, she liked it too.)

This is French is called Tarte Tatin, but we are not poodles, so we call it Apple Upsidedown Tarte. It's okay to add the last e, for "tarte" like "party". This is adapted from epicurious.com - what isn't?

Apple Upsidedown Tart (Tarte Tatin)
Me's Independent Rating: 3 of 3, resounding

Pastry
1-1/2 cups flour (we used whole wheat)
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cups unsalted butter, chilled
6 tablespoons plain yogurt (the French use sour cream)

Filling
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1-1/2 cups sugar
5 pounds of apples, peeled, cored, quartered (we six-ed them)

1 egg, beaten, for glaze

Mix the flour, sugar, and salt together. Cut in 3/4 cup chilled butter until butter is pea-sized chunks. Add yogurt and beat until dough clings together - 1 minute. Cover dough and refrigerate until cold - 2 hours, or a day ahead.

Set dough at room temperature to soften slightly before rolling out.

Meanwhile, spread butter over the bottom of a cast iron skillet. Set aside 2 tablespoons sugar and sprinkle the remaining sugar over the butter. Place skillet over medium-low heat and cook until butter melts and bubbles and sugar begins to dissolve. Remove from heat and arrange apples on their sides around the edge of the skillet, fitting as many as possible. Add another circle of apples in the center. Sprinkle with 2 tablespoons of sugar.

Place skillet over medium-high heat and boil until thick, brown caramel forms, repositioning the skillet frequently for even cooking. Add additional apples as space permits. Remove from heat.

Heat oven to 425F.

Roll out pastry to a 12-inch round and place over apples. Cut 4 slits in the crust. Press pastry down around apples at the edge of the skillet. Brush the crust with the egg for glaze.

Bake until pastry is deep golden brown - about 20 minutes. Cool 1 minute, and cut around the edge of the pan to loosen pastry.

Place platter over skillet and, holding both with oven mitts, flip them to invert the tart onto the plate. Carefully lift off skillet. Rearrange any apples that were dislodged. Cool tart 30 minutes. Cut into wedges and serve with ice cream or whipping cream.

Tips from Guthrie: This is so easy a cat could do it - and such dramatic presentation it's perfectly suited to hounds. We made one recipe but split it between two pans - one 9-inch cast iron skillet and one cast-iron, 7-muffin pan. (And still there was pastry dough left over.) We Loved the outcome of the little minis, since we had several soup drops to make and wanted everyone to have a little sweet without having to divvy up the larger tart(e).

Tips from Elias: While we were running in the woods, we heard the elders in the house cooing over this Apple Upsidedown Tart(e). Guthrie was beside himself at the time baying at the woodchuck in the woodpile. I was running circles around the house in glee and the people we love were eating up the apple tart(e). I'm assuming there's still some left at home for us dogs.

Chicken Soup for Giving

Dear Fans of Hounds Who Cook,

We've had a marvelous day. We cooked a chicken all morning, making the house smell just as hounds would like it to. We made soup from the chicken and ladled it into bottles for taking around. One to the neighbor, one to the cousins, one to the elders, and one for us. Four quarts.

Here's our special methodology about packing up Soup for Giving:

1. Roast the chicken and pour juices into a gravy separator - a measuring cup with a spout that comes from the bottom instead of from the top. Very handy for keeping the fat out of the soup, gravy or what have you.

2. Use the broth to make a sumptuous soup with vegetables, especially celery, carrots, and some greens. And herbs. (We used an extra container of chicken broth too, to make 4 quarts of soup - one chicken didn't give enough juice.)

3. Pull the cooled chicken from the bones and cut into chunks. Put about 2/3 cup chicken into each quart jar. (Save the rest in the freezer for a dinner of Chicken and Biscuits for when the elder people come over.)

4. Add uncooked egg noodles to the jar, about 1 cup.

5. Ladle in the (hot) sumptuous soup to the top. The hot soup will cook the noodles and when the soup is reheated, they won't be Overcooked and the chicken will still be tender.

6. Deliver it while it's still warm because it's that much more joy for the recipient.

We also made Apple Upsidedown Tart, which we'll add in the next post because it was Wonderful.

- Mushroom Stroganoff

Dear Fans of Hounds Who Cook,

I, Elias, am beside myself with hunger. Apparently because I ate 16 slices from a loaf of bread today, my Person Me thinks I should not eat supper. So I am writing about it instead. This is what she had. She doesn't understand that to be the alpha dog I need to have a beefy physique. Today she put up a line for us to run back and forth in the yard since the fence was never erected that was supposed to give us our own city-sized playpen. It has to do with the grade of the lawn and the need for excavation. She doesn't want there to be mud all winter. We dogs don't mind mud. Guthrie thinks it makes his skin feel better (he has a lot of itching - right now for instance).

So, here's how quick this delectable recipe is. Our girl Me came in from mowing the leaves this afternoon and had 30 minutes before she was to leave to take apples to our Elder cousins. But she spied in the fridge a pound of mushrooms and a quart of yogurt and she speedily whipped this together to take the Elder Cousins for dinner. And she was only a little late. We think she found this on epicurious.com but changed it up to Delete the sour cream and load of fat.

Speedy Mushroom Stroganoff
Me's Independent Rating: 3 of 3

3 tablespoons canola oil
1 cup chopped onion
1 pound mushrooms, sliced (portabella would be great and meaty-seeming; she used white caps)
1 1/2 cups meat juice or vegetable broth
1 1/2 cups plain yogurt
4 tablespoons arrowroot
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
8 ounces dried egg noodles (whole wheat are well disguised in this dish)

Cook the noodles in boiling water, drain, and set aside.

Saute onion in oil. Add the sliced mushrooms and saute until cooked through. Set aside.

In (emptied) onion skillet, stir in meat juice or vegetable broth (we used leftover juice from Sunday's pork roast). Bring to a boil for 10 minutes to reduce. Turn heat to low, and add the mushrooms and onion.

Stir together the yogurt and flour; then blend into the mushroom sauce. Cook over low heat until the sauce thickens. Stir in the parsley, and season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve over cooked egg noodles.

- Pita Bread with Lubneh (Yogurt Cheese) and Cucumbers

Dear Fans of Hounds Who Cook,

This is a recipe passed down to us from Me, who got it from the most authentic source, who's name was Omar. He hailed from Lebanon. Here is how his mother made Lubneh and how Me then made Lubneh and how we now make Lubneh. We love feeling global.

Lubneh
Me's Independent Rating: 3 of 3

1 pint plain yogurt
extra virgin olive oil (no exceptions)
coarse sea salt (no exceptions)
pita bread
cucumbers

Line a sieve with a coffee filter, paper towel, or flour sack dishtowel, and place over a bowl. Spoon the yogurt into the lined sieve and let sit 6 hours, or overnight. (Turn the yogurt in the liner once after a few hours to hasten the process, if desired.) Turn strained yogurt ("cheese") onto a serving plate with a ridge. Spread the yogurt out with a knife, pressing to leave a trail to and fro across the cheese with the knife. Leave space between the ridge of the plate and the cheese. Drizzle a high quality extra virgin olive oil over the cheese - 2 to 4 tablespoons. Let it pool in the riverbed the knife made, and around the perimeter of the cheese on the plate. Sprinkle liberally with coarse sea salt.

Peel and cut the cucumber into lengthwise wedges for dipping. Cut pitas in halves or quarters and toast in the oven or toaster to crisp.

Serve the Lubneh at room temperature with the pita and cucumbers (or other cut vegetables) for dipping.

Tips from Guthrie:
We suspect that the liquid (whey) that comes off the yogurt might have all of the nutrition of the yogurt. We hope not, but we save it just in case. Me uses it in cooking (replacing milk, buttermilk, or water in a scone recipe, etc.) but we dogs drink it up right on the spot.

Tips from Eli:
Print this out. Everyone will ask how to make it. It's been a staple at all of Me's parties since the 1990s. Great with celery, carrots or anywhere you'd use cream cheese (except in baking) - like on a bagel (sans olive oil and salt, in that case). As the party carries on and the oil and salt are eaten up, re-douse it with a little oil and salt.

- Whole-Whole-Wheat Pita Bread

Dear Fans of Hounds Who Cook,

We experimented with pita tonight and it wasn't an experiment at all - it's easier than pie. We call this Whole-Whole-Wheat Pita because all of the whole-wheat pita recipes online call for part white flour. We don't get it because this recipe worked out so perfectly, we can't imagine why white flour is needed.

Our most favorite way to eat this bread will be described in the next post called "Lubneh Dip with Pita Bread and Cucumbers." We will just salivate til then.

This is adapted from chow.com. We used King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour and couldn't find any flax seed so we skipped that.

Whole Whole Wheat Pita Bread

2 cups whole-wheat flour
1 package active-dry yeast
1 teaspoon sea salt
2 tablespoons just-ground flax seed
2 tablespoons flour for dusting
3/4 to 1 cup water

Mix flour, sea salt, freshly ground flax seed (use a clean coffee grinder - or spice grinder) and yeast and stir to combine.

Add water slowly, stirring with a spatula and eventually your paws as flour becomes a dough. Only add water til the dough is stiff and rather dry dough. Form into a ball and knead it til your wrists ache. Or use a mixer with a bread hook. Knead it until it's stiff and elastic and smooth. Probably 10 minutes.

Divvy up the dough into 8 pieces, roll each into a ball and cover with a damp flour sack towel. Leave the dough undisturbed to rise for an hour or so, until doubled. Flatten each ball into a disc and roll it out on a floured surface.




Heat the oven to a scorching 500F, and bake each round on the middle rack for about six minutes. Transfer to a plate and cover with a damp towel. Eat warm with dinner. Store any extra in a plastic bag in the fridge.

Tips from Guthrie: We dogs used a bread mixer, even for this little smidgen of dough, and we were writing our blog and looking for handsome pictures of ourselves so we accidentally let it knead for 20 minutes. Oh, it was lusciously elastic when we put it to bed to rise. Go for 20 minutes of kneading. When we went to bake them we found 6 minutes was Far too long. We used a pizza stone in the oven and thought they were best at 3-4 minutes. But we rolled them thin, too. They puff up in the oven, and then deflate (if they're not too crispy).

Tips from Elias: Just read the next post. Read the next post. This is how we like to eat it most: Pita with Lubneh and Cucumbers.

- Spinach Lasagna

Dear Fans of Hounds Who Cook,

We have a vegetarian loved one, which we can't imagine, but this lasagna makes us think it's possible. She came to visit with her pack of Glenn and Jack the Dog, and our person Me made it for the whole family. Rebecca is pictured below next to the recipe because she makes it look like it's good.

And it is. This is a write-it-in-pen kind of recipe. We started with Cook's Illustrated version, and, not that we presume to be able to top their staff of seasoned culinary hounds, but we mixed it up with our own garden ingredients and other methodologies. They were making manicotti, we find lasagna infinitely easier for a hound.

Spinach Lasagna
Me's Independent Rating: 3 of 3

6 cups of chopped, fresh tomatoes
1 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon of minced garlic (about 3 cloves)
red pepper flakes
sea salt
2 tablespoons chopped, fresh basil

3 cups part-skim ricotta cheese
2 cups freshly grated Parmesan (about 4 ounces)
2 cups grated mozarella (about 4 ounces)
2 eggs, beaten
2 cups steamed baby spinach, chopped
sea salt
ground pepper
2 tablespoons chopped, fresh basil
ground nutmeg
16 lasagna noodles

Pulse 3 cups of tomatoes in a blender to puree. Add to 3 cups chopped tomatoes and set aside.

Saute garlic and pinch of pepper flakes in oil in a large frying pan until lightly browned. Stir in tomatoes and 1/2 teaspoon salt and simmer until slightly thickened, about 15-20 minutes. Add basil and salt to taste.

Set 1 cup of the Parmesan aside and, for the luscious cheesy layer, mix up the rest of the Parmesan and remaining ingredients (except for the lasagna noodles, clearly).

Now for assemblage, often we use the stiff brittle lasagna noodles just as they are without boiling ahead. (This especially works when you are using Fresh tomatoes that are more juicy than your average tomato sauce.) So, pour a bit of sauce to cover the bottom of your 13x9 casserole pan. Layer the uncooked lasagna noodles side by side in the sauce. Spread with 1/2 of the cheese and spinach mixture. Cover with 1/2 of the sauce. Cover with another layer of noodles. Spread with the rest of the cheese and spinach mixture. Cover with remaining sauce.

Bake at 375F for 45 minutes. Remove and sprinkle with the 1-cup Parmesan that you had set aside, and bake 30 minutes more. Broil at the end, if desired, to brown up the cheesy bits on top.

Tips from Elias: This is the best lasagna we've ever had. We hope our girl Me will make more soon.

- Photos of Me

Dear Fans of Hounds Who Cook,

We had a query about why there is not an Actual picture of Me in the profile for this blog. So we're sending one in by email and wonder if it will get posted or how this remote blogging works. Here's our Me.

love and the usual adoration,
Elias and King Guthrie
and Beltashazzar, the Cat

- Apple Stuffing for Pork Roast

Dear Fans of Hounds Who Cook,

It's a crisp Saturday morning and the local neighborhood canvasser just came by to talk to our girl Me out at the garden. He has an idea of who she should vote for for president so they are engaged in pleasant and animated discussion as the Gute (goot) looks on from the living room window. At the least sign of malice, the Gute will bark his most fearsome bark and send said canvasser skittling. But so far, Me is holding her sole ear of indian corn and a pail full of tomatoes and small thin eggplants steadily and the local neighborhood canvasser is down-gazing as they speak.

Me returned to the home wishing she had said that it's not about this candidate or that one, it's about people's hearts. It's not all of the circumstances around us, it us, we ourselves, who need to change. "That's why I don't like politics," she told us when she came in. "Because it makes us identify the completely wrong problem."

So, I, Elias, did the most a dog can do. I sat nearby, I nosed her tenderly with my snout, and I planned to make Apple Stuffing for the Pork Roast that tomorrow would hold. Luckily she has a whole loaf of oatmeal bread and so we'll make it from scratch. The Gute sat beside her on a dining room chair, facing toward the table, as she was, as though he were waiting for lunch. It was his way of being near. And also it was the best spot of sun in the house at the moment.

The politics of man and beast aside, I searched the Internet most thoroughly for the best of all possible Apple Stuffing (aka Dressing) recipe. As always, recipes abounded and I turned to our most reliable, faithful, and beloved website of all time (besides our own): epicurious.com. I, Elias, head chef for the day, adapted this from them. I especially love it because we can also use some of the apple jelly we made back in August. I am including a (rare) photo of me showing affection for the cat because it turns out he was my greatest proponent for the Apple Stuffing instead of Tangerine Kiwi Salsa. Cats don't like tangerine.

Eli's Apple Stuffing for Pork Roast and Other Daily Uses
Me's Independent Rating: 2.5/3

6 slices firm bread, cubed
6 tablespoons unsalted butter (or part cooking oil)
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1/2 cup finely chopped celery including leaves
1-1/2 lb tart apples
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon chopped fresh sage (=1/4 teaspoon dried)
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme (=1/4 teaspoon dried)
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
Pinch of cinnamon
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives
1-1/2 cups water
1/4 cup apple jelly
1 tablespoon arrowroot or flour
1 tablespoon butter (or pork fat)

(Revised 10/19/08)
Spread out the bread cubes on baking sheets and bake at 350F for 15 minutes to toast them. Saute onion and celery in butter in a 12-inch cast iron skillet over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until softened, 4 to 5 minutes.

Peel and core the apples and cut into 1/4-inch-thick wedges.

Stir apples, sugar, salt, pepper, sage, thyme, nutmeg, and cinnamon in to skillet. Reduce heat to low, then cook, covered, stirring, until apples are tender, about 15 minutes. Stir in toast cubes, parsley, and chives.

Oil a casserole pan and toss the stuffing lightly into the pan. Bake covered at 350°F for 45 minutes. Then uncover and bake for about 15 minutes.

(This next step replaces the ridiculous Tangerine Gravy my brother would have you make with your roast.)

Skim the fat off of the drippings in the roasting pan. (We dogs would like this poured over our food at dinner time, but our Me won't do it.) Add 1-1/2 cups water and set the pan over a burner or two on high heat. Scrape all of the good flavorful bits from the bottom of the pan. In the cast iron skillet, melt 1 tablespoon of the pork fat (ugh! say the humans - ok, use a tablespoon of butter) and a bit of meat juice. Heat it up and stir in 1 tablespoon flour or arrowroot to brown it. Using a sieve to strain it, pour the meat juice into the pan in a stream and whisk. Discard the solids in the sieve right into your pup's dinner bowl.

Stir in the apple jelly and any juices that have drained off the meat in the meanwhile. Simmer and whisk until jelly melts and the gravy thickens. Serve with Apple Stuffing and your Roast of Pork.

Tips from Elias:
We doubled this recipe and it still only made an average amount of stuffing - a 13x9 pan. So certainly you will want to double it, unless you're just cooking for two Or you are not stuffing hounds like us.

Tips from Guthrie:
I prefer the roast meat to the stuffing. But if you're going to eat stuffing. This is tasty.

- Pork Roast with Tangerine and Thyme

Dear Fans of Hounds Who Cook,

It's very Octoberish out. It has the sense of being cold but really isn't too bad. Maybe a few cold nights ago our blood cells all went into hypermode and thickened up so now we're like old timers who don't even have to wear scarves in the house when it's 62 degrees. Don't laugh. Remember we are southern born and raised hounds.

(Here we are at the left, this morning before we knew what a day was in store for us. Before we knew that turkeys could fly. Before our adventure in heaven. I, Guthrie have the spot in the sun. My brother Elias is in front of me, as he always is. You can see we are innocent and well-meaning dogs.)

Today we saw the most beautiful sight of our lives, well, maybe one notch below seeing a nest of rabbits. We all went out to the elders' house who have a woods with enormous sheds and woodpiles rife with creatures and scents. It is literally a hound heaven. Our person, Me, takes us there to run, but sometimes it's hard to even get in a good run as the scents are so pervasive from every direction. You just want to dart this way and that smelling every one of them. It's a euphoria that humans can't begin to know, what with their sadly low-functioning olfactories.

So the beautiful sight was a whole yard filled with turkeys. Delicious, early-for-Thanksgiving, turkeys. There were more than 50 of them, but that's about as high as I, Guthrie, count. Elias may have counted more. We drove up in the small silver Mazda, which is not in any way suited to porting us dogs, and there they were. All plump and feathered and waddle-bodied lurching around the way long-necked birds do. It was too easy. They were right there and two hounds couldn't possibly eat them all. So our girl Me got out of the car first and left us whining and trilling our special trill of eagerness in the back seat. She scattered the turkeys with a shout and they waddled their plump fannies into the woods, down the bank. Then, she let us out of the car. Now it was a fair chase as they had a head start.

We ran like the wind. I, Guthrie, ran faster since I have the slender hound shape meant for running. Elias waddles, a little bit like a turkey, when he runs because he has more girth. So I was running like the wind, leaping down the bank after the flock of turkeys, my paws barely hitting the ground, my ears flapping like wings on an angel. I was the most amazing of creatures for a split second in time. Then, the birds outdid me. Who knew such plump waddlers could fly? I was dumbfounded. Yes, they have wings, but some of them were as large as a dog, and all of them were larger than the bit of fluff that is the elders' dog. I'm wise to it now and I'll allow for that in my pursuit next time. We had an exhilarating chase. Some flew up and then landed again a ways away. I think those were the fatter ones who couldn't get up good momentum. As soon as their webby little feet touched the ground, I was there. The Gute was in the house. And then they were gone, every one. A small city of them congregating in the sky, moving out in formation. They honked their disgust at me and I thrilled in my heart at the possibility of meeting them again on this turf where one crook neck bird will be my dinner and my prize. I the Gute will have turkey for Thanksgiving.

It was a day I will replay in my dreams for weeks.

As refreshed as I am from my hunting expedition, I came home ready to cook. It's late now. Our girl Me stopped for dinner on the way home with her parents and cousins and brought us out some tasty fried fish. So we aren't cooking for tonight, but Me took a very large Pork Roast out of the freezer so we realize we will need to do research and be prepared for tomorrow or Sunday when it's time to make a feast.

I, The Gute (goot), have been through Me's prized Best-of-All-Possible-Recipes Box and found her favorite pork loin recipe of all time. It hails from 1996. (We don't know where - maybe Bon Appetite. We weren't even born in 1996. Who was?)

Elias has been jabbering about the need for baked apple and thyme stuffing for a side. We'll see if we get that far. For now, here is the recipe for this weekend, if you'd like to make it too. It's nothing like fresh plucked turkey but there's plenty of time for that.

Pork Roast Extraordinare
Me's Independent Rating: 3 of 3

For the Roast
3-pound center-cut boneless pork loin
1 tablespoon finely grated tangerine rind
2 teaspoons fresh thyme
3/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1-3/4 cup chicken broth

For the Gravy
1/2 cup fresh tangerine juice
3 tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon pepper


For the Kiwi Tangerine Salsa
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small red onion, chopped fine
1 small jalapeno, seeded and chopped
2 tangerines, segmented and cut up
1 kiwi peeled and diced
1 tablespoon lime juice

For the Roast
Trim the fat from the pork loin. (This can be a snack for you while cooking if your person is not around. Our girl Me allows us very little fat when she has anything to say about it.)

Place the pork in a pan on a rack. (Or, set open metal cookie cutters below the roast to raise it up from the pan.)

Combine the tangerine rind, thyme, salt, cumin, and pepper together and rub evenly over the meat. Let the herbs penetrate the meat for about 15 minutes. Insert a meat thermometer in the center of the pork.

Add the chicken broth to the pan and roast uncovered for 2 hours, until the thermometer registers 160F. Remove from the oven and let it stand 15 minutes. Pour the juices into a cast iron pan on the stove top.

For the Gravy
Combine the tangerine juice, flour and pepper til smooth. Stir into the broth in the pan. Add up to 1-1/2 cups water if necessary. Cook until thick and serve with the pork.

For the Salsa
Saute the onion and jalapeno in the oil for two minutes and remove from heat. Stir in the fruit and lime juice and refrigerate for one hour. Serve with roast pork. (And leftovers are great with ham and poultry.)

Notes from Guthrie:
You may wish to consider canola oil instead of olive oil when sauteing. Olive oil is fragile and if heated too high all of the excellent omegas in it turn into evil toxins instead. Eat your olive oil raw and your tougher canola or coconut or peanut oils sauteed.

Notes from Elias:
First, I don't appreciate the earlier references to my girth and I certainly do not waddle when I run. Second, I have mentioned more than once the need for Apple Stuffing with a pork roast and now that Guthrie has put a tantalizing kiwi tangerine salsa with the roast, no one is going to want apple stuffing. I'm putting apple stuffing in the next post anyhow, in case you don't want to run to the store for kiwi. The citrusy goodness of the tangerine on pork will not be at all daunted by the perk of apple in stuffing. And we have a garage full of fragrant apples, so I don't even know why we're considering cooking with fruit that's not even in the home at present.

- Pickled Cucumber Salad

Dear Fans of Hounds Who Cook,

Today we are offering you the very best solution for the zillion cucumbers you are rescuing in your garden from the pending frost. Use small cukes in this recipe for tender goodness. We used to call this Aunt Miriam's Refrigerator Pickles, but that sounds like you should eat them a slice at a time instead of by the bowlful. This dish is suited to serve as a side like you would serve coleslaw. Tell us if we're wrong, but that's how we eat them in our Hound home, a dainty 1/4 cup at a time. And they are Aunt Miriam's Refrigerator Pickles, by the way, our girl Me's culinary forebear and model.

Sweet Cucumber Salad

7 cups sliced cucumbers
1 cup sliced onion
1/2 cup sliced green pepper
2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon celery seed
2 cups sugar
1 cup vinegar

Use cucumbers with the peel if desired, but if the peels are thick and tough, peel them off in strips so at least half of the peel is removed from the cucumber before slicing. Slice the onions the same thickness as the cukes, and chop into pieces. Slice the pepper to the same size.

Let cukes stand overnight with onion, pepper, salt and celery seed.

Drain. Mix sugar and vinegar and pour over cucumbers. Pack in jars and refrigerate. Eat liberally.

Tips from Guthrie: Cucumbers are so very healthful that we wish we could have them everyday. This helps make it so. The sugar is not so healthful and you might be able to make this same good food with stevia rather than sugar. We just haven't tried it. You try and let us know. Our cucumbers are gone for the season.

Tips from Eli: Refrigerator properly, these will last a few months. Mmm.

- Easy Apple Strudel

Dear Fans of Hounds Who Cook,

I, Beltashazzar, the cat, have spent the evening communing with apples. The peel, the core with stem and seeds, the flesh. The occasional worm. A cat likes to spend time with a subject to find the inspiration of what it will be become. (The apple, not the cat.) And I, Beltashazzar, with 8 cups of tender white apple chunks at my side have decided that these nutritious morsels will become: Strudel.

It's an easy strudel. Nothing like the elaborate strudels from the old country. Those were tender pastries of dough rolled and spread with butter and folded and rolled again, and again - like croissant dough but sweet - and filled with buttery apple-cinnamon filling. The person, Me, tells the tale of her early days of mastering such efforts. She never really found it worth all the work, she admits. So this recipe, adapted from her dear friend Barbara in Colorado (and then Tennessee) has the glory of the strudel but the ease of pie. Consider featuring your own apples in this morning or teatime treat.

Easy Apple Strudel
2 cups flour
3/4 cup butter
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs, divided
4 tablespoons water
4 tablespoons vodka (indeed)
2 cups apple
stevia equivalent for 1 cup sugar
3/4 tablespoons tapioca
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
pinch of mace, if desired

Cut the butter into the flour and salt as for pie crust. (I use a mini food chopper for this to minimize flour dust on the paws - put the flour and chunks of butter into the chopper and pulse til the butter is evenly distributed into tiny bits within the flour.)

Separate the eggs and set the whites aside. Whisk the yolks with the water and vodka. (This is an idea we all read about online from Cooks Illustrated. The alcohol in the vodka evaporates in the oven and leaves you with the flakiest of crust. I'm a tee-totaling cat myself, but the vodka is also useful to keep the dogs occupied and out of your way in the kitchen. Me walked through earlier and wondered why the dogs were so tired, snoring and drooling with their tongues hanging out. I didn't say a word.) Stir the water mixture in to the flour mixture lightly with a fork until it all clings together. Divide in two, wrap tightly, and refrigerate briefly - such as 30 minutes while you peel and chop your apples.

Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface to fit a baking pan with sides. Ours is 14x12-inches, we think. Fit the dough into the pan, stretching up the sides.

Mix powdered stevia with tapioca and cinnamon. Toss with chopped apple. Distribute evenly across the thin fragile pastry in the pan.

Roll out the other ball of dough to cover the pan. Lay over the apples and crimp the sides tightly in a becoming manner. Create short cat claw slashes in the top crust with a sharp knife (or your claws) in a clever pattern or prick all over with a fork.

Whisk the egg whites and brush over the top crust, taking care to brush the nicely crimped and fluted edges as well. Bake at 375F for 40 minutes.

While baking, mix the powdered sugar, vanilla, and evaporated milk for the icing. (If you don't have a can of evaporated milk already open, don't open one for this. Ordinary milk or cream will do. But the evaporated milk has a nice effect.)

Remove from oven and immediately frost with icing. Return to oven for 3 minutes, until icing bubbles.

Remove from oven, cool, and cut into squares to serve.

Tips from Beltashazzar: In the house of Hounds, we like to use arrowroot as our thickening agent rather than cornstarch. Tapioca flour is good too, when we have it on hand. We also exaggerate the cinnamon in any baked good because of its healthful properties. You really can't get enough. We also only use freshly grated nutmeg, or we skip it. Once we happened upon a nutmeg grater, we considered the preground and the freshly grated nuts two very different spices with no use whatsoever for the former. We also tend to use mace wherever we use cinnamon. It all started with an oatmeal cookie recipe that called for mace and our person Me was never the same. It was a new spice to her and some would say she' s overused it ever since. It has become a signature for Me. Everyone asks about it. We're not sure if they ask because they like it or because they can't identify it. They always say it's good. We have grown to love it liek our Me. Often, in order of quantity, we would add cinnamon, mace and nutmeg. In this instance, the mace is less than the nutmeg for just a subtle little undertone of surprise.

Tips from Guthrie: My kit Beltashazzar has done an exemplary job with this pastry. When our Me rises in the morning to homemade apple strudel from her boys she is sure to include us in her delight. We are the kind of dogs in favor of doing work ahead. So if you'd like to chop your apples the night before while you watch reruns of Monk on the USA Network website, that would be fine. You can also mix up the dough the night before. Then, in the morning it's just a little rollery and you have your strudel baking while the coffee's brewing.

Tips from Elias: This keeps surprisingly well, if by some instance, such as dogs being away for the day, it is not eaten all in one sitting. Me has reported eating it as many as four days later with only a bit of a loss of flavor in that time. We don't even think she refrigerates it. Her elder, the mother, thinks she should refrigerate a lot more than she does. Me did not grow up in the days without refrigeration so she is very casual about the convenience. She doesn't refrigerate just- picked rasPberries either until the third day.

- Apple Wonder Cake

Dear Fans of Hounds Who Cook,

We just made an amazing discovery. We thought that a ne'er-do-well had slipped into the home and stolen not all of our recipes, but just the dessert section from our Best of All Possible Recipes box. We have said very little of this while the crime was under investigation. It turns out, though, that it was merely a filing error (no doubt by the cat). All of the desserts were filed under the next category "Eggs and Dairy" which is a silly category to separate out since eggs and dairy are in everything and we rarely think of them as a category of their own. So the crime is solved, there was no household break-in, and our recipes are safe. We are considering purchasing an actual safe now that we have our own blog. It's just a matter of time before someone tries to thieve our premium recipes.

So, with all of our Desserts in hand, how, how do we choose? We dogs will choose the Raw Apple Cake that we dub Susan's Apple Wonder Cake, as it is wonderful. (That is what other persons call our girl, Me, but she always calls herself "Me" to us.)

In the spirit of fairness and the crispness of fall,we will allow the cat his moment in the kitchen too with apple something. See what he dreams up in the next post.

Susan's Apple Wonder Cake
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
1 cup sour milk (or buttermilk, or plain yogurt)
2-1/4 cups whole wheat flour
stevia equivalent for 1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 tablespoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons soda
2-1/2 cups chopped apples

Topping:
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped nuts

Butter and flour a 13x9-inch pan. (No need to preheat oven since it will bake a good long 35 minutes.)

Cream sugar and butter til fluffy. Beat in eggs. Sift together flour, stevia, salt, cinnamon, and soda. Mix flour and sour milk alternately into butter mixture. (This means: mix 1/3 of the flour mixture into the fluffy butter mixture. Mix half of the sour milk into the butter mixture. Mix half of the remaining flour into the butter mixture. Mix in the rest of the sour milk. Finish by mixing in the rest of the flour.) Fold in apples.

Spread into prepared pan.

Toss together the topping ingredients and sprinkle nicely over the batter. Bake at 350F (or 325F for a glass pan like ours) for 35-40 minutes until a toothpick poked into the center comes out clean.

Tips from Guthrie: To make this even fat-freer, replace 1/4 cup of the butter with 1/4 cup of cooked date paste (which you make by simmering chopped dates with a little bit of water until they are soft and stir into a slightly lumpy paste). Then call it Apple Date Cake or some will wonder.

Tips from Elias: To give these away because of how many apples you have and how very many apple goodies will be made in the near future, bake it up in mini loaf pans. Then you have a cake that serves 2-4 people and you can give one to each of your elder neighbors who have small appetites. For the diabetic neighbor who always brings you garden produce, leave off the sugary topping, sprinkle with cinnamon and nuts, and let him know it's Low Sugar (because there is still some in the cake). We haven't yet perfected retaining the baked good texture when cooking with only stevia, so we use part sugar and mostly stevia for the sweetness and feel we have found a good middle ground.

- The Orchard Escapade

Dear Fans of Hounds Who Cook,

We've been on an apple orchard escapade all day. First of all, the back roads of Wisconsin are quite lovely just now. We think some of the trees are at their colorful peak. Secondly, it's not actually as fun as it sounds going to orchards as we dogs have to stay in the car. Even at the pick-your-own establishments. They said something about us bringing E-coli. I did not bring him and I'm sure my brother Elias did not, so we should have been allowed in the orchard. But when we saw the great volume of apples the girl Me brought back to the car we knew our little dog packs couldn't have carried it all anyway. We would be happy to pull a wagon for her, but she has not devised a harness system for us as of yet (or bought a wagon, for that matter).

So, we were going to make Apple Cider Vinegar especially for my skin, I being Guthrie. But we have to start with Raw cider and no one will sell Raw cider because someone (not us) brought E-coli to an orchard and he apparently ruined a batch of Raw cider. (You can be assured that if we dogs meet this E-coli, it will be the end of him. He sounds like a bad apple and surely could not be of a dog or wolf species. Probably a cat or bird, that's what we surmise.)

We noticed that the orchards were run by elders without any strapping young ones around. The first one said it's hard to find strapping youth who know how to work. The second one said they come for 4 hours one day and don't show up for three days. He said he never hears from his son but his daughter comes by to help once in a great while. It was a sad matter as Me listened to him. At both orchards the elders said they had health problems early in the year that kept them from keeping the places up or doing their usual business. So Me wondered if the family orchard scenario is going by the wayside in a few years due to a lack of interest from the next generation. Me was troubled by it all and decided not to try to bargain about the apple seconds she was buying to try to make her own cider. What was $20? He offered to teach her how to prune apple trees if she wanted to come back in a few weeks. She might. He will probably make us stay home though, as they are sure we know E-coli, even though we don't.

Then, after 2 bushels + 1 peck of apples were purchased at various orchards, for us to attempt our own cider pressing, then she learned of a plan. There is an orchard where you take your own bottle. When Bill presses his apples he fills your bottle and calls you to come and get it. In that way, you have your own raw cider and can make your hard cider or vinegar or wine or what have you. So we are cleaning out jugs for Bill and will take them to him later in the week. We are excited to finally get to make our own cider. You'll be fully apprised of the whole process when it happens.

In honor of All of the apples filling the garage with their sultry fragrance just now, we will next post one of our most favorite apple recipes. We just have to decide what it is.

Love and the usual adoration,

Guthrie for the Hounds Who Cook

- RasPberry Squares

Dear Fans of Hounds Who Cook,

Well, our person, Me, returned to us at last. She embroiled herself again in paperwork, so we were not inclined to cook, but then we went to the Elders' house where we run like real dogs, sniffing in the woods, tracking scents. We become real beasts there. Me spent her time with the elder man amid the rasPberries. And now that most of the garden is gone, they even let us in too, I, Elias, spent a good amount of time sniffing in the garden itself. Gute was down at the creek. He has a very focused interest in scents due to his greatness as a hunter. I, Eli, would just as soon stay near the People where food is always at the ready. Though I also enjoy a good tracking session from time to time.

So, they picked the last of the rasPberries and my brother Gutie-fied another old favorite for everyone's good pleasure. We were Very pleased with the outcome. We find if we take out just a smidge of the fat or sugar and add a little fiber and wholesome goodness, then we are a little bit ahead of where would have been had we not done it. You see, there are some who say they have ruined their diet if they slip up. We say any act of goodness is still good and still an accomplishment, not to be disregarded. Try on this act of goodness for yourself:

Raspberry Squares
1-1/2 cups flour (part whole wheat)
1-1/4 cups rolled oats (we use old-fashioned for the greatest texture)
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 cup almond flour or finely ground almonds
1/2 cup butter
2 tablespoons apple sauce
2 pints raspberries
1 cup-equivalent of stevia*
2 teaspoons arrowroot

(*see the Cooking with Stevia entry to figure out the elusive measuring paradigm)

Preheat oven to 350F. Butter an 8-inch square pan.

Meanwhile, simmer raspberries with the stevia equivalent to 1 cup of sugar and 2 teaspoons arrowroot until sauce begins to thicken. Set aside.

Mix flour, oats, sugars, soda, salt, almond flour together. Cut in 1/2 cup butter and 2 tablespoons apple sauce til fine. Press two-thirds of the mixture into the bottom of the pan. Bake about 20 minutes.

Spread while warm with the raspberry sauce. Sprinkle remaining flour mixture over the sauce. Bake until top is golden - about 30 minutes. Turn pan midway through cooking.

Tips from Guthrie: We use part whole wheat because we find it to be a handy place to hide the fiber. One recipient of bars noticed and thought it too crusty without enough filling. The other recipients raved about their goodness. Be sure to cool the pan on a baking rack so the crust keeps its texture and doesn't soften. Fruit bars are all about the crisp factor.

Tips from Elias: As a dog, I find rasPberries quite refreshing. I don't recommend eating them right off the plant as they are prickly, but have someone with fingers pick them for me. That's what I do.

- A Space in Time

Dear Fans of Hounds Who Cook,

We dogs and Bellyshazzar the cat are having an uproarious time. Our person, Me, has taken a trip and we have full run of the home. The long blonde haired young one stays with us so we aren't doing a lot of cooking up of things. We have to keep up appearances as rapscallion dogs while she is here. If she knew us as the refined creatures we are it might lessen the mystique. We'll be back to recipes after our girl Me comes back.

love,
the usual hounds plus Beltashazzar, the cat

- Vegetable Broth - Making Something from Nothing

Dear Fans of Hounds Who Cook,

Being creatures of land, we dogs are extremely resourceful and economizing. We don't waste anything.

Our person, Me, has a stock bag she keeps in the freezer door for easy access. It's a bag that is constantly opening for new deposits of the inedible-yet-flavorful vegetable and fruit parts that the average cook would discard. Any part of the plant that has flavor, but that you would not eat outright. These scraps are saved for later making a delicious vegetable stock.

Here's Me's rough listing of examples:
(We are organically minded dogs, so there are some parts of conventional vegetables especially rife with pesticides and chemicals that we don't save - like the peels or the top of conventional carrots...)

- the sprouts or root ends from bulbs like garlic, onion, fennel, and what have you.
- the outer layers of onion or outer stalks of celery (remove any spoiled part)
- the root ends, leaves (even wilty), and strings of celery
- the peel of organic potatoes, carrots, apples, and other vegetables
- the tops of organic carrots or beets
- wilted (but not yet slimy) greens of spinach, beets, celery and the like
- broccoli ends or stems
- cauliflower core
- cabbage outer leaves and core
- the peel (and fibers) from fresh ginger, as well as ginger nubs too small to grate
- pepper tops and white innards and seeds (if you add a lot of Hot Pepper scraps, you may want to mark the bag to remind yourself so you know you're making a powerhouse broth later.)
- woody asparagus ends
- tomato "cores" or any hard white bits inside, or peels (no green stems though, as our elder man tells us tomatoes are from the Deadly Nightshade family and the greens could sicken a person or dangerously poison a pup or cat)
- lime or lemon peel (not orange peel)

Can you put in meats? you may wonder. Yes, but Me tends to save these in separate bags so she doesn't forget which meat she put in. (While we dogs enjoy the good variety of cooking chicken, pork, and beef together with a little lamb, the Persons of our acquaintance tend to find this unappetizing.) Save any cooked or uncooked bones. Uncooked give the most flavor to the broth, of course, but probably cooked ones have a little left in them too.

On the topic of broth, we are very adverse to using any bouillon that is rife with MSG. We will tell you later in a post why MSG is so bad, besides that it gives us headaches and makes us hounds ADD. However, there is a wondrous broth cube that does not have MSG and is the best one our girl has ever found. It's called Rapunzel brand Vegetable Bouillon with Sea Salt and Herbs. You can buy it in the natural foods section of the store or online. Our Me adds one cube even when she is making her broth from scratch as she loves it so.

Homemade Vegetable Stock
Vegetable trimmings from your stock bag
1 onion
2-3 stalks celery, with leaves
1 carrot
Other vegetables
Rosemary or bay leaf
salt
pepper
Dried herbs such as thyme, oregano, marjoram, basil, sage, or ginger
Rapunzel vegetable bouillon (optional)

Place vegetable trimmings you've been collecting in a 3-quart sauce pan. Chop up one onion, a few stalks of celery, and a carrot to augment your stash. We also recommend looking through your crisper drawers at this time and adding any vegetables that you have been meaning to use and alas did not and now will not. Cut off what is yellowed or ailing, and include the rest in the pan. (Set aside a few good pieces to add to the soup later, after the broth is cooked, if desired.) Also add dried rosemary and a bay leaf at this time so they can be strained out later.

Fill the pan with water over the vegetables and cover. Heat to boiling. Reduce the heat and simmer for about an hour. Pour the broth through a sieve, discarding the vegetables (great for the compost pile). Return the flavorful broth to the saucepan and season with salt and pepper and dried herbs. As mentioned, we also add a cube of Rapunzel bouillon to fill out the flavor. Now you have an aromatic and delicious stock for the soup of your liking. You can also freeze this in quart bags (or jars - wait til it's frozen to tighten the lid completely) to pull out on the fly as needed.

Note that we call for dried herbs, which fare better in something that steeps like this. Fresh herbs are best added at the last, before serving, rather than cooking all day in a broth where their power is depleted. Leave a comment if we're wrong about that. It seems to be what we've learned along the way.

Forever yours -

The Hounds Who Cook
Elias and The Gute