Munchie Mondays: Cindy's Spinach Salad

As Claudia once pointed out, I put pecans into everything and it's true. Pecans grow natively around here and I have pleasant memories from childhood picking up the mature nuts that had fallen off of the bare trees around our house during the fall. I give kudos to my mom for coming up with an activity to keep her kids quiet as cracking these fruits and harvesting the meat was quite a challenge for my brother and I as it required some manual dexterity and concentration.

Another thing I attribute to Fall are tree ripe apples from Ithaca, NY (where I met my hubby.) I spent a short amount of time up there while in graduate school and I still recall being able to buy all sorts of these fragrant beauties by the bucket full on road side stands. The apples I'd seen were smallish, about the size of a lemon but packed with tons of flavor and crunch. You really don't see apples down here like those.

Anyway, as this is technically the first day of Fall, we might as well celebrate by making a salad featuring these fall fruits!

Cindy's Spinach Salad
feeds 2

3/4 cup of shelled pecans
1 tbs of butter
3/4 cup of brown sugar

1/4 cup of dried tart cherries, cranberries or raisins
1/4 cup of crumbled blue cheese
2-3 artichoke hearts roughly chopped
1 small apple (Pink Lady is my favorite)
4 cups of baby spinach
oil and vinegar, salt and pepper for dressing

What makes this salad is the candided pecans. Don't get to bent out of shape with "hard ball" "soft ball" stages with this candy mixture. The longer you cook it, the more hard caramel like it'll be. The shorter time, the more it'll be like a praline. They both tasted good...You just don't want to over cook the mixture!



Melt butter and sugar in a heavy skillet over medium heat.





Beat vigorously until fluffy and almost frothy seeming. The butter and sugar should be well incorporated. This is when I add the pecans. Again, stir vigorously until the pecans are well coated.





Dump pecan candies onto wax paper to cool being careful to try to separate the pieces as much as you can. Please don't touch the caramel with your bare hands as you're doing this. As the pecans are cooling, slice apple into thin wedges or cube and arrange salad ingredients between two plates.

Dress with candied pecans, salt, pepper, oil and vinegar and you're good to go! You'll probably have more candied pecans than you care to use, but that's okay. Just wrap them up with the waxed paper once cooled and stick in the refrigerator. They'll keep for a couple of weeks.

Munchie Mondays: Apple Cheese Pastries

Apples and cheese go hand in hand. It's a combination that never fails and yet you don't see the pairing much in baked goods all that often, oddly.



This pastry is really more about the cheese, so pick a fragrant aged cheddar. The blue cheese gives it a kick but if you like something more mellow, add more cheddar or maybe some brie to the mix. The walnuts add a nice crunch while the apples and raisins add just enough sweetness to counterbalance the sharpness of the cheese. Think of it as a glorified empanada.

Apple and Cheese Pastry
Makes 4 large pastries

1 prepared pie crust
1 small apple finely diced (about 1/2 to 3/4 cup)
1/4 cup of roughly chopped sharp cheddar
1/4 cup of crumbled blue cheese -or- brie -or- other dessert cheese
1/4 cup of raisins
1/3 cup of walnut pieces
1/2 tsp of cinnamon (optional)
1/2 tsp of thyme (optional)
1/2 tsp salt

preheat oven to 375 degrees Farenheit

In a bowl combine ingredients. You can add or subtract herbs to your liking. Some people even add honey to make this a sweet pastry, but I like mine on the savory side. Cut pastry into quarters.



Place a quarter of the filling material in the center of triangular piece of pie crust and moisten edge of pastry with water. This part is a tad tricky: Carefully pick up pastry and contents and using your hand gently cup the pastry so that contents fall towards the center.





Draw tips together so that you have a tetrahedron shaped pastry and pinch opposing sides closed securely. Depending on how you rolled your dough out the edges may not touch. If this is the case, remove some of the filling.

Repeat for the other 3 pieces. Place on an ungreased baking sheet and bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes. When done the pastries should be golden brown and the cheese and juice of the fruit should be bubbling though the seams slightly.



I realize it is tempting to bite into one of these immediately but PLEASE let them cool off a bit. The steam and melted cheese on the inside will cause a serious burn. Take them off the baking sheet and let cool on a wire rack for about 10 minutes or so. The inside will still be ooey gooey and delicious.



This goes fantastic with wine and fresh fruit. Try it with yogurt or mushroom cream sauce on top. For a variation, I think figs or dates would work well in place of the raisins.

Where them apples go?

I'm cranky today. :(

I was all set to make the next Munchie Monday: Apple and Cheese pastries and discovered that I'm out of a apples! Considering I've been craving tons of meat lately and we have no meat at home, we ought to go grocery shopping. Meh. I ain't in the mood.

We owe $2000 to the IRA this year. That's more than our monthly mortgage! Last year we owed over a thousand. At the advice of our accountant, T and I went down to 0 allowances on our W-2 thinking that would ensure the right amount would be taken out each month. It turns out it's *still* not enough. In fact, we owe more than we did last year. How is that possible? You'd think the formulas would be somewhat accurate and be proportional to any raises, extra income, etc. The total withholdings over this past year came out to more than 10% of our combined income. :( Can anyone offer a helpful manner of estimating any additional withholdings we need to contribute each month (aside from just doing taxes)?

On a different note, my friend Shawn and I are going to cover Tim Young's song "Fire Exit." His is upbeat and tons of fun to listen to (reminiscent of the Beatles), but so far the palate I've come up with sounds like a fucking ethereal pseudo R&B song. Because I'm so cranky and down, I can't get out of that mood either. I'm hoping Shawn (whenever school lets up) can help a bit. Maybe a flamenco-esque version would be neat. That conveys fire. I do love the pre-loaded software on my Mac though but I can see how getting so much sound candy can be a hindrance to creativity. On that note though, the distorted flute and baby hammer dulcimer is pretty damn cool, so there is one small thing to pat my back on. :)