So we put up this recipe on our sister food blog, theodorerichard.com/foodblog . We wrote it up for standard ingredients but of course you can just substitute organic ingredients to go ultra-pure. Hope you enjoy and Happy New Year to all.

If you like this please share with a friend. Thanks

Related Posts:

• TheodoreRichard.com/foodBlog Homemade White Bread Post
• Toast With A Hole With An Egg In The Middle Of It
• Fresh Organic Croutons

Now Della did not specify Organic “This” or Organic “That” in her recipe simply because everything was organically grown back then. But unfortunately, now we must, since we really have two classes of foods to choose from. One could say ”old-school vs. chem lab” but I won’t … so everything organic and please hold the pesticides.

Anyway, here’s what we did. Since Della’s recipe like many in the day does not call out for specific measurements of ingredients we ran an experimental baking with a mini Apple Dowdy. This was put together and baked in a 5″x5″ x 1.5″ deep Le Creuset (a very fine baking dish by the way).

• Preheat your oven to 325F 
• Peel and cut into pieces 2 medium apples. One Macintosh and one Granny Smith (following the same path for taste, texture and tartness that we do for our Apple Pie).
• Place the cut apples in the baking dish, this just filled ours.
• Sprinkle the top with some freshly ground Nutmeg (allll-right pre ground if that’s all you have.
• Top this with a sprinkle of Cinnamon (Della tells us to use a little less than the Nutmeg so we did).
• Add a dash of Sea Salt.
• Take some unsalted butter and cut thin slices and place on top. She says to use about one teaspoon of butter per serving. We did our best but I think we put in some extra … mmm butter.
• Add a 1/4 Cup of Warm, but not Hot, Spring Water. Della called out 1/2 Cup for what we assume is a pie-sized dowdy. So we just cut it in half and added it to our little half-pint size version.

Make the Baking Powder Crust

• Take a Medium Bowl and add 1 Cup of All-Purpose Flour
• Add Two Teaspoons of Aluminum Free Baking Powder (you can of course use regular “Aluminumized” stuff, it’s your health, knock yourself out).
• Add Two Tablespoons of Unsalted Butter.
• Add 1/4 Teaspoon of Sea Salt
• Add 1/2 Cup of Whole Milk.

The Build

• Stir and spread the Baking Powder Crust over the Apple Filled Baking Dish. Try to get about 3/4″ thickness.
• Try to cut a Big “S” in the center and little slots/breathing holes several places around it.
• Place in the center rack of the Preheated Oven.
• Let bake for 3 hours. Yes, THREE Hours.

After baking remove and let set before digging in (but make sure it’s still warm). Della recommends serving on a dish and pouring on some heavy cream that has been dressed up with a little sugar and nutmeg.

Well, what did we think? As far as being easy this recipe kicks butt. It was insanely simple and quick to put together. Then while it was baking the entire house filled with this warm apple/nutmeg/cinnamony smell. Very strong and like heaven. You could almost say that you’re going to make this just to make your house smell great for company or potential home buyers. Seriously, your house will smell that good … Taste. .. There was this starchy, buttery, appley thing going on and with the fat from the heavy cream it was some really good comfort food. The only thing we wished we had done differently was to warm up the cream to further enhance the warmness of the whole treat. Just wonderful.

Now like Della says, this dessert is definitely different from a tart or pie. It’s a dowdy and nothing but a dowdy. And she was also right about this being one homely thing (this is definitely an “Ugly Betty” when compared to an apple pie with an egg wash & sugar topping). But it’s something different and a great opportunity to shake up your repertoire. As far as variations we could envision serving with a good vanilla ice cream and possibly sprinkling the top with a cinnamon sugar to bring up the sweetness. Add walnuts? That might work. And also a rum/espresso topping could be very nice as well. In short there are endless possibilities to make this a unique dish that you could call your own.

Anyway, there you have it. Hope you enjoy your apple dowdy. And we’ll look into more forgotten recipes as time goes on. Enjoy!

First, get yourself some FRESH, Organic, Free-Range Chicken. … Expensive yes, but great food simply starts with great ingredients. Now if money’s really tight go ahead and buy your manufactured chicken (eye roll). Next, just trim off the fat and prep your fry pan. .. I like to go with a heavy bottom copper clad stainless, works well for me.

Place a small amount of cooking oil in the center of the pan and spread/wipe/coat the pan with this using a paper towel. What you want here is a thin coating of oil. The paper towel will help you coat and soak up the excess. You don’t want your chicken sopping in oil. Crank up the stove to a high heat, turn on the stove fan/vent and add your chicken breast. … Keep and eye on things and keep it safe. … Now’s the time when I do what I do best, nothing. Hold yourself back and resist your temptation to check or move the chicken until the side is done. 

With my particular stove and pan I have learned that seven minutes of undisturbed frying will give me the perfect sear. And this is repeatable. One of the things I do is to buy chicken breast of approximately the same weight every time. This helps in providing a repeatable cooking cycle. .. So while the chicken is cooking with NO help from me I can work on my side dishes or whatever. But it’s aways a good idea to set a timer so you don’t loose track of time and forget about it. .. So bottom line, you’ll have to cook this a few times to determine how long it takes to cook each side. Just use a 1/2 pound breast and cook the first side for seven minutes as a start and refine your times from there.  But remember one of the keys to doing this right is to not disturb the chicken. Just let it cook and don’t be checking it. If left undisturbed a nice sear will occur. If you flip too early it will be “not-good”. So again, it may take you a few times cooking this to really get it down.

OK, once my seven minutes is over I flip the chicken breast with a spatula and set the timer for 5 1/2 minutes. …. After this times out I remove the pan from the heat and place the chicken breast on a cutting board. Now what I generally do is to slice it and then place each slice back in the pan (which being heavy bottomed is still hot) slice side down. Put the pan back on to a medium heat. I give this a minute or two to cook and flip the pieces and give it a minute or two more. The reason for doing this is that often the center of the chicken is not fully cooked. This completes the cooking.

Take your thickest piece out and cut to check that it’s cooked. Then out of the pan and serve. Try to get to the point where you can time things to be ready together. From pan to plate is the best. … Anyway what you now have an a terrific low calorie, protein dense, clean (not all oily) and great tasting chicken. Of course you can in the process of cooking spice things up as you like (careful of the spice smoking…had someone put cayenne on the chicken while cooking once and it started smoking really bad, eyes watering like being pepper sprayed or something..) or you can store the chicken in the frig so that you’re good to go for a grilled chicken salad when the time is right.

Anyway hope you enjoy, eat well, be healthy, have fun!

 Anyway, this is a recipe previously posted but lost in the Yahoo hosting debacle (don’t get me started). I decided to move things over to another provider after this so now we’re good. Also, back to the recipe, I’ve since discovered that a slight drizzle of organic maple syrup when serving really works well as an additional flavor note with the apples and brown sugar. Test it out you may love it. .. Hope you enjoy the recipe.

Shopping List:       

       6 Tablespoons of Organic All-Purpose Flour

       ½  Cup Organic Granulated Sugar

       ¼ Cup Organic Brown Sugar

       ¼ Teaspoon Organic Ground Cinnamon

       ¼ Teaspoon  of Organic Ground Nutmeg

       ¼ Teaspoon of Refined Sea Salt      

       6 Tablespoons of Organic Unsalted Butter

       ½ Cup of Organic Walnuts, Almonds or Pecans (or a combination of all
       them)

       ½ Cup of Organic Old Fashion Rolled Oats

       3 Medium Organic Granny Smith Apples

       3 Medium Organic McIntosh Apples (or as an option 2 Medium Organic
       McIntosh Apples and 1 Cup of Organic Raspberries).

       1 Medium Organic Lemon

   And, whatever you would like to serve the crisp with (in addition to the optional maple syrup). Some suggestions are:
     -Organic Vanilla Ice Cream
     -Organic Heavy Cream
     -Organic Vanilla Frozen Yogurt

Preliminary: (Measuring & Prepping the Dry Ingredients)

-Take out your food processor.

-Fluff up the Flour in it’s container using a butter knife.

-Measure & Add to the Food Processor 6 Tablespoons of All-Purpose Flour.

-Measure & Add to the Food Processor ¼ Cup of Brown Sugar (pack it into the measuring cup).

-Measure & Add to the Food Processor  ¼ Cup of Granulated Sugar.

-Measure & Add to the Food Processor ¼ Teaspoon of Ground Cinnamon.

-Measure & Add to the Food Processor ¼ Teaspoon of Ground Nutmeg.

-Measure & Add to the Food Processor ¼ Teaspoon of Salt.

-Pulse the Food Process a Few Times to get everything Mixed.

-Take a Stick of Unsalted Butter from the Refrigerator. Cut the Stick at 6 Tablespoons. Cut this in Small Slices and Add to the Food Processor.

-Pulse the Food Processor Until Everything Looks Grainy.

-Measure and Add ½ Cup of Walnuts, Almonds or Pecans (or a combination of them). If you don’t like Nuts use Old Fashion Rolled Oats.

-Measure and Add ½ Cups of Old Fashion Rolled Oats (if you used the Oats in the Previous Step Add in this ½ Cup as well).

-Pulse the Food Processor a Few Times but Remember You Want Everything Chopped and Combined & not mushed up. So don’t run the Processor Too much or You’ll End Up With this Brown Goo. So, Chop…Combine & then … Step Away From The Food Processor.

-Remove the Bowl From the Food Processor and Place it in the Refrigerator.

The Main Event (Making the Apple Mix and Baking)

-Move the Oven Rack to the Center Position. Preheat the Oven to 375F.

-Peel, Core and Cut 3 Medium Granny Smith & 3 Medium McIntosh Apples into a Large Bowl (or substitute the 3 Medium McIntosh Apples with 2 Medium McIntosh Apples and 1 Cup of Raspberries).

-Cut a Medium Lemon the Long Way in Half. Cut Each Half the Long Way Again.

-Squeeze each Quarter into a Small Separate Bowl. Fish out any seeds. Add the Lemon Juice to the Apples in the Large Bowl (pour all over the apples).

-Measure and Add ¼ Cup of Granulated Sugar to the Apple Mix.

-Toss the Apple Mix to combine everything.

-Take out a Baking Dish (Use a Pie Pan or Baking Pan. Something with Deep Enough Sides to Hold Everything and 8 to 9 Inches Across).

-Add the Apple Mixture to the Pan.

-Take the Topping out of the Refrigerator and Put on Top of the Apple Mixture. You probably will have to use your fingers. Remember Spread it around to cover the top but don’t pack in down.

-Bake for 40 minutes (but watch it to make sure you’re not running a overly hot oven that will burn it).

-Take a peek. The top should be brown but not burned. If it looks OK increase the oven to 400F and bake for 5 minutes more.

-Remove from the Oven and let it cool and gel a bit.

 Get your bowl and serve. Personally, I get my Organic Vanilla Frozen Yogurt and spread my Organic Apple Crisp all over the top. Now one of the keys is to wait until the apple crisp is not hot but warm. This of course keeps the Frozen Yogurt from Melting too fast. Then a quick/slight drizzle of maple syrup. Awesome!

 Now this is good food, real good food. No store bought piece of chemicalized “food-stuff” dessert can even come close.

Enjoy & Share this post!

Shopping List:

• Half dozen medium Organic Russet Potatoes
• Refined Corn Oil or other oil that has a smoke point well above the temperatures contained in the recipe
• Sea Salt

Recipe

• Put Corn Oil in a Sauce pan and place on a high heat. Monitor the temperature using a thermometer (most use a candy thermometer)
• Peel the 6 Russet Potatoes
• Cut the potatoes into fries
• When the oil is up to temperature carefully (VERY CAREFULLY) add the fries I use a wire thing that I can ease them in without splashing. Oil can splatter, burn and injure you. Be Extremely Careful! If you are unsure how to cook with extremely hot oil don’t.
• Cook the fries in the oil until they start to become cooked. About 6 minutes. What you’ll notice is some of the edges begin to brown.
• Remove the fries from the oil and transfer to a bowl. Some people like to use a paper towel. No thanks. The oil seems to fall to the bottom of the bowl pretty nicely.
• Let the fries begin to cool and drain for a few minutes. Then using a fork or wooden spoon scoot them over to a second clean bowl. 
• You can then set these aside for quick finishing later or do it up now. .. Note: do not cut your potatoes and store without the initial cooking. What happens if you do is that the potatoes dewater and this water causes severe spattering once it hits the hot oil.
• The next step is the higher temperature frying to brown and crisp the outside. You need the high temp to really get the water inside the fries steaming out (If the steam is being pushed out of the fry the oil can’t get in. If the oil can’t get in then you have nice non-soggy fries instead of the limp grease sticks that you could have bought at the fast food place).
• Turn the heat back on and get the oil up to about 400F
• When at temp, CAREFULLY add the fries
• Cook until light brown on the outside (or more if that’s how you like them).
• Remove from the oil and place on a serving plate.
• Sprinkle with sea salt, toss and serve immediately.

 These really aren’t that much trouble to make and you can easily time them with your main course. A great combo is to make some fish & chips. Check out the fish recipe below when you’re ready to take that step.

 Most people feel that natural food is tasteless, boring and say they would rather die a few years earlier than have to such things … When they start pontificating, moaning and groaning just make some Almost Organic French Fries. It will be worth the quiet you’ll get while they’re stuffing them in their mouth.

 If you like this recipe then why not share it? Or go to the upper right and subscribe to get the next post automatically. Here’s some related posts:

Related posts:

• Wikipedia Info on Smoke points of Oils
• Fried Fish Recipe
• Buying Fish

Shopping list:

• 1 Medium Organic Rutabaga
• 2 Medium Organic Yellow Onions 
• 1 Bulb (not clove!) of Organic Garlic
• 3 Medium Organic Carrots
• 1/2 Bunch of Organic Swiss Chard
• 1 Pound of Organic Spinach
• 1/2 Bunch of Organic Collard Greens

 Recipe

• Fill a Large Saucepan 1/3 Full of Spring Water
• Set on a high heat and cover
• Start Washing, Peeling and Chopping the Veggies. Remove all tough stems
• Take the greens and put in a pile on the cutting board
• Using your chef’s knife, cut re-bunch and cut until you have a small-ish pieces
• Chop your other veggies into fairly small pieces as well
• Add your tough to cook veggies first to the now boiling water. This would be the Rutabaga and carrots. Note: BE CAREFUL when adding veggies to boiling water. The water could splash and you could get badly burned!
• Add the other non-greens
• Finally add your greens
• Once the boil has been reachieved cover and cook for about 13 minutes. Cook to your liking. I like the veggies done but not mushy.
• While this is cooking peel and chop your bulb of Garlic. Set aside.
• When the veggies are done pour through a strainer. BE CRAREFUL. No small children underfoot and use some sort of safe hand protection.
• After you poured the veggies through a large strainer
• Add the garlic on top of the veggies
• Using a large metal spoon mix the veggies together. Be Careful not to get a steam burn. When you encounter the greens use some sideways action to try to tear them apart (they tend to get tangled)
• When cool enough to eat put in a serving bowl, sprinkle the top with Feta Cheese, add some Olive Oil and Sea Salt and toss together… Wonderful! Enjoy!
• After goofing-off from eating what you made transfer the rest to a large storage bowl
• Let cool and then place in the frig (covered of course).
• Then when you want a fast veggie fix take out what you need and prep. It’s cool and good in the Summer and come the cold weather just heat up a serving on the stove with a little water before adding the Cheese, Olive Oil and Sea Salt.

 Let’s face it, you’re probably more likely to have your veggies if you cook a bunch ahead of time and dress them up with some Feta, Olive Oil and Sea Salt. And this is less expensive and infinitely better than all those pre-packaged disasters known as convenience dishes “found in your grocer’s frozen food isle”. Give this recipe to your favorite microwave dinner junkie and if they’re trying to loose weight advise them not to use a pound of cheese and a gallon of oil. Worse case is that when you visit you’d have something decent to eat.

Shopping List:

• Plain, Non-Fat Yogurt
• Honey
• Fresh Strawberries

Recipe:

• Set out some coffee mugs or other small containers
• Chop in fresh strawberries
• Stir in some plain no-fat yogurt (just enough to coat the berries)
• Add a little honey
• Cover with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator
• After a couple hours break the berries up with a fork
• Return to the frig or serve

 This is a fantastic tasting topping. Now with individual serving containers the guests can simple add sugar or honey to their liking. The topping can be used in a strawberry shortcake, to top a piece of cake or cheesecake, as a strawberry addition to yogurt etc, etc.    Hope you enjoy!

 But before we actually get into prep time we need to take a step back and review some of the experimentation we’ve done so far ..

 The first thing we tried was just taking fresh blueberries and plopping them into a cup of yogurt (we like using mugs instead of bowls because you get enough for a serving and you also have the cup handle to hold the concoction without heating it up with your hands, cold of course is best tasting for yogurt. By the way if you haven’t gotten into the habit of keeping a few mugs and thick-walled glasses in the frig for treats and smoothies you should start.. this is one of those no-effort things that really makes a difference). Anyway, the results were pretty good. You could taste the tanginess of the yogurt as well as the texture and burst of flavor you’d get when you’d bite into one of the blueberries. OK, but we thought we could do better.

 Next, we thought that we should toss the blueberries and yogurt into a blender and pulse it a few times. Well, even with a judicious few pulses the yogurt took on a blue color and was pretty much smoothed out with only a few blueberry skins. As far as taste it had a fairly uniform blueberry thing going on. The separate tanginess of the yogurt really dropped out and that’s something we missed.

 Finally, we tried placing the whole blueberries into a mug and smooshing them with a fork. Just enough to break the berries. Then we stirred in the yogurt. .. What we got was a concoction that still maintained the tanginess of the yogurt but there was also a second note of blueberry. And, this subtle blueberry flavor would kick up big time every time we took a bite of the smooshed berries. In short, this was the best of the three in our opinion. However, we recommend that you play with all three methods and find the one that’s your personal fav.

 Anyway, no need for a step by step recipe on this one since everything is explained above. However, we did find that adding just a little honey gave you some sweetness and that honey flavor which played nicely with the other two ingredients (..but be careful not to go overboard with this addition).

 By the way if you ever looked at that gelled up mess they call blueberries in the pre-mixed you have to wonder what they were thinking. Just consider how could you take a fresh berry and toss it in liquid yogurt for quite a while and still expect it to taste fresh. .. I guess that’s why they tend to doll it up with who knows what. Anyway in a taste comparison there’s no contest. Fresh berries and fresh yogurt trounces the pre-made stuff. .. Now in terms of convenience, we timed how mush longer it took to take out the fresh berries, pull a stray stem or two off, wash in water, smoosh and add to the yogurt. Well, this took a gran total of one minute. .. and it was soo inconvenient.

 Time to go natural and get off of the factory food.

 Why not send this post to any cooking challenged foodie you may know. This “recipe” may be enough to build their cooking confidence and expose them to what quality really taste like. Sort of your good deed for the day.

Related Post:

• Review of Horizon Fat-Free Plain Yogurt

Shopping List:

• 1 Cup of No-Fat or Low Fat Vanilla Flavored Yogurt
• 1 1/2 Cups of Mixed Fresh Strawberries, Blueberries and Pineapple (make sure you get a real pineapple and not open a can of something that was grown over 2 years ago)
• 1 Cup of Soy Milk
• Note that all ingredients as well as the glass jar of your blender should be refrigerated prior to making your smoothie. You want it cold but you don’t want to be adding ice and watering it down (a “not-good” kind of move).

Recipe:

• Add 1 Cup of Non-Fat or Low-Fat Vanilla Flavored Yogurt to a prechilled blender jar.
• Add 1 Cup of Soy Milk.
• Add 1 1/2 Cups (doesn’t have to be exact, this isn’t rocket science) of a mixture of whole blueberries, quartered strawberries and big chunks of pineapple (don’t skip the pineapple, it’s critical)
• Put the lid on the blender and hit the pulse button a few times waiting a second between pulses so the chunks can settle down to the blades (now I don’t like things over blended, there’s a tendency to force too much air into the smoothie and that will reduce it’s flavor impact. And, like the food processor it will seem that you should have more mix time (because if we’re honest it’s fun to click on this powerful machine and watch it do it’s thing)… but trust me, less is best. A few pulses is all you really want or need..)
• Pour a glass and then put the blender jar back into the fridge until you are ready for seconds .. fyi: finish this off in a single setting since you don’t want things hanging around.. remember fresh is best. This recipe will make about 32 fluid ounces (about 2 1/2 glasses). This is just right for me and is terrific after coming home from the gym. If you want less, of course just cut back on the recipe but be even more careful not to over-blend.

Enjoy!