Inge Leonora-den Ouden

When I re-read my post in this thread, I saw I promised a recipe for a Dutch apple pie. But the recipe never came ...

So now, a little late, I have here for you my translation of a very old Dutch Apple Pie recipe (not the pie a friend made, but the recipe from a very old cookbook).
For all American readers: I did not change the amounts from grams into ounces, or the centimeters into inches. I'm sure you can find that on the internet.
And if you want to know the temperature of the oven ... I don't know. This recipe is so old, probably the oven had a real fire in it (coal, peat or wood). Maybe first they baked bread and then the pie.

Old Dutch Apple Pie Recipe

For the dough:
250 g flour, 175 g butter or margerine, 80 g sugar, 2 eggs

For the filling:
12 tart apples (about 750 g), 100 g sugar, 100 g currants, 50 g almonds, grated peel of 1 lemon.

Mix the flour, butter, sugar and 1 ½ egg to make a ball of dough. Put it in a cool spot for 15 minutes.
Then roll it into a flat circle. Put it in a springform pan, so the sides are about 4 cm high. Keep some of the dough.

Cut the apples in small chunks, mix with the sugar, cleaned currants (this recipe is very old, most people nowadays would use raisins), lemon peel and minced almonds.

Fill the dough with the apple mixture. Make narrow strips of the rest of the dough and put them on top of the filling, like a lattice. Roll the top of the sides over and press so everything is fixed. Spread the leftover egg over the dough.
Bake for about an hour in not too hot oven.

The first apples are picked (and some of those fallen down were good enough to take too).
I started with simple 'appelmoes', mushed cooked apples with sugar.

I think the next thing will be 'apple ketchup'. Apple ketchup is unknown here in the Netherlands, so I hope this recipe I found on the internet is a good one: Apple Ketchup

Most of my apples will be dried, so I can make good use of my dehydrator.  I use the dried apple slices in my breakfast muesli.

P Colvin wrote:....

Yes, it's an addiction! Welcome in this rabbit hole ...

I don't know if this is possible for you. I made my garden in such a way that the paths are not level. They all go a little bit downwards to a deep pit, where the water can collect.

Most of the time there is no water in the pit, so it isn't a real pond. It's a temporary pond when there has been a lot of rain. But the water doesn't stay in puddles in my paths.

Hi Jessee. I like following posts and photos of the boots at Wheaton Labs. I found yours here, so I'll follow you too.

Burra Maluca wrote:Experimenting with pin holes...

Okay, I am very late to the party. But I saw the (partial) eclipse from a nice spot, not too far away. Most of the time I used the 'pinhole' method. A few times I looked at the real sun-moon, but through two layers of black old-fashioned negative strips, and just for a moment. Those black negatives work exactly like special eclips-glasses. You can not see anything through it, except for the sun (which looks orangey).

While I was there watching, I saw some people walking in my direction. When they came closer I saw it was a couple I knew, with their son. The had a shoe-box-construction with pinhole. My two loose sheets of paper worked better. And they borrowed my black negatives to have a better look.

As far as I know this was third solar eclipse I saw. I did see the total eclipse of 1999 from Le Havre in France (I went camping there with my youngest son just to see it). And one other partial one, probably in 1976.

I'm surprised I did not answer this thread some years ago ...
When I have surplus green vegetables (whatever kind, including Chard), I use them in a 'Vegetable Quiche'.
You can probably find recipes for Quiches all over the internet. Take such a recipe, but add less meat (or no meat at all) and more green vegetables to the filling.

Barbara Simoes wrote:I am new to hazelnuts.  I have four bushes out back, and last year was the first nut-bearing year for two of the plants.  I read everything I could get my hands on and watched many videos to boot.  I learned that I should wait until I can move the nut inside the papery wrapping.  Once I can do that it's ripe enough.  Then, I could pull off the clusters and separate the nuts from their wrapping.  From there I just put the nuts in a bowl to have when I wanted some.  I probably only got about two cups of nuts, but they all were full and delicious.  I ate the last of them in early June and they were just fine.  
...

For me this year will be the first year with a few hazelnuts. When I first rented that allotment garden a few years ago, the small young tree was there already. But now I saw some nuts growing. This week I'll try some if they are ripe (as you describe: if they can be separated from their wrapping).

Jay Angler wrote:I have no idea how to pick them for storing, but I suggest the most likely harvester is a squirrel, but recently, I've had evidence of rats climbing trees to harvest also.

This definitely needs more research in the Pacific North Wet, as one year when I thought I was picking them properly, when I dried and then tried to open them late in the fall, they were all empty.

Thanks for the warning. I don't think there are squirrels at the allotment garden, where my hazelnut tree is, but there are rats! I never thought of rats climbing trees, but of course they can (they climb in ships, buildings, etc.)

Edit to add: there are crows and (European) jays here too ...

Does the pigeon/dove look like this one?


This is a bred (cultivated?) variety.
The one on the photo is reported as 'missing', but I don't think it felw all the way from the Netherlands to Canada ;-)