Cranberry Apple Pies and Finnish Meat Pies

Today, for our daughter's birthday,

I made

Finnish Meat Pies

Click here for my Mother's Recipe

and 

Apple Cranberry Pie 

Click here for Recipe Girl's Recipe

and I've added her text below.

A different take on the apple pie.

CRUST:
3 cups rolled (old fashioned) oats
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
½ tsp (rounded measure) salt
1½ tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 cup + 2 T. brown sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 cup butter (2 sticks), melted

FILLING:
7 cups peeled, sliced Granny Smith apples
1 cup fresh or frozen cranberries
3 Tbs fresh lemon juice
1½ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground allspice (or ground cloves)
¼ tsp ground nutmeg (fresh is best!)
½ tsp grated lemon rind
3 Tbs unbleached all-purpose flour
¼ cup brown sugar (packed)
½ cup sour cream

1.  Prepare crust: Combine all crust ingredients in a medium-sized bowl, and mix well. Press firmly and evenly into the bottom and sides of a 9 or 10-inch pie pan, forming a thick crust. Reserve about a cup of the crust mix for the topping.

2.  Preheat oven to 375°F.

3.  Place sliced apples and cranberries in a large bowl. Drizzle with lemon juice and sprinkle with spices; toss until well coated. Add rind. Sprinkle in flour and mix again. Gradually add brown sugar and sour cream as you mix. Don't worry if the apple slices break a little while being mixed and tossed.

4.  Distribute the filling into the unbaked crust. Sprinkle the reserved crust crumbs over the top and pat neatly into place.

5.  Bake for 45 to 50 minutes or until the apples are soft and the crust is nicely browned on the edges. Note: If the top appears to be browning too quickly during baking, cover loosely with foil (check after about 30 minutes).

6.  Serve hot, warm or at room temperature. This is doubly good with a nice scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Yield: 1 pie

Cooking Tips

*Depending on how thick you'd like the crust, you may have some crust mix left over. Use any remaining crust crumbs in little ramekins to make a couple of extra "apple crisps!"

Recipe Girl's Recipe Source
Adapted significantly from The New Enchanted Broccoli Forest

Hubby makes Prime Rib

After I cooked (yet had lots of help from all of the family) several traditional Finnish Christmas dishes on Christmas Eve, my hubby decided he'd make the dinner on Christmas. He chose prime rib.

Here are some pictures he took while he was making it. I know he packed it with just the right granulation and amount of salt and tested the temperature often.

When it came out of the oven, we put *yesterday's casseroles back in cooling oven to reheat as we'd opted to just have left overs for the rest of the meal:)

Wonderful Roasted Prime Rib

The recipe my hubby used says "This method makes the BEST roasted prime rib. It never fails to produce a tender/juicy prime rib for me. Don't worry, the salt mixture will not affect the taste. It's purpose is to seal in all the flavor and juices".

SERVES 10

Change to: Servings US Metric

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5

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Ingredients

• 1 (3 lb) box of morton kosher salt
• 4-6 lbs prime rib roast

Directions

1. Slowly add a little of the water to the Kosher salt and stir; then add a little more water and stir. Continue until the salt becomes the consistency of "snow" so that you can "pack" it on the roast and it sticks like snow (Sometimes you may need a little more or less of the water) -- YOU DO NOT WANT TO DISSOLVE THE SALT.
2. Pat some of the salt mixture in a foil-lined pan in a rectangle big enough to put the roast on.
3. Place the roast on the salt and pat the remaining salt mixture on the roast, covering completely.
4. Inset a meat thermometer.
5. Bake at 425 degrees for about 2 hours.
6. (140 degrees for rare, 160 for medium).
7. Remove the roast when the thermometer registers 5 degrees BELOW desired doneness.
8. CRACK AND REMOVE ALL OF THE SALT CRUST.

*Christmas Eve Dinner included:
smoked salmon
rye bread
havarti cheese
rye and rice pastries (karjalan piirakka)
egg butter
ham
sauerkraut salad
rutabaga casserole (my Dad made this:)
carrot and rice casserole
potato casserole
strawberry rhubarb kisseli
pulla
lingonberry juice

Merry Christmas! Hyvaa Joulua!

Merry Christmas!  Hyvaa Joulua!  

We are busy in the kitchen making

Joulu torttuja, piparkakkuja, pulla, kisseli, karjalan piirakka, porkkana laattikko, and so on.  

We have posted a few of our family Christmas photos (work in progress) at http://theadamsfamilyphotos.blogspot.com 

Leave us a note here in the comments section.  

Bacon Wrapped Chicken

Tonight's FHE before Christmas was an open house at friends.  We didn't know if we could make it since other friends from MN were due to arrive.  They were delayed so we went.  Boy were they delayed!!  See story below recipe.  It was such a fun evening with many friends and wonderful food and games.  I made 

Bacon Wrapped Chicken

Place chicken breast pieces (personally not fond of chicken livers) in a ziplock bag. Add some Italian dressing and marinate in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, precook as many pieces of bacon as you would need in the microwave, oven or grill until partially done.

Wrap each chicken piece with a piece of bacon and secure with a toothpick. I also put in a water chestnut or pineapple chunk before I wrapped each one.

Place on a foil wrapped pan in the oven at 425 for around 15-20 minutes or until bacon is done the way you like it.

This is very easy and as Kent said, "You can't go wrong with bacon!"