Rustic Apple Cake

When is an Apple Cake not really a cake? When it's mostly apples! That's what I love about this recipe which I have made countless times. Unless you have pie crusts ready in your freezer - this is the fastest way to get a stunning apple treat on the table.

The cake is mainly thinly sliced apples that emerge from the oven almost as a set custard. It's described as "French-style". 

Use (almost) any apples you have on hand - and the recent trend is to combine different apples.

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Quick Pickle Chips

I have no idea if anyone tracks(ed) the preserving trend, but it seemed to be on the uptick in the last ten years. Some credit the trend to hipsters in Brooklyn and journalists pondered if pickles were the new cupcakes? 

Since many young'uns today live in tiny apartments, small batch preserving has also become popular. Though I have the fruit cellar and the jars - small batch is what pushed me to pickling. (And this is really small batch - a 1 pint jar of pickles.) Also appealing in this case is that there is no processing. These are fridge pickles That take 10-15 minutes to make) and that last up to six weeks - though so far they've been eaten before then.

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Hungarian Sour Cherry Cake (Megyes Pite)

Hungarians use sour cherries (called meggye) in several dishes - including in a cold cherry soup - and there are several ways in which sour cherries appear in desserts. Here they adorn a low rise sheet cake which is perfect with coffee - and some people even love it for breakfast!

You'll notice that this recipe uses Kirsch aka Kirschwasser. Though made from morello cherries "kirschwassers have a refined taste with subtle flavors of cherry and a slight bitter-almond taste that derives from the stones." [Source] 

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Mixed Bean Salad

Google 'bean salad' and you get over 7.5 million results, but this is from a recipe notebook I began in 1983.

Despite the preponderance of combinations, this bean combo has persisted, and something like it can still be seen at many salad bars.

You can get creative with variations, but I often prefer the "taste memory" of this salad - even though I suspect the taste memory has something to do with sugar... (just a bit of sugar...)

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Lemon Garlic Drumettes

Once upon a time (in my life), chicken wings were the cheapest part of the chicken.

Few people seemed to be interested in using them for purposes other than chicken stock, until the "chicken wing" craze hit in the 1960s. Their popularity skyrocketed in the subsequent decades, and now a Google search on chicken wing recipes garners almost 9 million results!

Look at these lovelies! What could be more tasty than garlic and lemon?

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