Herself's Recipes

These are baked apple pancakes similar to the ones served at Bickfords restaurant. (They are very similar to German Pancakes) Although I can single handily down one of these in a sitting, it should serve two. (Otherwise one would tend to grow out rather than up.) Any of the apples typically used in apple pies work fine in this recipe. (Rome, Granny Smith, Empire, ect.)

Preheat the oven to 425′ F

In a pie plate melt a tablespoon of butter in the oven while you put the batter together.

In a large bowl mix:
2 Tablespoons melted butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Peel and slice 2 good size apples
Add the apple slices to the butter mixture and stir until the apple slices are well coated

In a separate bowl mix batter:
1/2 cup flour (unsifted)
1/2 cup milk
2 eggs
Beat until well mixed

Take the pan out of the oven with the melted butter:
Add the batter
Add the coated apple slices gently on top of the batter
Bake about 20 minutes

Serve this with either butter or maple syrup.
Helpful hint: to keep potatoes from budding place an apple in the bin with them.

There was once a man from the city who was visiting a small farm, and during this visit he saw a farmer feeding pigs in a most extraordinary manner. The farmer would lift a pig up to a nearby apple tree, and the pig would eat the apples off the tree directly. The farmer would move the pig from one apple to another until the pig was satisfied, then he would start again with another pig. The city man watched this activity for some time with great astonishment. Finally, he could not resist saying to the farmer, “This is the most inefficient method of feeding pigs that I can imagine. Just think of the time that would be saved if you simply shook the apples off the tree and let the pigs eat them from the ground!” The farmer looked puzzled and replied, “What’s time to a pig?”

It took about five tries to get the hoisin sauce down. Boy was it worth it! Wonderful stuff. We had some in Chinatown about a month ago and I’ve been trying to duplicate it since.

The sauce has many uses, we usually use it over stir fry, it is often used as a base for other sauces and also over roasted meat or on a burger in place of barbecue sauce. It is also known as Peking sauce or Chinese barbecue sauce.

Add the hoisin sauce to the stir fry after it is done and a couple of minutes before it hits the table, just long enough to warm it up. We serve this over rice or noodles. Many oriental recipes use this as a base for other sauces so keep some in the fridge, it will keep a couple of months.

Hoisin Sauce
2T olive oil
4T soy sauce
2T molasses
2 cloves garlic, crushed
4 T black beans boiled until soft
2 T rice vinegar
Put every thing in a blender or food processor and blend until well mixed.
Keeps in the fridge 2-3 weeks.

Andee from Tx wrote and told me that adding 1 jar of unsweetened apricot preserves and one can of apricots ( run through a food processor or blender) mixed with the Hoisin Sauce (1/3 preserves, 1/3 apricots, 1/3 hoisin sauce) works really well.