Julian apple pie

This week we took a day trip up to Julian, CA. It's a small gold rush town about an hour away from San Diego but these days they're known more for their apples. Every place had signs for hot apple pie or cider, there had to have been at least 10 on the small main street. We had originally planned on taking home a pie from Julian Pie Co. but unfortunately they were all sold out by the time we got there! We decided instead to pick up a small bag of local apples and make a pie instead.

Apple Crumb Pie

adapted from this recipe

• crust for 9 in pie
• about 6 cups of apples, sliced
• 3/4 c white sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• good pinch of salt

for crumble

• 1/2 c white sugar
• 1/2 c brown sugar
• 1/2 c flour
• 4 tbs butter

1. Preheat the oven to 425 Fahrenheit 
2. In a big bowl, combine sliced apples, sugar, spices and salt. Mix until slices are thoroughly covered with cinnamon sugar. Set aside.
3. Combine white sugar, brown sugar, and flour in a bowl. Mix to combine, then cut in the butter and mix with your hands until butter is incorporated and mixture feels like damp sand.
4. Prepare the pie dish with crust. Fill with apple mixture, then top with crumble. 
5. Cover loosely with tin foil and bake at 425 for 20 minutes. Remove foil and decrease heat to 350 and bake an additional 35 minutes. Let cool thoroughly before slicing!

Recipe Review: dragon noodles

I wanted to share a great recipe from one of my favorite blogs, Budget Bytes. Budget Bytes not only has great recipes accompanied by step by step pictures, but also breaks down the estimated price for the recipe. It's great for cheap-os like me or anyone trying to budget. I've tried a few recipes, including the hummus pizza and the freezer-friendly black bean quesadillas, but nothing beats these noodles. I've made some changes to the recipe, but I've tried it strictly following the recipe and it was still really delicious.

dragon noodles

Adapted from Budget Bytes, original recipe here.

1 package lo mein noodles (sold in my local grocery store as "Chinese noodles")

2 tbsp brown sugar

3 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp siracha (we like it spicy, you can add less)

~1/2 tbsp peanut butter

1/2 tsp butter

2 eggs, beaten

red pepper flakes to taste

fresh cilantro 

1.Cook noodles according to package. Strain and set aside.

2. Prepare sauce by mixing together brown sugar, siracha, and peanut butter.

3. Heat butter in a saute pan and add eggs, gently move around until eggs are scrambled. 

4. Turn saute pan on low, add the cooked noodles and sauce and stir to incorporate everything. Let cook until the sauce is sufficiently absorbed, it shouldn't take more than a minute.

5. Divide into portions and add a nice amount of fresh cilantro on top and red pepper flakes according to how spicy you want it.

Notes: you can easily use spaghetti or linguini if you don't have lo mein noodles, but I would suggest to over cook them slightly, as lo mein noodles are softer than pasta. I've made it with spaghetti and it was still really good, but we prefer the lo mein.  This amount SHOULD feed 3-4, but honestly I normally use this for two really large portions because we're little piggies. The original recipe called for two tablespoons of butter, and while that sounds delicious, I just couldn't bear putting that much butter in  knowing that I'll be eating half of it. I think the addition of peanut butter makes up for the reduced amount of butter. It doesn't overwhelm the dish, it just adds a little bit of flavor. One thing you don't want to skimp on, though, is fresh cilantro, it really makes the dish! Throw in some tofu, shredded carrots, cabbage, or whatever else and you have a really easy pad thai type dish.

Homemade sushi

I love sushi. A lot. But I'm vegetarian (no fish!) so sometimes it's hard finding sushi that I can eat. I also hate cucumber, so basically this limits me to getting avocado and some rice if I go to a sushi place. There are a few places in San Diego that do vegan sushi but it's expensive. Making sushi at home is actually really easy and really cheap. I think everything combined cost 10 bucks and that includes all the leftover inarizushi (pocket rice sushi) that provided two extra lunches the next day. I did a bunch of googling to get ideas on what to put inside the sushi but honestly nothing anyone suggested sounded very good. I like the unhealthy kind of sushi with fried stuff and sauces, so here's a quick list of ideas:

Cucumber, carrot, avocado
Jalapeno, cream cheese
Fried tofu sticks, carrot, cucumber, lettuce (or bean sprouts)
Soy ham, pineapple, French's fried onions, teriyaki sauce, spicy mayo (our favorite from Sipz in San Diego)
Sweet potato tempura, teriyaki sauce (one of my favorites)

Basically just throw whatever you think would taste good together and give it a whirl.  Other veggies include: bell peppers, raw zucchini, sauteed/marinated mushrooms, raw butternut squash, green onions/chives, daikon   radish, asparagus, alfalfa sprouts, sun dried tomatoes, lettuce, steamed green beans. Also try fried egg strips, fake meat strips, goat cheese, or cream cheese. Top with panko, sesame seeds, teriyaki sauce, avocado, or spicy mayo. Making spicy mayo is as easy as combining mayo and siracha. Here's a YouTube playlist I put together to see how sushi is put together. It's pretty easy! It's easier to make sushi with the rice on the inside but I don't think it looks as pretty. I don't have a bamboo mat so I put these together with a clean kitchen towel and some cling wrap, no fancy equipment necessary!



You'll notice I haven't mentioned how to make rice. That's because it's kind of a lengthy and difficult process to make it correctly and I'm just too lazy for that. Realistically, you only need to worry about making sure you're using Japanese short grain rice so it's sticky. I just cook it how I normally cook rice and add some rice vinegar to it and break it up with a paddle. It's not the correct way but it works for me. It's actually really fun to make sushi at home so I hope you give it a shot!