MORE APPLE FUN!!

With all the apples I bought recently I had to do something with them so I decided to make a delicious Apple Crisp Pie! I usually buy McIntosh apples because they are my favorite.
Of course as a photographer you have to take photos of the food you bake, right...so I took my baking to the studio and here are some images that came from the shoot!

There are many recipes out there so you certainly can experiment but here is a favorite of mine!

Here is a terrific recipe for Apple Crisp Pie: 

4 cups sliced apples - use 4 medium tart apples
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour (you can also use self rising flour if you want)
1/2 cup quick-cooking or old-fashioned oats
1/3 cup melted butter or margarine
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
If you want you can also use cream or Ice cream.

1. First, heat your oven to 375F. Then take a square pan or pie plate and grease it with shortening.
2. Take all your sliced apples and spread them in the pan or pie plate. Then take a medium sized bowl and mix in all the remaining ingredients - packed brown sugar, all-purpose flour, oats, melted butter or margarine, ground cinnamon and ground nutmeg. When its well mixed, sprinkle them over the apples.
3. Put the baking pan or plate into the oven and bake for like 30 minutes. It's alway hard to wait for the apple crisp to be finished :) How you know it's done? The topping should be golden brown and apples should be tender when you pierce them with a knife or a fork.
When your apple crisp is done you can cover it with ice cream or cream. I hope you enjoyed the recipe! :)

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There are more links located on left side.

APPLE DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN!!

Well, it's that time of year again, the smell of sweet juicy apples in the crisp cool air! I'm not a big apple eater all year round but just love apples at this time of year because they are new, fresh, hard and they just seem to be much more juicier, LOL! When the leaves begin to turn in the autumn season, it's time for fresh apples. Many families traditionally trek to the apple orchards for a fun day of picking apples in anticipation of the fall season. Apples are quite versatile and can be used in all types of dishes from salads to main courses to desserts as well as a fresh, raw snack.

Here is a little bit of apple history:

The word apple comes from the Old English aeppel. It's been around since the Iron Age and was cultivated in Egypt. In the first century A.D., the Roman Pliny the Elder listed thirty-six varieties of apples. There are many mythological associations over various civilizations, with the apple in the Garden of Eden being the most widely-known. Apple trees can live for hundreds of years.

The apple was brought to the United States by the Pilgrims in 1620. The French brought the apple to Canada. 

There so many varieties of apples such as McIntosh, Red Delicious, Jonathan, Rome Beauty, Granny Smith, Golden Delicious, Ginger Gold, Gala, Fuji, Empire, Cortland and Honeycrisp just to name a few.

A couple of weeks ago I did a fun shoot in an apple orchard not far from where I live in Saint-Joseph-du-Lac region. It's about 40 minutes north of Montreal. I waited for the sun to have that golden color(I always call it the magic hour) around 5:00 PM in the afternoon. It was so peaceful shooting there and all you could hear were the occasional farmer's tractor from far away and the odd thumping sounds as ripened apples fell to the ground!!
It was magical!!  Here are a few images from that shoot...

 

Here are some very useful apple tips:

To prevent discoloration of peeled apples, place peeled slices in a pan of cold water with a pinch of salt added (for each whole apple peeled).

When making salads, dip apple slices in fresh lemon juice to prevent slices from turning brown.

Discoloration of aluminum utensils can be removed just as effectively by boiling a number of apple peelings in them as by the old method of boiling a little vinegar in water.

Sprinkling salt on spilled juice from apple pies in a hot oven will cause the juice to burn crisply, making it easier to remove.

To peel apples, dip them quickly in and out of boiling water. The skin will come off much more readily.

The next day I took my little bushel and did a studio shoot with the same apples. Here are some examples...

Images are available for download at Shutterstock.com, Fotolia.com and Dreamstime.com.
There are more links located on left side.