Blue-Footed Musings

Yesterday I was sad to find that I had some expired vanilla yogurt in the refrigerator. Expired yogurt always makes me unhappy. I know that there’s not a magical dairy fairy who destroys the yogurt the moment it hits its expiration date. But I can’t make myself eat expired yogurt, because even if it smells OK, what if there’s something icky growing in it? That doesn’t mean I don’t feel guilty when I throw it away, though.

This time, however, I had a solution to my dilemma: a recipe for Dutch apple pie that called for yogurt. I figured that cooking would kill anything bad that might be living in the yogurt. So I pulled out my recipe and prepared to do battle in the kitchen.

The first thing the recipe instructed me to do was to precook the crust. I had never done that before, so I consulted the Internet and found Martha Stewart’s website. She said I needed parchment paper and something to weigh the crust down. As I was preparing to botch this new element of pie cookery, I noticed the instructions on the pie-crust box. Those instructions were simpler: crank up the heat and cook the sucker! That sounded easy, but also very wrong. I mean, anything that runs counter to Martha’s instructions must be wrong. She’s the goddess of cooking and crafting, and you disobey her at your peril!

But I, lazy thing that I am, chose the easier, riskier path. I put the pie crust into the hot oven, turned on the oven light, and then watched in horror as a whole section of crust melted down to the bottom of the plate. Crap! I took the pie plate back out, pulled up the saggy crust, and stuck it in the oven again. Please, I silently prayed to Martha. Please don’t smite my pie crust! Then the bottom of the crust puffed out like the throat of a bullfrog. Crap! I poked more holes in it (the crust, not the bullfrog). My last-minute crust surgery saved the day. The finished crust was slightly shrunken and misshapen, but it would do. How do you like that, Martha?

It was time to prepare the streusel topping. The recipe called for a whopping 6 tablespoons of butter, 3/4 cup of light brown sugar, and a whole cup of flour. It said to combine the ingredients to “create a knobby streusel.” Knobby? I kneaded and kneaded and not a knob did I see, though I did get a nub or two. Eh. It would do.

Next I was supposed to cook the apples in a pan with butter, lemon juice, sugar, and cinnamon. I rummaged in the fridge for a lemon. I found one. I wondered why it was in a bag with a lime. Then I realized why. The green thing was not a lime! Ew. Well, who needs lemon juice anyway?

But then something weird happened in my brain. I still don’t know what could have possessed me to do this. I decided that since I was leaving out the lemon juice I would need to include some water to keep the total liquid content the same. I reasoned that the water would help steam the apples. Then I misread “the juice of 1/2 lemon” as “1/2 cup lemon juice” and proceeded to add 1/2 cup of water to the pan.

Big mistake. The apples promptly responded by exuding more water than they could possibly have had in them. Suddenly I was cooking apple soup. I’ll just turn up the heat, I thought. It will reduce. The apples retaliated by disintegrating. Crap! I did not want applesauce, so I was forced to take the pan off the heat.

There was still too much liquid in there. Now what? I decided to spoon off a few tablespoons, knowing that I was removing a lot of the sugar and cinnamon. It seemed the lesser of two evils. In any event, it was the most delicious evil I have ever tasted! Then I threw a tablespoon of flour into the remaining apple stew to help thicken it up, mixed in the expired yogurt, and poured the whole pale mess into the lopsided crust.

Then it was time to top the pie with streusel. If anyone is wondering why Americans are so fat, I think that streusel topping might have something to do with it. How could anyone think a pie needs that much streusel? I left at least a third of it in the bowl, which means, of course, that this particular apple pie is low-fat and perfectly healthy to eat.

The pie baked beautifully, and it was delicious. I should have known all along that it would be so. I’ve tried many times to screw up apple pies, but they are nearly foolproof. An apple pie can leak a sugary mess all over the bottom of your oven, and that mess will smoke you right out of your house. I know, because I’ve been there and done that. But also know that after the smoke clears, the pie always tastes good, whether the apples leaked or the crust caved in, and even if you overcooked or undercooked it. The combination of butter, sugar, and apples just always seems to taste good. Thank God (and Martha) for that!