"What Aria Cooking" by the San Francisco Opera & "Defensive Eating with Morrissey (an English singer/songwriter) - Grammy Night 2017!

Date I made these recipes:  Sunday, February 12, 2017 – Grammy Awards!

What Aria Cooking? – The San Francisco Opera Cookbook, edited by Donna M. Casey for The San Francisco Opera Guild Auxiliary

Published by The San Francisco Opera Guild Auxiliary

© 1974

Purchased at Kona Bay Books, Kona, Hawaii

Recipe:  Egg Noodles Alla Bolognese from opera singer Ezio Flagello – p. 59

Defensive Eating with Morrissey – Vegan Recipes from the One You Left Behind – Recipes by Joshua Ploeg, illustrations by Automne Zingg

Published by Microcosm Publishing

ISBN: 978-1-62106-203-5; © 2016

Purchased at Common Good Books, St. Paul

Recipe:  Asparagus [with tomatoes, sun dried tomatoes, onion, garlic and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar] – p. 13

Ah, the Grammy Awards!  This was the 59^th time these awards for achievement in music have been handed out and as always, the music and the "What are you wearing" moments achieved new levels.  Not necessarily great levels in terms of fashion (or what I hesitantly call "fashion") but new levels, nonetheless.

So of course, with the award program looming, I set out to see if I had an appropriate cookbook to mark the occasion and folks, I found two – two – music-related cookbooks and I am just so chuffed with myself, I cannot tell you!

And so let's discuss our two disparate music cookbooks.  "In this corner, representing classical music..." we have What Aria Cooking by the San Francisco Opera Guild Auxiliary.  This cookbook is filled with recipes submitted by opera singers who have performed with the San Francisco Opera.

"And in this corner, representing alternative rock..." we have the British rocker, Morrissey.  Morrissey (Steven Patrick Morrissey) was lead singer for The Smiths before striking out on his own.  My local and favorite radio station, 89.3 - The Current, plays a great mix of music that hits just about every genre, and every once in a while, I hear a Morrissey song. I have to say that my favorite is probably "We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful," because let's face it, that is a pretty accurate statement, musical or otherwise! Fair warning:  his cookbook, Defensive Eating with Morrissey, contains vegan recipes but several are workable for omnivores like me.

Those, then, are our two musical genres and so as Seth Meyers (formerly of Saturday Night Live, now host of his own late night talk show) says "For more on this, it's time for a Closer Look."

What Aria Cooking (an aria is song for solo voice, usually sung by a female) gives us a snapshot of artists involved with the San Francisco Opera in the way back i.e. 1974.  I like opera and have attended several over the years.  I must admit to being somewhat of a purist though, in that I am not necessarily fond of more modern operas as they strike me as precocious.  I mean really:  "The Manchurian Candidate opera?"  "The Shining opera?"  (Yes, these are actual operas, adapted from films.  Sigh.) Mozart and company are rolling around in their graves!  This is not to say that every "older" opera is great, but many are and besides, it is so much more fun to hear someone say "I shall smite thee and take off thy head" in Italian.  As a friend and I used to joke "It sounds so pretty!"

The recipe I used for tonight's dinner was from Italian-American bass Ezio Flagello.  Ezio sang primarily with the Metropolitan Opera from 1957-1984 and favored Italian opera productions such as Tosca, The Barber of Seville, and Don Giovanni.  And then I found this tidbit and it is most cool:  Ezio made a brief appearance as an opera impresario (opera company manager) in the movie, The Godfather II.  Nice!  I have no memory of that, but who needs an excuse to re-watch a Godfather movie?  Not me!  Poor Ezio had a shortened career as he passed away in 2009 at age 78.  (These days, that is on the "young" side of old.)  By the way, men's voices ranges are tenor (high), baritone (middle range) and bass (Low.  Sometimes very low.  "Basement" low.)  Ezio was a "basement" bass.

Now I have to share that I think my dad would have not only enjoyed this meal, but liked the fact that it came from an opera cookbook.  I come from a long line of opera lovers:  my grandfather, a Sicilian immigrant, used to listen to Met (Metropolitan Opera) radio broadcasts way before the dawn of the TV age, and my father listened with him as well.  My dad had a great baritone voice and although he never sang opera (at least to my knowledge), he played Captain Corcoran in his high school production of Gilbert and Sullivan's H. M. S. Pinafore, an operetta which is basically "opera, light."  He was also a member of a mixed chorus while attending Michigan State University. And although my singing voice is a mezzo-soprano and although I have performed more classical pieces (not opera though), I really enjoy singing what we would call "pop standards" songs by Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, and the like rather than more serious, classical music.

Still and all, a friend of mine (who has since passed away) and I attended for many years regional tryouts sponsored by the Met, the winner of which went on to NYC to compete for a coveted spot on the Met stage. We joked that sometimes we went more for the fashion critique (or what I called "What Not to Wear to an Opera Audition") than we did for the singing, but we mostly wanted to be able to say "We saw him/her 'when'" and you know what, sometimes we did!

Speaking of "I knew him when," although I didn't recognize a lot of names on the "Artist Index" (and you probably won't as well), I hope most people are familiar with the name Luciano Pavarotti, whose dish for "Maltaliati con Fagioli" (pasta and beans) was high on my list of "for your consideration" until I switched it at the last minute.  Pavarotti is probably best know for singing Nessun Dorma from the opera Turandot, a production I saw a few years ago at the Minnesota Opera, and it requires the singer to hit ridiculously high notes which Pavarotti did on a regular basis until one day, he didn't.  He cracked the upper notes of whatever he was singing and I am not kidding when I say the opera world was just beside itself.  Jeez, the man has one bad day and he's vilified for life!  If you didn't know, the Italians love their operas and you had better have your A game when you perform at places like La Scalla (famous opera company) or else!

I also recognized the name Anna Moffo as she appeared on the Firestone and Goodyear (Tires) Christmas albums my parents bought every year.  These albums were popular during the 60's and 70's and I remember that Anna Moffo sang Ave Maria on one of them.  I must say that these albums were a great way to learn the names and style of many popular artists (classical, opera, jazz, pop) of the time and I miss listening to them.  Sadly, they do not seem to be available in CD form, only vinyl and we got rid of our turntable a long time ago.  Drats.

Beverly Sills and Frederica Van Stade (spelled "Van Staade" in the book) were also included in this cookbook.  Beverly Sills was an extremely well-known operatic soprano who appeared on various variety show specials in the 70's, and Frederica is a mezzo-soprano who has appeared in countless opera productions and countless recordings.  And on a "who knew" side note, Frederica and her ex-husband were involved in a law suit over marital property, the likes of which appeared in one of my law school text books and I'm willing to bet that I am one of a handful of law school students anywhere who knew who she was. And for those of you who just have to know the dirt, here's the citation:  Elkus v. Elkus, 572 N.Y.S.2d 901 (N.Y. App. Div. 1991).  (PS—I was also stunned to see another familiar name in a case found in my Wills and Trust case law book.  Not only was the name familiar, but I had met her previously – yikes! And I tell you what, in order to get a case in a law school textbook, you had to have a doozy of a situation going on and hers so qualified it was ridiculous!)

Now, one of the reasons I selected the dish I did, Ezio's very tasty pasta Bolognese, is because I needed something to match the recipe I selected from Morrissey's cookbook and boy, that was not easy.

As the title says, Morrissey's cookbook is a vegan cookbook and vegan cooking can be challenging which is why I took the easy way out and made a vegetable dish!  And it's not that some of the other vegan dishes didn't appeal, it's just that I did not feel like going out and buying ingredients I knew damned well I would never use again such as "nutritional yeast," or "miso," or "tempeh," a soy meat substitute.  Also, some of the recipes were rather involved, like his recipe for [vegan] "Lasagna" – p. 56 or "Spaghetti for Two – p. 73-75 and when it comes to cooking, the shorter the ingredient list and cooking times, the better.

And let me be clear that I don't care what Morrissey says, these two words do not go together:  "Vegan" and "Bologna."  Ew.  Ew, ew, ew and furthermore, why?  Why, why, why? (See p. 95).

In the end, I think I came up with the perfect food combination and that was Egg Noodles Alla Bolognese from the opera book, with a side of Asparagus from the Morrissey book.  I am a genius!

As between the two, Morrissey's recipe title, Asparagus, is a tad misleading because here's what it really is:  asparagus yes, but asparagus sprinkled with a mix of chopped onion, tomato, garlic, and oregano, then tossed with olive oil, roasted, and then completed with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar.  It was fantastic!  Plus, this dish took only 20 minutes to make and that worked out well.  The other thing I loved was that I was able to score some fresh and hearty asparagus from a local grocery store, something that used to be near-impossible during the winter months.  All in all, I am tucking this recipe away for future use!

The Bolognese recipe was also very easy although I had to siphon off the grease from the ground beef several times to avoid having a greasy mess on my hands.  This then left the sauce a little on the dry side, but no worries, just add more wine or, if wine is not your thing, some water or broth.

I also "cheated" a bit with the recipe and added a handful of chopped tomatoes that were left over from the asparagus.  Waste not, want not, don't you know.  All in all, this dish was very good and was light to eat despite the pasta and the ground beef.  I think the use of white wine made it so.

And so these dishes were winners (I am on a roll as so were my Super Bowl selections) but alas, just like the Super Bowl, some Grammy nominees did not walk away with their golden gramophone and that's a darn shame but there's always next year.

Congratulations then to all 2017 Emmy winners and to those who didn't win, perhaps a nice plate of pasta and some asparagus will help ease your pain?  (It did mine!)

Egg Noodles Alla Bolognese – serves 5

1 pound egg noodles

1 large onion

1 small can mushrooms

1 bell pepper, cut in 1" strips

3 slices ham (Ann's Note:  although the recipe didn't say, I chopped my ham into smaller pieces)

1 tablespoon diced celery

1 ¼ cups water

1 teaspoon tomato paste

Salt and pepper to taste

1 pound chopped meat (Ann's Note:  I'm pretty sure he meant ground beef as the recipe instructs you to "brown the meat."  That said, I bet you could substitute ground chicken or turkey if you wanted.)

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 tablespoon carrot shirrings (Ann's Note:  I have no idea what this means and neither did Google so I decided it meant "carrot peels" and that is what I used.)

1/8 teaspoon garlic powder

1 tablespoon chopped parsley

1/8 teaspoon marjoram

1/8 teaspoon basil leaf (dried)

1 cup white wine

Grated cheese

Brown meat, onion, carrot, celery, bell pepper in two tablespoons of oil.  (Ann's Note:  I made a half a recipe and thought that even one tablespoon of oil was too much.  When coupled with the grease from browning the "chopped meat," it made for quite a bit of grease that I had to remove or risk "ruining" the sauce.)

Add water, ham, garlic powder, parsley, marjoram, and basil.  Cook slowly, until water evaporates.  (Ann's Note:  yes, but trust me, after you let the water evaporate, you are going to want to add more liquid back in or the sauce will dry out.  You can either add more wine (the recipe calls for 1 cup), or more water or broth and that should do the trick.  Even then though, I had to keep taking out some of the grease...sigh).

Add the tomato paste, salt, pepper, mushrooms, and wine.  Cook for one hour.  Pour Bolognese sauce over 1 pound cooked egg noodles and serve.  Add grated cheese if desired.

This recipe is from his forthcoming book "There's a Basso in the Kitchen."  Ann's Note:  It doesn't appear that this book was ever published as I cannot find it anywhere online and that is a damn shame because I would so add it to my collection!

Asparagus – Serving size not listed but 2 pounds should feed about 4-6

2 pounds asparagus

1 cup tomatoes, chopped

1 tablespoon fresh oregano, minced

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 to 3 garlic cloves, minced

¼ cup onion, chopped

2 tablespoons sun-dried tomatoes, pureed (Ann's Note:  he doesn't say whether or not to use oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes or not but I'm guessing you should.  I have dried, but not oiled, sun-dried tomatoes at home and they don't puree well—not that this stopped me from trying!)

Salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes, to taste

Balsamic vinegar to drizzle

Mix all ingredients together except balsamic vinegar, and then place in a casserole.  Roast at 375 degrees for 20 minutes.  Drizzle with balsamic vinegar, and then mix again.

You can cook it for less time, if desired.

But with a bit more time and a few more gentler words and looking back we will forgive.

Broil for 3 to 5 minutes to finish.  Ann's Note:  I didn't broil but I did drizzle and then bake for another 3 minutes.

"Prison Ramen - Recipes and Stories from Behind Bars" When car repairs require budget eating!

Date I made this recipe:  January 28, 2017 – When car repairs require budget eating!

Prison Ramen – Recipes and Stories from Behind Bars by Clifton Collins Jr. and Gustavo "Goose" Alvarez; with a foreword by Samuel L. Jackson

Published by Workman Publishing

ISBN: 978-0-7611-8552-9; © 2015

Recipe:  Sloppy Ramen Joe – p. 35

So January was proving to be an interesting month anyway, and then this happened:  the transmission went out on my car.  And then when I brought my car into the shop so they could rebuild it (cheapest of the not-so-cheap options), they found that my radiator (original to my 1999 car) needed to be replaced.  With "tax and license," the bill was inching its way up to heavens which was not good.  At least they threw in the motor mounts (also needed) for "free," because at this point, they were calling with more bad news on practically an hourly basis.

It was at this point that I quipped to Andy "I'll guess we'll be eating ramen from now on," thus foreshadowing the use of today's featured cookbook.  And here's another foreshadowing moment:  things are going to get worse for your cars and your budget before they get better.

At the end of the following week, we were on deck to drive a car – didn't know which – to Chicago to see some friends.  We were hoping that my car would be done (it wasn't), but in the event it wasn't, we still had Andy's.

And we could have driven Andy's car to Chicago except that his car also had some minor issues mainly, the replacement of some engine gaskets.  Those leaky gaskets caused his car to emit oil and gas fumes into the car itself that gave me headaches.  And even though the fumes dissipated once we hit the open road, I thought we should get everything fixed before we went.  File that under "It seemed like a good idea at the time."  (It wasn't.)

In theory, this should have been a same-day repair and so Andy found a garage near his workplace and they even had courtesy shuttle service to and fro.  Toward the end of the day though, they called and said they weren't quite done and so could he come and get his car and then return with it the next day?

He could.  But when he got into his car to drive it home, the brakes were out.  "Out" as in the pedal went all the way to the floor. And since it's kind of hard to stop a car without brakes (unless you are Fred Flintstone), he left it there and drove home in a loaner car.

Let me just review with you where we stood on cars at this point:  My car was in the garage (still) and so a friend of Andy's loaned him one of his cars so I could drive Andy's car in the interim.  On the day that Andy took his car in for repairs, he left the friend's "loaner" car in our garage, and that night, when he drove home with the garage's loaner, we had two cars in our garage that belonged to neither one of us – ha! 

At this point, the Chicago trip was fast becoming a no-go because of all these car do-si-dos we were doing so we canned it and this was probably a good idea as snowstorms were predicted for the Chicago area that same weekend and we are not fond of driving in blizzards, go figure.

So all total, our two car repairs cost us a flipping fortune.  But shall I just tell you reader, that we still weren't done?  Okay, I'll tell you:  we still weren't done.  My car's rebuilt transmission runs great.  And the new radiator seems to be doing its job.  But my brakes were very squishy and that wasn't the case before the car went in and so Andy (my very own personal car repair person), worked on them this weekend and now I need a new...thingamajig.  It's a brake part and he will buy it and install it but it'll add another $250.00 to our collective bill. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, it appears that the gasket replacement on Andy's car did not totally solve his problem either, and so he needs to investigate and repair.  Oh, and my key is now getting stuck in the ignition and Andy thinks he knows what part to replace and he will do so but in the meanwhile, what the hell is going on here?  And as if all that wasn't enough fun, I temporarily lost my wallet on Saturday (the same day as the ignition key problem) and seriously folks.  Seriously.  But in the happy news department,  the wallet was "found" an hour later and I am so relieved I cannot tell you.  Still, I had to drive home in my key-sticking car with the very soft brakes and without my license because...of course.

Meanwhile and back at the ranch, Part 2, was this a good time for inexpensive ramen, or what?

I believe I found this book, Prison Ramen, at Common Good Books in St. Paul (owned by author and radio show star, Garrison Keillor), and just had to chuckle (and of course, buy it) as this is just the type of book I like to have in my collection:  quirky and off-beat.  With books like these, I am not as interested in whether or not these recipes actually hold together, and when I selected this one, I warned my husband not to expect great things as I was cooking from it because I could, and also to give us a taste of our potential menu options for rest of our lives and/or until the car bills are paid, whichever comes first.

Of the two authors, Gustavo "Goose" Alvarez spent some time in both juvenile and adult correctional facilities before being released from prison in May 2013.  He is now involved in a mentorship program for at-risk kids.  While in prison, a riot broke out and he and fellow inmates were saved from certain death by a couple of older gang members.  To show their appreciation, Alvarez and his "homies" cooked food for everyone and the main entree at this thank you dinner was ramen.  I have to say that it's not like I ever contemplated what kind of food would be served in prison but "ramen" never crossed my mind.  I learn something new every day.

Co-author Clinton Collins Jr. is an actor who was working on the set of a prison movie when his friend, "Goose" was caught in real-life riot hell.  After checking to make sure "Goose" was okay, they came up with this cookbook.

Amazingly, I came up with five potential recipe candidates which is saying a lot, especially since most recipes call for a lot of processed, ready-made foods that I avoid like the plague.  For instance, in addition to ramen, you'll see recipes calling for processed cheese, prepackaged rice and/or rice and bean combinations and also [fried and packaged] pork rinds or pork skins, all of which contain a ton of salt.  A ton.  Those with high blood pressure "need not apply."

 My favorite title out of the five, even though I did not make it, was "Shawshank Spread," a sandwich spread made with ramen as a homage to the movie, The Shawshank Redemption.  Once upon a time, this movie was so overplayed on cable network, TNT, that it was dubbed "The 'Shawshank' Channel."  TNT moved on eventually to overplay episodes of Law & Order but I'm down with that as it's easier to re-watch 20 year's worth of TV show episodes than 20 year's worth of one single, solitary movie.  Just sayin'. 

As per usual, once I narrowed down my choices, I handed the book off to Andy who settled on Sloppy Ramen Joe just as I was hoping he would. I wasn't sure what this would taste like, but once I read the words "Sloppy" and "Joe," we were all in.

And you know what, it wasn't half bad!  It wasn't haute cuisine by any means, but it was not terrible.  It was also cheap, coming in at $3.93 for all ingredients except the onion which I had on hand, and the buns that we bought from Trader Joe's (can't recall the price.)  Three ninety three for a meal is not bad at all, although that said, I'm amending my remark to Andy about eating ramen from now on because there's way too much salt in all the ingredients and I'd rather spend a few pennies more to get fresh groceries.

Speaking of groceries, here's what we spent at the grocery store:

• 2 packages of ramen came to $.50 total or $.25 each.  (No wonder starving college students eat this.  In our day, it was popcorn.)
• 2 small cans (9 ounces total), Vienna Sausages came to $1.58, or $.79 each
• 1 can Sloppy Joe Mix was $.99; we "splurged" and got a can of "thick and chunky" instead of the original which was priced at $.79
• 1 overly large jalapeno cost us a whopping $.07. 
• Onion (already had)
• Trader Joe's pretzel buns, priced approximately at $1.98 or thereabouts

Cheap at twice the price, right?

Were I to make this again, here are the things I would change: use only one package of beef ramen (two makes way too much); skip adding the flavor [read: salt] packet unless you like resembling "Roly Poly," a toy I enjoyed as a child; use summer sausage (an option for you in the recipe) rather than Vienna sausages, and possibly leave out the jalapeno.  I don't know about you, but I find there is no such thing as a "small" jalapeno as called for in this recipe and there was no way I was adding the whole [gigantic] jalapeno to this recipe as I feared it would do irreversible damage to my digestive system!  In our case, a little jalapeno went a long way.

And so that, my friends concludes our car capers story and our Prison Ramen story, with a little bit of grocery shopping high finance thrown in for good measure.  This book is a fun read and some of the recipe names are pretty clever to boot. And if you like a cookbook that's a little off beat, this one's for you!

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that two days after Andy's friend loaned him one of his cars, the fuel pump went out on the other one.  I'm happy to report though, that he still likes us even though we appear to be car cursed for the time being!

Sloppy Ramen Joe – serving size not given but I'd say easily four people

2 packs beef flavor Ramen

1 ½ cups boiling water

1 can or pouch (7 to 11 ounces) read-to-eat Sloppy Joe

1 summer sausage (about 9 ounces), chopped, or 1 can (9 ounces) Vienna sausage, drained and chopped

½ medium-size onion, chopped

1 jalapeno chile, chopped

3 or 4 hamburger buns, split open

Crush the Ramen in the wrappers and empty into a bowl.  Set aside the seasoning packets.

Add the water, cover, and let sit for about 8 minutes.  Drain off excess water.

Combine the Sloppy Joe, sausage, onion, and jalapeno in a large microwavable bowl.  Cover and microwave for about 5 minutes, until hot.  (Ann's Note:  Do NOT do 5 minutes unless your microwave is as "weak as a kitten" i.e. doesn't have much power.  My bowl practically melted in those five minutes.)

Add the Ramen and seasoning.  Mix well.  (Ann's Note:  as mentioned above, you have been warned that adding both packets of seasoning will result in a salt overdose.)

Place the open buns on plates.  Cover with the Sloppy Joe-Ramen mixture.

"Astonishing Apples" - Apple Crumble

Date my husband made this recipe:  October 2, 2015

Astonishing Apples by Joan Donatelle

Published by:  Minnesota Historical Society Press

ISBN:  978-0-87351-965-6

Purchased at Common Good Books (owned by Minnesota's own Garrison Keillor)

Recipe:  Apple Crumble – p. 148

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine got married at the Minnesota Harvest Apple Orchard  in Jordan, MN.  The day before the wedding, it poured rain all day long and it was not looking good for the home team.  Honestly—seems like all the rain that hadn't fallen in a while was stored up and dumped all at once.

Happily for all, the sun came out the next day turning that apple orchard into one beautiful setting for a beautiful wedding.  Whew, right? 

Given where we were, the bride and groom gave each family in attendance an empty apple bag with instructions to go picking.  Although I was game to go outside to pick apples from the rain-sodden groves, someone went and filled a wooden crate with apples and put them near the wedding cake so we only had to go a few feet to get some.

So we had all these apples and now what, right?  Well, I had had my eye on this cookbook, published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press, and so off I went to Common Good Books in St. Paul to snap it off the shelf.  And when I brought it home, my husband, Andy a/k/ "The Pie Guy,"took over and started looking at recipes he wanted to make.  And when he got to the "Apple Crumble," it was all over but the crying.

Still, this cookbook has a bushel of sweet and savory items.  I wanted to make a savory as well as a sweet dish but we ran out of time.  Shame that, as there were appetizers, salads, sides, soups and sandwiches and main dishes containing apples, some of which sounded really good while others elicited a "huh," code for "I don't think so." 

Tempting as some of them were, there was really no doubt that we would be going with a dessert and it also became clear that Andy was going to be the one doing the cooking and that was fine by me since I made an "Espresso Swirl Coffee Cake" just days before.

Well by the time we decided what to make it was Thursday night and on Friday, October 2^nd, we were heading to Chicago to visit with friends.  No worries.  Andy got up early on Friday (he took the day off) and made the dish before we headed out of town.  And so we brought our friends this "Apple Crumble" as well as some of the "Espresso Swirl Coffee Cake" and of course, we inhaled all of it over the course of a few days (along with a couple bottles of wine that we always stop to get from one of their neighborhood liquor stores).

Like me, Andy sometimes plays a little fast and loose with the recipes and so he used regular sugar instead of the "raw or natural cane or Demerara sugar" that the recipe called for because he was not heading to a grocery store at dawn-o-clock.  And he also skipped the "flaxseed" that was to be added to the flour, sugar and oat mixture.  And lastly, he skipped the pecans as they were for the topping only.  How these ingredients would have tasted we will never know but his end product was delicious so we didn't care.

And now, a brief mention of the Minnesota Historical Society Press, publisher of this cookbook.  The press has published recently several fruit and vegetable cookbooks, all by local Minnesota authors and I am on my way to collect the whole set:  Rhubarb Renaissance by Kim Ode (who I know); Smitten with Squash by Amanda Paa (whom I've met); Sweet Corn Spectacular by Marie Porter (which I've used and also given as a gift); Modern Maple by Teresa Marrone (to be acquired); Homemade with Honey by Sue Doeden (to be acquired) and Astonishing Apples.  These books are all part of the Northern Plate series and I'm happy the Minnesota Historical Society Press is publishing these books, showcasing foods of the Upper Midwest.  You can find these books at the Minnesota History Center, Common Good Books or any Barnes and Noble bookseller (online or in-store).  Other local gift stores like Patina and Bibelot also carry select titles.

"And now, for your eating enjoyment, all the way from Jordan, Minnesota, please welcome Apple Crumble!" [crowd goes wild]

Apple Crumble – serves 16 – can be made ahead and frozen

1 ½ cups raw or natural cane of Demerara sugar, divided

2 ½ cups old-fashioned oats

1/3 cup whole wheat flour

2/3 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

¼ cup ground flaxseed

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into half-inch cubes

4 pounds tart apples, peeled, cored, each cut into 12 slices (Ann's Note:  we have no idea what kind of apples we got at this wedding but they were likely sweeter than this recipe calls for.  Not that this made any difference to the end product because it was fabulous!)

Juice of 1 lemon

1 teaspoon cinnamon

½ cup chopped pecans

1 quart vanilla ice cream (if desired)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Grease a 9x13-inch baking dish.  In a large bowl, stir together 1 cup sugar, oats, flours and flax seed.  Add butter and mix into the flour with your fingertips.  In another bowl, toss the apples with lemon juice, cinnamon, and remaining ½ cup sugar.  Transfer apple mixture to the baking dish and scoop flour mixture on top.  Bake for about 50 minutes, until the apples are bubbling and the topping is golden brown.  Sprinkle with pecans and return to the oven for 5 more minutes.  Spoon warm crumble into bowls and serve with a scoop of ice cream.