Rustic Cognac-Apple Pie

This is a rendition of Rustic Armagnac-Apple Pie from Vegetarian Times (VT). I've never heard of Armagnac before. According to wiki, Armagnac is an aged brandy from the Armagnac region in Gascony, southwest France. I did not see Armagnac in the liquor store so I bought brandy instead. Brandy is already expensive as it is - $9 for a 100ml bottle. I don't really want to know how much an aged brandy cost :).

It is a tasty pie and I like that it's easy to put together.  When I was putting this together, I felt the amount of dried fruits used is a bit overwhelming. I only make 1/2 the recipe and the dried fruits filled over half a 2-cup pyrex container. Dried fruits has quite a bit of sugar in it so I thought it would be overly sweet. But it turned out not too sweet at all and I did not notice all the dried fruits while eating it.

One note on the crust though. While it is good, it does not even hold a candle to my favorite cream cheese pie crust from Rose Levy Beranbaum. Next time I made this pie I will use this pie crust.

Fresh Figs with Bacon and Goat Cheese

Would you believe me if I told you I bought a handful of figs to take pictures of them?

It's all because of Helene's post. That 2nd picture of the figs on the wooden pedestal looked so good that it stayed in my brain for days.

And then I borrowed David Tanis' book from the library, titled "A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes." As the title indicated, there is a picture of figs on the book cover.

My next trip to the grocery store, I saw figs by the entrance.

On sale.

That did it.

I bought a pound of them.

And so begin, the photo session.

FFWD: Beggar's Linguini

We don't eat a lot of pasta, so when I saw this on the schedule, I thought I'd skipped it. But then  after speaking to my HCB/FFWD blogger gal pal Monica, who said: "pasta, yeah, what's not to love?" - I changed my mind.

Well okay in her defense, that's not her exactly words/sentence, but it's along the same "yeah let's make it!" lines.

In any case, looking at the recipe, I have to admit it looks interesting (I've never made pasta with dried fruits and nuts before.)

And most importantly - easy to whip up!

So I made this for lunch one Sunday afternoon.

I used whole wheat pasta, which is healthier and a bit tastier than regular pasta. Cooking time is a couple minutes longer, so no biggie.

A couple of minutes before the pasta finished cooking, I melt some butter over medium low heat until it started turning brown. Then add in the sliced almonds, dried figs, and golden raisins (I forgot to get pistachio). Once the almonds and dried fruits started getting brown, I added the pasta, salt and pepper. Stir everything up. Once they started smelling fragrant, I called hubby down for lunch and served with some grated parmesan.

Tasting impressions:
Hm.. it's not bad but it's really nothing special. While I do taste the beurre noisette flavor in the pasta, I feel like I'm eating buttery pasta, which is not very pleasant. So in the end we make sure we ate each bite of pasta with some almonds and dried fruits, just so we have other flavors in there. I'm sad to report that this dish - while super easy to prepare - probably will not make another appearance in the kitchen.