Shamrock Shake at Home

It's St. Patty's weekend and I spent ~10 hours in the office staring at data. It was a less than ideal day so I made myself the ideal adult treat. Also, this takes my love of my aerolatte to a whole new level. Mind you, I love my aerolatte more than I love some people. It allows me to indulge my love of lattes without having to drop serious cash on an espresso machine or stand in line at Starbucks (how is there a line when there are 3 of them on every street? HOW?).

No blender? No problem.

(Boozy) Pi Day Mini Apple Pies

I am a huge nerd and love all things STEM (I actually struggle with not writing this like a lab report and am surprised that this reads anything like a decent narrative). Anywhoodles, I celebrated Pi Day much like any other person would, by making pie. I also fortunate enough to have some fresh pie dough in the fridge, which is really a very compelling reason to make pie, no?

Total time: 40 minutes, NOT including dough prep.

VERDICT: I may make all of my pies mini pies if I don't have a group to eat the pie, much more portable (picnics!) and easier to store than a full-sized pie.

Apple Pi!

Mini Bourbon Apple Pies

adapted from Mark Bittman's apple pie recipe in How to Cook Everything, yields 6 mini pies.

1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/16 teaspoon nutmeg
pinch salt
2-3 apples (I used Granny Smith)
1 tablespoon bourbon
3/4 cornstarch
1 pie crust
1 tablespoon butter

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Fit crust into muffin tin (my dough was wadded up, so I just took 1.5" balls and rolled them out into smaller circles to fit). Reserve leftover dough to decorate pies.

2. Toss together the dry ingredients. Peel and core the apples and cut into 1/2 slices. Toss the apples with bourbon and dry ingredients.

3. Spoon apple filling into tin until it is about level with the the tin. Decorate pis with reserved dough and top each pie with a small pat of butter.

4. Bake pies for 30-40 minutes or until crust is golden brown and filling just begins to bubble.

Not the neatest of crust fittings, but whatevs.

Note to self: stick to lattice crusts. No more freeform shapes.