Geitost Apple Tarts, or What To Do With Caramel Cheese Fudge

I bought a chunk of geitost recently, mainly because I saw it in a store and I got excited, because the only other time I've tasted geitost I had to mail order it after reading some article about how awesome it was.

It's basically caramel cheese with a kind of fudge-y texture. I know, what's not to love?

However, even Little Z (now aged 5 and a half!) said it was too sweet to just eat as cheese, and while I ate a certain amount of it accompanied with slices of apple, I was looking for something more.

Since it was so good with apple slices, I figured it would be good in apple pie. But we all know I'm generally too lazy to make proper apple pie. No, I make apple galettes, because they are free form and easy, and don't involve silly things like top crusts.

I pulled a pie crust out of the freezer (because when I bother to make pie crust I make a lot of it, and then double wrap pieces and freeze them for just such occasions), defrosted it for a day or so in the fridge (it doesn't take this long to defrost, I just got distracted), and then decided to make apple tarts.

Basically I smooshed together these two recipes:
Sour Cream Apple Pie with Norwegian Gjetost
Rustic Free-Form Apple Tarts

The results were magnificent. Really, really delicious. So delicious that I completely failed to take a picture for you, but I have some geitost left over and I promise to make them again soon, and then I really will take a picture.

Anyway, I highly encourage you, should you ever notice some geitost at the store, to impulse buy it and then make these tarts. I bet it would also work well as one big tart, although you're on your own for cooking time. A bit longer, I expect.

Geitost Apple Tarts

1 single-crust recipe of your favorite pie dough, chilled (here's my fav; you only need half this recipe)
3-4 oz geitost, thinly sliced
2 apples, cored and sliced into 16 wedges. Peeled if you like.
2 T granulated sugar (light brown sugar would also work nicely)
½ t cardamom
½ t cinnamon
2 T lemon juice
1 egg or 2 T milk or cream, to wash the crust
2 T turbinado or demerara sugar (go ahead and use regular granulated if that’s what you’ve got)

1. Heat your oven to 400 degrees F.

2. Divide pie dough into 4. Squish each piece into a disc, then roll out to an approximately 6 inch diameter circle. It does not need to be a perfect circle; these tarts aim for a charmingly rustic look. Stack, separated by parchment paper, and refrigerate while you prep the apples. 

3. Put apple slices in a medium bowl and add granulated sugar, cardamom, cinnamon, and lemon juice. Stir to coat the apples in all this yummy stuff. Taste an apple slice. Add more sugar or lemon to balance the sweet and tart flavors to your taste, or even up the spices. 

4. Take the crusts out of the fridge, and set them on a rimmed baking sheet, keeping the parchment paper under them. You’re going to assemble these free form tarts right on the parchment paper and the baking sheet, so you don’t have to try to move them later. 

5. Divide the geitost slices in 4, and make a thin layer of geitost on the middle of each crust, leaving at least an inch of crust around the edte.

6. Pile about ¼ of the apple slices on each tart crust, leaving, again, at least an inch of crust around the edge. You can make a pretty design, or just mound the slices. 

7. Fold the crust around the edge up against the pile of apple slices, folding as necessary. 

8. If there’s any juice left in the apple bowl, pour it into the center of the tarts, avoiding the crust. 

9. Mix up the egg in a small bowl, or pour the milk or cream in a small bowl. Brush this on the crust that is showing. 

10. Sprinkle the turbinado sugar over the tarts, getting it on the apples as well as the crust. The wash will help the sugar stick, and will also give the crusts a lovely golden brown color when baked. 

11. Bake for about 25 minutes, until the apples are soft and the crusts are golden brown on top and underneath. Remove from oven and cool. Eat warm or at room temperature. 


These are superb on the day they are made and quite good for the next couple of days, especially reheated in a toaster oven. These tarts are quite rich, so feel free to share one with a friend. Or go ahead and enjoy a whole one yourself. If you want to go really nuts, add some lightly sweetened whipped cream, although you may then feel the need to have a nice lie down.

Everything Old Is New Again: Braised Lamb Shank Pappardelle

Most of my posts offer some sort of instructions for how to make a dish. Not this one. This one is all about how you can't quite make this dish, and neither can I again, probably. This is all about the leftovers, the creative combination thereof, and the delicious that can arise.

Braised lamb shank and meatball pappardelle.

Butter-Poached Lobster Is Just As Delicious As You Imagine It Would Be

It's all Whole Foods' fault. I made the ridiculous mistake of going grocery shopping while hungry, and they were giving out samples of lobster tail. I ate the bite, and I was sold. I can't control myself around lobster. I love the stuff. It must be my New Hampshire upbringing; all those lobster rolls I ate in my youth. Plus it was $3 off the usual price per tail! Which made each tail only expensive, instead of absurdly expensive. 

Orecchiette with Butter-Poached Lobster Tails and Cherry Tomatoes.

Too Hot To Cook

It is too damn hot to cook. It is also, unfortunately, too damn hot to grill; our grill is in full sun, so even though I'm craving grilled fish, that is not on the menu. Maybe next week.

What we're eating right now is food that doesn't require cooking. Cold sausages. Green salads. and lots of antipasti, which make for a terrific snacking meal. With a cool glass of rose or Prosecco, this is how summer is done right.

Here are couple of my favorite antipasti. Slice, stir, marinate, and enjoy.

Anitpasti dinner. On the deck. At sunset. Life is not all bad...

Date Night In: Ashley Rodriguez is a Genius, or A Marriage Manual Masquerading as a Cookbook

“What I didn’t know was how hard we would have to fight for our happily ever after.”

Strawberry Shortcake Trifle for Two

Spring in Pie Form: Asparagus, Ramp, & Goat Cheese Pie

I’m lucky enough to have a friend with a secret stash of wild ramps that he visits every spring--and sometimes he takes me along. We went out to the woods this past Saturday morning, and I came home with a bag of ramps. Which I then had to figure out what to do with. The answer: Asparagus, Ramp, & Goat Cheese Pie.

Prepping for Pie Season

I love pies. The only thing that can hold me back from whipping up a pie is the crust. What if I don't have enough butter? (I make all-butter pie crusts; no vegetable shortening for me, thank you.) What if I don't have time for the dough to chill? What if I just plain don't have time?

Snacking Dinner On The Deck

There are some meals you cook, and there are some meals you shop for. I'm not talking about takeout, but rather the kind of snacking dinner that requires just a bit of chopping before being arranged on the plate and carried to the table.

While I enjoy this sort of meal all year round, it definitely reaches its apogee as a warm weather meal on the deck.

On my way home from work I stopped at the grocery store and picked up a baguette, a small round of goat brie, a bag of arugula, and, from the liquor store, a bottle of rose. At home we already had plum tomatoes (acceptable, if not amazing, even in April) and an amazing spreadable smoked sausage (from Wursthaus Schmidtz), plus some basics: basil, lemon, olive oil, honey, coarse grained mustard, cornichons.

On Not Cooking

The past few months, I haven’t cooked much. As in, barely at all. I can remember the last meal I properly cooked--an excellent cauliflower and bacon pasta, for dinner on Friday when we had friends over--and before that, I’m honestly not sure. I’ve baked bread every couple-few weeks, and I’ve looked at recipes plenty. I’ve read the serious food magazines that came in the mail, and the email newsletters scattered with luscious photos--every word. I’ve day-dreamed about cooking: standing in the kitchen with the sun streaming in, a little jazz playing, and piles of vegetables yielding under my knife.

But I haven’t actually put knife to vegetable, except to yield the carrot sticks that are the only vegetable Little Z, now 3, regularly eats. Oh, that’s right--a couple weeks ago I also baked Little Z two birthday cakes in one week, one for her school party and one for home. And I attempted to bake crumpets, but failed because I filled the molds too full. I will try these again, soon. I will.

Slow Cooker Dulce de Leche

A confession: before I made it myself, I had never eaten dulce de leche. This was a travesty, because it is clearly the best caramel ever. It's dark and sweet, but not too sweet, and milky and lovely and I have found myself, for the past few days, sneaking nibbles of it straight from the jar. Also eating a lot more bananas because it is amazing with banana and that way I can tell myself that at least part of my snack is healthy.

Spruce Gin Collins

I generally prefer to drink gin in the summer, when the combination of of complex herbal notes and the bitter twang of tonic make a perfect counterpoint to sun and heat. A tall glass with a wedge of lime is all I long for when the days are warm.

Rosemary Parmesan Shortbread

I love baking shortbread because it’s such a wonderful blank slate. It’s great plain, buttery and crumbly, and sometimes that’s what I crave. But I also like to put fun flavors into it. Like, for example, rosemary. Because, you see, rosemary is the one plant that I reliably do not kill over the winter. It helps that it can withstand both drought and downpour, and if I remember to soak every week or two and then leave it by a window, it gets by until the next spring.

Slow Cooker Shredded Pork Tacos with Slaw

My slow cooker fascination is, I believe, by now well documented. And the cabbage fixation is moving along well also, so that’s good. The truth of the matter is that I’m not actually obsessed with pork, but recently Nick very wisely took advantage of a two-for-one sale at the local Acme, and thus we had two pork roasts on our hands.

Irish Oatmeal with Peanut Butter and Nutella, or how I celebrate St. Patrick's Day

The first thing you should know is that I really kind of hate St. Patrick's Day. In this I am joined by all right thinking people.

The second thing you should know is that I have never, to my knowledge, consumed corned beef. I'm not even sure what it is. I will probably find out one day, and then I'll blog about it. Until then, I'm okay with gustatorily celebrating St. Patrick's with oatmeal. 

Slow Cooker Pork Roast with Sweet & Sour Cabbage and Sweet Potatoes

I love this meal not just because it’s purple and orange and pork-colored, not just because it’s delicious and fairly healthy, but because it takes exactly one dish to make: one slow cooker, to be exact. Yes, I’m still going on with the slow cooker love. Get used to it.

Split Pea Soup: Sympathy for the Toddler

Yesterday Little Z and I arrived home to the perfume of split pea soup wafting through the apartment. I had done my best to build up the idea of soup for dinner, and I had hopes that she might actually, as she so delicately phrases it, “put it in the mouth” (accompanied by gesture: wide open mouth, finger pointing toward).

On the way home we had established that we would have cheesy bread, grapes, and yogurt as well as soup for dinner. So the cheese, fruit, and yogurt food groups would all be well represented. These represent the greater part of Little Z's current diet.

I’m not going to keep you in suspense here, people. Little Z did not eat the soup. She took one look at that lumpy green mess and said, “No eat soup.” And then repeated that about 50 times. There was one moment when I dipped my cheesy bread into the soup and took a bite when Z got interested and briefly held out her cheesy bread and said, “dip?” But by the time I shoved my bowl toward her, the moment had passed. “No eat soup.”

I have to admit, I have some sympathy for the toddler. Split pea soup is not inherently delicious looking. I recognize that it takes time and experience to understand that this ugly stuff is actually good to eat. So it’s cool, Little Z. Maybe next time you’ll take a taste. Or the time after that.

A Love Letter to my Slow Cooker

Have I yet waxed lyrical on here about my slow cooker?

If not, this is the last place I’m getting around to it. I fucking love my slow cooker. We’ve been together for over a year now, so I think I can safely say it’s love.

Eh.

And then there are the days when you cook and cook and finally sit down to what should be a glorious dinner and say, “Eh.”

This happened yesterday. I had big cooking plans for my Sunday afternoon, as I often do. I try to cook a lot over the weekend—a goal that I have long aspired to but only recently achieved. Now that I have a toddler, it has become a necessity. Many days there simply isn’t time to cook between when we get home from work and daycare and when Little Z needs to fill her small but growing belly. A stash of leftovers is imperative.

Tartine Knockoff

I have now made a version of Chad Robertson’s Tartine bread twice. I say a version of because I still don’t actually have his book. I have requested it from the library, but the library is being very slow. Instead, I’m working off of this two page recipe that Robertson shared with Martha Stewart. Thank you, Martha!

Sour Dough: Michael Pollan's Whole-Wheat Country Loaf

I did a lot of cooking this past weekend. Over the two days, I made: Moroccan beef chili, couscous, roast chicken, scalloped root vegetables, braised red cabbage, chicken stock, eggless banana bread, and ginger bug (my latest science project, in which I try to catch wild yeast with ginger-sugar water, from which I intend to make ginger beer!).

Oh, and Michael Pollan’s Whole-Wheat Country Loaf. That’s right, people--my starter works! I successfully baked two loaves of whole wheat sourdough bread with it.