Winter Dinner at the Shuswap Lake

This week I’m at my Dad’s cabin on the Shuswap Lake, near Salmon Arm, BC. Mia came for a visit and we ate very well☺ For dinner we had the Botanical Burger with lime tarragon mayonnaise from the Rebar Cookbook. The burger has roasted hazelnuts, grated beets, zucchini, carrots and lots of other healthy ingredients. It was really good, but it is pretty labour intensive- you need to have at least 1.5/2 hours to make these and then time for quite a bit of cleanup.

For dessert we ate Cinnamon Crumble Apple Pie. This recipe is made following directions from a few sources. I got the idea to make an apple pie with crumble topping from this month’s People Magazine, ‘Cooking with the Stars’ and because Mia suggested an apple crisp.  We had one little hitch which was that when we got out to the cabin this afternoon I realized that we didn’t have a pastry recipe that only called for butter (we had no lard or vegetable shortening) and no internet connection to look a recipe up. Luckilyy Cole found us a good recipe on his computer at home and read it out over the phone. The apple part loosely follows the recipe showcased in People Magazine for TV actress Lori Loughlin (she is the mum from the new 90210).

 Botanical Burger
pg 100 Rebar (but altered slightly by me)

 2 tbsp olive oil
2 yellow onion
4 garlic cloves
1 cup grated carrot
1 cup grated turnip
1 cup grated beets
1 cup grated zucchini
2 tsp salt
1 tsp dried dill
1 tsp cracked pepper
1 cup mashed potatoes (add cream and butter to mashed potatoes- my addition:)
1/2 cup cooked brown rice (optional)

1 cup hazelnuts roasted
2 tsp soy sauce
2 tbsp nutritional yeast
2 tbsp minced tarragon
2 tbsp parsley
Fresh breadcrumbs (optional)

1) Heat oil in a wide-bottomed pan and sauté onion until translucent. Add garlic, grated vegetables, dill, salt and pepper. Still thoroughly and cook for 10 minutes over medium-high heat, stirring regularly. Transfer to a large bowl and let cool.

2) Place cooled vegetables, rice and hazelnuts in a food processors and pulse until coarsely combined. Transfer to a large bowl and mix all of the remain ingredients. Season to taste. Add breadcrumbs if you want. Also optional, beat one egg and mix into batter. Shape into 5 oz patties and sauté in olive oil until browned on both sides.

 3)While the patties fry stir together mayonnaise ingredients and assemble your favorite burger condiments. Enjoy!

Lime Tarragon Mayonnaise:
1 cup mayozest of one lime
2 tbsp minced tarragon

Combine all the ingredients in a small bow and stir thoroughly. Serve or refridgerate up to three days •
**Don’t be put off by the fact that these burgers resemble raw beef! It’s the beets that do this, as Rebar points out “you can be assured that this recipe was kind to animals”.

Cinnamon Crumble Apple Pie

Pastry:
1, ½ cups flour
½ tbs sugar
pinch of salt
½ cup butter, cut into cubes
3 tbsp ice water

Blend flour, sugar and salt in the food processor. Add butter until just coarse (my dad said should be pea size lumps) Then add ice water until just moist (I only needed about 2 tbsp. Gather into a ball, cover in saran wrap and chill in the fridge for an hour before rolling out and putting in pie pan.


Apples and crumble topping:
About 7 apples, granny smith or a variety
4 tbsp Sugar
Lemon juice to moisten and keep apples from browning

½ cup oats
½ cup flour
½ cup brown sugar
1 tbsp cinnamon
1/3- ½ cup butter1)

Peel apples and cut into thin slices, add sugar, lemon juice. Put apples in pie crust. Optional: cook apples on stove briefly to soften before baking pie. (I think I would do this next time since the apples were a tiny bit dry. Another option is to bake with tin foil for the last 15 minutes or so. This way the topping will not be blackened while the apples continue to cook.

Next, put brown sugar, oats, flour and cinnamon in a bowl. Using a pastry blender, knives or your hands cut butter to form crumbs.  Spread on top of pie.

Bake at 350 for about 50 minutes or until topping starts to brown.