Category Archives: family foods

Aside from apple pie, my sister and I also like to whip up some mean pumpkin chocolate chip cookies in the fall. These are ridiculously easy to make, are totally addictive and originally came from a “Best Cook on the Block from Bay View” cookbook snagged from our Ma. The original baker, Mrs. Johanna Chars, suggested doubling the recipe as 1 pint of pumpkin contains 2 cups (plus they freeze well and there’ll be more for you to down in one sitting).
INGREDIENTS
1 cup cooked mashed pumpkin (commercial or home-canned)
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup cooking oil
1 egg
2 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp milk
1 cup chocolate pieces
1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)
1 tsp vanilla
METHOD
In mixing bowl, combine pumpkin, sugar, oil and egg. Stir in flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. In small bowl dissolve baking soda in milk, stir in batter. Mix batter well. Stir in chocolate pieces, nuts and vanilla. With spoon drop on lightly greased cookie sheet. Cookies will not spread much during baking. Bake at 375 degrees F 10-12 minutes. Makes about 5 dozen cookies, 2 inches in diameter. Delish.

You may think that elizabites is all about stuffing your face, but from time to time, it’s about cooking or baking something, and then stuffing your face. On the tails of revealing my family’s sugar-coated eating habits in my last post, I wanted to take this opportunity to demonstrate how they are capable of using sugar in much more productive ways. Every Thanksgiving my dad whips up the most amazing apple pies (almost) from scratch, and I felt it was time to reveal the surprisingly simple recipe. He’s partial to store bought pie crusts, but feel free to use your own crust recipe. Just add a glass pie pan, Jonathan or Granny Smith apples (a tart variety is key), lemon, butter, cinnamon, sugar. Amounts, method and photos below.

For one pie, use 4-6 apples (Jonathan, Granny Smith or another tart variety will work), and 3 lemons.

Peel, core and thinly slice apples. This speedy hand-cranked corer takes care of all three at once.

Unroll defrosted pie crust and lay on bottom of pie pan. Add first layer of sugar (3 TBS), butter (3 tsp), cinnamon (2 TBS), a squeeze of half a lemon.

Add layer of sliced apples. Proceed to build up 4 layers of butter, sugar, cinnamon and lemon followed by a layer of apple slices until a round mound forms. Note: Ingredient amounts are approximations, add more sugar if you want a sweeter pie, more lemon for more tartness. Make sure final layer is topped with sugar, butter, cinnamon, lemon combo.

Cover pie with top crust layer and cover again with butter, sugar, cinnamon and lemon. Slice 4-5 holes in the top.
Bake at 425 degrees F for 45 min.

Let cool, slice and enjoy. Lasts 2-3 days.
Next up, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies..stay tuned.