Baking To Beat The Bitter Winds

Fresh snow has fallen and the temps are plummeting, so we headed for the store for some ingredients to whip up some comfort tonic for the winter blahs.  Well for me that phrase is less "winter blahs" and more "winter #$@*!"  The snow was only going to amount to a few inches, but the frigid air was about to go sub-zero, so grocery shelves were still picked apart.  We found what we need to head home and bake to beat the bitter winds.

Keith made his homemade chili, which is kinda one of those that is rarely repeated, because he changes it up a bit every time and doesn't remember what he did the time before.  Despite this, it is always a fine bowl of spicy goodness.  When deciding what to bake, I, of course, came up with multiple exotic ides, but Keith reined me in with another of our 2014 challenges: less waste by using what we have as opposed to buying new ingredients as we have more times than I care to admit.  This is a necessary goal, of course, and less waste is always better for multiple reasons.  Keith has been very responsible by composting but we still waste too much.  In this instance, we decided we would bake something utilizing the on-sale apples we had purchased previously from the Amish store and the pears that came in a Harry and David gift package Keith got from a colleague. We went for a Barefoot Contessa recipe for a pear-apple crisp, as Ina Garten had yet to steer us wrong.

The apples had gotten a little soft at this point, so it was a perfect time to utilize them.  The crisp turned out perfectly; the added lemon and orange zest added some brightness that beautifully set up the the cinnamon and nutmeg,  The chili and the crisp were a perfect combination to settle in for a long winter's nap....er, night.

You can find the Barefoot Contessa recipe here.