Apple of My Eye
Apple picking, apple cider donuts, apple recipes, hard apple cider, oh my!
Hi friends,
Welcome to This Needs Hot Sauce, a newsletter about cooking, dining out, and making the most of it. I went apple picking yesterday and am mid-sweater organization. Let’s dive in.
Don’t forget to mark your calendar for our This Needs Hot Sauce Birthday on October 25th. Bring friends! If you're attending, please consider making donating the cost of a drink to RAINN, the nation's largest anti-sexual violence organization. They run the National Sexual Assault Hotline and a 24/7 secure chat.
Something to Cook:
I eat oatmeal 12 months of the year, but fall is a particularly good time to get started. I covered my overnight oats method here, but usually make it at home in the microwave.
Here’s how:
In a microwave safe bowl, combine 1/4 cup rolled oats and toppings that you want to cook (I use some fruit, usually chopped apple or berries, slivered almonds, and a bit of peanut butter). Cover with about 2/3 cup water and add salt and cinnamon. Stir together and microwave for 3-4 minutes, depending on desired thickness and strength of your microwave. Top with some Maldon sea salt and any other toppings you’d like. I also like cashews, chia seeds (added before cooking), pumpkin seeds, a drizzle of tahini, and coconut flakes. I buy my oats in the bulk bin at Whole Foods and refill a Quaker Oats canister.
One more plug for sweet potato broccoli bowls with miso dressing, an all time great lunch.
Julia made these ginger cookies and they were great! If you like a chewy ginger cookie that stays fresh for days, give them a try. The recipe uses turbinado sugar or sugar in the raw, which always comes in huge packages.
If you wind up with extra turbinado sugar, make this chocolate olive oil shortbread or blueberry muffins (use frozen blueberries or substitute another fruit)
Tilden, Julia and I made these tofu cabbage wraps with mango salsa for dinner and they’re so fresh and crunchy. The hardest part is chopping two mangos, so you could also use a storebought mango salsa to save time. This would be a great (and affordable) desk lunch as long as you pack the components separately.
As of last night, I have SO many apples. Here are some of my favorite ways to use them up:
Apple Crisp feeds a crowd, is less fussy than a pie, and uses up a ton of apples. Don’t skip the orange juice in the recipe, it really helps brighten up the flavor. It’s all about the streusal, which is one of my favorite things to make by hand (ignore recipes that tell you to use a mixer). It’s so satisfying to crumble the butter.
Side note: I hate recipes that tell you to use 4 pounds of apples, how many is that? As a general rule, 1 pound of apples is equal to: 4 small apples or 3 medium apples or 2 large apples. And with apple recipes like a crisp, nothing is too precise as long as it all fits in the pan.
Apple oat muffins keep for ages in the freezer.
I also love apples in salads, especially with a good cheese and something crunchy like pecans or pumpkin seeds.
We make this apple cake every Rosh Hashanah and it’s good anytime of year.
Realistically, I just got a new jar of peanut butter so my apples will be stopping there first, but I’m going to bake later this week. Luckily, apples keep for a while in the fridge.
Do you have any apple ideas? Reply to this email and help a girl out!
Something to Order:
It’s Negroni season! I had my first of the season at the Topaz with Julia. We really needed to get out of the house and brought her mini scrabble edition to the bar. It was so much fun even though she beat me by 6 points. We go to the Topaz a lot and the bartender thought it was hilarious. After a Negroni, I had this, but their $6 Old Fashioneds are a must during Happy Hour, which goes till 8.
I went to the Bushwick Film Festival with Bushwick Daily and the afterparty was sponsored by Brugal 1888. They served the rum with coconut water, a new to me combo, and it was delicious. Hydrating and intoxicating, a perfect combo. Also snaps to the taco truck outside of House of Yes, the tortillas were so fresh.
In other taco news, Tuesday is the perfect time to visit Calabrije’s, right off the Jefferson stop. They do $4 2 for 1 tacos on Tuesdays and you can mix and match. It’s unreal. The salsas and guac are worth a try too. And they have some of the city’s best margaritas.
Does anyone have Chelsea Market favorites? My mom and I got lunch at Miznon and it was not amazing (which was a bummer after enjoying their pita at #eeeeeatscon). The pita is top quality and did appreciate their sauce station with self serve hot sauce and tahini. I love Los Tacos but their line is always crazy.
Friday is a very good day for pizza. Dale and I got Best Pizza to end the week and it is just so good. Their vegetable square slice changes seasonally and currently has cauliflower, beets, and butternut squash. The white pie has caramelized onions and the plain slice is great as well. It’s a good takeout move but also a cool spot to hang out. They have some booths and drinks.
Yesterday was a Magical Fall Day at Twin Star Orchards/Brooklyn Cider House. I’ve been apple picking at least 15 times (East Coast life for sure) and this was absolutely one of the best experiences. Brooklyn Cider House is one of my favorite local spots—they make Spanish style hard cider from apples grown in New York and run a bar and restaurant with a killer patio (you can see more in the July Happy Hour highlight on Instagram).
Their orchard is open for apple picking and combines the best of the Brooklyn location with the Upstate foliage. There’s a bar with cider flights, fresh cider donuts, bottles of cider for sale that you can sip as you pick, a pavilion serving up wood oven pizzas, live jazz, picnic tables full of board games on a pond, and so many varieties of apples to choose from at very reasonable prices. Less than twenty minutes after arriving, Julia, Julianne, Ian and I declared this an annual tradition. We had a snack outside, picked apples/had a photo shoot and then ate lunch (get all of the pizzas), all before a nearly 4 hour drive home (getting there took less than 2). The Orchard is open for picking until November 4th and I would highly recommend visiting. Saturdays have less traffic or try to get an early start so you miss the worst of it.
Coffeeshop of the Week: Eleva Coffee
Eleva Coffee opened less than 2 weeks ago by the Bedford Stop, filling a huge gap for affordable coffee in that area. Their prices are literally half other nearby shops ($1.50 for an 8 oz coffee) and they work directly with growers to avoid a huge markup while paying producers fairly. I’ve tried a bunch of their coffees and they’re really tasty (they ship all over). Plus, they invest in social programs in the areas they source from. The Nicaraguan and Guatemalan ones are my favorites so far. This is Eleva’s first shop and they’ll be opening five more in the next year, first in Greenpoint and then in Virginia, Texas, and Rochester. The Williamsburg shop has pastries by Midnights, including a date cake that is always sold out. It’s quite small (140 square feet) so not a spot to linger, but definitely worth a visit.
Something to read:
I love posts like this: What it takes to write a What’s Gaby Cooking post.
RIP Coffee Shop, Union Square will not be the same.
I’m definitely on team apple cider donuts are great after this weekend. But haters are gonna hate.
How Dunkin’ Donuts Shaped My Parents’ New Life In America.
Pati Jinich on teaching Mexican cooking in the age of Trump.
God help us, is the Finnish lifestyle of getting drunk with no pants on the new hygge?
News you can use: Oysters on the half shell are actually saving New York’s eroding harbor.
I’m really excited to watch Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat and then will have lots of links to share. I’ve heard really good things!
I wrote about the Bushwick Film Festival and write Bushwick Daily’s new Friday newsletter. Sign up here to get it this week.
Last week, I asked about dating and your experiences with food on dates. I want to write a detailed Date Spots guide so I’m giving you one more week to weigh in. What’s a memorable date you’ve been on? What would your ideal date food be? What’s your go-to date spot in your city? What dating questions do you have? Don’t be shy, reply to this email and let me know! These answers can be anonymous.
I’ll see you at our Very Spicy Birthday on October 25th!
Happy eating and thanks for reading.
Xo, Abigail