Fab Food Friday: A la Hubbs

I love my husbands willingness to try just about anything. When we got married I told him he was going to learn to cook, because I didn't want our future children to starve if they were ever left alone with him for a time. So, he did, and he became pretty good at it. My dad always said that if you can follow a recipe, you can cook...sounds pretty easy doesn't it? Well, sometimes we've found that recipes aren't always right....

Take this picture for instance:

Only 1/2 an inch thick :)

That is a picture of brownies that my sweet husband made one Sunday afternoon :)  That afternoon was going to be a busy one for me because I had two showers to go to and we had a church fellowship to bring food to later on that evening. Usually I make brownies from scratch, but I knew I wouldn't have time to make those plus another dish I was going to make, so I just bought a box mix for the hubbs to make. Get this, he did follow the directions, but for some reason the box said to cook them 30 minutes...who has EVER cooked brownies for 30 minutes?? Needless to say we didn't take them, they were hard as a rock...but the hubbs did learn that sometimes you should trust your gut instead of the directions.   

Next is an actual recipe. One day my husband decided we needed a date night in. He arranged to have a friend watch the boys and he decided to cook for me. The day before he saw someone cooking an apple dessert on TV and decided he was going to make it. This is the recipe for:

Classic Apple Tarte Tatin 

Ingredients for apple filling:

8-10 gala or pink lady apples, peeled, cored, and halved

1/2 cup butter

1/2 sugar

vanilla

Ingredients for Pie Crust:

1 1/4 cups flour

4 oz. butter(1 stick)

1/2 tsp. salt

1 1/2 Tbs sugar

1/4 cup ice water

**You will bake this in a 10 inch iron skillet**

--For the crust, in a food processor or with fingers, combine flour, sugar, salt and butter until the chunks of butter are broken down to the size of peas and the flour feels like sand. Add half of the water and mix until dough comes together easily. If it is too dry add a tablespoon of water at a time until the dough forms. Form into a ball and place between two sheets of plastic wrap. Press down until a disk forms that is 1/2" thick. Put in the fridge while you prepare the apples.

--Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

--Stir together sugar and vanilla. Spread butter on the bottom of the pan and sprinkle the vanilla sugar on top. Place apple pieces vertically in the pan, snaking in a circle along the edge. Keep repeating until the whole pan is full. Over a medium flame, place the pan for 20-25 minutes until the butter, sugar, and apples have created a golden brown caramel. Let cool for a few minutes and then roll the chilled pie crust onto the dish and spread to the edge of the pan.

--Put in the oven and bake for about 20 minutes, or until the apples are bubbling and the crust is golden brown.

This smelled so good when I came home!

--Bring to room temp and flip onto a serving dish. Serve with homemade whipped cream!

**We loved this dessert, but would change a few things to the recipe. 1) we would only use 1/2 the butter that goes in the pan. 2) we would add brown sugar and cinnamon to the top of the apples before you put the crust on...it lacked the sweetness we were looking for, but was still incredibly good!

The hubbs is good and, let's just say it, spoils me just a little....