**Making a Delicious Apple Pie with Coconut Sugar and Sourdough Crust**

As the winter months approach, I find myself craving warm, comforting foods that will help me navigate the cold and dark days ahead. One of my favorite winter treats is a classic apple pie, but not just any apple pie - one made with coconut sugar, winter citrus, and a special touch from my trusty sourdough starter.

To start, I peel a bunch of apples and throw them into a big vat of water with some lemon juice to preserve them. Once they're all peeled, I cut them in half, remove the core, and slice them up. If I have a mandolin, this process goes much faster. Next, I add some coconut sugar, brown sugar, or regular sugar to the pot or pan where I'll be cooking the filling. The citrusy flavor of winter is my favorite addition to apple pie, so I zest in some lemon and add the juice of half a lemon. A pinch of salt, some cinnamon, and a type of starch like tapioca or cornstarch will help thicken up the juices and give the filling a rich, caramel-like consistency.

Now it's time to cook down those juices on low heat until they start releasing to the bottom of the pan. If too much juice is released from my apples, I strain off the liquid and simmer it down a bit until it forms almost a caramel. Then, I add that caramel back to the apples and incorporate everything evenly. The mixture goes into the fridge to cool while I get out the top layer of pie dough and roll it out to make my lattice.

Lattice topping is just a little extra design element that I love adding to my pies, especially during the winter months when I need something to occupy my mind and bring me joy. It's not rocket science - just over-and-under weaving strips of dough to create a beautiful, intricate pattern. Once the lattice is formed, I trim the excess and crimp in those edges to make sure I have a nice seal around the outside of my pie.

With the crust ready to go, it's time to assemble the pie and pop it into the fridge to set for about an hour. Then, I'll add a little bit of egg wash to the top of the pie to give it a shiny, golden brown finish - just before baking at 425 degrees for about 30 minutes, or until that crust is puffed up and golden.

But the real magic happens when I start experimenting with my sourdough starter. There's nothing like feeding my starter every day to get those lovely bubbles forming and to know that I have a reliable source of natural yeast for all my bread-making endeavors.

As we head into winter, there's one thing I always make sure to prioritize: comfort food. Comfort food gets a bad rap for being unhealthy, but the truth is, we need it now more than ever during these long, cold months. When we take the time to cook from scratch using quality ingredients and love, we can create truly nourishing foods that will bring us joy and warmth.

So, as I sit down to enjoy my freshly baked apple pie, I'm reminded of just how much food can transform our lives. And with a slice (or two) of this delicious pie in hand, I know I'll be ready to face whatever the winter months bring - warm, cozy, and full of joy.

**A Note on Sourdough Bread**

For those who are new to sourdough bread-making or just want to learn more about my favorite hobby, a word or two about sourdough is in order. For me, making sourdough bread has been a game-changer in the winter months when I need something to look forward to and bring me comfort.

It all starts with creating an active starter - a natural yeast culture that's fed every day to produce those lovely bubbles that will make your bread rise. It's not rocket science, but it does take some patience and dedication. The payoff is well worth it, though: a beautiful loaf of homemade sourdough bread that's full of flavor and nutrients.

In the winter, when food can feel so monotonous and uninspiring, making sourdough bread from scratch becomes a labor of love. It's a way to connect with something bigger than myself and tap into my creativity in a way that feels truly satisfying.

Whether you're a seasoned sourdough enthusiast or just starting out, I encourage you to give it a try. You can find plenty of resources online or take a class at your local bakery to learn more about the process. And trust me - once you've tasted the joy of freshly baked sourdough bread, you'll be hooked for life.

**The Power of Food in Winter**

As I sit here with my apple pie and slice of sourdough toast, I'm reminded of just how much food can transform our lives. In the winter months, when darkness falls and the days feel long and cold, it's easy to get caught up in feelings of restlessness and disconnection.

But food has a way of breaking through that fatigue and bringing us back to life. Whether it's a hearty bowl of soup, a warm slice of bread with butter and jam, or a perfectly baked loaf of sourdough - there's something about the sensory experience of eating that can transport us to a different state of being.

In my case, the combination of flavors and textures in this apple pie has brought me joy and comfort. The sweetness of the apples, the tanginess of the citrus, and the crunch of the lattice topping all come together to create a truly satisfying experience.

As I take another bite, I'm reminded that food is so much more than just sustenance for our bodies - it's also a source of nourishment for our souls. And in the winter months, when everything feels dark and quiet outside, a warm, comforting meal like this apple pie can be just what we need to feel seen, heard, and loved.

So go ahead - take some time to cook from scratch, experiment with new flavors and ingredients, and find comfort in the simple pleasures of food. Your body - and your soul - will thank you.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: eni live in new york which means it gets very cold in the winter time and i'm not gonna lie that used to bum me out a good bit especially being an avid home cook because winter in the colder months just represented a time of less options less fresh produce less things i could create in the kitchen and then over time i don't know when this happened but at some point i started to just accept winter and my cooking began to evolve and shift for the better and that's what this video is about 10 ways that my cooking has grown and shifted and evolved by just accepting everything that comes along with the colder months all right i've got a meat delivery to start off the day these are some lamb shanks and this is a tougher cut of meat the shank is one of the toughest cuts on any animal and in the winter i like focusing on tougher cuts of meat things that are going to take time to cook and break down because i have time in the winter i'm hanging out i can watch over a pot that's stewing over time whereas in the summer that's when i'll focus on the steaks and the hamburgers things that can grill up really fast so i can get back to whatever party or activity i'm doing now when it comes to tougher cuts of meat there are a lot of different options to choose from if you're confused just look for stew meat or ask your butcher for stew meat and it can be a big chunk of meat like this or you can chop it down into little pieces if you want the process to go a little quicker so what i like doing on these lamb shanks or any tough cut of meat is getting a nice dry brine going so i'll season them heavily and throw those in the fridge for at least a few hours you can keep them in the fridge overnight and what that's going to do is get a nice seasoning all the way through the meat and also start the tenderizing process so the final product is nice and buttery and super tender i would say the biggest shift in my diet in the winter months over the years has been my increased consumption of fermented foods you know i love fermenting foods but i also just feel better when i eat them all winter long which totally makes sense because as human beings refrigeration is brand new technology in the grand scheme of things so humans had to ferment foods they had to preserve foods to survive which means of course we evolved to eat a lot of fermented foods and if you're new to fermenting your own foods at home but you want to get in the game i would definitely start out with a simple lacto-fermentation process like a sauerkraut and luckily for you i made one a few weeks ago and of course the base to a sauerkraut is cabbage but you can customize it with carrots i'm also adding some caraway seeds which is a classic sauerkraut spice and when it comes to lacto-fermentation there's two main key elements you need to focus on you need to get right one is the salt ratio which is about two to three percent of the total weight of your actual vegetables so i'm gonna figure out the final weight of my vegetables multiply that by two and a half percent and that's the amount of salt i'll add to my cabbage and now the second key element to lacto-fermentation is creating an anaerobic environment which means an environment without oxygen and to do that you're submerging the vegetables in the juices the natural water content that's actually coming off those vegetables and then you're using some type of weight system to make sure that those vegetables stay under the water line and in that anaerobic environment where the oxygen can't get in and then find a cool dark environment in your house and let that sit for a few weeks for me the optimum sauerkraut tanginess is around three to four weeks of fermentation so this right here has been fermenting for about three and a half weeks you can see the color has shifted a good bit you never quite know with fermenting how the bacteria how the yeast are going to react and alter the flavor crunchy that is delicious there's a reason caraway seeds are so popular in sauerkraut one sauerkraut project like this in the beginning of winter you make a big vat trust me you will be throwing this on everything and i'll show you later on in this video what i'm gonna be doing with this fermented cabbage so the next one's pretty obvious but to really thrive in the winter you gotta have a well-stocked pantry but the big shift for me was buying pantry items that were actually quality things that i could rely on and one of the best ways to do that brings me to the sponsor of this video which is thrive market an online membership based market on a mission to make healthy living easy and affordable for everyone and it's my favorite way to stock up on pantry items for the winter because i know i can trust all of the products they're all well sourced and the online shopping experience is optimized it's actually enjoyable you can shop by diet if you have specific food restrictions or you can just easily browse through their entire collection and everything is delivered to you with carbon neutral shipping from their zero waste warehouse and if i were to give you my top 10 pantry must-haves the things i use the most in the winter it would definitely be canned tomatoes dried fruit of any kind apple cider vinegar any type of dried beans or legumes maple syrup canned pumpkin coconut milk or cream some ground mustard a lot of decaf tea and an assortment of dried pasta so if you're interested in joining thrive market they offer two different membership models they've got the monthly plan and the yearly plan i'm on the yearly plan which comes out to five dollars a month but if you're not sure if thrive is the right fit you can just try it out for a shorter period of time and if you click the link below in the description and join thrive today you can get 25 off your first order and a free gift which is awesome so now that our pantry is stocked with all of these winter items it's time to cook up some delicious food and put them to good use nothing screams more winter than a good stew you get out the crock pot and you cook something low and slow which is what i'm going to be doing with these lamb shanks so i'm going to put a little bit of some neutral oil something that can handle a pretty high heat that has a high smoke point because we're braising these lamp shanks we're getting a crust on these lamp shanks first and then we will add all of our other ingredients but we want that first layer of flavor and what i'm doing here is just making sure that they're nice and dry you don't want wet lamb shanks going into hot oil that's a recipe for disaster so that's your last key step with these lamb shanks and these have been dry brining for around five hours so that liquid has first been removed from the salt then the salt gets absorbed in the liquid and actually starts penetrating in to the meat and i'm just gonna start searing these and a stew was something that i really wasn't making when i started cooking it felt boring i wanted to make fun things like pizza and hamburgers and exciting looking food but really this is survival food this is how you get through the winter and you feed your family you feed a few people or just yourself making a nice big stew awesome for meal prep because you can make a nice big batch of it and then freeze the rest so what i'm looking to do right now is really just brown these on every side maximum amount of flavor so that will take around five to seven minutes to really get these nice and crispy all right so you can see pretty clearly level one of flavors like drip grease all over my counter we're done there that is the first step of braising now the next phase of any stew is always aromatics your heartier veggies that you're going to cook down and caramelize that are going to lay the foundation of flavor in your soup on top of all this goodness that's in this pan already i chose one of my favorite combinations of aromatics fennel carrot and celery if your pot is looking a little dry just add a little oil you definitely want a good bit of oil or fat to get a nice caramelization on these aromatics and we'll just cook these down it's going to take around 10 to 20 minutes and for this step it's really important to be patient if you're looking for maximum flavor in your stew so after the aromatics were cooking for about 10 minutes i went in with my next level of flavor i took out a pestle and mortar and added some of my favorite spices a little bit of coriander seeds a few cardamom pods some dried chili and then two cloves of garlic and a knob of ginger and i gave that a few bashes just to make it into a rough paste and added that into the aromatic so that could toast as well in that oil and i cooked it for around another 10 minutes until everything was looking nice and caramelized and soft aromatics looking incredible smelling incredible nice and caramelized i'm going gonna go back in with the lamb shank this is the second part of braising we're gonna slow cook it in liquid and this brings me to my next tip for winter you can't just stock your pantry and stop there these pantry goods will be your lifeline in the winter you got to get creative with them so for me i'm going to use some diced tomatoes whereas i would definitely add fresh tomatoes to this stew i'm going to take advantage of the canned stuff there's no point of getting tomatoes out of season that's the worst mistake you can make winter tomatoes are just terrible tomatoes i'm also going to use some coconut milk here if you saw the curry episode that i did this is taking inspiration from the beef rendang coconut milk stewed down over a long period of time just caramelizes so nicely and makes such a creamy beautiful stew now to really bulk this up what i did last night was i took some of those black beans and some chickpeas but use whatever dried beans you have or legumes you have and i soak them in water and you can see now we've got chickpeas and black beans that are nicely hydrated ready to go in this stew and really bulk it up add some nice nutrition add some nice flavor and then the last step would be adding just a little bit of water to this so i'm just going to cover that meat and let everything cook down for a few hours there is one more thing i'll be adding but i'm not ready for it just yet so the stew has been on for about two and a half hours it's definitely falling apart you can see that right there but i think i want it a little more tender a little more melty so i would say about 30 more minutes but there's one more thing i want to add which brings me into the next thing i've learned which is really leaning in to root veggies we're talking the potatoes the sweet potatoes onions things that last a while that you can just throw in your pantry as long as it's a dark place and it's pretty cool those things will store for the entire winter basically so i always have potatoes sweet potatoes hanging around and i chopped up a potato and i'm going to add it right in to this stew which is one final layer of veggie action it will add texture it will bulk it up a bit and also the starch and the potato will thicken this stew just the right amount so i'll just get that mixed up in there pop the lid back on cook it for 30 minutes just until those potatoes are perfectly tender one thing that instantly shifts for me when it starts getting cold literally that first day it starts getting cold i just want to bake things i go from not baking anything in the warmer months to just this intense desire to bake muffins or cookies and i'm not a great baker per se but i like it and it's great to have baked goods around and my recent obsession has been making pies baking pies this is a pie crust that i made last night and i'll have a full video on pies coming soon but what i'm gonna do is make a fruit pie with some in season fruit and it's gonna have a bottom crust which i'm rolling out right now and i think what i've been loving about pie making is that it's challenging and it's also fun and it's nice to have something that really keeps you engaged in the winter and i've just been absolutely loving trying to get better at pie making so i'm just going to keep rolling this out in somewhat of a circular shape until it fits my pie tin which it certainly does there and i will add this pie crust right to the tin i've got a good bit of extra crust here so i'm going to go around and leave around a half inch of layover and i'll use that to build up the crust just a little bit so i can fit in more filling and there you go bottom crust done so i'm going to pop this in the fridge to chill out for a few hours let's talk filling for that pie so of course you can do whatever you want you can use some canned goods like the pumpkin i showed you before for me i love fruit i love fruit pies which is also the reason why i was a little bummed out before when winter came around because there was less fruit in season right well that's not totally the case when you have a seasonal mindset and you really hunt for the stuff that's in season you can find grapefruit you've got pears and apples that are fresh all season long at least here on the east coast you also have citrus citrus is peaking in ripeness and juiciness and sweetness in the winter and i'm going to be incorporating both of those into this apple pie so i've got a bunch of apples here and what i'm going to do is peel them and then just throw them into a big vat of water with some lemon juice to preserve them a bit so they don't brown and then once they're all peeled i'll cut them in half take out the core and start slicing them up if you have a mandolin of course this will go much faster and then i'll put them directly into the pot or pan that i'm actually cooking them in so to bring this filling together i'm going to add some coconut sugar here you can also use brown sugar or regular sugar and then i'm going to take advantage of that winter citrus so i'm going to zest in some lemon to this apple pie to give it a little zing and then i'll also add the juice of half a lemon with a little bit of salt some cinnamon and then you can add some type of starch as well tapioca starch or corn starch will work great to thicken up the juices a little bit and on a low heat i'll start cooking that down until those juices start releasing to the bottom of the pan and everything is nice and incorporated now if a lot of juice is released from your apples what i like to do is strain off those apples and just cook that juice down a little bit until it forms almost a caramel so my pie isn't too wet and then i'll add that caramel back to the apples incorporate everything evenly and throw that in the fridge until it is nice and cool in the meantime i can get out that top layer of pie dough start rolling that out to make my lattice which is just a little extra design element that i like doing especially in the winter when i need things to occupy my mind and make me happy now once the strips are formed it's time to lattice up this pie which is a really simple just over under weaving technique it's not rocket science and then i'll trim the excess and i'll start crimping in those edges to make sure i have a nice seal around the outside of my pie and then i'll toss that back into the fridge to set for about an hour and then it's time to bake so the last step is adding a little bit of egg wash to the top of the pie so it's nice and shiny and glisteny and golden brown and then i'll sprinkle on some cinnamon sugar just to give it a little extra flavor and caramelization to the top and then it's into the oven at a higher temperature 425 degrees for about 30 minutes to really puff up that crust then i'll lower the temperature down to 350 degrees until that caramel apple juicy juice is just bubbling on out of that one obvious game changer for me that started about five years ago that i get so excited for every winter is just sourdough everything and what i mean by that is getting a nice active starter feeding this every day so you can use this as the main yeast source for all of your bread products and i know a lot of you can relate to this on so many different levels number one in the winter i am just craving carbs all the time so you might as well make those carbs the best and most nutritious version of carbs that you can put in your body using your sourdough starter and also it's just a little more depressing in the winter you wake up and it's dark outside and for me all of that seasonal depression disappears when i've got a nice proofed loaf ready to go in the oven for baking it's an exciting endeavor it's challenging and most importantly it gives you something to look forward to and then in the end you have a beautiful loaf of homemade sourdough bread and even if it doesn't come out right if you're just getting started on your sourdough journey and you're messing up you can still toast it up and make a sandwich or turn into croutons endless options but i can't tell you how much sourdough bread i eat in the winter it is insanity when food's really good there's not too much to say i don't know what to say that's just really good there's one thing i'll leave you with as i look at this delicious food one of the biggest transformations that happen with my cooking is just opening up more to comfort food comfort food can get a pretty bad rat for being unhealthy but we need food that's going to comfort us in the winter because it's long and it's cold and food can bring us that joy and if you're making the food from scratch you're putting in quality ingredients and you're making with love well you can eat food like this all winter long so it's time for me to dig in and i'll see you in the next video thanks again to thrive market for sponsoring this video make sure you check out the description below for your special offeri live in new york which means it gets very cold in the winter time and i'm not gonna lie that used to bum me out a good bit especially being an avid home cook because winter in the colder months just represented a time of less options less fresh produce less things i could create in the kitchen and then over time i don't know when this happened but at some point i started to just accept winter and my cooking began to evolve and shift for the better and that's what this video is about 10 ways that my cooking has grown and shifted and evolved by just accepting everything that comes along with the colder months all right i've got a meat delivery to start off the day these are some lamb shanks and this is a tougher cut of meat the shank is one of the toughest cuts on any animal and in the winter i like focusing on tougher cuts of meat things that are going to take time to cook and break down because i have time in the winter i'm hanging out i can watch over a pot that's stewing over time whereas in the summer that's when i'll focus on the steaks and the hamburgers things that can grill up really fast so i can get back to whatever party or activity i'm doing now when it comes to tougher cuts of meat there are a lot of different options to choose from if you're confused just look for stew meat or ask your butcher for stew meat and it can be a big chunk of meat like this or you can chop it down into little pieces if you want the process to go a little quicker so what i like doing on these lamb shanks or any tough cut of meat is getting a nice dry brine going so i'll season them heavily and throw those in the fridge for at least a few hours you can keep them in the fridge overnight and what that's going to do is get a nice seasoning all the way through the meat and also start the tenderizing process so the final product is nice and buttery and super tender i would say the biggest shift in my diet in the winter months over the years has been my increased consumption of fermented foods you know i love fermenting foods but i also just feel better when i eat them all winter long which totally makes sense because as human beings refrigeration is brand new technology in the grand scheme of things so humans had to ferment foods they had to preserve foods to survive which means of course we evolved to eat a lot of fermented foods and if you're new to fermenting your own foods at home but you want to get in the game i would definitely start out with a simple lacto-fermentation process like a sauerkraut and luckily for you i made one a few weeks ago and of course the base to a sauerkraut is cabbage but you can customize it with carrots i'm also adding some caraway seeds which is a classic sauerkraut spice and when it comes to lacto-fermentation there's two main key elements you need to focus on you need to get right one is the salt ratio which is about two to three percent of the total weight of your actual vegetables so i'm gonna figure out the final weight of my vegetables multiply that by two and a half percent and that's the amount of salt i'll add to my cabbage and now the second key element to lacto-fermentation is creating an anaerobic environment which means an environment without oxygen and to do that you're submerging the vegetables in the juices the natural water content that's actually coming off those vegetables and then you're using some type of weight system to make sure that those vegetables stay under the water line and in that anaerobic environment where the oxygen can't get in and then find a cool dark environment in your house and let that sit for a few weeks for me the optimum sauerkraut tanginess is around three to four weeks of fermentation so this right here has been fermenting for about three and a half weeks you can see the color has shifted a good bit you never quite know with fermenting how the bacteria how the yeast are going to react and alter the flavor crunchy that is delicious there's a reason caraway seeds are so popular in sauerkraut one sauerkraut project like this in the beginning of winter you make a big vat trust me you will be throwing this on everything and i'll show you later on in this video what i'm gonna be doing with this fermented cabbage so the next one's pretty obvious but to really thrive in the winter you gotta have a well-stocked pantry but the big shift for me was buying pantry items that were actually quality things that i could rely on and one of the best ways to do that brings me to the sponsor of this video which is thrive market an online membership based market on a mission to make healthy living easy and affordable for everyone and it's my favorite way to stock up on pantry items for the winter because i know i can trust all of the products they're all well sourced and the online shopping experience is optimized it's actually enjoyable you can shop by diet if you have specific food restrictions or you can just easily browse through their entire collection and everything is delivered to you with carbon neutral shipping from their zero waste warehouse and if i were to give you my top 10 pantry must-haves the things i use the most in the winter it would definitely be canned tomatoes dried fruit of any kind apple cider vinegar any type of dried beans or legumes maple syrup canned pumpkin coconut milk or cream some ground mustard a lot of decaf tea and an assortment of dried pasta so if you're interested in joining thrive market they offer two different membership models they've got the monthly plan and the yearly plan i'm on the yearly plan which comes out to five dollars a month but if you're not sure if thrive is the right fit you can just try it out for a shorter period of time and if you click the link below in the description and join thrive today you can get 25 off your first order and a free gift which is awesome so now that our pantry is stocked with all of these winter items it's time to cook up some delicious food and put them to good use nothing screams more winter than a good stew you get out the crock pot and you cook something low and slow which is what i'm going to be doing with these lamb shanks so i'm going to put a little bit of some neutral oil something that can handle a pretty high heat that has a high smoke point because we're braising these lamp shanks we're getting a crust on these lamp shanks first and then we will add all of our other ingredients but we want that first layer of flavor and what i'm doing here is just making sure that they're nice and dry you don't want wet lamb shanks going into hot oil that's a recipe for disaster so that's your last key step with these lamb shanks and these have been dry brining for around five hours so that liquid has first been removed from the salt then the salt gets absorbed in the liquid and actually starts penetrating in to the meat and i'm just gonna start searing these and a stew was something that i really wasn't making when i started cooking it felt boring i wanted to make fun things like pizza and hamburgers and exciting looking food but really this is survival food this is how you get through the winter and you feed your family you feed a few people or just yourself making a nice big stew awesome for meal prep because you can make a nice big batch of it and then freeze the rest so what i'm looking to do right now is really just brown these on every side maximum amount of flavor so that will take around five to seven minutes to really get these nice and crispy all right so you can see pretty clearly level one of flavors like drip grease all over my counter we're done there that is the first step of braising now the next phase of any stew is always aromatics your heartier veggies that you're going to cook down and caramelize that are going to lay the foundation of flavor in your soup on top of all this goodness that's in this pan already i chose one of my favorite combinations of aromatics fennel carrot and celery if your pot is looking a little dry just add a little oil you definitely want a good bit of oil or fat to get a nice caramelization on these aromatics and we'll just cook these down it's going to take around 10 to 20 minutes and for this step it's really important to be patient if you're looking for maximum flavor in your stew so after the aromatics were cooking for about 10 minutes i went in with my next level of flavor i took out a pestle and mortar and added some of my favorite spices a little bit of coriander seeds a few cardamom pods some dried chili and then two cloves of garlic and a knob of ginger and i gave that a few bashes just to make it into a rough paste and added that into the aromatic so that could toast as well in that oil and i cooked it for around another 10 minutes until everything was looking nice and caramelized and soft aromatics looking incredible smelling incredible nice and caramelized i'm going gonna go back in with the lamb shank this is the second part of braising we're gonna slow cook it in liquid and this brings me to my next tip for winter you can't just stock your pantry and stop there these pantry goods will be your lifeline in the winter you got to get creative with them so for me i'm going to use some diced tomatoes whereas i would definitely add fresh tomatoes to this stew i'm going to take advantage of the canned stuff there's no point of getting tomatoes out of season that's the worst mistake you can make winter tomatoes are just terrible tomatoes i'm also going to use some coconut milk here if you saw the curry episode that i did this is taking inspiration from the beef rendang coconut milk stewed down over a long period of time just caramelizes so nicely and makes such a creamy beautiful stew now to really bulk this up what i did last night was i took some of those black beans and some chickpeas but use whatever dried beans you have or legumes you have and i soak them in water and you can see now we've got chickpeas and black beans that are nicely hydrated ready to go in this stew and really bulk it up add some nice nutrition add some nice flavor and then the last step would be adding just a little bit of water to this so i'm just going to cover that meat and let everything cook down for a few hours there is one more thing i'll be adding but i'm not ready for it just yet so the stew has been on for about two and a half hours it's definitely falling apart you can see that right there but i think i want it a little more tender a little more melty so i would say about 30 more minutes but there's one more thing i want to add which brings me into the next thing i've learned which is really leaning in to root veggies we're talking the potatoes the sweet potatoes onions things that last a while that you can just throw in your pantry as long as it's a dark place and it's pretty cool those things will store for the entire winter basically so i always have potatoes sweet potatoes hanging around and i chopped up a potato and i'm going to add it right in to this stew which is one final layer of veggie action it will add texture it will bulk it up a bit and also the starch and the potato will thicken this stew just the right amount so i'll just get that mixed up in there pop the lid back on cook it for 30 minutes just until those potatoes are perfectly tender one thing that instantly shifts for me when it starts getting cold literally that first day it starts getting cold i just want to bake things i go from not baking anything in the warmer months to just this intense desire to bake muffins or cookies and i'm not a great baker per se but i like it and it's great to have baked goods around and my recent obsession has been making pies baking pies this is a pie crust that i made last night and i'll have a full video on pies coming soon but what i'm gonna do is make a fruit pie with some in season fruit and it's gonna have a bottom crust which i'm rolling out right now and i think what i've been loving about pie making is that it's challenging and it's also fun and it's nice to have something that really keeps you engaged in the winter and i've just been absolutely loving trying to get better at pie making so i'm just going to keep rolling this out in somewhat of a circular shape until it fits my pie tin which it certainly does there and i will add this pie crust right to the tin i've got a good bit of extra crust here so i'm going to go around and leave around a half inch of layover and i'll use that to build up the crust just a little bit so i can fit in more filling and there you go bottom crust done so i'm going to pop this in the fridge to chill out for a few hours let's talk filling for that pie so of course you can do whatever you want you can use some canned goods like the pumpkin i showed you before for me i love fruit i love fruit pies which is also the reason why i was a little bummed out before when winter came around because there was less fruit in season right well that's not totally the case when you have a seasonal mindset and you really hunt for the stuff that's in season you can find grapefruit you've got pears and apples that are fresh all season long at least here on the east coast you also have citrus citrus is peaking in ripeness and juiciness and sweetness in the winter and i'm going to be incorporating both of those into this apple pie so i've got a bunch of apples here and what i'm going to do is peel them and then just throw them into a big vat of water with some lemon juice to preserve them a bit so they don't brown and then once they're all peeled i'll cut them in half take out the core and start slicing them up if you have a mandolin of course this will go much faster and then i'll put them directly into the pot or pan that i'm actually cooking them in so to bring this filling together i'm going to add some coconut sugar here you can also use brown sugar or regular sugar and then i'm going to take advantage of that winter citrus so i'm going to zest in some lemon to this apple pie to give it a little zing and then i'll also add the juice of half a lemon with a little bit of salt some cinnamon and then you can add some type of starch as well tapioca starch or corn starch will work great to thicken up the juices a little bit and on a low heat i'll start cooking that down until those juices start releasing to the bottom of the pan and everything is nice and incorporated now if a lot of juice is released from your apples what i like to do is strain off those apples and just cook that juice down a little bit until it forms almost a caramel so my pie isn't too wet and then i'll add that caramel back to the apples incorporate everything evenly and throw that in the fridge until it is nice and cool in the meantime i can get out that top layer of pie dough start rolling that out to make my lattice which is just a little extra design element that i like doing especially in the winter when i need things to occupy my mind and make me happy now once the strips are formed it's time to lattice up this pie which is a really simple just over under weaving technique it's not rocket science and then i'll trim the excess and i'll start crimping in those edges to make sure i have a nice seal around the outside of my pie and then i'll toss that back into the fridge to set for about an hour and then it's time to bake so the last step is adding a little bit of egg wash to the top of the pie so it's nice and shiny and glisteny and golden brown and then i'll sprinkle on some cinnamon sugar just to give it a little extra flavor and caramelization to the top and then it's into the oven at a higher temperature 425 degrees for about 30 minutes to really puff up that crust then i'll lower the temperature down to 350 degrees until that caramel apple juicy juice is just bubbling on out of that one obvious game changer for me that started about five years ago that i get so excited for every winter is just sourdough everything and what i mean by that is getting a nice active starter feeding this every day so you can use this as the main yeast source for all of your bread products and i know a lot of you can relate to this on so many different levels number one in the winter i am just craving carbs all the time so you might as well make those carbs the best and most nutritious version of carbs that you can put in your body using your sourdough starter and also it's just a little more depressing in the winter you wake up and it's dark outside and for me all of that seasonal depression disappears when i've got a nice proofed loaf ready to go in the oven for baking it's an exciting endeavor it's challenging and most importantly it gives you something to look forward to and then in the end you have a beautiful loaf of homemade sourdough bread and even if it doesn't come out right if you're just getting started on your sourdough journey and you're messing up you can still toast it up and make a sandwich or turn into croutons endless options but i can't tell you how much sourdough bread i eat in the winter it is insanity when food's really good there's not too much to say i don't know what to say that's just really good there's one thing i'll leave you with as i look at this delicious food one of the biggest transformations that happen with my cooking is just opening up more to comfort food comfort food can get a pretty bad rat for being unhealthy but we need food that's going to comfort us in the winter because it's long and it's cold and food can bring us that joy and if you're making the food from scratch you're putting in quality ingredients and you're making with love well you can eat food like this all winter long so it's time for me to dig in and i'll see you in the next video thanks again to thrive market for sponsoring this video make sure you check out the description below for your special offer\n"