By Francesca Filanc, for Let’s Talk Plants! August 2024.
Apple Pies, Gardenias and Passion Flowers
Apple Pies
Summer months in the garden can be abundant with fragrances and tart and juicy fruits and vegetables. In my garden, I have two espalier Beverly Hills apple trees, Malus domestica 'Beverly Hills'. They produce many tart apples during the season. Grandchildren love to eat them right off the trees.
Years ago, when Peter was alive, my beloved husband, he would comment, “Fran your apple pie is amazing! Best pie I’ve ever had. You should enter it in the Del Mar Fair!”
I never did that, but I had an extremely vivid dream about going on the Oprah show with my pies! And guess who was in the audience in the dream… Peter! Oprah asked him what he thought of my pies and then she took a bite and agreed with him that they were delicious.
All fun aside, I have the recipe here for my apple pies and nowadays I make them gluten-free. It’s really fun to assemble them and then wrap them in tinfoil and put them in the freezer. Then if you have drop-in company or are invited to a party or your family is coming from Spain or Northern California for a visit all you have to do is pop it in the oven and cook it for 40 to 45 minutes. Voila! Your dessert is ready for company.
APPLE PIE RECIPE
Ingredients:
4 to 6 tart apples
½ cup to ¾ cup extra dark brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar
1 or 2 tablespoons or more cinnamon (be very generous with the cinnamon)
1 tablespoon Pamela’s Gluten Free Flour
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Directions:
Wash apples and cut them in small chunks (I don’t even peel them anymore and they’re absolutely delicious.)
Squeeze half a lemon on top of apples to keep them from going brown. I don’t always do this step. It is good to use the lemon though if your apples aren’t so tart.
Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl.
Preheat oven to 400˚ degrees F.
Remove two gluten-free piecrusts from the freezer. I keep them on hand, so I always have plenty during this season.
Prick generously with a fork.
Place all your pie ingredients into a pie crust. Take one tablespoon butter and cut it up and put it on top of the pie mixture.
Carefully remove the second piecrust from the pie pan and place it on top. I find it helpful to take the piecrust out of the freezer when I preheat the oven before making the pie. That way, the pie crust that you want to be the lid will come out easier. Take a knife and gently put it between the pie pan and the piecrust and use it to get the crust out and on top of the pie. Make pretty air vents in the piecrust.
Sprinkle generously with white sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and a little clove seasoning.
Bake at 400˚ for 15 minutes then turn down heat to 375˚ for 25 to 30 minutes. (My oven runs colder so I keep it at 400˚ for 40 or 45 minutes. If your oven is calibrated correctly, turn your oven down to 375˚ after 15 minutes. You can experiment with it the first time, checking to make sure the top isn’t getting too brown. If it is browning too quickly maybe lower it to 350˚ degrees. Remember, it might take a hotter oven to get the top brown because you’re starting with frozen crust.)
If you’re not cooking the pies right away wrap them in aluminum foil and pop them in the freezer.
Read more from Francesca Filanc on Apple Pies here: GARDEN SURROUNDINGS: Mom and Apple Pie! (sdhortnews.org)
Gardenias
My father’s favorite flower was the gardenia. One time we were all in San Francisco on a vacation. There is a flower stand in downtown San Francisco, it is still there right across from the Saint Francis Hotel where we were staying. We were all dressed up as one did in those days. My sister and I were in matching beautiful dresses with hats and gloves, and my beautiful mother with her hat, gloves, suit and high heels all in blue. My father in his suit looking so handsome. Daddy ran over and bought us each a gardenia. I will never forget that experience. The strong fragrance of the gardenia flowers was almost overpowering. But I loved it because my daddy had given me this beautiful flower. I beamed being one of daddy’s little girls.
As a young married woman, twenty-two years old, I worked for Roos-Atkins department store in Walnut Creek. I was being trained to do the windows in the downtown San Francisco store. The store was right next to the flower stand where my daddy bought me a gardenia when I was a little girl. I walked over to the flower stand one day and saw that they still had gardenias for sale on a pin, and I bought myself one before I left work. Everywhere I’ve lived. I’ve always had gardenias in the garden. Several years ago, I heard about a new variety called “First Love®”, WOW, it is the largest gardenia in the world. The bush is now over twelve feet high and produces dozens of gardenias every summer.
Read more about gardenias from Francesca Filanc here: GARDEN SURROUNDINGS: Gardenias; My "First Love" (sdhortnews.org)
Learn more here about First Love® Gardenia, Gardenia jasminoides 'Aimee', Monrovia Plant
Passion Flowers
[Editor’s note: Which is it? Passion Flower or Passionflower? Is it Passion Fruit or Passionfruit? From Wikipedia – “The term ‘passion fruit’ in English comes from the passion flower, as an English translation of the Latin genus name, Passiflora, and may be spelled ‘passion fruit’, ‘passionfruit’, or ‘passion-fruit’.” For consistency, we here at Let’s Talk Plants! will refer to both the fruit and the flower of the Passiflora plants as two words, passion flower, no hyphen, no matter what auto-correct says.]
Several years ago, I had a passion flower in my garden that reminded me of the one we had when I was growing up.
Mourning cloak butterflies (Nymphalis antiopa) would always come to the passion flower vine when I was a child. I have since learned that it is not the host plant for the mourning cloak, but my sister and I used to love to play with the little, fuzzy black caterpillars that were crawling on the vine and that those fuzzy black caterpillars that were so much fun to play with became Giant Leopard Moths.
It smelled so amazing, and I loved the intricate beauty of the flower and I used to study it seemingly for hours as a little girl. In an “Alice in Wonderland” state of mind. Passion flower, Passiflora incarnata or P. lutea, is the host plant for gulf fritillary butterfly.
Read more from Francesca Filanc about passion flowers here: GARDEN SURROUNDINGS: Butterflies & Host Plants In The Garden (sdhortnews.org)
My garden is filled with butterflies, sweet smells and delicious fruit to eat either off the vine or in pies. Peter and I would’ve been married fifty years on August 4th. Thinking of my beloved husband in the garden and preparing pies for family and friends.
Happy Gardening!
~Francesca
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