Festive, Yet Frugal Fruit Salad - Waldorf Salad with Hidden Rose Apples

Greetings all!  Sorry I have been MIA for a while.  I did some traveling during the Thanksgiving holiday and thus was not really able to post anything.   Not that there was really anything to post as far as recipes go.  Most of the cooking going on during the last week and a half has been traditional Thanksgiving dishes and some signatures that I have already posted about such as Cherry Pie, Pasta Carbonara, Smoked Salmon and Crème Fraîche pizza (thank you Wolfgang Puck!) and, of course, turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole and mashed potatoes; all of which can be found on multiple sites and I don't really have anything "special" to add to the plethora of information already out there.

My Mac is acting a little odd as well, the board shifted or something and it pinched a wire which caused it to intermittently go into sleep mode. But I have torn it apart and it seems to be working now.  Probably has to do with my computer's run-in with the TSA at the airport.  I mean REALLY?  Do they have to practically disassemble my Mac to make sure it's not a bomb, while the crazy guy still manages to make it to the plane with a gun in his shorts?  a hem!

OK, enough about inappropriate touching and massive doses of Xrays that I am sure will have a negative effect on my ability to pro-create.   I really had a wonderful time in southern California visiting with friends and hanging out with my godson and his family.  After all, I have not seen the little sprout since September of '09, and sprout he did...  He's so tall!  LOL

Anyway, I figured that I would go ahead and share something that I did right before I took off for the airport... OK, not RIGHT before, I mean I did have time to eat it and all... ;)

Last year I made a Waldorf Salad for Thanksgiving, and had lamented that I did not have some of those wonderful Hidden Rose apples to make it with... Luckily, this year I was able to procure more than 2 from the Harvest Festival, so I had plenty to experiment with... For those who are new followers of this blog, I will recap the Hidden rose apple very quickly.

The Hidden Rose apple was developed by Dragonberry Farms in Clackamas, Oregon.  It's still a little difficult to find even here.  In fact, the only place I have been able to purchase these apples is at the Hood River Harvest Festival.  From the outside it is fairly unassuming......

But once it is cut open, it's like magic.

Blushing red and actually smelling of roses, this is a drier apple than say a Newtown Pippin.  The skin is not nearly as tough as a Granny Smith or a Red Delicious.  The flavor is tart and somewhat "tingly" on the tongue with a delicate flavor of rose water that lingers for a short time...  Utterly delicious to eat out of hand, but I have found that it holds it's shape well in cooking as well.  Unlike the MacIntosh or the Canadian Yellow Transparent, which promptly turn to mush once heat is applied.

So I made my Waldorf Salad with this delicious apple...

2 lbs of Hidden Rose apples. (anything tart)
5 oz of Celery (diced)
3 oz Homemade Mayonnaise (Seriously, Not Miracle Whip or Hellmens/Bestfoods, it needs to be homemade)
Juice of 1/2 Lemon (Meyer Lemon is nice too)
2 oz Toasted Walnuts (Roughly Chopped)

Slice and dice apples - Core the apple, slice into quarters then slice each quarter into 3, yielding 12 sections then slice these into about 1/2 inch chunks just like you would for apple pie. This will yield about 1 1/4 - 1 1/2 lbs of apples. (I used Organic Braeburns, so I did not peel the apples. If I was using a Granny Smith, with a tougher peel, I would have removed the skin)

Place chopped apples in a large bowl and toss with lemon juice to keep from browning before adding the diced celery.

It really looked like a bowl full of watermelon.

The amazing thing about this apple is that instead of browning as it oxidizes, it simply turns a deeper shade of red.  So with this particular apple, you can leave out the lemon juice if you like.  Amazing...

Add mayonnaise, toss until coated well.
Refrigerate for about 1/2 hour, covered.
Serve on Romaine leaves and sprinkle with chopped walnuts, or (if simply serving to a large group of hungry children) toss walnuts with the salad right before serving (they get soggy if you do it early)

It created a very "christmassy" looking salad, all festively green and red.  The flavor was positively phenomenal, but while eating it, I found the intense redness of the apple a little disturbing... This is simply an aesthetic issue, and once I make this a few more times, I will get over my programming from previous Waldorf Salads...  LOL

It really was delicious and WELL worth the whole year that I had to wait in order to execute this idea.

Mangia!!
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An Apple a Day

YAY!!! I am back in the Columbia River Gorge! Why am I so excited? Because it's the Harvest Festival in Hood River (about 40 miles up the gorge from Corbett - 62 from Portland) .

Not only did I get to see some of the most picturesque scenery on the planet... (As seen from Interstate 84)

The orchards of Hood River grow some of the most awesome apples, I swear. (This is the Hood River Bridge, that crosses the Columbia River into White Salmon, Washington)

Not only am I now in possession of Newtown Pippins; one of the BEST apples, at least in my opinion, for just about everything from cooking and pies to eating out of hand with thin slices of white cheddar, but I also obtained a beautiful apple that is currently only grown in Oregon (Clackamas, to be exact) named the Hidden Rose.

The Newtown Pippin (AKA: Pippin or Albemarle Pippin in Virginia) is an "antique apple" first appearing on the estate of Gershom Moore along the Newtown Creek, in what is now Queens NY.

It's green-skinned and yellow-fleshed. But what really sets the Newtwon Pippin apart from the Granny Smith and the Northern Spy is that it is both sweet and tart; crisp yet tender at the same time. Exuding a delicious citrus-like aroma, almost a linden blossom fragrance, and a freshness that lingers on the pallet. Basically, what I am trying to say is that, aside from maybe the Gravenstein.... This apple has absolutely NO equal. (I will admit a little bit of zeal for the apple that I have been denied for so long)

As far as the Hidden Rose goes....

This is quite the exotic "Pomme". The blushing golden skin is just as attractive as the surprisingly blushing flesh, but the flavor is almost indescribable. It is a tart yet sweet... Sweeter than a Granny or a Newtown, almost like eating a crunchy Raspberry-Lemonade but with an exotic light rosey perfume on the finish. Which should not really surprise me, after all, the apple is in the same family as the Rose (Rosaceae). But honestly, this apple is like a fine wine... Amazing!!!

Mangia!!
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