Announcing: The MLK Easy Holiday Meal!

We’ve entered the holiday season and those of us at Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen would like to make your holiday a little easier and a little more delicious! How? Well, we’ve come up with an easy holiday menu for you and will post a dish each day over the next week so that you don’t have to come up with your own. Here’s what we’ve cooked up for you:

Sweet Potato and Pear Soup

Turkey Cutlets

Seitan Pot Pie

Corn Casserole

Holiday Salad with Cranberry Vinaigrette and Poinsettias (drinks)

Cornbread

Apple Chutney

And true to the style of my Pies & Prejudice heroine, Ella Mae, we’ll assume that life is short and we should therefore start with dessert, so here's the Charmed Ginger Maple Apple Crumble Pie!

INGREDIENTS

• 1 Charmed Pie Dough (or, if you don’t want to make your dough from scratch, use a Pillsbury crust with the Charmed Egg Wash)

• 6 cups of peeled and chopped apples (pick your favorites or substitute Bartlett pears for the apples)

• 1 ½ tablespoons of cornstarch

• 1/2 teaspoon of salt

• 1/4 cup of packed brown sugar

• 1/4 cup of pure Grade A maple syrup

• 1 tablespoon of lemon juice

• 1 teaspoon of lemon zest

• 1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger

Crumble Topping Ingredients

• 2/3 cup flour

• 1/2 cups old-fashioned oats

• 1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar

• 1/3 cup cold butter, cut into small pieces

METHOD

1 Roll out pie dough and place in a 9 1/2-inch deep-dish pie dish Put in the freezer to set.

2 Preheat the oven to 400 F. Place the chopped apples in a large bowl with the cornstarch, ginger, brown sugar, maple syrup, lemon juice, and lemon zest. Toss well using your fingers.

3 Place the apple mixture into the pie dish. Place the pie into the center oven rack and bake for 45 minutes.

4 While baking take all the Oatmeal Crumb Topping ingredients and place them in a bowl. Using the pulse button on your food processor mix the ingredients until large crumbs form. Refrigerate until use.

5 After the 45 minutes are up remove pie and reduce heat to 375F.

Sprinkle the crumb topping evenly over the pie and bake for another 15 minutes. Cool on a wire rack for at least one hour. (I couldn't wait and my piece fell apart as you can see from the photo). Serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

What's your favorite holiday dessert? Post a comment and you could win this month's hot chocolate themed prize! (see photo of tea towel and hot cocoa sampler)