DEAR DIARY

My baby sister, Chelsea was always obsessed with notebooks and diaries when she was little. She must have had 100 of those things laying around at anytime and it probably explains why she is such a great writer today (big sister didn't get that skill). I never had a diary, probably because I knew my brother, Stevie would somehow crack the code and reveal all my deepest, darkest secrets to all the neighborhood kids :).

Anyhow, diaries can be a very useful tool (aside from blackmail), especially if you have a chronic health condition like epilepsy. For someone with epilepsy, recording the frequency and type of your seizures, what was going on at the time of the seizure, and what effects you might be experiencing with your treatment is critical information to share with a healthcare provide.  Parents and caregivers can also keep epilepsy diaries to document these items as well as describe what the seizures looked like. This info helps the physician determine what might be triggering the seizures and if a treatment change is necessary. In this day of technology, there are several different electronic seizure diaries so you can enter in information whenever you like with a locked passcode (in case you have a pesky brother like mine ;)) and you can save a tree at the same time. It can also send reminders to take medication. Here's a link to one below: http://www.epilepsy.com/seizurediary



Tonight's recipe comes from James, just in time for Thanksgiving!. These apple and blackberry pies look amazing. Thanks again for sending this in for the blog, James!!

Apple and Blackberry Pies

Makes 4 individual sized pies:

Pastry:

1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour

¾ cup whole wheat flour

2 sticks (16 TBSP) unsalted butter, kept very cold

2 tsp salt

Ice water

3 TBSP sugar plus a little extra to glaze

1 egg beaten with 1 TBSP water added

Filling:

5 apples (Rome Beauty, Granny Smith or HoneyCrisp work best)

12 blackberries

1 TBSP strawberry jam

1 tsp Cinnamon

2 tsp Vanilla

1 ½ tsp cornstarch

1 TBSP flour (all purpose or whole wheat)

2 tsp lemon juice

Pinch of salt

Mix flours, salt, sugar using dough attachment of a food processor

Cut butter into small cubes keeping it cold, about 32 cubes per stick (cut each stick into 8 slices and then each slice into 4 cubes) and add to flour

Pulse processor about 15 times until  flour and butter has texture of course meal

Add ice water 1 tsp at a time and pulse again, continue with 2-3 tsp until mixture has a wet sand texture, about another 10 short pulses

Remove mixture and press into a ball with your hands then flatten into two equal discs

Cover and set aside

Preheat oven to 400F

Peel and slice apples thinly

Add apples, blackberries, jam, cinnamon, vanilla, cornstarch and salt to a medium pot over medium heat

Cook until the apples soften a little, about 10-15 min

Add lemon juice gradually, adjusting taste with more lemon juice or sugar depending on tartness of apples

Add pinches of flour to bring liquid to desired thickness (it should fall off a spoon slowly)

Let the mixture cool completely to room temp

Roll out pastry discs on a well-floured surface with a flour rolling pin

Cut 4 circles for the pie base making them large enough to allow some overhang and line greased small pie tins with the pastry

Add filling

Cut 4 slightly smaller circles for the pie top and cover each pie

Trim excess pastry and cut a few venting holes in the top

Brush each pie with the eggwash and sprinkle extra sugar on top

Bake at 400 F for about 35 min