American Pie

It's been another nice weekend here.  After a week of nothing but exhausting, seemingly endless, torrential rain (seriously - 5 full days of non-stop rain; Texas, I wish I could have bottled it all up and sent it to you), we finally got a break and saw some sunshine on Saturday.

After finishing our morning workouts, Mrs. FBI and I decided to head to Georgetown for a little shopping before heading down to the Newseum, which was allowing free admission all weekend in remembrance of 9/11. 

Neither of us had ever been to the Newseum so we were looking forward to it.  We only made it through 3 1/2 exhibits- none of which was the special 9/11 one- before it closed for the day.  We both really enjoyed the exhibits that we did see, though.  I'd actually planned to go back on Sunday with L, but he was uneasy about the idea of being in DC on 9/11 and after accidentally watching MSNBC's re-broadcast of the real-time footage from 9/11/2001, I decided to scrap those plans and just pay to check it out some other time in the future. 

L spent Saturday at our house watching football and smoking a brisket with The Marine.  I got home a little after 6:00 and got to work creating our dessert for the evening, a hatch chili apple cobbler.  I picked this as a nod to fall, a nod to our amazing country on this weekend of remembrance, and because I recently procured some hatch chilies and was dying to use them.  It was perfect timing that I happened to find the recipe for this dessert. 

Side note: I was shocked to find hatch chilies at my local Harris Teeter a couple of weeks ago.  I really figured that would just be something I'd enjoy on visits to Texas (and New Mexico, since that's where they're grown, but I almost never go there, so really I figured I'd only be eating these in Texas, courtesy of Central Market). 

My lovely hatches, after a few days of ripening:

I found a recipe via Homesick Texan for my aforementioned cobbler.  The end result:

I used 2 green chilies (one really big, the other pretty small) in order to control the spiciness.  The Marine doesn't adore spicy food (he's from Illinois; it can't be helped) and L is sometimes sensitive to spices, so it just seemed logical to start small and know to add more or not for future recipes.  What we ended up with is a yummy pie-type cobbler (it seems more like a pie to me than a cobbler since the crust is on the bottom) that has a subtle, slow, spicy burn at the end of each bite that hits you right at the back of your tongue.  Totally a perfect pairing with the sweetness of the fruit and crust!  Hooray for sweet and savory.  It's especially tasty when paired with salted caramel ice cream, which we happened to find at Safeway (note to Nolly and Neredith: this ice cream is not nearly as good as the salted caramel ice cream Nolly and I had for dessert at August, but did we really expect it to be?  It's totally different, but still good).  If you're looking for it, it's the house label.  So in Texas, I guess it might be Randall's or Tom Thumb brands but I can't remember if they change they labels there to match the store names.  ANYWAY, it was really good!  It takes a little time to roast the chilies and peel and dice everything, but once you do that, it's super quick to put together.  If you have access to hatches, I highly recommend giving this a shot.  It's perfect for a fall dessert.