Today’s recipe comes from walnuts.org. As soon as I ran across this recipe, I was ready to try it.

Apple Walnut Crostata

— 3/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

— 1/2 cup walnuts chopped

— 1/8 teaspoon salt

— Dash of nutmeg

— 3 tablespoons canola oil

— 2 tablespoons milk

Filling

— 2 Granny Smith apples, cored, thinly sliced

—1/4 cup packed brown sugar

— 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

— 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

— 1/3 cup walnuts, chopped

— 1/3 cup golden raisins

— 1 tablespoon of granulated sugar for sprinkling on top

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Coat two 12 inch x 14 inch pieces of parchment paper with nonstick cooking spray.

Combine flour, walnuts, salt and nutmeg in food processor. Whirl until walnuts are finely ground. Drizzle oil and milk over flour mixture. Pulse until dough is evenly moistened. Gather dough into a ball.

Place dough between the two pieces of sprayed parchment paper and place on a slightly damp work surface. Roll dough to a 12 inch circle. Remove top sheet of parchment; lift dough with bottom sheet and place on baking sheet. (Note: You will bake the crostata on the parchment paper.)

Mix apple filling ingredients in a medium bowl. Mound apples in center of dough, leaving a 2 inch border. With a small paring knife, cut 2 inch slits in the dough every 1-2 inches. Carefully lift each flap of dough, folding and pressing around the apple filling. The flaps will overlap slightly, and the center will not be covered.

Sprinkle granulated sugar over crostata. Bake 30-35 minutes until crust is golden brown and filling is slightly bubbly.

Serve warm or at room temperature. Serves 6.

Every time I see a crostata recipe I think “Boy, I want to make one of those sometime.” I figured this was the perfect one to start with.

What’s a crostata? It’s just a rustic Italian baked tart or pie, and you don’t need a pie plate to make one.

When I got home that evening and supper was cooking, I started putting this recipe together thinking it would be good for dessert.

At first I thought I might just prepare this recipe using my trusted pie crust recipe, but decided if I really wanted to test the recipe and decide if it was good, I needed to prepare it just as it was written.

Since I don’t have a food processor, I used my Ninja blender to blend the crust. Of course I didn’t have walnuts and just used pecans instead. I would say you could use just about any kind of nut you have on hand in this recipe.

This crust was unlike any I’ve ever made. It wasn’t what I was expecting — it seemed a little dry, but when I dumped it out onto the parchment paper, it all came together in a nice little ball.

I placed the second piece of sprayed parchment paper on top and started rolling the crust out. It took a little effort to get the crust rolled out because, with it between parchment paper, I had a hard time figuring out if I was rolling it to an even thickness all over.

I used my kitchen ruler to make sure I had a 12-inch circle before lifting the parchment paper off the top. When I removed the paper, I could tell the crust wasn’t rolled evenly, so I put the paper back on and tried to remedy that with the rolling pin.

When I was satisfied I’d done the best I could do, I removed the parchment paper from the top and placed the crust (on the bottom parchment paper) on a large cookie sheet.

I had one Granny Smith apple and some other kind of apple. I peeled, cored and sliced both and put them in a bowl. I sprinkled the remaining filling ingredients over them and stirred until all the apple slices were coated.

I dumped the filling out onto the crust and grabbed a knife to cut the slits in the crust. After going all the way around the crust, I started trying to fold the flaps up on to the filling. This was a little more difficult than I thought it would be, mainly because the crust was thin.

I ended up using a small spatula to get up under each flap of crust and folding it up on the mound of apples. When I’d folded up all of the crust around the crostata, I was satisfied that it pretty much looked like the picture that came with the recipe. Then I sprinkled it with some granulated sugar — I didn’t measure.

I put the crostata in the oven, we ate supper and when the timer sounded after 30 minutes, I checked on the crostata. It appeared almost brown enough, but the filling wasn’t bubbly so I left it in the oven for 5 more minutes. I let it cool while I cleaned up the kitchen and then I was ready for dessert.

Brad agreed to try this recipe and we both thought it was okay. He liked it because it wasn’t very sweet. I liked it because it was dessert.

Brad ended up taking most of the leftovers to work for some of our friends to try. One friend in particular, Patrick, had seen Brad earlier in the week and asked when I was going to make something for him to try.

All but one person liked the crostata, Lauren B. wasn’t crazy about it. She said she just didn’t like apples. Donna thought it was just right — the right amount of cinnamon and sugar. Patrick? Well, he likes anything.

I nailed this recipe but I haven’t decided if I’ll keep it.

There are just so many more apple recipes out there to try and since this one wasn’t over the top great, it’s a toss-up.