Blue Ribbon Blueberry Crumb Pie

This pie was by far my favorite out of any at the pie-eating contest, and I’m definitely going to try to squeeze in another one before all the blueberries disappear from the supermarket shelves (or the prices rise dramatically as they are shipped in from lands far far away). People were clamoring to get a piece of this pie, be it because they were biased because the winner of the pie-eating contest had blueberry, or because of the rave reviews that traveled fast throughout the backyard.

Most blueberry pie recipes require you to cook the blueberries on the stove before you put it into the pie crust. Frankly, I thought this was crap, as I didn’t see why I needed to boil it down into gush, add more sugar than I ever do, and add more steps and more dishes to do when I was already making approximately two dozen pies. I searched and searched, and I finally found a recipe that didn’t pre-cook the blueberries. The magic ingredient was cornstarch, which would thicken the berries as they baked in the oven. I think our pie turned out way better than pre-cooked glop.

Though this pie hasn’t won any contests (yet!), we’re calling it blue ribbon since it was the blueberry pie that Joseph had when he won All Over Your Face 2009.

To make the exact pie that won the competition, just remove the crumb topping and instead of the lattice, make a double crust like in Mommy™’s Peach Pie.

Ingredients

1 pastry for double-crust pie (I used Charlie’s Consistent Win Pie Crust

1 tablespoon water
1/2 cup white sugar (taste your berries to see how sweet they are – you may need a little more or less)
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 teaspoon lemon zest (I was down to the wire with guests coming when I made this, so I used about 2 teaspoons of lemon juice – next time I’ll probably do 1 tsp juice, 1 tsp zest)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
I might have put a dash of nutmeg in, too? I can’t remember.
3 cups fresh blueberries

Crumb Topping:
2/3 cup crushed cinnamon graham crackers
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
3 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1/3 cup butter

Directions

In a medium sized bowl, stir the lemon juice and zest into the blueberries. Next, add the vanilla, cinnamon, sugar, and water. Sprinkle the cornstarch around the top, then mix it into the bowl.

Next, in a separate bowl, prepare the crumb topping. Mix graham cracker crumbs, brown sugar and flour. Cut in butter with a pastry blender or a fork until crumbly. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 375.

Roll out half the dough and place it into the pie pan. Give the blueberries another good stir, then dump the mixture into the pie crust, mounding them in the middle if possible.

Wash your hands, since we usually do this next part with our hands. Carefully pour the crumb topping into the center of the pie crust, leaving about an inch of blueberry showing around the edge in between the crust and the topping. Pack the crumb fairly tightly, again, creating a mound in the center of the pie.

Next, roll out the rest of your pie crust, making strips to form a lattice top crust. If you need detailed directions on how to make the lattice crust, they’re also in Charlie’s Consistent Win Pie Crust recipe.

Bake at 375 for about 45 minutes or until the crust is browning and the blueberry filling is bubbling. Depending on how much filling you have or how picky you are about having a clean oven, you may want to set your pie tin on some aluminum foil or on top of a baking sheet covered in parchment to catch any drips of sticky fruit.

Mock Moroccan Lentils & Rice

1:30pm:

I’ve just put my first ever meal into a slow cooker. I don’t have much experience with them in general, but I do remember, wayyyyy back into childhood, when I still ate meat, that a neighbor of ours made a fabulous turkey corn soup in a crockpot. Charlie and I have been thinking about getting one for several months because I often work 6 hour shifts, which is, I believe, the average amount of time a recipe needs in a crockpot, and a lot of times, I’m too tired to work and cook dinner by myself. If I could prepare the ingredients before I went to work or the night before, though, and toss them into the crockpot before I left, it would be fabulous.

Long story short, my mom bought me a slow cooker for my birthday. It’s an entry-level model – nothing too fancy. It’s dishwasher safe and oval-shaped. There was some debate about whether or not Charlie would be allowed to cook meats in it, but we found some slow cooker liners that he can use “for easy cleanup” so that the meat doesn’t actually get all up in there, though since it’s dishwasher safe and has removable stoneware, it probably won’t be a big deal. If you’re in the market for a slow-cooker, ours is made by Hamilton Beach and cost about $20.

I’m calling this “Mock Moroccan” because I honestly don’t have a lot of experience with Moroccan culture, so someone can easily call me out and tell me that it’s totally off. However, the spices that I used were common in a lot of Moroccan recipes that I found online, though, as usual, I didn’t find one that exactly suited my needs, so, this is what I came up with. And, since the lentil recipes didn’t include very many veggies, I snuck some more in there.

Stuff cooked in a slow cooker sits there for lots of hours, so make sure that anything that’s a little more tender to begin with gets cut into large pieces, otherwise it will just disintegrate.

About ten hours later, after we’ve eaten, cleaned up, gone to the store, and baked a batch of brownies…

The verdict is… yum! Charlie assured me that he thought it did taste Moroccan. He wished it had a bit more heat, but since I don’t do really spicy foods, I wouldn’t have been able to handle much more. If it were just him, he probably would have added more cayenne.

We did have a bit too much liquid, so after cooking for about 5 or 6 hours on low, we turned it up to high with the lid off to reduce it. You could probably just start with about 1/2 cup to 1 cup less liquid, though. Certainly not bad for a first attempt.

For a 4-Quart Slow Cooker

Ingredients

1 cup lentils (I used organic red)
1 huge heirloom tomato (you can use two medium ones of any variety), chopped into large pieces
1 medium onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
2 tablespoons fresh parsley (I was out, so I used about a tablespoon dried)
1 1/4 teaspoons cumin
1 1/4 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon fresh ginger, minced (you can use a little less, dried, if necessary)
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoons salt
5 tablespoons olive oil
about a half of a medium eggplant, chopped into large pieces
about half a yellow squash, chopped into large pieces
1/3 cup green beans (I used the super long Filipino variety), chopped into reasonable pieces
1 carrot, chopped
about two shakes of red cayenne pepper
about three shakes of cinnamon
about 4 cups of water, or enough to cover the veggies

Directions

Dump all ingredients into slow cooker. Stir it all up so that all the ingredients are evenly mixed. Cook on low heat for 6 hours or until lentils are tender. If too much liquid remains, remove cover and cook on high for 30-45 minutes until liquid has reduced.

Serve over rice (we did brown rice and cooked ours in our rice cooker separately, but you could probably add water and rice to the mixture and make it all together if you wanted).

Lime Bar Pie

It’s been two weeks since the pie-eating contest, so any remnants that you may have smuggled home are long gone, unless you were smart enough to pop a slice into your freezer for a delicious treat in the future. For most people, though, the pie coma has worn off, the nausea from inhaling the equivalent of several slices of pie at once has passed, and, well… you’re kinda craving some pie again.

Thankfully, friends, we’ve been renovating at my place of work, so my normal workload has been reduced significantly. Hell, I couldn’t even hear the phone ringing over the jackhammers at one point yesterday, so, while I had to be in the building, I certainly had a bit of time to get these pie recipes all sussed out, and they should appear in dribs and drabs in the next few days.

First, let’s get down to the Lime Bar Pie. Our recent guest baker, Jack, “does not eat of the cooked fruit,” so we had to come up with some kind of alternative for the competition. Charlie and I had agreed that all of the pies had to be double-crusted to ensure fairness, so something like a meringue was out. We copied my lemon bar recipe, except with lime, except into a pie crust, with a few alterations. In our haste of frantic pie-baking, we neglected to take some glamour shots of a few of the pies, but I thought these pictures of the aftermath of the contest would work just as well. Today’s photo is by one of our guests, Jordan Cooper.

I made one big lime pie just for eating, and it didn’t have a double crust. You can make yours double or single, or even just make the lime filling to top the crust from the London Ladies Lemon Bars recipe.

You may want to double this recipe. One of our guests, Lawrence, rang me a day or two after the contest. I’d sent home a piece of lime pie with him, and he left me a voicemail saying, “I was wondering if there was any of that lime pie left because I gave my piece to [his friend] Nick… and it was [pause] so good.”

Edit: I almost forgot that I meant to give special thanks to Bo Randall, who zested and juiced alllllll of the limes for this pie. When we were making our Epic Brunch the other day and he was grating sweet potatoes, he grumbled playfully, “I feel like I’m zesting limes all over again!” <3

Ingredients

1 pastry for single-crust pie (I used Charlie’s Consistent Win Pie Crust) or 1/4 the crust from London Ladies Lemon Bars
2 eggs
1 cup white sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour, maybe another tablespoon or two
3/4 cup limes juice, with pulp
Zest of 3 or so limes
confectioners sugar for dusting

Directions

Preheat oven to 375.

Roll out pie dough for bottom crust and place in pie pan. Trim edges.

In a medium bowl, whisk together eggs, white sugar, flour, limes, and zest. Taste mixture to ensure that it is not too tart. If needed, add more sugar.

Pour lime mixture into pie pan. Put aluminum foil around the edges of the pie crust so that it doesn’t burn. Remove the foil a few minutes before taking it out of the oven.

Bake for 20-30 minutes, or until the pie crust is golden brown and the lime filling has set.

Let cool, and dust with confectioner’s sugar immediately before serving.

Picnic Cucumber Salad

We served this at our pie-eating contest, but it’s good for picnics when you want something that won’t spoil easily.

This is a very easy and very refreshing way to use up some of the extra cucumbers that many of us still have popping up in our CSA deliveries. It’s another great side dish for those of us clinging to the last days of summer, or for those of you squeezing in a few more BBQs, or for you folks that live where it’s a little warmer for a bit longer.

Ingredients

1/2 medium red onion, sliced thin
2 medium tomatoes, chopped
1 large cucumber, peeled and chopped
1 teaspoon sugar
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Directions

In a medium sized bowl, wisk together the vinegar, sugar, and about a half teaspoon of salt and some pepper.

Add the cucumbers, onions, and tomatoes, stirring to coat them in the dressing. You can add more salt and pepper now if necessary.

Refrigerate for as long as you’ve got – a half hour sounds good, four hours is better, and overnight would be awesome. Either way, your leftovers are going to be mighty tasty the next day. Taste before you serve – minor adjustments might be necessary after you’ve allowed the flavors to meld in the fridge.

(Tired of Pie) Peach Blueberry Filo Turnovers

It was peaches again in the farm share this week, and although I love summer fruits, it’s been so hot and humid this week that I’ve been more interested in eating the cool cucumbers and lovely tomatoes they’ve sent along instead.

So now, I have some peaches, and no desperate pie making going on. I thought about making another sorbet, this time with peaches, but Charlie’s got a sort of allergy to hand fruits like apples and peaches especially. When he eats them raw, he gets itchy in his mouth, especially when the fruit is very ripe. If I made a peach sorbet, I’d probably end up eating it all myself, and since we’ve already got a hoenydew sorbet, that would be a bit much.

Charlie’s much better if the fruit has been cooked, so, out of kindness and love for him, I’ll take our remaining peaches and conjure up a recipe that cooks them.

Once upon a time, when I was making an awesome veggie filo recipe from the Moosewood Cookbook at my Brooklyn apartment that I had a few summers ago, and we had some extra filo. I quickly threw together everything that I could find in the house that would make a sweet turnover type of thing. I think it ended up being two plums, a peach, some blackberry applesauce, and some instant vanilla oatmeal. They turned out fabulously.

I was going to make a sort of repeat of this tonight, but sadly, the store seemed to not have a single ripe plum. I remembered that I had most of a carton of blueberries leftover from our brunch the other day, and decided to go with that instead. I had an extremely elegant plan laid out for the peaches and plums, too, but I suppose that will have to wait for another day.

Ingredients

1/2 package filo dough, thawed

Filling:

3-4 medium peaches, pitted, peeled, and chopped
about 1 1/2 cups of blueberries
1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon maple syrup, depending how sweet you like things (I used Trader Joe’s Grade B Organic)
1 teaspoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Butter mixture:

1 tablespoon maple syrup
2 tablespoons salted butter
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Egg wash:
1 egg, beaten
1 tablespoon water

Directions

Remember that if you’re working with genuine filo dough, you’ll need to work quickly and in a draft-free environment. If you’re afraid of that but want to try this recipe anyway, you can cheat and use puff pastry which is easier and less delicate.

Keep a damp towel nearby to cover your filo with that you’re not working with at the time. Be sure that all of your other materials are prepared in advance before you begin working with the filo. Also, some filo comes frozen, so make sure you read the box when you buy it. You’ll be mighty disappointed if the instructions say to thaw it for 2 hours on the counter or 8 hours in the refrigerator and you were planning to pop these in the oven in a few minutes.

Prepare the filling by stirring together the peaches, blueberries, 1 tablespoon maple syrup, brown sugar, and 1 teaspoon cinnamon.

In a separate bowl, prepare the egg wash by mixing the egg and water thoroughly.

In a separate bowl, melt the butter. Mix in the remaining tablespoon of maple syrup and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon.

Ready to start with the filo? Are you sure? You’ve got your butter mixture, your egg wash, and your fruit? Good.

Preheat oven to 350.

Take about 5 sheets of filo. Cover the remaining filo with a damp cloth. Fold the 5 sheets of filo so that it forms a square.

Brush a bit of the butter mixture to within about 3/4 inch of the edge. Place a few tablespoons of fruit onto the square. Be sure to fill enough so that the pastry isn’t droopy, but don’t overfill it, either.

Brush the egg wash onto the remaining bare edge. Fold the square over to make a triangle. Press the edges together. Brush the top of the pastry lightly with more egg wash.

Repeat until no filo remains. Place turnovers on parchment on a baking sheet.

Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes or until filo is flaky and golden brown.

Serve for breakfast, or for dessert with vanilla ice cream.

Honeydew Lime Sorbet (Minus the Ice Cream Maker)

Written a night or two ago.

Tonight we are desperately clinging to the last days of summer. Sure, it’s still hot out, but Charlie goes back to school in a matter of days, and up here in the downstate-of-upstate New York, some of the trees are already starting to look suspiciously like fall.

Don’t get me wrong. I love autumn. I love apple picking, and crisp air and sweatshirts, and pumpkin everything, but there’s still a sadness that lingers when the summer disappears.

That’s why we’ve got to capture it, and the way we can do that, on these last hot and humid days, is with sorbet.

Charlie and I don’t have an ice cream maker, so not only is the recipe new, but the technique is experimental. I don’t mean that we just don’t have one of those fancy electric churning things, I also mean that we don’t have a hand-cranking setup like the one they had at camp when I was a kid (mmmm, vanilla ice cream with wild blueberries for the win!).

I’ve heard on some parts of the internet that this technique yields “satisfactory” results, but others seem to think it’s A-OK. With the delicious flavor combination, I don’t think we’ll care if we end up getting honeydew lime ice cubes that we put in glasses of seltzer or have to smash up with a hammer in a ziploc bag in order to consume.

We picked up a honeydew melon on Sunday and expected to eat it with our Epic Brunch, but there was just too much other delicious going on for us to cut into it. This afternoon, I finally did, and I found a sweet, falling-apart-in-your-mouth-from-ripeness piece of fruit. It only took me a matter of seconds, and the same for Charlie when I mentioned that I’d cut into it, to recall the amazing Italian ice I’d had at Clyde’s on Maywood Ave right near the Maywood, NJ train station. The honeydew Italian ice wasn’t too sweet, tasted fresh, and was a great texture. It was marvelously layered with soft serve vanilla ice cream. It’s understandable, then, why we’d want to have something similar in our mouths again without driving 30+ minutes to retrieve it.

Ingredients

About 2 1/2-3 cups of ripe honeydew
1/4 cup sugar
1 lime (zest and juice)
1 tablespoon water

Directions

I wanted the honeydew to be the feature flavor in this sorbet, and it’s rather delicate, so I went easy on the amount of lime I used. Feel free to adjust the ratios.

I’ve gone ahead and simplified this recipe by using my stand mixer, but if you don’t have one, you can use a standard metal bowl and a fork for more of a granita texture, or a hand mixer for a smoother texture. Put your stand mixer bowl (or your metal bowl) in the freezer for a few minutes before getting started.

Puree the honeydew in a food processor. If you have an ice cream maker, you may want to save a few small chunks to toss in at the end, but throw it all in there if you want it to be totally smooth.

*If you are fortunate enough to have an ice cream maker, add about 2 tablespoons of vodka or another hard alcohol to your mixture. It will help the sorbet from freezing into one solid block.

Mix the pureed honeydew, sugar, lime juice and zest, and water in the cold freezer bowl until the sugar is dissolved.

Place the bowl in the freezer for about 40 minutes or until the mixture has frozen about two inches in from the edge of the bowl. Remove the bowl from the freezer, mix it on low for 1-2 minutes or until the crystals have been disturbed, and then return to the freezer. I did this process maybe 3 or 4 times. The last time, the entire top of the mixture had frozen over, and I mixed it one more time, poured it into a tupperware, and left it in the freezer overnight.

In the morning, I let it sit on the counter for a few minutes, then was able to scoop it with a metal ice cream scoop. It was more of a snowy texture than a bona fide sorbet, but it was delicious and pretty awesome considering we didn’t have an ice cream maker. Very refreshing!

Whole Wheat Macaroni Salad with Dill

There will surely be a few more BBQs to attend before the quickly approaching end of summer, and macaroni salad is always a hit. We made this for the pie-eating contest and ended up with tons extra and ended up eating it for days afterwards. You see, when we were factoring in how much food we’d need for the two or three dozen people we were expecting, we completely forgot that many people might not have a lot of room left in their bellies after eating a whole pie at warp speed. And, although it’s sometimes iffy, everyone who committed to it showed up with a potluck item, which meant we had tons of food. We got to enjoy a lot of leftovers.

So, if you’ve got one more potluck to attend this summer, you can whip up this macaroni salad. Otherwise, stick it in the recipe log for next summer or for a night when you cook burgers indoors during winter.

Ingredients

1 pound whole wheat elbow macaroni
1 carrot, finely chopped
1 stalk celery, finely chopped
1/2 sweet onion, finely chopped
3 green onions, finely chopped
a few stalks of fresh dill, finely chopped (if you don’t have this, finely chop a pickle and toss it in there)
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup milk (some recipes call for buttermilk, but I never have this in the house and just used regular milk, figuring the vinegar in the recipe would do the trick)
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 teaspoon prepared yellow mustard
1-2 tablespoons white sugar, depending on how sweet you like your macaroni salad
1 pinch cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 garlic clove, minced
freshly ground pepper

Directions

Prepare macaroni according to package directions, following with a cool rinse to stop the cooking. Toss the carrot, celery, and onions in with the cool pasta. .

In a separate bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, milk, vinegar, mustard, sugar, cayenne pepper, garlic, salt and pepper. Pour the dressing over the macaroni/veggie combo, and stir with a spatula to thoroughly distribute the dressing. Cover and refrigerate for several hours if you’ve got the time, but it will be darn tasty if you don’t.

If you’re serving this salad at a BBQ or other outdoor event, try to leave a portion of it inside in the fridge while serving the other portion, as this does spoil. The leftovers are even better after sitting in the fridge overnight, so you don’t want to put the whole bowl out in the sun and have the extras go to waste.

Epic Brunch with Bo and Bendi

Today’s brunch: Cereal Coated French Toast, I-Think-I-Was-Dreaming Sweet Potato Browns, Raspberry Sorbet Bellinis, Vegetarian Bacon.

As I mentioned in my last post, we had Bo and Bendi as visitors last night, and Sunday was to be a day of Epic Brunch and either movies or board games.

Charlie slept very late today, so Bo and I left Bendi to entertain himself and ran around to different stores gathering the ingredients we’d need. Since then, we’ve been cooking and drooling in anticipation of the wonderful creations that are about to happen.

Cereal Coated French Toast

We saw this on a TV program one time on the Food Network. The owner of a cute little restaurant somewhere far away from here made it, and it was far away enough that we would never end up there, so we decided that one day we would have to make it ourselves.

I’m usually not a fan of french toast because most places make it too eggy, and honestly, if I wanted eggs and toast, I would make an omelette with a side of toast. So, if you want your french toast to be eggy, you’ll want to add an extra egg to this recipe.

Ingredients

5 eggs
1 1/4 cups milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 loaf thick sliced soft white bread
4 cups quasi-crushed Honey Graham Oh’s
vegetable oil for cooking

Directions

Beat eggs, milk, and vanilla together. Stir in cinnamon.

Heat a pan to medium before adding the fat. This allows the pores of the pan to open up to accept the oil so that things don’t stick. Once the pan is hot, add a little bit of oil, coating the pan.

Dip a slice of bread in the egg mixture, coating thoroughly. Next, dip the bread in the crushed cereal (you may want to use a separate plate for this so the rest of the cereal doesn’t get soggy in the process). Transfer the slice to the pan and cook on each side until brown, probably about 3 minutes per side.

We’re serving with blueberries on top! You may want to serve with whipped cream.

I-Think-I-Was-Dreaming Sweet Potato Browns

These, I think, actually came to me in a dream. Last night, before bed, we’d talked about making the french toast and vegetarian bacon, and sometime in my sleep I came up with the idea of making hash browns, too. Usually Charlie makes some delicious oven potatoes, but in my dream, I imagined sweet potato hash browns, of the shredded variety. When I awoke and proposed my idea, Bo was all about it, and we modified it a bit to include a variety of white potatoes and sweet potatoes, with rosemary and paprika. Instead of frying them, which is higher in fat and usually turns out very messy, we decided to bake them in the oven.

Ingredients

1 large sweet potato, peeled and shredded
1 large russet potato, peeled and shredded
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoons paprika
1 egg, beaten
2 teaspoons rosemary, ground with mortar and pestle
salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Prepare a baking sheet with a sheet of parchment or sprayed lightly with olive oil.

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl, mixing thoroughly so that the potatoes are coated in the oil and egg. Form patties about 1 1/2 inches across,

The patties will be somewhat loose, but the egg will help bind it together. Transfer it back and forth between your hands a few times to smush it together.

Bake until the edges are brown, flipping once in the middle, possibly adding 2-3 minutes of low broil at the end for extra crispiness.

Makes about 24 patties.

Raspberry Sorbet Bellinis

Ingredients

Extra Dry Champagne
Ciao Bella Raspberry Sorbet, or other premium fruit sorbet of your choice

Directions

Bo likes to stir up the puree and then top it with the champagne, but I like to let the sorbet just melt into my glass, in hopes of getting a mouthful of cool, undissolved refreshment. So for my version, pour a glass of champagne, and top with about a tablespoon of sorbet. Let the sorbet melt into the bubbly for a delightful brunch treat. Fancy glasses optional – we served ours in these glass mugs that we got at a garage sale in Virginia for ten cents each.

KitchenAid Love, Part I of ∞

(when I first took it out of the box!)

I tested out my KitchenAid Artisan 5-Quart Stand Mixer (in Cobalt Blue) tonight. It arrived a few days ago, but since I’ve got some herniated discs, my baking has considerably slowed. Not only is most of my baking stuff kept in a low cabinet that I can’t really bend over to reach into, but that also applies for bending down to put things in the oven. I’m also super tired lately, as usually illness, injury, or stress contributes to flares of my fibromyalgia.

But I managed tonight, and the KitchenAid, in all its glory, helped. I think I’ll have to name it, since I usually name things like computers and such, but I’m not sure what yet… I probably have to bake a few more times first to determine its personality. *smile*

When I set out to get the KitchenAid, I knew that it would help with things like when my arms get too tired from stirring, or my hands hurt too much to cream butter and sugar together. What I didn’t realize, however, was that this beautiful piece of equipment would make my life far better in other ways, too.

I tested my mixer with my “Environmentally Friendly” Cakey Brownies, figuring that the one bowl recipe would both be an easy way to test out the mixer and would also spare my poor back too much agony. We’re having Bo and Bendi over tonight, and since Bo was around when I created these brownies, I knew he’d enjoy seeing them again.

Now, I had to spend a few minutes getting the mixer adjusted… I am a geekette, and I read the manual before I began. It was exceptionally wise that I did this because when I changed from the Wire Whip to the Flat Beater, the Flat Beater touched the bottom of the bowl. No good. I rummaged around for a screwdriver, adjusted the height, and began my recipe.

Getting the ingredients into the mixer and blended together was nearly instantaneous, and I swear that once I’m treating my new gadget a little less fragilely, I’ll be able to whip up brownie batter from scratch in ten minutes.

The other dreamy thing that never occurred to me about getting this mixer was the reduction in the mess! Since the Artisan comes with a lovely Pouring Shield, flour is easily aimed into the bowl, not onto the kitchen counter. And, due to what I assume is the “unique mixing action” that I’ve read so much about as I lusted after this appliance, the flour (and, in this case, cocoa powder) stays in the bowl while mixing, much more so than when I mix it by hand or with a hand mixer. From starting the recipe to washing the dishes to putting away the sugar to wiping down the counters, it took me less than 30 minutes… Epic win for avoiding kitchen disasters.

I completely overdid it today trying to accomplish a few other tasks and then baking, but I’m happy that I did. I love my mixer already, and I’m so grateful to everyone who has chipped in already or is sending something to help me have this wonderful tool. If you’ve got any awesome suggestions for a name, let me know. I’m wavering between something very butch (as it’s my muscle) and something very 1950′s housewifey.

Mommy™’s Peach Pie

When I was growing up, my mother would take us peach picking most summers. We went to a place down the shore by my grandmother’s ridiculously large house, and then we’d all go back to the house to make pie. There was a large island in the middle of the kitchen, and many counters surrounding it, and a double oven, and for hours, we would peel peaches, stir them into brown sugar and cinnamon, and pour them into crusts. Sometimes someone couldn’t wait for the pies to come out of the oven and would scoop some of the filling into a mug and put it in the microwave.

My mother never made her own pie crust, but now, I always do. The filling and a few tricks, however, were things I learned from her during those summers growing up. Peach pie is one of those things that I just start making without a recipe, so this one is going to be full of guesstimates!

Ingredients

Pie Crust (either pre-fab like my mom used, or prepare enough of Charlie’s Consistent Win Pie Crust for a double crust)
6-8 large peaches
brown sugar – about 1/2 cup packed, but if your peaches aren’t very sweet or you like a sweeter pie, you can add more
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 dash nutmeg
1 tablespoon butter

Directions

You can peel peaches the same way you can get the skins off of tomatoes. Bring a pot of water to a boil and drop the peaches in for a minute. You’ll see the skins start to split. Pull them out with a slotted spoon, and let them cool for a while, then you can easily peel the skins off with your fingers. This does take quite a bit longer since you have to wait for the peaches to cool down, but it’s easier and wastes less of the fruit than peeling them with a paring knife does. My ideal situation these days is to peel them with my palm peeler, which swivels around things like peaches and apples and peels them in a matter of seconds. If you don’t have one of those, though, you may want to use the boiling water method.

Preheat oven to 375.

Once your peaches are peeled, slice them and mix them in a bowl with the brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Taste the mixture to ensure that it’s about what you want. If the mixture is extremely wet, you can add about a tablespoon of flour to the mixture.

Take your pie crust (that you’ve already rolled out) and place it in your pie tin. Heap the peaches into the bottom crust. You want the peaches to mound up and out of the crust, as they’re going to cook down some and you don’t want your pie crust to sink. Once the peaches are in, spread 4-5 thin pats of butter over the top of the mound of peaches. Place the top crust over the mound. Seal the crust at the seam with a fork, then trim away the excess. Brush an egg wash (one beaten egg and one tablespoon water) over the top crust if desired, and cut four vents at least two inches long in the top crust.

Cover the edges of the pie with aluminum foil to prevent the edges of the crust burning. Bake for 45 minutes, removing the foil about 15 minutes before removing the pies from the oven. The pies are done when the filling begins to bubble and the crust becomes flaky and brown.

Charlie’s Consistent Win Pie Crust

Charlie and I obviously had to be pie-making machines this past week, considering we made 20 “competition sized” pies and 5 standard sized pies. Charlie and I usually have a pretty good system where he makes the dough for the crust, and I peel whatever fruit we need and prepare the filling. This is the recipe he always uses, whether we’re making a single crust, double crust, or lattice.

Many pie crusts are too sweet, but this crust is subtle, allowing the filling to be the star, which we think is key. It’s a flaky pastry crust that can also be used for I-Need-A-Hug-Pie, your favorite quiche, or, as we did here, many varieties of fruit filled pies.

The egg wash included here is optional – I usually omit it if I’m in a hurry or I don’t care as much about presentation. The egg wash will help the pie brown and take on a beautiful, shiny finish, so if you want something pretty, definitely apply the wash.

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup shortening
6 tablespoons ice cold water (no, seriously – ICE COLD!)
1 egg, beaten with 1 tablespoon of water (optional)

Directions

In a large bowl, mix flour and salt. With a pastry blender, cut in shortening until mixture resembles course ground cornmeal. Add cold water 1 tablespoon at a time.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees or as your recipe calls for.

If making a double crust, divide in half and roll out dough on a lightly floured surface with a floured rolling pin, placing one piece in the bottom of the pan, then the filling, then the other piece. Seal the edges by pressing a fork around the edge of the pan, and trim the excess dough with a sharp knife. If applying the egg wash, gently brush it over the top crust. Cut four vents in the pie, about 2 inches long, to allow the pie to cook properly. Cover the edges of the crust with aluminum foil until the last 15 minutes of baking so that they don’t burn.

If making a lattice, roll out 2/3 of dough for bottom crust on a lightly floured surface with a floured rolling pin and place into pie pan. Roll out last 1/3 of dough and cut into strips for lattice top crust. On parchment paper or cookie sheet, weave the strips to form lattice. Fill pie, then place lattice on top. Roll the edges of the pie together with your fingers to seal the two crusts together. If applying the egg wash, gently brush it over the lattice.

Bake for about 45 minutes or until crusts a golden brown and filling is bubbling (or as other directions state).

All Over Your Face 2009

Yesterday, we held the first annual “All Over Your Face” hands-free pie-eating contest and BBQ. I mention this here because, well, it’s ridiculous, and because over the next few days, you’re going to see a lot of recipes related to the contest. The “competition sized pies” were seven inches and each had a double crust. They came in blueberry, strawberry, apple, peach, and lime (for our friend, Jack, who “does not eat of the cooked fruit” – you may remember zir from the Mocha Pillow Cookies recipe). There also obviously had to be plenty of pies just for eating, too.

The thing is, though, that Charlie and I baked all the pies from scratch. We figured it would be cheaper, more delicious, more fun, and so on and so forth. Over the course of seven days, despite my recent back problems (two herniated discs), we managed to make twenty 7″ pies and five full sized pies. We had a little help here and there, but mostly, Charlie made the crusts and I made the fillings. That includes peeling about six pounds of apples, hulling four pounds of strawberries, peeling nine pounds of peaches, and zesting and juicing ten limes.

We also made macaroni salad, gluten-free pasta salad, mini cupcakes, a watermelon keg, and a cucumber tomato salad, so, there will be recipes galore related to this contest.

For now, please enjoy a few pictures of the contest. Charlie’s going to make a video as soon as everyone sends in their footage.

The winning pie.

That’s my partner, Charlie. He almost edged out Mike for third place, but Mike took it.

Fortunato is looking up in awe at Joseph, who won the contest, seated to his left.

Our first, second, and third place winners, after the awards ceremony. Joseph, Micah, and our local Councilman, Mike.

These photos, I believe, were taken by our lovely friend, Gina R Snape.

Watermelon Keg and Punch Recipe

We saw the idea for this in Food Network magazine a few months ago and decided that we absolutely had to make it happen. We procured a plastic tap, added a bit of tubing to make it a little more secure, and made it happen! Warning: This is really, really messy. I got watermelon juice all over the kitchen trying to do this.

Tools

Spigot
Sharp Knife
Sturdy bowl or other means of supporting the watermelon
Pastry blender or potato masher
Strainer
Toothpicks

Ingredients

1 large watermelon
1 L bottle Mount Gay Rum (do yourself a favor and don’t use Bacardi – use something nicer)
1 package fresh mint leaves, stems removed
6 limes
lime juice to taste
lemon juice to taste
ice

This is what the drink mix looked like just before adding the rum, I believe…

Directions

The first thing you’re going to need to do is hollow out the fucking watermelon. It’s a task. Make sure you allow enough time for it. Take a sharp paring knife and slice the top of the watermelon off at an inward angle, like when you’re carving a pumpkin. Have a big bowl handy and a metal spoon and scrape the watermelon out until you’re down to the rind. See the video link for a demonstration. It’s less of a two person procedure than it looks like – I’ve just got two herniated discs and can’t lift anything.

So, once you’ve scraped out your watermelon, cover the top with plastic and put it in the fridge. Take a pastry blender, potato masher, or a big fork and mash up the watermelon as best you can. You’re basically juicing it. Take another bowl and put a strainer on top of it, preferably with fairly big holes, but not big enough for the seeds to fit through. Pass your squished up watermelon through the strainer, and you’ll get tons and tons of bright pink watermelon juice. If you’re not getting very much, continue to mash the pieces of watermelon.

Set aside the juice in a container that is not the watermelon. You can see that there’s a lot of juice. Since we were making lime pies, we had about 10 limes that we’d already juiced and zested but that still could contribute flavor to our cocktail. We threw them into the watermelon juice and let them sit there for the duration. What you can do is cut the limes in half, (pick out any obvious seeds), give them a good squeeze, and toss them in. They’ll bob around and flavor your drink.

Throw in the mint, then stir in some lemon and lime juice. Pour in the bottle of rum, then taste it, and if you want, add more lemon or lime. Refrigerate until serving.

When you’re ready, set the watermelon in its base. Use a sharp knife to poke a hole, close to the bottom of the watermelon, for the spigot. Insert the spigot snuggly. You’re now ready to fill the watermelon!

I wasn’t sure exactly how much the watermelon would hold, so I alternated a cup of ice, then a cup of punch until I was about halfway up, and then added some more punch. Since we didn’t want the fruit to just be rotting in the sun, we made sure to put a lot of ice inside. It kept the watermelon very cold. We left about half the punch inside the house to refill the watermelon with later.

I secured the lid of the watermelon to the top with two toothpicks, then we carefully carried it outside. Everyone loved it!

Bibs and Bobs Vegetable Stock

My partner Charlie and I are the type of people who are modern hippies, I suppose. As I mentioned a few days ago, we almost never use paper plates or plastic forks. We recycle and we reuse a pretty dramatic amount. We joined a farm share, or community supported agriculture community this year. Hell, our next major big dream purchase after my KitchenAid Mixer is a composter.

In the meantime, though, we are composter-less. We’ve thought about getting one of those little guys that sits on the countertop and thought about saving up for one of the totally sealed units that sits inconspicuously under a cupboard. For now, though, we save our eggshells to put in flowerpots (it’s good natural fertilizer), and we sneak into the backyard with our veggie scraps and toss them into the bushes.

There’s a lot of vegetable waste that’s quite… well, I wouldn’t say edible, since you’re not going to throw it in your stir-fry or plop it in your next quiche, but I would say usable. My friends Anne and Neil of the Beet Risotto, who I get many of my hippie inspired ideas from, such as joining the farm share, gave me this idea for using up all the bits of vegetables that you usually would toss in the trash.

Make your own vegetable stock.

Not only is homemade vegetable stock one of the most delicious things on the planet, it’s also a way to cut down on waste. It’s very simple. Grab a gallon size ziplock bag or other airtight container. If you live with other people, label it, “SAVE FOR STOCK,” as they’ll be wondering what these bits of vegetable trash are doing in the freezer.

Then, whenever you chop up vegetables, evaluate what’s left.

Onion papers? Toss them in.

Ends of celery and carrots? Definitely.

Fresh herbs that are a little… not so fresh, but weren’t put through a proper drying process? Yes ma’am.

I’ve collected up beet stalks, the ends of asparagus, limp parsley, that little hard nub on garlic, and whatever else I’ve come across. I stuff all the bibs and bobs into my baggie and keep it in the freezer. When the bag is full, you’re ready to make stock. The only vegetables you’ll want to avoid are the really watery ones, like lettuce. Those aren’t going to contribute much.

Ingredients

1 gallon sized bag of vegetable parts, including at least about 1 onion, 1 carrot, 2 stalks of celery, some parsley – the rest is fair game
about 10-12 cups of water (you can make your stock more or less concentrated depending on how much storage space you have – just add more water upon using it later)
3 bay leaves (since everything will be strained, this is a good time to use those broken in half ones that are hard to fish out of other recipes)
4 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons soy sauce
salt to taste
freshly ground pepper

Directions

Toss everything except the salt and pepper into a big stock pot. Bring to a boil (this may take a while if your veggies are still frozen) and then reduce to a simmer. Cover.

Let your stock simmer for at least 40 minutes to an hour, but more is definitely better. Stir occasionally. You’ll be able to see the color drain out of the vegetables, so once they’re totally useless looking and your stock is a rich color, you’ll have gotten most of the flavor into your broth. Fair warning: your kitchen will smell wonderful for the afternoon, and people will be begging you to have some.

Storage

Some people recommend freezing stock into ice cube trays that you can have it prepped in smaller amounts. You can also put it into small tupperwares in the freezer, but think carefully before freezing the entire pot into one large container… I also like to make little batches of simple noodle soups for nights when I’m not feeling well. I’ll try to update with that simple recipe soon.

Mocha Pillow Cookies

We have a guest baker on the blog today! (Actually this transpired a few weeks ago, but I’ve been terrible about getting it posted.) Our friend Jack just moved to NYC, and one of the first things we decided that we should do was to have a baking party. Our other friend, and Jack’s “person,” Eli, came over, too, as Eli was visiting from so we had a couples baking night.

Jack (left) works at a coffee shop, so ze* brought us some espresso to make some yummy mocha cookies. Ze also brought me a nonfat vanilla iced latte with just a tiny bit of syrup, just the way I like it! Thanks, Jack. Eli is the helper on the right.

These cookies came out extremely soft and fluffy. They were like little mocha pillows. A word to the wise, though… As delicious as these cookies are, don’t get carried away eating them before bed. We did, and between that and the excitement of our visit we didn’t get to bed until six in the morning. Ridiculous!

Ingredients

1/4 of dutch cocoa
2 2/3 cups flour
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
pinch salt
1 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup white sugar
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla, or a little more
2 egg whites and 1 whole egg (this happened because we were baking a cake, too, and had some extra whites – feel free to just use two whole eggs)
2 cups dark chocolate chips (though we made some without chocolate chips, too)
6 shots of espresso

Directions


Preheat oven to 350° F. 

Combine flour, baking soda, cocoa, and salt in small bowl.

Cream butter and sugar in a large bowl. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla and espresso and stir.

Add flour a little at a time, scraping the sides of the bowl. When all the flour is mixed in, stir in the chocolate chips. Drop by big spoonfuls onto parchment paper.

Bake about 10 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on wire racks.

*Ze is a gender neutral pronoun. If you’re just not sure how they fit into parts of speech, there’s a chart here. If you want to read more about the what/why/how, feel free to email me, or, (as much as I hate to use wikipedia as a reference, there’s currently some good information on there), you can view the Wikipedia page on gender neutral pronouns here.