Black and Blue Pie

This whole post is about to get super Portland on you. Like Portlandia-esque Portland. This is a pie I made for my tattoo artist as a tip for my last tattoo. I made it with local berries. And local flour (hey Bob's Red Mill). And local butter (Tillamook). Also I'm wearing black and red flannel right now.

This pie is also super good. It looked great the first time, so I made it again. You should use whatever end of season berries you have and make this. Decorate it any way you want. Maybe put a bird on it? I dunno.

Black and Blue Pie:

Makes one 9” pie

½ recipe best pie dough in the universe

Filling-

3 c. blackberries

3 c. blueberries

2/3 c. – ¾ c. sugar (depending on how sweet your berries are)

1 tsp. lemon zest

1 tsp. fresh lemon juice

Dash nutmeg

Dash cinnamon

Topping-

2/3 c. all-purpose flour

3 Tb. brown sugar, packed

½ tsp. cinnamon

¼ tsp. salt

Dash allspice

Dash nutmeg

6 Tb. unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

Make the pie dough! Roll it out how you do and put it in a 9-inch pie dish. Refrigerate while prepping everything else. If you have extra dough like I did after trimming, use a cookie cutter to make fun shapes with the remainder. Refrigerate alongside pie crust.

Whisk sugar, lemon zest, nutmeg, and cinnamon together. Add berries and toss to coat. Add lemon juice and toss to coat again. Let sit at least 10 minutes.

While your berries are sitting, preheat oven to 375 and make the topping. Whisk together all dry topping ingredients. Add in melted and cooled butter and mix with fingers until blended evenly.

To assemble your pie, remove formed dough from fridge, scoop in berry mixture, and sprinkle topping as evenly as possible.

Bake pie for 1 hour and 15 minutes, until the filling is bubbling and your topping has become golden. If it is browning too quickly, cover top with foil. Place a baking sheet on the rack below your pie to catch any bubbly juices.

Let cool on wire rack until you can handle it enough to deliver to your tattoo artist. Or your friends out back. Or your mouth.

I really enjoyed this pie – but it was more like a cobbler because as you might see from the recipe above, I did not add corn starch to the berry mixture. Do that. Add about 2½ tablespoons corn starch to the berry mixture to help gel some of those juicy, juicy berries.

Overall, though, this was a great pie – easy to make, fun to decorate, and a great gift.

You've got a little summer left. Give this pie a try.

And now I'm done with summer pie recipes. On to the fall pies!   

Sweet Potato Blintzes with Farmer's Cheese

My son is officially in toddlerdom, especially when it comes to meal time. Things that were once beloved now are given to the dog or belong to the floor (which then goes to the dog). Sometimes within one meal a food goes from being bad to good to bad again (mac and cheese is not a floor food!). It’s hard, especially when you worked hard on something, but it’s all worth the effort in turning my child into a foodie.

These were a hit on dinner 1 and breakfast 1 and less so for dinner 2. The sauce, which is I changed to blueberry because it is a food he still very much enjoys, was always popular. So despite the potential of the dog getting a fabulous meal, I’d say these are worth the time and, as a bonus, freeze really nicely. Adults can have some too and they taste extra great when you save them from the floor.

I’m including the original cranberry syrup recipe as I made it for the first set and it really is quite good. If you decide to go the blueberry route, cut the sugar in half.

Sweet Potato Blintzes with Farmer’s Cheese via The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook:

Yield 16 blintzes

Wrappers-

1½ c. milk (whole is great, other fat levels are also fine)

6 large eggs

1½ c. all-purpose flour

¼ tsp. table salt

1 Tb. melted butter or neutral oil, for brushing the pan, plus additional for cooking blintzes  

Filling-

About 4 medium sweet potatoes

2 c. farmer’s cheese

2 large egg yolks

¼ c. sugar

½ tsp. ground cinnamon

Few fresh gratings of nutmeg

Pinch of salt

Cranberry syrup-

2 c. fresh or frozen cranberries

¼ c. orange juice

½ c. sugar

Make the wrapper batter by combining all wrapper ingredients except for butter or oil in a blender. Pour the batter into a bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for an hour or up to 2 days.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Bake the sweet potatoes on a tray for about 40 minutes, until soft. Let them cool in their skins. Once they’re cool, peel the sweet potatoes and mash them or run them through a potato ricer.

Preheat a medium skillet or crepe pan over medium-high heat. I don’t have a crepe pan. You probably don’t either. Don’t sweat it, your skillet is fine. Once it’s heated, brush the pan lightly with melted butter or oil. Pour ¼ cup batter into the skillet, swirling it until it evenly coats the bottom, and cook, undisturbed, until the bottom is golden and the top is set, about 2 minutes. No need to flip them. The key here is even heat and just a little bit of grease in your pan. Sounds complicated and come out perfect. Transfer the wrapper to a paper-towel-covered plate, cooked side down. Continue with the remaining batter.

Once the sweet potato puree is cool, stir in the farmer’s cheese, egg yolks, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt.

If you plan to freeze these, do so before the browning step. They’ll taste great if you wait.

Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Put an ever-so-slightly heaped ¼ cup of filling in the center of each wrapper, and fold the opposite sides of wrapper over filling until they barely touch. If you had to read that 14 times like I did, it means take the two vertical sides of the wrapper. It’ll make sense in a second. Pull the end of the crepe nearest to you over the filling (away from you), and roll the rest of the way, to completely enclose filling, forming elongated, egg-roll-shaped packets. Reheat with the remaining blintzes and filling. Reheat your crepe skillet - or a larger one, if you want to cook more blintzes are a time - over medium heat and add more butter or oil to coat the pan. Place a few blintzes, seam side down, in a skillet, and cook them until they are golden brown and crisp, for about 5 minutes on each side. Transfer them to a baking sheet, and keep them warm in the over until they are ready to serve.

Now make the syrup. In a saucepan, over medium heat, simmer the cranberries, orange juice, and sugar together until the berries burst, about 7 to 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to medium-low, and simmer for 5 minutes more. Strain the syrup into a bowl.

Serve the blintzes warm with a drizzle of cranberry syrup and/or a dollop of sour cream.

If you’re lucky, your toddler will eat them and make you feel so proud. If not, they are also great in your own mouth.   

Blueberry Lime Jam

Yesterday I posted about the rock my world peach lavender jam. At the same time, I made this one, which is also really, really amazing. The only caveat I'd add to this post is that trying to do two different kinds of jam at once is not a great idea, especially for a beginning canner like myself. There was a ton of stuff going on at once and though it all worked out, I wouldn't attempt it again, at least not yet. This jam, though, rocks. A lot. Get good blueberries and limes and you're good to go.

I followed the canning directions from the other canning book for this one to get a proper seal on the jars. This one makes me wish it were warm and summery again. Until then, I guess I'll just have to eat more jam.

Blueberry Lime Jam from Lip Smackin' Jams & Jellies:

Makes about 6 cups

4½ c. blueberries
6 c. sugar
2 Tb. lime juice
Grated zest of 2 large limes
3 3-oz pouches liquid pectin

Remove any stalks from the blueberries and rinse under cold water. Drain well and put in a saucepan. Crush the berries a bit with a masher. Stir in the sugar, lime juice, and zest. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Keep stirring to avoid burning. When the mix reaches a full boil, cook for 1 minute, and then stir in the pectin. Return it to a full boil for another minute.

Place in jars and process for 10 minutes, following the directions of your canning book and the advice I posted yesterday.

Keep in a cool, dry place.

I had a little extra than 4 jars, so I put some in a smaller jar in my fridge and thus got to enjoy it right away. It's tangy and fruity in a way that reminds me a bit of a summer cocktail, but is also perfect for your morning muffin or scone. When you've got a bunch of blueberries, I highly recommend this jam.

Thumbprint Cookies

These ones were Corey's idea and I'm so glad we made them. They're simple and delicious and really good for any time of year. Well, any time of year you actually want to turn the oven on. I think using homemade jam is what really elevated these. I highly recommend doing just that.

Thumbprint Cookies from Simply Recipes:

Makes about 2 dozen fabulous cookies

1 c. butter, room temperature
½ c. sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
1 tsp. vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
2 c. of flour
¾ c. jam (we used Corey’s blueberry freezer jam)

Cream the butter and sugar on high speed for about 3 minutes.

Separate the eggs. Add the yolks and vanilla extract to the butter mixture. Add the flour and salt. Mix until just combined. Place the dough in the fridge for 30 minutes and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Roll the dough into balls about 1 inch in diameter. Place the balls on parchment lined cookie sheets. Press down with your thumb to make a small well in the center of the cookie. Do not press too hard or the cookie will fall apart. Fill with ½ teaspoon of jam. I’m not going to lie, this was my favorite part.

Bake for 12-15 minutes or until slightly firm. Allow to cool for a few minutes on the cookie sheet to firm up before moving them to a wire rack to finish cooling.

These are so good. So easy and so good. You have no reason to not make them.

Mini Blueberry Cheesecakes

To be fair to both teams in the Super Bowl, I decided to also make a dessert for the Indianapolis Colts. Problem was, though, that I couldn’t think of anything very Indianapolis. Food and New Orleans is easy! There was just nothing out there that was very Indianapolis. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

So anyway, I decided to make mini blueberry cheesecakes because they are white and blue (mostly) and the Colts colors are white and blue. Plus, I love cheesecake. Also, it allowed me to not only dig back into The New Moosewood Cookbook, but to also use the recipe Hannah, who bought me the book, recommended. It was just a win all around! I used a half recipe to make these and that’s what I’m listing below. I may make a big one sometime here in the future because cheesecake is delicious.

Montana’s Mom’s Dynamite Cheesecake slightly modified from The New Moosewood Cookbook:

Makes 12 fabulous mini cheesecakes

For the crust-
1 c. graham cracker crumbs
¼ stick butter, melted

For the filling-
8 oz. (1 package) cream cheese, softened
1/6 c. sugar
2 eggs
¾ tsp. vanilla extract
1½ Tb. lemon juice
¼ tsp. lemon rind (I didn’t measure this and I’m sure there was more, but lemon is awesome!)
¾ c. wild blueberries

For the topping-
¾ c. sour cream
1½ Tb. sugar
¼ tsp. vanilla extract
½ c. wild blueberries



Make the crumbs in a food processor or blender. I used about ½ a sleeve of crackers to get a cup. Combine ¼ stick melted butter and crumbs together and press firmly into the bottom of a 12 spot cupcake tray. As I had issues later on, I’d recommend using liners and pressing the crumbs mixture to the bottom of those.



Heat oven to 375 degrees. Beat filling ingredients together until smooth. Pour onto crusts and bake for about 20-25 minutes, or until set. Remove from oven and cool to room temperature. You will need the oven again, so you can either leave it on, or reheat it.

Have oven at 375 degrees. Blend topping ingredients, except for blueberries, well and pour on top of cooled cakes.



Bake for about 8 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle tops with remaining blueberries. Cool to room temperature, then cover tightly (still in pan) and chill for at least 12 hours.



The only issue I had with these was getting them out of the pan. The normal size cheesecake uses a springform and I didn’t think about this until after I was done. I had to turn the pan upside down and whack the bottom of it to get them out. So yeah, use liners.



In any case, these were fantastically delicious! The cheesecake is not too dense and I think the blueberries, both in and on the cheesecake, were a great touch. Side by side, these were great desserts. And yes, those are the cookies at the top of the photo. They show up at many parties. And now that I’ve made this cheesecake, it probably will too.

Anyway, even though the cheesecake was delicious, the Colts lost. I did tell Aaron that if the Saints won it was because of my cupcakes and I did make twice as many. That’s right, football games are determined by my dessert making.

Lemon Ginger Blueberry Muffins

After Amy left, she went to Seattle and had her second birthday party. The girl celebrates her birthday like I do! Anyway, Aaron and I hadn’t been up to Seattle in forever, Lindsay was just finishing up her pediatrics rotation there, our friend had had a baby months before, and Renai lives there, so we decided to visit everyone and go to the party. Renai was gracious enough to let us stay at her apartment in Ballard, so I decided to make “Thank You For Letting Us Stay At Your House” muffins for her.

She’s a huge fan of ginger, like me, so I knew I had to do something with that. I also really was in the mood to make lemon blueberry muffins. That’s when I decided to make something up and hope for the best. I got the base of the muffins from here (with modifications, of course), the ginger idea from here, and the lemon idea from my own brain. I think these turned out to be pretty good. Sorry about the picture being so dark. My current camera is from 2002. Hopefully that will be changing soon.

Lemon Ginger Blueberry Muffins:

Makes 12

6 Tb. unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 c. packed brown sugar
½ c. skim milk
1 large egg
1 c. all-purpose flour
½ c. whole wheat flour
1½ tsps. baking powder
1 Tb. ground ginger
½ tsp. salt
Juice of ½ lemon
About 2 tb. lemon zest
5 ½ Tb. minced candied ginger
2 Tb. brandy
1 ½ c. blueberries
Raw sugar for muffin tops

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Put liners in muffin cups.



Mix ginger, lemon zest, and brandy in a small bowl and set aside.





Whisk together butter, brown sugar, milk, and egg in a bowl until combined well. Whisk together flour, baking powder, ground ginger, and salt in a large bowl. Add milk mixture and stir until just combined. Stir in ginger mixture. Fold in blueberries gently.



Divide batter among muffin cups. Sprinkle tops with raw sugar and bake until golden brown and a wooden pick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes.

I thought these were fantastic. So did Renai’s cat. Lindsay called them sushi muffins because the taste of ginger reminds her of sushi. I kind of like that name. I might mess around with these a bit, but mostly, I like the way they are and I like making things up.

Mixed Berry Cobbler

Updating finally. Thanks for the reminder Steffani. I’ve had this ready to go for a bit now and just forgot to do it. Oh well.

It’s finally feeling like summer in Portland. The sun is out, everyone’s smiling, and the farmer’s market is filled with delicious, delicious berries (I told you I’d be coming back to this!). My beautiful, fantastic friend Renai came to visit two weekends ago and we decided to do a cross-blog extravaganza and focus around the farmer’s market. Renai’s blog involves a ton of cool, look what I’m cooking now recipes, especially some very neat vegan stuff I wouldn’t have ever thought of. It’s because she’s a fantastic lady.



So with berries in mind, we went down to the big Saturday farmer’s market at PSU and eventually picked up a flat of mixed berries, which included blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries. We ate a good chunk of this before we even made it back to the house. Sitting in my dining room, looking over some of my fave cookbooks and the internet, we debated ideas back and forth. After rejecting pie for the time factor (sorry pie! We had dinner to make too!), we settled on a cobbler recipe from the Alice Bay Cookbook, which was featured last fall here. Going with the whole local berries, Pacific Northwest thing, we went for it.

And it was so worth it. I love cooking with Renai. She’s a great partner in the kitchen.

Mixed Berry Cobbler modified from Blackberry Cobbler from the Alice Bay Cookbook:

About 8-12 portions, depending on how berry crazy everyone is.

1½ c. sugar
½ c. unbleached white flour
1 tsp. salt
8 c. mixed berries (I’d go for a good mix of sweet and tart. Our blackberries were almost like jam, but the raspberries had a good bit of bite to them. Experiment and see what works for you).
3 Tb. lemon juice (fresh, if you’ve got it)
3 Tb. butter
Biscuit Topping-
2 c. sifted unbleached flour
4 tsp. baking powder
3 Tb. sugar
1 tsp. salt
½ c. butter
2/3 c. milk
1 egg, slightly beaten

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.



Mix together sugar, flour, salt, berries, and lemon juice. Pour into a 13 x 9-inch baking dish, and dot with butter. Bake for 15 minutes, until hot and bubbly.

Meanwhile, make biscuit topping. Mix together sifted flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt in a mixing bowl. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Add milk and beaten egg that your friend has kindly already mixed together for you, and stir with a fork until just blended.







While berry mixture is hot and bubbly, spoon biscuit mixture on top in 10 or 12 dollops (or be less specific, like Renai, and just glop it all over the place). Return to oven for 20 minutes, until biscuits are browned. My oven decided this would be about 24 minutes. Allow to cool for at least 10 minutes before serving. Top with ice cream or whipped cream. Or just eat it and enjoy.



This was a pretty fantastic dessert. The only thing I’d change is making the glops of biscuit mixture a little more spread out. But for a first time team-up, I’d say we did a great job. Everyone seemed to enjoy it quite a bit and it was a fantastic way to use a ton of berries.

We also made dinner, but there are no pictures of that. That’s okay because I mostly just chopped veggies for salad and opened up and emptied a can of Coors Light to poach salmon that was taking too long to cook. It was tasty and was perfectly finished off with the cobbler. I can’t wait to collaborate with Renai again.

Blueberry Smoothie

This one was inspired by my friend Ryan when I was over at his place and complaining that I was hungry. He made me a kick arse smoothie and I was ever thankful (and I stopped complaining too!) Anyway, since then I’ve been on a banana kick and I made this smoothie the other day and it was super awesome!

This is what I did (rather inexact):

1 c. or so of low-fat yogurt (I used Nancy’s and it turns out I like the non-fat better. Huh.)
Handful of blueberries
Splash of soy milk
Medium banana
Splash of vanilla extract



Place all ingredients in a blender and whip together. Enjoy in a large pint glass and feel good.

Okay, now maybe I need another one.

Honey-Yogurt Scones

The Fiddlehead Restaurant, which I mentioned back in this post, had a fantastic bakery. The food there was also very good, but the bakery was where it was at. In particular, their scones were to die for. When my good friend Hannah (she also gets credit for the Moosewood Cookbook from the Broccoli-Cheddar Pie post) sent me their cookbook for the holidays, I flipped right to the baked goods section to make sure it was there. Sure it enough, there they are. I made two batches, the first without anything extra and the second with wild dried blueberries instead of currants. The first set didn’t have anything in it because I just wanted to make them so badly and didn’t have any of that stuff available. The second batch was made a little later when I realized that the 6 I had made were not going to make it over to my friend’s house and I wouldn’t be able to share.

These are ridiculously easy to make. All told, it takes about half an hour and then you have warm, yummy scone goodness to eat. I will be making these in a bunch of new varieties soon. They are that good.

Honey-Yogurt Scones from The Fiddlehead Cookbook:

Makes 6 scones

4 Tb. butter
1 Tb. honey
½ c. plain yogurt (substitute sour cream or buttermilk if necessary. I used Nancy’s yogurt because it’s just so good)
1 egg
1¼ c. unbleached white flour (for delicious nutty flavor, decrease to 1½ c. flour and add ¼ c. graham flour. I did not do this)
½ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt
¼ c. dried currants, dried cherries, pecans, or raisins. Or wild blueberries! Thank you Trader Joe’s!
1 egg, beaten (optional. I didn’t do this because I don’t like my scones shiny).

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and place rack in center of oven.

Melt together butter and honey in a small glass bowl in microwave, or in a small pan on stove over medium heat. Remove from heat and whisk in yogurt and egg. I did the latter as I don’t have any glass bowls and I like doing stuff on the stove anyway.



In a medium size mixing bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt (or just mix them together…I don’t have a sifter.) Stir in blueberries. Pour egg mixture over flour mixture and, using a fork, very gently cut together until dough is beginning to come together but is not quite completely combined.



Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and gently pat into a 6-inch circle. Fold dough in half and pat out again. Repeat two or three more times, taking care not to over work or knead the dough. Pat into a 1-inch thick circle (about 6 inches in diameter) and cut into 6 wedges. Place on an ungreased baking pan. Brush lightly with egg (optional) and bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until puffed and golden brown.



Remove from oven and serve immediately with lots of butter and homemade jam. Try not to eat them all at once.