Red Raspberry Pie

There are so many wonderful things to do with raspberries (cake. ice cream. sauce.), but summer really is about pies. My mom group had a French picnic for Bastille Day and that meant lots of food. We could have said “let them eat cake” (historically inaccurate, BTW), but instead I said “let's eat pie.”

Red Raspberry Pie via Alice Bay Cookbook:

Makes 1 9” pie

1 9” baked pie shell (use one half of the best pie dough recipe ever and fully blind bake it.)

1 quart fresh raspberries

¾ c. sugar

2½ Tb. corn starch

¼ tsp. salt

½ c. water

½ c. fresh orange juice

Remove 1 cup of raspberries and puree in blender or press through sieve. (Or use a food processor). Set aside.

In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, cornstarch, salt, water, and orange juice. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until thickened, about 10 to 15 minutes. Add pureed raspberries.

Place whole raspberries in pie shell. Pour syrup over the berries. Chill in refrigerator for at least 4 hours.

Super easy. Super summery. This one you should do before summer is over.

Peach and Sour Cream Buckle

I'm a sucker for fruit desserts and I'm a sucker for desserts with silly names. Fool? Slump? Grunt? Buckle? Yeah, I'm all about that. Put it together and I'll make it. Tell me there's a Cascadia party and you should bring a local goodie? I guess this buckle will have to do.

It involves peaches I picked at Sauvie Island Farms. Raspberry picking was the primary goal (and I got a LOT of raspberries. Three different recipes worth plus all of the berries that ended up in my and my baby's belly), but peaches could not be ignored. What says summer like a peach? Plus I'd never picked a peach before. Other local things were the flour (Bob's Red Mill - Milwaukie, Oregon), the dairy (Tillamook - Tillamook, Oregon and Sunshine Dairy - Portland), and the eggs (New Seasons PacNW eggs). Oh, and it's delicious. And so so easy.

I followed the recommendation of using half regular granulated sugar and half brown sugar. I recommend you do too.

Peach and Sour Cream Buckle via Herbivoracious

Yield: 16 squares

For the streusel-

½ c. sugar
6 Tb. all-purpose flour
¼ tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. kosher salt or sea salt
4 Tb. (½ stick) cold butter, cut into small pieces

For the cake -
1 ¾ c. whole wheat pastry flour (regular whole wheat worked for me)
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. kosher salt
4 Tb. soft unsalted butter
½ c. granulated sugar

½ c. brown sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp. vanilla
½ c. sour cream
¼ c. whole milk
3 c. peeled and sliced peaches (about 12 slices per peach)

For the streusel, mix all ingredients except the butter in a small bowl. Add the butter and work it into the flour mixture with your fingertips until it looks like coarse cornmeal, just like when making a pie crust. It is fine if there are a few larger bits of butter. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Preheat oven to 350. Butter a 9×9 baking pan.
Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.

In a mixer, beat the butter, sugar, egg and vanilla until fluffy. Beat in the sour cream and milk. Gradually add the flour mixture and combine gently until just mixed, like you would for pancake batter.
Gently fold in the peaches. Your hands are probably the best tool for this. It will seem like way too many peaches. Pour the batter in the pan, and sprinkle on the streusel top evenly. Bake until browned and a toothpick comes out clean, about 40 minutes.

Let cool for 20 minutes. Serve to fanfare and eat plenty.

Thai Mango with Coconut Sticky Rice

One of my favorite desserts is mango sticky rice. I lean toward the fruit side of the dessert world and this one is perfect for those cravings. It's so much easier than you think and the results are so perfect.

Thai Mango with Coconut Sticky Rice via The Kitchn:

Makes 2-4 servings

1 c. Thai sweet or sticky rice
1 can coconut milk, unshaken
3 Tb. raw or white sugar, divided
1 tsp. salt, divided
½ tsp. cornstarch (or tapioca flour, available in Asian groceries or in gluten-free section)
2 ripe mangos
Toasted sesame seeds and mint, to garnish

Soak 1 cup of dry sticky rice in water for about 1 hour. Drain the rice and rinse it thoroughly. Then pour about 1 cup of water into a saucepan, and place the rice in a steamer insert inside the saucepan. Cover tightly and steam over low to medium heat for 20 minutes.

While the rice is steaming, make the first sauce. You will make two coconut sauces to go on the rice: One thin one to mix into the rice itself, and then a thicker sauce to spoon over top. Start by opening the can of coconut milk and spooning out the thick cream on top.

Place the thicker coconut cream in a small bowl. You should have approximately 1/2 cup, give or take a bit. Pour the thinner, lighter coconut milk left in the can into a small saucepan. It will be a little over 1 cup. Stir in 2 tablespoons sugar and 3/4 teaspoon salt. Warm over medium heat, stirring frequently, for 5 minutes. Do not let the sauce boil.

By now the rice is probably done. The grains should be tender and shiny. Spoon the rice out into a bowl. It will be clumpy. Slowly pour the warm coconut milk over the rice in the bowl, stirring frequently. You want the milk to coat the rice but not leave puddles. Keep stirring, and stop pouring in coconut milk when it looks like the rice is saturated. You may not use all of the milk. Set the rice aside to finish absorbing the coconut milk; after 15 minutes or so it should have soaked up any milk that is still liquid.

While the rice is standing, make the coconut topping sauce. Rinse out the coconut milk saucepan, and pour in the coconut cream that you took off the top of the can. Stir in 1 tablespoon sugar, and 1/4 teaspoon salt. In a separate bowl, whisk together a few teaspoons of water and the cornstarch. Whisk this cornstarch slurry into the coconut cream and cook over low heat for about 3 minutes, or until the mixture thickens considerably. Set aside.

To cut up the mango, first cut off the bottom so it can stand upright. Slice away the skin in thin strips, until the mango is completely peeled. Cut off the flesh in slices, starting with the broad cheeks on each side, then the thinner strips that will come off either side. Try not to eat all of the mango when you're doing this. It's hard, I know, but the end result is worth it.

To serve, place about 1/3 cup cooked sticky rice on each plate, and arrange mango slices around it. Drizzle with the coconut topping sauce, and sprinkle with a few toasted sesame seeds. Garnish with a mint sprig, and eat while still warm.

So good. So so good.

Roasted Winter Citrus

Okay, so it's the end of winter citrus time. I love spring (yay!), but seeing all of that gorgeous orange, yellow, pink, red tasty fruit wane is sad. Here's one last way to use it up before it's gone.

On a side note, this is my 19^th recipe about something roasted in the title. I may need to break up with that term for awhile. With the weather warming up (eventually), that should help. Maybe.

Roasted Winter Citrus via Joy the Baker:

Serves as many as you like

Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Slice citrus (like grapefruit, blood oranges, and seedless tangerines) into small wedges. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with a bit of salt and just a touch of sugar. Add a bit of dried herbs, like herbes de provence (I like the American version with lavender in it).

Roast for 18-20 minutes. Remove from the oven. Allow to rest for 10 minutes, then serve warm.

It's kind of weird, very delicious, and a nice way to say goodbye to winter.  

Cherry Pie

Rainier cherries are one of my favorite summer fruits. I really wanted to turn them into a pie, but most recipes require sour cherries. That’s fine for some, but I wanted to use these bad boys, so I scoured my cookbooks and not surprisingly, I found a lot of cherry pie recipes. Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc at Home (seen previously here and here) was the winner in using sweet cherries. He recommends Bings. I say Rainiers if you can get them. They rock just that much more.

As a side note, I’d like to mention that this is the best my pie crust, excluding the very different galette dough which I have used as pie dough here and here, has ever tasted. My friend Corey mentioned the crust to me specifically after I gave her a big piece for her and her husband to share. I am a big, big fan of this pie and you should be too.

Cherry Pie from Ad Hoc at Home:

Makes 1 double crusted pie

Crust-

2½ c. all-purpose flour plus more for rolling

1¼ tsp. salt

2½ sticks (10 oz.) unsalted butter, cut into ½” pieces and chilled

About 5 Tb. ice water

Filling-

2 Tb. cornstarch

2 Tb. water

7 c. sweet cherries, pitted

¾-1 c. granulated sugar

1 Tb. vanilla extract

1 large egg, beaten

Granulated sugar for sprinkling

Keller may prefer to make his pie doughs by hand, but I’m still a big fan of the food processor method. The instructions reflect my bias. It’s great to get your dough done ahead of time so you only have to worry about the filling/rolling out the dough, depending on if you have help/how fast you can pit cherries.

Combine the flour and salt in the work bowl of a food processor. Add in the butter and pulse a few times until the butter pieces are well incorporated and no larger than a pea. Drizzle ¼ cup of water over the top and pulse a few times until the dough just holds together when pinched.  Add the remaining tablespoon of water if the dough is very dry. Turn out of the food processor and don’t worry if it looks like a big pile of flour. Knead the dough until it is completely smooth and the butter is incorporated. This last part has always been what I have struggled with, but this time I just kneaded it more and didn’t try to add any additional water, which can make the dough tough instead of flaky and delicious.

Divide the dough in about half, with one piece slightly larger than the other. The larger piece will be for the bottom crust. Shape each half into a 1” thick disk, wrap tightly in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. As my mom always says, you have to give the gluten time to rest.

Combine the cornstarch and the water in a small bowl, stirring to dissolve the cornstarch into a slurry.

Put 5 cups of cherries in a large bowl and set aside. Put the remaining 2 cups of cherries I a food processor and blend into a puree. Don’t worry if there are some small pieces remaining. Taste the puree to check how sweet it is.

Combine the puree and sugar (¾ cup if the cherries are very sweet, up to 1 cup if they are more tart) in a medium saucepan, bring to a simmer over medium heat, and simmer for about 30 minutes, stirring often to prevent the bottom from burning, until the mixture has reduced to 1¼ to 1½ cups. Reduce the heat to medium-low and, stirring constantly, add the cornstarch slurry.

Bring to a boil, stirring, and cook until the mixture becomes translucent again. Remove from the heat, spoon a little of the puree mixture onto a plate, and let cool slightly, then rub it between your fingertips to feel for any remaining grains of cornstarch. If necessary, cook slightly longer to dissolve the cornstarch. Transfer the filling to a medium bowl and stir in the vanilla extract. Let cool completely.      

If the dough is too hard to roll, let it rest at room temperature for a few minutes or pound it a few times with a rolling pin. Or, in my case, do both. Lightly flour the work surface and the rolling pin. Lightly dust the top of the larger disk of dough with flour and roll it out to a 13-14” round, about 1/8” thick. Roll outward from center, rotating the dough frequently and adding a little flour to the work surface or dough as needed to prevent sticking. Fold the dough in half and transfer to a 9-10” pie plate, gently easing the dough into the corners and up the sides. Roll out the second piece of dough in the same manner, to a 12” round, about 1/8” thick. Place on a parchment lined baking sheet. Refrigerate both doughs for 15 minutes. Again, resting is important.

Position one oven rack in the bottom of the oven and the other in the center and preheat to 400 degrees.

Stir the puree into the whole cherries and pour into the pie shell. At this point, if the top crust is too hard to shape, let it rest at room temperature for a few minutes. Moisten the rim of the pie shell with some of the beaten egg. Cover the filling with the top crust and press the edges together to seal and create a raised edge to the crust. Trim away the excess dough that overhangs the rim. Brush the top crust with the beaten egg and sprinkle with sugar. Using  paring knife, cut a few slits in the top of the pie for steam vents. Put on the bottom rack and bake for 20 minutes.

Lower the heat to 375 degree, move the pie to the center rack, and bake until the crust is golden and the filling is bubbling, 20 to 30 minutes. Transfer the pie to a cooling rack to cool.

According to Keller, the pie is best served 2 to 3 hours after it is baked, but it can be kept at room temperature the day it is baked or wrapped and refrigerated for up to 3 days. To heat, warm in a 325 degree oven for about 15 minutes.

I started eating this about 20 minutes after it came out of the oven. It is a fantastic summer dessert, great with or without vanilla ice cream.

Cardamom Apple Cider Butter

As I mentioned before, I unfortunately did not get any pictures of the making process or end result, other than the jar, of this delicious gift. For a great shot of it, you should check out Ashley English’s Canning & Preserving book. My dear friend and fellow blogger Renai is a big fan of hers. She also got some of this apple butter for Chrisannukah/her birthday. I think it was appropriate.

If you’ve made applesauce before, this recipe will seem very familiar. It is absolutely delicious and mine made more than the yield, which was great for me since I got to eat a lot of it and share it with my family before gifting it to them (it’s nice to have a test audience even if they are your intended audience). I highly recommended grinding your own cardamom as the flavor is so good and such a welcome punch to the already delicious apples. I don’t have a spice or coffee grinder, but find that my mortar and pestle works very well. Make this while apples are still in season.

Cardamom Apple Cider Butter from Canning & Preserving with Ashley English:

Yields 6 half pints

5 lb. cooking apples, peeled, cored, and coarsely chopped
1½ c. apple cider
2½ granulated sugar
1 Tb. ground cardamom or the seeds of 4 cardamom pods ground

Place the apples and cider in a large stainless steel post. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat and simmer for 25 minutes, stirring constantly to prevent sticking. If additional liquid is necessary, add water in 2 tablespoon increments. (I did not need this.) Remove from heat.

Once the cooked apple mixture is slightly cooled, puree it using a food processor or immersion blender or by pressing it through a food mill or fine meshed sieve. I did mine in batches in a food processor. Blend the apples until smooth but not runny.

Return puree to the pot, add the sugar and cardamom, and bring the mixture to a gentle boil over medium heat. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 25 to 30 minutes until the apple butter thickens and clings to a spoon. Stir often to prevent the mixture from sticking. Remove from heat.

While the apple butter cooks, sterilize 6 half pint mason jars, lids, and screw rings. English’s canning instructions are easy to follow, but I’m not going to type everything up as they are very detailed. If you’re going to can, you should get a canning book. I have some directions here (from a previous jam recipe) to get you started and what is listed in the recipe are included here. Fill a canner or large stockpot with water and set over medium-high heat. Bring just to the boiling point. Place the lids in a small saucepan, fill with water, bring to a boil, turn off the heat, and set the pan aside.

Place the hot jars on top of a kitchen cloth on the counter. With the help of a canning funnel, pack he apple butter into the jars, reserving ¼” (6 mm) headspace. Use a nonmetallic spatula to remove any trapped air bubbles and wipe the rims clean with a damp cloth. Place on the lids and screw bands, tightening only until fingertip-tight.

Using a jar lifter, place the jars in the canner. Process for 10 minutes in boiling water.

Let them stand for 5 minutes off heat and uncovered before moving them to a kitchen cloth to cool and finish processing. You know they’re sealed when the lid curves down. Decorate (or at least date) the jars and give away and eat a bunch. Or both.

This is really good on pancakes/waffles, toast, chicken, by the spoonful. It makes for a lovely gift too, if you can stand to share it.

Rosh Hashanah Honey Apple Tart

Shana tova! It's Rosh Hashanah, also known as the Jewish New Year. This is the time when we celebrate the sweetness of life, traditionally through the use of apples and honey. If you search for "apple honey" in Google, the first article that comes up is this one, which explains the importance of apples and honey not only to the New Year, but to the Jewish people in general. Rosh Hashanah signifies the beginning of the High Holy Days, which deal heavily on repentance, ending with Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur involves fasting, so I won't have any recipes for that unless I come up with an awesome breaking the fast meal for this year.

But Rosh Hashanah does involve food and some of my favorites! Apples and honey are an amazing combination and I thought that making a tart would be a great way to celebrate. It's simple because of the use of galette dough and delicious because it's apples and honey. I think everyone will love it, even on non holidays.

Rosh Hashanah Honey Apple Tart:

Makes one 12" tart

1 full recipe galette dough
4 apples, Braeburn or Fuji, peeled, cored, and sliced very thin
½ c. plus 3 Tb. honey, divided
3 Tb. unsalted butter, melted
2 Tb. flour
2 Tb. cinnamon
1 Tb. allspice
½ tsp. lemon juice
2 Tb. lavender infused honey (optional. I get it at the Farmer's Market)

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Melt butter until slightly browned. I do this because I really like the nutty flavor of browned butter and it combines very well with apples. Mix butter with ½ cup of honey. Stir in with apples. Mix in lemon juice, spices, and flour.

Press chilled dough into tart pan and fill with apple mixture. Place on middle rack of oven and bake for 35 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool for 5-10 minutes.

Drizzle additional honey over entire tart, serve, and enjoy the sweetness of a new year!

The galette dough is perfect for this as it comes together so quickly and is always perfectly flaky. If you choose to use the lavender honey, it is a perfect complement to the other spices in the tart. By slicing the apples so thin, the apple to honey ratio per bite is increased and you really taste the combination with each bite. I hope you all have a happy, healthy, sweet New Year, whether you're Jewish or not.

Blackberry Lime Muffins

Two weekends ago, I went camping with a few of my girlfriends at Mt. Rainier National Park (Renai (in two parts) and Brittany have already posted about it). Car Portland was in charge of breakfast, so I decided to make muffins because it’s berry season and I love muffins. They were delicious and it was an amazing camping trip, made all the better because my fall semester just started and I know I’m going to be bogged down in grad school stuff once again. Incidentally, this will likely mean a slowdown in posts. As always, I’ll try to keep up. In the meantime, make these muffins. They are fantastic.

Blackberry Lime Muffins:

Makes 18 small muffins

1/2 c. whole wheat flour
3/4 c. all-purpose flour
1 c. oats
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 c. sugar
1 c. homemade applesauce
1/2 c. Greek-style yogurt
1 egg, beaten
Zest and juice of 1 large lime
1 1/2 heaping c. Oregon blackberries

Heat oven to 375 degrees.

In a small bowl, mix together flours, oats, baking powder and soda, salt, and sugar. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, beat together applesauce and yogurt. Add in beaten egg and mix well. Add lime zest and juice. I ended up adding in a bit more because the cinnamon flavor of my applesauce was overpowering the zesty lime flavor profile I was going for.

Slowly mix in dry ingredients, making sure each addition is fully incorporated before adding the next. Fold in blackberries. Add mixture to cupcake liners, filling about 2/3 of the way full, and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 18-20 minutes.

These ended up being more dense than I had intended, but were still amazing. I would have used all whole wheat flour, but I made these the morning of the trip and ran out. In the future, I will likely increase the amount of flour a bit, but for the most part, I loved them. They are incredibly moist and the best part is how the blackberries and lime play together. It’s one of my favorite flavor combinations. What I think is great about muffin recipes is how much you can play around with them. In the future, I might take out the lime and sub in blueberries. Because my applesauce is so full of cinnamon, I wouldn’t change anything else or maybe I could add lemon instead. The world is your muffin!

Raspberry Buttermilk Cake

Once upon a time, there was a girl who had amazing friends who brought her yummy deliciousness just because they were visiting. And then she turned that deliciousness into even more deliciousness and spread the happy food love around.

My friend Kai and his fiancee Jules are amazing. I've known Kai for quite some time, but what makes his visits so special, other than the bounty of food he always brings, is that he's known Aaron since they were both six. It's fun watching old friends, especially when Aaron noted that it was ironic to be cleaning up the house for someone he used to invite over to mess up his house.

Anyway, he and Jules were in town doing some wedding related things and they brought this flat of raspberries that are now among some of the best tasting raspberries I've ever had. It's good to know people who can grow things. What was so serendipitous about receiving these raspberries is that Renai had been getting on me to make this out of this world raspberry buttermilk cake. Not only that, when I was in Juneau, her mom told me that if I hadn't made it yet, I had to. I said I would when I got home and lo and behold, raspberries!

They aren't kidding about this cake either. It is amazing, which is why it gets to be the second Smitten Kitchen recipe this month. I made three of them in a week.

Raspberry Buttermilk Cake slightly modified from Smitten Kitchen:

Makes one delicious cake

1 c. flour (I did 2/3 all-purpose, 1/3 whole wheat. Like Renai.)
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
½ stick unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
1½ Tb. raw turbinado sugar (or use regular, like the original recipe. I like the crunchiness of the raw)
½ tsp. pure vanilla extract
½ tsp finely grated lemon zest (optional. Just do it. I did closer to 1 tsp)
1 large egg
½ c. well-shaken buttermilk (or 2 Tb. buttermilk powder)
1 c. fresh raspberries (I definitely had more, but I also ate a lot of them in the process. Just eyeball it)



Heat oven to 400°F with rack in middle. Butter and flour a 9" round cake pan. Mine are 10", which led to a slightly flatter cake, but still good. I also floured with whole wheat because it lends a slightly nuttier flavor, which I love.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and set aside. In a larger bowl, beat butter and 2/3 cup sugar with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about two minutes, then beat in vanilla and zest. Add egg and beat well.

At low speed, mix in flour mixture in three batches, alternating with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour, and mixing until just combined.Spoon batter into cake pan, smoothing top. Scatter raspberries evenly over top and sprinkle with 1½ tablespoons raw sugar. As you can see, I did this two different ways. This first time I just scattered them all over the place because I didn't really care. The second time, on one of the cake I was very careful and even. I think I like the look of the random scatter better, at least in whole cake form, but to each their own.

Bake until cake is golden and a wooden pick inserted into center comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool in pan 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack and cool to warm, 10 to 15 minutes more. Invert onto a plate. Pay attention to the short baking time. It is done really quickly and I don't usually get perfect cakes at the low end of times given in recipes, but this time I did. It was perfect at 20.

Serve it up and watch your friends enjoy. There's a reason Renai and Nicki were on me to make this. It is an amazingly easy, amazingly tasty cake. It was a big hit at my house, at work, and at my friend's house for movie night. You could put in any berry and it would work. It's not overly sweet, so you can force your dessert on non-dessert people and they will understand why you bake all the time. Be careful of how easy and tasty this is. It is dangerous to put yourself on an all-cake diet!

I know I will be making this again and soon.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie

One of the desserts that will always remind me of home is strawberry-rhubarb pie. I have a vague memory of the first one I ever had. I can’t remember where or who I was with or why I was wherever I was, but I do remember the combination of tart rhubarb and ridiculously sweet strawberries. It’s always stuck with me.

When I was at the farmer’s market and saw this ridiculously beautiful rhubarb, I knew I had to get it. I also bought a very large amount of strawberries, which I am surprised made it home because they were just so sweet, I kept snacking on them on the walk back. Anyway, for a pie that reminds me of home, of course I had to use The Fiddlehead Cookbook. Hometown cookbook, hometown pie, happy Becca. I didn’t use the crust recipe they use, instead subbing in the one my mom sent me oh so long ago. Use it. It’s amazing. I had extra rhubarb and strawberries and this is reflected in the recipe below. I also noted the original amounts. Oh yeah, and make sure you get the leaves off of your rhubarb. Those are poisonous.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie from The Fiddlehead Cookbook:

1 9” pie (8 pieces)

1 unbaked double 9” pie crust (see the recipe I use here).
5 c. sliced fresh rhubarb stems (orig. 4 c.)
1½ pint fresh strawberries, washed, patted dry, and stems removed. Large ones cut into quarters. (Orig. 1 pint)
1/3 c. all-purpose flour
1 1/3-1½ granulated sugar, depending on the sweetness of your strawberries. Mine were sweet, so I went to the low side.
½ tsp. ground cinnamon
2 Tb. butter

Place rhubarb, strawberries, flour, sugar, and cinnamon in a large glass or stainless steel bowl, mix well, and allow to sit for 15 minutes.



Preheat oven to 400 degrees and place rack in center of oven. Pour rhubarb mixtures into unbaked shell, mounding toward center. Dot filling with butter, cut into teaspoons. Use water to dampen lip of pie shell. Loosely fold top crust in half and transfer to pie. Unfold and center on pie. Trim upper crust to match lower. Folding under, pinch two layers of crust together to create a secure and attractive edging to pie. Yeah, I sort of tried to do this. It was pretty enough.

With a fork or a small knife, make a pattern of small holes or slits in top of pie. Lightly dust with a pinch of sugar and place in oven. Put a cookie sheet lined with foil on shelf directly below pie to catch any drips. This is pretty good advice for any pie baking you may do, FYI.

Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 375 and bake for 40 to 45 minutes, until juices are bubbling out of slits in center of pie. Mine was done at 40.

Remove from oven and allow to cool on a rack for 30 minutes or more before cutting. Serve warm or at room temperature with vanilla ice cream. Cover tightly and store at room temperature for 1 day, longer in the refrigerator.

This pie was so good! I loved it! The only oopsie I made was not adding more flour when I added in more fruit. As a result, it was a little more liquidy than I would have liked, but still very tasty and not so soggy as to be an off texture. The crust is very forgiving and a small error like that didn’t ruin the pie. While it is best day of, I loved eating this for the next few days afterward. This is a perfect late spring pie.

Slow Cooker Applesauce

This recipe combines two things I love: using up sad looking produce and cobbling together recipes. I had a big bag of apples that sat in the back of the fridge for a ridiculous amount of time that I kept promising Aaron I would use up. Finally I managed to get my act together and search for some recipes, forgetting that I had already done this when I had initially intended to do something with my sad sack of apples. I think I really enjoy the phrase sad sack of apples. Anyway, I ended up with two recipes that both had things I like about them and decided to stick them together and call it slow cooker applesauce. The originals are here and here.

Slow Cooker Applesauce:

Makes about 3 large mason jars worth

12 apples, peeled, cored and cut into quarters
Juice from 1 lemon plus a little more
¾ c. water
1 c. brown sugar
¾ tsp. cinnamon
3 tsp. vanilla






Combine the apples and the water in the slow cooker. Add the lemon juice, sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla. Stir well to combine. With this many apples, it might be difficult, but it will work out in the end. Cover and cook on low for 4-6 hours. Mine were perfectly tender and ready at just about 5 hours. Mash up with a potato masher.



I froze two of the jars and kept one in the fridge. There would’ve been enough for three full mason jars, but I kept eating it. It’s so good! The tang of the lemon plays well off of the sweetness of the sugar. The vanilla adds a nice layer of flavor as well. I would use more lemon juice and less sugar on sweeter apples. It’s just like apple pie; you’ve got to adjust based on what you have. I highly recommend making this, if for no other reason that you have a sad sack of apples and they need some love. This stuff is great on everything, but I like it best by itself.

Waffles

Once, oh so long ago (okay not that long ago), I declared that the buttermilk pancake recipe on the back of my buttermilk powder was the best thing in pancakes and the only one I made. Yeah, and then my dear friend Alton Brown (and by dear friend I mean I adore his food nerdliness on a regular basis) had a show about pancakes and I was hooked. And, as it turns out, they make for terrific waffles as well!

“Instant” Pancake Mix and Waffles from Good Eats:

3 batches of pancakes…or waffles! (About 12 pancakes per batch.)

6 c. all-purpose flour
1½ tsp. baking soda
3 tsp. baking powder
1 Tb. kosher salt
2 Tb. sugar
(Combine all of the ingredients in a lidded container. Shake to mix. Use the mix within 3 months.)
2 eggs, separated
2 c. buttermilk
4 Tb. melted butter
2 c. "Instant" Pancake Mix, recipe above

Turn on your waffle iron.



Whisk together the egg whites and the buttermilk in a small bowl. In another bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the melted butter. Combine the buttermilk mixture with the egg yolk mixture in a large mixing bowl and whisk together until thoroughly combined. Pour the liquid ingredients on top of the pancake mix. Using a whisk, mix the batter just enough to bring it together. Don't try to work all the lumps out. Normally, when doing pancakes, you add your fruit to the top after they’ve been placed on the griddle. This doesn’t work out as well for waffles, so I mixed in my fruit, which was dried cranberries and pomegranate seeds, right into the batch.





Pour in the batter. Don’t do what I did here, which is pour in far too much. Underestimate with waffles and you will be much happier. Let the iron do its thing. Pull the waffles when they are crisp at the edges. Serve with butter, jam, and maple syrup. Aaron got this jam at the Oregon Historical Society, where he volunteers, and it is amazing! I want to eat it on everything. Including more waffles.



Check out the original recipe here to see Alton’s fabulous tips on making pancakes with this stuff. I know I’ve said it before, but I think I may have found the perfect pancake/waffle recipe. I try to serve it to my friends whenever they come into town because pancakes and waffles are a good way to show your friends you love them. And it gives you an excuse to eat waffles!

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.

Vanilla Panna Cotta with Pumpkin Cherry Compote and Pumpkin-Caramel Sauce

This is probably one of the most involved desserts I have ever made. It’s not often I make something I’ve never made before plus a compote I’ve never made before PLUS a caramel sauce I’ve never made before. But it was all worth it just because it was that amazing.

I love panna cotta, but gelatin freaks me out. I think it’s just a creepy product in general. I had some at Ciao Vito the other day for happy hour and it was so tasty I thought that maybe I should do that for Thanksgiving instead of pie. For whatever reason, I decided to go pie free this year. I think it worked out. Anyway, on my search for a panna cotta recipe, I was getting a little frustrated with all the gelatin in it when I found this one, which uses agar flakes instead. Agar agar is derived from seaweed and is completely vegetarian and not creepy. It’s also better than gelatin as far as being able to reset it by reboiling the liquid. Yeah, rad. So while that recipe did use agar flakes, I didn’t want to use whole milk and buy vanilla beans, so I searched some more and found this recipe. Combining the new one, with tips from the first one, and advice from this website, I got a solid panna cotta recipe. Good deal.

But you can’t just have panna cotta! You need some sort of fruit thing and a sauce. So I searched from pumpkin recipes on epicurious.com, as there would be no pumpkin pie, and found this compote and this sauce and as a result, made a dessert. I made all three the day before Thanksgiving and I think it worked out really well. It’s also really easy to veganize. Just replace the heavy cream with soy cream for the panna cotta and the sauce and oil based margarine for the butter in the compote and sauce.

Vanilla Panna Cotta with Pumpkin Cherry Compote and Pumpkin-Caramel Sauce from my brain and David Lebovitz as well as Gourmet and Bon Appétit via epicurious.com:

Serves 6 and makes a ton of extra compote and sauce

For the panna cotta:
4 c. heavy cream
½ c. sugar
2 tsp. vanilla extract
4½ Tb. agar flakes
6 Tb. cold water

For the compote:
½ c. dried tart cherries
2 Tb. unsalted butter
½ c. packed brown sugar
¼ c. granulated sugar
2 Tb. lemon juice
¼ tsp. cinnamon
1/8 tsp. salt
2 c. fresh pumpkin (preferably sugar or cheese pumpkin), peeled, seeded, and cut into 1/4-inch dice

For the sauce:
¼ c. unsalted butter
½ c. sugar
1 c. heavy whipping cream
½ c. canned pure pumpkin



Heat the heavy cream and sugar in a saucepan. Once the sugar is dissolved, stir in the vanilla extract. Bring to a boil.

Meanwhile, lightly oil six cups with a neutral-tasting oil. Sprinkle the agar over the cold water in a medium-sized bowl and let stand 10 minutes.



Whisk in agar and simmer, whisking, until completely dissolved, about 15 minutes. Cool panna cotta slightly. Pour into glasses and chill until set, at least 2 hours.

To make the compote, deal with your pain of a pumpkin first. Seriously, peeling, seeding, and dicing a pumpkin is ridiculously involved. It took me forever and probably would have taken longer if I hadn’t remembered my mini-prep food processor part way in. After that is all set, soak cherries in hot water to cover until softened, about 15 minutes, then drain.





Melt butter in a large skillet over moderate heat. Add sugars, lemon juice, cinnamon, and salt, then cook, stirring until smooth. Add pumpkin and drained cherries and simmer, covered, stirring occasionally, until pumpkin is tender, 8 to 12 minutes.





The sauce is really easy, but kind of weird. I’ve never made caramels or caramel sauce, so this was all new to me. Melt butter in heavy small saucepan over medium heat. Add sugar and cook until mixture is deep amber, stirring constantly, about 8 minutes. The mixture will be grainy. Reduce heat to medium-low. Add cream. It was at this point that my caramel mixture became solid and freaked me out. It says in the original recipe that the mixture will bubble, but that took a little while. Stir until caramel bits dissolve, about 2 minutes. Add pumpkin and stir until heated. Refrigerate until cold, about 2 hours.



To assemble, run a sharp knife around the edge of each panna cotta and unmold each onto a serving plate. Drizzle with sauce (I took mine out a little before serving) and scoop on compote.

I thought that this was ridiculously delicious. The panna cotta was a little more solid that I would have liked, but for my first time making it and messing with a couple of different recipes, I thought it came out rather well. The compote was sweet, but not too sweet and the sauce was just dang delicious. I may never make the compote again just because of how difficult it was to deal with that pumpkin, but I might modify it with apple or something like that. This is such a pretty dessert and I’d love to show it off again.