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!   

Kale Caesar Salad with Grilled Goat Cheese

Kale is everywhere. It's hearty. It's good for you. I seem to get it in my CSA every week. I do love kale, but sometimes it starts to be a little much. You need to do something different with it. Hence taking a caesar dressing and using raw kale leaves. And since I was by myself, I got to put a bunch of goat cheese on it. Though I mentioned in the tapenade recipe about using Thai fish sauce as a replacement for anchovies, I learned it first when making this. I made it for one as an entree, but it could easily work for two as a salad course.

Kale Caesar Salad with Grilled Goat Cheese:

(Caesar Dressing modified via 1,000 Mexican Recipes)

Serves 1

Dressing-

½ c. olive oil

2 Tb. red wine vinegar

1 Tb. lemon juice

2 Tb. Thai fish sauce

2 large cloves garlic, chopped

1 tsp. Dijon mustard

¼ c. freshly grated Parmesan cheese

½ tsp. freshly ground pepper, or to taste

2 slices hearty Italian bread (like ciabatta), cut into chunks

2 Tb. olive oil

2 tsp. dried herbs (oregano, basil)

Freshly cracked black pepper, to taste

Large handful torn kale leaves

3 oz. chevre, divided

1 egg, beaten

¼ c. panko

Olive oil

Make the croutons first. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Toss bread cubes in olive oil, herbs, and pepper. Place on a baking sheet and bake until golden brown, 10-15 minutes.

Make the dressing by placing the oil, vinegar, lemon juice, Thai fish sauce, garlic, and mustard in a food processor. Pulse until thoroughly combined. Add the Parmesan and black pepper. Blend until creamy and smooth. This make enough for a few salads, but I love caesar dressing so much I needed to make it all. It keeps well for up to 3 days, so just go for it.

Cut the chevre into 1 ounce chunks. Place chunks in egg to coat, then roll them in the panko. Heat a pan over medium heat until oil is shimmering. Add the coated goat cheese and cook until bottom side is golden brown, about 2 minutes. Turn over and cook until golden, about 1 minute more. Remove from heat.

Dress kale, toss throughly, and top with goat cheese and croutons.

Tangy, crunchy goat cheese and earthy kale are a fantastic combo, especially with the zip from the caesar dressing. I might be able to eat this every week.

Summer Fruit Galette

Summertime should be easy and so should summer desserts. Galettes are the best thing. Use the fruit you have and adjust the sugar as necessary. Berries will be release more juice, so make sure you fold those edges up nicely and use parchment paper for easy clean up. Below are the fruits I used, but feel free to change it up to anything you like.

Summer Fruit Galette:

Makes 2 8” galettes

1 full recipe galette dough

1 peach, peeled and sliced

2 small plums, sliced

2 apricots, sliced

2 Tb. lemon juice

¼ c. sugar

Citrus sugar for sprinkling

Prep the galette dough, let rest for at least an hour in the fridge, and bring back to room temperature while you prepare the fruit.

Mix the fruit in a medium size bowl. Toss with lemon juice and sugar and let sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, heat your oven to 400 degree and roll out your dough. It’s sticky, so you’ll need to add flour to your work surface and rolling pin. Work into about 10” circles and transfer to a parchment paper lined baking sheet.

Take macerated fruit and pile in the middle of each galette circle. Fold over edges to make a crust. Freeform it – galettes are not the time to be super fancy. Sprinkle edges with citrus sugar.

Bake for 30 minutes or until fruit is bubbling and you have a nicely browned crust. Let cool for at least 10 minutes before cutting into it.

Though I do say this is a summer dessert, I won’t tell anyone if you have some for breakfast. Promise.

Ravioli

Ravioli is super easy to make, especially once you’ve already got the hang of making pasta. You can fill it with anything you like, easily changing a meat based recipe like this one to a vegetarian one. The best part is that this doesn’t take long at all.

Ravioli:

Serves 2 with leftovers

1 recipe egg pasta

½ lb. ground meat (turkey, beef, or some combination of what you like)

¼ c. ricotta

4 garlic cloves, minced

Salt & pepper

Basil

Oregano

1 egg, beaten

Sauce of your choice

Prepare the pasta. Roll it out as you would for long noodles, but leave in sheets. Set aside to dry.

Mix together all other ingredients except egg. Roll into balls and evenly space them across the dried pasta sheets, leaving another sheet to place on top of this one. When all of the meat (or pasta) is used up, brush the beaten egg in the spaces between the filling balls. This acts as a binder for the top sheet. Take the other sheets and press them down on top of the meat filled side. Create pockets for the filling, pressing down firmly to remove as much air as possible from each pocket.

Using a knife or a pastry cutter, cut the pockets into squares. Place the ravioli into a pot of boiling salted water. Like all fresh pasta, these do not take long to cook, 3-4 minutes at the most. Serve warm with any sauce (marinara is always good).

A fast and very tasty way to do a weekday meal. I like that the basic idea lends itself to many different types of ravioli, depending on what you like to use to fill it. 

Stuffed Squash with Quinoa

I don’t know about your neck of the woods, but Portland has been having some lame weather. Pouring rain, 14 seconds of snow (I miss snow!), and then more rain. This is the kind of dish for those days. It’s hearty and warm and can be easily vegan without the cheese. I love cheese, but if you don’t, go ahead and not use it. That makes more for me!

Stuffed Squash with Quinoa:

Serves 2

One acorn squash (or your favorite type)

1 c. uncooked quinoa

1 bunch chard chopped, stems removed and set aside

4 cloves garlic, minced and divided

1½ c-ish broccoli

Olive oil

Your favorite herbs for seasoning (I used thyme, oregano, and rosemary)

Salt and pepper to taste

Olive oil

Parmesan cheese (optional)

Goat cheese (optional)

Preheat oven to 350. Cut squash in half [edited to add: scoop out any seeds and extra gunk before baking] and place face down on an oiled baking sheet. Bake for about 30 minutes or until the squash is fork tender. Set aside and allow to cool. Leave oven on.

While the squash is baking, prepare quinoa. Add quinoa and 2 cups of water to a medium size pot, bring to a boil, and simmer for about 10-15 minutes. Fluff and mix in 1 clove of garlic, salt, pepper, and some herbs and goat cheese, if using. Set aside.

Add olive oil to a large skillet and toss in chard stems, broccoli, and remaining garlic and cook over medium heat until stems are slightly soft. Add in chard leaves and cook until wilted and reduced. Mix in herbs.  Add in quinoa and mix together thoroughly. Set aside.

Once squash has cooled enough to touch, flip over and add in some parmesan cheese, if using. Fill squash halves with the chard-quinoa mixture and top with additional parmesan. Return squash to oven until cheese is melted, 2-3 minutes. There will likely be some of the mixture remaining. Eat that while the squash is back in the oven.

This will fill your belly and make you happy. [Edited to add: scrape up the squash with your filling to get a complete and tasty bite.]

Guacamole

Okay, so there are a million guacamole recipes out there. This one isn’t anything really new, but I just had so much fun making this with my mortar and pestle (the traditional way), that I had to share. Whenever I make guac, I use some of it on whatever else I’ve made, but mostly I eat it with chips. This batch was no different.

Guacamole:

1 ripe Haas avocado

2 garlic cloves, minced

Lime juice, to taste

Salt, to taste

Smoked sea salt, to taste

Mash your avocado with your mortar and pestle until very creamy. Mix in lime juice until tangy and a bit of salt. Finish with smoked sea salt.

I think the smoked sea salt adds a new, interesting flavor. Getting a perfect avocado makes all the difference as you want it to be super creamy. Try it out. I got my smoked sea salt at Trader Joe’s. 

Zucchini Cakes

Not too long ago I went to the farmers market and the zucchinis were already crazy cheap. I bought a few because why not and then promptly could not figure out what I wanted to do with them. Some ended up in eggs, pasta, nachos (!), but I still had so much. So one night I shredded the remainders up and decided to make a veggie faux latke. It worked out really well. Sometimes the farmers market creates inspiration and sometimes you just buy too many zucchinis.

Zucchini Cakes:

Serves 2

1 potato, shredded

2 medium size zucchinis, shredded

2 medium size carrots, shredded

3 garlic cloves, minced

½ c. matzoh meal

2 eggs, scrambled

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Olive oil

Ricotta (optional)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix together shredded veggies and then mix in the matzoh and eggs. Form into patties. Place on a greased baking sheet. Sprinkle top with olive oil. Back for 10-15 minutes until cooked through and the tops and edges are crispy. Top with ricotta cheese.

They are tasty and a fun way to do something like latkes without being a slave to the stove. Yum!

Apple Dutch Baby

Dutch babies are a nostalgic breakfast for me. My mom used to always makes them for me for special breakfasts and whenever I visit, I can get one. The classic way to make it is to make a huge one in cast iron pan and share it, but you can do individual sizes. I made a smaller version to share with Aaron and did it in a casserole, which made it thicker than usual, but still tasty. Apple is a classic combo with the Dutch baby.

Apple Dutch Baby:

¼ c. milk +

¼ c. flour

for every egg

1 – 2 eggs from one person

3 – 4 for more

1 apple

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Place enough butter to coat casserole. Warm in oven until melty.

Mix milk and flour with beaten eggs. Cover the bottom of the casserole with apple slices. Pour in batter and cover top with apple slices.  For a one egg baby, bake for 8-10 minutes. For two eggs, 10-12 minutes, and 12-15 for three eggs.

Remove when top is puffy. Serve with maple syrup, sour cream, and jam.

It’s easy, but still seems like a fancier breakfast. It would also be a welcome addition to a potluck brunch.

Balsamic Vinaigrette with Grilled Salad

I love salad and I eat it all the time. It got a lot easier when Aaron discovered how much he loves balsamic. As much as I love salad, I do basically the same thing every time. I decided to go slightly out of the box with this one and make a dressing and grill some veggies.

Balsamic Vinaigrette with Grilled Salad:

For the vinaigrette-

¼ c. balsamic

2 garlic cloves, minced

10 small sprigs lemon thyme

Fresh ground pepper and salt to taste

Juice for ½ lemon

¼ c. extra virgin olive oil

For the salad-

Arugula

Lettuce (romaine, butter, red leaf)

Broccoli

Carrots

Green onion

Peppers

To make the vinaigrette, mix all of the ingredients together until well blended. Set aside.

For the salad, grill the broccoli, carrots, green onion, and peppers until slightly charred. Add the grilled veggies to a salad bowl with arugula and lettuce. Toss in vinaigrette. I added goat cheese and cherry tomatoes to mine.

It’s a quick and easy way to jazz up your salad.

Chicken and Waffles

What do you do when you make too much pancake/waffle batter? You stick in the fridge and then have chicken and waffles for dinner. You can modify these any way you like, but make sure it's spicy or you're missing the point.

Chicken and Waffles:

Serves 2

For the waffles-
½ recipe waffle batter
1 head broccoli, diced small
½ c. cheese (white cheddar rocks!)
2 tsp. red pepper flakes
2 Tb. cayenne pepper
2 Tb. granulated garlic
2 Tb. dried minced onion
Freshly cracked pepper

For the chicken-
2 chicken breasts
2 eggs
Breadcrumbs
Flour
2 tsp. cayenne pepper
2 tsp. granulated garlic
Freshly cracked pepper
Salt to taste

To make the waffles, mix everything in with the batter, and get it going in a waffle iron. You should have enough batter to make four small waffles.

To make the chicken, mix in the cayenne pepper, garlic, pepper, and salt with some flour. Dredge the chicken through the flour, then the egg wash, and then the breadcrumbs. Cook in pan with hot olive oil over medium-high heat until cooked through.

 Place the chicken on a waffle, cover with hot sauce of your choice, and top with another waffle. Serve with syrup. These are sweet and spicy and so delicious. The broccoli adds color and a bit of texture and the cheese is a perfect complement to all of the spice. It’s hearty and works day or night.

Margarita Chicken

This might be a little sad, folks. I remember eating this and I remember it being very, very good, but I'm not exactly sure how it was put together. I think this will mostly be pictures, but I can give you a general idea of what happened and how you use it. I really should write things down when I make them. Or when Aaron does.

Margarita Chicken:

4 chicken breasts
Tequila
Juice of one lemon
Juice of one lime
Big pinch of sugar
2 Tb. salt
1/4 c. olive oil

 Marinate chicken breasts with the above ingredients for at least half an hour in the refrigerator. Grill breasts in a medium size pan with olive oil. Once cooked through, set aside and cool until you can touch them comfortably. Shred and make tacos, nachos, burritos, or whatever you like.

Thai Style Buffalo

I feel like I should post a warning when a new semester starts for me: WARNING! SCHOOL IN SESSION. I MIGHT FORGET I HAVE A BLOG.

It makes me sad too because I love making good food and posting about it. So here we go, back to the middle of last month when I was talking about that fun, three-course meal I made for Aaron. The entree course was Thai-style buffalo. I was going to make them into meatballs, but decided to go with it loose over rice. It as tangy and fun and I really liked it.

Thai Style Buffalo with Rice:

Serves 4

1/2 lb. ground buffalo
Zest and juice of one lime
1 Tb. garlic chili sauce
2 Tb. toasted sesame oil
1 tsp. oyster sauce
1/2 c. rice vinegar
1/2 c. island soyaki
1/2 c. olive oil
1 c. cilantro, chopped
3 cloves garlic, diced
Zest and juice of 1/2 orange
Olive oil
1 c. cooked rice

Mix buffalo with zest and juice of lime and next 8 ingredients in a large bowl. Place in fridge and marinate for about two hours, mixing every 30 minutes.

Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add buffalo and cook for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Serve over rice.

It’s tangy and a little spicy and, of course, garlicky, which made it all a very satisfying main course. I’m sure you could marinate it for less time for a quicker mid-week meal.

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!

Potato Ricotta Galette

This is just a quick one. Galettes are great because you can modify them in so many ways. This was really delicious. If you haven’t made one yet, based on this one or this one, do it now.

Potato Ricotta Galette:

Makes a super tasty galette

½ recipe galette dough
2 red potatoes, thinly sliced
Ricotta cheese
3 cloves garlic, chopped
Dried oregano
Sea salt
Olive oil

Bake potatoes, mixed in olive oil and oregano, in a 375 degree oven for about 5 minutes. Roll out galette dough. Spread the ricotta cheese over the dough, sprinkle with chopped garlic and oregano, and cover with potato slices. Fold in the dough and sprinkle with sea salt. Bake for about 30 minutes in a 400 degree oven. My potatoes cooked a little longer in the first step than I would have liked and as a result were a bit crispier than intended at the end of baking. It still rocked though. I will definitely do this one again and keep on experimenting with galettes. How can crispy dough and garlic ever be anything but amazing?

Broccoli and Pesto Sausage Mac and Cheese

Here’s another oh hey, when did I make this? post. I have pictures, so obviously it happened and I do remember this being good. Mac and cheese is super simple and amazingly delicious. Plus, it helps to use up those random bits of meat and veg in your fridge. And I love cheese. There, I said it. Like that was a surprise to anyone.

Broccoli and Pesto Sausage Mac and Cheese:

Makes a bunch

Flour
Butter
Milk or cream
1-2 c. finely shredded cheese (Tillamook’s white cheddar rocks!)
3-4 cloves garlic, chopped
2-3 pesto chicken sausages, heated and chopped (other or no meat is also cool)
1 large head of broccoli, steamed and cut into florets
Rotini pasta (or whichever shape you like. I’m particular to wagon wheels when it comes to mac and cheese. And yes, I’m aware that the mac in mac and cheese means macaroni noodles, but I like different shapes.)
Handful of bread crumbs

Boil off your noodles to al dente. Drain and set aside in a large bowl.

Using your flour and butter, make a roux. Don’t brown the butter. Slowly stir in milk until you reach a consistency you like. It’s better to put in less and add more if it looks off after the cheese than have a sloppy mess. Slowly add the shredded cheese. When you get something resembling a cheese sauce, take off the heat. Mix in the garlic.





Add the cheese sauce to the pasta. Stir in the broccoli and sausage. Take the whole mixture and place in a large casserole. Top with bread crumbs and stick in under the broiler until the crumbs brown a bit. Eat and be happy.

Fish Tacos

The problem with not writing up recipes after you make them is, of course, not really remembering what you did. So, as a result, you all get to read about my delicious fish tacos and hopefully I remember correctly what was done.

One of the thing I like most about cooking is making marinades. I think it has something to do with the way it can change the scope of a meal based on the herbs and spices you use. In this case, I used snapper because rock fishes make for great tacos. So does halibut, but snapper is much cheaper. As I know you all are very smart, I don’t have exact amounts for this recipe, but I know you can figure it out. I also know that traditionally, fish tacos are served with cabbage and white sauce, but I just didn’t feel like it this time. They are still quite fantastic.

Fish Tacos:

Serves 3-4

1 lb.–ish snapper or other rock fish
Herb vinegar
Olive oil
Fresh lemon juice
Fresh lime juice
Ground cumin
Cilantro
Mexican oregano
Flour
Panko
Eggs, beaten
Corn taco shells (hard or soft)
Whatever taco accoutrements you enjoy

Cut fish into strips, about 1” wide, on an angle. In a large container with a lid, add fish, vinegar, olive oil, lemon juice, lime juice, ground cumin, cilantro, and Mexican oregano. Close and shake around. Refrigerate at least overnight. Shake it up every 12 hours or so. Mine marinated for about 2 days because other dinner plans came up. It was still good.






Heat oven to 400 degrees. Dredge fish through flour, then egg, then panko. Place fish on a greased baking sheet. Drizzle fish with additional olive oil. Cook for about 5-6 minutes, turn the fish over, and cook until done, another few minutes. Stuff into tacos. We had ours with pepper jack cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and homemade guacamole and served with Mexican rice.

This makes a little or a lot, depending on how much fish you have, and I ended up also making fish nachos that same week, which was also delicious. It’s so easy and with summer coming up, you’re going to want these.