Happy Pi Day!

First of all, in case you didn't know, we're kind of nerdy in our household. Clint's a computer guy, I'm a biochemist. He goes on and on about computer stuff and coding and scheduling, and I get all excited by protein-protein interactions and diagrams of such. In the grand scheme of things, that's pretty nerdy.

And we both have an intense love of pie. Apple pie, blueberry pie, chicken pot pie, lemon meringue pie... we love it all.

So it's not surprising that we both freaked out for awesomeness when we saw this picture

First of all, HOW DID WE NEVER NOTICE THIS BEFORE?!? I love this, I'm still laughing over it now, a day after I first saw it.

So in our extreme nerdiness and love of food, we had pie for pi day. I always intend to make pie for pi day, but in the past it's just never happened. So this year I made up for lost time with three pies.
Chicken pot pie with biscuit crust (blogged previously here), apple pie and blueberry pie.

This chicken pie is one of my new favorite dinner recipes. This may be its last hurrah before fall returns, because it's great for a chilly night. It's the perfect way to use up leftover chicken- a week ago, I boiled up 2 split breasts and 4 bone-in thighs to make chicken stock. We made pizza and tacos with the chicken, but still had quite a bit left, so I tossed it all in here. And used the chicken stock for the gravy!

I don't use recipes for my fruit pies. It always causes a little trouble when people ask for a pie recipe- honestly all a fruit pie is is pie crust lining a pie dish, filled with your choice of fruit tossed with some sugar and spices of your choice, and baked. If you're using wet fruit (like frozen berries with a lot of ice crystals on them, or fresh peaches), I also toss the fruit in flour or cornstarch to soak up the liquid. I like tossing apples with cinnamon and cardamom, and blueberries with allspice.

The one exception to my "no recipe" pie rule is my infamous Lime-Peach Pie. The pie I worked so hard on, combining the delicious flavors of fresh peaches and fresh limes, inspired by a peach margarita... and when I entered it in the Cornish Fair, the judges ruled that it had "overwhelming citrus flavor". Which was the WHOLE POINT OF THE PIE. But I'm not bitter- more pie for me!

Did you enjoy pie for pi day?

What's Baking? November: Savory Treats

This month, Jey of the Jey of Cooking chose to have us all bake something savory. Originally I wanted to make some cheesey biscuits or crackers, or something with lots of herbs. But alas, I was only at home for about half of the month, so things got a little tricky. And on top of that, I am full-on in the Christmas rush for my etsy shop! Which is great, but it means I'm not cooking much... or at all.

But tonight! Tonight I decided to utilize all the leftover turkey my parents gave us. What to do, though? This year I got sick and didn't get to celebrate Thanksgiving with my entire family, and therefore missed Uncle Bob's chicken pie, which is the FAVORITE dish at Thanksgiving. Turkey? whatever. We go for the chicken pie. It's a huge tradition, and Uncle Bob's is amazing. So having missed that, I thought, I should try to make my own version! Huge success. This is my top recipe for leftover poultry.

Chicken Biscuit Pie
adapted from foodnetwork.com

Pie
2T unsalted butter
2-3 carrots, peeled and diced
2 stalks celery, diced
8 mushrooms, quartered
1/2t salt
2 medium onions, roughly chopped
herbs of your choice (I used 1T of a poultry seasoning blend from Stonewall Kitchens)
1/3 cup flour
4 cups chicken stock
leftover chicken or turkey (original recipe calls for 4 cups, I used about 2 and it was enough)
freshly ground pepper

In a 9in oven-safe skillet, melt the butter over medium-high heat and add the carrots, celery, mushrooms, onions and salt. Cook for about 4 minutes. Add the herbs and then the flour, and cook for 1 minute, stirring frequently. Add the chicken stock, bring to a boil, then reduce heat to simmer for a few minutes, til thickened. Add the turkey/chicken, bring to a boil, and remove from heat. Now make the biscuits.

Biscuit topping
2 cups flour
1T baking powder
1/2t salt
1t sugar
6T butter (original recipe says 7)
3/4 cup milk

Whisk the dry ingredients together, then rub in the butter 2T at a time with your fingers. Stir in the milk, stirring until just barely combined. Place the biscuit dough on a floured board and knead for a few seconds, then roll out to a 10in circle, to fit over the chicken veggie mixture (or just break into single serving-sized pieces). Place the biscuits on top of the chicken/veggie mixture and bake at 425F for 40-50 minutes, until the biscuits are golden brown. Let cool for 5 minutes before serving.

This was delicious! It's pretty quick: baking it takes a little time, but it's quick and easy to put together. The biscuit top was light and fluffy but with a nice crust, and the chicken and gravy mixture was so flavorful with the herbs and pepper and veggies. I usually don't put mushrooms in chicken pot pie, but now I realize I really should!

What's Baking? July: Bake Local

This month's What's Baking? theme was chosen by Lindsey, and is Bake Local- bake anything from your local area! I decided to use cherries. Tougas Farm has recently started producing cherries, so I jumped at the chance to go cherry picking! I've never done this before, so I was really surprised by how many cherries grow on each branch of a cherry tree! It was a perfect day for fruit picking of any sort (warm but not too hot, partly cloud, plus I was under a mesh canopy that provided a little more shade), so I went slowly and enjoyed myself.

I only got 7.8lbs of cherries- I'd have liked to pick more, but they were not cheap, so I did not want to take any chances of not using up all the cherries in time- plus the cherry field is cash-only, and the girl only has so much cash on her at a given time (birthday money, haha!)

I made many things with these cherries, including a classic cherry pie and cherry hand pies for a picnic,

but for the bake along I like to go with something different: cherry foccacia.

Cherry Foccacia
from Martha Stewart Living, July 2011

Martha had a big spread on sour cherries in the July issue, and she made some really different things, things you'd never think to put cherries in/on. I was using Bing cherries, not sour, but I like all cherries so I didn't care. This was my first attempt at foccacia, and while it didn't turn out exactly like bakery foccacia, it's still delicious and worth the time and effort. It's not hard, you just have several risings to deal with.

2 and 3/4 cup warm water
1t active dry yeast
1.5lbs (4.5-5cups) bread flour
1-2t salt
1/4 cup olive oil
2T fresh rosemary (I used dried)
1.5-2 cups cherries, pitted and halved

In a large bowl (say, of your stand mixer), combine the water, yeast and flour. Mix just until combined (dough will be very sticky) and let rest for about 20 min. Add the salt and mix, then knead for about 5 min. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 1.5-2hrs.

On a floured board (just enough flour so it doesn't stick, and the dough might be really, really sticky), knead the dough just a bit, then flatten out into a square/rectangle-ish shape. Fold the top third down towards you, then the bottom third up away from you. Pat to get the air bubbles out, and the 2 flaps should overlap. Then do the right side third, then the left side third, and pat. Place in a floured bowl, cover and let rest for an hour. Then repeat the folding process again, and let rest for another hour.

In a rimmed 13x17 baking sheet, pour the oil and spread around. Stretch out the dough a bit and place it in the pan, working it to reach all the edges (this is tedious and can take awhile- it won't stick to the pan because the pan is oiled, of course, so you just have to coax it to stretch out).

Heat the oven to 450F, and let the dough rest for 15-20 min.

Finally, place the cherries on the top of the dough (I did some skin-side down, and some skin-side up, whatever you like), and press them in gently. Sprinkle with some coarse (kosher or sea) salt and the rosemary. Bake at 450F for 30-40 min, turning around halfway through.

Once the bread is done, let it cool in the pan for just a few minutes, then remove from pan and let cool on a wire rack. Drizzle the top of the bread with the olive oil from the pan.

Go on a picnic and bring the foccacia to share with all your friends. :)

November What's Baking?

I hosted our What's Baking bake-along this month, and since I knew everyone would be busy baking goodies for Thanksgiving, I chose Thanksgiving as our theme. I love the variety in what everyone chose!

Amanda from Our Italian Kitchen made an Edible Cornucopia. What a cute idea, it's both a centerpiece and simple snack for later!
Dunne' from With a Cherry on Top made apple pecan cheesecake, a nice change from the traditional apple pie!

Cara from The Boys Made Me Do it made a rustic apple crostata, an easy twist on apple pie.

Jen, the Beantown Baker, made pumpkin cranberry pecan upside down cake- I can't wait to try this one!Ange from the Tiny Tyrant's Kitchen made The Pie That Won't Die (aka pumpkin cream pie). Who can resist trying a recipe with a name like that?

Heather Lynne from Hezzi-D's Books and Cooks made cranberry apple mini pies. So cute!

Carrie from Carrie's Sweet Life takes a break from pies and cakes with a sweet potato trifle.

Jey of The Jey of Cooking really mixed things up with a bacon and cheddar apple pie.
Lindsey from Our Share of the Harvest made a beautiful pumpkin roll with cream cheese filling.

And I made Pilgrim Bread.
I love the variety we got this month, and I can't wait to try all of these delicious looking recipes!


Stephanie will host next, and she has chosen that December's What's Baking? theme will be Holiday Colors! (such as red and green for Christmas, etc). Happy baking!

Thanksgiving Round up!

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you all had tasty Thanksgiving dinners. I actually had two: on Thanksgiving Day, we all went to my grandma's house for the traditional dinner, but my parents had bought a turkey, so we had TG part 2 the next day with just the four of us.
I photographed part 1, but when I went to photograph the different dishes we had at part 2, I found this...

!!!

This morning when I got out of bed, I knocked Clint's iphone off the table and it fell on top of my purse. On the very top of my open purse was my camera, so I believe the corner of the iphone landed on the lcd screen. The camera still works, but obviously you can't use the lcd screen anymore... I've hijacked my parents' old camera, and it looks like I'll put a new camera on my Christmas list. But seriously, a food blogger without a camera? Disaster. The loaner camera is only 4 megapixels, as opposed to 6 (not great, but still). Sigh. However, I did splatter peach jam all over my camera this summer, so the lens cover doesn't always completely close, so I did actually need a new one.

Anyway, Thanksgiving.

In my family, we're pretty standard. Turkey, not cooked in any special way (the deep fried turkey year, while not quite a disaster, was not anything to remember), mashed turnip, mashed butternut squash, mashed potato, boiled onions, two types of stuffing, cranberry walnut bread, and everyone's favorite, chicken pie. Back in the day, grandma's house was a working farm (originally tobacco, I'm not sure what they grew in her day) with a fully-stocked chicken coop. They'd expect at least 40 people for Thanksgiving, so they'd get a single turkey and gather up the chickens to bake into a chicken pie. Each person got a small piece of turkey and a healthy helping of chicken pie, and the pie is rather delicious. My uncle makes it now, and I really need to get his recipe.
But we obviously specialize in desserts.

Clockwise from the right: apple crisp, apple pie, pumpkin pie, hubbard squash pie, maple pumpkin pie, Turkey ginger cookies, Roly Poly (or perhaps that's just the name of the bakery- a layered cake of vanilla cake, vanilla custard, fruit and orange jello), vanilla sponge cake with coffee cream glaze, Marlborough pudding pie, apple cranberry ginger pie.

I can tell you more about the maple pumpkin pie, Marlborough pudding pie, and the apple cranberry ginger pie.

Marlborough Pudding Pie was this year's new addition from my kitchen. There was an article in my parents' newspaper the week before Thanksgiving, and my mom was so intrigued she sent me the recipe. I was equally intrigued, so I made it. It's basically an apple sauce and custard pie, and I like the idea. Unfortunately, my take on it, while well-received by everyone else, was not to my liking. I did an alcohol substitution that made it incredibly strong- and if you like bourbon (like everyone else in my family), it's great.

Marlborough Pudding Pie
from the Hartford Courant, recipe originally from the Publick House, Sturbridge, MA (incidentally, one of my favorite restaurants)

1 apple, peeled and cut into thin wedges and 1-2T apple cider (or water) (or use 3/4 cup of applesauce as a shortcut)
1/2 cup whole milk or cream
3/4 cup cooking sherry or white port (**here was my error- I used 1/4 cup Maker's Mark bourbon and 1/2 cup ginger brandy)
6T butter, melted (I think this is too much- it all separates out of the custard, anyway. I will do 3-4T next time)
4 eggs
1/2t salt
1/4t nutmeg
1 pie crust

First, stew the apples (or just use applesauce). Dump the apple wedges in a medium saucepan with a good splash of apple cider (or water) and cook on low for 15 minutes, flipping the apples occasionally. They'll get really soft, so be careful. You can puree them, but I like the effect of whole apple wedges.

Preheat your oven to 400F. Line a pie dish with the pie crust.

In a medium bowl, stir together the milk, sugar and alcohol. Stir in the apples or applesauce, then beat the eggs separately and add them. Stir in the spices and salt. Pour apple custard mixture into the pie crust, and bake at 15min at 400F, then turn to 350F and bake for 45 min more, or until the custard is just set (it'll still be wobbly). Serve at any temperature you like.

Our old favorite is apple ginger cranberry pie. I first found this recipe in 2001, my senior year of college, and I've made it every year since. It's just a simple apple pie, but with cranberries and minced crystallized ginger added, and it's really delicious.

Apple Cranberry Ginger pie
from Williams Sonoma

2 pie crusts
4-5lbs apples (I like a mix, this time I used cortlands, macs and some random eating apples (braeburn and honeycrisp) we had lying around)
1/2 cup sugar (or more or less as you prefer)
1/2 cup minced crystallized ginger
1.5 cups fresh or frozen cranberries

Peel and cut the apples (chunks or wedges). Toss with sugar, ginger and cranberries. Line a pie dish with one crust, dump the apple mixture in, and add the top crust. Bake at 400F for 20 min, then turn temp down to 375 and bake for about 45-50 min more, until the crust is nicely browned. Optional, but pretty: brush top crust with an egg, egg white or milk/cream to make it shiny.

Pumpkin maple pie: a new addition this year! Normally I make Martha's standard pumpkin pie, but I came across this one and liked the sound of it. It uses maple syrup instead of sugar, which goes great with pumpkin and the standard pumpkin pie spices.

Pumpkin Maple Pie
from Fake Ginger

2 cups pumpkin (or 1 15oz can- I used a mixture of orange and white pumpkins that I roasted, pureed and drained myself)
1/2 cup whole milk
1/2 cup fat free 1/2&1/2 (or really, use 1 cup of whatever dairy you like)
1/2 cup maple syrup (the real stuff!)
2 eggs
3/4t cinnamon
1/4t ginger
pinch of cloves
pinch of salt
1 pie crust

Beat the eggs and pumpkin together, add the dairy, maple syrup and spices. Line a pie dish with the crust, then pour the pumpkin mixture into the dish. Bake for 20 min at 400F, then turn the temp down to 375 and bake for another 50-60 minutes, until the custard is just set.

Note: for all these pies, I used Martha Stewart's standard pate brisee, it's what I almost always use (unless I make a cornmeal crust or pate sucree). This year I made the crust 2 days ahead and kept them wrapped, all in disks that made 1 pie crust, in plastic wrap in the fridge.

Overall, I think the Marlborough pie was the most liked, but that was because no one had ever heard of it (except those that'd also read the article in the paper). I loved the apple cranberry ginger just as much as ever, but I've now found a new favorite pumpkin pie recipe. Also, I plan to try the Marlborough again, with the proper alcohol... or maybe I'll use apple cider or something.

Adding to my apple reportoire

I had apples. I had butter, I had sugar. I had an urge to do something I'd never done before.

So obviously, I made an apple tarte tatin.

It came out pretty good. I had some issues (I burned the apples in the middle of the pan, and as a result, it didn't come out prettily when I flipped the pan over), but even so, this is seriously one of the best apple dishes I've made.

I originally planned to make it for the same small dinner party I made the pork with roasted grapes for- but I decided it's better to make a tried and true recipe for dessert when your dinner is something new. So I saved this for when we had friends over for dessert, immediately following going out to a restaurant. This worked very nicely, although I'm still kicking myself for forgetting to serve the ice cream. I always forget the ice cream!
Apple Tarte Tatin,
from a guest post on Smitten Kitchen

Crust:
note: I followed the instructions exactly (this is rare for me), and used a food processor. I combined the dry ingredients in the food processor, then stuck the whole thing (not the electronic base, of course, just the bowl, blade and flour/etc) in the freezer for almost an hour. I diced the butter and froze that, and I use the chilled water that comes out of our fridge. It's important to keep everything cold, so that you get a nice, flaky crust.

1 1/2 cup AP flour
1.5T sugar
dash of salt
5oz (10T) butter
3-6T ice water

In the bowl of your food processor, whizz the dry ingredients briefly. Put the bowl and blade, with the flour still in there, in the freezer. Chop the butter into smallish pieces, freeze those. Chill the water. Leave it all for about 45 minutes.

Bring it all out, and add the butter to the flour mixture. Whizz until it's crumbly, then slowly add the water. I actually used the full 6T of water, and it was a little wetter than I thought it should be, but it was still good. It should come together, but not quite form a ball.

Turn the dough out on a floured or plastic wrap-lined surface, and pat into a dish. Don't handle it too much, you don't want it to get too warm. Roll into a circle big enough to cover your skillet, about 11 inches for me. Chill in the fridge while you make the apples (I rolled it up with the plastic wrap and laid it carefully on top of the egg carton to keep it from flopping or tearing.)

Apple filling:
7-9 apples, peeled and cut into wedges
1 stick butter
1 cup sugar

In a large skillet, about 8inch across on the bottom and 11 inches on the top (I used my Le Creuset braiser), melt butter over high heat. Once it's melted, remove from heat and whisk in the sugar, until it's dissolved. Spread around with a wooden spoon to make sure it's evenly distributed, then arrange the apple wedges all around, packing them in fairly tightly. You don't want to use all the apples you've already sliced, so don't crowd them all, or else cut another apple, as needed.

Return the skillet to medium-high heat. Let the apples cook for 10-12 minutes, and just leave them be! After 10-12 minutes, remove from heat and turn each of the apples over. Since they'll cook down, add in your extra apple wedges as needed. I added about 5 more wedges.

While that's cooking, preheat your oven to 375F.

Return the pan to medium-high heat and cook for another 5 minutes. Here I kind of poked around to make sure nothing burned, because, well, it did burn (I cooked over high, this is why I've changed it to medium high).

Now remove from heat, and take your crust and carefully place it over the pan. Be very careful to center it properly (approximately, you don't have to be exact), because the crust will kind of melt once it hits the hot pan, and you can't really adjust it.

Pop in the oven, uncovered, and bake for 30-35 minutes, until the crust looks done. Let cool for about 30 minutes, then carefully invert the pan over your serving platter. If your apples stick to the pan (like mine did), just pry them out and try to arrange. It won't be pretty, since they'll be so mushy and stuck, but it'll still taste good.
Another option? Cook up the apples as above, and use a storebought, frozen puff pastry. That's what Joy the Baker did, and since the star of the dish is the caramelized apples, I think it's a great short cut.

Birthday Pie

My dad's birthday was last weekend. He's not so big on cake. He has few strong food preferences, but unless he's being polite or is actually hungry, he won't usually indulge in cake.

So he got a birthday pie this year. The candles stood up in it, that's enough.

Dad's favorite is lemon meringue pie. I've never made a lemon meringue pie before. One year I made a lemon meringue cake, which had some issues related to the insane heat and humidity early August sometimes experiences, but tasted good. This was the year I went for it, though, and with great success.

I used Martha's Lemon Meringue Pie recipe, which is excellent.

I used some pate sucree (pie crust with more sugar and egg yolks, as opposed to flour-salt-butter-water pate brisee) that I'd made a month before and stored in the freezer. I blind baked that crust in my lovely Simon Pearce pie dish.
Blind Baking
The Purpose:
when the filling doesn't need to be baked, you bake the pie crust alone before you fill it. You don't want raw crust.
The Problem:
you can't just put the crust in the pan and stick it right in the oven (believe me, I've tried). It shrinks and instead of a crust lining the whole dish, you get a little circle on the bottom that doesn't even begin to cover the sides. Not to mention the horrible air bubbles that sometimes happen.
The Solution:
Place the pie crust in the (greased) pie dish, make it pretty like you normally would. Then put a big piece of parchment paper in the crust, and fill that with dried beans or pie beads (beans are cheaper and available at the grocery store). The beans/beads hold the pie crust in place as it bakes.

I baked my crust for 45 min at 375F.

Meanwhile, I made the lemon filling.

In a pan (on the counter, not on the burner), I combined
the zest of 2 lemons
1 cup of sugar
8 egg yolks (save the whites for the meringue!)
and whisked.

I then whisked in
2/3 cup fresh lemon juice (from 3 lemons, but you need to measure it yourself)
1/4t salt


I placed this over medium heat.

I then combined
1 cup water
1/4cup cornstarch
in the following way:
whisk the cornstarch together with about 1/4-1/2cup water very well- there must be no lumps! Then add the remaining water, whisking vigorously. No lumps!

I added this cornstarch water to the lemon/egg mixture as it heated up, as well as
1 and 1/4 sticks (10T) cold butter, cut into ~1/2T pieces.
I stirred this with a whisk as it heated, and switched to a wooden spoon after the butter melted. You want it to thicken (and it will get very thick, like store-bought pudding thick), but you don't want it to boil. The recipe says it takes 5 min, it took more like 12 min for me. Keep stirring, and think about how thick lemon meringue pie filling normally is. That's how thick this should be.

Pour that into the pie pan after the crust has cooled.

Stick that in the fridge for a while- I placed plastic wrap directly on top of the curd (otherwise it will form a skin) and wrapped it well, and left it for 3 days.

Now, make the meringue. Don't be scared- this is the reason I'd never made a lemon meringue pie before, and it was actually really easy.

In the bowl of your mixer, combine
8 egg whites (leftover from making the lemon curd- why else do you think they use meringue to top this pie?)
2/3 cup sugar
1/4t salt

and beat on medium-high speed. Beat, beat, beat. This takes a few minutes, you want nice, stiff egg white peaks. When you lift the beater out of the meringue, it shouldn't droop at all. Be patient. If your arm gets tired, that's just a sign you need a stand mixer (or you should increase your weight lifting a few weeks prior to making meringue).

Top the pie (take the plastic wrap off first!) with the meringue, and make sure the meringue touches the edges of the crust (so says Martha, but I'm not sure why). Then bake at 350F to brown the meringue.

Martha says bake 8-10 min. I like a nice browned meringue, so I baked 30 min. I would have baked longer, but I was impatient. Also, raw egg whites freak me out, I like to pretend baking a giant mountain of meringue for 30-40 minutes will make it safe. I know it's probably not, but let me have my egg fantasy.

The results? Delicious. I'm so impressed with myself.