Tart Cherry Cake

This is an old (1950's?) recipe from one of Mom's friends. The cake is heavy and dense, almost like a fruitcake. The original recipe called for a can of sour cherries, and was baked in a loaf pan. When I'd make this as a child, for the family, Mom had me use a 9"x13" pan, which works great. While canned or jarred tart cherries (NOT pie filling) can be used, I like to use fresh-picked cherries from my Montmorency tart cherry tree. Frozen tart cherries work fine too.

Tart Cherry Cake (9"x13")


2 tablespoons butter (I use Smart Balance spread)
1½ cups sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1½ cups flour (I use whole wheat)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1½ teaspoons baking soda
shake salt (original recipe's words)
1 24 oz. can tart cherries (NOT pie filling), drained OR 3 cups pitted fresh or frozen tart cherries
1½ cups nuts (I use chopped walnuts)

Preheat oven 350ºF. Grease and flour 9"x13"pan.

You can just dump everything into a bowl and use a mixer OR use standard scratch cake procedure: cream butter with sugar, add eggs, add dry ingredients, add cherries, mix well until batter forms, add nuts. Spread batter in prepared pan, bake 35-40 minutes (toothpick test). Cool.


Enjoy!

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Picnic Cake

With one of our biggest summer holidays coming up, I thought I'd post a recipe for a great picnic cake. It's one of my mom's recipes I've been making since I was a kid. With the topping baked into the cake, once cooled and covered it holds up well even tipped on its side in my picnic suitcase. It's been a hit at every potluck I've taken it to and often shows up at family camping trips, brought by one sister or another.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Picnic Cake (9" x 13" flat cake)
1 ¾ cup boiling water
1 cup uncooked oatmeal (I use rolled oats)
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup sugar
 ½ cup butter or other shortning
2 eggs
1 ¾ cup flour (I use whole wheat)
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
12 oz package chocolate chips
¾ cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven 350º. Grease and lightly flour a 9" x 13" cake pan. Put oats in mixing bowl and add the boiling water. Let stand 10 minutes. Add butter, brown and white sugars and stir until the butter melts. Add eggs and mix well. Stir together the flour, baking soda, salt and cocoa and add to the oats mixture, mix well. Stir in half the chocolate chips. Pour batter into prepared pan. Sprinkle walnuts and remaining chocolate chips over the top. Bake 40 minutes, and test with toothpick (until the toothpick comes out clean).

I won my picnic suitcase in a raffle years ago. It wasn't really my style - I was more the lunch cooler and canvas bag type So, at first I planned on perhaps re-gifting it, then thought maybe I could use it as decorative storage for linens or such. But then one day, I was getting ready for a Sierra Club potluck. Now, with a tree-hugging group like that, one simply does not take paper plates and disposable flatware. I was getting ready to dig out my camping gear when it hit me. I already had the perfect picnic/potluck set-up, up there on top of the coat armoire. My vintage cake pan fits perfectly, with even room for a bottle of wine. I'm still tweaking the contents. I've added dessert plates, and use my cloth napkins to wrap the wine glasses and serving utensils. It's now a very useful part of both my living room decor and many summer outings.

The cake pan I inherited from my mother-in-law. I figure she got it at a yard sale. Scratched onto the top it says, "Happy Birthday to Winnie from Laura, March 7, 1959" and neither of those are family names. It's obviously seen its share of past potlucks or church dinners too. Winnie Vincent scratched her name onto both sides of the pan itself. The slide-on metal top holds up so much better than today's plastic pan covers. The pan is deeper than most cake pans too, making it my go-to pan for batches of wintertme lasagna. So Ms Vincent, if you're still out there - thank you! I love it!

The Last Zucchini

I was doing some cellar maintenance earlier today. I noticed some mold on the stem end of the last zucchini - left to grow huge last summer, picked just before frost, and then stored. Usually they'll only hold until early January, so I'd been watching this last one - wondering how long it would keep. It looked like now its time was about up, so I brought it inside.

The rind had turned orange, and was almost as hard to cut as that of a winter squash. Inside, the flesh too had turned orange, and had gotten quite fibrous close to the seed cavity. I saved some of the seeds but since I also grow Delicata squash, another C. pepo variety, the two most-likely cross-pollinated. I might plant a few just to see what I get, depending on how much space I have out in the garden this summer.

Stored zucchini aren't cooked the same as summer-fresh ones, but they are good in baked goods. After scraping out the seed cavity and trimming off the hard peel, I had a nice bit of usable flesh (and a bucketful of scraps, which made for a very happy bunch of chickens). Shredded on the large holes of a box grater, I ended up with three tightly-packed cupfuls. One cup, and raisins, made a batch of oat bran muffins (there were twelve, before Aries wandered through). And the other two cups made a big panful of cake-like zucchini brownies (that piece is mine). Also in the photo above, a few more things up from the cellar today: the last of the fresh bell peppers, a bit shriveled with a bit of mold starting on the stems (still plenty more chopped pieces in the freezer though), some stored paste tomatoes (paste, or roma-type, tomatoes store much better than round ones - nowhere near the taste of summer ones, but still better than most supermarket ones), and apples (plenty of those yet, and still in fine shape). The Delicata squash I store inside the house.

Pink Banana Squash Pie

Pink banana squash is the best large winter storage squash I've found for growing in my high desert climate. I have the room to let the vining variety ramble, but both the bush and the vining varieties set 10 - 20 pound fruit that has time to mature in my 110-ish day frost free season. And the pink banana will keep in storage, in a crate in a corner of my bedroom, for at least 6 - 8 months - long after all the delicatas and butternuts have been used.

Of course, once cooked, a big squash can provide more than a week's worth of meals - muffins, soups, and just mashed with a bit of butter on top. But one of my favorite ways, and especially for Thanksgiving, to eat pink banana squash is as pie. Pies made with pumpkin can have a bit of a greenish cast to them. But a pink banana pie turns out even tastier, with a beautiful brown color through and through.

  

 This year, for the first time in at least 15 years, I get to be a guest at a Thanksgiving dinner instead of the cook. I'd only need to prepare an appetizer (jalapeno pepper jelly poured over a block of cream cheese, served with whole wheat crackers) and a dessert. Of course, my dessert offering had to be pink banana squash pie. I wanted to make two pies, but I won't be in my own kitchen the next few days, to be able to deal with the extra squash pulp. So I picked one my smaller pink banana squash, small enough to fit in the dish drainer, to prepare.

 

First step in making pink banana pie is to cook the squash (don't have a pink banana? this recipe also works well with a butternut or pie pumpkin). Cut the squash in half and remove the seeds. Place, cut side up, in a large roasting pan and add an inch of water. Bake at 375F for 1 -2 hours, until squash is soft and browned (this banana squash took two hours). Scrape the flesh out of the peel for use, as is, in any recipe calling for pumpkin puree.

Pink Banana Squash Pie (one 9" pie)
Line a 9" pin tin with 1 prepared pie crust (your favorite recipe, or you can use a half-recipe of mine - flute the edge of the crust up above the edge of the pie tin. This recipe overfills a 9" pan by a bit, and it will puff up while cooking, then sink down as it cools)

2 cups cooked mashed squash
1 12 oz. can evaporated skim milk (or can use heavy cream, for a more decadent version)

2 eggs 

¼ cup firmly packed brown sugar

½ cup sugar

1 tablespoon molasses or real maple syrup

⅛ teaspoon allspice

⅛ teaspoon ground cloves

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

¼ teaspoon ginger

1 teaspoon cinnamon

(or can just substitute 2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice for all the spices)

Blend all ingredients in a blender (in batches if necessary) or with a hand-held mixer. Pour into prepared raw crust and very carefully (it will be very full) transfer to 425F preheated oven. Bake for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 350F and continue baking for another 45 minutes, or until a knife stuck in the middle comes out clean.

Baked Cinnamon French Toast, Cinnamon Apples

I recently spent a Soroptimist "girls weekend getaway" in a vacation rental house up at South Lake Tahoe. Arranged by our District Director as a planning retreat for Club Presidents and Presidents-Elect, each club was responsible for one meal or snack. We were assigned Sunday breakfast, for eight.

the weekend was BYOB, and wine was pretty much the drink of choice

I figured our Saturday breakfast would probably be some kind of egg dish (and I was right). So I wanted to do something a bit different for Sunday. Looking through my recipes, I found one in an old Taste of Home magazine Collector's Edition that sounded good: Baked Cinnamon French Toast.

We got the coffee going, and set to work. My co-cook fried up some bacon, set the table, and opened the juice. I pretty much followed the recipe as written, my only change to use non-fat milk. It was easily enough for eight. It is a bit decadent for my usual cooking style, though. To make it a bit healthier, in the future, I'm thinking of tweaking the recipe a bit - trying non-fat creamer instead of the whipping cream, maybe eggbeaters or part egg whites for the eggs, and maybe Splenda instead of the sugar. If it still turns out ok, I'll repost with my adaptations.

Instead of the optional blackberry preserves and whipped cream however, I made cinnamon apples: Cut cored and peeled apples into bite-sized chunks - quarters or eighths depending on size. Pile them in a saucepan, add some brown sugar and a generous sprinkling of cinnamon. Cover and cook on very low for about an hour, stirring maybe a time or two, until apples are tender but not mushy. Notice that there is no liquid added at all.

I'm happy to say that our breakfast was a hit with everyone - and planned just right: no leftovers.

Tie One On - Pillowcase Apron Tutorial

Once you start getting into the simple lifestyle, sooner or later you're going to want an apron. I have my favorite bib-style H-back one that I usually wear. But I like having a couple extra aprons around too - guest aprons, you might say. My sister and her family usually visit for Thanksgiving. She loves it when I offer her an apron to wear too. It just makes her feel more "in the spirit", she says.

Once you have one for yourself, and maybe one or two for your guests, consider making an extra apron or two for Tie One On Day. Started by EllynAnne Geisel, it's a way to put the "give" back in Thanksgiving: "Participation is simple: on the day before Thanksgiving, November 24th this year, pause in the preparation of your own meal, wrap a loaf of bread or other baked good (maybe my One-Hour French Bread?) in an apron, tuck a prayer or note of encouragement in the pocket, and deliver the wrapped bundle to someone without your bounty - a neighbor, friend, or family member in need of physical or spiritual sustenance, a bit of recognition, or just a kind word."

Half-aprons make a good project for even beginning sewers. A quick and easy way to make a cute half-apron is to start with a pillowcase. Nice ones can usually be found at your local thrift store for $1 or less. I look for ones with some kind of different print or decoration around the opening end. That end makes the skirt of your apron - cut it between 16 and 20 inches long for a nice length (to make nice straight cuts, I measure and make a small mark on the edge where I want each cut. I fold the material over at the mark, align the sides and smooth everything flat, and then slip my scissors inside the fold to cut.) The middle cross-cuts make the waistband and ties. Cut two equally sized strips about 3" wide (I'm using a King case here, so I had enough material to cut three. I used one as a center piece and then trimmed half off the other two. Using all three would make ties long enough to wrap around and tie in front, for a different look) . Cut the sewn side seam off the skirt and band pieces. The closed end will make the two pockets, so don't cut the pillowcase seams on that piece.

Fold the raw side edges of the skirt, where you just cut the pillowcase seam away, over twice to the wrong side, press, and sew down.

Make the pockets by cutting the top corner parts of the case into two equal squares (discard the center piece). Turn the corner inside-out, flatten, and stitch down the remaining two open sides of the square, leaving an inch or two left unstitched to be able to turn right-side out. Turn (you can clip the tips of the corners, then use a crochet hook to push the corners out to a nice point) and press flat, tucking the unsewn part evenly to the inside. Repeat on the other pocket.

Lay the skirt out flat and position the pockets an inch or two on either side of the center. Try different positions until you have something you like best - maybe with the pattern running perpendicular to the skirt's or putting the pockets on an angle. Just make sure that the unstitched part of the pocket edge isn't part of the top edge (top-stitch it to close it up if you just have to have it on the top part). Pin in place, then sew down three sides close to the edge of the pocket, leaving the top open. I like to spin the pocket around and run a second line of stitching just inside the first. You might like the look of using a contrasting color of thread too.

Join the ends of the waistband/ties. Press the seam edges open, and then fold over and press one long side. Find the center of the long piece, then lay the long piece right-side UP on your work surface with the folded side farther away from you (flip the piece over long-ways from the way it is in the above photo).

Lay the skirt, also right-side UP, on top of the long piece, matching centers of both pieces, the raw edges closest to you, and put a pin in the center. You can just pin the pieces together flat, but I like to gather or pleat the skirt a bit. If you want to gather yours, measure out equal distances either side of your center pin on the band piece, and pin the outside edges of the skirt there. Then pin in your pleats or gathers, matching what you do to one side on the other side. Sew skirt to band (I find it easiest to have the skirt part on top when sewing too, so that I can do any final adjustments to my pleats or gathers).

Fold the bottom edge of the waist ties up and press. Fold the top edge down, matching the folded edges together on the ties, and covering the line of stitching on the front of the skirt, and pin. Tuck the raw ends of the ties to the inside and pin them too, making a nice corner.

Top stitch the end of a tie, along the folded edges, across the top front of the skirt, along the folded edge of the other tie and across the end. A final quick pressing and you're done!

Name That Culture

Pete lives in our refrigerator. Pete came here almost 20 years ago, but I'm sure he's much older than that. As a newlywed, and new to the neighborhood, I frequently saw an elderly neighbor walking her dogs past our house, so introduced myself. She lived in the house down the street with a wonderful garden. Her husband did the gardening, she did the cooking, and although now long retired, used to run a local catering business. We became good friends. She could see me out in my garden from her kitchen window, and when I'd come in for a break and the phone would ring, I could bet it would be Mae.

But I was talking about Pete, wasn't I? As a newlywed, my husband used to reminisce about the wonderful sourdough waffles his grandma used to make, asking if maybe I could learn to make them. His grandma was long gone, and his mom didn't bother with sourdough anymore either. But I happened to mention it one day while over visiting with Mae. She pulled out her jar of starter out of her refrigerator then and there, filled up a pint jar, and gave it to me along with instructions and a couple of recipes (I've also found Adventures in Sourdough Cooking & Baking, by Charles Wilford, a great resource for additional recipes). I have no idea how long she'd kept that starter going, but I'm betting it was decades. She also told me that, since the starter needs to be cared for and fed regularly, I should also give it a name just like any other house pet.

And so, Sourdough Pete came to live with us. What got me to thinking about all this, however, was that last night I realized I have another culture living here now that needs to be fed and cared for. There's a gallon jug of apple cider fermenting away on my kitchen counter, destined for my vinegar jar up in the cupboard. And it's the mother of vinegar I got last fall that will make it happen. I've heard about the folklore saying to name your sourdough starter, but never anything about vinegar mother. But I figure it's the same principle, and I certainly don't want to discriminate. So I've decided to name my vinegar mother Jolene, and hope she'll have a long and happy life here with us too.

Zucchini Brownies

After seeing that zucchini in my last post, the Girl in the Pink Dress asked for more zucchini recipes. In early summer, when we have lots of small, fresh-out-of-the-garden zukes, they'll usually end up either in a quick sauté with garlic and onions, or breaded and baked into zucchini sticks.

This time of year, they often end up in soups and pasta dishes. But it sounds like Girl's really looking for "hidden zuke" recipes (sounds like her husband is a lot like mine). Zucchini hides well in baked goods. After quite a bit of experimenting, I've ended up with a great muffin recipe. The secret is using dry milk instead of adding any more liquid.

Even better than those, though, is a brownie recipe my Colorado sister sent me. Even though this makes a big panful, I'm lucky to get a piece or two from
Mr. Pickymy sweet husband. Sis doesn't blog, so I'm gonna post her recipe:

Zucchini Brownies (the cake type)
1¼ cup sugar
2 cups whole wheat flour
½ cup unsweetened cocoa
1 teaspoon salt
1½ teaspoons baking soda
½ cup applesauce (or can substitute oil)
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups shredded zucchini (I use the big holes on a box grater)
½ cup chocolate chips (optional)
½ cup chopped nuts (optional)

Mix liquid ingredients into dry, adding zucchini last. Stir in optional ingredients if using (I always do). Spread the thick batter evenly in 8" x 11" greased pan. Bake 25 - 30 minutes, 350º - until inserted toothpick comes out clean. Enjoy!

Anything Oatbran Muffins

Muffins are the quick bread-of-choice around here. In the winter, I'll leave the oven door open afterwards, to warm up the kitchen; in the summer a 20-minute baking time won't heat up the house. With my flours and grains kept in gallon glass jars and various measuring cups for scoops, it's easy to just scoop and mix, and have hot muffins in 30 minutes or less.

Last night, for dinner, we had sausage-stuffed squash. There was enough room in the pan to roast a little butternut squash along with the two Carnival squash we had for dinner, so I had some fresh mashed squash to make breakfast muffins this morning.

This is a great whole-grains recipe and is endlessly adaptive. It can be a sweet breakfast bread or a savory dinner muffin depending on what you have on-hand. I'm always changing up the fruit (or vegetable, as the case may be), the herbs or spices, and the extra add-in(s), which is why I just call them my Anything Oatbran Muffins.

Anything Oatbran Muffins (12 muffins)

1⅓ cup oat bran
1 cup rolled oats
¾ cup flour (I used whole wheat pastry flour)
½ cup sugar (white, packed brown, raw, whatever you've got)
1 tablespoon baking powder
up to 3 teaspoons herbs or spices (today I used 2 t pumpkin pie spice + a bit more cinnamon)

¾ cup fruit puree (I mashed up the squash and didn't have quite enough so made up the difference with some applesauce)
1 egg
2 tablespoons oil (I substituted more applesauce)
1¼ cup milk (I used buttermilk)

½ cup chopped nuts or dried fruit (I added a handful of raisins; sometimes I'll add both nuts and fruit, or fresh corn kernels, or whatever else sounds good at the time)

Preheat oven to 400º, grease or non-stick spray muffin pan. Mix dry ingredients together. Mix wet ingredients together in a large measuring cup. Stir wet into dry, just until moistened. Stir in the extra add-in(s). Divide among 12 muffin cups (cups will be almost full, but that's ok). Bake 20-25 minutes, and try to cool on a rack before your husband burns his mouth snatching one up as soon as it's out of the pan.

Soup & Bread for Christmas Eve

The traditional Christmas Eve supper at our house growing up was always Oyster Stew. Basically just canned oysters (we were in land-locked Colorado, after all), milk, and butter, served with round oyster crackers. It was ok, but I didn't really like eating the big oyster chunks. The hot, buttery milk was good, but not really enough. So I've adapted Dad's tradition to suit my own tastes. Sticking with the idea of a seafood soup, I make a red vegetable chowder using canned baby clams. Add a homemade artisan-style crusty loaf of bread and some champagne with a splash of peach brandy (a budget Bellini, and really dresses up cheap champagne) and we've got a wonderful Christmas Eve supper (candlelight optional).

Vegetable Clam Chowder (makes 4-6 supper-size servings)
1 cup clam juice
1 cup water
8 oz tomato sauce
16 oz canned whole tomatoes, cut into chunks
2 medium potatoes, diced
1 green bell pepper, diced
2 carrots, diced
2 onions, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1 tablespoon marjoram
1 teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon sugar
10 oz canned baby clams
1 cup corn, fresh or frozen
salt & pepper to taste

Combine clam juice (from canned clams too), water, tomato sauce, tomatoes, potatoes, green pepper, carrots, onion, celery, marjoram, thyme, salt, pepper, and sugar in large saucepan. Bring to boil. Lower heat, cover, and simmer about 20 minutes, or until vegetables are crisp-tender. Add clams and corn. Simmer soup for another 10 minutes. Adjust seasonings to taste. Optional: garnish with chopped parsley when serving.

I'm starting the bread tonight - a very wet, no-knead dough that gets its flavor from sitting overnight on the counter; its crusty goodness from being baked inside a very hot dutch oven. The recipe is now many places on the Internet. I first came upon it a year ago in Mother Earth News and love how easy it is to turn out an artisan-style loaf, without any fancy equipment, and very little effort (read the article all the way through, and some of the comments - I love the suggestion to use your microwave as a bread box. I, too, have to reduce the heat a bit for my cast-iron dutch oven, but the amounts work well for me).

Zucchini Muffins

Now is the time of year when my stored vegetables make up the bulk of our fresh eating options. Over time, and by experimenting, I've learned which items need to be used sooner than others. Some of the big zucchini, the last of last summer's crop, are now starting to soften down in the cellar, so I've been going through at least one of them per week. When using a big stored zucchini, I'll split it length-wise and scrape out the fibrous seed cavity just like a winter squash, leaving only the edible green skin and flesh. I can then cut half-moon slices for soup or a stir-fry, or shred it using the big holes on a box grater to make fritters or muffins. After much tweaking and experimenting, I finally have a zucchini muffin recipe we both really like. The key was using dry milk instead of adding any more liquid to the zucchini mixture.

Zucchini Muffins (makes 12 muffins)

Mix together:
2 cups shredded zucchini
1 egg
2 tablespoons applesauce (or oil)
¾ cup sugar
⅓ cup dry milk powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon lemon extract

Mix together, then stir in, just until all is moistened
(Grandma wisdom: stirring only 17 times):
1½ cups whole wheat flour
1½ teaspoons baking soda (sift out any lumps)
2 teaspoons cinnamon

Then stir in (Grandma again: stirring only 3 more times):
⅓ cup raisins, with enough chopped nuts to make it ½ cup

Divide between 12 sprayed or greased muffin cups. Bake at 375º
20 minutes.

Cornbread

Fall is here, the nights are frosty, and that means dinner is often a hot soup and bread. Soup makes a great meal. I've got a lot of favorite soup recipes, but sometimes I'll just throw something together from leftovers. Last night, I had some white beans I'd pressure-cooked a couple of nights before. Chop some leeks and kale from the garden, carrots and garlic from storage, and add a couple of glops of cooked-down tomato puree (the last of the paste tomatoes, that I didn't feel like canning so have just kept a big tupper-ful in the refrigerator), and I soon had a wonderful soup simmering on the stove (I also stirred a spoonful of basil pesto into each bowl when I dished it up). Now, for some kind of bread . . .

I buy most of my grains and flours from the bulk bins in a local supermarket. It's more economical and saves on packaging waste. In my kitchen, from years spent working in restaurants and bars, I've amassed quite a few gallon glass jars for storage (during my ski-bum days in Colorado, I worked in a restaurant on top of the mountain; occasionally skiing down after work with an empty jar in my backpack - being especially careful not to fall). Whenever I'm in a thrift store, I like to browse the kitchen area, and have picked up various measuring cups to keep in the jars as scoops. The scoops are distributed according to what will be the most useful - half-cups in the flours and oats, quarter-cup in the sugar, third-cup in the dry milk, one-cups in the rice and couscous. It makes it easy and quick whenever I want to bake something - one scoop of this, two of that.

Cornbread sounded good. By the time the kale and carrots would be done, the bread would be coming out of the oven. Here's the basic recipe, with the adaptations I made this time:

Cornbread one 8x8" pan, 10" cast iron skillet, or 12 muffins

1 cup cornmeal (I prefer yellow)
1 cup flour (I used half whole-wheat & half whole-wheat pastry flour)
1/4 cup sugar (the Colorado relatives use 1/2 cup, but I don't like my cornbread that sweet)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup oil (I used applesauce instead)
1 egg
1 cup milk (I used buttermilk)

Grease pan well, or use non-stick spray (for skillet-sizzled cornbread, see note below). Mix dry ingredients in bowl. Mix wet ingredients together in large measuring cup. Add wet to dry, stirring just until combined (optional: I'll often then stir in ½ cup something extra - maybe cheddar cheese, or frozen corn, or chopped chiles, but not this time). Pour into prepared pan, leveling top surface. Bake 400º 20 minutes (muffins take only about 16 minutes).

Split pieces of leftover cornbread make a good toaster-oven pizza, or it can be cut into cubes and left out to dry, then stored in a jar or bag, and used for making stuffing/dressing some other night.

Note: After being gifted The Cornbread Gospels, by Crescent Dragonwagon (a great book - a couple hundred corn-based recipes, meal menus, plus trivia, background, and wonderful tales by a gifted storyteller), I now prefer baking my cornbread in my cast-iron skillet. Preheat oven 375º, and prepare batter. Melt a tablespoon of butter in skillet on stove top until it sizzles, swirling it around to coat bottom and sides. Pour the batter into the skillet, cook another minute on top of the stove, and then bake 20 minutes.

Pie Crust Tips

I've just made an apple pie. Tomorrow is Aries' birthday, and he'd much rather have pie than a cake. The only apples left in the cellar are Arkansas Blacks - really good keepers, but they'd turn to mush in a pie. Last summer was a bad one for the fruit trees - a drought winter followed by late intermittent freezes pretty much knocked out all the blossoms - so I've used up all my quarts of apple pie filling from the year before. I could use dried apples - I've still got some of them, but I'd rather snack on them. So I got some Pippin apples at the store. I've never tasted them, but the sign said they were good for pies so I'm trying them. I got six - peeled and sliced, they were enough to fill a two-quart bowl. I mixed them with ¾ cup of sugar, a couple tablespoons flour, a teaspoon of cinnamon and a dash of nutmeg.

Making pie crust seems to scare a lot of people. It can be a bit tricky, so I've got a few tips to make things easier. First, put on your apron - things can get a bit messy. A really nice kitchen apron will have a flour side and a tomato sauce side, but even a dish towel tied around your waist with a necktie will work. Tip #1: using pastry flour, made from soft wheat, makes a better crust than ordinary flour. Pastry flour is really low in gluten - the stuff that lets bread dough rise makes pie crust tough. My local grocery has whole wheat pastry flour in the bulk bins, so I get that for my muffins and pies.

For a two-crust pie I use 2 cups flour with a teaspoon of salt. Cut in 2/3 cup of cold shortening. I don't like the saturated fat in butter, nor the trans fats in most margarines and shortenings, so I use the Smart Balance buttery spread for all my baking (and no, I'm not paid to say that - just watching our cholesterol). To cut in shortening, I use two table knives, one in each hand, in a pulling, sliding flat across each other, X-type motion (hope that makes sense - although I've also been known to just dive in with my hands, rubbing and mooshing things together 'til the bits of shortening are all coated with flour) until the mixture is crumbly-looking. Sprinkle with a couple tablespoons cold water, stir with a fork, a couple more water, mix some more. Use a total of 5 - 7 tablespoons water - you want it to start kinda clumping together but not really sticky.

Dump the crumbly clumps out onto your counter, and clump it together into a ball. Divide in half and you're ready to start rolling out the bottom crust. A pastry cloth can be really handy, but you have to soak it in cold water and then wash it regularly or the oils on it can start to smell rancid (if this does happen to you, soaking it in a water/baking soda solution can fix that). But I have a really nice big cutting board on my counter that works well. It looks like a maple butcher block, but it really used to be part of a bowling alley lane (hard to come by, I know, but really nice if you can find one).

Patty-cake the clump of pie dough into a flat disc and start to roll it out on a well-floured board (or cloth). It can help to pick it up, sprinkle more flour and turn it over before it gets too spread out. Tip #2: roll your crust from the center out, not back and forth. Tip #3: a pastry scraper can be a really useful kitchen tool - use it (or an upside-down metal pancake turner) to lift and loosen the crust if necessary, and get it into the pie pan. Trim the crust even with the edge of the pan. Tip #4: if you have any holes, or spaces on the edge, use a bit of water to glue a patch over it. Dump in your apples, and dot with bits of 2 tablespoons butter or shortening.

Roll out the top crust, and if you're gonna get fancy with a cookie or biscuit cutter, do it before moving the crust to the pie. Tip #5: dab water all around the edge of the bottom crust, add the top, trim it about counter level, and then tuck the top under the bottom, and crimp them together. I want to have a lip standing up on the edge to catch any drips, so I pinch the top against one finger underneath all the way around. Tip #6: clean up by scraping up the greasy flour left on the board and dumping it in the trash or chicken bucket - it can make a gluey mess if washed down a drain.

Tip #7: This is the most important tip of all. This can even make a frozen store-bought pie say "home-made". Sprinkle a sugar/cinnamon mix (I keep a jar ready-mixed for cinnamon toast) over the top crust, especially around the edge. Then bake at 400º 50 minutes - covering the edges with foil if they start to get too brown. I've got a drip-catcher tray I set my pies on, just in case they bubble over, so it doesn't make a mess in my oven. Very useful item, but then so is a husband that cleans the oven. I definitely recommend marrying one of them if you can!

One last tip - if you find one of those wicker picnic plate holders in a thrift store, they are the perfect size as a pie pan holder. They'll even keep a pie from sliding on a car floorboard or trunk during transport (good thing to remember if you volunteer to bring a pumpkin pie to Thanksgiving dinner). Don't worry if it's not perfect. Homemade pie is about the effort, not perfection. I promise you, no one will mind (and it makes a kitchen smell so good)!

One-Hour French Bread

Aries was off today, and this afternoon said he'd cook spaghetti and meatballs for dinner tonight. We had just about everything ready to go. I had a big batch of meatballs and bell peppers in the freezer, jars of tomatoes, tomato sauce, and tomato paste from last summer's harvest, onions and garlic in the pantry, and lots of other veggies in the refrigerator. He also wanted garlic bread, so I said I'd make my One-Hour French Bread.

One hour is total time from getting the bowl out of the cupboard until a fresh hot loaf comes out of the oven. Lots of time, our dinner is this bread and some home-made soup. Sorry I couldn't get a photo of the loaf right out of the oven - Aries just loves hot fresh bread!

One-Hour French Bread
1½ cups warm water
1 tablespoon honey
1½ teaspoons salt
1½ tablespoons Active Dry Yeast
3 - 4 cups flour (any combination of white and whole wheat)

Preheat oven 450º. Combine water, salt, honey, and yeast in a medium bowl. Let sit 5 - 10 minutes, until bubbling. Add flour, stirring with a wooden spoon, until dough is no longer sticky (I'll sometimes dump the dough out onto the cutting board with what flour is in the bowl and roll it around,adding a bit more flour, until it's not sticky). Roll dough into a 12 - 14" roll (or you can divide it in half and roll it into two long skinny baguettes). Place dough roll(s) on a cookie sheet sprayed with non-stick spray, cover, and let sit 20 minutes. Make diagonal slits, 1/2" deep, on top with a razor blade. (Optional: spray with salt water). Bake 20 minutes.