Edible/Usable

Thanksgiving Success Including Apple Sour Cherry Pie

Just a short post about some of the great food I had this Thanksgiving.  We went to a friend's for dinner where they made their famous turkey on the BBQ which is a fast and delicious way to make a turkey that I'd never seen done before.  There were also some delicious parsnips roasted with Parmesan, fantastic roasted potatoes and carrots with ginger.   I made brussel sprouts roasted with pancetta, one of the few ways I like brussel sprouts, and I spent literally 2 hours peeling pear onions for balsamic roasted pearl onions from The Cutting Edge of Ordinary blog which were fantastic.  Since I was dining with Brits, they requested that I not make the normal American version of sweet potatoes (the marshmallow ones), so instead I made Sweet Potato Gratin from Smitten Kitchen.  I made a few changes/substitutions since some of the 200+ commenters (!!) mentioned that it was a little watery: I used fresh spinach instead of chard (the chard at Fairway looked uninspiring), I baked it twice - once the day before, then I reheated it right before dinner.  And before I reheated it, I sprinkled some bread crumbs on top along with another sprinkling of Gruyere cheese.  It was a huge hit and definitely a keeper.

For desert, rather than the standard pumpkin or pecan pie (apparently Brits don't like Pumpkin) I made the Beet Pie which has become a new favorite, and since I had about 2 cups of sour cherries left from what I'd frozen this summer, I made an Apple Sour Cherry Pie.  Although it came out a little 'juicier' than I'd like, here's the recipe exactly as I made it.  I may try it again (next year when I have sour cherries again) and I'll drain the sour cherries before adding them, and I'll add a bit more flour and corn starch - corn starch being something I only use in berry pies that I know will be really juicy.

Four things I've been experimenting with lately with pies and pie crusts that I've been happy with: First, I've been making the pie dough in a food processor up to the point where I add the first half of the water (a few tablespoons), then turning it out on the counter and adding the rest of the water.  And I always make each top or bottom separately (it just seems easier to me that way).  Second, I've been using my standard recipe for pie dough (flour, butter, ice water, salt, sugar) but for sweet pies I've started adding about 1/4 cup of very finely chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans). Third, after reading the section about flour in Harold McGee's "On Food and Cooking"  where he talks about gluten and how it develops in pastry dough, I've been making the dough a day in advance and letting it sit overnight in the fridge.  Fourth, I've been using at least half raw or turbinado sugar http://www.sugarintheraw.com/ in the fruit filling, the other half regular granulated white sugar.  So far, my experiments have been successful.

Apple Sour Cherry Pie

4 apples - mix of baking types like Rome, Macintosh or Cortland
2 cups pitted sour cherries
1/2 cup raw sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 T lemon juice
Lemon zest from one lemon
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 t nutmeg
1/4 t cloves
2 T flour
2 T corn starch
1 T Port or Whiskey (or 1 t of vanilla if you prefer)

For crust: (makes one top or bottom crust)

1 C plus 2 T flour
1 stick cold butter, cut in pieces
2-4 T ice cold water
1 t salt
1 T sugar
1/4 cup walnuts or pecans

The day before you are going to bake the pie, make the crust recipe twice:  add the nuts to the food processor, and pulse until nuts are very finely ground.  Add flour, sugar and salt to the processor and pulse briefly to mix dry ingredients.  Add pieces of very cold butter and blend until it looks like cornmeal with a few bigger lumps.  Add about 2 tablespoons of cold water and mix briefly just until the dough starts to come together.  There will still be loose bits of flour/butter mixture.  Dump mixture into a bowl or onto a floured surface and add the remaining ice water and gently knead together until it easily forms a ball.  Don't over knead!  Pat it into a round disk, wrap well in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

For the filling: Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Peel and core the apples and cut into slices or chunky pieces (or both), adding lemon juice as you go to keep apples from turning brown.  Add sour cherries, port and lemon zest.  Mix all dry ingredients together in a small bowl, then add to the fruit mixture.  Mix well and set aside.

Roll out bottom crust into 9 inch pie pan.  Add filling and cover with top crust.  Cut small holes in the top crust and sprinkle with raw sugar.  Bake at 400 for 10 minutes.  Reduce temperature to 375 and bake for 55 - 60 minutes until filling is bubbling and crust is brown.  You may need to put foil or a pie crust ring around the edge of the crust to keep it from getting too brown.  You may also need to place a pan on the rack below the pie pan to catch any escaping juices.

Serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

Beet Pie

I am actually working on blog posts about UX and usability (really, I've got two in the works...) but this is an emergency recipe posting!  A few weeks ago, we went to visit some friends in Pennsylvania.  They live in the northern part, past the Poconos - a really nice part of the state that I'd never been to before.  They have a beautiful hill-top apple orchard that they are in the process of reviving.  It's all organic, so I picked some apples and planned to go home and make an apple pie (which I did last weekend).  I forget why it came up, but I think I started going off on how much I love beets and how wonderful they are.  Our friend volunteered that she had a great recipe for a beet pie.  Not a savory beet pie, but a sweet beet pie.  I was intrigued and asked for the recipe.

I wasn't really sure what to expect.  But when I did get the recipe it sort of made sense.  It's officially called "Ruby Red Fruit and Nut Pie" which is really disingenuous because the only fruit it has in it according to the original recipe is raisins.  Maybe they thought people would be scared to make it if it was really called what it is.  Rather than being cagey about it, I'm officially renaming it Beet Pie.  I'm not sure what newspaper it was cut from, so I can't take full credit for it, but I did make a few changes to the recipe as it was sent to me (I used dried cranberries instead of raisins, and maple syrup instead of dark corn syrup).  It's actually similar to pecan pie, and it turned out much better than I expected.  I think it is now one of my new favorite pies.  It may even be on the desert line up for Thanksgiving.

Beet Pie

1 single unbaked pie shell (9 inches)
2 medium beets
1/2 cup grade B maple syrup
3 eggs
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t nutmeg
1/2 t ground cloves
1/4 t white vinegar
1/2 t salt
1 t vanilla
2 T butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 T flour
3/4 cup dried cranberries
3/4 cup roughly chopped walnuts

Cut tops and bottoms off beets and boil for 20 - 30 minutes until tender.  Cool and peel.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Chop roughly and put into a food processor.    Pulse until beets are in small pieces, being careful not to puree them (you could probably also shred them with a box grater to get the same effect).    Remove the beets from processor and set aside.  Add all other ingredients except walnuts and cranberries to the processor and blend well.  Add 1 cup of the chopped beets (you may have some beets left over), the walnuts and dried cranberries.  Pulse until just blended.  Pour into the unbaked pie shell.

Bake for 10 minutes at 400 degrees.  Reduce temperature to 375 degrees and bake for 25-30 minutes or until pie is firm.  Cool on a rack and serve still warm with vanilla ice cream.