easter dinner

Yes, I’m late with this post, but only by a week.  I thought it was still appropriate, since most of these foods are still great for this time of year.

I love Easter dinner.  It is seriously one of my favorite meals all year.  I adore ham, love the cheesy potatoes, and there are so many lovely Easter “fixin’s”.  Plus my chocolate needs are completely satisfied.  That being said, I hate that seemingly everyone cooks ham with pineapple and brown sugar.  Yes, it’s true that I have 28 teeth and all of them are sweet, but strangely enough my sweet tooth (teeth) doesn’t extend to meat.  I’m one of those freaks of nature who believes that the foods on my plate should never touch, that it’s always best to save your favorite food for last (hey, that’s the taste that lingers on your tongue after the meal, right?), and that sweet and meat should never, never, ever be combined.  (I even go so far as to dislike sweet and sour, and even ~ gasp! ~ barbecue sauce, except in extreme circumstances.)

So now that we have that out of the way you might understand why I spent about an hour searching the web for an alternative to this crock pot ham recipe’s sauce of fruit chutney, dried apricots and onions.  Once that was done, I realized that I had to find an alternative to my crock pot too, since I was using that for the potatoes.  All in all I think I did quite well.  And judging by the way the food disappeared, so did my domestic animals.  Not to mention the extended barnyard family...  Here’s what our Easter meal(s) consisted of:

Garlicky Slow Cooker (or Oven Cooked) Ham

serves 8

(see the original recipe here)

one 3-4 pound fully-cooked black forest ham

2 teaspoons butter

1 tablespoon flour

1 cup chicken broth

2 tablespoons white vinegar

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

2 teaspoons parsley

Turn crock pot on low and place ham inside.  Or heat oven to 180°-200° and place ham in a roasting pan.

Melt butter in a small saucepan.  Whisk in flour until mixture is dark brown, about 4 minutes.  Add chicken broth and vinegar, bring to a boil.  Add garlic and parsley.

Keep boiling until mixture is thickened, about 3 minutes.  Pour over meat.  Cover and cook 6 to 8 hours.

~

Lightened-Up Slow Cooker Scalloped Potatoes

serves 12

(see the original recipe here)

1 cup plain yogurt or kefir (I used my home-grown kefir)

¼ cup flour

1 tablespoon chicken bouillon granules

2 teaspoons onion powder

1 bay leaf

1 teaspoon Chef Tess All purpose seasoning (or a Mrs. Dash of your choice)

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

milk if needed

2 pounds potatoes (I used yukon gold, the original recipe called for red)

1½-2 cups shredded lower-fat cheese of choice (I used ½ cup cheddar and 1¼ cups mozzarella ~ I think I’ll try a little parmesan mixed in if I make this again)

½ teaspoon paprika and 3 tablespoons chopped fresh chives for topping (optional)

Wash and thinly slice potatoes and set aside.  To keep them from browning, I sliced them into a large bowl of cold water and white vinegar (about ½ cup vinegar to 1 cup water).

Mix flour, bouillon, onion powder and seasoning.  Slowly stir or whisk in yogurt or kefir.  Add Worcestershire sauce.  Stir in just enough milk to reach a thick, condensed soup-ish consistency.

Drain potatoes and rinse well.  Pat dry.  Add the yogurt mixture and mix until all potatoes are well coated.

Spoon half of the potato mixture into a crock pot sprayed with cooking spray.  Top with ½ the cheese.  Repeat layer with remaining potatoes and cheese.  Slide the bay leaf down the side until it’s nestled into the sauce.

Cook on HIGH for 3½-4½ hours or on LOW 7 to 8 hours.  Serve topped with a sprinkle of paprika and chives.

~

Spring Vegetable Orzo Pasta Salad

serves 12-15

source: http://foodformyfamily.com/recipes/spring-orzo-pasta-salad-with-asparagus-and-artichokes

1 bunch asparagus, about 3 cups diced

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 shallots, minced (I used a generous sprinkle of onion powder)

2 cloves garlic, minced

12 ounces orzo pasta, cooked to al dente and cooled (I used 16 ounces)

15-ounce can artichoke hearts

1½ cups sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil (I used a drained can of diced tomatoes)

1 lemon, zested and juiced

¼ cup white wine vinegar (I used white rice vinegar)

1 teaspoon kosher salt

½ teaspoon fresh ground black pepper

1/3 cup olive oil

Bring a medium saucepan full of water to a boil.  Turn off the burner, add in asparagus pieces and blanch for 2-3 minutes.  While the asparagus is in the water, heat one tablespoon olive oil in a small sauté pan.  Add shallots and garlic and sauté for 1-2 minutes, just until tender.  (I used this garlic, and onion powder, so I skipped this step.)

Drain the asparagus and rinse with cool water.

In a large bowl add cooked orzo pasta, asparagus pieces, shallots and garlic.  Drain artichoke hearts and quarter them, adding them to the bowl.  Add in tomatoes (with oil) and lemon zest.  Stir to combine.

In a small bowl or container, whisk together lemon juice, vinegar, salt and pepper.  While continuously whisking, slowly pour olive oil into the vinegar.  Once emulsified, stir the dressing into the salad.  Move to the refrigerator for at least 5 hours for flavors to combine.  Serve cold.

~

Lemonade Cupcakes with Raspberry Frosting

makes 2 dozen

source: babble.com

1 cup butter, at room temperature

2 cups sugar

4 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

grated zest and juice of a lemon

1 cup milk, divided

Preheat oven to 375° and line 24 muffin tins with paper liners.

In a large bowl, beat the butter, sugar and lemon zest with an electric mixer until light and fluffy.  Beat in the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition.  Beat in the vanilla.

In a small bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder and salt.  Add to the butter mixture a third at a time, alternating with half the milk and half the lemon juice after each of the first 2 additions of flour.  Beat until just combined.

Fill the prepared tins and bake for 20 minutes, until springy to the touch.  Tip the cupcakes in their tins to help them cool.  Let cool completely before frosting.

Fresh Raspberry Frosting

1 cup fresh raspberries (or thawed from frozen) (I used about ½ cup of this)

1 cup butter, at room temperature

3 cups confectioners’ sugar

In the bowl of a food processor, puree the raspberries until smooth.  If you like, press the mixture through a sieve to get rid of the seeds.

In a medium bowl, beat the butter and half the sugar until smooth. Add the raspberry puree, then more sugar until you have a fluffy, spreadable consistency. Add a splash of water, too (a tablespoon or two) if it needs it.    If you like, sprinkle with colored sugar.

The ham was a big hit.  Middlest doesn’t much care for ham (how does anyone not like ham?  I just don’t get it) and so wouldn’t even try it, but everyone else gobbled it down.  Littlest especially loves “that pink stuff”.  (Pink just happens to be his favorite color, and he loves eating anything pink.  And yes, he knows he’s a boy.  He just loves pink.)  We used some of the leftovers last night for my mother-in-law’s famous ham and cheese croissants (one of my husband’s favorites, which his mother served at our wedding breakfast.  I’m definitely going to have to post that recipe.)  The potatoes tasted a little sweet to me, and although my husband and Middlest liked them (somewhat strangely, since Middlest isn’t usually a potato fan), Oldest didn’t.  I wonder if I got too much Worcestershire sauce in there... Anyway, I’ll still be looking for a great potato recipe. 

And that brings us to the pièce de résistance: the salad.  If you look at the picture at the top of my post, you’ll see neither the salad nor the cupcakes included in our Easter feast.  We had an extended family egg hunt to which we were asked to bring a salad and dessert.  Lucky me, a couple of days before Easter my husband’s sister just happened to bring us a bunch of fresh-picked asparagus from her farm.  Oooo baby!  Can I just say, if you’ve never had farm-fresh asparagus, you don’t know what you’re missing!  I cut up what I needed for the salad, blanched it, and couldn’t stop picking at it.  So I blanched the rest for our personal Easter dinner.  Added a little salt (which it probably didn’t need) and a little butter (to which I’m admittedly addicted) and everyone ~ Littlest, my vegetable hater, included ~ enjoyed every last bite and went sniffing around for more.  Once we got to the party, everyone who tried it commented on how good the salad was.  I’m a big pasta salad fan.  I make it quite regularly in the spring and summer, and eat it for breakfast lunch and dinner.  I was hoping for leftovers, but there was only about a spoonful to take home.  My husband even said this was his favorite of all the pasta salads I have yet created.  Wonder if it tastes as good without the farm-fresh asparagus?  Hope I never have to find out!

Christmas cookies

So many yummy cookies vied for my attention this year.  It was almost impossible to narrow it down, and I had every intention of baking many more than I did.  Finally it came down to two.  I had them all baked and laid out so pretty on a Christmas tray... and totally forgot to take pictures!  So you’re just going to have to go to the websites and see the pictures of them there.

Chocolate Caramel Cookies with Sea Salt

makes 2 dozen cookies

source: two peas and their pod

1¼ cups all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

5 tablespoons butter

7 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa

2/3 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

1/3 cup plain yogurt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

soft caramel, rolled into little balls

sea salt

Preheat oven to 350º; line 2 baking sheets with baking paper, lightly coated with cooking spray.  I used Silpats!  Lightly spoon flour into a dry measuring cup; level with a knife.  Sift together flour, soda, and salt; set aside.

Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium heat.  Remove from heat; stir in cocoa powder and sugars (mixture will resemble coarse sand).  Add yogurt and vanilla, stirring to combine.  Add flour mixture, stirring until moist.  Wrap the chocolate dough around the caramel balls.  Place balls on cookie sheets and sprinkle with sea salt.

Bake for 10-12 minutes or until almost set.  Cool on pans 2 to 3 minutes or until firm.  Remove cookies from pans; cool on wire racks.

These were really yummy, but a little salty for my taste.  (Duh!)  I didn’t think I put all that much salt on them, but I wasn’t liking the salt.  I might try them again without it and see how they taste.  Oh, and I used Milk Duds in the middle so I didn’t have to worry about rolling my caramel into a ball.  Good cookies, but not my favorites.  The boys seem to agree with me, as we still have quite a few left.

Soft Gingersnap Cookies with White Chocolate Chunks

makes about 3 dozen cookies

source: two peas and their pod

1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 cup granulated sugar

½ cup molasses

2 tablespoons canola oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2¼ teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1¼ teaspoons cinnamon

1¼ teaspoons ground cloves

1 teaspoon ground ginger

2 large eggs

3½ cups all-purpose flour

1½ cups white chocolate chunks

1 cup granulated sugar-for coating cookie dough balls

Preheat oven to 350°.  Line two large baking sheets with parchment papers or with a silicone baking mat.  Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together butter and sugar until smooth and creamy.

Beat in the molasses, canola oil, vanilla, baking soda, salt, and spices.  Mix until well combined.

Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat until smooth.  Slowly add in the flour.  Next, stir in the white chocolate chunks.

Scoop the dough into balls and roll in granulated sugar.  Place on lined baking sheets, about two inches apart.  Bake for 10 minutes, the cookies will still be soft.  Remove from oven and let cookies cool on the baking sheet for five minutes.  Transfer to a wire rack and cool completely.

In place of the cinnamon and cloves I used 2½ teaspoons of Chef Tess’s Wise Woman of the East spice mix.  And I could find no white chocolate chips in my house.  Must have used them all for something.  So I chopped up some Baker’s white chocolate and used that instead.  Mmm.  Really yummy gingersnaps, nice and soft, even the next day.  This recipe I highly recommend!  So do the animals ~ they were gone within a day!

What kind of cookies did you make for Christmas?

buttermilk cookie mix neighbor gifts

I’m always looking for good neighbor gifts, and was delighted when I found this on ~ yep, you guessed it ~ Chef Tess Bakeress’s blog.  I love the idea of cookie mixes, since we all get inundated with way too many sweets this time of year, and this way you can hang on to the mix and make up some cookies when you’re more in the mood for them.  I used the basic recipe, which I am listing here, but there are more baking options once you have the mix, which you can find on the website.

Tess’s Extra Moist Buttermilk Cookie Mix

source: chef tess bakeresse

9 cups all purpose flour (whole wheat works, but be sure it is soft wheat or pastry flour)

1½ cups buttermilk powder (instant milk is okay too)

1½ cups Homemade Instant Pudding Mix

3 tablespoons baking powder

1 tablespoon salt

2 tablespoons vanilla or LorAnn Princess emulsion

2 cups butter or shortening (I use Spectrum Organic)

3 cups sugar (you can use splenda spoonable instead)

Soften butter in a very large bowl, electric mixers are amazing for making mixes, I highly recommend using one.  Add the sugar and vanilla (I also love brandy, rum, nut flavors...) and cream well.  In a separate large bowl combine the dry ingredients.  Gradually add the dry ingredients into the butter mixture.  If done correctly it will look like a course cornmeal.

This mix will make 20 cups of cookie mix.  I use 2 cups of mix per gourmet mix.  Most often I will put 2 cup portions in storage size zip bags.  This mix will make 10 bags of plain sugar cookie mix.

I started by making a big batch of Tess’s homemade pudding mix (find it here).  I also had a can of powdered butter and decided to use that instead of regular butter.  (I found a #10 can at Wal-Mart, but can’t find it online anywhere.  They also sell it at Kitchen Kneads.)  I threw everything in my Kitchen Aid and mixed it all up.  Be aware that your mixer bowl will be VERY full, especially when using powdered butter, so use the pouring shield if you have one.  I then put 2 cups each into holiday Ziploc bags.

Only I didn’t get 10 bags full.  I only got 8.  Hmm.  I decided I’d better bake up a batch and sample them.  So I mixed it all up and used the drop method, and got the funniest cookies I’ve ever seen.  They looked like biscuits.  They tasted like biscuits.  They tasted like biscuits because I forgot to put the sugar in.  Ug.  So I dumped all the bag contents back into a large bowl, added a little less than 2 cups of sugar, stirred it all up and bagged it all again.  Then I used the leftovers (about 1¼ cups that didn’t go into the bags) to make up another batch.  This time they turned out great.  Very yummy.  They would probably have been even better with a little butter cream frosting on top, but they were gone before I could find out.  This is the best picture I was able to get before little fingers had grabbed them all up.

After I had them all in bags, I made up a few of these,

used my Xyron to make the labels into stickers, stuck them onto the bag and plopped placed them carefully into these cute little treat holders I got from Current several years ago.  Fit perfectly, and made a great neighbor gift.  (I even made a second batch of the mix, more to give away and some to keep for myself.)

What did you give for neighbor gifts this year?  Did you stick with a tried-and-true or did you make something new this year?

lasagna soup and mars bar cake

I love that Oldest likes to cook.  Yes, because it’s fun to spend time with him in the kitchen.  Yes, because I don’t have a daughter to pass all my recipes on to, so I’m thrilled to have a son to teach them to.  Yes, because his wife will love me that much more for teaching him to cook.  And yes, because he enjoys it and gets a lovely sense of self-worth when he serves and eats food he has prepared himself.  For all those altruistic reasons and more I love that Oldest likes to cook.  I’m even ok with the fact that Oldest would rather cook than do his housework, as I’d rather do his housework than cook.  See, the biggest reason I love that Oldest likes to cook is because on the days that he does it means I don’t.  It’s so nice to have someone to share that duty once in a while.  (My husband does not cook.  He survived for 2 years in New England eating Ramen and relying on the kindness of strangers.  He even went 3 weeks eating nothing but Hostess products ~ Twinkies, Ding Dongs, Zingers ~ because he lived next door to a day-old Hostess outlet and thought it would be a great way to save money.  I am really quite surprised he still likes the stuff.)

I threw my back out the other day and was gimpy for quite some time.  If you are considering putting tile in your kitchen, let me give you some advise: rethink your decision or invest in a very nice, cushy kitchen mat.  After spending all day on my feet on the tile preparing our double-take-giving feast I could barely move for a week!  I have a twinge-ish back anyway, so you might be ok, but it will make anyone’s feet and legs ache if they spend a considerable amount of time there.  Even Oldest complains.  And a great big HUGE shout of gratitude to my friend Kelli, who read my double-take-giving status on Facebook and bought me a memory foam mat for Christmas.  (Not to mention ~ ok, yes to mention ~ the fact that she is at this moment picking up Littlest from kinder and taking him to play at the kiddie land of a local burger joint and giving me the chance to get my laundry done, sit here in my jammies and blog.  LOVE YOU KELLI ~ you ROCK!)

So, back to Oldest.  I had my feet propped up, the heat pad on my back and a couple of ibuprofen digesting in my gullet when I slowly came to realize by the increasing volume of Littlest’s growling that the animals were getting restless and it must be dinnertime.  Oh, no no no, I was so not ready to step foot on that tile again.  I was just about to haul myself to my feet when Oldest volunteered to make dinner.  Oh how I’m coming to love those sweet words, “I’ll make dinner mom!”  So now the crucial question: what can I leave a ten-year-old in the kitchen unsupervised to create that will still be edible?  (I left him alone to make Toll-House cookies on Saturday ~ he put ¼ cup, yes ¼ CUP of vanilla in the batter.  It called for ½ teaspoon.)  I already had some cooked sausage in the freezer (I was so trying to be on the ball) so I figured this recipe should be easy enough.  And Oldest’s favorite thing to eat is soup, so it would be a little reward for him to get to eat something he loves.  This is what we decided on:

Lasagna Soup

serves 4

source: Mels Kitchen Cafe

soup:

1½ pounds Italian sausage

1 medium yellow onion, chopped

4 cloves garlic, finely minced or pressed

2 teaspoons dried oregano

½ teaspoon dried crushed red pepper

3 tablespoons tomato paste

1 (28-ounce) can fire roasted diced tomatoes, undrained

2 bay leaves

6 cups chicken broth

½ cup chopped fresh basil or 2 tablespoons dried basil

salt and pepper to taste

½ pound fusilli noodles (we used rotini), cooked and drained

cheese topping:

1 cup ricotta cheese

½ cup grated Parmesan cheese

¼ teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon black pepper

1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil or 1½ teaspoon dried basil

2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese, for sprinkling

In a large 4-quart pot, add the Italian sausage and cook over medium heat, breaking the pieces up with a wooden spoon or spatula while it cooks.  After about 3-4 minutes, add the onion.  Cook the sausage and onion together, stirring occasionally, until the sausage is cooked through and the onions are soft, about 5-7 minutes.  Drain any excess grease, if desired.  Stir in the garlic, oregano, red pepper flakes and tomato paste.  Cook for 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly.  Add the diced tomatoes with their juices, bay leaves and chicken broth.  Add the basil, if using dried (if using fresh basil, add it in the next step).

Bring the soup to a boil then reduce the heat and simmer for 20-30 minutes.  Season the soup with salt and pepper to taste and the fresh basil, if using.

For the cheese mixture, in a small bowl, combine the ricotta cheese, Parmesan cheese, salt, pepper and basil.  Set aside.

To serve the soup, add a scoop of cooked pasta noodles to a bowl.  Top with a ladle or two of soup and dollop with a generous spoonful of the cheese mixture.  Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese.  Serve immediately.

Oldest even set up the shot and took the picture.

So I had Oldest pull out the frozen sausage and warm it up in the soup pot first.  He must have been “distracted” as it was warming, because the bottom of the meat was blackened but not quite burnt.  I think it actually added a nice flavor to the soup.  I then read him off the ingredients, told him where to find some of them, and let him go to.  He was all set to make the cheese topping, but I realized I didn’t have any ricotta, so we just topped it with a handful sprinkle of mozzarella.  Yum.  Very flavorful, very warm, very delicious.  This just might end up replacing our previous favorite Pasta E Fagioli soup, which I haven’t quite figured out how to make without beans...

It was also recently Middlest’s birthday, so we had birthday cake for dessert.  More than anything else ~ presents and everything ~ he wanted a “mars cake”.  Yep, I made the mistake of (rather pathetically) making Oldest a “moon cake” (figured I’d try to learn some cake decorating skills while they’re young and don’t mind my horrific mistakes) for his last birthday. 

Moon cake from Oldest's birthday.

Poor Middlest.  I was so tired and hurty that I just wasn’t up to that kind of work.  Why did he have to be born around Thanksgiving?  (Oh, yeah, I remember.)  But I did make him a “surface of mars” cake made out of Mars Bars.  He was just as happy.  (Love how forgiving 7-year-old boys are!)

We actually had cake at my parents' house.  

Now you know where my affinity for paper plates comes from.

Mars Bar Cake

source: food.com

cake:

3 (58 g) Mars bars, coarsely chopped

(according to the recipe you can use Milky Way bars instead)

¼ cup unsalted butter

1½ cups sugar

2 cups all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

3 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup buttermilk

icing:

2 Mars bars, coarsely chopped

½ cup unsalted butter

1½ cups icing sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon milk

topping:

1 Mars bar, thinly sliced

Grease and flour 10-inch tube pan with removable bottom.

In small pan on low heat, melt bars stirring frequently until blended. Set aside.

In medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder and baking soda.

In large bowl, use electric hand mixer on medium low speed, then medium speed ,to beat together sugar and shortening until fluffy, about 5 minutes.  Beat in eggs 1 at a time thoroughly incorporating each one.  Beat in vanilla and Mars bar mixture until blended. Beat in a third of flour mixture.

Beat in half of the buttermilk.  Beat in the remaining flour mixture.  Beat in the remaining buttermilk.

Pour batter into prepared pan ,bake in preheated 325° oven 55 minutes or until tester comes out clean.  Cool on wire rack 15 minutes.  Turn out of pan on to serving plate.  Cool completely.

For icing, melt bars and butter on low heat, stirring frequently until blended.  Remove from heat.  Cool 5 minutes.  Add icing sugar, milk and vanilla.  Whisk vigorously until smooth.  Spoon over cake, allowing it to drip down sides.

For topping arrange Mars slices decoratively on top of cake.

Really really moist cake (so I don’t recommend trying to shape it into anything like a globe).  Really really yummy cake too.  Definitely worth giving it a try.  I didn’t use the topping, but it might have made great dirt.

Just a couple more things about this recipe: First, it didn’t list sugar in the ingredients list.  Now, I love to bake, but I don’t know much about the science (chemistry?) of baking and how much of what you need with what to make a recipe turn out well.  I was in a desperate hurry and didn’t have time to wait for someone more knowledgeable to answer and e-mail and haul my bacon out of the fire (yet again), so I looked up another cake recipe and used that to estimate how much sugar should be in this cake.  I may have gotten the answer wrong.  Feel free to comment below if you happen to know the right answer.  Thanks!

Second, while dumping ingredients into the bowl I came to the sudden and awkward realization that I had no brown sugar in the house.  (Don’t ask me where all my brown sugar went.  No, really, don’t ask me.  Since I keep an extra in storage I honestly have no idea whatsoever where it could have disappeared to.)  Thanks go to Joy the Baker for saving my tushy this time.  See her homemade brown sugar recipe below.

And third, I have a friend who gave me some kiefer grains a few months ago.  ~ Ever heard of kefer?  No, not the guy on 24.  Wonder if he's named after the stuff...?  ~  It’s a probiotic that grows in milk, makes kind of a sour cream/yogurt kind of thing if you take care of it and feed it.  (Does pretty well if you’re better at benign neglect, too.)  ~  I used that in place of the buttermilk.  Mmm!  Makes awesome cake.

How to Make Brown Sugar 

source: Joy the Baker

1 cup granulated cane sugar

1 tablespoon unsulfured molasses

In a medium sized bowl, mix together the sugar and molasses.  It’s that easy.  There’s a part in this process where the molasses is super gunky and clumpy.  You’ll think to yourself:  Joy, you were wrong… this is coming out all wrong.  Don’t worry.  keep mixing it all together.  It will even itself out.   Work it until completely incorporated and no big molasses globs remain.  For dark brown sugar, add another tablespoon of molasses.  Use as you would in your favorite cake and cookie recipes.  Store in an airtight container or in a ziploc bag with the air pressed out.  Dang that’s easy!

You really have to try this.  It works.  Not only does it work, but it makes the best brown sugar I’ve ever tried.  Soft.  No lumps or clumps.  No clinging together.  And luckily for me my stores of molasses were still intact.

pies pies pies!

I think my husband loves Thanksgiving most for the pies.  While he like the turkey and fixin's, he is above all things a pie man.  He is widely known for gladly accepting pie as “payment” for fixing people’s computers, being the friendly neighborhood fix-it man or helping out around the house.  I have to admit, I don’t much like pie, mostly because I don’t like the crust.  Don’t like making it, don’t like eating it.  (Although I do have fond memories of my mother making “churros” with left-over pie crust.)  When I was a kid I would just eat the middle out and leave the crust altogether.  I catch myself doing that nowadays too.  But I did find something amazing.  Marie Calendar’s frozen pie crusts.  They are light, flakey and quite nice tasting.  I actually like the frozen ones better that the ones on her pies you buy from the restaurant.  But be warned, they have generic/store brands of these and THEY ARE NOT THE SAME.  Stick with Marie’s.

That being said, here are the pies I made for double-take-giving. 

Grandma Porter’s Peach Pie

makes 1

3 tablespoons cornstarch

½ cup sugar

1½ cups water

1 small package lemon jello

2 cups fresh peaches, sliced

1 prepared pie crust

Mix cornstarch and sugar in cool pan.  Stir in water slowly.  Cook until mixture clears.  Dissolve jello into sugar mixture.  Allow to cool.  Fold in peaches.  Pour filling into pie crust.

The story goes that when my husband’s grandfather married his (my husband’s) grandmother she couldn’t cook.  Anything.  Had a hard time even boiling water.  But she went to work at a tiny little “home-cooked” restaurant called the Spring Chicken Inn (which is now quite famous in the area) in a tiny Utah town and became one of the best cooks ever.

This is not only my husband’s favorite pie, but his father’s as well.  And it’s one of mine because it’s so very, very easy to make.  I always use the generic brand of lemon jello because I think it tastes better in the pie, and I never wait for the filling to cool before dumping it into the shell.  Works just fine for me, and I’ve never heard my husband or his father complain. 

Chocolate Cream Pie

5 tablespoons cornstarch

¼ cup half and half

¾-1 cup sugar (depending on chocolate used)

3 egg yolks

¼ teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons butter

2½ cups milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

½ cup chocolate syrup OR ½ cup melted chocolate chips

Mix cornstarch, sugar and salt in a 3 quart saucepan.  Add milk and cream, cook over medium heat until smooth and thick, stirring constantly.  Pour a small amount of hot mixture into egg yolks; blend thoroughly, then pour back into saucepan.  Cook another 2 or 3 minutes.  Remove from heat and add butter, vanilla and chocolate.  Pour into baked pie shell.  Chill 3-4 hours.  Top with whipped cream.

I got this recipe from my friend Alisha several years ago and I have to say it is THE best chocolate pie I have ever tasted, bar none.  In fact, my husband wasn’t too interested in a chocolate pie this year and I insisted on making it.  (Me, the non-pie lover.)  Oldest told me that he doesn’t like chocolate pie very well, and told him, oh yes he does, he just needed to taste this one.  I gave him a spoon and some of the filling and he went nuts.  He wants to know if I can make him a vanilla one.  Of course I can!  This recipe is actually a basic cream pie recipe that you can make into vanilla, banana and coconut cream as well.  (If any of you want the original recipe, please leave a comment and I’ll be happy to e-mail it to you.)  I inevitably use the chocolate chips, and just dump them in and melt them before adding the vanilla and butter.  And I always put the whipped cream on top before I put it in the fridge because it helps keep the chocolate from drying out.  You can put cling wrap on top instead if you want.  Yum yum yum! 

I overheard my husband’s sister tell someone once that her favorite is Marie Calendar’s Razzleberry Pie, so for the last several years we have been getting her one on her birthday.  (They’re usually on sale that time of year.)  I guess she decided we like them too, because they’ve been showing up on our birthdays lately.  My husband wasn’t sure he was happy about that or not.  Sure, it was PIE, but it wasn’t one of his confessed favorites.  Recently he had decided that he does, in fact, like Razzleberry pie, and I happened upon this recipe online so I thought I’d give it a try.  I don’t know if it was because I was using Marie’s pie crust too or what, but I thought I could pass this off as one of hers (if I hadn’t left the crust too long and it hadn’t decided to fall apart in the oven).  Be aware that this makes enough filling for 7 pies, so if you’re not feeding a crowd you might want to freeze some. 

Razzleberry Pie Filling

makes 7 pie fillings

source: food.com

3 16-ounce bags mixed frozen berries

5 cups water

3½ cups sugar

1 cup pie-tone flour (combine with liquid below)

¾ cup water

Bring 1 bag of berries, sugar and water to a boil.  Add pie tone mixture and stir until thick.

Add 2 bags of berries.  Cool; refrigerate or freeze in gallon bag.

Frozen bake at 375° for 70 minutes.  Thawed bake at 375° for 60 minutes.

And now for the pièce de résistance ~ dum da da da!  My own version of Chef Tess’s Wise Woman Apple Pie.  This pie came about because I haven’t made a homemade apple pie for I can’t even remember how long.  I am quite stubborn on occasion (aren’t we all?  I certainly hope it’s not just me) and the last apple pie I made my husband didn’t like.  He was happy enough buying apple pies at Sam’s Club and I was quite happy nursing my hurt feelings and letting him.  (It didn’t hurt that I didn’t have to go to anywhere near as much work buying them at Sam’s either.)  But this year when I asked him what kind of pie he wanted for double-take-giving he put apple on the list.  I asked him where he wanted me to buy it, and he said I may as well just make one.  “It’s just apples and cinnamon, right?”  Uh, no.  No it isn’t.  Still, I had several apples my parents had given me from their tree that needed to be put to some use, so I enlisted Oldest’s help peeling, coring and slicing.  Once that task was done though, I started to panic a little.  He hadn’t liked the last apple pie I made, and I still only had that recipe.  So I made a mad dash to the computer and pulled up Chef Tess’s website.  She’s saved my hiney several times in our short acquaintance, so I was certain she could do so now.  Provided she had a recipe for apple pie.  She DOES!  But it’s for “food storage” apple pie, using dried apples, powdered butter... O-kay.  I can work with this.  Here’s what I came up with. 

M’s a Wise Woman too Apple Pie

source: Chef Tess Bakeresse

½ cup sugar or ¼ cup honey (splenda is okay)

½ teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons Chef Tess Wise Woman of the East Spice blend 

(or cinnamon if you’re desperate or an idiot ~ seriously, try the Wise Woman spice blend, it is a-MAZE-ing!)

3 tablespoons cornstarch or Ultra Gel

4 cups apples, peeled, cored and sliced

1 tablespoon vanilla

3 tablespoons butter

Preheat oven to 425°.  Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and put in a prepared pie crust (bottom).  Top with other half of the dough, rolled out to a 12 inch diameter.  Using a knife, cut off the extra edge so that there is about a half inch of dough hanging all around the outside edge of the pie plate.  Roll this “dough lip” under until almost flush with the edge.  Seal edged lightly pressing down with a fork or pinching with your fingers into a crimped fashion.  Cut several vents in the top (I tried a mock lattice decoration by cutting squares into the crust).  Bake at 425° 10 minutes.  Cover edges with foil or pie guard and lower oven to 350° and bake 30-40 minutes.

I did one with my mock lattice design, and one crumble crust, because I had just enough apples to make two fillings.  The crumble crust pie was half eaten before I could take a picture of it.  Oh.  My.  Guess what?  I now have the best apple pie recipe of anyone I know.  Thanks for coming to my rescue again Stephanie!  You are truly my rock star in shining armor!