Simple Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie

It's a rainy, yucky day, where we can't go on a walk or to a park, so we put our aprons on (yes, she has a matching toddler apron) and baked a pie with some of the rhubarb my mom brought from her garden. I looked through several recipes online and they all seemed really complicated, so I simplified this up with what I had available. I made my own crust from scratch, because I like to, even though it inevitably falls apart and looks horrible in the end. It's always tastier when you use real butter and your fingers.

Ingredients for Crust:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
2/3 cup butter (softened)
4-5 Tbsp cold water

Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl, first with a spatula and then with your hands, until it forms a large dough ball. Then break the ball in half and roll out each side, one for the bottom of the pan (a regular 9-inch pie pan, greased, floured, and pricked with a fork) and one for the top of the pie.

Ingredients for Filling:

2 cups (or so) fresh rhubarb, chopped and rinsed
2 cups/1 pint fresh rinsed strawberries, de-stemmed and chopped
1 cup white sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 Tbsp flour
1/2 lemon- all of the zest and juice
1 Tbsp butter

Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl. Pour evenly into the bottom crust, sprinkling bits of the last pad of butter over the top of the filling, then top with the top crust, slicing an X in the center and pushing down the edges with a fork.
Bake at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes.

Soul Cakes

Soul Cakes are an echo of the sacrificial foods of the Celtic festival of Samhain held in early autumn. These little cakes were traditionally set out with glasses of wine on All Hallows Eve (31st October) for the souls of the dead. On All Saints Day (1st November) children would go "souling" calling out "Soul, Soul, for a Soul Cake: pray you good mistress, a soul cake". You can read the Wikipedia entry, at least part of which I wrote myself, here: Soul Cakes.
I try to make these every Halloween, so we can have a treat and leave some out for our dead ancestors in memorium. I realized this year that I made mine a little too big; if you can get the dough a good consistency, try rolling it out and cutting circular cookies so you can get more out of a batch.


Ingredients
3/4 cup butter
3/4 cup caster/superfine sugar
4 cups plain flour, sifted
3 egg yolks
1 teaspoon mixed spice
1 teaspoon allspice
3 tablespoons currants
a little milk


Cream the butter and sugar together until pale in colour and fluffy in texture. Beat in the egg yolks. Fold in the sifted flour and spices. Stir in the currants. Add enough milk to make a soft dough. Form into flat cakes and mark each top with a cross. Brush the tops of each lightly with the leftover egg whites. Bake on a well-greased baking tray in a hot oven until golden (350 degrees F for about 17 minutes worked on my big cakes).

Simple Blueberry Crisp

Like I said before, I've had an empty frozen pie crust hanging out in the freezer for a few days now. There isn't a whole lot of room on the counter where I'm currently living, so I didn't really want to clear myself a space just to roll out one half of pie crust dough for a full blueberry pie. I've never had a blueberry crumble or anything before, so I pooled my memories of making an apple brown betty along with flavors that would fit a blueberry pie, and threw this little masterpiece together.

Ingredients:

1 frozen deep-dish pie crust shell
6 cups blueberries (thawed under warm water if using frozen)
1 stick butter, softened
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
dash of ground allspice

Set the pie crust on a pizza baking pan (for support) and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Pour in the rinsed blueberries.

In a large bowl, mix together the dry ingredients, then add the butter and mix until crumbles form.

Sprinkle all over the top of the blueberries, then bake for 35-40 minutes.

Loaded Oatmeal Raisiny Cookies

I'm having some friends over tonight and a yard sale tomorrow, so I need something sweet to feed everyone. So I found this recipe on the back of a generic tube of oats and messed with it to make these cookies explode with raisiny goodness!

Ingredients:

2 sticks butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 cups Quick Oats
1/2 cup dried currants
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/2 cup regular dark raisins
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 F and grease a large cookie sheet with cooking spray. Beat shortening and sugars until creamy (use your Kitchenaid mixer if you have one). Add eggs and vanilla, mix well. Sift flour, salt and baking soda together onto a piece of waxed paper and add to mixture, beating together well. Add oatmeal, raisins and currants and mix well.

Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto cookie sheet. Bake 10-12 minutes. YUM! Makes as many cookies as you have dough left after eating raw cookie dough.

Apple Crescent Loaf, a honeyed bread

I bought a book called Cooking with Honey and saw a recipe I wanted to try. It wasn't easy, but it honestly wasn't all that hard either. After making this once, I have thought of a few additions that would improve the recipe, and will be adding them here. And although this turns out looking like a pastry, you must remember when tasting it that it is a bread. Your eyes can fool your taste buds. And as with most honey recipes, this tastes better a day after it has been baked.
By the way, the baby was able to play on the floor, trying to crawl, throughout most of my making this recipe. It's easier now that she's over 7 months old!

Ingredients:

Yeast Dough:
1 Tbsp yeast
1 cup scalded milk, cooled to lukewarm
1/4 cup honey
3 Tbsp oil or melted butter
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs, beaten
2 cups unbleached white flour
1 1/2 cups whole wheat graham flour
3 Tbsp melted butter
1/2 tsp cinnamon-sugar

Apple Filling:
4 apples, peeled and sliced
2 Tbsp water
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 cup honey, warmed slightly
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
dash of ground cloves

To scald milk, put it in a pot and cook it on medium heat until bubbles start to form around edges. Let cool in a bowl before adding the yeast; hot milk will kill the yeast. Soften the yeast in milk with 1 teaspoon of the honey in a bowl. Add the milk/yeast mixture and then stir in the two flours with a wooden spoon until most of the dry bits are formed into a dough. Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth. Roll into a ball and place dough in a lightly oiled (use cooking spray) bowl and cover for an hour.

Stew the sliced apples in 2 Tbsp water with a shake or two of cinnamon until they have softened. In another medium bowl add raisins, walnuts, cinnamon and cloves. Add the apples (drained) once they have cooked. Mix all together.

Roll the dough out into an oblong shape a maximum of 1/4 inch thick. Brush melted butter over the top.

Empty apple-raisin mix onto the dough sheet and spread around. Drizzle the warmed honey on top, then roll the dough up like a jelly roll. Place on a greased cookie sheet and pinch the ends shut, twisting the tube around into a crescent shape. Cut slits in the middle to expose the filling, then baste the rest of the melted butter on top. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.

Bake at 375 F for 25-30 minutes. Cool on a cookie rack.

Pound Cake

I got this recipe out of a really old copy of the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. Here it is for your taste-testing pleasure! I'm bringing it to a party tonight, which I'll only be at for an hour or so as I'll have the baby with me.

Ingredients:

3/4 cup butter (room temp or warm)
zest of one medium-sized lemon
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs
1 1/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

I used my big red KitchenAid mixer for this, but you can get the same results just as easily with a hand mixer and a big bowl. Cream the butter and peel together. Gradually add sugar, creaming til light and well-mixed.

Add vanilla, then eggs one at a time, mixing well after each egg. Sift together dry ingredients (I always sift over a piece of waxed paper; makes it easier to dump the whole thing into the bowl later) and stir them into the mix.

Grease the bottom of a 9x5x3-inch pan and add batter.

Bake at 350 F for 50-55 minutes. Yum!

Sourdough Artisan Bread

I know it's been a few days since I've made an entry, and that is due to the fact that the only things I've been making for dinner are foods that I've already written recipes for, such as the other night's Corned Beef and Cabbage. Yesterday morning, I wanted to finish off the dough I had in the refrigerator. I forgot to mention that once you make the dough it will last up to 14 days in the fridge, but mine was almost a week old and I didn't want it in there any longer. I made two boules and took one to my aunt and uncle (almost getting lost in the Cascade Mountains on the trip), and I wanted to tell you how to use the bread recipe to make sourdough.

After you have made all the dough from your first batch of Artisan Bread, do not wash the bowl. Simply mix another batch up, using half the amount of yeast as the first time, in the same bowl, scraping the leftover dough off the sides and incorporating in into the new mixture. Follow all the same directions after that, letting it rise for two hours then putting it in the fridge, and make the bread the same as usual.

The older yeast that had been out in the air in the old dough will give the new bread loaves that distinct sourdough taste. VERY delicious!

Rum Cake

I was lucky when I decided to make this, as my husband and a few friends were home to watch the baby. The hardest part of this recipe is buying the bundt pan. The rest is quite simple, and makes a very strong rum cake that is even tastier after it's been frosted and chilled a few hours. This is an incredibly rich, bad-for-you cake, but it's so damned delicious that it won't matter. I only make it once or twice a year anyway. I use Captain Morgan Private Stock rum.

Ingredients:

1 package yellow cake mix
1 (4-serving size) package instant vanilla pudding
1/2 C oil
1/2 C water
1/2 C rum
4 eggs
1/2 C chopped pecans

Glaze:
1 stick butter
1 C sugar
1/4 C rum
1/4 C water

Frosting:
4 oz. cream cheese
1/3 stick butter
2 C powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
sprinkle of water

Mix cake mix, pudding, oil, water and rum. Add eggs 1 at a time. Grease tube or bundt pan and line with nuts. Pour batter over nuts. Bake at 325°F. for 35-45 minutes.

About 5 minutes before cake is ready to come out of the oven, prepare the glaze in a small pot. After you pull the cake out, use a chopstick (or something similar) to poke holes all over the cake (don't take it out of the pan yet). Pour the glaze over the cake, filling the holes and all around the cake and let it soak in as the cake cools off for about 20 minutes. Then turn the pan upside down over a platter and let rest/cool for another hours or so til it is cool enough to remove the cake from a pan. You may need to use a butter knife to cut the middle part (around the big hole) out to get the cake to fall out of the pan.
My finished cake (half-eaten):

After cake has cooled, make the frosting. It's best if you let the cream cheese and butter set out on the counter for at least an hour to get soft before you try to mix the frosting together. Combine all ingredients and mix well with a spatula, then spread liberally onto the cake. If you aren't serving the cake within 15 minutes, refrigerate the finished product until ready to eat. You can insert toothpicks into the top frosted part to hold up the cellophane wrap if you don't want to mess up the frosting.

Bread Baking Day 2

Thankfully I started the bread project pretty early in the morning, because around 10:30am, I bent over to pick something up and threw out my back. I've been living off ibuprofen since then and picking up the baby as little as possible, which is no easy feat when I'm the only one home to care for her. Husband had to work and I have no available friends or family here to help me, so I did the basics of care for the baby while I iced down my lower back and prayed she could entertain herself for the day with toys.
Anyway, before the injury, I did manage to get the bread started. I cut off a grapefruit-sized hunk of dough from the big lump in the bowl and rolled it around in my hands with flour until it looked good, then placed it on a bed of cornmeal on the pizza peel.

Unfortunately I didn't use enough cornmeal, because when I went to slide the dough off onto the heated stone in the oven, it just stuck. It sat there, slowly sinking toward the stone but clinging on to the wood for dear life. I pushed it off with a spatula and managed to bake it.
Here is a helpful video I found online so you can see the process:

It stuck to the stone after I had my husband pull it out (he was home in the morning, as he's on night shift right now), so I think I'll have to put some cornmeal on the stone itself next time. The recipe makes enough dough for at least 4 or 5 small boules, maybe more. At any rate, once we finally scraped the bread off the stone and let it cool a few minutes, I cut right in. It was delicious! And all in all, a pretty easy experimentation in breadmaking. I'm definitely going to do this often and get my money's worth out of the pizza peel and stone (and maybe even use them to bake a pizza someday), especially after my back heals.
I'm feeling a little better today, but there is still quite a lot of pain when I move around or try to sit. This is the one I took after I'd already eaten half the first loaf:


Once you have all your supplies, this really is the cheapest and easiest way of getting fresh baked loaves of artisan bread I've ever encountered.

Easy Breadmaking...or so the recipe says...

If I do not update on any given day, it is usually going to be due to one of two circumstances: my husband is at work/night shift/on duty (standing watch all night, as he's in the Navy), or we are eating leftovers of something I've previously blogged about. My husband is on night shift for right now but I'm still cooking whenever I finish off enough leftovers that I have room in the fridge for more. I had a bit of a meltdown today over the brand new meat thermometer I got for Christmas. It's all digital and fancy, but when I opened it it wasn't displaying and so I bought new batteries for it. I loosened the plastic battery compartment cover and walked over to a table where I had the batteries. Somewhere in that 6 foot walk, I lost the cover. We both searched for it over, under, inside, all around EVERYTHING in that area and can't find it. So I'm really angry that I've lost something for a gift I never even got to use. And of course, you can't use the thermometer without the cover because it holds the battery in.
ANYWAY, today I'm trying to make bread.
This is the dough just after it's been mixed:

I made the dough and it has set for just over two hours, but the recipe I have says you can let it rise up to 5 hours and that it should sit in the fridge overnight to stiffen up a bit and be easier to mold into a boule. I'll share the basic ingredients for you from this recipe a friend gave me, as it's supposed to be SUPER easy to make this bread (once you've gone out and bought a pizza peel and baking stone). So I'll update tomorrow on how it turns out after the dough has spent the night in the refrigerator. You can find the recipe HERE.

Ingredients:

3 cups lukewarm water
1-1/2 tablespoons granulated yeast (1-1/2 packets)
1-1/2 tablespoons kosher or other coarse salt
6-1/2 cups unsifted, unbleached, all-purpose white flour (making sure you flatten out the top of the scoop with the back of a butter knife)
Cornmeal for pizza peel

This is the dough once it has set for 2 hours:

Wish me luck on finishing the bread tomorrow! By the way, this Mozart Cube makes for hours of amusing baby entertainment. After 5 days of ownership, she finally figured out how to work it on her own, using her HANDS!

Ornamental Cutout Cookies

I started making these with the baby in her high chair watching, but didn't get through mixing the dough before she started zonking out on me. So these were made entirely during a long baby nap. My grandmother used to make this dough for just about every holiday and we would go over her house, roll it out, and cut the cookies out with various cookie cutters to fit the holiday. I forgot before I started that I didn't have any Christmassy sprinkles, so I had to make due with some ice cream topping ones I had buried in my baking cupboard. And no, you can't cut out the brandy; it gives the dough its unique flavor, and isn't nearly enough to do any harm to dough-eating children.

Ingredients:

2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 Tbsp brandy

Sift together first 4 ingredients into a bowl. Add butter and mix with a spatula into coarse mixture, then add egg, brandy, and vanilla. Mix as well as you can with the spatula then dig in with your hands and knead the dough til it sticks together.
Roll out to about 1/8-inch thickness on a floured surface. Pat bottoms of cookie cutters in flour before cutting each cookie, as this eases removal. Put on a greased cookie sheet and bake at 350F for 7-10 minutes, or until light brown.