by jackie | Sep 29, 2024 | Care of the Soul, Dessert, DIY, Eating Local, Food, Foraging, Gratitude, Lard, Local Farmers, Pie, Uncategorized
Hand pie, fry pie, stack pie, fruit pie, cream pie, depression pie…. is there anything more humble yet sublime than homemade pie?
There is nothing that better represents how, with a little ingenuity and elbow grease, pleasure and love can come from the kitchen even when times are tough. Today, as we near October, Pennsylvania is thick into apple season, and my wild trees have been giving up their fruit. This year was a particularly good one for all the fruits here, for which we are all grateful.
I used to get all cheffy and elaborate when making pies and preserves, but now that I have come to savor the difference between supermarket produce and the things I seek out from local farms and forests, I want to keep the focus on the particulars of the fruit, and keep the seasonings simple.
My wild apples are unlike those from the orchard, being a little different in texture and very intense in flavor. They are also as wild as can be, so have odd skin color and blemishes, which do not bother me at all. For baking, I like a mix of varieties – which always makes a pie more interesting. I like a crisp and tart variety mixed with a good Golden delicious or two. Delicious apples have gotten a bad rap after years of being the apple favorite of elementary schools, hospitals, and convenience stores, which is entirely unfair. A good Delicious apple has a juicy-sweet spiciness, and a texture that bakes up soft and tender. I was pretty delighted to discover a wild tree that has knobby, small, very seedy fruit with a Golden Delicious flavor, though they are kind of a pain to peel and woud take a ton to make a full pie.
I do pack my pie with lots of fruit and little else, and stick to crusts made from fats like butter, lard, or a combo. This is a very basic recipe, adapted from my Mom’s McCall’s Cook Book, in which I have discovered a surprising number of new-old ideas. It can be easily adapted to pretty much any fruit, adapting a little for straining the excess liquid when using juicier fruits – I find 1/2 cup of liquid is the perfect amount to form a softly gelled, not runny fruit filling.
Bonus: If you strain off excess fruit liquid, remember to make some fruit shrub using your remaining vinegar water from the pie crust.
So, here’s your next weekend plan – Hit your farmer’s market for apples & snacks, go home & bake yourself a pie, go for a tramp in the woods, come home, enjoy pie. Best of all, Sunday morning pie for breakfast is the best…
- 1 recipe Pastry for 2-crust pie I've included my recipe in this post, but If making dough keeps you from this simple pleasure, use store bought pre-rolled crust
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground clove
- 8 cups peeled and thinly sliced apples 10 - 12 medium apples
- 3 Tablespoons all purpose flour
- dash kosher salt
- 2 Tablespoons Butter
In a small bowl, combine sugar, cinnamon, clove, flour, and salt, mixing well.
Preheat oven to 375°F, arrange rack in the center of oven.
On a lightly floured surface, roll one of your pastry disks into an 11-inch circle. Line your pie pan and set aside.
Add your sugar mixture to your sliced apples in a large bowl, tossing lightly to combine well
Turn the apples and spice into the prepared pie crust, mounding highest in center. with a knife, cut small chunks of butter and dot evenly atop the apples
Roll out the remaining pastry disk into an 11-inch circle. Gently place on top of pie, trimming excess using a sharp knife so the top crust is very slightly larger than the ecge.
Gently roll top crust under the bottom crust, sealing the filling inside, and pressing gently with your fingertips. Crimp the edge to give a finished edge, either with your fingers or a fork. Gently slice slits in your top crust to allow steam to escape
Place the pie pan on a baking sheet to catch any leaking juices, and slide into preheated oven. Bake 45 - 50 minutes, until crust is golden but not too brown.
Remove to wire rack and allow to cool fully before cutting. Warm pie is delicious, but the juices will not have set and your pie will not slice well. Still good!
Serve with a thin slice of cheddar cheese, custard stirring cream, or ice cream.
- 2-1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 1 TBS granulated sugar
- 1 stick cold unsalted butter (salted is fine too) cut into 1/2-inch pieces (1 stick equals 1/4 pound)
- 1/2 cup rendered leaf lard, very cold/frozen cut into 1/2-inch pieces
- 1/2 cup very cold water
- 2 TBS cider vinegar
- 1/2 cup ice
Stir the flour, salt, and sugar together in a large bowl. Add the butter and lard piecesand coat with the four mixture. Using a pastry blender, cut the butter into the flour mixture, working quickly until mostly pea-sized pieces of butter/lard remain. Be careful to not overland.
Combine the water, cider vinegar, and ice in a measuring cup. Sprinkle 2 TBS of the ice water misture over the flour mixture, then mix and cut it in with a bench scraper (or your hands). Add as needed additional water - this understanding is something you will gain with practice. Go slowly, sprinkling 1/4 - 1/2 tsp at a time, undil the ball of dough has enough moisture to come together into a ball, with some dry bits remaining.
Squeeze and pinch with your fingertips to bring all the dough together, adding small drops of the water mixture if necessary.
Cut the ball in half, shape into two flat disks, wrapping separately in plastic wrap. Refrigerate at least 1 hour, preferably overnight, to give the gluten strands in the flour time to relax, and make the crust roll out more easily.
Wrapped well, your dough can be refrigerated for 3 days, or frozen for 1 month.
If you need some guidance about rolling your dough, this is a very comprehensive video and photo series. Pie is a skill, but it is not rocket science and I have every confidence with a little persistence, pie will become a valuable tool in your weekly menu rotation for pies both celebratory and everyday, sweet and savory.
I make crust as one of my regular morning cooking projects, tucking crust into the freezer for a future day. Making pie is no big deal at all when you break down into two sessions the making of the crust and the making of the pie.
The fat quantities remaing the same for an all butter crust pie - simply use two sticks of butter in place of the butter & lard.
My wild, organic-as-can-be apples, ready for pie
by jackie | Mar 16, 2024 | Blog, Books, History, Holidays, Pantry, Recipes, St. Patrick's Day, Things We Love, Uncategorized, Unprocessed, Whole Grains
Ireland has a lot to offer in the way of lessons about the intersection of food soveriegnty and empire-building, but she also has much magic, mirth, and devotion to the ingredients of home. While other peasant cultures are colorful and spicy, Ireland’s unique gift was the juxtaposition of salty sea air and arguably the best grass in the world. Hence, legendary cattle and dairy. So, the basic ingredients of much Irish cuisine are white in color, and rooted in the devotional ways of tending the family cow. Because of the extraordinary quality of the raw milk, the foods may be white, but are anything but bland.
Darina Allen, commonly known as “The Julia Child of Ireland”, has written several books that have brought much joy to my table and garden. While very wordly and modern, Darina is also very much rooted iin the old ways and traditions of Ireland, using raw milk from her own pastured cows, eggs gathered from free ranging chickens, foraging for wild herbs, mushrooms and hedgerow fruits.
About this bread, she says, “In our household of nine children, Mummy made this bread virtually very day of her life, well into her 80’s. She always had a light hand at baking. Whevever we were, her bread was on of the things that we looked forward to when we came home for a few days. So many happy memories are made at the kitchen table.”
And what could be more fitting than to, on this day of celebrating Ireland, to bake a simple, inexpensive bread with instructions calling for blessing the bread, and letting the fairies out? However you celebrate, highly recommend you spend a minute learning about and reflecting upon the Irish “Troubles.” Spoiler: It was more than a crop failure. And then, do what the Irish have always done and get on wtih keeping on and making merry with what you’lve got.
St. Patrick’s Day blessings to you – “Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig dhuit!”
Mummy’s Brown Soda Bread, Darina Allen, “Forgotten Skills of Cooking” p199
- 2 cups White Whole Wheat King Arthur White Whole Wheat works well
- 2 cups All Purpose Flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp baking soda sifted
- 1-1/2 - 2 cups buttermilk
Preheat the oven to 450°F.
Mix flour in a large, wide bowl, then add the salt and baking soda. Lift the flour up with your fingers to distribute the ingredients evenly.
Make a well in the center and pour in 1-1/2 cups of the buttermilk. With your fingers stiff and outstretched like a claw, stir in a circular movement from the center to the outside of the bolt in ever increasing concentric circles. When you reach the outside of the bowl seconds later, the dough is made. (Should it still be dry, add the remaining 1/2 cup buttermilk and distribute).
Sprinkle a little flour on the countertop. Place the dough onto the flour. (Fill the bowl with cold water now so it will be easy to wash later.) Wash and dry your hands to make it easier to handle the dough.
Sprinkle a little flour onto your hands. Gently tidy the ball of dough tucking the edges underneath with the inner edge of your hands. Pat the dough gently with your fingers to flatten it slightly into a found loaf about 1-1/2” thick. Slide one hand underneath, and with your other hand on top, transfer the dough to a baking sheet.
Cut a deep cross into the bead (this is called “blessing the bread”) and then prick it in the center of each of the four sections to “let the fairies out.” There’s also a tactical reason for doing this - the last part of the loaf to bake fully is the center, so cutting the cross opens out the center during cooking, allowing the heat to penetrate more evenly.
Bake for 15 minutes, then reduce the heat to 400°F and cook for a further 15 minutes. Turn the bread upside down and cook for a further 5-10 minutes, until cooked (the bottom should sound hollow when tapped). Cool on a wire rack.
Rashers, homemade brown soda bread slathered with butter, and pastured eggs ☘️
by jackie | Dec 23, 2023 | A Day in the Life, Books, Eating Local, Food, Recipes, Seasonal, Things We Love
Solstice traditions and magical tales and rituals come from all corners of the world. I enjoy reading about all of them, but mimicking the rituals of peoples exotic to me feels strange, and does not really feel like a receptive mindset for the significance of an important marker of time in my own real life.
Fire, attention, cleansing, making space, seasonal decoration, silence, spending time with nature, and ritual foods feel more fitting and less forced. Seed cake, while not exactly Yule specific, does feel like a suitable choice for the here and now.
Today, in the US, grocery bakery goods, frozen cakes, and cake mixes with canned frostings are what we imagine for “cake”. Light, fluffy, very sweet, often almost gummy, mostly crowned with sugary vegetable shortening frosting and intense artificial coloring and extracts.
Europe however, has retained more of their historic connections to food, and tends towards more dense, heavy baked goods flavored more often from nature than laboratories. Seed cake is one such cake you will not often find in the US. One reason is because it’s texture is dependent upon a certain inefficient manner of architecting the ingredients. It’s joy, like that of many British and Irish foods, is dependent upon the sheer exceptional quality of the simple ingredients – pastured eggs, homemade butter from the well-fed family cow, and local flour not readily available or “affordable” in modern times.
Expensive and/or unavailable indeed when measured with our American focus on efficiency and productivity. I wonder though, if my ingredients cost more errands and money, yet also are important nutrients in their own right instead of a guilt-inducing dietary derailment of artificial junk guaranteed to make me feel ill, which is more expensive?
I love everything about this cake, though I did dial up the fancy a little by pouring syrup over the hot cake, which makes me love it more, and I enjoy eating it with a schmear of good butter.
It is substantial, filling, and the ingredients are not without calories or fat, but are also nutrient dense. There is sugar, which is always going to be a conundrum, and for which I have no natural solution other than moderation. Since the cake is filling in a nutritionally satisfying way, moderation is naturally easier.
Anyway, this is a really nice tradition to bring into all your winter weeks, not just for Solstice, though in the day, it would be a luxurious choice during months when eggs and butter were scarce. Like now, which is why such cakes in December are so celebratory.
I happen to be rich in pastured eggs at the moment, so, bring on the hobbit-y cakes!
- 3/4 Cup Butter Room Temp
- 3/4 Cup superfine sugar Domino's Golden Cane works well
- 3 Chicken Eggs Pastured if possible
- 1/2 tsp Pure vanilla extract
- 2 Cups All purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 TBS milk or water
- 1 TBS caraway seeds optional
Optional Glaze
- 3 TBS Grand Marnier Brandy or whiskey can be substituted
- 2 tsp water
- 1/3 cup granulated sugar
- 1 TBS butter
Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease your baking pan with butter and flour.
Sift the flour and baking powder together.
In a separate bowl, using a mixer, whip the butter first, then add the sugar, and continue whipping until light and fluffy. Do not rush this, or combine the steps, it does make a difference to the texture of the finished cake. (In the day this was done by massaging by hand the warmth of your hands creaming the butter faster, and supposedly producing a lighter cake.)
Whisk the eggs and vanilla extract together, and gradually add to the whipped butter and sugar mixture. Mix well.
Gradually fold in the flour, taking care to not over-beat. Darina Allen calls the desired texture “dropping consistency.” It will be heavy and stiff, but should not be crumbly. Gently mix in the caraway seeds. Add the milk, liquor or water only if the batter is too dry.
Fill into the prepared baking pan, do not worry of it is lumpy, it will spread into the pan as the batter warms in the oven.
Bake 50 - 60 minutes, taking care to not overtake, which will toughen the texture. To make the glaze, simply warm the glaze ingredients gently in a saucepan until sugar is completely dissolved- do not boil. Pour over hot cake and let cool in the pan.
Remove from the oven, pour the glaze over the top if using, and allow to cool in the pan.
by jackie | Feb 14, 2021 | DAIRY, DIY, Holiday DIY, Holidays, Recipes, Seasonal, Things We Love, Valentine
Grand gestures are showy, but quiet, small ones are sweeter.
Today is that favorite day of retailers, florists and restauranteurs everywhere, Valentine’s Day.
Here in Pennsylvania, we’ve been very fortunate here with the mildness of our winter so far – unlike those of you suffering some real damage and hardship, we’re mostly just inconvenienced and fatigued. The kind of weariness that can be soothed with a steamy, creamy cup of home-made cocoa.
I nixxed commercial hot chocolate powders a long time ago in favor of the old-fashioned, off the package Hershey’s cocoa recipe that my mom used to make. Real milk, cocoa, salt, sugar and a bit of vanilla – all things found in an average kitchen. At home, it’s not really any more work, and the results are so worth it. Once you’ve spoiled yourself, you’ll want to keep a pint jar in your fridge at all times.
But then, one day, this really lovely post from Molly at Remedial Eating stopped me in my tracks. Something I had to try ASAP. And I’m so glad I did. This is one of the nicest, sweetest DIY gift ideas around – a jar of chocolate ganache ready to spoon into heated milk for a perfectly delicious, creamy, real cup of steaming cocoa.
Hot Chocolate Base (Ganache)
Yield: 2 generous cups ganache (enough for 2 dozen+ mugs of hot cocoa)
This makes a light ganache (1:1), scoop-able straight from the fridge. For firm truffles and heartier frostings, a 2:1 chocolate:cream ratio gives greater body and intensity. FYI.
1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream (not ultra-pasteurized, if possible)
12 ounces semisweet chocolate (3 – 4 oz. bars)
Snap chocolate bars into a large, heat-proof bowl. Heat cream over medium, until the first bubble breaks, then remove from heat and pour over chocolate shards. Let sit 5 minutes, then whisk gently to combine, 1-2 minutes. Pour into jar, and refrigerate, up to 1 month.
To Make Hot Cocoa:
Heat milk (2% or whole), as much as you want, over medium heat, until steaming. (Alternatively, for one mug, microwave). Add ganache to hot milk: I use 1 heaping tablespoon per 8 ounces of milk, though there are those under my roof who argue 2 tablespoons are far superior. And no, I don’t measure. Eyeball it. Stir ganache into hot milk until dissolved, 10-15 seconds, taste, and add more, if desired. Pour into mugs, top as desired (whipped cream, marshmallows), wrap fingers ’round, and give thanks for winter.
Who am I kidding? 1-2 TBS? No way. Try 3, or even 4!
So, if you’re still struggling for not-too-big, not-too-small DIY gift ideas, here you go – you still have time. A nice jar of homemade chocolate ganache for a steamy cup of ready-made love for your beloved.
And, if heating milk sounds like too much work, there’s always spoon truffles. Spoon truffles? You know exactly what I’m talking about – no double dipping!
by jackie | Jan 26, 2021 | A Day in the Life, Blog, COVID, Pantry, Pastured Pork, Recipes, Seasonal, Uncategorized
I’m a Pittsburgh girl, so maybe there are cultural Red-Beans-And-Rice nuances I am not getting here. Made on Monday, check. Our own Auburn Meadow Farm Classic Cajun Andouille, check, check. Slow cooked all day? Nope. This is a quicker version, because I had already cooked beans in broth waiting in my freezer for just such a day.
All you real-deal Cajun cooks? Sorry, but also, not sorry, because this is some really good, wholesome, hearty hygge for a dreary winter day.
Since COVID, people have been hoarding good culinary beans, which is sad if they are just being stashed in somebody’s bunker – the ten pound bags of pintos at Walmart do a pretty decent job of resting on a shelf. The Rancho Gordo heirloom beans offer a range of flavor and texture that those ten-year-old warehoused beans just can’t bring. And, if you are planning a garden, those Rancho Gordos are good for planting too, so save some of your favorites and give them a go for some fresh shelling beans.
But hoarders can’t kill my bean joy. If you can’t have the bean you love, which for Red Beans and Rice would have been Domingo Rojas, then love the bean you have, which happens to be Ayocote Negro. Selecting beans by texture not color is key here. The Ayocote Negros are a gorgeous, substantial, shiny, black bean, and were perfect, if not red.
This should take ten minutes of prep and a half hour to forty minutes simmering, and serves four to six. Printable recipe here.
Ingredients:
- 1# smoked Andouille, sliced into 1/2” disks
- 2 pint containers of pre-cooked cooked beans in broth* (or 2 cans of kidney beans, drained)
- 1 TBS good cooking fat, I use lard or bacon fat*
- 1 onion chopped
- 1 green pepper seeded and chopped
- 4 ribs celery, chopped
- 4 cloves garlic, chopped
- 1/2-tsp to 1 TBS cayenne pepper dependent upon how hot you like yours. I omit entirely as I cook for people who don’t tolerate spices.
- 1-28 ounce can whole tomatoes in juice
- 1/2 tsp ground sage or poultry seasoning
- Smoked ham hock (optional)
- splash cider vinegar
- Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
- Mild hot sauce like Frank’s or Crystal for serving
- Cooked white rice for serving
Method:
- In a Dutch oven, melt your cooking fat over medium heat, add onion, green pepper, and celery. Sautee until softened, do not brown.
- Add garlic and andouille disks and sautee to release fragrance.
- Add the tomatoes, ham hock if using, cayenne and sage. Allow to gently simmer, allowing the flavors to develop.
- Add the beans, if you are using canned beans, strain the liquid before adding. continue to simmer to allow the beans to absorb the flavors. You don’t want to cook dry though, you are going for the texture of a thick soup. If your pot starts getting too dry, add some water (best boiled first – I use my teakettle).
- Taste and add salt, pepper, and cider vinegar to taste.
- Serve your beans with rice – this is important. It is honestly not difficult to make a perfectly cooked pot of rice. That detail makes a huge difference.
If you really want to eat like a farmer, try topping a bowl with a poached egg for breakfast 
. It’s even better next day.
*Some astericks here, because I am a pantry cook, and have stored in my freezer and pantry items you may not. That’s okay though, it’s not a big deal this recipe is pretty flexible.
Get these ingredients from us*:
Classic very mild smoked Andouille from our pastured pork, smoked ham hocks, Ayocote Negro beans
*Inventory subject to change without notice
