Baking with Julia: Blueberry Nectarine Pie

I've totally been slacking off on Baking with Julia, but I did manage to bake one recipe this month. The last recipe for the month is this Blueberry Nectarine Pie. I'm so glad I made it because it was so incredibly good and a great use for all the fresh fruit available right now.

First of all the pie dough is the best I've made in terms of ease of making, flakiness, and taste. In the book there are several ways listed to make the dough; in a food processor, by hand, or by stand mixer. My food processor is too small so usually I make pie dough by hand, which is a pain. However, since this dough gave stand mixer directions I decided to try it and it was so much easier. The dough recipe uses both butter and shortening which I think is the best of both worlds, you get the taste from the butter and the flakiness from the shortening. Plus this recipe made two (double crusted) pies worth of dough so I had enough to freeze for a second pie. 

The filling was (obviously) blueberry and nectarine. You took half the fruit and cooked it with sugar, lemon zest, and flour and then added it to the remaining uncooked fruit. I really liked this method, there were still crisp pieces of nectarine in the filling which I thought was a nice touch.I do think in the future I would have added some breadcrumbs (a la Dorie Greenspan) to the bottom of the crust before adding the filling to soak up some of the juice but other than that I really loved this recipe.

Go visit the hosts for this recipe! 

Manchego's Kitchen

That Skinny Chick Can Bake

Cookies & pie for fall

I made these Fall-ish cookies a few weeks ago to help me get in the 'spirit'. First up was Pumpkin Gingersnaps from Two Peas and Their Pod. Doug loves gingersnaps and I love pumpkin so I hoped we'd both like these. I made them mainly for Doug's game night on Thursday but kept some for us too. They seemed to be a success, I liked how cakey they were but I might have kicked up the spice a tiny bit.

Second, was Iced Oatmeal-Applesauce cookies, which I do not have a picture of. Sorrys! This recipe was from the Martha Stewart Living Cookbook: the New Classics but I found it online here. As silly as this sounds, I don't pick up this cookbook too often because there are almost no pictures. I know, I'm ridiculous. Anyway, I felt like it was rather neglected so I scanned through the pages, found the recipe and found that I had all the ingredients for them. I did make mine bigger than the recipe called for but I really love the flavor of these.

Now the pie is a magnificent creation, found at Ezra Pound Cake. I made it for Sunday night dinner dessert and it was a little involved, but completely and utterly worth the effort. Graham cracker crust with a layer of caramel and pecans, a layer apple slices cooked with butter, brown sugar and cinnamon, cream cheese layer and topped with homemade whipped cream and more caramel and pecans. It was too dark to take a photo that night so these are from the next day so it's a little less impressive but it still tasted very, very good, even the next day.

Hug the ones you love

(I meant to post this Friday but got sidetracked)

Life is all too brief. Earlier this week I was reading Gluten Free Girl and saw this post about a dear friend of hers who very unexpectedly lost her husband (the story is can also be found on CNN's Eatocracy too). It resonated with me because Doug lost his father from an sudden heart attack when his father was just 42, Doug was 12.

She asked those to help her heal by making her late husband's favorite pie and share it with those you love and hug them, because as she says and as we all know too well, tomorrow is not guaranteed.

So here's my Creamy Peanut Butter Pie, eaten with the one I love.  

Chickens & cold pie

I have been badgering Doug for backyard chickens for EVER. This is a man who almost never tells me no but he used his veto power over chickens. I wanted backyard chickens for a number of reasons, one being that I'm a country girl at heart, having spent good portions of my childhood at my grandparents and great-grandparents homes in the county. After much begging and pleading and thanks in large part to my uncle, I wore Doug down and he finally agreed to two Buff Orphingtons. My uncle got the chicks while we were driving out west back in June and they've been living at his house ever since. We went to visit them back in July and they were in that awkward not a chick anymore but not yet a full fledged hen stage. Anyway, before the chickens can come live in our backyard we have to get their 'house' situated. Doug had considered building a coop from scratch but with the heat and the lack of A/C in his wood shop he decided to buy one that was pre-made online. It came in pieces on Friday in two very large boxes and Saturday in our living room he put it together. It looks pretty darn good I think and Doug says its very well made. We still have to build the chicken run that the chickens will hang out in during the day while we're at work but Doug's drawn up plans and hopefully the run will be completed in the next few weeks so the chickens can come to our house before the end of the month.

While Doug was slaving away in the living room, I was two rooms away making Key Lime Pie in the kitchen. Rebecca at Ezra Pound Cake is such a bad influence, she tweets about the delicious things she's made, which promptly makes me want to make whatever it is she's made. Which is how I ended up making Key Lime Pie Saturday afternoon. The main appeal of making the pie was that I knew it would be a cold pie and that sounded delicious since Memphis in August is something akin to Hades. Rebecca's recipe is on her blog here. It was quick and simple and very good. I skipped the whipped cream though because I wanted a pie that was more tart than sweet.

Stay tuned for future chicken updates.

Patriotic Pie & Lemon Blueberry Buckle

On Monday we lazed around our house most of the day watching a Roseanne marathon on Oxygen (don't judge). Later in the day we were due at the home of friends for dinner. I had wanted to make an actual-real-from scratch cherry pie for awhile and the 4th of July seemed as perfect a day as any to make it. Since we don't get sour cherries around these parts I used the sweet cherry pie recipe from Smitten Kitchen. I used the butter-based pie dough recipe too. I feel like I worked the dough a little too much and it chewier than it should have been. The pie turned out well but it didn't slice up into neat triangles since there was no gelatinous goo to hold the cherries together. I attempted to use a USA shaped cookie cutter for the vent in the center. It looked somewhat abstract but most everyone knew what it was supposed to be. 

I have a lot of cookbooks, most of them are baking-themed, and I'm trying to do better about using them. Over the weekend I pulled out Rustic Fruit Desserts and made the Lemon Blueberry Buckle recipe. It was very, very good. I did manage to accidentally caramelize the lemon syrup but it didn't diminish the overall taste. If have access to blueberries you need to make this. You also might consider doubling the crumb topping - just a suggestion...

Chocolate hearts Peanut Butter

I think I've talked about this before so forgive me if I'm being repetitive...You know sometimes you see a picture of something and it looks so good that you have to MAKEITRIGHTNOW? That happened to me with this Chocolate-Peanut Butter Pie, via Ezra Pound Cake. I saw the picture and then starting calculating how long it would take to create and then get in my belly. It's not made with very many 'whole foods', but it's got an Oreo cookie crust and that's good enough for me.

Despite looking intricate, it actually didn't take very long to make, it took longer for it to chill than anything. I spent that time circling the refrigerator, willing it to get colder. Now that it's 100 degrees (at least here in Memphis) you can make this without heating up your entire house.

Second, on this love fest of chocolate and peanut butter, are these Cocoa Brownies with Salted Peanut Butter Frosting from Not Without Salt. My photographs aren't anything near as nice as hers but the brownies were exceptional. This is the kind of frosting you want to just eat out of the bowl.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Caramel Pumpkin Pie

I love this pie. I normally love pumpkin pie anyway, but the addition of dark, homemade caramel into the filling makes it that much better. Thanks to Janell of Mortensen Family Memoirs for this week's selection. I was so glad I found the time to get to make it.