Take a Megabite

Old-Fashioned Peach Pie

My mom knows about pie.

She knows that it’s ok to use 8 cups of peaches instead of 5, and she didn’t judge me for not having a pastry blender. She also said that it’s ok if a pie is juicy and doesn’t slice as pretty as you’d hope. “Just serve it in a bowl,” she says. So there you go.

We went to Eastern Market Saturday morning to get all those Michigan peaches up there. We squeezed a lot of peaches to ensure that they were pie-ready.

My mom has skills. Either that, or the peaches she sliced were much softer than mine. I spent half the time bullying peaches instead of slicing them.

And today is my mom’s birthday! So, happy birthday mom! Thanks for helping me work through my fear of the double crust pie.

Old Fashioned Peach Pie (makes one 9 inch pie)
Adapted from Farm Journal’s Complete Pie Cookbook

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3-4 T flour*
• 1/4 t cinnamon
• pinch salt
• 5-8 cups sliced peaches*
• 1 t lemon juice
• 1/8 t almond extract
• 2 T butter
• 1 recipe for a 9-inch double crust (recipe below)

* Just use 3 tablespoons of flour for a pie using only 5 cups peaches. Up it to 4 tablespoons of flour if you use 8 cups of peaches.

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Combine sugar, flour, cinnamon, and salt in a large bowl. Pour the peaches over the dry ingredients and toss to mix. Add the lemon juice and almond extract. Stir once more and set aside.
2. Roll out a little more than half of the crust into a 10-11 inch circle. Fold rolled dough in half and gently ease it into the pie pan with fold in center. Unfold and fit into pan, using care not to stretch the dough. Gently press out air pockets with fingertips. Make certain there are no openings for the juice to escape.
3. Pour peach filling into the pastry-lined 9″ pie pan. Dot with the two tablespoons of butter.
4. Roll the second ball of dough like the first one. Fold the pastry circle half; lift it to the top of the pie with the fold in the center. Gently unfold over the top of the pie. Fold to p edge under bottom crust and press gently with fingers to seal and to make an upright edge. Crimp edge as desire. (Cut vents in top crust or prick with a fork to allow steam to escape. Either that or cut vents before placing pastry on top of pie.)
5. Place pie on a baking sheet (to catch the peach juice that could escape) and into the oven. Bake for 40 minutes, tenting with foil half-way through bake time. Remove from the oven and promptly “ooooh” and “ahh” over how pretty it will be.
6. Top with vanilla ice cream while the pie is still warm, so it melts just enough.

Double Crust for one 9 inch pie
Adapted from Farm Journal’s Complete Pie Cookbook

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 1 t salt
• 12 T (1 1/2 sticks) cold butter, cut into pieces
• 4-6 T ice water

Directions:

1. Combine flour and salt in a mixing bowl. Cut in butter using a pastry blender or 2 forks until mixture is the consistency of coarse cornmeal or tiny peas. Sprinkle cold water over dry mixture 1 tablespoon at a time, tossing mixture lightly and stirring with a fork. Add water each time to the driest part of mixture. Continue stirring with a fork. The dough should be just moist enough to hold together when pressed gently with a fork. It should not be sticky.
2. Shape dough into a disk and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 30 minutes to an hour.

It was warm when we sliced it, so the peaches had a mind of their own.

P.S. To be honest, after a day in the fridge the peaches still have a mind of their own, but they are just so darn delicious that I don’t mind a bit.

Cheesecake Bites

I’ve been trying to wake up early and go to the gym. I’ve been trying to go to the gym AND walk Elliot. But sometimes my ipod’s battery is dead and sometimes it’s pouring rain. So, you know what? I’m going to eat a cheesecake bite. Maybe I’ll even have 2. All those gym intentions are making me hungry.

Sometimes when it’s somebody’s birthday that you think is super cool and they love cheesecake you have to make these. And sometimes you have to just eat things and not think twice.

I used that honey twirler down there to press the crumbs into a crust in the bottom of the muffin papers. For some reason it reminds me of my painting class in college. I was using a c.d. case for my paint palette. My teacher saw it and held it up for the class and said “Everyone, everyone. Buy better supplies than this.” And so there you go. I was the example of what not to do.

Cheesecake Bites
Recipe adapted from a phone conversation with my Mom

Ingredients:

crust -

• 18 vanilla wafers worth of crumbs

cheesecake -

• 8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 1/2 t vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• scant 1/2 cup sugar

topping -

• melted chocolate + cocoa powder
• strawberry jam, melted and strained

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350º F. Line mini muffin pan(s) with 24 mini paper liners. Crush vanilla wafers using the “put them in a big freezer bag and roll over it with a rolling pin until they are crumbs” method. Or whatever method you want. Divide crumbs a teaspoon at a time between all the paper liners. Press the crumbs to the bottom of the pan. I used my honey dipper.
2. Make cheesecake. Using an electric mixer or some speedy whisking, mix together the cream cheese, vanilla, egg and sugar. Divide between the paper liners over the crust. Bake for 15 minutes or until center are set.
3. Cool on a wire rack in the fridge before topping. If topping with chocolate simply melt chocolate and drizzle over the cheesecakes. Sprinkle them with cocoa powder. If topping with strawberry jam, melt the jam in the microwave for about 30 seconds. Strain through a fine mesh strainer and place a little taste on top of each bite. Promptly sample. Store in the fridge between snacking.

Crumb Apple Pie

Mix up and refrigerate the pie crust. Run to the store and get more butter. Maybe get some heavy whip for vanilla whipped cream. Maybe the sales associates will assume you’re a very unhealthy person. Maybe they think you’re weird for getting giant bacon dog treats along with the fatty goodness. For sure you get home and finish the making home made pie and the joke’s on them. Don’t forget to “cheers!” your first bite. And with a clink of forks, it’s the first apple pie of the season.

I’m still surprised that childhood recipes are actually possible on any given day. Potato rolls with dinner? No problem. Crumb Apple pie because Jake and I are feeling especially seasonal? Let’s make it. I still save some things just for the holidays, just so they remain something for special occasions.

Crumb Apple Pie
Recipe from Farm Journal’s Complete Pie Cookbook + my childhood

Ingredients:

• Unbaked 9″ pie shell (recipe below)

Apple Filling-

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 T flour
• 1/2 – 1t cinnamon
• 1/8 t nutmeg
• 1/4 t salt
• 6-7 cups sliced 1/4 inch thick,  peeled apples

Crumb Topping-

• 1/2 cup coldish butter, cubed
• 1/2 cup brown sugar firmly packed
• 1 cup flour

Directions:

1. Make pastry for 1-crust pie and line 9″ pie pan. (recipe below)
2. Combine sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Mix lightly through apples. Heap in pastry-lined 9″ pie pan.
3. Make crumb topping by rubbing butter into flour and brown sugar, until it resembles coarse crumbs and sprinkle evenly over the apples.
4. Bake in a hot 400 F for 45-55 minutes. (After about 30 minutes some crumbs were getting a bit too tan (burnt!) but the pie wasn’t done. If this happens to you, simply tent foil over the pie and bake for the remaining amount of time.)
5. Allow to cool for about 20 minutes and slice and eat.
6. Serve with vanilla ice cream or simple Vanilla Whipped Cream.

One 9″ Pie Crust
Recipe from Martha Stewart

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 t salt
• 1 t sugar
• 1 stick chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 2-3 T ice water

Directions:

1. Whisk together dry ingredients (flour, salt and sugar). Cut 1 stick of butter into pieces.  Using your hands (or pastry blender), rub butter into dry ingredients until mixture resembles coarse meal.
2. Add 2 tablespoons ice water; work with hands until dough comes together. If dough is still crumbly, add more ice water a tablespoon at a time until it forms a nice dough when pressed together.
3. Flatten dough into a disk and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate for at least an hour.
4. Roll out and line a 9″ pie pan.

This is the pie recipe is from my childhood, and my mom just mailed me the cookbook. See the star by the variation for the crumb apple pie? Delish, and memorable.

Perfect Pie Crust + Pie Crust Cookies

I remember this time when I was a kid and it rained on the day we were supposed to go to a water park. Major disappointment. I remember this other time that they didn’t have French Silk pie at Baker’s Square. Another disappointment. I made a strawberry pie last night that was also a bit disappointing. It wasn’t sweet enough and to be honest, I don’t feel like the pie recipe is worth posting…but that crust….man. That crust is good!

Oh! And the pie crust cookies!
Amazing.

Perfect Pie Crust (makes one double crust)
Recipe adapted from Martha Stewart

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 t salt
• 2 t sugar
• 2 sticks chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 4 T ice water

Directions

1. Whisk together dry ingredients (flour, salt and sugar). Cut 2 sticks chilled unsalted butter into pieces. With a pastry blender, cut in butter, working until mixture resembles coarse meal.
2. Add 4 tablespoons ice water; work with hands until dough comes together. If dough is still crumbly, add more ice water a tablespoon at a time until forms a nice dough.
3. Divide dough in half, and flatten halves into disks. Wrap disks separately in plastic; refrigerate at least 1 hour.
4. To form the pie shell, roll the dough on a floured surface into a 14-inch round, or until about an eighth of an inch thick. Press into pie pan crimping at edges.
5. Fill pie shell with favorite bake-able pie ingredients. Roll out second dough round and cover pie in any of a few ways! Lattice top, solid top with a few knife slits, or my personal favorite: cutting shapes with a cookie cutter and overlapping the top covering it. (OR simply freeze the second half for another pie on another day.)
6. Bake according to pie recipe you’re making.

And of course if you have any dough to spare you have to make pie crust cookies!

Pie Crust Cookies
Recipe from my Mom

Ingredients:

• spare pie crust dough
• cinnamon + sugar

Directions:

1. Roll out the excess dough, sprinkle excessively with cinnamon and sugar.
2. Roll up and slice and place in a cake pan.
3. Bake for a fraction of the time the pie’s in the oven. Five to ten minutes depending on the temperature of your oven.