How Sweet It Is: Sweet Cherry Streusel Pie

Since I have had my favorite pie book The Four and Twenty Blackbirds Pie Book, by the Elsen sisters, I have been wanting to make one of the cherry pies. I have always loved cherry pies, even the frozen ones that you find in grocery stores! Just put a little ice cream on top, and you have a summer treat, in my opinion. But in my years of cherry pie eating, I had never eaten a "fresh from the oven" cherry pie. I looked at the fresh cherry pies in the pie book this summer and became more determined to make one. One day a friend mentioned that he had seen and eaten fresh sweet cherries at a local market, so I went to Greenlife to get the ingredients I needed for the "Sweet Cherry Streusel Pie".

This filling for this pie included 5 cups of sweet cherries as well as brown sugar, lemon juice, apple, cinnamon and potato starch. This pie had few ingredients and was relatively easy to assemble. But the hard part was pitting 5 cups of cherries! This task took me about an hour, and left my hands and fingers tired and stained with cherry juice! It was after completing this part of the pie preparation that I realized why I had never made or eaten a fresh cherry pie. It is obviously much easier to buy canned, pitted cherries! The pie crust was a butter crust on the bottom and a streusel topping. The streusel topping was an easy mix of sugars, butter and flour, which is refrigerated before putting on top of the filled pie.

I was more excited about taking this pie out of the oven and digging in than most fruit pies that I have made. I was curious about whether the fresh cherries would really make a difference in a cherry pie. First, the pie was beautiful to look at, with the colorful, dark red cherries visible in each slice. And the pie tasted as good as it looked! One aspect I liked about this pie was the texture, specifically the cherry filling. Most cherry pies are thickened with cornstarch, while this one used potato starch instead, which made it less "paste like". The fresh cherries made it the most unique cherry pie that I have ever had. I will say that the pie was very rich, so that a small slice was enough for a dessert. I loved the pie alone, but did try it with whipped cream and ice cream. Honestly, I thought this pie was good any way that it was served.

My husband and I were eating our way through this pie pretty fast, and I broke the news that I planned to freeze part of it to save for later. I had been making so many pies this summer, and thought that this would prevent us from having to do extra exercise to work off all of my pies. However, I changed my mind after eating about two-thirds of this pie. Oh, well - I will freeze part of the next one. For now, I will keep doing the extra walking!!

Melanzana e Dolce: Eggplant and Dessert

Several months ago, when we were in Italy, I was impressed by the wonderful food. (as is everyone that visits Italy). One incredible fact is that we did not put on the the usual 3-5 pounds that most of us put on after traveling. While it is true that we did a lot of walking, we probably ate enough so the we took in more calories than we burned off. As we thought about this situation, we agreed that the secret  may have been the freshness of the ingredients and the manner in which the food was prepared. Fresh vegetables cooked with olive oil and paired with freshly caught seafood is a pretty healthy diet. Many diet experts tell us that the "Mediterranean" diet is beneficial.

One of the foods we enjoyed very much in Italy was melanzana, Italian for eggplant. Whether it was eggplant parmesan, or sauteed eggpllant, we considered this a culinary treat. Fortunately, my husband enjoyed a bumper crop of eggplant in his garden this year. I began to look for various ways to prepare eggplant and found an intriguing recipe called "Ratatouille and Polenta Pie", in local food author Ashley English's book A Year of Pies. This recipe featured eggplant as the main ingredient, but also included garden fresh zucchini, yellow squash, and tomatoes. These vegetables were chopped, put in a roasting pan and baked for an hour with onions, olive oil, and shallots. (chopped shallots were my addition). The roasted veggies were then placed in a pan over the stove and sauteed with fresh parsley, thyme, oregano, olive oil and red wine. These savory vegetables were placed in a greased deep dish pie plate.

The part of the recipe that makes this a "pie" is the polenta topping. For those who may be unfamiliar, polenta is yellow corn meal, stone ground at either a coarse or medium consistency. I was able to find it at the local grocery Green Life. The corn meal is cooked over the stove with water for about 15 minutes. More thyme and parsley are added to the thickened mixture, along with salt and butter. The polenta is spooned over the vegetable mix and put in the oven to broil for about 8 minutes.

The resulting pie was beautifully browned and had a firm but moist texture. After letting this cool for about 15 minutes, we tasted this fragrant pie, and it was even tastier than I had expected. The roasted vegetable and polenta combination is truly different and delicious. This is an outstanding vegetarian entree, and could easily be the main course without a meat. However, since I also developed a love of prosciutto while I was in Italy, I served a few slices of this with the ratatouille pie.

Since I was on a roll with my cooking that day, I made another pie from English's fun pie book. Feeling in an Italian mood, I decided to try the "Nectarine and Lavender Crostata". Crostata is an Italian pie which has a "fold over" crust, similar looking to a pizza. I used fresh white nectarines (skin stays on), dried lavender flowers, butter, sugar, arrowroot, vanilla, and sea salt. Instead of putting the the rolled out butter crust on a pie plate, it is put onto a baking sheet. The fruit and accompanying ingredients are combined and then spread on the rolled out crust, with a 2 inch diameter of dough which is then folded over the filling. The crostata is  baked for 30 minutes. I actually took the crostata to a gathering with friends, so I only grabbed a small piece, but by all reports, this was a light, pastry like pie. A crostata could be filled with other fruits, like berries and pears.

I loved both of these recipes, and plan to keep going through Ashley English's pie book to try other delicacies. The only downside of my Italian inspired cooking day was that I was totally exhausted by the end of the day!  A friend and I were recently discussing the days when cook books were filled with recipes of casseroles using canned goods and potato chips! It takes a lot more time and effort to make dinners with fresh ingredients, but these meals not only taste better; they are better for us. And you will sleep very well after a full day of cooking!

And Now For Something Completely Different:Cinnamon Apricot Pie with Vanilla Pouring Cream

I am still going through the Four and Twenty Blackbirds Pie Book, with my ultimate goal of making every pie in the Elsen sisters' book. What I have found, not surprisingly, is that I have favorites that I want to make over and over again (The Salted Caramel Apple and Bourbon Pear Crumble come to mind). Since I can't spend every waking minute making pies, I have found it more difficult to keep trying new pies. But this week, I did make a new one that I had been wanting to make since last summer: "Cinnamon Apricot Pie with Vanilla Pouring Cream".

This pie fascinated me, because it is uncommon to find fruit pie recipes that use apricots. I love apricot jam, and I had the pleasant taste of that in my mind when I found this recipe. So I began to look for fresh apricots last summer. To my dismay, I could not find them after looking at the produce sections of the major local groceries. I thought that I simply waited too late in the season last year, so decided that I would begin early this summer. I was finally able to get fresh apricots at Green Life Grocery and Earth Fare, and a friend said that she had seen some at a local farmer's market. But apparently, the availability of fresh apricots is limited because, according to my research, the growing season is relatively short. Furthermore, California is the only major producer of apricots in the country, and they are rather hard to export. Luckily,I was able to find two different varieties of this interestingl fruit to use in the pie.

The crust is the usual luscious butter crust. The apricot filling consists of the fresh apricots, lemon juice, granulated and brown sugars, ground cinnamon, potato starch, and Old Fashion bitters. This is the first time that I had used potato starch for a pie, with the usual thickeners being either ground arrowroot or cornstarch. (Potato starch, by the way, can be found at grocery stores that carry organic and natural ingredients). After the fruit pie is cooked and cooling, the cream topping is prepared. The "pouring cream" is made of milk, egg yolks, cornstarch, sugar,and 2 tablespoons of dark rum. It is important to note that the pouring cream should be warm when the pie is ready to be served.

The pie was a great combination of sweetness and tanginess, with the cinnamon being a great companion for the fresh apricots. I will say that the sugars and cinnamon really improve the flavor of the fresh apricots. Apricots alone, without the cooking, sweetener, and spices are not my favorite fruits. (unlike peaches, which are sweet without sugar). The pouring cream sauce was the perfect topping for this pie. It would have been even better had I made it a little thicker, but it was still delicious. This pie is a true treat, and will be one of those "special " pies that I will serve to guests.

I made this pie for my husband, who also thought it was a flavorful pie. I thought that, since it was a

pie that I made just for him, I should not eat half of the pie. Thus, unfortunately, I have not been practicing my usual habit of eating a piece of a new pie every morning for breakfast. Oh, well - there will be other pies in my future!

Portland's Alluring Gardens

I just returned from Portland, after visiting my daughter and her wife. I am always amazed by the beauty of this city, with the dreamlike evergreen trees everywhere in sight. In Portland, almost every house has a front yard garden. Walking through city neighborhoods, I see the colorful blooms, thriving roses, and lovely conifers that exemplify Portland residents' love of gardening. Walking around neighborhoods in this city is an treat! Ironically, the rainy weather that Portland endures much of the year contributes to a wonderful growing environment for a wide variety of plants. Tourists to this city have amazing public and private gardens to enjoy.

The Lan Su Chinese Garden is in the Chinatown district of Portland, in the Old Town. I saw this garden soon after my daughter moved to Portland. Chinese gardens are rare in the US, and this is considered one of the best in the country. I have traveled to Chinese gardens in China, Hong Kong, and Singapore, and Portland's has the unique elements of a Chinese garden. The beautifully designed stone garden paths are my favorite feature of Chinese gardens, as well as the amazing garden "windows" and gates from which one can experience spectacular views into the next part of the garden. Colorful blossoms from azaleas and camellias are everywhere in Chinese gardens, and the Portland Lan Su garden has all of these elements,, including a beautiful pond.

Washington Park is an urban Portland park that houses two of the city's famous gardens: The Rose Garden and the Japanese Garden. Portland's nickname is "The City of Roses", and the rose garden lives up to that name. When I first came to Portland in 2008, this was the main garden that I wanted to see. Hundreds of roses please any garden lover, and this is still the best rose garden that I have personally seen. Although rain plagues Portland in fall, winter, and spring, summer is surprisingly dry, and roses thrive in this environment. The Portland rose garden also has "test gardens" for new varieties of roses, so that new disease resistant roses can be developed. The rose garden is truly a joyful experience!

The Japanese Garden is regarded by many gardeners as the best Japanese garden in the United States. This garden, in contrast to the rose garden and Chinese garden, is not about blooms. While there are blooming plants like azaleas, laurels, and wisteria, this garden is not about flare and color. This is a peaceful, green garden space that emphasizes shapes and textures. There is a beautiful pond, natural paths, and lanterns throughout the garden. And a classic feature of this garden is moss, which is also a feature all over the city of Portland. The consistent moisture brings moss to rocks and garden structures, and this makes the garden seem surreal. As in other Japanese gardens, there are plenty of benches in which to sit and be a part of the garden. After visiting this garden several times now, I would say that this garden, for me, is the most special of any garden in this city. The best part is that it is a meaningful, meditative garden in a subtle but effective way. It is a perfect Japanese garden without shouting "this is a Japanese garden". This garden is all about letting oneself experience it in their own way. I had always wanted to try to create this very space in my own garden, but now realize that this is impossible, although I am working on my moss garden!

I would highly recommend visiting the amazing gardens in the city of Portland. There truly is something for every gardener or non-gardener to rave about.  I assure you that you will be inspired! 
And you will understand that rain isn't such a bad thing after all!