Apple Custard Rhubarb Pie

Here's a summer time recipe I never wrote up but quite enjoyed. I had apples and rhubarb, but didn't want to just throw them in a shell and make the same old rhubarb pie. So, I pulled up a custard recipe, blended some apples with it, then put chopped rhubarb on that and baked it. Turned out pretty much exactly as I wanted, so, from memory, more or less, here it is!
Need:

3/4 cup cream

1/4 cup flour

3 eggs

4 apples

4-8 stalks rhubabr

1/2 cup sugar

two pie crusts

So the pastry needs to be two half-baked pie shells. Grab any two crust pie recipe, put in two pie shells, prick each shell a half dozen times on the bottom, and bake at 400F for 20-25 minutes, until the crust is browned. Some people like to use parchment and pie weights, but I think that's unnecessary as long as you check ten minutes in to see if the bottom is swelling, and, if so, you just poke it to make it deflate, and then there's no need for parchment or weights. You can pre-bake these while prepping the filling.
Before baking the pies though, prep the fruit. Peel and core your apples, chop them up and toss them with 1/4 cup of the sugar, then chop the rhubarb and toss it with the other 1/4 cup of sugar, then set them aside (covered) to macerate. The apples need to sit for at least half an hour before you use them in the next step. Once your pie shells are in the oven, whisk well the cream, flour, and eggs. Add the chopped apples plus their juices and sugar to the custard mixture, and zap it with an immersion blender, stand blender, or food processor, whatever gets the job done. The apple should be soft by this point and should just blend away without leaving any chunks in the custard.
Now comes a quick choice for you to make. Basically, I wanted the custard to be strictly apple flavoured, butyou might like the idea of mixing the flavours. So, if you want your filling to taste of both apple and rhubarb, toss the chopped rhubarb plus it's juice into the custard mixture and pour it all into the shells. If, like me, you want segregation of you flavour states, pour the custard into the shells pour off and reserve your rhubarb juice (I made mango-rhubarb lassi with it!), and toss the rhubarb over top of the custard.
Bake in a 350F oven for 25-30 minutes, until the custard has set.

So, as this is from memory, there are caveats. I have no idea how much rhubarb I used, just use what you want and what you have on hand. I scarcely buy it and instead just get bundles of it from people who have it and have too much (rhubarb is like a weed). As well, I might have used four eggs, I might have used three. Feel free to use as many eggs as you want if you have a better idea.
It fulfilled my objectives pretty much to the letter, by having a very apply custard plus chopped rhubarb. The custard was a bit soft/watery, though, so it might be a thought to either not add the juices from the apples or to reduce that juice first. I was fine with it as it was, but you might have a different opinion after making.

Brownie Pie: Vegan Blue Ribbon Edition!

I took four of these pies to the Toronto Vegetarian Association's annual Totally Fabulous Vegan Bake-Off, and I walked away with a blue ribbon for taking the Judge's Pick award, plus the six pounds of organic sugar which were the prize. I may have been bragging about this a lot since then, so here, finally, is my recipe for Vegan Brownie Pie.

Pie:

1 3/4 cup white pastry flour

1 cup barley flour

1/4 tspn salt

1/4 tspn baking powder

200 ml shortening

7 tbsp water

1 tbspn cider vinegar

Bronie:

1/2 cup oil

1/4 cup malt syrup

4 tbsp chocolate soy milk

1/4 vegan cream cheese

1/2 cup white sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1/2 tspn salt

1/2 cup chocolate chips

1/2 cup crushed walnuts

To assemble the crust, start by combining the water and vinegar and refrigerating them. Then mix the flours, salt, and baking powder, and cut the shortening into tiny dice-sized cubes. Cut the shortening through the flour with two knives or a pastry blender, then sprinkle the water/vinegar over top, tossing the dough lightly until all the flour is wet. Form up into a ball, and refrigerate.

To start the brownie batter, combine your dry ingredients in one bowl and your wet ingredients in another, and mix each bowl well. Form a well in the dry bowl, pour the wet bowl into the dry, then mix until combined, making sure to scrape up the bottom and sides of the bowl so no pockets of flour remain.

Take your pastry out of the fridge, and roll your bottom crust and fit it to the pan. Put the brownie batter in the pie crust, then roll your top crust out and cover the pie with it. This dough is a little finicky, so if you get tears, just moisten damage areas with water and patch it up.

Bake at 350F for an 50 minutes, or until a knife/toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the middle.

While deliciously tempting to eat while still warm, I usually offer this pie cold for ease of serving.

ENJOY!

Tourtiere!

OK I love tourtiere. It is a pretty amazing dish. I made it for the first time this past New Year's Day, and it received compliments from a genuine French-Canadian, so hey, here's the recipe! It uses equal parts pork and lamb, simmered in turkey stock plus the necessary spices and a minimal compliment of sauteed veggies, packaged in a flakey butter crust because butter makes the best pie crusts and you are not going to sell your tourtiere short.

Fillings:

500g ground lamb

500g ground pork

3 cups turkey stock

2 stalks celery

2 small onions

4 cloves garlic

1/4 cup bread crumbs

1 tspn nutmeg, 2 tspn allspice, 1 tspn cinnamon, black pepper to taste

butter (for frying)

2 tbsp corn starch or flour

Crusts:

4 1/2 cups pastry flour

1/2 tspn salt

1/2 tspn baking powder

220ml water

30ml cider vinegar

1 3/4 cups butter

For the filling, start the meat frying (feel free to fry it all at once, but my pan could only really take one pound at a time). You want it to be all broken up, so mix it and prod it. While that's going, start chopping your vegetables. As the meat is done, drain it and dump the meat into a bowl, and continue frying the rest of the meat. When all the meat is done, melt some butter in the pan to fry the veg and put the stock in a pot and bring it to a boil so it's ready when you want it. When the vegetables are all good and soft, combine the meat, spices, and vegetables with your stock and bring it to a boil. Let this simmer gently for an hour or so uncovered. The juice can reduce and get everything good and tasty.

While the filling is cooking make your pastry! There is nothing special here, so you can skip this bit if you know how to make pie already. If you are still reading, combine the water and vinegar and put them in the fridge to keep cool. Mix your flour, salt, and baking powder together in a large mixing bowl, then cut the butter up into cubes maybe half the size of the last segment of your left-hand pinky finger (it helps to bring the butter out of the fridge back when you started cooking so it is workable now). Toss the butter in the mixing bowl, and cut it through the flour. This involves using a pastry blender or just slicing it double-time with two knives kind of like scissors through the flour. Keep cutting it through until you've got a bunch of pea-sized bits of flour/butter.
Spread this stuff over a large work surface, and sprinkle the water/vinegar over it. Gently toss it around then work it together into a big ol' raggedy mass (you may need to scrape some of it off the counter). Put the dough in the fridge to chill while you wash some dishes or something.
When your kitchen's clean again, crack some black pepper into the filling that's cooking on the stove (I have heard pepper is best if you add it only for the last ten-fifteen minutes of cooking). Back to the pastry, roll out and fit two bottom crusts to pie tins, then roll out two top crusts. Back in the fridge again until you're done with the filling!

So, now you've got two pie bottoms and two pie tops ready to go! Time to finish the filling! Hey, you were mixing that stuff on the stove semi-regularly while you were making the pastry, right? Right, OK. Oh you could probably turn your oven on to 375F now too.

Strain the broth from the meat, dump the meat in a mixing bowl and put the broth back on the stove. Mix the meat and the breadcrumbs together, then mix the flour/starch in a quarter cup of cold water. Dump the starch-water in the broth, and cook over medium-high heat until it's thickened up and bubbly again. Turn heat to low and get your crusts out of the fridge.

Half the filling goes in each pie, then the tops go on, then you get four radial steam vents, and they're ready for the oven. Forty minutes or so and the pastry should be done, and you've got two delicious tourtieres!


Afterthoughts and concerns!
I used about a liter of broth because that is what I had. It gave me about a cup too much broth after cooking so that is why I have said to use three cups. Alternatively, use a litre of stock and you'll get some tasty tourtiere gravy out of it, too. Which you might want, so hey, maybe use an extra cup
My 'stock' was about the bare-bonesest of stocks possible, in that I just boiled all the bones plus gibbly scraps of one roasted turkey in water and reduced it to about a litre. I think the pies benefited from this simple stock because I do not think tourtiere needs busy flavours, it just needs simple, strong, delicious flavours mixed together in proportion. Use what you want but if you've got turkey bones, boil them and use that.
I also don't know how long they cooked for, because I put them in then got lost in a book. Just bake them till the pastry's done and brown, as the insides are already OK.

Cookies: Coffee, Orange, and Barley

OK so I've got a massive backlog to type up including my experiments with chocolate chip muffins (I've got some pretty great ones), my adventures with my now award-winning brownie pie, and my new take on apple-rhubarb pie.
Anyways, here are some cookies I just made. I was shooting for biscotti but I very cleverly failed entirely and ended up with cookie squares instead. Whatever, it's been a while (years) since I last made biscotti. These squares are pretty delicious anyways. Quick and dirty type-up because I've got to go prove some things about graphs and things.

the stuffs:

1 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup white sugar

1/3 cup espresso

1 egg

1 3/4 cups white flour

1 1/4 cup barley flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

zest of one orange

chocolate chips

Beat that butter and sugar together. If you start with milk fat and sugar you can't really go wrong. McDonalds figured this out, which is why their burgers are equal parts ground beef product and refined corn syrup extract, deep fried in butter. If you've got your fat and your sweet you're good to go.
OK, now throw in the egg and the coffee. Mix it up some more. Zest the orange into that and mix it up some more some more. Then pre-mix your flours and your baking powder and then throw that in with the wet stuff, dump in some chocolate chips, and mix it up a some more some more some more.
I refuse to measure chocolate chips. Just add a bunch. If you lack the capacity to understand chocolate chips and how awesome they are, just, you know, add a cup or two I guess?
Spread the dough out on a greased pan, bake in your oven at 350º for between 20-30 minutes, depending on if you prefer gooey or firm.
I rolled it all up and put it on the middle of a pan, but this dough did not have nearly enough ability to keep itself together under heat, and just kind of spread out over the whole pan, so I got a very uneven bake, but hey, they're so good I don't care. I just needed study food and I got it.
CAVEAT: I hodge-podged this together so I fudged some figures. I actually used a 'splash-dollop' of espresso, 1 1/3 cup white flour + a dump-full extra, and a splort-dash of baking powder. Also your cooking time may in fact be less. Mine took half an hour but it was not spread thinly or uniformly at any point of the process, so, rotate your pan at ten minutes and check it at fifteen minutes to be sure, OK?

More to come! Within a week! For Reals! I'll bake muffins this weekend to pay off debts and feed friends, and I'll post that recipe.

Oh god what have I done cookies

I wanted to bake something to deal with my rampant uncertainty in life, so I decided to make cookies. I knew there were no eggs in the fridge since neither of us have been shopping since we got back in town, so I figured I'd just use some flax seed. Then I got in the kitchen and realized that there is no flax in the house. I was too far along in the process at that point to pull out, so I looked around for substitute ingredients. Yogurt was moldy. Nothing was in the house. Then I opened the last cupboard and saw the instant oatmeal.

-1 cup butter
-1 thingy oatmeal in half the ration of boiling water
Cream together once the oatmeal has cooled to just being 'warm'.

1 cup cocoa
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup rye
1/2 cup white bread flour
Mix above together with the buttermeal, until a cookie dough is formed. Shape into cookies and bake.



I have decided the above shall be called 'delightfully unpleasant cookies'. The inside is just just underdone, the lack of egg means they're a bit crumbly to the touch, and they are a world of bitter. Quite enjoyably so in fact.
Colin liked them with maple syrup, I think a drizzle of maple syrup plus a raspberry cream would go wonderfully. Whatever you do, though, do not pair them with grapefruit juice. That is an awful idea.

Super Weird Milk Bread

Cheeseless Cheesey Coffee Rye Bread

NEED to start:

1 1/2 cups cold milk

4 tspn yeast

4 tbsp + 1 tbsp + 1 tspn sugar

-Mix milk, yeast, and the 4 tablespoons of sugar together and stir well in preparation for making forty croissant for new years day
-Realize that the milk is too cold to proof the yeast, and that you don't have time to let it warm up, and you're worried about microwaving yeast
-Pour mixture into a glass, cover with saran wrap, start over with warm milk
-Make croissant for the three family new-years-day brunch, consume much delicious food
-24 hours after mixing the yeast milk, give it another tablespoon of sugar, mix, and leave in the fridge still
-12 hours after that, give it another teaspoon of sugar, and set in a bowl on the counter to warm up and come alive

NEED to continue:

1 cup warm coffee

4 cups rye flour

2 1/2 cups white flour

1 tbsp yeast a quarter-jar of yeast

4 tspn coarse sea salt

-Add the warm coffee to the milk to bring it up to heat and come alive sooner
-While the yeast is coming alive, mix the flours together in a bowl, forming a well in the center
-Become worried about your milky-yeasty business when it bubbles up but there is only minimal yeast-mass floating on top of the fluid
-What could of gone wrong, yeast and milk both live happily in the fridge most of the time. It can't have gone bad or anything!
-Get out some more yeast from the fridge, get a tablespoon of yeast ready
-Set the table spoon of yeast down to pick up a clean spoon with which to taste the milk to make sure it's still OK
-Mmmmm! A little sweet, but mostly milky and slightly alcoholic! Excellent!
-Add the yeast
-Realize that you put the tablespoon of yeast down meaning that instead of putting a tablespoon of yeast in, you actually just dumped the remaining quarter of a jar of yeast into your milk
-oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit
-Let proof
-Mix the sea salt in with the flour to try and intercept the rampant yeast monster you have made
-When proofed, add the yeast and sweetened milk to your dry ingredients, and knead until it sticks together (should be a sticky, wet dough)
-Form into a ball, cover, and let rise several times, watching to punch it down as soon as the dough peaks it's rise
-Preheat your oven to 450F with a pan of water in the bottom for steam
-Form your dough into an attractive loaf, let rise one last time for half an hour
-Bake in the oven for an hour and ten minutes or so, turning the heat down to 375F after the first five minutes

This is actually one of the tastiest things I've baked. A very strong, charactered bread, it's heavy in texture just as I like it, and has a complex, slightly cheesy taste to it.
Will definitely be baking this again.

Pork & Apple, Pork & Apple, and Apple Bread

It's December and I'm back home and I have been baking! Three things to write about today: some apple-pork tarts, an associated pastry braid, and a revisitation of 'pie bread' from this summer.


So, Andrew Lockhart came over one night after going out for coffee, and as he is wont to do, he immediately went to our fridge looking for leftovers which he could consume. We had just left a coffee shop with the intent of baking something with the apples I had at home, and so when Andrew saw the leftover pork roast from supper, he immediately went 'we are baking apple-pork something', I said 'definitely not' and he said 'too bad, we have to'.
So, I peeled seven apples and tossed them with sugar, pulsed the apple peels in a food processor with the congealed pork drippings, chopped-then-processed the pork, tossed all the above together along with an eight-teaspoon of nutmeg, allspice, and cinnamon. This all got put in a twelve-muffin pan that had been lined with pastry dough, then topped with little pastry leaves my mum cut out for us.
Baked in a 350 oven for 55 minutes, end product was a semi-sweet tortiere like tart that was quite delicious. We should have chopped the apple a little smaller and more consistently (my initial plan was to apple-sauce the lot, but we decided to leave them for texture), and mom thought they needed a little bit of salt to bring out the flavours.




This only used slightly more than half of the filling so today I made a batch of croissant dough, rolled it out to a 10" by 16" rectangle, and made a danish braid with it. I'm doing a write-up on croissant for the next issue of the zine (if anyone reads this and wants a copy of my zine, just leave a message and I can mail one), so specifics on how that works are forthcoming. The filling was much tastier in this, and when surrounded by flakey buttery pastry people were more agreeable to it's ridiculousness.



Brother-Andrew's girlfriend Crystal is in for christmas again, and she saw the picture of the danish braid I was using for reference and got excited at the prospect and then disappointed when she found out I was stuffing it with the pork and apple (which she was afraid of), so I made up some pie bread, slightly modified, which I intended to stuff with the pork, but later decided that the pork belonged in the pastry braid, so the bread just got apples. Consequently, there were savory spices in the pie bread that made for a very peculiar loaf.

3/4 cup warm water

1 teaspoon sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons of yeast

2 1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup shortening

4 apples

1/2 teaspoon oregano and thyme (DO NOT USE THIS)

1/4 cup honey

Peel, slice, and core the apples, toss the slices and peel in a bowl with the honey to sit. Mix the yeast with the sugar in the water to proof, and cut the shortening through the flour and herbs as if for pastry.
Put the apple peel in a food processor, along with most of the fluid from the apples, process fine, and then combine the processed peel, yeast-water, and shortening-flour and knead with cold hands until it sticks together. Set aside to rise for about forty-five minutes (you could do two rises on this like regular bread but I was lazy and short on time).
Briefly zap the apple in the food processor, then roll the dough out between two pieces of wax paper to about a quarter of an inch thick and not wider than a loaf pan. Lay the apple chunks out on top of the flat dough, then, using the wax paper to help, roll the whole thing up, and drop it in a loaf pan. Let it rise again for about half an hour, before baking at 350º for an hour or so.
Again, this bread was slightly under-done on the inside, and the herbs were a mistake (this was originally intended for the pork and apple). Again, makes amazing french toast, so that's what this bread is for. It makes super-amazing french toast. This is the best french toast bread ever. For real.