Strawberry Rhubarb Pie for Jeff

So it's been a while!! There's been a lot going on in the Marcoux household recently. Jeff just graduated from UW with his Master's in Business Administration, and a certificate in Entrepreneurship. Great job babe!!

We also celebrated my sister's graduation from SPU with a degree in Illustration the same weekend! (she's the one on the right, pictured with her roommie and good friend)

So for the joint graduation celebration, I made Jeff's favorite: Strawberry Rhubarb Pie. Ultra-fresh rhubarb, and organic strawberries made this one "the best so far," according to Jeff. :)

Enjoy!!

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie
Courtesy of Smitten Kitten

1 recipe of double-crust pie dough of your choice (I use the Better Homes & Garden version)

3 1/2 cups (about 1 1/2 pounds, untrimmed) rhubarb, in 1/2-inch thick slices

3 1/2 cups (about 1 pound) strawberries, hulled and sliced if big, halved if tiny

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup light brown sugar

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup quick-cooking tapioca

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. On a well-floured counter, roll half of pie dough into a 12-inch circle and carefully transfer to a 9-inch pie plate. (I fold my gently into quarters, to transfer it more easily, then unfold it into the pie plate.)

Stir together rhubarb, strawberries, sugars, lemon, salt and tapioca in a large bowl. Mound filling inside bottom pie crust and dot with bits of unsalted butter. Roll second half of pie dough into an 11-inch circle and transfer it to center over the pie filling. Trim top and bottom pie dough so that their overhang beyond the pie plate lip is only 1/2-inch. Tuck rim of dough underneath itself and crimp it decoratively. Vent the dough by cutting slits in the top or pricking with a fork several times.

Transfer pie to a baking sheet (don't skip this step...or you'll have a fun oven-cleaning adventure later that evening!). Bake for 20 minutes then reduce temperature to 350 degrees and bake for an additional 25 to 30 minutes, until the pie is golden and the juices bubble visibly.

Transfer pie to wire rack to cool. When full cool (several hours later - if you can wait that long) the juices gel.

Best Banana Bread EVER

Scouring the hundreds of saved and "Favorited" recipes I have acquired through my food-blog perusing obsession, I found this gem that I didn't even remember seeing before. I had like 10 frozen super ripe bananas waiting to be made into some type of banana concoction, and this sounded like a perfect way to use a few of them. :) Enjoy!

Caramel Toffee Banana Bread
From BakingJunkie.com

1/2 cup (1 stick) salted butter, room temperature*
1 1/2 cups sugar (used part brown, part white)
2 eggs
1/4 cup sour cream
1/4 tsp cinnamon
2 cups flour (I used half AP and half whole wheat)
1/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
Dash of salt (omitted)
3 over-ripe bananas, mashed
1/3 cup Hershey’s caramel syrup (omitted)
1/2 cup Heath toffee chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In medium sized mixing bowl cream together butter and sugar. Add eggs and sour cream, then cinnamon, flour, baking powder, soda, and salt. Mix in bananas, and toffee chips (I dont have caramel syrup right now so I omitted). Pour into greased loaf pan and bake for approximately 60 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.

*My trick for getting "room temp" butter, when I suddenly decide to bake and my butter is refrigerated or frozen, is setting the stick on top of the stove near the oven vent (usually the right rear burner) while the oven preheats and I gather all my ingredients. Watch it carefully so it doesn't start to melt, but this usually does the trick of taking the edge off so that I can successfully cream the butter and sugar together. :)

YUM!

Orange Pound Cake

I found this recipe through my many wanderings of food blogs via StumbleUpon - definitely my weakness. :) You can set your "stumbling" (a.k.a. browsing) topics, and there's a fun little button that says "STUMBLE", and up pops random websites that may or may not intrigue you! The Hungry Mouse blog is a fun one, and it's come up several times in my "stumbling."

I didn't make this recipe recently - I actually made it back with my Blueberry Lemon Glazed Scones for the retreat with my internship this past summer. This was more of a hit than the scones were, actually, so I'm surprised I forgot to post this until now! So here you go - now I want to make it again!

Orange Pound Cake

Cake
13 Tbsp. unsalted butter, softened to room temp + more for greasing the pan
3 Tbsp. milk
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups cake flour*
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 tsp. baking powder
2 Tbsp. grated orange zest (1 large orange should be enough)

Glaze
1/3 cup orange juice
1/3 cup sugar
2 Tbls. triple sec, or other orange liqueur

*PLEASE use cake flour - it makes the texture of this pound cake more fine, just like pound cake should be. But you CAN substitute all-purpose flour if you don't already have some cake flour. I admit, this was one of the first recipes I bought cake flour for, and I've used it several times since!

Yields 1 loaf

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a glass loaf pan and set aside. Zest your orange - be careful to avoid the white layer beneath the top, orange layer. Whisk together your eggs, milk, vanilla in a bowl. Put flour, sugar and baking powder in a bowl, the bowl of your standmixer, whatever you have. Toss in the orange zest and mix on low until zest is incorporated. Cut the butter into tablespoons, and with mixer on low, toss in one piece of butter at a time, and mix until it's completely incorporated. Repeat until all butter is incorporated - your dough should go from looking like small crumbs, to a more moistened mass. Now, slowly pour in the egg/milk mixture, with mixer on low. Mix until all is added, and batter *just* comes together. (It will still be a little "mealy" looking - DON'T overmix. Long story short - gluten. too much mixing. tough cake. bleh.) Pour batter into your pan, and bake for 55-60 minutes. Start checking at 30 minutes, and cover edges with foil if it looks like it's browning too fast.

Glaze: Put sugar, orange juice, and orange liqueur in 1 quart, heavy-bottomed pot. Over medium-high heat, whisk until sugar dissolves. Bring mixture to boil, mixing often. Watch closely - it will boil over if you get distracted. :) Oops... Boil until reduced by about half - until it's thick and syrupy. Yum.

Release cake carefully from the pan, and set on cooling rack (with several paper towels underneath). Poke holes in the cake (just like the Rum Cake technique!) with a fork, skewer, thin sharp knife, so the glaze can sink into the cake. Pour the glaze on the still-warm cake, or brush on with a basting brush. Go slow, so the glaze has time to sink into the holes. Cool cake to room temperature before slicing.

Again, [imagine yummy-looking photo here]. I didn't take one. But you can look here at The Hungry Mouse's version.

Blueberry Scones with a Lemon Glaze

From: For the Love of Cooking

I made these for the retreat for my internship - I was in charge of bringing a breakfast food item. Yum! Everyone loved them, but I found the glaze soaked in a bit too much, so I'd put it on *right* before serving, next time I try these.

Blueberry Scones:

2 cups of flour

1 tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 tbsp sugar

5 tbsp unsalted butter, cold, cut into chunks

1 cup heavy cream, plus a little more for brushing on top of scones

1 1/2 cups of fresh blueberries

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Sift together the dry ingredients into a bowl. Using 2 forks, cut in the butter to coat the pieces with the flour. The mixture should look like coarse crumbs. Make a well in the center and pour in the heavy cream. Fold everything together until just mixed; do not over work the dough. Fold the blueberries into the dough, taking care not to mash the berries

Press the dough onto a lightly floured surface and form into a rectangle. Cut the rectangle in half then cut the pieces into half again, giving you 4 squares. Cut the squares in half on a diagonal to give you a triangle shape.

Place the scones on a baking sheet lined with a silpat mat then brush the top with a bit of heavy cream. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. Let the scones cool a bit before you apply the lemon glaze

Lemon Glaze:

1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

2 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted

1 lemon, zest finely grated

1 tbsp unsalted butter

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