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.

Corned Beef Update!

Corned Beef was a success!!! Unfortunately, so much of a success, I don't have a great picture of everything on one plate!! Oops! But here's some of the final prep process...

~*~

Take the meat out of the bag, and rinse, then pat dry. I debated this step, because I didn't want to wash away all the yummy-ness, but after reading numerous blogs and deciding to trust Bow-Tie Man, I did. It really doesn't take away any of the flavor, after all - it's been soaking in its juices for a week!!

The meat was added to a pot of water, filling the pot 1 inch above meat so it was all covered. Bring to boil, then reduce to simmer, and continue to simmer covered for 2-3 hours. Occasionally check, and skim off any foam that rises to the top. Meanwhile, you can clean house, pack up for camping, find some fun Celtic tunes to play, and chop up the veggies you choose. I decided on cabbage (of course), potatoes, onions, carrots, and some brussels sprouts. This pile of veggies did not all fit in the pot, so make sure you have an appropriate sized cooking vessel. :)

The veggies were added to the pot after the meat finished cooking. Place the meat on an oven-safe platter, and put in a 200 degree oven covered with a little bit of the juice, and cover the whole thing in foil. Carrots, potatoes, and onions go in first for 10-15 mins. Then add cabbage and brussels, for another 10-15 minutes. Like the meat, bring to boil, then simmer covered until veggies are cooked.

Irish Soda Bread, courtesy of Katy Bowers. Check out her baking blog! This turned out great - very simple and quick, and tasted amazing after cooking on a cast iron skillet. Just a little flour, salt, baking soda, dash of sugar and buttermilk - yum!

Our final adventure of the evening was these amazing cupcakes. I chose to adapt a couple recipes, because I liked different features of each. I chose to use this Guinness Chocolate Cupcake & Bailey's Cream Cheese Frosting recipe, from Nook & Pantry.Then the Irish Whiskey Chocolate Ganache filling from Smitten Kitten, because it seemed too good not to include!

Final verdict:

OOF and 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.

Pumpkin Pie

Of course ... How could I forget? :)

So it would be embarrassing for me to admit how many pumpkin pies I've made this season... but frankly, I haven’t heard anyone complaining yet, so here it is.

It's never enough to just make 1 pumpkin pie, plus the Libby's can of pumpkin puree makes 2 (if you get the big cans). So double the pie crust recipe I posted earlier, so you have 2 unbaked pie shells.

This recipe is off the back of the Libby's can, so I'm not being that creative here.

1 ½ cup granulated sugar

2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

4 large eggs

1 can (30 oz.) LIBBY'S® 100% Pure Pumpkin

2 cans (12 fl. oz. each) NESTLÉ® CARNATION® Evaporated Milk

2 unbaked 9-inch pie shell

Whipped cream (optional – in whose world is whipped cream optional when you’re talking about pumpkin pie??)

MIX sugar, cinnamon, salt, ginger and cloves in small bowl. Beat eggs in large bowl. Stir in pumpkin and sugar-spice mixture. Gradually stir in evaporated milk.

POUR into pie shell.

BAKE in preheated 425° F oven for 15 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350° F; bake for 40 to 50 minutes (usually 50) or until knife inserted near center comes out clean. Cool on wire rack for 2 hours (THE HARDEST PART!!!). Serve immediately or refrigerate. Top with whipped cream before serving.

Swedish Coffee Cake

DIRECTLY from my Grandma Gordon's kitchen... the precious family recipe. If this doesn't show up for Christmas brunch, and Easter morning brunch, I don't know what will happen in our family. :) I don't know how many years we hear that Grandma stayed up half the night making the coffee cake, because "she had to". Last year for school, we were assigned to bring a family recipe to one of our classes, and I chose to make this. It's a labor of love for sure, and while mine turned out OK, Grandma's for sure "takes the cake." And to make things even better, when I needed to make this for class, Grandma even offered to help me make some so I wouldn't have to do it all myself, and she loaned me her prized food processor... like I said - a labor of love.

Oslo Kringler or Swedish Coffeecake

Crust:

1 cup flour

1 cube chilled butter

2 or 3 T of ice water

Cut butter into flour with a pastry cutter. Add the water and toss with a fork.

Spread the dough on an ungreased cookie sheet in two 10” x 4” thin crusts.

Topping:

1 cup water

1 cube butter

1 cup flour

3 eggs

½ tsp almond flavoring

½ tsp vanilla

In a 2 or 3 quart saucepan, over medium heat, bring the water and butter to a boil.

Add the flour and stir vigorously to combine. (with a whisk)

Mixture should form a ball and pull away from the sides of the pan. Stir over the heat

for 3 or 4 more minutes.

At this point I put the dough in a food processor, wait about 3 or 4 minutes, and then add

the eggs, one at a time, processing one minute after each addition. You can also leave them

in the pan and beat them with the whisk, but this is hard on the arm and not as successful.

The food processor really incorporates the air well.

Add the flavorings. It’s easy to forget them.

Spread the mixture over the uncooked crusts. I use the back of a spoon to slightly smooth

it out.

Bake at 375 for about 45 minutes. Don’t underbake. Cool completely before drizzling with

a thin powdered sugar frosting, with almond and vanilla. Liberally sprinkle with toasted slivered almonds.

Then drizzle with enough frosting to anchor the almonds.

For a generous amount for our whole family, I do this three times, which takes a fair amount of time,

since each one takes awhile to bake. This recipe is inexpensive to make but very rich with love.

*Most importantly, DO NOT COVER WITH FOIL OR PLASTIC WRAP OR IT WILL WEEP.

You can cover with waxed paper to transport.

Two-ingredient Pumpkin Cake with Apple-Cider Glaze

YUM!!! All I can say is that I couldn't WAIT to make this when I ran across this recipe on Noble Pig's blog.

For the Cake:
1 Yellow Cake Mix
1 15 ounce can of pumpkin puree

For the Glaze:
1-1/2 cups powdered sugar
3 Tablespoons apple cider
3/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

Empty the contents of the boxed cake mix and pumpkin puree into a large bowl. Using a hand-mixer or stand mixer beat until well incorporated. The batter will be very thick, but will come together nicely.

Pour batter into a greased 7 x 11 X 2 pan. This is the small, rectangular-sized pan from your Pyrex set. You know, the set you had to have when you got married and rarely ever used all the pieces. Finally, you have a use for it. (Hey! Thanks to our wonderful family and friends, we have one!!)

Bake at 350 degrees for 28 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Do not overbake.

Let cool for 5-10 minutes in the pan, then flip onto a platter.

Make the glaze while you're waiting for the cake to bake, then cool.

Combine powdered sugar, apple cider and pumpkin pie spice. Glaze should be thick but pourable. Add more sugar or cider if needed. Pour over the cake while still warm. Reserve some to pour over each slice when served.

Serve warm or room temperature. (WARM is the way to go - when it's cold, it's a little too sweet and sticky.)

A discussion about pie crust...

Let's chat about crust.

I grew up with homemade crust for every pie we made ... and was disappointed to realize this was not commonplace, and most people were afraid to make their own pie crusts. I understand this task could seem a bit daunting if you aren't used to it, or if you're perfectly content with a *gasp* store-bought crust.

I, for one, have tried numerous fresh & frozen crusts, crust-mixes, and have yet to find an acceptable alternative to making my own. :)

Trust me - once you devote the 15 minutes to making your own crust, you'll never want to go back. (Or if you do, I promise I won't judge you.)

Here's the beloved family recipe, originally from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, I believe.

For 1 single-crust pie (i.e. a pie with filling, and no top crust)

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (you can use a mixture of regular flour, whole wheat flour, pastry flour, gluten-free flours, whatever you like - you'll just have to adjust for the amount of water added later.)

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup shortening (yes, shortening - it makes the crust flakey and delicious.)

4-5 Tbsp COLD water

For 1 double-crust pie

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp salt

2/3 cup shortening

8-10 Tbsp COLD water

Cut in the shortening to the flour/salt with a pastry cutter or fork. Blend until crumbly. Add water, and mix together with a fork. Should come together, and you can finish with your hands. Add more water or flour, depending on consistency.

Turn onto a floured surface, and roll out with a rolling pin. Place in your pie dish, and make the edges look pretty (or not). :) And never buy a pie or crust from the store again...except in an emergency. And then, order from Whidbey Pies, or visit them at Greenbank Farms on Whidbey Island - yum!

Whatever-you-have Quiche

This is my favorite thing to make when I have a craving for my mom's crust, and need an easy meal that's healthy and filling, and good for leftovers! :)

One unbaked pie-crust (or as an alternative - thinly sliced red potatoes, overlapping slightly to cover entire surface of pie pan)

6+ eggs (beaten)

Splash of Milk, or half & half

Grated cheese (optional)

Veggies (chopped & uncooked - asparagus, broccoli, red/green peppers, etc.)

Meat (optional, cooked - sausage, ham, etc.)

Salt & Pepper (dash of each)

Chop your veggies and meat choices into small bite-sized pieces. Place in crust.

Beat the eggs with your milk or half-and-half with a whisk. Pour over veggie/meat inside the crust. You can top with cheese, or mix in the cheese with the egg mixture.

Bake in an oven for 40-45 mins, until knife inserted in center comes out clean, and center is firm (no jiggly eggs!). In the case of using potatoes for your "crust", make sure they are cooked through.

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

• 

Easy crepes

Basic Crepes, from Allrecipes.com

Ingredients

1 cup all purpose flour

2 eggs

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup water

1/4 tsp salt

2 Tbsp butter, melted

Directions

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour and the eggs. Gradually add in the milk and water, stirring to combine. Add the salt and butter; beat until smooth.

Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat. Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each crepe. Tilt the pan with a circular motion so that the batter coats the surface evenly. (This is really fun on a nonstick pan...works GREAT! And you become a pro after making a few!)

Cook the crepe for about 2 minutes, until the bottom is light brown. Loosen with a spatula, turn and cook the other side. Serve hot with a variety of toppings - chocolate chips, strawberries, whipped cream, maple syrup, etc.

Oh, and have some friends over, and share a bottle of wine! Yum!