Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Appeltart voor ontbijt

On their recent honeymoon stop in Amsterdam, Lora and Joe stopped in at Latei for some pie for breakfast! This from Lora...
It's super cute. They use all local ingredients and they sell vintage items in the store- it's where I got your little snow globe. They do coffee (koffie) and pie (taart) along with sandwiches and on Friday nights they have Indian thali with all local ingredients.
Pie for Breakfast Internationale!

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Wild Blackberry Lemon-Goat Cheese Tart


I'm working out at Celebrity Dairy Goat Farm for the month of July, learning to make cheese and filling in for Lora while she is away on her honeymoon. There are two things we have a lot of out here at the Dairy--one is goat cheese (clearly) and the other is blackberries. I've been foraging for them in the woods and from the patch outside the cheese room almost everyday. I needed to put all this usufruct to use, and remembered that Brooke, the Celebrity Dairy Inn Keeper, had made this Lemon-Blackberry Goat Cheese Tart on Pi(e) Day. See Lora's post about it here.

Wild Blackberry Lemon-Goat Cheese Tart
adapted from Maggie Foard's goatcheese

Ingredients
Nothing-in-the-House Pie Crust, halved
16 oz. fresh chevre (this is about $20 worth of goat cheese, which I wouldn't be able to afford, necessarily, if I wasn't working at a goat farm! Maggie's recipe calls for 8oz. chevre and 8 oz. goat ricotta, but I'm sure you could use the less-expensive cow ricotta to save $.)
4 extra-large eggs
2/3 c. + 2 Tblsp. sugar
1/4 c. lemon juice
1 Tblsp. lemon zest
Blackberry jam/preserves (I made a quick jam, with 1 c. of fresh berries and 1/2 c. sugar, cooked on low until thick)

Directions
1. Preheat over to 350. Blend chevre, eggs, 2/3 c. of sugar, and lemon juice. Zest the lemon and combine with the 2 Tblsp. of sugar. Combine the chevre & lemon mixtures until smooth. 

2. Pour the mixture into the tart shell, place on a cookie sheet at bake at 350 for 45 minutes. Let the tart cool on an oven rack. 

3. When cool, spread jam over tart, and garnish with lemon or fresh blackberries.


I took it over to my friends' Phaedra and Justin's house, where it was accompanied by Justin's delicious savory tomato goat cheese tart. Tale (or should I say tail? maybe not) of two goat cheese tarts.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Babies, Banjos, and Blueberry Pie

After my stint in the woods, I went up to Brooklin, ME for what has become an annual visit to Nathan and Clara, Magpie and Eleanor of Stoneset Farm (you may recall the pie potluck we had there last year). We caught up and discussed grad school and religion, Lady Gaga and Swan Lake (Eleanor, age 3, is into it now-- both Russian and American versions), farming and feminism, played a lot of blocks and a lot of music, and worked in the green house.

On my last evening there, we picked garlic scapes and made pesto out of them, which Clara spread on delicious homemade pizza. I whipped up a blueberry pie (using this recipe) with frozen Stoneset blueberries (it was not quite blueberry season yet). Jamie and Anna came down from Southwest Harbor for a lovely dinner out on the picnic table, followed by some banjo playing.

Blueberry Pie, with Stoneset Farm homemade apple cider and blueberry wine

Magpie lives up to her name

Jamie takes a cue from Magpie and maintains his platelikkin' tradition

Wednesday, July 07, 2010

Pie Thief Hits Baltimore!

Lock those pies in their safes, folks! Nothing-in-the-House Baltimore/Boston correspondent Jamie sent in this pie thievery report...



It was a delicious pie, made from: ~3.5c strawberries cut into big chunks and 3.5c chopped rhubarb. The fruit was mixed with .5c brown sugar, .5c regular sugar, .25c cornstarch, and 1t ground cinnamon. The crust was the NitH (Nothing-in-the-House) standard crust. The bottom was pre-baked and the top was formed into a lattice and brushed with a sweetened egg wash.


The pie was so good it attracted a real pie thief as it cooled on the windowsill of 902 Gorsuch St. in Baltimore.

Sunday, July 04, 2010

Impromptu Sweet Potato Pie

I haven't been posting here lately, because I've been living the life of a transcendentalist luddite in the Maine woods for the past two months. But it is a known fact that despite other ascetic restrictions, pie (though probably only vegetarian) was a foundational item in the transcendentalist diet, especially for breakfast. So too was it for our own Walden/Fruit Lands-esque experiment.

While up at my friend's cottage in Southwest Harbor on Mount Desert Island (Acadia), I whipped up this sweet potato pie, after realizing we had no dessert to accompany our local seafood feast. I took the recipe from New Englander and 'Domestic Scientist' Fannie Farmer, whose cookbook was on hand. We ate it by the fire with Mille Bornes and banjo serenades.

Fannie Farmer Sweet Potato Pie

Ingredients:
1 pie crust (split recipe at right in half, used only all-purpose flour)
2 c. mashed, cooked sweet potatoes, cooled slightly
2 eggs, beaten
1 1/4 c. milk, half-and-half, or cream
1/4 c. sugar (I used brown, substituting some maple syrup)
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
2 Tblsp. rum (I used bourbon)
4 Tblsp. butter, melted and slightly cooled

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 425. Combine all the ingredients and mix until well blended. Pour into piecrust. Bake for 10 minutes and then reduce the oven temperature to 300. Bake for another 50 minutes or until the filling remains firm when shaken. Top with bourbon/maple whipped cream and enjoy!

Cranberry Chess Pie

Fig Pistachio Tarte Tatin

Peppermint Pattie Tart

Whiskey & Dark Chocolate Bundt Cake

Blog Archive