The First Pizza Party at Big Switch Farm

This guest post from my dear friend Lora Smith takes us back to high summer in Southeastern Kentucky, and the first pizza party at Big Switch Farm--the first of many, I expect. Some of our pizzas were summer-seasonal, but pizza is for all seasons. Now from Lora...

"The land belongs to the future, Carl; that's the way it seems to me. How many of the names on the county clerk's plat will be there in fifty years? I might as well try to will the sunset over there to my brother's children. We come and go, but the land is always here. And the people who love it and understand it are the people who own it for a little while."

-- Willa Cather, O Pioneers!

When I met my husband we were both working on sustainable development efforts in Kentucky-- Joe with a farm organization that supports small family farmers and me for a grassroots organization dedicated to social and environmental justice. Both of us were also dealing with the paradox that while we worked on issues of sustainability, our lives were anything but sustainable. As we explored ideas of the future we wanted to create together, we returned again and again to a desire to become landowners, to farm at a small scale, and raise a family near friends and family in the mountains of Southeastern Kentucky.

Joe and I found Big Switch Farm the year we were married. Its previous owners were a state-recognized Native American tribe who were using the property as a gathering place to host dances and celebrations four times a year. Before that it had been a hunting property, and many years before that a country road dotted with small homesteads ran through the middle of the acreage. We find remnants of the farm's past everywhere on the land: the foundation of old houses, empty shotgun shells and makeshift targets, sticks tied to fabric in the color of the four directions. Big Switch has always been a gathering place and we intend to keep it that way.

A small group of friends joined us for our first camp out and party on the farm this summer. Joe and I recently purchased a small mobile wood-fired oven and couldn't think of a better way to test it out. Many of our friends also happen to be talented chefs, bakers, and home cooks. We even had a pizza ringer in our friend Brett who spent his teenage years slinging dough at Papa John's. It showed in his perfectly round crusts that made our oblong and misshapen ones seem less "rustic" and more, well, amateur. Everyone brought ingredients to pitch in and each person made their own pizza to share with the group with "ooohs!" and "ahhhs!" erupting every time a new one was pulled from the oven. Prosciutto, salami, sausage, green onions, lambsquarters, garlic scapes, sundried tomatoes, brisket, mozzarella, homemade tomato sauce... there were no losers in the bunch. We even used pizza dough to make a blackberry galette for dessert and our friend Anna whipped up a breakfast pizza with leftover ingredients the next morning.

Along with ingredients, everyone arrived with something to offer-- gifts of food and drink, fiddle tunes, laughter-- and pitched in to create our first gathering on the farm. Here's to many more pizza parties to come while Big Switch belongs to us-- for a little while.

Breakfast Pizza with Sausage, Greens, and Fried Eggs aka "The Dwight Yolkum"
Inspiration from Anna Bogle

Makes 2 breakfast pizzas

Ingredients
Peter Reinhart's Napoletana Pizza Dough, halved
1 bunch kale
Small bunch lambsquarters (you can stick to kale if you prefer)
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 red onion, finely diced in thin rings
8 ounces breakfast sausage (Anna used Murray's smoked sausage + Berea College breakfast links)
8 ounces parmesan, cut into thin slices
8 large eggs
Olive oil for drizzling
Cornmeal for dusting

Directions
1. Prepare half of Peter Reinhart's Napoletana Pizza Dough the night before making the pizza. Follow Peter's instructions, though rather than forming into 6 balls, form into 2 large balls of dough. 2 hours before making the pizza, follow the steps for letting the dough rest on a counter dusted with flour and sprayed with olive oil.

2. At least 45 minutes before making the pizza, preheat the oven as high as it will go and place a baking stone on either the bottom of the oven (gas or wood-fired oven) or on a rack in the lower third of the oven. If you don't have a stone, you can use the back of a baking pan, but don't preheat it.

3. Meanwhile, prepare the filling. In a medium skillet, cook the sausage until cooked through. Transfer to a plate to drain and let cool, then cut into small chunks.

4. Using the same skillet, sautée garlic and onion in sausage grease until translucent. Add the kale and lambsquarters with a little bit of water and cook until the greens are cooked down and tender.

5. Shape and stretch one of the balls of dough into a pizza of at least a 12-inch diameter and place on a peel or on your baking sheet, dusted with cornmeal. Sprinkle half of the sausage and sautéed greens on the pizza, then arrange parmesan slices on top. Drizzle entire pizza with olive oil, and sprinkle with salt, if desired. If you're using a wood-fired oven or an oven that gets very hot, crack 4 eggs on the pizza and place in the oven. If you're using a conventional oven that can only reach 500-550 degrees F, wait to crack the eggs until the end of the baking time. In a high-heat or wood-fired oven, the pizza should bake in 5-9 minutes. In a conventional oven, this will take about twice as long. If using a conventional oven, check at 10-15 minutes, and when crust is beginning to brown and bubble and cheese is melting, crack 4 eggs on top of pizza, and bake an additional 5 minutes.

6. Once crust is golden brown, cheese is melted, and eggs are cooked through, remove pizza from oven and let cool. Serve slightly warm. Repeat with remaining dough and ingredients. Enjoy!

Follow Big Switch Farm on Instagram here.

Related recipe:
Ham, Gruyère & Caramelized Onion Galette with Fried Egg

Mom Blogs: Christmas Quiche Lorraine

My mom shared this story and recipe from our Christmas morning brunch--Quiche Lorraine. For a change from my usual habits, the only things I did to help with this "pie" were take photos and eat-- and it was DELICIOUS! Take it away, mom!

Quiche Lorraine is a pie-loving family's choice for Christmas brunch. Our breakfast tradition is a collaboration between the men and women of the family. Grant slow-cooks the bacon to seal the flavor, reasoning that slightly undercooking the bacon ensures the perfect flavor. Joe grates the cheese and dices the onion.

We often debate the choice of cheese. I always pick Gruyere, instead of the standard Swiss. Joe and Grant lean toward sharp Cheddar. I however, don't completely assert my preference for fear of losing my kitchen help. Instead, we compromise, and the cheese and onion selections are a surprise waiting for me after I prepare the crust. This year Joe presented red onion.

I've abandoned my Crisco crust recipe inherited from my mother and grandmother for Emily's Nothing-in-the-House all-butter crust. The recipe we used this year, adapted from my disintegrating Betty Crocker Cookbook follows. I used this same recipe for my first quiche on Christmas morning, 1975-- 37 years ago.

Quiche Lorraine
Adapted from The Betty Crocker Cookbook

Ingredients
Nothing-in-the-House pie crust, halved
12 slices of bacon (about 1/2 lb.), crispy or slightly crispy fried and crumbled
1/3 c. Gruyere and 2/3 c. sharp Cheddar, shredded
1/3 c. onion (red or white), diced
5 large eggs
2 c. whipping cream
3/4 tsp. sea salt
1/4 tsp. sugar

Directions
1. Prepare half of Nothing-in-the-House pie crust as per the directions. Let chill while you cook the bacon and grate the cheese.

2. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Once crust dough has been chilled, roll out and fit into a greased and floured 9 or 10-inch quiche or pie pan (We used a 9 1/2-inch quiche pan), fluting decoratively. Sprinkle cooked bacon, cheese, and onion on the bottom of the pastry.

3. In a medium bowl, beat eggs slightly, then beat in the remaining ingredients. Pour the egg mixture into the pastry. Bake 15 minutes.

4. Reduce temperature to 300 degrees F and bake 30 minutes longer or until a knife inserted 1-inch from the edge comes out clean. Let stand 10 minutes before cutting. Serve in wedges. Makes 6 main course servings or 8 appetizer servings.

Kentucky Lemon Chess Pie

Nothin' too fancy here, after all it is just pie. jes' pie. chess pie. See what I did there? That little abbreviation and perhaps mishearing is one of the many cited stories for how chess pie-- a very unassuming dessert of eggs, butter, sugar, flour and lemon or vinegar--got its name. Another guess is that the monniker came from "chest pie," (pronounced in a Southern accent) as in a pie that kept well in a chest or cupboard. I've also heard that it was a treat served in chess houses, though to me that sounds a little too literal to be likely. Whatever the story though, chess pie originated from England, and traveled across the pond, landing in the colonies and dispersing to New England and the South. It's related to vinegar pie, mock lemon pie, or Jefferson Davis pie, and when vinegar is substituted for lemon, it's a true Nothing-in-the-House pie, made with cheap, readily available ingredients. Don't be deceived though, its economy in no way compromises its deliciousness.

I got this recipe for a Kentucky lemon chess pie from the New York Times Heritage Cookbook, which features traditional recipes organized by region and specific to each state. It's just a tad fancier than a straight chess pie, but is still very simple. The cornmeal adds a little substance to the filling and the lemon zest and juice make it taste almost like the lemon bars familiar to my Midwest upbringing. Once baked, the top of the pie should form a crust, with the oozy lemony filling lying below.

 
Kentucky Lemon Chess Pie
Adapted from the New York Times Heritage Cookbook by Jean Hewitt

Ingredients
Nothing-in-the-House pie crust, halved
1/2 c. (1 stick) butter at room temperature
1 1/4 c. sugar
1 Tblsp. yellow corn meal
3 eggs
Grated rind of 1 lemon
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. salt

Directions
1. Prepare half of the Nothing-in-the-House pie crust as per the directions. Chill dough at least 1 hour before rolling out and fitting into a greased and floured 9-inch pie pan. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Put the rolled and fitted crust back in the fridge while you prepare the filling.

2. Cream together the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl, using a wooden spoon or a stand mixer. Then beat in the cornmeal.

3. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in the lemon rind, lemon juice, vanilla and salt until well combined. Pour the filling into the pie shell and bake for 45-60 minutes, or until the top of the filling forms a crust and a knife inserted into the middle comes out clean. Serve with blackberries and whipped cream.

I made this lemon chess pie last Saturday, which also marked the day that the pickles we made at our pickling party were ready for the eatin'! So on Sunday morning (err, afternoon?) after a late Saturday night, we took to brunch prep, making as many items with our pickles as we could (none in the chess pie, though, don't worry). My friend Lars made amazing fried chicken that was brined in pickle juice, and Luigia mixed up bloody marys also spiked with pickle juice as well as dilly beans, pickles okra, and cucumber spears. I cooked some eggs, and we took the porch for a leisurely meal on a rainy afternoon. Nothin' too fancy-- chess brunch.

It's An Old New England Custom...

...To eat pie for breakfast. Tay from Winooski, Vermont sent in these photos from the Rotary Pie For Breakfast at the Cambridge Winter Fest in the Lamoille Valley of Vermont. Here's what she had to say:

It was delicious, I had elderberry/apple, raspberry, pizza, and part of a slice of peanut butter pie.

Thanks for the photos Tay and for keeping the tradition alive!

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!

Jamie's Easter Quiche

Leek and Gruyere!

Other reported menu items at this Boston, MA Easter brunch were boiled artichokes with bearnaise, crepes with grapefruit marmalade and brandy, and broiled grapefruit.

SCARY Meat Pie

Reporting from Boston, Jamie sent me this pic of a SCARY meat pie...notice the teeth!

and BMPEZ (Breakfast Meat Pie Enjoyment Zone) the next morning!

Pie for Breakfast by HOME ITEMS

There once was a band-turned-creative collective called HOME ITEMS composed of 7 gal-pals in Burlington, Vermont. We like to make noise and music with domestic items and write and sing songs about food, the kitchen, and various other feminine/feminist topics. A while back, we wrote a song (lyrics by Michelle) called 'Pie For Breakfast,' (original post with lyrics here) about invigorating the New England tradition of enjoying pie in the morning. We recently re-recorded it and made this video so we could post it here.

  

Please enjoy and help us bring back the tradition!

P.S. I'd like to give a shout-out to our new fan/pie friend Michelle who posted about Nothing-In-The-House on her awesome "Blah Blah Blah Blog" here!

A new farm and cherry pie.

This is a story of two friends, a whole lotta manual labor,
and a dream of growing delicious, organic goodness.

Abra and Jess have started their dream and oh my, how they are succeeding. They are currently growing multitudes of produce and selling it both at local farm markets and to various restaurants in Chicago. Bare Knuckle Farm is on its way!


The last weekend in July, Bare Knuckle Farm hosted its first annual work weekend--a gathering of various friends and ne'er-do-wells who rolled up their sleeves to paint a barn, build a permanent herb bed, weed (and weed and weed and weed), feed chickens and geese, haul rocks from Lake Michigan to be built into an outdoor oven. Despite a few rain clouds and the necessary breaks for fun, a lot of work was accomplished--really!


But let's remember that this is a pie blog, and as such, we must eventually bring this story around to pie. Well, the produce itself is situated on an old farm that houses lots of other deliciousness--like these beautiful cherry trees.


One resident pie baker insisted that we pick a few to make a pie. Twist our arms! We got busy picking, then Jess sat down to pit them all.

That man is a cherry-pitting machine! After that, Jill worked her magic. Flour flew and fingers kneaded, and after sitting a spell in the oven, those babies were baked to perfection.


Of course, we had to wait for them to cool a bit--oh, the torture! That gave us time to play the best.party.game.ever! (Tie breaking round to be held at the Bare Knuckle Farm's second annual work weekend in 2010.) Despite the intensity of the game, the smell drove us to indulge in pie before too long. Jill was so kind as to dish it up with some vanilla ice cream. The perfect combination of sweet and tart, with a wonderfully crumbly crust.


Abra, Jill, Mary, Sara, Anika, Jess, and Erik in the Pie Enjoyment Zone (PEZ).


In our pie-induced stupor, we decided we needed to show the PEZ from another angle.


But really, there's no better indication of the success of a pie than the Breakfast Test.


And it passed that one with flying colors.

Thank you for two delicious cherry pies, Jill!
And thank you, Abra and Jess, for starting a great new tradition.

Boston Cream Pie

BCP for breakfast care of Mandy's mom. WERD.

Pie for Breakfast (The Song)

While many think pie for breakfast is in decline, the Home Items girls are doing their best to bring it back. Do we care that men might look down upon us for eating something that might give us buxom figures (see previous post)? NO! We're gonna eat pie for breakfast if we damn well want to and on top of that, we're even gonna sing about it!

Here it is folks. The lyrics to the hit Home Items song, Pie For Breakfast, by Michelle Crowder:

Sometimes I don't want to have a cereal
Sometimes I don't want to fry an egg
Sometimes I don't want to toast a bagel
Sometimes I don't want chicken legs


Chorus:I want pie for breakfast (pie for breakfast, pie for breakfast)
Pie for breakfast


Sometimes I go out to a restaurant
Sometimes I eat it at my home
Sometimes I have a muffin at practice
Whether together or all alone


Chorus: I want pie for breakfast (pie for breakfast, pie for breakfast)
Pie for breakfast


Bridge: Keep it in the fridge or keep it on the windowsill
Peel away the foil for flaky fruity frill!


Sometimes I don't want instant breakfast
Sometimes I don't want a cocoa wheats
Sometimes I don't want orange marmalade
Sometimes I don't want bread with sweet meats


Chorus: I want pie for breakfast (pie for breakfast, pie for breakfast)
Pie for breakfast

For more information about Home Items, the band, and peventually a recording of this song, refer to www.myspace.com/homeitems

Thank you, and don't forget to eat pie for breakfast.

(The Decline of) Pie for Breakfast

 Strawberry-rhubarb pie I took to Jamie's cottage(s) in Maine. Determined to revive the tradition, we followed the instructions and ate it strictly for breakfast. The six of us present did a reading of the text below and sang the Home Items song, "Pie For Breakfast," by Michelle Crowder. Lyrics and information to follow.

While browsing at the Crow Bookshop, I came across an old tome from 1946: It's An Old New England Custom. When I opened it and saw that the first chapter was "To Eat Pie For Breakfast"(not to mention the great black and white prints), I knew I had to buy it. This chapter discusses the tradition of eating pie for breakfast, and conjectures as to why the delicious custom's popularity declined by the mid 1890's, blaming loss of national sovereignty, the industrial revolution, and even men's standards of feminine beauty. Evidenced by phrases such as "seduced into surrendering their birthright" and "empty mockery of a meal," the author seems quite upset by this loss...

“By the time Arnold’s letters were published in the mid-nineties, pie for breakfast was rapidly going out of fashion, along with almost everything else on the morning menu. Why was this? During the last decades of the last century more and more Americans went abroad, and it was these travelers who brought home the idea of the Continental breakfast, consisting of nothing but a hard, cold roll and a cup of coffee. It became fashionable to denounce pie as provincial. No one who wished to be though sophisticated dared eat a big breakfast. One must do as they did in Paris—not Paris, Maine, but Paris, France—and conform to the Continental standard, low as it was. Instead of converting the Parisians to pie, these innocents abroad permitted themselves to be seduced into surrendering their birthright. It is a conspicuous historical fact that nations are apt to copy each other’s worst features rather than their best.

The anti-pie crusade was helped by the increasing tempo of American life. The curious notion that the more we rushed about the more civilized we were was beginning to take root. When we began to measure our progress by the rate of speed at which we could move and began to think that because we could get around ten or a dozen times faster than our grandfathers we were that much better than they were, pie as a morning dish was doomed. For nobody had time to eat a decent breakfast.

The female figure, too, may have had something to do with it, or rather men's ideas concerning the female figure. When pie was in vogue, the buxom figure was admired. Matrons were expected to look matronly. Women could not afford to let themselves go in the matter of food, helping themselves to pie at any meal they wished without giving it a second thought. But with the gradual change in ideas of feminine beauty, women were obliged to consider the consequences of heavy eating. They began to cut down on food to reduce their figures, and breakfast, the first meal of the day, was the first to suffer. It was whittled down until it became nothing but an empty mockery of a meal."

Book Club/Pie Breakfast

The Pie Breakfast/Brunch Buffett. Also featured on the table: Allaire's book report, blueberry almond muffins, beet and orange salad, blueberry almond coffeecake, and ketchup (brought to you by the Ketchup Advisory Board which concerns the American public with the inquiry, 'are you getting enough ketchup?')

Last Saturday was my first Seamonster Book Club (we met at Seth and Allaire's chalet in Fairfax and discussed America Over the Water, by Shirley Collins-- An English folksinger who traveled with Alan Lomax in 1959), combined with a pie breakfast/brunch. An impromptu bbq kept me from making my pie the evening before, so I got up early Saturday morning to make a creamy pear pie. I found the recipe online and was quizzical of the addition of cream to the actual pie filling, but when I saw the accompanying quote "Outstanding Creamy Pear Pie! I cook this for the men's league at my golf club, and they love it!," I thought, well hey, that has to be good. It's quite a novel concept to put the cream in the pie, instead of the post-bake cold whipped variety. The recipe is as follows: 

Creamy Pear Pie
Prep Time: 20 min
Cook time: 55 min

Ingredients:
Bottom:
·1/3 cup white sugar
·2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
·4 cups peeled and sliced pears
·1 cup sour cream
·1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
·1/2 teaspoon lemon extract (I used real lemon juice instead)
·1/2 teaspoon almond extract
·1 (9 inch) unbaked pie crust

Topping (I found it needed a bit more of all of these):
·1/4 cup all-purpose flour
·2 tablespoons brown sugar
·2 tablespoons butter or margarine, melted
·1/4 cup slivered almonds (I added this to the original recipe)

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F
2. Stir together white sugar and 2 tablespoons flour. Add pears, and toss to coat. Stir in sour cream and vanilla, lemon and almond extracts until pears are evenly coated. Pour into the unbaked pie crust.
3. Combine 1/4 cup flour and brown sugar. Mix in butter with your fingers until the mixture is crumbly. Add almonds. Sprinkle evenly over the top of the pie and coat with remaining almonds
4. Bake for 10 minutes in preheated oven, then reduce the temperature to 350 degrees F. Bake for an additional 45 minutes, or until pears are tender.


 I really enjoyed the combination of pears and almonds. Mandy said the texture was a nice blend and described the taste as 'comforting' and 'delicious'. For two more pictures of it, showing the cross-section, see the photo stream at right.

More pie-traits:

Michelle made a DELICIOUS quiche with spinach, pine nuts, and potatoes.

Meat-y quiche by Meghan. ham and scallions, perchance?

and Meghan's classic apple pie!

Howard takes no pie, but he does enjoy a spot of tea.