Chicken Tortilla Soup Perfect for Rainy Weather

It was a rainy weekend in the Northwest last weekend and I was happy to be there...I love the rain. I took a walk with Aaron along the river and it started raining as we walked.  The ducks didn't mind getting rained on.

The next morning I took another walk around the neighborhood and it started raining about half way through my walk. I noticed that the red leaves of the maples looked even more red against the dark, rain soaked bark of the trees.

One evening while I was visiting we made Chicken Tortilla Soup using the Instant Pot. We combined a few recipes from the Internet and it was delicious, flavorful soup! It's based largely on the recipe at Kristine's Kitchen, so I think Kristine for a great, easy recipe. If you don't have an Instant Pot, you can achieve close to the same results in a soup pot but it will take longer. Just sauté the onion and garlic in the olive oil in the soup pot, add the liquids, seasonings, and beans, then bring them to a boil. Add the chicken, cover, reduce to simmer and simmer for about 30 minutes. Take a piece of chicken from the pot and see if you can shred it with a fork. If not, return to pot and simmer another 10 minutes. Shred all the chicken, return it to the soup pot. Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer another 10 minutes to heat everything through, then serve with toppings on the side.

The soup base is created by cooking onions in olive oil, then adding garlic and letting the residual heat cook the garlic. To that you add tomatoes, seasonings, beans and chicken broth. This liquid mixture is used to cook the chicken, which is eventually shredded once cooked.

After the chicken is cooked, you add corn and a few more seasonings to the soup. I think that the addition of lime juice takes it to a higher level. An array of toppings makes it possible for each person enjoying the soup to tailor their toppings to their taste.

As we get closer to winter I'm sure that you'll find that this soup is just the thing to warm you up when the evening is chilly.

Instant Pot Chicken Tortilla Soup
Serves 6

 2 teaspoons olive oil
1 large onion, chopped fairly small
4 cloves garlic, minced
1  14.5 oz. can fire roasted or regular diced tomatoes in their juice
1-2 teaspoons chili powder
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon oregano
1  15 oz. can black beans, rinsed and drained
4 cups low sodium chicken broth
1 pound boneless skinless chicken thighs (about 6)
1 cup canned or frozen corn, drained if canned
juice from one large (or two small) lime(s)
salt and pepper to taste

 Serving toppings: crumbled tortilla chips or strips, sour cream or plain Greek yogurt, shredded cheese, avocado slices or dice, fire roasted diced green chiles, chopped cilantro.

 Instructions:

Add olive oil to Instant Pot insert and turn on sauté function. Add the onion and cooking, stirring, until softened, about 3 minutes. Turn off Instant Pot. Stir in minced garlic.

 Add the tomatoes, chili powder, cumin, black beans and chicken broth. Stir well, scraping up any bits stuck to the bottom of the pot. Nestle the chicken into the liquid.

 Place the lid on and set it to the closed position. Move the steam valve to the sealing position.

Set the Instant Pot to manual/pressure cook, high pressure, for 9 minutes. The Instant Pot will take about 20 minutes to reach pressure and then the cook time will start counting down. When the cook time is done, allow the pressure to release naturally for 10 minutes. Then, carefully move the steam valve to the venting position to release the remaining pressure. Can do this with the handle of a long spoon.

When the float valve drops down, the pressure has been released and it is safe to open the Instant Pot. Carefully remove the lid. Remove the chicken to a clean plate and let it rest for a few minutes.

Stir the corn into the Instant Pot, along with the lime juice. Cover and let it sit for 5 minutes. While this is happening, shred or cube the chicken.

Return the chicken to the pot. Season soup to taste with salt and pepper, chili powder, and/or hot sauce. Serve with toppings as desired.

Leftover soup can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months.

Amazing Caramel Apple Pie

I love apple pie, but Sweetie usually doesn't. He prefers berry pies or custard pies or stone fruit pies.

This past weekend I visited my family in Redmond, WA and my grandson and I made a great apple pie that even Sweetie likes. You bake it in a cast iron skillet (if you have one), use pre-made pie crust dough, and you combine the apples with a caramel sauce that's easy to make. I suspect that the caramel sauce is the key to why this pie is so amazing. There is even some left over to drizzle over the pie slices when served. You can even add a scoop of ice cream for total decadence. That's what Aaron and Raine did and it does look wonderful. (see photo above). I had mine with just the sauce...and it was awesome.

The most time consuming part of this recipe is the baking...about an hour, but possibly a bit less...but the next hardest is preparing the apples. I recommend using apples that don't release a lot of juice but have a good, tart/sweet flavor of apple. If you know that your apple will release lots of juice, pre-cook them in the microwave until barely limp, then drain them before adding the caramel sauce. Reserve the drained liquid for another use if you like. Thickened up it could make a nice topping for pancakes.

                                             Mixing caramel sauce with apples

Because you mix some of the sauce with the apples, you get the flavors of the sauce. I like to have both Pie Spice, which is a combination of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and allspice, and vanilla. I also like you to be able to taste the salt for that sweet-salty combo, but you can reduce it to 1/2 or 3/4 teaspoon if you like. The bourbon is also optional, but it goes really well with the apples and spice.

This is a great pie to bring to a holiday gathering, so bookmark it for November and December, if you like.

Skillet Caramel Spice Apple Pie
a variation of a recipe on myrecipes.com
Serves 8

1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup butter (1 stick, 8 tablespoons)
3 tablespoons non-dairy creamer (I use Vanilla Silk Soy Creamer) or 1/2 & 1/2
1 teaspoon Kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon Penzey's Pie Spice, or cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon bourbon (optional)
1 set of prepared pie crusts (I used Pillsbury ReadyCrusts)
3 pounds apples, peeled and cut into 1/2" thick slices (we used Galas and Honeycrisp)
2 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 lg egg yolk, lightly beaten (reserve egg white for sealing crusts)
1 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon sanding sugar (optional)

In a medium pot melt the margarine or butter. Stir in the brown sugar, , soy creamer or 1/2 & 1/2,  salt and pie spice or cinnamon. Over medium-high, cook the mixture, stirring until it bubbles. Continue cooking, stirring for 2 more minutes until mixture begins to thicken. Remove from the heat. Stir in the vanilla and, if using, the bourbon. Cool almost to room temperature, about 30 minutes, stirring at about 10 minutes to keep a skin from forming.

Fit one pie crust in the bottom and press up the sides of a 9" cast iron skillet. Put in the refrigerator to chill.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees, making sure that one rack is in the bottom position in the oven.

Toss apples with 2 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch in a large bowl. Pour 1/3 cup cooled caramel sauce over the apples and toss to coat.

Remove prepared crust from the fridge. Pour apple filling into prepared crust. Place remaining pie crust over apple filling. Seal by lightly coating the exposed side dough in the skillet with egg white and pressing the top crust to it. Crimp crust edges together.

Use a sharp knife to cut 6 - 8 one inch slits in top crust to let steam escape ( I goofed and only cut two steam vents). Whisk together egg yolk and water and brush over crust. If desired, scatter sanding sugar over.

Bake on bottom rack of preheated over for 55 minute - 1 hour. After about 30 minutes, shield crust with foil if needed to prevent excessive browning.

Bake until crust is golden, apples tender, and filling bubbly. Transfer to wire rack and cool completely 3 hours. Serve & enjoy.

So Many Years of Blogging

Little did I know in October 2006 that I would enjoy blogging so much that I'm still doing it in 2024...eighteen years later. Over the years I've made friends, learned so, so much, challenged myself to try new things and expand my cooking and baking skills, improved my writing and photography, had fun with writing short stories of times in the Land of St. Honore', compiled an Index of over a thousand recipes (probably closer to 1, 500 by now!), and had the satisfaction of really feeding my many enthusiasms.

I hope that you have enjoyed at least one of the hundreds of posts, perhaps have tried a recipe or two...or more, and are willing to wander about in the blog discovering stories and recipes and challenges that you can take up.

Thank you to the Daring Bakers, Cake Slice Bakers, and especially to the Bread Baking Babes for inviting me in and encouraging me to grow as a baker. We've had such fun times together!

Come back again...I still have more things to cook and bake and photograph and share with you through this blog. I value your comments and for taking this journey with me, dear reader.

Seedy Braided Bread

You may have noticed that I haven't been baking bread very  much these days. There is a reason...weight. Sweetie has been losing weight, partly by eliminating carbs for most of his meals and partly by making wise choices for the rest of his diet, plus he is spending a lot more time being active. I have been less careful in my choices and haven't been quite as active, but I have also been cutting back on carbs and eating more fruits and veggies. 

So what's a bread baker to do when she isn't eating bread? Bake it for others, right? Most of the posts for the past few months that include bread, pastry, cookies, etc. have had elements of my giving away a portion of the dish, if not all of it. This week I'm making a wonderful bread that includes bread flour, white whole wheat flour, and a whole lot of seeds of various kinds. I'll divide the dough into thirds, shape each into a long rope, then braid those ropes into a loaf to bake on a baking sheet.

I did about the same for a loaf for a recently widowed friend when he returned home from visiting his grown children. With a loaf of fresh bread in the house he would have something good to eat for days!

This week's loaf will be going to a silent auction for our P.E.O. scholarship group, raising money for scholarships for women. Most of the guests know that I'm a good baker, so I expect that the bidding will be lively. I'm also auctioning the Hot Fudge Sauce that I posted yesterday. Combining calories out with fun and fundraising is a win-win-win.

Braided Bread
based on Plaited Loaf recipe in Baking , by Martha Day

1 tablespoon active dry yeast
1 teaspoon honey
1 cup lukewarm milk (not over 100 degrees F) – I used undiluted condensed milk 
4 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
1 egg, slightly beaten
15 oz. flour: I cup bread flour, 1/2 cup white whole wheat flour, 1/2 cup King Arthur Baking Harvest grains mix which includes poppy seed, sesame seed, pumpkin seed
Note: Flour amounts vary depending on moisture of the flour and of the kitchen
1 teaspoon salt
Glaze: 1 egg yolk beaten with 1 tablespoon water
2-3 tablespoons sesame seeds or 2-3 teaspoons poppy seed (optional)

Combine the yeast, honey, and milk. Stir and let sit for 15 minutes.

Stir in the cooled butter into the milk mixture. Stir in the egg and put the wet mixture in a mixer bowl. If you have a large stand mixer use it.

Stir together the flours, seeds and the salt. Pour about half into the mixer bowl with the milk mixture and mix with the paddle attachment or stir with a spoon or dough whisk. Switch to a dough hook, if using. Add the rest of the flour, about a 1/3 cup at a time, until the dough is soft but holds together well. At the end you may need to add the flour a tablespoon at a time. If not using a stand mixer, turn out on a floured surface when it is too hard to stir the flour in. Knead the rest of the flour in. Knead with mixer or by hand until dough is smooth and elastic.

Place dough in an oiled bowl, turn over to oil both sides. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and leave to rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, about 1 ½ hours. (I put mine in the fridge for two day to intensify the flavor.)

Grease a baking sheet or line with parchment or a silicone mat. Set aside.

Turn risen dough out onto a floured board. Knead for a minute to release trapped gas. Divide into three even pieces of dough. Shape each piece into a long ‘snake’, about 18 inches long. Place the three strands side by side on the prepared pan. Starting at the middle, braid the three strands, then turn it and braid the other side. Tuck the ends under. Cover loosely and leave to rise in a warm place for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Brush the loaf with the egg glaze using a pastry brush. If desired sprinkle tops of coils of braid with poppy or sesame seeds while glaze is still wet. Bake until golden, for about 40-45 minutes. Loaf will sound hollow when you tap the back when baked enough. Turn out onto a rack to cool.

Hot Fudge Sauce

You would think that someone who loves chocolate as I do would have long ago put a recipe for Hot Fudge Sauce here on the blog...but you would be wrong.

It isn't that I don't enjoy hot fudge sauce, the thing is that I'm not an ice cream person. Now and then...maybe twice a year...I get a yen for some ice cream, but that's about it. Even this time, when I have made a delicious and easy Hot Fudge Sauce, with the recipe below, I didn't make it to eat with ice cream (which seems to me the best way to have it). No, I made it because I'm taking a jar of it to a silent auction to raise money for women's scholarships. I'm pretty sure that the sauce will get some good bids since many people do enjoy ice cream often...and know how good it can be with some hot fudge sauce. To give you some photos of it, I dipped a strawberry in it...and Sweetie helped by eating it. He gave it the seal of approval.

This recipe is surprisingly quick and easy. It only makes a cup and a half of sauce, but if you use a good quality chocolate you won't need a lot of it because it's rich and tempting and delicious! Of course you may decide that you want a lot of it!

You start with some bittersweet chocolate. A 3 oz. chocolate bar is thin enough that chopping it finely is pretty easy. You also need a few tablespoons butter, some unsweetened cocoa powder, less than a cup of heavy cream, small amounts of light corn syrup and granulated sugar, a pinch of salt and a full tablespoon of vanilla.

Do give this a try. It helps to have a microwave, but the whole thing can be done on a stovetop as long as you either have a double boiler, or a bowl that can sit on top of a pot of simmering water long enough for the finely chopped chocolate and butter to melt to smoothness.

So what will it be for you? Make this as a gift or eat it all at home? Choices, choices...

Hot Fudge Sauce

From Baking with Dorie Magazine 2017
Makes 1 1/2 cups

3 oz. bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped (use one you like to eat)
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 cup heavy cream
3 tablespoons light corn syrup
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
Pinch of salt
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

In the top of a double boiler (or in a heat proof bowl-over a pot of simmering water) or in a bowl in the microwave, melt the chocolate and butter together. (I recommend using 50% power if using the microwave, heat for 20 seconds, stir, heat for another 20 seconds, and keep doing that until melted and smooth, stirring after each 20 seconds in the microwave.)

When the mixture is completely melted, remove from the heat and stir in the cocoa powder; set aside.

In a medium saucepan combine the cream, corn syrup, sugar, and salt and bring to a boil, keeping a close eye on it and stirring...the mixture can bubble up quickly. Remove from the heat as soon as it bubbles.

Using a whisk, gradually stir the hot milk mixture into the chocolate mixture, then add the vanilla and stir to combine. Press a piece of plastic wrap against the surface of the sauce. Serve sauce after it has cooled for 20 minutes. Enjoy!

Keeping: The sauce can be made ahead and kept tightly covered in the refrigerator for about 3 weeks. At serving time, warm the sauce gently in the microwave or in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Enjoy!

Welcome Fall

 

We are officially into Fall, but the weather hasn't gotten the message. Yesterday it was warm...in the upper 80's, but today it was truly hot with temperatures around here above 100 degrees, and it is supposed to be over 100 degrees F tomorrow and only slightly cooler the following 5 or 6 days. And yet, as we go around the area doing our errands, we already are seeing the trees turn to their fall reds and golds and yellows and russets.

Hope that you are enjoying fall and not recovering from flooding or high winds, rain, tornadoes or other disasters of nature. It's still a beautiful world, but it's more challenging all the time.

Happy Fall y'all.

Tomato and Zucchini Tart

Because we had a late spring and the soil didn't warm up until weeks after I usually plant, we are also having a late harvest. Finally I'm getting ripe tomatoes! To celebrate I made a fresh tomato and zucchini tart. Although I was inspired by a recipe I found in the newspaper, I made so many changes that it really is a new recipe.

First I started with a pre-made pie crust found in the refrigerator case in many grocery stores...Pillsbury ReadyCrust. It comes two to the box, but I only used one. That single round of pie dough was placed in a 9-inch tart pan with a removable bottom. The dough came up higher than the sides, so I folded that down to make a double thickness side for the tart. I pricked the bottom with a fork, all over, and then pre-baked at 425 degrees F for 10 minutes.

While the tart crust was cooling, I sliced the tomatoes into 1/4-inch thick slices, cutting off a bit of the top and bottom, then slicing through horizontally, not stem end to bottom.  The zucchini was sliced at the same thickness on the diagonal. The slices were spread on a double layer of paper towels and sprinkled with salt. Another layer of towels went on top and I let them sit for at least an hour to get rid of the excess moisture in the veggies.

For the filling I used Boursin cheese and some egg white. The cheese comes with herbs and garlic already blended in and the egg white makes the consistency just right.

If you have large tomatoes, you may only need one slice from the middle of the tomato, and then smaller zucchini slices or half slices can go around nearer to the tart edge. Just see how your veggies are. My tomatoes were pretty small, although very flavorful, so I put multiple slices all around the outside edge, then filled in the middle with the zucchini. A sprinkle of black pepper is optional.

The final piece is the topping, which is a combination of olive oil and dry bread crumbs and pine nuts.

The finished tart doesn't get baked very long...just long enough to cook the egg white and soften the zucchini a bit. It's a thin, savory tart, but with very intense flavor and quite delicious. Do try it!

Summer Harvest Veggie Tart
Servings: 6-8 

Ingredients
2-3 small tomatoes. If using large heirloom tomatoes, you only need one

      1 small zucchini (about 6-inches)

·      Fine salt

·      about 2.5 oz. (half the package, 75 grams) Boursin cheese herbs and garlic flavor

·      1 egg white from a medium or large egg (reserve yolk for another use)

·      One circle pie dough - I used half a package of Pillsbury ReadyCrust, at room temperature

·      2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided           

3     3 tablespoons dry breadcrumbs

       3 tablespoons pine nuts

Directions

 Using  a very sharp knife, cut the tomatoes, and zucchini into thin slices, about 1/4-inch thick. (Cut the tomatoes parallel to the equator and the zucchini slightly on the diagonal.)

 Line a large sheet pans with double thickness paper towels;  Place the sliced tomato slices and zucchini slices on top, and lightly sprinkle with salt on both sides to draw out moisture. Cover with more paper towels to absorb the released juices.  Let the vegetables sit for about 30 minutes to draw out the maximum moisture.

 Prepare the cheese filling by mixing the Boursin cheese with the egg white in a small bowl. Set aside.

 While the vegetables rest, position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 425 degrees F. Line a 9-inch tart pan with a removable bottom with the circle of pie dough. Double the thickness of the sides by folding the excess pastry down on the inside and press the pastry against the sides of the tart pan. Prick the bottom with a fork, then put the pan in the freezer for 30 minutes to chill and firm up.

7.    Remove the pastry-lined tart pan from the freezer and bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes. Cool on a rack for 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees F.

       Spread the prepared cheese mixture over the bottom of the pastry. Use a small offset spatula or the back of a spoon to level the cheese mixture.
    

       Arrange the tomato and zucchini slices in a pattern on top of the cheese filling. If you have a large heirloom tomato slice, that might go in the middle, surrounded by zucchini slices. I did a circle of small tomato slices, with zucchini slices in the middle. Sprinkle with ground black pepper, optional.

       Bake the tart at 350 degrees F. for 10 minutes. While the tart is baking, stir together 1 tablespoon of the olive oil, the breadcrumbs, and the pine nuts.

       Remove the tart from the oven after 10 minutes. Use a pastry brush to brush remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil over the pastry, the vegetables and filling. Use the breadcrumb mixture to fill in any spaces not covered by vegetables, plus scatter any leftover over the vegetables. Return tart to the oven and bake another 10 minutes or until the crumbs are a bit crispy and the pine nuts are golden browned.

1     Let tart cool ten minutes on a rack, then unmold by pushing the bottom up. Slide the tart off the pan bottom onto a serving plate and serve, either still warm, or at room temperature, in wedges.

 

Bruschetta

It may be past the height of tomato season where you live, but if you can still find vine ripened tomatoes with true tomato flavor, do try these s. So what are bruschetta? You take slices of bread...baguette is good, a well made hearth bread or sourdough loaf is also great...and you toast them. If you're slicing the bread yourself, slice it fairly thinly to make it easier to bite. About an hour or two before you want to eat these, mix together the tomato mixture to allow the flavors to mingle. Right before you are ready to serve, put the toasted bread slices on a plate or platter, spoon the tomato mixture on top, garnish, if desired, with a small basil leaf and serve right away. Doing the topping part at the last minute ensures that the bread will be crunchy, a nice contrast to the softer  tomatoes.

You get the most delicious appetizer or small plate food...toasty, olive oil enhanced bread topped with a tangy, tantalizing tomato mixture that brings the tastes of summer and harvest home. You might make a few extra. It's hard to stop with just one or two.

Bruschetta for Two

4-6 1/2-inch slices baguette or other flavorful, firm bread
1 medium to large fresh, ripe tomato, preferably heirloom
1 tablespoon best quality olive oil
1 clove garlic or roasted garlic
3-4 leaves fresh basil
salt and pepper to taste

Brush the bread with olive oil. Toast the bread slices to a golden brown color. If possible, use a grill to toast them.

Chop the tomato into very small dice and place in a medium bowl, keeping as much tomato juice as possible with the tomatoes. Add the olive oil, mince the garlic and add, finely chop the basil and add it to the bowl.

Stir the tomato, oil, garlic and basil together. If possible, cover and let sit in the fridge for 2 to 24 hours. 

When you are ready to serve the bruschetta, warm the toasts, place them on the serving platter and top each with about a tablespoon of the tomato mixture, including some of the juices. If you have a few tiny basil leaves you can garnish the bruschetta with them. Add salt and pepper to taste...although you may not need any. Serve at once.

Raspberry Cream Pie with Lemon

 If you have followed this blog for any length of time you know that I like to make special baked goods for Sweetie, my husband. His favorite is pie. A number of years ago I baked a Banana Cream Pie that he really loved. The hardest part is making the pastry cream because it takes a while and you have to stir the whole time.

This week I decided to make a variation of that recipe but to use fresh raspberries, since I still have quite a few. I found a container in the freezer that had about a cup of this lemon filling, so I thawed that out and beat it with a small whisk until it was smooth, then put that in the bottom of the blind-baked pie shell. Instead of bananas, I put a layer of fresh raspberries that had been rinsed and patted dry with paper towels. (photo above)

Next the barely warm pastry cream was poured in (although there was about a cup left due to the use of the lemon cream filling on the bottom) and then I placed, one by one, raspberries around the outer part of the pie for three rows, then two rows in the very center. This left the middle strip plain, but I like that contrast.

Because this pastry cream has gelatin for thickening, the pie rested in the fridge for three hours. Firmed up enough to be cut, all that was left was to glaze the berries on top with a little raspberry jam which I had strained and then heated up. I had wanted to have whipped cream on the side, but ran out of energy since by now it was late in the evening. It was still an amazing dessert!

You can also make this pie without the lemon filling. Just put about a cup of the pastry cream on the bottom, scatter about a cup to a cup and a half berries over in one layer, then put the rest of the pastry cream over the berries and add the decorative rows to the top, plus glaze. It will be easier and still delicious.

Raspberry Cream Pie

1 envelope unflavored gelatin (7 grams)
1/4 cup cold water (60 ml)
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons sugar (130 grams)
1/2 cup all-purpose flour (70 grams)
1/4 teaspoon salt
5 egg yolks
2 1/4 cups full fat milk or 1/2 & 1/2 (I used soy creamer)(562 ml)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon almond liquor

1 cup lemon pie filling
2 pints fresh raspberries, rinsed and patted dry with paper towels
1 9-inch blind baked tart or pie crust, cooled to room temperature (I used 9-inch pie pan and Pillsbury ReadyCrust pre-made pastry dough rounds)
Glaze: 3 tablespoons raspberry jam
whipped cream for garnish, if desired

To make the cream filling:

Soak the gelatin in the 1/4 cup cold water

Put the sugar, flour and salt into a saucepan and stir together with a whisk. Add the yolks and enough milk to make a paste. Whisk in the remainder of the milk.

Place the pan over low heat and, stirring constantly, cook until thick. Remove from the heat and stir in the  gelatin and stir until thoroughly combined and gelatin is dissolved. Pour into a mixing bowl.

Stir in the vanilla and almond liquor. Set the mixing bowl in cold water and stir until the cream mixture is cool.

To make the pie:
Place a layer of lemon pie filling over the bottom of the blind baked tart or pie crust. Scatter 3/4 pint fresh raspberries over the filling. Pour in the cream filling to cover the berries and fill the pie shell. Refrigerate any remaining filling and save for another use.

Smooth the filling with an offset spatula, then put another layer of fresh raspberries over the filling in a nice pattern, using the rest of the berries.

Chill 2 3/4 hours. Heat 3 tablespoons raspberry jam in a small pot or in the microwave in a microwave safe small bowl. Pour into a small bowl through a fine mesh strainer. Use a small pastry brush to glaze the berries with the heated and strained jam. Return to the refrigerator and let the glaze set, about another 15 minutes.

Garnish with whipped cream, if desired.

Serves 8

So Many Raspberries

A friend of mine invited me to pick raspberries from her garden last weekend. We picked for a little over an hour and I ended up with six pints of beautiful ripe red raspberries. They smell heavenly if you love raspberries like I do. The first pint was eaten fresh that day, first in a lunch fruit bowl with peaches and then in a kale and broccoli and Brussel sprout slaw salad for dinner. That left me with five pints  to play with...and then I came down with a summer cold or flu or something and was out of action for a couple of days.

The raspberries weren't getting any better for the wait, so I made a bar cookie with them, a variation of an old favorite recipe that you make in a saucepan. They turned out really well, with a moist, almost cake-like texture and just a hint of almond flavor in the batter, plus the rich flavor and fragrance of raspberries, and the delight of sliced almonds. The sparkling sugar gave the tops a bit of crunch and sweetness. If you prefer, you could give them a glaze of lemon juice and confectioners sugar. Since you bake these in a 9" x 13" pan you get quite a few cookie bars.

Fresh Raspberry Saucepan Fruit Bars

1 cup butter, melted
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon almond extract
¼ cup buttermilk
1 pint fresh raspberries, rinsed and blotted with paper towel, divided
1 tablespoon sliced almonds (optional)

1 tablespoon sparkling sugar (optional)

Melt butter in saucepan. Add sugar and stir to combine. Cool mixture, then add the eggs; beat well. Add sifted dry ingredients, almond extract, and buttermilk and mix well. 

Take 12 - 18 of the berries and reserve. Stir rest of fruit into the batter, gently. Spread batter in greased 9” x 13” pan, making top as level as possible. Fruit may break up a bit when you spread the batter...that's O.K. Distribute the reserved raspberries over the top of the batter. Scatter almonds and sugar evenly over batter, if using.

Bake in a 350 degree F. oven for 25 minutes or until tester inserted in center comes out with a few moist crumbs. Cool in pan. Cut into 2” x 1” bars or into squares. If desired, omit the sparkling sugar. When the bars are cool, drizzle with a glaze made from 1/4 cup confectioner's sugar and as much fresh lemon juice as needed to make a drippy glaze. Let glaze harden before serving.

Dill Pickles

I'm not a big fan of dill in general, but I do love dill pickles. Go figure.

This year I planted some cucumber seeds and found that the cukes were perfect for making pickles. They are between three and five inches long and about an inch and a half in girth. Their skin is thin but bumpy. I'd planted enough so that we were getting a couple or three cucumbers a day during the spells when it wasn't blazing hot, then it would ease off a bit while very hot, then more would set when it cooled a bit. What that meant was that I didn't want to can pickles because the whole thing with a boiling water bath, etc. doesn't make sense for one jar of pickle.

Refrigerator pickles, on the other hand, work well. I searched recipes and finally figured out one that worked for me. Most had white vinegar and some mustard or mustard seed, but I wanted to use apple cider vinegar and skip the mustard.

My final recipe is below. It made enough brine for a quart jar full of raw pickle quarters, plus dill weed and a few peppercorns. After a week in the fridge I tried one and was delighted that it was a true dill pickle spear; sour and crunchy and fully dill flavored. That it was also easy meant that I was able to do it a couple more times when we have an abundance of cukes. These pickles are only meant to last about three months or less. My first batch, which I finished today, lasted about three weeks!

Dill Pickle Spears

Fresh pickling cucumbers, washed under cold water and drained
fresh dill
a few black peppercorns, whole
brine

For the brine:
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup water
1 tablespoon sea salt
1 teaspoon granulated sugar 

Trim the ends off the cucumbers and cut into spears by cutting in half lengthwise, then cutting each half in half lengthwise.

In a clean quart jar place the quartered cucumbers, standing on a cut end, packing them in tight. I used three fairly long cucumbers. Push pieces of the fresh dill down among the quarters and add a few black whole peppercorns to the jar. They will end up at the bottom. That's OK.

In a small pot bring the apple cider vinegar, water, sea salt and sugar to a boil and stir until mixture is boiling and the salt and sugar are dissolved. Pour over the cucumbers in the jar. If liquid doesn't come up to cover the tops of the cucumbers, add enough boiling water to do so.

Let mixture cool. Tap the jar lightly on the counter to dislodge any air bubbles. Once almost room temperature, Seal jar with a tight lid and put into the refrigerator. Every day shake the jar. Keep in the fridge for six or seven days, then open the jar and taste to see if it's pickled enough for you. Jar can be kept in the fridge, tightly closed, for up to three months.

Peach Season Coffee Cake

 I love peaches! There is something about the juicy, tangy fruit and just says 'summer' to me. Right now we are getting some lovely peaches at the farm stand that also sells strawberries. I decided to make a coffee cake using some, plus some blueberries. I looked at a number of recipes online but couldn't find what I wanted...a single layer cake made with self-rising flour and moistened with buttermilk. I decided to make my own recipe and hope that I got the proportions right.

It turned our really well, with a tender, moist cake that had a slight buttermilk tang, soft and sweet peaches and blueberries, and an oatmeal based streusel flavored with a bit of nutmeg that brought it together as a coffee cake. Hope you enjoy my recipe.  Give it a try and you'll see that it's fairly simple and very delicious.

Elle's Peach Blueberry Coffee Cake with Streusel

For the cake:

1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs, at room temperature
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1 3/4 cups self-rising flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
1 cup buttermilk, at room temperature
1 very large or two smaller peaches, peeled, pitted, and sliced into  16 or 18 slices
1 cup fresh blueberries, rinsed and dried with paper towels

Prepare a 9-inch cake pan with at least 2" tall sides, or a 9-inch springform pan by spraying with baking spray. Put a 9-inch round of parchment paper in the bottom and spray the bottom. Set aside. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. after centering a rack in the oven

In a large bowl, beat the butter until fluffy, about 1 minute. Add the brown sugar and beat another minute. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating until incorporated, being sure the scrape bowl and beaters after each is incorporated. Add the vanilla and almond extract and beat another few seconds to incorporate.

Add the flour, baking soda and the pinch of salt and beat on low speed for about 20 seconds, just to get some of the flour incorporated, but there will still be lots of flour not mixed in. With mixer running on low, slowly add the buttermilk and then beat 2 minutes until batter is fully mixed and thick. Scrape bowl and beaters, then mix a few more seconds just to fully mix.

Scrape half the batter into the prepared pan and use a spatula to make the batter as even as you can. Evenly sprinkle the blueberries over the batter. Scrape the rest of the batter into the pan and spread it over the blueberries. Take the peaches and place them around the cake, pressing the sharper edge into the batter. The center probably won't have any peaches. Bake for 15 minutes. The peaches will sink a bit into the batter, but that's OK.

While the cake is beginning to bake, prepare the Streusel:

For the streusel:

3/4 cup oatmeal
1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
pinch of salt
1/2 cup cold butter (I used right out of the fridge)

In a medium bowl combine the first 5 (five) ingredients. Cut the butter into small pieces and add to the bowl. Use your clean fingers to rub the butter into the dry ingredients. When you are done the mixture will be fairly cohesive with some dry bits.

After the cake has baked for 15 minutes, removed from the oven. Place on a baking sheet and, using your clean hands, sprinkle the streusel mixture evenly over the top of the cake. Return the cake on the baking sheet to the oven and bake another 20 -25 minutes. Test for doneness by pressing lightly in the middle of the cake. If it feels at all soft or jiggly, bake longer. If it springs back against your pressure, it's done. Top should be golden brown. Cake might be pulling slightly away from the sides of the pan when baked.

Take the cake off the baking sheet and put the cake pan on a wire rack. Cool for 10 minutes. Run a knife around the sides of the pan, then invert the cake onto a plate. Remove the pan and parchment circle from the bottom of the cake. Put your serving plate, good side down, over the cake and grasp the serving plate and the wire rack. Turn the cake right side up onto the serving plate. Remove the wire rack and extra plate.  Let cake cool completely before serving.

Three Kinds Of Cookies and a Peach Dessert

 

Last week I was part of Team Tea this week as a group of friends put on a tea party for 36. Part of what I volunteered to do was to bake some cookies, so I baked a bar cookie, a cookie press cookie, and a rolled-out cookie that I turned into a sandwich cookie. These are listed by difficulty, too. The easiest is the bar cookie, Butterscotch-Chocolate Chip Cookies, a delicious, somewhat dense cookie that you mix up in a pot. It uses melted butter, so there is no need to bring butter to room temperature before starting to make them. This means that you can have cookies much faster than you think! They also have a mild butterscotch flavor and lots of chocolate chips. I like mine with walnuts, but you can use your favorite nut...or skip nuts. In the photo below, the tan bar cookies are the Butterscotch-Chocolate Chip Cookies.

The next most difficult is the cookie press cookie, Spritz Cookies (the pink ones in the photo at the top and the pink ones and flower shaped ones with yellow centers in the photo above). Usually this is an easy cookie, but this might have been difficult for me because my cookie press is ancient and might not be working as well as it might. I had no trouble pressing the dough out of the cylinder, through the decorative plate, but some of the cookies didn't break off onto the baking sheet, so I had to cut them away from the press. When they worked, they made really pretty cookies! I tried them as the recipe was written, but then added some flour to the dough and that seemed to work better. Chilling the dough seemed to work even better. By then it felt like PlayDoh but I still had some trouble with making the cookies. The good news is that these are tender butter cookies, flavored with both vanilla and almond extracts, so it you stick with it you will have delicious cookies that also like decorative. You can color the dough, too, to make them even more decorative, and don't forget that if you used colored sugar or jimmies that they are even more colorful.

The final cookie was the rolled out one, Fancy Tea Cookies (the fluted ones in the photo at the top). I ended up rolling them out on waxed paper because they stuck when I rolled them out on a floured board. These are delicate cookies that become crisp on the edges. They are flavored with nutmeg and make good sandwich cookies, but are also fine as singles. Chill the dough, work with smallish quantities of dough at a time and flour your cookie cutters.

I made round and heart shaped sandwich cookies, so cut out two pieces of dough for each sandwich cookie. One of those pieces stayed whole and the other had a hole punched out before baking...I used a large icing piping tube...and after they were baked and cooled I used marmalade as a filling and sandwiched a cut out one over a whole one, bottoms together. For decoration I sifted powdered sugar over them. I skipped any buttercream (which is did use the first time I made these), but that tastes wonderful, too.

The Butterscotch cookies makes the most as far as quantity, but the other two are so delicious and pretty that as many as you get will be very appreciated by your family and friends. The Spritz count depends on what disc you use to press the cookies and for the Fancy Tea Cookies the count varies according to the size and shape of the cutter you use.

Since I ran out of time to make more than a dozen or so of the Fancy Tea Cookies, I had left over cookie dough. I decided a couple of days later to make a two person sized dessert for myself and Sweetie. I took about a 1/4 cup of the dough and made a base in a 6-inch diameter springform pan. I made sure to bring the cookie dough up the sides by at least a 1/2 inch, then baked the cookie at 350 degrees F for about 10 minutes. The dough puffed up, but once I removed it from the oven, I flattened the center with a fork and only left the sides puffed up.

For the filling I beat one egg until most of the white had combined with the yolk, added a tablespoon of granulated sugar, a few drops of almond extract, 1/4 cup of soy creamer (or you could use half and half), and a good sized peach which I had peeled, pitted, and cut into 1/2-inch chunks. I mixed all of these together and poured them into the greased springform pan. The mixture came up to just below the top of the pan. I placed the pan on a small sheet pan and baked it for 25 minutes, checked it and continued to bake a bit more until the center was cooked but still a tiny bit jiggly. The filling was just beginning to brown around the edges.

After letting the dessert cool to room temperature, I ran a knife around the sides of the pan, then released the sides. Once cut in half and plated, I added a whoosh of whipped cream and served it. I really enjoyed the combination of cookie crust with it's strong nutmeg element and sweet, juicy peach custard filling. If I did it again, I would probably bake the crust longer so that it was crisper, but otherwise wouldn't change a thing

BBQ Fun and a Shady Summer House

 I have a friend who is a wonderful artist. As a matter of fact, she introduced me to a watercolor class for seniors a number of years ago where I learned skills that I still use in my paintings.

She recently lost her husband to a long illness and so Sweetie and I went over a few nights ago and had a BBQ with her. Part of the fun was having Sweetie show her the way that he barbeques steelhead fish. She is getting reacquainted with using a gas grill.

Friends of her husband have also recently helped her revive a beautiful lath summer house, putting in a new floor and making sure that the structure is sound. Now that it is in good shape, she has moved in some lawn furniture, including a table and chairs, so we ate our BBQ there, with shade from the ivy and a light breeze chasing the heat away.

No actual recipe, but I'm going to describe Sweetie's way with grilling fish.

To begin with, he lays the fillets on a tray and coats them lightly with olive oil, then a light dusting of ground pepper. He prefers the tail end since it is often a more even thickness than the head end. That makes grilling easier so that the thick part isn't undercooked when the thinner part is cooked. He likes steelhead, a kind of red trout that tastes like salmon (I think), better than salmon. Use whatever fish fillets you like, but get them with skin still on.

You can season the skin-on fillets however you please. I'm trying to cut back on sodium a bit, so we're skipping the garlic salt, but that used to be a standard, along with the pepper.

Preheat your grill. You want it to be medium-hot. I believe that with the gas grill Sweetie likes to get the gauge to 400.

Because the skin is oiled, you don't need to oil the grill grids. Place the fish on the preheated grill grids, close the cover, and cook until the fish is just beginning to firm up...you can push down on thickest part with a finger to see how solid it feels. A very solid fish is a very cooked fish. We like our fish still a bit less than solid...sort of like medium-rare steak. Don't turn the fillet over. Once it's cooked to your liking, slide a spatula under, loosening any skin that may have adhered to the grill grids, and then use the spatula to transfer it to either a serving plate or the actual dinner plate. Garnish with lemon if desired.

Because Sweetie usually get a good sized tail piece for the two of us to share (about 3/4 to a pound), he cuts it in half along indentation left by the backbone, so we each get a long, skinny piece. When you do that, you can see at the cut edge if it's cooked as much as you like, or needs to spend another minute or two on the grill.

That's it, except for cleaning the grill grids. Sweetie like to use a wire brush to scrape them down while they are still hot. 

We had fresh corn on the cob and a colorful, delicious salad to go with the steelhead.

Here are some photos of my friend's lath summer house and it gives  you a good idea of how pleasant it was to share a meal there.