Pies: Tart and Sweet

Wow. Have I really not posted here since Easter? I knew it had been awhile, and I THINK about posting all the time, but...life gets in the way. Which I guess is how it should be. So much has happened! Noelle has grown into a little girl, no longer a baby. She’s got demands now. She doesn’t sleep in a crib. She’s off to Montessori School next month. She bakes! Well, sort of. I also started a new job in June, Emmett started first grade in September and well, it’s been non-stop changing and growing and fun for the last 6 months (also years). Not enough cooking though. At least not enough new and exciting recipes, but I hope that changes in 2020.

Still, Thanksgiving brought something that I can always get excited about. PIE. I love pie. LOVE IT. As far as I’m concerned, if you cannot get excited about pie - you may not be alive, you may not even be human. Yes. PIE = HUMANITY. I’m prepared to go there.

With this background, you can probably imagine my disappointment when, a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, I made an apple pie using a new pie dough recipe and failed miserably. Despite calling for extra butter the dough was tough and sort of chewy. I was glad that I had the presence of mind to test it before the holidays. Sorry work friends, you poor, poor pie guinea pigs. Next year I will make it right.

By the time Thanksgiving rolled around, I was scarred by the bad crust experience and not in the mood to make another apple pie. I decided to make two pies that I hadn’t made before, using my tried and true crust recipe. You can find that here. Writing this now, I see how this too could have led to disaster - which is why everyone tells you not to use new recipes on guests. Touché.

Most of the family prefers fruit pies. Paul, Paddy and I are all partial to tart flavors like cherry or rhubarb. So, when I was thumbing through the book Sister Pie and came upon a beautiful cranberry crumble pie, I knew would be a hit.

I toyed with the idea of only making one pie and doing something chocolate for the kids, but I couldn’t let go of the fact that Thanksgiving is basically the only time all year when we have pumpkin pie. Goodness knows why. Right? I’m going to set a calendar alert for pumpkin pie in March right now. As usual, I felt torn between my love for the creamy custardy texture of a pumpkin pie and the nutty sweetness of a pecan pie - but to be honest, pumpkin always wins, at least until this year. This year, I came across a beautiful hybrid pumpkin-pecan version in the November issue of Bon Appetit. Smooth, silky pumpkin custard on the bottom with a crunchy salty-sweet pecan topping. Problem solved. Turns out you can have it all!

My pie choices solidified, I was finally able to move on and move past my crust failure. I cheated and used premade crust dough that I had frozen so that the day before Thanksgiving all I had to do was roll it out, blind bake and proceed. I’m making that sound so easy now, but let me just say that trying to roll out pie dough while simultaneously “working-from-home” and doing both of these things with Noelle around, well, I think I’ve come up with the next extreme sport. It felt extreme anyway.

But not as extremely sad as not having homemade pie on Thanksgiving. I was thrilled when the pies came out of the oven and our babysitter, who had just arrived, told me that she was amazed by how they looked and smelled. Pie is a labor of love, but always worth it.

Paul, couldn’t wait to try them. I was only able to hold him off until Thanksgiving morning, when he conspicuously dilly dallied until all of the pancakes were gone before giving me a pleading look and arguing that no one will care if a slice is missing. I gave in and he happily dug into a piece of the cranberry crumble pie, a la mode, nevermind that it was 9:00 am.

My assessment was that the pies were very good. I loved the cranberry with vanilla ice cream and the pumpkin-pecan with a huge dollop of fresh whipped cream. I wouldn’t hesitate to make either one again and maybe even make both of them for Thanksgiving next year.

I actually followed the recipes for both of these, minus crust, links and my notes are below.

Cranberry Crumble Pie from Sister Pie

• My pie crust shrunk a bit during the blind bake, I don’t think I distributed my beans (what I use for pie weights) as well as I should have. In the end, it didn’t matter at all because crumble covers a multitude of sins. Whew.

• I didn’t use all of the crumble and cannot wait to top anything with what remains in my fridge.

Pumpkin Pecan Pie from Bon Appetit

• In the magazine they make a rye crust which I think sounds amazing and would love to try - once I’m up to experimenting with new crust recipes.

Chocolate and Deviled Eggs, an Irish-American Easter

Confession.  My oldest is 6 and I have yet to put together a single Easter basket. There are a lot of reasons for this - other people, like my fabulous babysitter who always comes through, along with the kids’ Aunt, Uncle and Grandpa; my borderline compulsive need to eliminate all of the little plastic items in my house; and, most importantly, the simple fact that I’ve got enough mental load to carry without having to be the Easter bunny too. I call it prioritizing.

Semi-related: Just a little shout out to the parents of the kid at my son’s school who got $20 from the tooth fairy. NO. Just. NO.

I told my little guy that the kid meant 20 CENTS and should really be brushing up on his math more.

Whew. THAT felt good. Now back to Easter.

Giant Chocolate Eggs! On my wish list every single year. I know, I know, I should have posted this earlier, because there probably aren’t any left at the store. Not to worry though, you can get your fix of chocolates from across the pond at Paddy’s on the Square year round.

No Easter Baskets? Am I the worst Momma ever? If so, not for lack of Easter baskets. My kids have yet to complain - which is saying a lot - my son mastered the art of guilting me long, long ago.  I think that I probably have these giant chocolate Cadbury eggs to thank. It seems they are ubiquitous in Ireland and they are delicious, addictive really (I keep telling myself, “I’ll just have a teensy, tiny piece” but you know how that goes). John sells out of them at the store every year no matter how many he orders. It’s proof of his love for his nephew and nieces that he always sets aside a few for us.

Never too young to aggressively hoard candy. Especially when you are the fourth child.

Just because I don’t do Easter baskets, doesn’t mean I don’t do Easter with my little ones. I’d just rather spend the time and energy I have with them, instead of on gifts for them (and if you happen to do both, go you!).  So we made Cool Whip dyed eggs, twice, which only sort-of worked. We had a flashlight Easter egg hunt with the neighbors (shout out to my amazing neighbor-mom-friend who put in 100% of the mental and physical load on that one) and a lovely spring Easter dinner outside exactly one week before (and after!) it snowed here in Chicago.  

Flashlight egg hunt was SO much fun. Also, it’s important to accessorize appropriately.

Our Easter was a small gathering this year but so enjoyable and laid back.  We had Irish bacon and potatoes (duh) plus a few other delicious things - kale salad, sweet potatoes, lemon pie.  Everything was so good that we were sad instead of relieved when the leftovers were finally gone later in the week. My little helpers made deviled eggs with me and were so proud of their contribution to our meal. I was proud too - I know that cooking, like other kinds of art, is naturally appealing to kids, but I just love that all of mine enjoy cooking.  I’m not biased or anything, but they’re good at it too.

These could not be easier, even though there are about a BILLION variations on deviled eggs, I wanted to make the simple, classic ones.  You know, the ones from the church buffet line. We garnished them with a little sprinkle of paprika and some resilient chives that braved the long, cold winter and are still growing like gangbusters in our small garden.  

Classic Deviled Eggs

• 6 large eggs

• 1/4 cup mayonnaise

• 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne

• ½ teaspoon of lemon juice

I don’t think you really need directions but here goes. Hard boil the eggs, or use your Cool Whip dyed eggs from last week. Peel and cut each egg in half,  scoop out the yolks, mix with mayo, mustard, cayenne and a squeeze of lemon. Find an almost-three-year-old to mash the yolks and stir the mixture until smooth. Spoon mixture into egg white halves or, if you want to be fancy, spoon mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a star tip and fill the egg white halves that way (4-year-olds can definitely do this! 2-year-olds can too if your going for the “deconstructed” look). Garnish with chives and paprika, or whatever. Eat with gusto, especially in front of your little assistants. Enjoy the smiles.

Boutique Bake Brown Bread Mix

Hello there! It’s been way too long. I know we’ve been cooking at our house because somehow food keeps appearing on the table at dinner time.  I’m just not quite sure what or how. Sound familiar? Because it is STILL winter here, and I’ve still got napping little ones, I’ve taken to making soup from the weeks leftovers on Sunday afternoons. I’m kind of loving this little ritual.  The relative quiet. Doing something with my hands. Letting my mind wander. Giving my sense of smell, taste and feel something to do other than sit on the sidelines as they do for most of the week. I enjoy it without any of the guilt I associate with sitting on the couch and watching netflix or shopping online or any of the other things (that I also enjoy!) that I could be doing with my Sunday afternoons.

Not that I should feel guilty for any of it, just that, honestly, I do. I blame my Dad (as wonderful and amazing as he is. Hi Dad!).  When I was a kid, my dad would walk in the room and immediately observe his surroundings.  If he saw that you weren’t engaged in something “productive” - reading, homework, cleaning etc. he would blurt out “What are you doing!?!” with urgency and more than a little distress. I would have instant regret at my foolishness for relaxing so openly.  It’s hard to tell whether it nature or nurture - and it’s surely both - but as I grew older, I internalized this sense of “What are you doing!?!” to the point where I say it to myself constantly. Having kids, and no free time has definitely toned down that voice in my head, but it is always there, somewhere. As much as it drives me crazy, I appreciate it too.  For the fact that it drives me. Even if it’s just to make soup.

My Sunday soup ritual does not involve any recipes.  Just throwing leftovers into a pot with stock really. But I have been supplementing the soup with some great  breads and bread mixes from Paddy’s on the Square. Like me, the kids love brown bread and using a mix makes it so easy.  I can make the soup and bake bread all at the same time. And if we don’t eat the soup and bread for dinner, I take the soup with me to work for weekday lunches and we enjoy the bread as toast in the mornings.

A couple of weeks ago, I made this Brown Bread mix from a Company called Boutique Bake.  It was beyond easy to throw together and came with this nice little packet of seed mix to throw on top of the loaf for even more texture and flavor.  We loved this bread. The only downside was how fast this loaf went at our house.

*Serves 12 should be taken with a grain of salt. It took 10 minutes for my clan of 6 to finish this off.

Just add milk…

one egg…

and the crunchy seed topping. Then your work is done. Put it in the oven.

Your only remaining job is to slather it with Irish butter and eat. Now, RELAX. You can do it!