Onion and bacon pie

Between all of these travel and gardening posts, I haven't forgotten that I'm pretending to write a food blog. So I thought posting a recipe every once in a while would be a great idea? This is nothing revolutionary or even fancy, but it is delicious, easy and quick. Perfect for a potluck, BBQ table or nibble on the side as well as for a lunch or dinner on it's own or with a fresh salad. The ingredients are all staple basics (yes, of course bacon is considered a basic food item which should always be around, if not in the fridge, at least a few leftover slices in the freezer).

I might have posted something similar in the past, I can't remember. I was inspired by this post on  I Heart Baking, but it only had a link to a recipe, not the recipe itself. And the link led to a site that was behind a paywall, so I decided I can make up my own recipe thank you very much.

Onion and bacon pie (serves 6-8):
2 tbsp olive oil
4 thick slices of smoked bacon
4-5 large onions
2/3 cup double cream
2/3 cup milk
3 eggs
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp whole-grain mustard
1 tsp garlic paste
black pepper
75 g cheddar, finely grated
1 shortcrust pastry (I made the most amazing shortcrust pastry the other day, recipe will follow)

The howto:
Chop the bacon, and cook until done over medium heat in one tbsp olive oil. Remove bacon from the pan. Finely slice the onions. Cook over medium heat in one tbsp olive oil until soft. I like to leave in all that wonderful bacon fat in the pan when cooking the onions for extra flavour. If you are patient enough, caramelise the onions slowly. Remove onions from the pan when cooked.

Preheat oven to 225 degrees C. In a large bowl, mix the cream, milk, eggs and spices. Add about half of the cheese, the bacon and the onions and mix. Line a pie tin with the shortcrust pastry (I use a silicon pie mould, so I don't butter it, but if you use another type of tin, it might be worth buttering it to ensure you will be able to remove the pie when done). Pour the filling into the pie mould and sprinkle remaining cheese on top. Bake for about 45-50 minutes, until the pie is golden and bubbling and not too wobbly in the middle.

The verdict:
Onions. And bacon. Do I need to say more? This type of pie usually disappears so quickly from the fridge that if I didn't have the pictures to prove it, I wouldn't have believed it existed in the first place.

White cabbage pie

I meant to publish this yesterday to keep with my blogging schedule, but I had my favourite Sister visiting for the weekend, so I was busy. We had a lovely time celebrating the fact that she finished her final exams for med school last week. We had dinner at the Oak Bistro, which in my opinion is one of the better restaurants in Cambridge, and I also cooked some stuff at home, including a lovely rhubarb and strawberry crumble. We went for a long run, or more correctly Sis did the running and I went along for a bikeride, the only way for me to keep up with her! So when I fell into bed last night blogging was the furthest thing from my mind and I just fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

Today's recipe is another dish I made for our vegetarian week last week. The recipe is based on a recipe from the Finnish baking blog Kinuskikissa, although I have made some modifications to it. It is called Georgian cabbage pie, and I have had similar dishes before back home in Finland which consist of cabbage in a tomato puree sauce with gherkins and they have been called Georgian too. And this is Georgia as in the country, not the US state. I have no idea whether this is just a dish that exists in Finland and has for some reason been christened "Georgian" or whether it actually has some Georgian origin. Be it this way or that, it's really delicious, and cabbage is super cheap as well so this is a great dish to make. 

White cabbage pie (serves 6-8):
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 head of white cabbage
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
300 ml sour cream
2 eggs
2 tsp mustard
1 tbsp cider vinegar
3 tbsp tomato puree
1/2-1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp smoked paprika
1/2 cup chopped gherkins
black pepper (and salt if desired)
100 g mature cheddar
1 shortcrust pastry (I used store bought as I was feeling lazy)

The howto:
Finely chop the onion, garlic and cabbage. In a large saucepan, heat the olive oil and cook the onion for a few minutes. Add the garlic and cabbage, and let cook for a few minutes while stirring. Add about a cup of water and put a lid on the saucepan. Let cook, and stir a bit every few minutes, until cabbage starts to soften, about 10 minutes. 

Preheat oven to 200 degrees C. Line a deep pie tin with the pastry. Mix all the remaining ingredients apart from the cheddar. When the cabbage is done, let cool for a while (about 10-15 minutes), drain and mix with the rest of the filling. Pour onto the pastry. Top with grated cheese. Bake for 40 minutes until the filling has set and the top is golden. 

The verdict:
I know a combination of white cabbage and gherkins sounds really weird, but it actually tastes great. It also works really well as a stew, but here I have encased it all in crumbly shortcrust pastry and topped it with sinful amounts of cheese to make it seem less healthy to the other half of the household who didn't think vegetarian week was the best idea ever. The pie freezes really well, and was great for lunch at work.

Chicken and leek pie

I seem to be completely out of sync with my blogging schedule. I realise I didn't publish a single food blog post over the weekend! But it all got a bit crazy with a surprise visitor. Well, he wasn't so much of a surprise to the Culinary Consultant, just to me. Can you say communication breakdown? So it all ended with me running around like crazy trying to clean the whole house (which usually takes at least three hours) in less than an hour and a half. To his defence, the Culinary Consultant did chip in when I started to run up and down the stairs with a mop in my hand a completely panicked face. 

Any left over time I had in the weekend was spent crafting. I had a few cards I wanted to finish. Funnily enough, I seem to manage at least from time to time to photograph my cards in daylight, whereas I never manage that feat with my food. I always seem to eat when it's dark. But spring is coming, along with the slim chance that I manage to photograph some food in actual daylight! 

Today's recipe is just a simple an humble chicken and leek pie. I love pies. And I love to get the corner pieces with loads of pastry. Who wouldn't love flaky pastry? And the creamy hot filling oozing out when you cut the pie. I get hungry just looking at the picture!

Chicken and leek pie (serves 4-5):
3 tbsp olive oil
600 g mushrooms
1 leek
500 g chicken (I used thigh fillets as that was what I had in the freezer)
300 ml (1 1/4 cup) single cream
1 egg
150 g cheddar, grated
1-2 tsp mild curry powder
1-2 tsp tandoori curry powder
1 tsp chilli flakes
1 tsp ground pepper
a pinch of salt 
1/2 tsp pilau rice seasoning

1 pack of puff pastry, egg for brushing

The howto:
Start by preparing the mushrooms, leek and chicken. Peel the mushrooms (if you wish, I always peel mushrooms, although the Culinary Consultant thinks I'm crazy) and thinly slice them. Cut the leek in half and wash thoroughly before chopping. Dice the chicken into bite-sized pieces. Heat a tablespoon of oil in a large frying pan, and fry the mushrooms in two batches and set aside in a large bowl. Add another tablespoon of oil to the pan, and cook the leak briefly, I like it to still be green and a bit crunchy instead of limp and pale. Add to the bowl with the mushrooms. Add the last tablespoon of oil into the pan and cook the chicken until cooked through. While the chicken is cooking, preheat the oven to 200 degrees C. Add the chicken in with the mushrooms and leeks. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix. Line a pie tin with puff pastry, and add the filling. Add the pastry lid on top, and seal the puff pastry with a fork or by pinching the pastry base and top. Brush with egg and bake for 45 minutes, until the pastry is golden brown. 

The verdict:
I like the slight twist in seasoning to this otherwise very traditional pie. There is just something very comforting with a good pie. I also love how the leek brightens everything up with that bright green colour and gives you an excuse to pretend there is actually something healthy in there as well. Oh, who am I kidding. But like I said, the point of making a pie in a square instead of a round tin is that you have the corner pieces which have more pastry than you would get in a round tin. 

Quick and easy one bowl rhubarb pie

Wow it has been a hot day today. Just sitting still in the office made me sweat. So you can only imagine the puddle of sweat I left behind when biking home from work in this very nontraditional tropical climate we are experiencing. By the time I had dried myself off after the shower I was sweaty again. Isn't this a lovely and appetising start for a food blog! Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, it's finally summer! I hope this weather is here to stay to make up for the lousy start of the summer. Luckily the bachelor pad is actually not too bad, and it hasn't been nearly as hot as my little shoebox of an apartment used to be during hot days. I can remember the few hot days we had last summer, I was actually sleeping under a wet towel, it was the only way to cool off enough to be able to go to sleep.

Today I had dinner at a colleagues house. I wanted to make something for dessert, but with this heatwave going on, I couldn't imagine doing anything too complicated. Then I remembered this recipe from many years ago. I used to have a Winnie the Pooh folder with my favourite recipes before I moved abroad. That folder was stored at my Mum's house for years, until last Christmas I got rid of almost all of my possessions, with the rationale that if I haven't missed them during the three years I have been away, I won't need them anymore. This folder was among the things to go. But not before I had typed down some of my favourite recipes, and this definitely is one of my most used recipes, although I haven't made it in years. First of all, it's really delicious. And second of all, it's so easy to make, you only need one bowl and something to mix with. It's super quick, you will only need a few minutes to get it in the oven. Chopping the rhubarb is the most time consuming part of the entire process. 

I guess re-discovering this recipe is a good reminder that going after that next new thing isn't always the best solution, sometimes there are valuable things to hold on to in our past. Everyday things which seem so ordinary you don't alway pay attention to them. Now that this recipe is back in my mind, I will certainly use it more often. 

I'm sorry that the quantities are in volume and not in weight. I have added weights using approximate conversions, but I have always used the volumetric measures when preparing this recipe. And I am probably getting so much stick for what I'm about to say, but I don't think it's really that strict, I have made this many times without measuring, just tossing in the ingredients, and it turns out good every time.

One bowl rhubarb pie:

200 ml sugar (170 g, approx 3/4 cups plus two tablespoons)

400 ml flour (260 g, approx 1 3/4 cups)

150 g butter

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla sugar

2 tsp baking powder

250 ml (1 cup) milk

3 stems of rhubarb

The howto:

Preheat oven to 225 degrees C (425 degrees F, gas mark 7). Chop the rhubarb. Using your fingers, mix butter, flour and sugar until resembling the consistency of coarse sand. Remove about 100 ml (a heaped 1/3 cup) of the mixture to another bowl (this will be the crumble on top). Add the rest of the ingredients to the remaining butter-sugar-flour mixture and mix quickly. The batter will be very runny and doesn't have to be completely smooth. Pour into a pie tin (not one with a loose bottom though, as the batter is runny. No, don't look at me like that, of course I don't know this from experience...), add the rhubarb on top and sprinkle with the crumble. Bake for about 25 minutes.

The verdict:

Quick, easy, almost no washing up, and utterly delicious. Eat as is, or add custard, whipped cream or ice cream. Mix it up and replace rhubarb with pretty much anything, such as blueberries, strawberries or fruit. What more is there to say.

Card of the day:

I had such a blast making these cards!  I love bags and I love shoes. And obviously crafting. So it was great to be able to combine all three. Also,  I got to use my Tim Holtz distress markers for colouring. I like to stamp and then heat emboss with clear ultra fine embossing powder before colouring. The background stamp is Hero Arts and the shoes, bags and sentiments are from a set I bought off ebay and doesn't have any indication of what make it is. The papers are all from Dovecraft Back to Basics III set, and the cards are Kraft cardstock.

Lemon and buttermilk bars

Guess what I just did? For the first time in weeks, maybe even months, I sat down and made a proper shopping list for our weekly grocery shopping trip tomorrow. Back in the day when I was eating healthily, I only went to the grocery store once a week. I planned the meals for every day of the weak and on Friday evening after work I headed off to tick off all those things on my shopping list. And then carried a huge backpack and two bags full of food the whole 40 minute walk home. That experience has made me appreciate having a personal chauffeur and grocery carrier with me on my shopping trips these days. Makes things much easier. Said person also wants to pick out the biggest chicken to roast, and the biggest carrots and parsnips to go with the roast. Guys are so funny sometimes.

But more importantly, creating a shopping list means life is starting to get back into the routines I love so much. I know I'm a really boring person, but I need stability in my life. And even though all the changes in my life have been really positive, I have noticed I have been incredibly stressed about it all. But now life slowly seems to settle down. The biggest things that have made me nervous are all behind. The new job is not a complete disaster. I'm still adapting and learning so much new things each day, and it's tough, but for the most part I enjoy it very much. And the whole thing with the new house has again moved a nudge in the right direction. I'm starting to adapt to living in a mancave, and have learned to accept that there is no way I will be able to clean this house to the standard I would like. But living here will only be temporary. Trying to find a way around and between all the boxes is getting more tolerable as there is almost an end in sight. Walking home from work the other day I was suddenly feeling incredibly calm and happy, something I can't remember feeling for such a long time. About six months ago, before there was a new job or house in sight, I remember thinking I really wish the next phase in my life would be something I could entitle "the calm years" in my hypothetical autobiography. And I realise saying it will probably mean there will be a major disaster looming somewhere around the corner, but for now I feel like life is good. And I think I will finally be able to make a little bit of time for cooking and blogging again. 

So, on a Friday night, what do you do when you have a craving for something sweet, half a cup of buttermilk in the fridge and two lemons? Google "lemon buttermilk" of course. And after sifting through the hits, you will end up with the perfect recipe, requiring only ingredients you have at home avoiding the tedious business of having to actually put your shoes on and walk all the way across the street to the grocery store (I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts, as there will be no grocery shop in sight once we move). Anyhows, even better if the whole recipe can be made using only one bowl and an electric mixer. The recipe is from Williams-Sonoma and I have modified it only slightly.

Lemon and buttermilk bars (serves 8):
85g unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup (60 ml) plus 2/3 cup (160 ml) granulated sugar
2/3 (160 ml) cup plus 3 Tbs. all-purpose flour
1/8 tsp. salt
2 eggs
finely grated zest from two lemons
1/3 cup (80 ml) fresh lemon juice (I used two lemons worth)
1/2 cup (120ml) buttermilk
Icing sugar for dusting

The howto:
Preheat oven to 180 degrees C/350 degrees F/gas mark 4. Using an electric mixer whip butter and 1/4 cup sugar until light and fluffy. Add the flour and salt, and mix on low speed. Press onto the bottom of a buttered pan (8 in (20 cm) square, I didn't have one so I used a 20 cm round one, and ended up with a little bit of filling left over). Bake the crust for 15-18 minutes.

While the crust is baking, prepare the filling. Grate the lemons and squeeze the juice out of them. Using the electric mixer, whip together the eggs and 2/3 cups of sugar. Add zest, lemon juice, buttermilk and mix until smooth. Pour onto the crust and bake for 25-30 minutes, until the filling has set. Let cool, dust with icing sugar and cut into squares of sections.

The verdict:
I haven't been baking very much lately, not only because most of my kitchen stuff is packed away in boxes and the bachelor pad kitchen lacks the most basic kitchen necessities, but also because the bachelor pad oven is a nightmare. I just can't bake anything in it without burning it. It's an oven which has a mind of it's own, and I'm pretty sure the inside temperature doesn't correlate in any way with what it says on the dial. Last week I baked a rather disastrous rhubarb and strawberry cake (but it turned out super delicious. I used this recipe here but added strawberries, and you can see the picture here). The cake was burned on the top (i.e. the bottom of the cake) and not baked all the way through. It was eaten nonetheless, and it was delicious and moist, but not presentable in any way. This time I decided I won't take any chances, so after the cake had been baking for the time stated in the recipe, but the filling was still jiggly, I covered it with foil to avoid it from getting too dark. I assume using a regular oven keeping to the right temperature, you won't need to extend the baking time. But the main point is, finally I managed to bake something without burning it in the oven from hell!

I absolutely loved this tart. Or bars if you prefer to call them that. It's like a lemon meringue pie without the meringue so it's much quicker and easier to make. It's very sweet though, so this is only for the true carboholics. The flavour of the lemon comes through very nicely, and the crust caramelises around the edges of the pie tin. I absolutely love that all you need is one bowl and an electric mixer, the dough for the crust will come out of the bowl cleanly, so you can just continue making the filling in the same bowl. Minimum dishes, minimum time needed in the kitchen and maximum yummy flavour.

Clean out your closets veg pie

I read a blog post somewhere a while ago how people tend to stock up on food, and end up with tens if not hundreds of pounds worth of unused food in their house. And in the worst case, you end up stocking so much that the food goes bad before you have a chance (i.e. get organised enough) to eat it. This is one thing me and my significant other disagree very strongly on. He thinks a lot of food is still good to eat past it's due date. I think you should use up food before the due date, not necessarily because it would be dangerous to eat after that (just use your eyes and nose, that will guide you right) but because food loses it's flavour and nutritional value so you should use it up as soon as possible. 

I have a really bad habit of hoarding food. I have no idea where this need comes from, it's not like I ever had to go hungry in my life. And I live less than a five minute walk from not one, not two, but five grocery stores and several restaurants, both fast and slow food. Because my kitchen is tiny, my hoarding instinct leads to bad storage problems. So I have decided I really need to decrease the amount of stored food I have hanging around. For some crazy reason I have even ended up with two gigantic containers of baking powder. No idea how I will be able to use them all up before they are out of date. What I really should do is go through all my stashes of food and make a list of what I have. But at least I'll start by trying to use up some things from my fridge which need using up really badly. Like spinach, asparagus and a large amount of tomatoes. Some leftover sundried tomatoes. A pack of feta cheese that has been hanging around for so long I started to consider it a permanent fixture. I even decided to use gluten free flour in the crust because in some crazy fit I bought some, but obviously have never gotten around to use them. Obviously regular flour would also work.

I always feel so guilty if I have to throw away food because it has gone bad. I used to be so good and plan all my meals and only shop what I needed. Lately I have been so busy (i.e. lazy) that I have eaten crap and any healthy food I have had lying around has gone bad. That will have to change. So I will set myself a challenge for the month of May. I am not allowed to buy anything from the grocery store apart from fruit, veg and lean meat. And try to use at least one or two ingredients from my pantry every time I cook. I had a good start the other day. I had a craving for cookies, so I used my newly found amazing oat cookie recipe and added some orange peel and candied ginger from my stash. Good for using up food, bad for trying to eat healthily. Especially since I ended up having four cookies that day. And another four the next. 

I was in a bit of a bad mental state while cooking this, so I just mixed together some ingredients to make the crust. Therefore I don't have any measures, as I didn't use any. I just went by feel, until I got something that resembled a homogenous dough. You could either do the same and just go by feel, or alternatively use a pie crust you like. Or try my quinoa pie crust if you are looking for something a bit different and lower carb.

Leftover vegetarian pie:
For the base:
2 grated carrots
2 tbsp greek yoghurt
gluten free flour (maybe around 3/4 cup?)
oats (maybe around 1 cup?)

Filling:
2 cups spinach
8-10 stalks asparagus
10-15 cherry tomatoes
5-10 sundried tomato halves
200 g feta
200 g mozzarella

2 eggs
2 cloves smoked garlic
3-4 tbsp milk
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 tbsp dried oregano

The howto:
 Preheat oven to 200 degrees C. For the base, mix together all ingredients, adding flour and oats until you have a smooth dough. It's not the type of dough you can roll out using a rolling pin, I just dumped the whole lump of dough in my silicon pie mould, and tapped it out using my hand. Chop the asparagus  an sundried tomatoes roughly, finely chop the smoked garlic. If you can't find smoked garlic (it's amazing stuff, I have found some in both ASDA and Morrison's but haven't seen any in Tesco) you can obviously use regular garlic instead. Add spinach onto the crust, and then add asparagus and both types of tomatoes. Crumble feta on top. Mix together the chopped garlic, milk, eggs and spices. Pour onto the pie. Slice the mozzarella and top the whole pie with mozzarella slices. Bake for about 45 minutes, until the mozzarella has turned golden. 

The verdict:
This pie can easily be adapted to contain any leftover veg you have. I could imagine olives would be great in it, as would courgette or aubergine. Or add some beans if you have a can that need to be used up. Replace mozzarella with any other type of cheese you happen to have lying around. Use whatever flour you have for the crust, maybe something that has been around for a bit too long and won't be perfect for bread anymore. It will still be good for the pie crust.

I liked the flavour combination with the soft flavour of asparagus nicely coming through, but with the tomatoes and the salty feta bringing in a lot of flavour. I also like that the asparagus won't cook too much, but will still have a nice texture. The oregano and garlic go really well with the feta. The mozzarella is definitely a luxury, the pie would work perfectly well without it if you want to make a healthier option. I had an opened pack of mozzarella lying around, and since the crust is all nice and fat free, so I thought what the heck, lets just go for it. I don't think the pie tastes too healthy, and even the Culinary Consultant had some of it, despite the lack of anything animal in it.

Card of the day:
Today's card is a simple thank you card. I embossed the background with a swirly embossing folder, and sponged some Tim Holtz Chipped Sapphire distress ink onto the edges using Ranger Ink blending foam. I stamped a big flower from the Hero Arts Layered Flowers set using black HobbyCraft pigment ink. I used Tim Holtz distress inks to colour the flower using a watercolour brush, and sprayed Perfect Pearl mist onto the flower. I added a blue ribbon, and attached the whole thing on craft cardstock. I rounded all corners by using the corner of a distress ink pad as a template and cut using scissors. It's a small and simple card, but I think it turned out rather nice. Next time I will layer the flower a bit more by cutting the middle out of a second piece of card and attaching it with dimensionals to bring a bit more texture to the card. 

Crumbly strawberry pie

No-one ever pops over unannounced these days. You know, the way they used to do back in 'the old days'. Whenever that was. I can imagine it, a small countryside village, and in the afternoon your neighbour knocks on your door, just to say hi and hear how you are. Well, at least that's how it goes in my imagination. Then of course you invite them in and sit down with a cup of tea, some ginger cookies, scones, tea cakes, jam and clotted cream. Unhurriedly you enjoy the tea and gossip about what has been going on in the village. That just doesn't happen anymore. Obviously most of the time I'm actually glad that doesn't happen, imagine someone coming over to gossip just as you are about to leave for the gym. Or just got back from work and all you want to do is turn on the telly and switch off your brain. As long as I have lived here, I don't think anyone has just knocked on my door unannounced. Well, obviously no-one has knocked on my door as they wouldn't get into the building in the first place. What I meant was no-one has buzzed my door buzzer unannounced. Except from time to time the drunk people leaving the club downstairs at 3am in the morning who find it funny to just press every door buzzer. However, today my door buzzer went off unannounced. I didn't answer as I expected it to be a salesman or TV licence inspector or whatever (just to be clear, I don't have a TV so I don't need a licence!!). Then right after that my phone beeps. 'Is you in?". It wasn't just some random door buzz, it was actually someone I was happy to see. And even more lucky, I had happened to bake these great crumbly strawberry pies right before my surprise visitor appeared. Maybe I should just start baking more often, as it seems to attract surprise visitors!

So the inspiration for the strawberry pies was leftover pie crust from my apple pies I made a while ago (sometimes my blog posts wait for quite a while to get published, don't worry, I haven't stored my pie crust for a month). A strawberry tart recipe on Pinterest has been haunting me for ages, so the leftover pie crust with some leftover strawberries that was my perfect excuse. Given that I already had the crust ready made, my strawberry tart is not exactly like the one in the recipe above, but I thought any strawberry tart or pie would calm my craving a bit. First, I was planning to do a classic tart with custard and fresh berries. But then I remembered how wonderful roasted strawberries taste like, so I thought I would do a baked strawberry tart. I only had enough dough to do the crusts, but I was worried the strawberries would burn without a crust on top as well. So, inspired by another recipe on Pinterest, I decided to put a crumble on top. I mean, who doesn't love a good crumble? Well, at least I do. I love oats, and mixing them with butter and sugar can only make it better. So voila, there it was, my crumble strawberry pie. Funnily enough, when I was doing my grocery order online the other day, it turned out Green&Black vanilla ice cream was on sale. I love Green&Black white chocolate, so I thought I should give the ice cream a try. But of course, only because it happened to be on sale. All these coincidences came together beautifully not only to create a delicious dessert but to top that all up, this was all on the day I had my unexpected surprise visitor.

The pie crust dough I had left over were from my apple pie baking antics the other day, and if you can recall, I actually made two different types of dough. One was a buttermilk and butter crust, whereas the other one had part of the flour replaced with almond flour. There was only a little bit left of the almond one, so I made one crust out of that and the three other using the buttermilk one. As you will see from the pictures below, only one was playing nice...

Crumbly strawberry pie (makes 4 individual sized crumbles):

Almond flour crust (the recipe actually makes enough for at least eight small pies, so you can freeze half for later)

Filling:
200 g strawberries
1 1/2 tbsp light muscovado sugar
1 tbsp cornstarch
1 tbsp poppy seeds
1 tsp vanilla paste
1/2 tsp ground cardamom

Crumble:
3 tbsp (40 g) butter
3 tbsp (26 g) whole wheat flour
3 tbsp (26 g) light muscovado sugar
4 tbsp (26 g) oats 
1/2 tsp ground cardamom

The crusts before baking. The one on the
top right is the almond flour one.

The crusts after baking. Only the almond flour
one kept it's shape, the rest ended up on the 
bottom of the pastry tins. Not sure if it the dough
doesn't like to be in the fridge over night, or if it 
was just from baking them without weighing 
down the pastry.

The howto:
Prepare the crust ahead of time, so that it can rest in the fridge for at least an hour, preferably over night. Preheat the oven to 175 degrees. Roll the crust and put into pie tins, prebake for 10 minutes. If you want to do things correctly, you should line the crust with parchment paper and use baking beans to weigh it down. Obviously, I couldn't be bothered to do that, but I think the crust turned out quite nicely despite me being lazy. Well it did for the almond flour dough, whereas the buttermilk dough just didn't keep it's shape in the tin and melted together to a disc at the bottom of the tin (see picture below).  For the filling, hull the strawberries and cut into slices. Mix with the rest of the ingredients. For the crumble, combine all ingredients, and use a food processor to pulse a few times to form a crumbly mixture. Scoop filling into the pre-baked crusts, top with crumble and bake for another 20-25 minutes. Serve with ice cream or whipped cream.

The verdict:
The amount of vanilla in this recipe is rather generous. For me that worked out perfectly as I love the taste of vanilla and think that if it's the only spice, it should be quite strong. The poppy seeds also bring nice taste and texture to the filling. Baked strawberries just get a great lovely sweet flavour, and the scent coming out of the oven if just amazing. In the summer there is no better way to enjoy strawberries than fresh in a tart, but when it's not prime strawberry season anymore, you get so much more flavour into the strawberries by baking them. And the strong flavour of vanilla is just amazing, with the soft flavour of cardamom to complement the vanilla and strawberries.

I had two types of pastry for the pies, as I wanted to try two different pastries when I was baking my apple pies earlier. One was made with almond flour whereas the other was a buttermilk and all wheat flour pastry. As you can see from the photos, only the almond flour pastry dough behaved nicely, so I recommend you use that one, or some other pastry you know will bake nicely without melting into an unaesthetic mess on the bottom of the pie tin. Not that eating the ugly pies was all too horribly traumatising, they were still good. But the almond flour one made a beautiful pastry which kept the strawberry juices inside the pie. The crumble on top was a nice finishing touch to the pies, and the wholemeal flour and oats nicely complement the soft strawberry filling and vanilla flavour and the crumbly pastry crust. All this served warm, with melting vanilla ice cream on top was quite a treat, and given that my pastry was ready made, very quick to prepare. Fast food to fulfil a sweet tooth craving.

Like warm apple pie

It's fall. There is no denying it, the leaves are turning bright reds and yellows. The air is crisp. The weather feels cold and damp at six am when I'm heading off to bootcamp with Best Friend. Nothing beats the feeling of lying down in the muddy grass doing whatever crazy torture exercise our trainer Mike has come up with that morning. Superman bananas maybe... But as I recall from last year, I shouldn't complain about a bit of humidity and chill. It's getting down in the snow to do press ups that is the real bitch. Ice cold and soaking wet.  And dark. All you can do is hope you won't place your hands down in a place where a dog has gone to meet a call of nature... Hopefully it will be a while before we are in that situation.

Looking at Pinterest, when it comes to recipes, and particularly American recipes (as most pinners seem to be American) fall means two things. Apples and pumpkin. As I don't think pureed pumpkin is available in the UK (I might be wrong, but I haven't seen it anywhere) that excludes more than half of the baking recipes on Pinterest right now. And that's good actually. I have to admit I don't know what pumpkin pie tastes like, I have never had it. In theory I don't think it sounds very appetising, but I might very well be wrong. Anyways, the point is that a huge amount of recipes are totally unusable for me. Which is a good thing really, as I'm suffering from recipe overload. But how about them apples? Oh mine... Apples and fall, yes please! When I was growing up, we had several apple trees in our garden. And the apples were so lovely. In fact, many people I knew back home used to have lots of apple trees in their garden which produce more apples than anyone could use, and people would just try to give away the apples to anyone who would take them off their hands. Oh how I would kill for those apples now that I'm stuck with the store bought ones. 

So right now is the season for apple recipes. Cider apple pie, apple crumble, apple cheese cake, apple bread, apple pie bars, caramel apple pizza... You name it, I'm craving it. Check out this link for a bunch of amazing looking apple desserts.

Above everything else, I'm craving hot apple pie. But being on a diet (well, in theory I'm trying to, but currently failing miserably), baking a whole apple pie makes me feel really guilty. And the other day, there I was, once again browsing the kitchenware section in Tk Maxx, eyeing up all the silicon moulds and cake stands I would buy if I had the money and the storage space. And I saw these darling little tart pans. So I thought a few tiny little apple pies could not hurt anyone. Teeny tiny little packets of yummyness. Flaky crust and warm spicy apple filling. Talk about self deception. After watching the episode of Great British Bakeoff where the contestants had to do a lattice crust, I wanted to try that. I found a good tutorial online for doing the lattice here. Although obviously with the tiny pies, there is not much of a lattice to work out. If you like your pie to have some other decorative details, have a look at this link for further inspiration. To make my ultimate apple pie, I used several recipes for inspiration and ended up with...

'So teeny tiny that they are almost not there' apple pies (makes four single serving pies):
Butter crust with almonds from SimplyRecipes:
1 cup all purpose flour 

1/4 cup almond flour

113g butter cut into cubes

1/2 tsp salt (if using unsalted butter)

1 tsp brown sugar

3-4 tbsp ice water

Confession: I definitely didn't prepare the pastry according to the instructions. If you are less lazy than me, please see the original recipe for a nice and detailed description on the method. What I did was the following: Mix flours, salt, sugar and butter in food processor and pulse. At this point my dough already stuck together in one big lump, and I didn't need to add any water at all. Also, one thing that keeps confusing me is the amount of flour. The recipe I used, says 1 cup flour. Which according to various websites is between 110 and 130 g, probably depending on the flour. However, when I measured the specific cup of flour I used for this dough it was actually 150g. So my dough might have more flour than what was intended. Still, my dough turned out very soft, probably because I used spreadable butter instead of regular butter. I then left my pastry in the fridge over night.

Buttermilk pie crust from Completely Delicious:
1 1/4 cups (157 grams) all-purpose flour
1/2 tbsp sugar 
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, cold and cut into cubes
1/4 cup (60 ml) buttermilk, cold
1-2 tablespoons vodka or water, cold

Please see the link to the original recipe for really good instructions on how to properly prepare the flaky pie crust. This involves using a rolling pin to roll the butter into the dough. I was lazy and just added flour, sugar, salt and butter in the food processor, pulsed a few times, added buttermilk and pulsed a few more times. I didn't need to add any other liquid. Chill in the fridge wrapped in cling film.

Filling:

2 apples
2 tbsp raisins
2 tbsp chopped pistachios

2 tbsp light muscovado sugar

1 tbsp vanilla sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1 tbsp cornstarch

milk for brushing the crust
caster sugar for sprinkling

Prepare the dough for the crust in good time ahead of baking. I left mine in the fridge over night. Prepare the filling. Peel apples, cut into quarters and remove seeds (I used my fancy apple wedge cutter, it's genius). Cut into cubes or slices. Mix the sugars, spices and cornstarch and toss with the apples, raisins and pistachios.

Preheat oven to 175 degrees C. Roll out half of the crust and transfer to the tins, with overhang over the edges. Add filling to the pies. Roll out the other half of the crust to make the top or cut into strips for the lattice. Weave the lattice over each pie, and then fold the excess dough over the ends of the lattice to form a pretty edge for the pies. Brush with milk and sprinkle caster sugar on top. Bake for 20 minutes or until pies are golden. Serve with ice cream or whipped cream.

The verdict:
The truth is, as much as I love baking, my technical skills are absolutely rubbish. I'm pretty sure my pie crusts would get a really bad bashing from Mary and Paul. But to be completely honest it's not like I wouldn't know how to do it, it's just that I'm way too lazy to  do most of the things correctly. If I can prevent having to work a dough with my hands and on the table, I will. Too much mess to clean up. I prefer to mix everything in my food processor. You have probably picked up my love for simple, all-in-one-mixing-bowl recipes. And I know that my shortcuts won't produce perfect pastry as the butter is not incorporated in the proper way to give the pastry the flakiness it's supposed to have. But I'm also not a very fussy pie eater, I'm happy with any crust as long as it tastes nice and doesn't get hard as rock. And both crusts turned out pretty damn good in my book.

Another thing I'm not sure about is the correct fat to use. Some people swear in the name of a mix of butter and shortening. I know I have ranted on about this before, I'm not a big fan of shortening. Vegetable fats are naturally oils, not solids. So why should they be chemically modified to be that way? It's completely unnatural... So it's all butter all the way for me, which will mean the pastry will chemically be different from using a mix. But I'm happy to sacrifice some flakiness for having proper natural ingredients. So I tried two different all butter crusts for my apple pies. Although I have to admit I'm not sure if the spreadable butter is somehow chemically modified compared to proper hard butter, that would explain why the crusts turned out texturally so different. Although part of the difference probably comes from the all wheat versus mix of wheat and almond flour as well. 

To be completely honest, the reason I did two different crusts, is only part to be able to compare crusts. The real, honest to god reason for doing two different crusts, is that when I tried the almond flour one, I realised I only have spreadable butter at home. I thought it would have to do, so I went on with it. However, the dough did turn out to be really soft, and I realised there is no way I could do a lattice crust from that dough. So I had a look around for other possible recipes, and remembered that Completely Delicious had a post on flaky crust which was made with buttermilk. And I'm fascinated with buttermilk at the moment. For me, until a while ago, I always thought buttermilk was the same thing as piimä, which is the Finnish word for fermented cow's milk. After a bit of research on the subject, I learned I'm not completely wrong, as piimä in English is called cultured buttermilk. And the Finnish word for buttermilk is kirnupiimä, so you can see my confusion. And I'm pretty sure you can't buy buttermilk (the regular one) in stores back home, whereas cultured buttermilk is really common and available in any small grocery store. Whereas in the UK, I don't think there is any cultured buttermilk to be had. That's ok though, I never used it back home either, so it's one of those things I don't miss from back home. Anyways, the lack of buttermilk in Finnish grocery stores is the explanation for why I wasn't familiar with it until I moved to the UK. After making buttermilk pancakes for breakfast a while ago, I've been keen to use buttermilk in other things as well. So I was excited to try the Completely Delicious pie crust. And I thought, using the same apple filling for both crusts would give me a perfect opportunity to compare pastries. I don't have a favourite recipe for pie crust, so I'm hoping this experiment would help me find a good one. I have to admit, I often cheat and buy ready made pie crust dough. Back home there are have several types of pastry which are sold frozen. One amazing pastry which goes perfect especially with berry pie is rye flour dough. A really good pastry for savoury pies is a potato and rye pastry. I should actually try to make a rye pastry for a berry pie sometime. Anyways, with these two pastry recipes, which are so ridiculously easy to prepare in the food processor, I will never need to buy ready made pastry again.

Ok, so finally to these particular pies. The buttermilk crust was definitely much easier to work with and easy to roll into a thin crust. The almond crust was tearing really easy, and also really hard to work after being out of the fridge for more than a minute or two, so it was impossible to get a thin crust. The tearing was probably due to less gluten because some of the flour was replaced by almond flour, whereas the softening issue was due to using spreadable butter instead of the proper one. But it turned out to be amazingly crumbly and delicious, so it was definitely worth that extra work. The almond flour also gave the crust nice added flavour. 

The pie filling was wonderful with warm spicy tastes going together perfectly with the apple. I admit adding raisins and pistachios made this a bit less of a traditional apple pie and more of a strudel wannabe, and might be a bit of overkill. But you know how crazy I am about raisins. Actually, for a while now I've been contemplating whether I'm a raisin or a sultana type of person. And despite being a huge raisin fan, I think I like sultanas even more. In this recipe, the raisins add wonderful sweetness to the filling, whereas the pistachios bring that nice little extra crunch. Next time maybe I'll soak them in rum first and make an apple and rum and raisin pie... Actually there was a bit of pastry dough left over, maybe just enough to make one more mini pie, maybe I should get some raisins soaking over night and try that tomorrow. Except whoopsie, I think I ate all my left over raisins while baking. So much for that idea then. 

The summary of a crazy long rant is that the apple pies turned out amazing. Not to mention the scent they left in my tiny excuse for an apartment. All my clothes will now smell of apple pie, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I was convinced the buttermilk crust would be clearly superior to the almond flour one, but to be quite honest, it was really hard to compare them. Or to pick a favourite. The almond flour one was crumblier whereas the buttermilk one was flakier. The buttermilk crust gets points for being much easier to work, but I think the almond flour one was my favourite when it comes to flavour and texture. Too bad I didn't have any ice cream with my apple pies, but I have to admit I had no problems eating them just as they were. Now that my craving for apple pie has been satisfied, I can move on to some other apple delicacy. I'll keep you updated!

Finnish forest berry delights

Ha, I got my iPad battery re-charged at my mum's cousin's place which is only a short 10 minute row from our summer house. So I can keep on writing about my obsession with the fruits of the autumnal Finnish forest. Like I wrote earlier, the forest is currently bursting to the brim with berries and mushrooms. It makes you go totally crazy, you just don't want to leave all those lovely (and free!) berries out there. However there are blueberries and lingonberries in pretty much endless amounts, so at some point you just have to admit defeat and leave some of them out there in the forest. I'm sure all of us at he summer house have had more than our daily dose of all possible vitamins.

Yesterday me and sis headed out, braving the ticks, horseflies and mosquitoes (all of which are way too abundant out there in the forest if I might add) to pick blueberries and lingonberries. This summer has been quite humid which has helped produce an extra good berry yield this year. Blueberry season is already towards it's end, but there is still more than plenty of the purple tiny pearls out there. And these are nothing like the huge water-filled (and watery-tasting) berries you can buy in stores. These are tiny little dark purple berries which are loaded with taste and all sorts of things that are good for you, like vitamins and anti-oxidants. Blueberries are basically superfood, they are so good for you. And I'm sure, baking them in a delicious crust with sugar and butter will just enhance the health benefits!

Lingonberry season is not quite at its peak yet, there is plenty of berries out there but most of them are still a bit white on the underside and they have not quite reached their mouth puckering sourness yet. But I'm only here for a few days, so to cook lingonberry pie, I had to live with the fact that the berries were not quite optimal yet. However, as there were so much berries out there, I tried to pick the ripest and reddest ones, as lingonberries is one of those things you just can't get your hands on in the UK so I rationalised that even slightly under-ripe lingonberries are better than no lingonberries at all.

In my last post I touched on the "limitations" of cookin at the summer house. Not only is there no electricity, everything has to be cooked on wood heated stoves or the barbeque, but also there is (at least for all practical purposes) no oven at all. Well, it's not like this would stop me. First I was thinking of cooking something along the lines of a skillet cookie with berries, I have seen several recipes on Pinterest. But one thing we do have is a fish/meat smoking box. So me and my mum thought if it gets hot enough to cook meat, it would probably get hot enough to cook a pie as well. At least it was worth a try, it's not like berry pie would contain anything that would be dangerous to eat if it didn't cook properly through. The worst case would be a gooey berry mess. So we tried to bake a blueberry pie. Which turned out great. So I cooked a lingonberry-quark pie as well. And a mixed berry pie. I even had a stab at a savoury pie, I made one for my sis and her friends to take along on their four day hike in Northern Finland. It was filled with lamb and ham, tomatoes and carrots and topped with loads of cheese. Even that turned out quite delish looking, at least in my humble opinion. I'm waiting to hear a report back qbout the taste.

The fish smoking contraption. Basically, it's a

box you put on the wood burning stove. It heats

up like a mini oven. If you put smoking chips on the

bottom you get smoked meat or fish.

The savoury pie baked in the smoking box. I used

slices of red pepper to mark the edges of different

fillings so that everyone can get their favourite.

When you do summer house cooking, you are not allowed to use any recipes. Or scales or measuring jugs. It should all be done by instinct, touch and feel. That's part of the charm, you never knowif it will work, not to mention you won't ever be able to replicate any successfull efforts. So there is absolutely no guarantee the recipes below will work. However, if you think you actually want to get things right (thereby taking all the excitement out of cooking) you can always just use your favourite pie crust recipe instead of the one below. And use any berries you happen to have. And if you can't get quark, replace it with creme Fraiche, yoghurt or cream cheese. I'm pretty sure they will all work. If you can't get potato starch, use corn starch. And if you happen not to have a wood burning oven with a box for smoking (how could that be?!?!?), use a regular oven. So basically, the point is you want a crust, berries, possibly some dairy for the filling and some contraption to cook it in. This is what I love about cooking, you can just change things around as you wish, and 8 times out of 10 it will work out rather good, and at least 9 if not 10 times out of 10 it will be edible anyways. Particularly if enjoyed outside while watching the sun set over the lake.

Some sort of berry pie-like thing in a smoking box aka summer house cooking:

For the crust

50ish g butter

1 cup-ish AP flour (or whatever flour you happen to have, I used part whole wheat) + possibly some (1/2 cup-ish) extra flour depending on the consistency of the dough

1/2 cup-ish sugar

1/2 pack vanilla quark (100g)

Filling 1

2 cups-ish berries, freshly picked from your own forest (blueberries and/or raspberries)

2 tbsp potato starch

2 tbsp caster sugar

1 tbsp vanilla sugar

Filling 2

2 cups-ish fresh berries (I would suggest lingonberries as they go really well with the sweetness of the berry flavoured quark)

1 can (200g) berry flavoured quark

1 tbsp potato starch

1 egg

1 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp vanilla sugar

Flavoured Finnish quarks. Top left lemon,

top right white chocolate and lime, bottom

left vanilla, bottom right blueberry-raspberry

The how-to:

Go out in the forest to pick the berries, and clean away dirt and leaves. Chop the wood for your wood burning oven, and light it in good time. Wash your fish-smoking box to get rid of as much of the fish smell as you can. When you have a nice fire going, prepare the crust. Let the butter soften a bit, add flour and sugars and using your fingers, mix until a crumbly consistency. Add the quark, mix and add flour until dough reaches a nice consistency where it is crumbly and easy to spread to the bottom and sides of a pie tin or whatever heat resistant bowl you happen to have. For filling 1, mix the sugars and starch with the berries and spread onto the pie. For filling 2, mix everything with a fork except the berries. Place berries on the crust and add quark topping to evenly cover the berries. Bake in smoking box until done (took about 90-120 mintes for me, depending on how much wood you keep on the fire at all times).

Pie in the smoking box at the start of baking.

The verdict:

It's clear that a fish-smoker is a very versatile cooking device. Not only can you smoke fish, you can cook delicious juicy meats (like the garlic butter marinated lamb my mum made the other day), but you can clearly use it to bake pies as well. Of course the problem is that controlling the temperature of the smoking box can only be done at the level of adding more or less wood onto the fire, so you have to accept that sometimes the pies come out with the crust a bit underdone, and other times it gets a bit well done, and sticks to your pie tin. Maybe our guests are just being very polite, but so far they have eaten every pie without too much complaints, so I think they have turned out acceptable. To be honest, I thought the one I would like the best was the lingonberry-quark one, but in fact it was the simple one with nothing but blueberries. However, it might alsobe because that one turned out to have the perfect level of cooking with the crust being firm and crisp without it being burned at all and coming out of the pie tin in beautiful slices. The lingonberry one got a bit too fond of sticking to the tin. The mixed berry one is going with my sis and her friends on the hike, so no verdict on that one yet.

Next time I'm coming here I'll make sure I have thought of some other, even more challenging things to cook as it turns out that after years of thinking cooking possibilities are rather limited, it turns out that with a bit of experimenting you can actually cook all sorts. Maybe next time I'll try souffles! Naah, just kidding. Ok, now I'm off to the forest to get another bucket full of berries, going to make berry quark for pudding. And there might be another berry recipe still coming up some other day, who knows!

 

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