Nashville Pie Crawl

22 Apr

You know your life has turned a corner when upon visiting a new city, you embark on a pie crawl and not a bar crawl like a more youthful and resilient version of yourself might have say, oh, 15 years ago.  My how time has changed me – those rounds of cherry bombs and appletinis have now turned into slices of cherry pies and apple pies.

I haven’t gone anywhere interesting since I started this blog until recently when my husband and I went to Nashville, Tennessee.  The plane had barely dropped its landing gear and I was already formulating my plan of attack to find the best pie in Nashville.  And find Ben Folds.  But the pie would be easier.  By the time we went to bed that first night, I had mapped out the top three pie stops and was eager to experience all Nashville had to offer.

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Pie it Forward: Family Promise

4 Apr

“Sometimes people are layered like that. There’s something totally different underneath than what’s on the surface….Like pie is.”  Joss Whedon

Pie continues to pop up in my life in unexpected ways.  This latest Pie It Forward was no exception – this was a total unplanned, surprise Pie It Forward.

For years, I have been interested in volunteering with a local organization that helps homeless families who are in emergency situations by placing them in temporary housing hosted by a network of local churches and synagogues.  Each time I read about it I plan to call and sign up to help.  But for years, I put off calling.  Because I forgot.  Because my own life distracted me.  Because my kid decided to stop sleeping and I was tired.  Because, to be honest, I was nervous.

Last month I decided enough was enough.  Poor me with my job, my house, my supportive husband and my kids who were fed and put to bed.  Time to drop my selfish excuses and help already.  The church we belong to was housing families and we signed up to be evening hosts.  Our job was to come after dinner and help by playing with the kids, assisting with homework, and really just offer support and compassion by talking and listening.

We walked into the church that first night and my heart was racing with anticipation and nervousness.  In the blink of an eye I had a baby in my arms and was chatting up a storm with M, one of the women.  She was young and had come with her husband and four children ranging from five to two months old (enter the baby I scooped up in a hot minute).  My mind was searching for things to talk about that wouldn’t highlight our obvious differences.  And out it came – “Do you like pie?”  We got to talking about sweet potato pie, holidays and memories of pie.  M had never made a pie of her own, so naturally I decided to organize a major pie making endeavor for our next scheduled night to host.

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How I Learned to Love My Dog

26 Mar

 

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One would think I should be a dog lover seeing as though I have one, but it took me quite some time to learn to love my dog. I had not been able to completely warm up to her until an unexpected experience left us with more in common than I ever could have imagined.

It’s surprising that I am so luke warm about animals. Look, I don’t want to see them hurt, but I also don’t want them in my bed. As a child, I was a PETA advocate in the making. I have so many memories of a young me shedding buckets of tears over all things living. One of my earliest memories is of watching a pet mouse die a slow death from a tumor. I would stare at his cage sobbing until my dad finally put construction paper on the glass to block the view. Then there was the baby bat in the bushes who had a broken wing. I had grand plans to nurse it back to health, but those went out the window as I shrieked in horror watching my dad put it out of its misery with a shovel. I cried over a chicken that lived on the side porch that was sent to a farm, I cried over a rabbit that broke out of his cage and died in the yard, I cried over a parakeet who I found lying on the floor of his cage (to which I later found out my mom stopped feeding it because I would not take care of it). Hamsters, dogs, fish – you name it, it had tears shed over it.

I don’t know what happened to that passionate little girl who brought home stray kittens and would have snuggled up with a hermit crab. For years, I have tried to rekindle my passion for animals by reacquiring some, but I just haven’t crossed that boundary to LOVE.

Four years ago, we succumbed to the pleas of our two young boys and got our first family dog, Chloe. I would pat her on the head and throw her a ball, going through the motions of a good dog owner, but I remained emotionally distant from her. Part of our arrangement with the breeder was that we would let her have a litter of puppies (yes, the people who just kind of like dogs signed up for this situation). It seemed good in theory. She would get pregnant, and then go back to the breeder’s house a few days before she was due to have the puppies. No puppy business in our house and we would get a mini dog vacation. As planned, she got pregnant and as her little belly continued to grow, I found myself identifying with her more and more as she waddled around the house. When she went through a phase of not eating, I would look at her sympathetically as if to say, “I feel your pain, sister.”

To our surprise, she went into labor two weeks early. It was 3am and we ripped the boys out of bed, threw everyone into the minivan and set out on the 45 minute drive to the breeder’s house. I sat on the floor of the mini van next to Chloe praying that I would not have to deliver puppies on the highway. With every contraction, my panic intensified as I frantically yelled at my husband to drive faster. We made it in time, but because this was a rather abrupt arrival, my husband went home with the boys and I stayed behind to keep Chloe calm. I felt like her Lamaze partner.

Chloe was confused and scared, but she relaxed as I sat by her head. To our disappointment, the first seven puppies were dead and the next three passed soon after birth. She was miscarrying. Of course Chloe was unaware of what was happening, but in that moment I had such an unexpected wave of compassion for her. Tears sprang to my eyes as I chuckled at the irony that the only girls living in our household (me and her) struggle to have successful pregnancies. Sure, she’s a dog, but my heart went out to her after trying to grow ten healthy puppies. I know what it feels like to trust that your body knows what to do; and I also know all too well what it feels like for your body to totally let you down.

I’ve had four miscarriages. My husband and I experienced three losses before our oldest son was born. Those early days are a blur of blood draws, genetic testing and inaccurate diagnoses, all with an undercurrent of the fear and confusion that arrives when you learn that your fertility is not in your control. We went on to have a text book second son and the trauma of those years began to fade. But just when I thought I had control over my fertility again, I was reminded that I, in fact, have none when our attempt at a third child resulted in another miscarriage.

And so, sitting on the kitchen floor in a virtual stranger’s house at 4am, I began to let Chloe creep into my heart. We had a unique bond that only I was aware of, but it helped me begin to love her. As I stroked her head and smiled at her, I remembered how the first time I let her lay in my lap was when I was having my last miscarriage. One of the few times I cried over that miscarriage was when I let Chloe come near and lay by me while I wept over another lost pregnancy. She sat with me through my miscarriage and now here I was sitting with her.

And while we both might have lost our pregnancies, I can say with confidence that we both found comfort in a most unexpected friend.

But she still can’t sleep in my bed.

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Tuesdays with Dorie: Irish Soda Bread

20 Mar

Let’s just cut to the chase here.  I made Irish soda bread and it was just as good (dare I say better?) than my Mother-in-Law’s.  There, I said it!  For years I have swooned over her Irish soda bread and resolved that I could never make anything to compare.  But this girl was destined for a win and the luck of the Irish was with me.

I took my own advice and read the recipe before removing even just one measuring cup from the drawer.  Boy do I love these bread recipes – four ingredients with optional raisins.  I was eager to conquer this challenge and take my soda bread to the family St. Patrick’s Day gathering.

The recipe in Baking With Julia is a traditional soda bread.  Nothing fancy, no eggs, no sifting – just flour, salt, baking soda and buttermilk.  I blended the dry ingredients together with a fork as directed.  Then, reading carefully along, I added the buttermilk and stirred until the dough came together and then folded in a cup of raisins.  Easy enough.

Ok, so I might have added a dash of cinnamon. I'm Hungarian, not Irish so the authenticity was already out the door.

The next step was to knead the dough on a lightly floured surface for just about a minute.  The recipe says that the dough will be “soft and malleable…” but I did not expect a sticky, gooey mess.  I even looked malleable up in the dictionary and it means capable of being shaped or formed. Um, no.  It felt like I had enough dough between my fingers to make another soda bread!

That is NOT malleable

Attempting to tame the dough as best I could, I plopped it on the prepared baking sheet and tried to cut a crisscross as directed.   There was no making any kind of crisscross in this dough. It just popped right back into it’s sticky form.

I took the bread out of the oven about 6 minutes before it was set to be done.  It looked golden brown and I wanted to err on the side of caution.  What emerged was a beautiful round of Irish soda bread despite my sticky hands and failed crisscross.  It tasted great and had a perfectly balanced texture – not too soft and not too dense.  And best of all, it tasted just as good as my Irish Mother-in-Law’s.

Be sure to check out our hosts this week for the recipe at My Culinary Mission and Chocolate Moosey!

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Cherry Pie Bites

17 Mar

I dread baking during the work week for one simple reason – dishes.  I love the baking part, but the aftermath is just so overwhelming when all I want to do is call it a night and go to bed. My M.O. each time I’m in the kitchen is to use as few utensils and cookware as humanly possible.  That ceramic ramekin?  It only had grapes in it – clean.  The stainless steel mixing bowl?  It only had some batter in it for like 30 seconds – quick rinse and it’s clean.  The spoons – shoot, they just stirred for all of 10 seconds – swipe them under the faucet and they’re as good as new.  No dishpan hands here.

This week was one where I had a double dose of pie-making during the work week.   Early in the week I needed to make these pielets for my friend – it was her daughter’s birthday on Pi day, so of course she needed to take these pies to her kindergarten class!  Then I signed up for the bake sale at work to raise money for a Liver Walk.  I’m all for healthy livers, so to show my support I of course offered up some more pies.

With a little planning, making pie during a busy work week can be pretty easy and the dishes can be managed in stages – not ending in one big heap at 10pm destined to sit there until Saturday.  Here’s a timeline for how to make these pielets and wow anyone, anytime:

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Tuesdays With Dorie: Rugelach

6 Mar

Before I go any further, let me just put this out into the world – I am totally sick from eating too much rugelach dough. Onward…

These rugelach prove that sometimes keeping a little mystery about oneself is a good thing.  Women hear it all the time; men like some mystery to their partner.  In fact, I just saw something like this on the internet.  It said Keep Some Mystery in Your Marriage!  Seriously?  The only mystery in my marriage is where the remainder of the Girl Scout Cookies went (I’ll never tell).

I’ve never been good at keeping mystery about me.  Picture that ticker bar that runs along the bottom of the CNN report with the news in real time.  Now picture that ticker bar running through your head and then right out of your mouth in a verbal play-by-play.  That’s me – what enters my head comes right out of my mouth.  Luckily, I do have a filter and I know what material is for the 6pm news vs. the 11pm news.

I just started a new job last month and I promised myself that I would hold back and let my coworkers get to know me little by little.  I promised that I would not bare my soul and overwhelm my new work family with all my quirks and random thoughts.  But oh no, it wasn’t even the third day and somehow I had managed to relay my love of karaoke, my pie obsession, my accidental pregnancy during my move to Oregon, my luke warm love of my dog and the fact that my husband just got a vasectomy…all to an audience of new coworkers who were willing to accept me anyways. And that’s the beauty of no mystery – you put yourself out there to a new world and in a matter of days it feels like home again.

But I digress, back to this Rugelach.  There are just some things in life that are better kept shrouded in mystery.  Like that fact that these sweet little pastries are made with THREE sticks of BUTTER and ONE and a HALF packages of CREAM CHEESE.  Holy cream products, Batman.  I liked my life better when I could pop one (or two) of these in my mouth without flashbacks of a pile of yellow and white sliding around in my electric mixer.

The dough itself is a cinch and incredibly basic.  I whipped up cream cheese, butter and salt, added some sugar and then slowly added flour until the dough came together.

I divided the dough into two pieces, shaped them into a rectangle and refrigerated for two hours.  My only problem was inadvertently eating the dough.  It’s like I have a tick.  I just can’t help but pluck a bite here and a bite there – even if I know darn well I’m just eating straight butter, cream cheese and flour.  Needless to say, after doing it twice, I was totally grossed out.  Someday I will learn to keep my dough eating habits at bay.

Once the dough was chilled, I rolled them into a 14 inch long rectangle, cut each in half and spread the four pieces with apricot or lekvar (prune) filling. Then each piece was coated with a sugar/nut/cinnamon mixture and sprinkled with dried fruit.

But once again, I was going too fast and took a minor misstep.  Between my trips back and forth to the kitchen and the toddler dance party in the living room, I misread the directions and rolled my rectangles into a 14 x 5* inch piece rather than 14 x 10.  That extra 5 inches would have come in handy when rolling these like a jelly roll.  I could only make about two turns – and I knew they were supposed to be coiled around more than just twice.  Size DOES matter.

Overstuffed and under-rolled...

I was already completing this challenge by the skin of my teeth.  Then I read further and realized that Julia wants the rolled dough to sit in the fridge for 4 hours.  Ugh!  Once again, I have relearned the lesson that you must read the entire recipe before you start.  And especially before Tuesday.  So I took a shortcut and only refrigerated them for an hour.

I sliced the rolls into 1 1/2 inch pieces as directed, tossed them in a nut/brown sugar/cinnamon mixture and baked them for 30 minutes on 375.

Let’s just say these could stand a re-do.  I put too much filling on the dough, so the slices were bursting with cinnamon and sugar.  I salvaged what I could and was pleased that they at least tasted good.

My takeaways?  Read the recipe.  Google an image to see what they’re supposed to look like.  Plan ahead.  Don’t bake between dinner and kid bedtime.  And keep a little mystery in your life.  You better believe that when I take the salvaged and moderately pretty ones to work tomorrow, I’ll be sure not to mention the minor kitchen disaster that they really were.  🙂  Be sure to visit our hosts at My Baking Heart for a picture of what they should really look like and the recipe!

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Tuesdays With Dorie: Chocolate Truffle Tartlets

21 Feb

Although I have spent the past year up to my ears in pie, I have not been inspired to make a tart.  Tarts just seem so high maintenance – so pristine with their tight little crumb and perfectly filled shells.  It’s like they are the fancy older sister of pie.  The one from the Upper East Side, with a big job and a crisp, pressed suit who comes home to see the crunchy little sister with the non-profit job who lives in t-shirts and jeans.  To me, that’s the difference between a tart and a pie.

My time to conquer the tart has come with the latest Tuesdays With Dorie challenge:  Chocolate Truffle Tartlets.  You can find the recipe at the site of one this week’s hosts:  Spike.does.stuff. You can also visit Tuesdays With Dorie to see how others fared.

I have to be honest – this challenge came very close to squashing my dreams of perfecting the art of French pastry.  I came out of the gate strong, making a chocolate dough for the tart shell.  Flour – check.  Really good cocoa – check.  Sugar – check.  5 Tablespoons of butter – FAIL.  It was supposed to be 8.

See, the recipe for the chocolate dough was on a different page than the tart recipe.  Midway through the dough, my page flipped back to the main tart recipe and I read 5T of butter from the chocolate filling recipe on accident.  I was totally oblivious to this, even as I dumped a dry pile of crumbs onto my work surface.  Honestly, did I really think this mess was going to form into dough?  Yes, I did.

I knew something wasn’t right when the recipe instructed me to do the French fraisage technique to bring the dough together.  Little by little, you take your crumbs and with the heel of your hand, smear it across the work surface to stretch the butter.  This is supposed to create a delicate, flaky dough.  But, when you have not used enough butter, this technique is nearly impossible.  Rather than create a delicate dough, you just make your hand sore and sprain your finger from all the poking and patting (seriously).

I was determined to not let this dough get the best of me.  I smooshed, I smeared, I was the definition of overworking the dough.  I was still clueless to the fact that I was missing 3 Tablespoons of butter.  I refrigerated the dough and returned to prepare the tart pans.  What I pulled out of the refrigerator was not dough – it was a hard, dry hunk of chocolate something.  I broke it into as equal pieces as possible, but I was certain that I was not doing Julia Child proud.

I was too far into this to turn back.  Using all of my strength, I tamped out circles with a rolling pin and lined the pans with dough.  By the end, I was feeling like there was hope left for these to be edible.

I baked the shells and turned my attention to the filling.  This recipe is not for the person who just kind of likes chocolate.  This is a prove your devotion to chocolate, beyond chocoholic recipe.  Not only is there a chocolate crust, but there are three types of chocolate – bittersweet, milk and white chocolate.  Not to mention 8 egg yolks.

Gooey mess of melted chocolate and butter

Perfect light yellow ribbon of whipped egg yolks

I combined the melted chocolate with the whipped egg yolks, chopped chocolate and chopped biscotti and spooned the mixture into the cooled tart shells.

After the tarts were baked and cooled, I removed them from their pans.  The result was better than I expected.  They stayed in tact and made for a very pretty presentation.  The taste?  Well, the crust was pretty good considering the butter issue.  But to be honest, these were way too chocolatey for me.  I liked the rich taste and the chunks of the biscotti, but two bites was more than enough.  I just know there’s a chocolate fanatic out there that would love these!

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Apple Sour Cherry Pie

12 Feb

I always have the best results when I don’t over think things.  Take my hair, for instance.  The days that I’m late, half-showered and furiously drying my hair to get out the door are usually the days that people tell me my hair looks good.  “What did you do to your hair?” they will ask.  And my answer is always the same – I have no idea.

On the other hand, the days that I plan and try really hard to do my hair tend to be a disaster.  I learned this in a big way a couple of years ago.  The night before I had an important meeting, I decided that my hair needed to be totally revamped.  I was nervous about the meeting and my split ends were just not going to cut it (no pun intended). I decided to get a very last minute cut and ended up with a 7pm appointment at Fast Eddie’s Chop Shop (red flag #1).  The night started out with promise – the place was edgy and the stylist’s name was Emily.  She was new (red flag #2) and eager to style my hair.  She washed my hair and started to cut.  All of a sudden, the lights went out (red flag #3).  The entire street blacked out and we couldn’t see a thing.  I sat there, with a half-cut wet head praying for the lights to come back on.  The emergency lights cast a blue glow across the studio as I watched the clock close in on 8pm. Word soon reached us that there had been an accident on a nearby street which had knocked out blocks of electricity.

I was in a mild state of panic, but Emily assured me that we could do this (red flag #4).  By the glow of the emergency lights and a flashlight she continued to cut my hair.  I went home with a wet head, tired and ready for bed (it was 10pm).  Needless to say, I woke up the next morning, showered and dried my hair.  It was awful.  Just terrible.  Uneven with a hint of a mullet.  I was devastated, but had no option but to summon some confidence and go to my meeting.  Then, I crawled back to my regular stylist and confessed that I cheated on her in the name of vanity and begged her to fix it.  $80 later, my hair was short but at least the mullet was gone.

I keep learning this lesson time and again in various parts of my life.  Over thinking and trying too hard cause me to lose perspective and get caught in the weeds.  How many times do I need to learn to simply rely on my instinct and relax?  I have no idea.

The point of this story?  Apple Cherry Crumb Pie!  When I make pie, I’m very focused.  I read and re-read directions and over think everything.  Recently, I had accomplished all of my planned pies and had one recipe of dough left.  Not wanting it to go to waste, I started scouring my cupboards and fridge to see what I could come up with for a pie.  I had 4 apples, one can of Oregon Sour Cherries and some oatmeal.  Apple cherry pie with an oatmeal crumb topping!  I chopped and stirred adding a dash of this and a sprinkle of that.  Not a care in the world entered my mind as I effortlessly made this pie without following a recipe.  What resulted was an amazing pie that everyone who had a piece said was my best one yet.  “How did you do it?” they asked.  I have no idea.

But, I’m going to recreate it and share it with you!

Apple Cherry Crumb Pie

Ingredients

1 recipe for a 9 inch pie crust (or best of both worlds pie dough)

4 Apples (2 Granny Smith, 2 Jonagold or Fuji)

1 can Oregon Sour Cherries (the kind canned in WATER!  NO SYRUP)

1/2 teaspoon lemon zest

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

2 Tablespoons corn starch

1 squeeze of fresh lemon juice (barely a teaspoon)

Oatmeal crumb topping

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup rolled oats

1/3 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

pinch of salt

1/2 stick (4 Tablespoons) cold unsalted butter but into 1/4 inch pieces

Directions

Preheat oven to 400

Prepare your crust.  Roll to a 13 inch circle, place into a 9 inch glass pie pan. Gently tuck the dough into the pan and sculpt the edge.  Place in refrigerator for at least 15 minutes.

In a small bowl, combine 1/4 cup of the sugar with 1 teaspoon cinnamon and 2 Tablespoons corn starch. Set aside.

Peel and slice apples into 1/4 inch thick slices.  You can cut some of the slices in half so that the apples lay more compactly.  Toss with the remaining 1/4 cup sugar and 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest.  Place in a large dutch oven (or large skillet) and cook, covered, over medium heat for about 15 minutes.  Stir often and remove from heat when apples are soft but still hold their shape.  Place apples into a colander over a bowl to remove excess moisture.  Let cool to room temperature.

Open Oregon Cherries and drain well.

While waiting for the apples to cool, make crumb topping.  Put the flour, oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt in a food processor and pulse several times to mix.  Scatter the butter over the top.  Pulse repeatedly until the mixture resembles fine crumbs.  Empty the crumbs into a large bowl then rub them together between your fingers until you have large, buttery crumbs.

Turn apples and cherries into a bowl.  Add 1 teaspoon vanilla and toss with the remaining sugar, cinnamon and cornstarch mixture.  Give the mixture a quick squeeze of fresh lemon juice (you don’t want too much) and turn the mixture into chilled pie shell.

Place the crumbs on top of the pie and gently press them into place.

Place the pie on the center rack of the oven and bake for 35-40 minutes until golden brown and the juices bubble.  Use a pie crust shield to prevent the crust from browning too much if necessary.  Let cool for at least an hour before slicing.  May this also be the best pie you’ve ever made!

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Tuesdays With Dorie: White Loaves

7 Feb

I’ve taken back Tuesday.

Tuesday is such a bummer of a day.  It does not have the cache that Monday has.  Manic Monday.  Oh, looks like he has a case of the Mondays.  I’ll start on Monday.  Hop on Facebook on Sunday night and see how many posts mention Monday.

Wednesday has the unfortunate status of hump day, so that right there will allow it to live in infamy forever.  Thursday is the warm-up for the weekend and Friday is the golden child.  TGIF, baby.  Saturday and Sunday are awesome because for many of us, we don’t have to work, and they are filled with the promise of getting everything done you’ve been trying unsuccessfully to accomplish all week.

What does poor Tuesday have to offer?  Tuesdays With Dorie!

In 2008, a woman who received Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan (ahem, my FAVORITE cookbook.  Ever.) for Christmas, embarked on a resolution to bake one recipe a week and invited other bloggers to join her.  Their project was called Tuesdays With Dorie because they would post their recipes on Tuesdays.  The clan was a closed group, so I have pined on the sidelines to play along ever since I found out about them.

Yes, the baking book is next to the Eat Clean Diet. A girl can dream.

Fast forward to last month on a car ride between work meetings.  I was listening to NPR and to my amazement, Dorie Greenspan was the guest on Talk of the Nation.  As I was desperately trying to call in to tell her how much I want to be her adore her cookbooks, she mentioned that the Tuesdays With Dorie group had completed the book (four years!) and was opening the group again in preparation for their new book, Baking With Julia by none other than Dorie Greenspan.  I was overcome with excitement and could not believe my good fortune to catch this interview.  I raced back to work and promptly did what any good employee would do; jumped on the internet and sent an email asking to join immediately!

So, I’m in!  Two Tuesdays a month I will be posting my attempt at the assigned recipe from Baking With Julia with the hopes of completing the entire book.  You should plan to be my friend in about two years because by then, I should be a darn good baker!  But no worries, the pie obsession continues – just not on Tuesday.

Recipe #1, White Loaves

For the recipe, click here to go to the blog hosting the recipe this week.

As much as I love to bake, I have not dabbled in bread.  That’s my husband’s territory.  In fact, I’m pretty sure these white loaves are my first official attempt at bread.

Of course, I’m reverting back to my college days with the recipe due on Tuesday and I’m up late baking on Monday night.  Some habits die hard.  What a relief to find how simple bread is – six ingredients!  Flour, salt, yeast, sugar, water and butter.  Why am I buying bread at the store?  While making this bread, I was channeling my friend Heather who has embarked on a February Bread Challenge – her version of Pie it Forward – and is reflecting on her experiences through her blog, Abundance Measures. She makes more bread than I make pie, so I figured I could uphold the February bread challenge with my two white loaves.  I’ll eat one and give one away!

It was full steam ahead and things were going great until I was ready for the bread hook.  To my dismay, the bread hook for my stand mixer was too long for the bowl – I had the wrong one!  I think my mother-in-law has mine.  The hook was too long to even lock the mixer into place.  But nothing was going to stand in the way of my first Tuesdays With Dorie post.  I started that unsecured mixer and bread hooked my little heat out.  Truth be told, about two minutes into the 10 minutes it needed to mix, I had to assume a football stance and hold the top of the mixer steady so it would not fling dough out at me. Nothing like eight minutes of taming a wild Kitchenaid mixer.  But I prevailed and the dough was ready for the first rise.

Before Rise

After the first rise

45 minutes later, I cut the dough in half and proceeded to shape the 12 x 9 inch rectangles as instructed.  The first one was a breeze, but I did whip out my measuring tape to be sure I was on target.

Size DOES matter

The second one wanted nothing to do with forming into a rectangle.  I kid you not, that ball of dough kept bouncing back into a heart!

I patted, I stretched, I nearly laid myself across it.  Finally, it came into a shape that was close enough.  I folded the dough as instructed, pinched the seam closed and placed them into their pans to rise for another 45 minutes.

After they had double in size, it was off to the oven to bake until they were golden brown.  The recipe says to stick a thermometer through the bottom to be sure that the internal temperature is 200 – a good tip for avoiding over or underdone bread.  I only had a meat thermometer but I figured if it could make my turkey moist, it could certainly safeguard my bread from over baking.

And then the moment of truth.  They looked beautiful as they baked in the oven and I only hoped that they tasted as good after the shenanigans I pulled trying to stretch one into a rectangle. I followed the tip in the book and took them out of their pans and returned them to the oven for the last five minutes for even browning.  Perfection!  This bread was so good that I went upstairs at 11pm, woke my husband up and made him eat some.  Breakfast on Tuesday will be something to look forward to!

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Pie it Forward Celebrates National Pie Day

29 Jan

In case you haven’t caught on yet, last Monday was National Pie Day.  I had never heard of this holiday until recently, so naturally, I was all over it.  What better excuse to bake (and eat) tons of pie?  I spent the weekend baking up a storm and then the whole family hit the pavement to Pie it Forward.

Pie, pie and more pie...

We spent the day back in our old neighborhood showering our friends and former neighbors with packages of pie.

My thoughtful coworker gave me these great boxes!

First on my list were some friends from a group of moms that I met when my son was born.  I love these ladies and will eventually get pie to all of them!  These are women who withheld their judgement as I wished for my cat to die in a freak accident during the early weeks of my son’s birth. They didn’t flinch when I fled a party after mere minutes because our entire family was having a meltdown.  These are the friends who made me feel as if it was perfectly normal to stick my one year old in a blow-up baby bathtub filled with masses of leftover cooked pasta because I was out of ideas to entertain him. And for that, they deserve pie for the rest of their lives.

Pie for two! (well, her third actually)

Then is was on to the old ‘hood to drop in unexpectedly on some neighbors.

Neighbors are like family – no matter where you go, they will always be your neighbors.  As soon as each door opened, we were invited into their homes and spent the time talking, laughing and reminiscing.  My pie obsession was news to them, but they gratefully accepted the surprise package.

We wrapped up our time there and headed back so my husband could do his first official Pie it Forward.  My husband has chronic hives (don’t ask, we don’t know) and the pharmacist at our local drive-through pharmacy has gone the extra mile to help him.  She remembers his name, knows his prescriptions and makes him feel like she genuinely cares.

You should have seen the look on her face when instead of handing pills out of the window, she was handed a bag of pie into the window!  Although she was grateful for the nice gesture, she seemed a bit confused and surprised.  While I’m sure she does not get thank you pie everyday, we also learned the key to Pie it Forward – don’t forget to tell someone why you are thanking them!  I think my husband was a little nervous and he forgot to explain WHY he was giving her pie.  Practice will make perfect.

And now, the moment we have been waiting for…

The winner of the first Pie it Forward Challenge!

Lisa from Monterey, CA!

Lisa had a great story and really went out of her comfort zone to Pie it Forward!  She took the challenge and decided to extend her gratitude to Ronny Cox, an actor turned singer/songwriter who took the time last year to talk with her son and give him some advice about professional acting.  Here’s an excerpt from Lisa’s story:

It made me happy that this man would not only come to a small church that no one outside the area would have ever heard of and play a benefit concert for a small group of people to help a small, largely unknown, charity and to make himself accessible to everyone who came. So I decided that’s who I should give my pie (cake) to, Ronny Cox, actor, singer, songwriter and genuinely good person.

Nice work, Lisa!  You will receive this awesome decal/poster from Spiffy Decals.

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