Mystery Pecan Pie

Mystery Pecan Pie

I was asked for my Mystery Pecan Pie recipe and realized I've never posted it! It's my all time favorite pie, and a favorite of many guests. I make it every Thanksgiving. I found the recipe when we were early married in a Tucson realty little cookbook. It's in my Hearth & Home cookbook and that's what I'm typing this recipe from.

Mystery Pecan Pie

1 8oz pkg cream cheese
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg

Combine these, blending well. Spread in the bottom of an unbaked pastry shell (I use whole wheat and butter). Sprinkle with 1 1/4 cup slightly chopped pecans.

Combine these topping ingredients:
3 eggs
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup light corn syrup (which I no longer use; I'm using the healthier brown rice syrup)
1 tsp vanilla

Gently pour over pecans. Bake at 375 degrees for 35-45 minutes or till firm.

Pecan

My pen and ink version

Green Tomato Jam

Green Tomato Jam

This is now my second year to make Green Tomato Jam. If you grow tomatoes, at the end of the season you'll have green tomatoes. I'll leave the tomatoes for awhile, for some to turn red, but eventually you'll either toss them (compost or chickens), or like me, look for uses.

Typical recipes are for a pie - supposedly similar to apple pie. It's ok. But since we don't eat a lot of desserts, I want my desserts to be our favorites. Another is frying slices, which is good. I posted one recipe along with my end of season put-up of Zucchini Potato Soup, which tastes great defrosted for winter eating! This year I tried a green tomato relish (which I need to label in my fridge, cuz I recently pulled it out thinking it a tomatillo green salsa). It's ok too, but I haven't used it much. I'm going to try it as a sandwich spread, which could be good.

I found the recipe from Splendid Table. I used to listen to that NPR radio program every weekend till our station exchanged it with another program. Instead, I now get emailed weekly recipes and can listen to excerpts or podcasts. The recipe was actually in connection with another recipe - A Green Tomato Tart, which has a bottom ricotta and mascarpone (or cream cheese) layer. I did make the tart once, and will try it again, but typically just make the jam.

Green Tomato Jam

3# green tomatoes, cored and chopped (1/2" pieces)
2 2/3 cups sugar
2-3 lemons (2 zested)
1/8 tsp salt and scant 1/4 tsp pepper
4" cinnamon stick, broken

Hmmmm, now that I type this I realize I've never cored the tomatoes! and I've made quite a few batches. I will cut them in half and sometimes make a "V" for cutting out the stem end and that'll take out some of the white core. The other 1/2" piece thing I sometimes do, not an exact measurement, but realizing there's two end results depending on your preferences. Monte and some friends like the chunky jam. I could do with less chunks. This current batch I'm in process of making, I did literally hand cut yesterday (as I was needing to "fold" my sourdough bread dough every 30 minutes four times, and I was listening to an audiobook - so it was a relaxing time).

Chopped Green Tomatoes and Sugar sitting for 24 hours

Sometimes I use the food processor to chop them. Pulse them a bit and not too much, so you DO end up with some chunks.

The tomatoes and sugar need to be mixed together and sit for 24 hours. Lots of juice will be extracted.

Add the lemons. Zest the lemons and then cut off the white pith and chop. Two large lemons are enough - three if small to medium. Add the seasoning.

Bring to a boil, then simmer for about 40 minutes (210 degrees?). I don't take it's temperature. After awhile I'll get some jam juice on my spoon, let it cool a bit and slowly tilt back into the pot. When the drips start coming together slowly into one drop, it means it's thickened up about right. You don't want it runny. Remove cinnamon sticks.

Jar up and freeze. I haven't canned this up. My friend does. I do know, that if you leave it out, even in a cool cellar, it will develop mold. It holds up well in a refrigerator.

Now some of you are going to want the Tart recipe.

Tart Crust

1 cup (5oz) flour
2 oz almond meal
3 Tb sugar
3 oz (6 Tb) butter
1 large egg
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 tsp almond extract
1-3 Tb water
Mix together, cutting the butter and liquids into the dry ingredients. Chill. Roll out to fit a removable bottom tart pan. Bake at 375 with pie weights to keep crust from bubbling (I keep pie weights and a folded piece of foil in a container in my pantry) for 15 minutes; then 5-10 minutes without the weights. Cool. Then spread in -

Vanilla Ricotta Cream Filling

1/3 cup whipped cream or 1/2 cup mascarpone cheese (cream cheese, replacement)
3/4 cup ricotta
3 Tb sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Puree this together and Chill.

1 Hour before serving, spread the Ricotta mixture in the tart shell. Top with 1 3/4 - 2 cups Green Tomato Jam. Chill at least 40 minutes then 20 minutes outside the fridge. Serve.

I never took a picture of the finished tart! It was good. The base tart with ricotta filling (which I used cream cheese for only because I couldn't find mascarpone in the back of my cheese drawer, which I thought I had) would be good with any topping. Monte thought layering on some thin slices of pear, which we had excess of at the time, would be good.

I gave the jam as Christmas presents last year along with home brewed Vanilla Extract.

Blender Impossible Squash Pie

Blender Impossible Squash Pie

I have this recipe in my cookbook. One day we sat down with some of our grown kids, talking thru my cookbook I wrote 20 years ago. They'd make comments like, "I hated that" or "we do this this way now". Travis's comment about this recipe was, "I never liked pumpkin pie, but this recipe helped me like it. I love this pie, and it's even good leftover cold!"

I grow winter squash. It's a great feat at my mountain altitude to get winter squash, and have an abundance of it stored in the garage. So I have to remember to keep pulling it out to bake each week. This is a recipe I often do with the leftovers. And I don't really bother measuring the squash - like I probably have more than the called for 1 cup.

Back in the day, I was using powdered milk a lot. So my book's recipe has 1 cup water and then 1/3 cup milk powder. Now I'm using raw milk and will even add in some extra cream when I've got extra. And use whatever type of flour you want - I tried almond meal this time and it worked fine. The original versions for these impossible pies used Bisquick, and I came up with this version instead. Occasionally I'll use my extra sourdough I need to be using when building up for bread-making. Use any kind of squash (excepting stringy spaghetti squash).

Blender Impossible Squash Pie

1 cup milk
1+ cup of cooked squash
4 eggs
1/2 cup flour
1/3 cup honey (I'll occasionally use maple syrup)
1 tsp allspice
1 tsp cinnamon

Combine all in the blender and blend. Pour into greased and floured pie dish. Bake at 350 degrees for about 1 hour, or till toothpick or knife comes out clean.

Rhubarb Custard Pie

I'm re-posting this recipe I posted several years ago. We have guests staying here this week. I made it for dessert to go with a grass-fed chuck roast, mashed potatoes, and salad. Along with fermented veggies I made over Christmas and have stored in the cellar, and homemade wine. At the end of this post I'll add a few more tidbits of info.

This is a company and family favorite. It's in my cookbook. When I make something new, I often pull out several cookbooks to compare recipes, then pick and choose. This requires "knowing your ingredients" - which is a chapter in the Joy of Cooking cookbook.

RHUBARB CUSTARD PIE

First, I freeze the 1/2" cut-up rhubarb from our garden (see post here with daughter Heather helping with the harvest) in a heaping quart measuring bowl, so it's about 5 cups of rhubarb.


PIE CRUST
(for 2+ crusts)
2 C flour (could be sprouted grain flour)
3/4 C butter
pinch of salt
about 1/4 C water (depends on flour moisture)

I use my ground white whole wheat or pastry wheat I've always got in the freezer in Ziplock bags. Since I had kamut in there too, this pie is half wheat and half kamut. I always use butter, unsalted if I have it. I've used lard or the newer organic shortening which is palm oil. I never use shortening. It's vegetable oil heated so hot it's next step would be plastic. Our body does not know how to break this fat down - it's what's now called trans-fat. And labels that have partially hydrogenated anything I never get. It's the word "partial" that's killing people. It races around our body looking for a home and latches onto cells, hurting them, and today we have way more cancer, diabetes, and heart disease than ever.

Cut the flour, salt, and butter together till fine crumble. Mix in water till mixture forms a ball. It shouldn't be sticky. I use a food processor all the time now for the preliminary processing of the dough, unless I'm making a larger amount, then I use the whips in my regular Bosch bowl, putting the cut-up butter in first. But I always finish up both processes by hand with a pastry blender. Mixing the final bits of water in is when we often over-process pie dough, which makes it tough. Then I flatten the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate it while putting together the filling. Keeping the dough chilled is another key to a flaky crust.

Filling -

the 5 cups cut up fresh or frozen rhubarb put in pie first.
Mix together -
3 eggs
2 Tb whole wheat flour
2 Tb tapioca
1/3 C honey
1 C organic sugar (we've been practically eliminating sugar, so I'm going to cut this back next time cuz it's too sweet for us now)
1/2-1 tsp orange peel
pinch of salt

Pour the filling over the rhubarb and cover with a top crust and make steam vents. I usually sprinkle it with a touch of cinnamon. Bake for 10 minutes at 400, then lower to 350 and continue baking another 45-60 minutes. We like pie crust well-browned and giving the bottom crust a chance to thoroughly cook too.

When I put on the top crust I knife off the excess dough before crimping the edges.

I roll out this excess dough for little cinnamon tarts. Sometimes I'll put pats of butter then sprinkle on lots of cinnamon. The very little bit of sugar added on these is Sucanat. It can't really be called a sugar, cuz by its very nature, sugar is processed. Sucanat is plain dehydrated sugar cane.

If you click on Rhubarb in my sidebar you'll find other Rhubarb recipes like Rhubarb Aid which is a company/family favorite, and a Rhubarb Crisp . . . Last summer I did a rhubarb ferment from Wardeh's Idiots Guide to Fermenting (my favorite fermenting book so far!)(And another summer fruit ferment from her book I'm going to do more of in the future is her bing cherry one. I'm going to leave nuts out tho, preferring to add my soaked and dried crispy nuts as I eat it. Like this morning I had some fresh frozen fruit with my dairy kefir with chia seeds, shredded coconut, a bit of the bing cherry ferment and added some walnuts.)

When we built our home here twenty nine years ago, rhubarb was seeded out into the meadow from an old homestead we still see the foundation of. We moved all the rhubarb to the back of a garden area we fenced in. It's a ways below our house on the edge of the woods. They'd also planted chokecherries on the edge of the woods (which I make into a great wine!)(rhubarb wine, by the way, is good too). All this to say, the rhubarb is probably 100 years old. It's mostly green stalks with some red and pink. I think today's all red stalked rhubarb has been bred as such. We still occasionally let some stalks seed into the woods, so we have babies to transplant and give to people.

The last note I want to add is that I made this pie - still with whatever ground flour was in the freezer, which was spelt this time - with Kerry Gold butter I'm now getting from Costco. Love it! A great pastured butter from Ireland. WELL . . . I could tell a difference in this crust with that butter. Excellent! And our company agreed, but then all men love a great meal of meat, gravy and mashed potatoes, with good wine, and pie for dessert!


Shared with: Frugally Sustainable, Food Renegade, Clever Chicks Barn Hop, Real Food Wednesdays, Simple Lives Thursday, Slightly Indulgent Tuesday

Raspberry Tart

I'd mentioned in another post that we had company last week - investor/geology men. I wanted a dessert one night, without much work. When I make pies, I roll my crusts out very thin and always have extra crust. If I don't make little cinnamon tarts with the leftover, I put it in a ziplock in the freezer. Well, I remembered I had lots of little bags in the big ziplock of leftover crusts. I pulled out two of them to thaw. That evening I rolled them out to fit in a tart pan. I didn't have a recipe or want to spend time looking for a recipe, so here's what I did ...

RASPBERRY TART

- unbaked crust put in tart pan (click side bar "pies" label to see my crust recipe - it's whole wheat or whole grain something, considering the leftover varieties there could be).

- dumped frozen raspberries till it looked just right - still gaps of crust showing through - not too much and not too little.

- sprinkled several Tablespoons of sucanat (dehydrated sugar cane) - here again, went by looks

- poured over some cream.

Baked at 375 degrees till it looked done - pretty set (set up more as it cooled) and crust browned.



Found out raspberries were the guest's favorite fruit. So the next morning when I made sourdough pancakes I heated some frozen raspberries for a pancake topping with my homemade yogurt and maple syrup.

Rhubarb Custard Pie

Having company this past week, I made a family favorite. It's in my cookbook. When I make something new, I often pull out several cookbooks to compare recipes, then pick and choose. This requires "knowing your ingredients" - which is a chapter in the Joy of Cooking cookbook.

RHUBARB CUSTARD PIE

First, I freeze the 1/2" cut-up rhubarb from our garden in a heaping quart measuring bowl, so it's about 5 cups of rhubarb.


PIE CRUST
(for 2+ crusts)
2 C flour (could be sprouted grain flour)
3/4 C butter
pinch of salt
about 1/4 C water (depends on flour moisture)

I use my ground white whole wheat or pastry wheat I've always got in the freezer in Ziplock bags. Since I had kamut in there too, this pie is half wheat and half kamut. I always use butter, unsalted if I have it. I've used lard or the newer organic shortening which is palm oil. I never use shortening. It's vegetable oil heated so hot it's next step would be plastic. Our body does not know how to break this fat down - it's what's now called trans-fat. And labels that have partially hydrogenated anything I never get. It's the word "partial" that's killing people. It races around our body looking for a home and latches onto cells, hurting them, and today we have way more cancer, diabetes, and heart disease than ever.

Cut the flour, salt, and butter together till fine crumble. Mix in water till mixture forms a ball. It shouldn't be sticky. I use a food processor all the time now for the preliminary processing of the dough, unless I'm making a larger amount, then I use the whips in my regular Bosch bowl, putting the cut-up butter in first. But I always finish up both processes by hand with a pastry blender. Mixing the final bits of water in is when we often over-process pie dough, which makes it tough. Then I flatten the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate it while putting together the filling. Keeping the dough chilled is another key to a flaky crust.

Filling -

the 5 cups cut up fresh or frozen rhubarb put in pie first.
Mix together -
3 eggs
2 Tb whole wheat flour
2 Tb tapioca
1/3 C honey
1 C organic sugar (we've been practically eliminating sugar, so I'm going to cut this back next time cuz it's too sweet for us now)
1/2-1 tsp orange peel
pinch of salt

Pour the filling over the rhubarb and cover with a top crust and make steam vents. I usually sprinkle it with a touch of cinnamon. Bake for 10 minutes at 400, then lower to 350 and continue baking another 45-60 minutes. We like pie crust well-browned and giving the bottom crust a chance to thoroughly cook too.

When I put on the top crust I knife off the excess dough before crimping the edges.

I roll out this excess dough for little cinnamon tarts. Sometimes I'll put pats of butter then sprinkle on lots of cinnamon. The very little bit of sugar added on these is Sucanat. It can't really be called a sugar, cuz by its very nature, sugar is processed. Sucanat is plain dehydrated sugar cane.

Posted at Gnowfglins