Cherry Pi for 3-14-15

Sweet Cherry Pi(e)

1 unbaked bottom piecrust, pat-in is fine
1 bag frozen sweet cherries, partly thawed (on sale this week at Food Basics)
about 1/2 cup red jam, any kind, mixed with 1 tbsp cornstarch and a little water (I shook it up in the jam jar)

1 recipe favourite crisp-crumbles (flour, sugar, oats, oil, sprinkle of cinnamon)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Spread fruit in crust. Top with jam-water-cornstarch mixture, then crumble topping. Bake 10 minutes at 425 degrees, then about 40 minutes at 350 degrees, until topping is light brown and filling is set. If you didn't add enough water to the jam and cornstarch, you may have a slightly stiff filling, but you can always add something nice like vanilla ice cream to go alongside it, and nobody will complain.

What's for dessert? Cran-raspberry pie.

Today's made-up-as-we-go dessert recipe: Cran-Raspberry Pie.  I did not make the filling very sweet; the only extra sweetener in the fruit part was the cranberry sauce. If you find that too tart, you could add sugar or other sweetener.

Ingredients:

Unbaked pastry to fill a 10-inch pie plate (I used pat-in pastry).  If your dish is smaller, you can adjust the amounts of filling.

1 cup frozen cranberries
Frozen raspberries to fill up the crust
Half a can of wholeberry cranberry sauce, mixed with 1 tbsp. cornstarch, spread over the fruit in the crust

1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup quick oats
1/2 cup oil or choice of other fat

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Fill crust with fruit and cranberry sauce. Combine flour, sugar, and oats, and stir in oil to make crumbs. Top pie with crumbs, right to the edges.  Bake 10 minutes at 425 degrees, then turn down to 350 degrees and continue baking about 40 minutes or until fruit is cooked and topping is golden but not too brown.  Whipped cream is nice on top, but it would be fine alone too.

Sometimes I bake things: Pumpkin butter pie

I've posted a recipe before for apple butter or pumpkin butter pie, but this is a different one.  I had some homemade pumpkin butter, and I thought it would be good in a pie, but I didn't have any cream of tartar. I also didn't feel like whipping egg whites for our special Thanksgiving-style pumpkin pie..

So I decided to use the recipe for Squash Pie, or Sweet Potato Pie.. I adapted it a bit to the amount of pumpkin butter I had--used a bit less milk and sugar, didn't add any extra spices.  The edges got a bit dark, but that often happens. And as you can see, it's already half gone.

Thanksgiving Sunday, Come for Dinner (photo post)

Front hall

The last of the garden flowers

Roast Chicken

Perogy Casserole

Veggies

Chocolate Tofu Pie

Squash Loaf and apricots

And then we do the dishes.

Betty Crocker got it right again: Apple (Crumble) Pie

I have a particular limit on my pies, and that's that they have to have bottoms only.  I don't make rolled crusts, I just make pat-in ones, and that, obviously, curtails making any kind of top crust.  But we had a request for apple pie, and I decided to make what I call apple crisp pie or, as the Betty Crocker cookbook more elegantly puts it, "French crumb pie."  It turned out not as transparent as what I think of as regular old apple pie, more towards a Dutch Apple type, which might have been because I used brown sugar and whole wheat flour; but it was good that way, and it wasn't as overly sweet as some Dutch Apple or schnitz pie recipes.

The following is my adaptation/corruption of the recipe for 10-inch Apple Pie, with the French Crumb topping variation, as it appears in Betty Crocker's Cookbook (the 1980's edition). (For a 9-inch pie, you cut down the filling ingredients slightly.) It's the filling part that really made it work, and that recipe is all over the Internet anyway with comments like "my mother has made this apple pie for thirty-eight years." There are also people out there, apparently, who leave out the nutmeg and have their own other mutations. (I say keep the nutmeg.) So I don't think the recipe is exactly a secret, but it is good to know about.

One Ten-Inch Apple Pie with Crumble Topping, Thanks to Betty Crocker

1 10-inch pie crust, traditional or press-in

8 medium-sized apples: I use 4 Paula Red (which, according to that link, aren't recommended for pies at all), and 4 Gala.

1 cup sugar (I used brown sugar)
1/3 cup all-purpose flour (I used whole wheat because that's what I had, having used up the last of the white flour in the crust)
1 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground cinnamon
Dash of salt

Ingredients for topping, your choice: flour, oats, oil or margarine, sugar, etc.  I used some frozen leftover crumble mixture from making date/raisin squares.  (Which was a very good idea, to freeze what I didn't need, and I'll probably do that again.  You can use it right from the freezer.)

Make your crust.  Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Mix the sugar, flour and spices together in a bowl.  Peel the apples.  Core and slice them thinly, or do what I did and just cut them into slices around the core.  Put about a third of the flour mixture into the pie crust, then start arranging the apple slices on top.  Partway through, add more flour mixture, and again near the top.  When the crust is full of apples, cover with a layer of crumble mixture; try to cover the apples as well as you can, because any that remain uncovered will tend to dry out.

Bake for about 45 minutes at 375 degrees; check to see that the apples are tender and the filling is cooked.  Don't slice right away unless you have to, because the filling will set a bit as it cools.

Serve with whipped cream or other pie accompaniments.

What's for supper? From the freezer

Tonight's dinner menu:

The last of the enchilada pies, with sour cream, chopped green pepper, etc.  (I need my big pie plate back....)
Butternut squash  (because I want to make squash pie with the leftovers.)

Sliced pears, oranges, and banana chips

Pearl Bodine's Sweet Potata Pie

Mr. Fixit got a Beverly Hillbillies DVD for Christmas and we've been watching some of the early episodes.  I had a video on this post showing Cousin Pearl and her friend Homer Winch ("do this and I'll bake you a sweet potata pie"), but it's been removed from You-tube--sorry!

There are lots of ways to make sweet potato pie. This is the way I made one tonight, out of leftover mashed sweet potatoes. The recipe is actually "Squash Pie" from Food That Really Schmecks, but it works fine with sweet potatoes too. It's a lot less spicy than most pumpkin pie recipes, which I think some kids would like.

Pearl's Man-Catchin' Sweet Potata Pie (or Squash Pie)

1 unbaked 9-inch pie crust (I used a deep-dish pie plate)
2 cups milk (I used slightly less because I thought the sweet potato might be a bit wet)
1 1/2 cups pureed sweet potato or squash (if you've just cooked it, let it cool slightly--otherwise just use it chilled)
1 1/2 tbsp. flour
1 1/4 cups sugar (I used only a cup)
1 tsp. salt (or less, I used less)
2 eggs, slightly beaten
Cinnamon (or cinnamon-sugar), nutmeg

Combine sweet potato or squash, eggs, flour, salt, and sugar; gradually add the milk. Pour mixture into the unbaked pie shell. (If you have too much filling, you could bake some in a separate dish without a crust.) Sprinkle with cinnamon or cinnamon-sugar and a bit of nutmeg. The recipe says to bake it at 350 degrees for 40 minutes or until set; I gave it 10 minutes at 425 degrees and then turned it down to 350 for about 45 more minutes. When I took it out, it still seemed a bit jiggly, but it did slice without a problem about ten minutes later.

Homer would have been mighty pleased.

Linked from Four Moms and Sweet Thangs, Feb. 9/12

Shoo-fly Pie and Thanksgiving

In Mabel Dunham's historical novel The Trail of the Conestoga, the Bricker family has just crossed the Niagara River after many days on the road from Pennsylvania.

"It's the Promised Land," cried Sam, laughing good-naturedly and swinging the water-pail. "Look once, there's the Jordan River,"—he pointed to the Niagara—"and back there's the wilderness. We was forty years in it, not?"  "It seemed so," thought Annie.

But John was determined to be literal. "Forty days, it was," he said, "forty days exactly, for I counted them. And what for a river do you think the Jordan is?"

"Too hungry to tell you now," replied Sam, refusing to be depressed by his brother's prosiness. "Come, Little Johnny, fetch the dishes, and me and you'll set the table. Got some shoo-fly pie, Annie?"

"Shoo-fly pie," said Annie.  "It'll go a long time till we have that again."

The table was a deal one of the drop-leaf variety, which folded into a tiny corner when occasion demanded but spread two broad, obliging wings at meal-time. Around it the little company gathered for their first breakfast in Canada.

It was when Sam was drinking the last draught of coffee from his saucer that there was borne in upon his mind the importance of this day in the history of the Bricker family. Even in old age they would recall this first morning in Canada and all the events which should transpire in it. He proposed that they should celebrate it in some appropriate way.... He told Little Johnny to set the benches in rows, and get out the Bible and hymn-book. He induced John to read the account of the crossing of the Jordan, and then they all knelt together and said "Our Father."

And how they sang! Sam started the tunes as well as he could, while John and Annie and even the children joined in. Soon the silent woods reverberated with the long-metered hymns....

At daybreak on Monday the journey was resumed. A corduroy road followed the course of the river, and this the Brickers took, trusting that it would eventually lead to the Mennonite settlement, which was said to exist somewhere along the shores of a great lake called Ontario.--Mabel Dunham, The Trail of the Conestoga

Photo of the Vineland Cairn found here
Pie photos by The Apprentice, October 2011

As southern Ontario as...strawberry pie

It's the middle of strawberry season here, and we bought two baskets of them last Saturday. One basket went to make jam. Ponytails used some of them to decorate the angelfood cake for The Apprentice. And we still had a big bowlful that had been washed and so wouldn't keep long...so Mama Squirrel planned to make a strawberry pie, kind of a rare thing in this Treehouse. We are more likely to make strawberry shortcake with biscuits. But it just seemed like the right thing...

Except that when Mama Squirrel went to examine the strawberries the next day, she found that their number had greatly decreased. Oops.

But we did have a box of blueberries that Mr. Fixit had added to the shopping cart.

So: some of the (remaining) strawberries went to make the glaze for the pie. We don't use pudding mix and Jell-O, it's a scratch recipe, southern-Ontario style...but I don't bother to push strawberries through a sieve like my grandma did, I just mash them and cook them with sugar and cornstarch and a little water and lemon juice. Like making a really quick jam. And the rest I mixed with the box of blueberries, put in a baked pie crust, and poured the glaze over. That's the nice thing about this kind of pie--you don't bake the whole thing, so you don't lose the texture of the fruit.

I think I like that as much as I do a whole pie made of strawberries.

Do the Math (Tofu Pie Revisited)

I've had this craving for Tofu Chocolate Pie, but I never seemed to have all the right ingredients around at once. I bought a jar of fruit spread a long time ago, but we ended up eating it on toast. Then we didn't have chocolate. Then we didn't have any occasion for quite awhile that demanded a whole chocolate pie (and if you've tried this recipe, you know it's rich and you just can't eat a big piece at once). (Okay, yes, I know we did demolish a whole Halloween Trifle a couple of weeks ago. It's not like we haven't had dessert lately.)

Yesterday I bought some tofu. We had some preserves that would work, some chocolate, and even some graham crumbs for the crust. Still not enough people around to do justice to a whole pie. Then my "Duh" lightbulb went on. Cut it in half, stupid.

No, not the pie. The recipe.

This is what I did:

Made a graham-crumb crust in an 8-inch square pan. I usually use 1 1/2 cups of crumbs for my large 9-inch pie pan; I decided to use two-thirds the normal amount since we like crumb crust. So: 1 cup crumbs, 2 tbsp. sugar, 1/4 cup oil, bake about 10 minutes at 350 degrees.

Melted 4 squares of unsweetened chocolate in the microwave.

Drained 1 300-gram package of soft tofu.

Combined in the food processor: the tofu, the melted chocolate, 1/2 tsp. vanilla, 1/2 cup liquid honey, 1/2 cup mixed fruit preserves. Blended it until it was very smooth.

Smoothed the mixture over the crumb crust and put it in the fridge.

And we're going to have it topped with a few raspberries, for fancy. But you could put whipped cream or tofu topping on top if you wanted.

OK, so I'm slow. But eventually these things do figure themselves out.

Apple Butter Pie...or Pumpkin Butter Pie

I made one of these old-fashioned pies last night for a dinnertime treat...I had wanted to make apple pie but most of the apples had gotten eaten (need to stock up at the farm stand), so this was a good second choice. If you don't have apple butter (which is thicker and sweeter than applesauce--it's like cider cooked down to a spreadable consistency), you can use homemade pumpkin butter for a different taste.

Lotvarrick Pie (Apple Butter Pie), from Food That Really Schmecks by Edna Staebler

Pastry for a 9-inch pie (pat-in pastry works fine)
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup apple butter
2 eggs, beaten
4 tbsp. butter, melted (I used margarine)
1 tbsp. flour
1/4 tsp. cream of tartar
1/4 tsp. baking soda
2 cups milk
1/4 tsp. nutmeg for sprinkling

Mix the sugar, flour, soda and cream of tartar; blend in the melted butter, add the beaten eggs, apple butter, then the milk. Pour carefully into the pie shell and sprinkle with the nutmeg. Bake 10 minutes at 425 degress, then about 40 minutes at 350 degrees or until the custard is set (check with a paring knife). Although it's pretty when it comes out all puffed up, the pie is actually better if it's allowed to chill for awhile or even if you can make it the day before--like some pumpkin pies, it seems to slice better once it's had time to set.

Now a couple of warnings, from my own experience. First of all, this amount of filling will fill a good-sized deep-dish shell. If you have a small 9-inch pie pan, you might consider making two crusts and dividing the filling to avoid overflow. Another good idea is to put the whole thing on a cookie sheet before filling, just in case.

Also, if the filling does swish around the crust too much, you might end up with a bit of too-dark pie around the edges. Just slice off any black edge, and savour the rest--maybe with a small blob of whipped cream on top.

Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries

It's childhood-memories week at the Carnival of the Recipes.

I don't think I had an unusual childhood, food-wise. We went through all the fads and phases of '60's, '70's and '80's food, including my mom's treks into wokking and Weight Watchers. It's hard to pin down one food or one recipe that evokes childhood for me, unless it's the smell of a just-opened can of evaporated milk--and I don't think a baby formula recipe will do, exactly, for a Carnival of Recipes.

Or maybe it's Jelly Tots, or Neilson Rosebuds, or Bottle Caps Candy, or those cookies my grandma used to buy that were cookie on the bottom and then pink marshmallow with coconut on top. Also not too practical for a recipe carnival.

But the one thing we used to have that I hardly ever see any more (unless we're at a restaurant offering farm-style desserts) is elderberry pie. Gritty and seedy--Edna Staebler says "gravelly"--a bit strong-tasting unless you were the kind of kid who liked mincemeat too...but delicious in its own way. This is the recipe from Staebler's classic cookbook Food That Really Schmecks.

Elderberry Pie

Pastry for a deep pie, double crust
3 cups elderberries (you have to pick them all off the stems)
4 tbsp. flour
1 cup white sugar
2 tbsp. butter

Mix the sugar and flour; sprinkle a third of the mixture on the pastry. Put in half the berries. Sprinkle with half the remaining sugar mixture. Put in remaining berries and sprinkle remaining sugar on top. Dot with butter, put on top crust with vents for steam. Bake for 45 minutes in a 350-degree oven (Edna's recipe says--but you could start it higher for 10 minutes if you prefer and then turn it down).

Yogurt Pie

In the 2+ years that I've been blogging and posting recipes here, I've somehow missed mentioning Yogurt Pie. It's a very tasty, very versatile and quite-healthy dessert that we've made many times. We've had it topped with fresh raspberries and blueberries, kiwi and strawberries, and just plain for breakfast. (I'm making one for dessert tonight.)

Our copy of the recipe is on two pages torn (don't ask) from one of Emilie Barnes' books, but was actually created by Sue Gregg.

And you all are so lucky--with the wonders of technology, you can now have not only a nicer copy of the recipe than I do, but photos as well, because Sue Gregg has a step-by-step for the whole thing right here. Our version leaves out the coconut and coconut extract, but otherwise it's the same. (And if you want to know what "three cups of yogurt" looks like without measuring--it's a whole 750 ml container, for Canadians--and whatever the big size is, for Americans.)

Happy Victoria Day! (and for once, this holiday which often turns unco-operatively cold and rainy is a cool but sunny one)

This is A Day That Really Schmecks

Today's the day! It's also the day that would have been Edna Staebler's 101st birthday. In honour of that, and to celebrate the reissue of her first cookbook, Food That Really Schmecks, Jasmine at Cardamom Addict organized a good-schmecking roundup of recipes. I counted (I think) eleven bloggers who are linked from Jasmine's page, including our Schnitz Pie post.

(It sounds like there might even be a Part Two featuring other bloggers who heard about it and wanted to participate. If you're interested, please read this.)

Happy birthday to Edna. And thanks again to Jasmine and WLU Press for sponsoring this.

A Pie That Really Schmecks

(This post is part of the Day that Really Schmecks blog round-up, in honour of the late author Edna Staebler and the reprinting of her first cookbook, Food That Really Schmecks, by Wilfrid Laurier University Press. The round-up is hosted by Jasmine at the Cardamom Addict blog, and will officially take place on January 15th. Thank you very much, Jasmine and WLU Press!)

I first saw Food That Really Schmecks in our school library when I was twelve or thirteen. I’m not sure what relevance the librarian thought it had for seventh and eighth graders, but I found it on the shelf and wanted a copy of my own. Like Edna’s, my own background was a hodgepodge of Waterloo County (Ontario) cultures. Like Edna, I had some pioneering Mennonite great-something-great-grandparents. And I grew up in a community that reflected not only the historical side of Edna’s cooking (the bean salads and elderberry pies) but what I think of as the Church Lady side of her food: potluck suppers; bazaar baking and fudge-making, and tables of chili sauce and rhubarb jam for sale; church card parties and strawberry socials.

I did get a copy of the book, along with More Food That Really Schmecks which came out right about then as well. And I cooked and baked a lot of those recipes over the years: cookies, breads, pies, even a few of the oddities like Wieners and Buttons.

Edna and my grandma were about the same age, and much of the food in that 1968 book could have come right out of Grandma’s kitchen. I’d never seen a recipe written down for noodle potpie (Edna called it Hingle Potpie), which Grandma passed on to us as a kind of kitchen art form, showing us how to drop the noodle dough in just where the chicken broth was boiling, and lamenting that her noodles weren’t thin enough to have passed muster with her own grandmother. (Mr. Fixit’s Schwabian grandmother made a similar chicken dish with homemade noodles she called Flekele.)

Grandma also made pies—strawberry, elderberry, and Dutch Apple. I’m still trying to define what makes a Waterloo County Dutch Apple or Schnitz pie different from any other recipe (and it’s not the same as the Dutch Apple pie Wikipedia describes). Edna includes at least three different recipes for Schnitz Pie in her book, plus another simply called “Dutch Apple Pie.” Our Dutch Apple is a single-crust pie, and I think it’s richer than “regular” (double-crust, all-American) apple pie. Grandma’s version is pretty close to Edna’s “Cream Schnitz Pie,” although I don’t have exact amounts, just my mom’s description of how to make it. The version that I make myself (usually when I can get really good apples in the fall) is her “Cream and Crumb Schnitz Pie.” Both recipes are included here with permission from the publisher, as part of this blogging event.

[The recipes are typed as they appear in Food That Really Schmecks, including the WOW! at the end. I’ve include a couple of family notes in the Cream Schnitz version.]

Cream Schnitz Pie

Pastry for one-crust, 9-inch pie

5 or 7 apples—depending on size
3 tbsp. flour
1/8 tsp. salt
1 cup thick cream—sweet, sour, or on the turn [my mother says that Grandma preferred “rich milk or light cream”]
¾ tsp. cinnamon
1 cup sugar

Combine ¾ cup of the sugar, flour, salt and the cream and beat until smooth. Peel and core the apples, cut them in schnitz [slices] and arrange prettily and closely in the pastry shell. Pour the cream mixture over the apples. [Grandma's method was slightly different; she mixed the dry ingredients and sprinkled most of them in the bottom of the crust; added the apples; and then said to “pour just enough milk so you can see it coming up over the apples.”] Mix the remaining ¼ cup sugar with the cinnamon and sprinkle over the top. Bake at 425 degrees for 10 minutes, turn heat to 350 degress and bake half an hour till the apples are soft and the filling is set. Watch it. [I assume Edna meant to watch it in case it burns, but my mom reminded me that you should also watch this kind of pie because it has a tendency to bubble over a bit and make a sticky mess in the oven. She recommends putting a cookie pan or foil underneath to catch any drips.]



Cream-and-Crumb Schnitz Pie

“If you want to have it both ways [cream and crumbs], try this one.”

Pastry for one-crust, 9-inch pie

Enough apples to fill up the pie shell
1 cup brown sugar
3 tbsp. butter
1/3 cup flour
2/3 cup cream—sweet, sour, or turning
¾ tsp. cinnamon

Mix butter, sugar and flour into crumbs. Sprinkle half in the bottom of the shell. Peel and core the apples, cut them in schnitz and arrange them on top of the crumbs. Mix half the remaining crumbs with the cream and pour the mixture over the apples. Finally, mix the cinnamon with the rest of the crumbs and sprinkle these over the top. Bake at 425 degrees for 10 minutes, then at 350 degrees for about half an hour. WOW!

----*----*----*----*----*----*----

I met Edna Staebler once or twice at book signings, but it wasn’t until 2002 that I wrote to let her know how much her cookbooks had meant to me. I was delighted when she wrote back, in a note that sounded like she was still very much herself—“at almost 97.”

“3:44 a.m., Nov. 22. Thanks for your wonderful letter about my Schmecks books—it is so enthusiastic and well expressed. Twelve hours ago I had a molar extracted, it is very painful and I can’t sleep—your mention of hingle potpie and all the other things you enjoy makes me hungry. I’ll be sipping nothing but soup for awhile—Fortunately I have friends who kindly bring me some they have made & frozen.

“Keep eating well as long as you can. At almost 97 I must be more cautious—but I’m lucky and [grateful?], & will eat heartily when the tooth heals.

“Sorry to tell you all this.

I just read your letter over again, it makes me feel better to think of all those good things to eat. Maybe in a few days----Edna Staebler.”

Treehouse Recipe Index for 2006

[Reposted and updated]

Here's a roundup of the recipes we posted this year on Dewey's Treehouse. I didn't include the ones that were only given as a link. And I should note that most of these aren't original: they came from Food that Really Schmecks, Whole Foods for the Whole Family, The Harrowsmith Cookbook, Vegetarian Times, Canadian Living, and friends who like to cook.

[Update note: one might THINK, especially after viewing the November and December recipes, that we eat nothing in the Treehouse but chocolate. Mama Squirrel thinks that would be nice, but it isn't true. As our New Year's Resolution, we promise to provide a few slightly more healthful recipes in 2007.]

January
Kitchener Special
Kasha-Vegetable Pilaf
Sugar-free Banana Prune Bread

February
Subversive Tuna Recipe (Tuna Wrap-Up)
Raisin Sesame Cookies

March
Cocoa-Ricotta Cream
Beef and Green Bean Stir Fry
Dulcie's Macaroni Meal in a Skillet

April
Good Friday Kiffle (or Kolacky or Kolache)--one of our most-Googled recipes

May
Coffeemamma's Sour Cream Rhubarb Muffins

July
No-Bake Brownies

August
Hungarian Stew
Swiss-Cashew Salad, Our Version
Serendipity and the DHM's Chicken Recipe

September
Tofu Chocolate Pie

October
Cranberry-Apricot Loaf
Pumpkin Gingerbread Snacking Cake
Edna Staebler's Glorious Golden Pumpkin Pie

November
Small Chocolate Cake
Rather Retro Recipe (Lemon Dessert)
Jam Bars
Chocolate Fingers

December
Christmas Day Lunch (Jiggle Bells and Star of the East Salad Plate)
Chocolate-Apricot Confections
Chocolate-Hazelnut Slices or Crescents


Our 2005 Recipe Index

Two pumpkin recipes (yes, The Pie Recipe)

First, Pumpkin Cake. Or Pumpkin Loaf. Or Pumpkin Muffins, if you're so inclined.

This appeared, with an appetizing-looking photograph, on our newspaper's food page today. When I looked at the recipe, it was the same Canadian Living recipe I've been making forever. So feeling inspired (and having a can of pumpkin), Ponytails and I made a batch. This is the recipe as originally written, with my notes in brackets.


PUMPKIN GINGERBREAD SNACKING CAKE

1 1/2 cups (375 ml) granulated sugar [2009 update: we have been cutting back on the sugar in this, down to 1 cup, and it still tastes fine]
2 eggs
1 cup (250 ml) pumpkin purée
1/2 cup (125 ml) vegetable oil
1/2 cup (125 ml) buttermilk (or sour milk or thinned yogurt)
1 3/4 cups (425 ml) all-purpose flour (we used part whole-wheat today)
1 teaspoon (5 ml) baking soda
1 teaspoon (5 ml) ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon (2 ml) salt
1/2 teaspoon (2 ml) each ground cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and allspice (We use only 1/4 tsp. of cloves and allspice)
1/4 teaspoon (1 ml) baking powder

Icing sugar (optional--we skip it)

1 In a large bowl, beat together sugar, eggs, pumpkin, oil and buttermilk until smooth. In a medium bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, ginger, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, allspice and baking powder. Stir dry ingredients into pumpkin mixture until blended.

2 Pour batter into lightly greased nine-by-nine-inch (2.5-litre) square baking pan. (Or an 8-inch square pan. Or a casserole dish if all your other pans are dirty. Mama Squirrel did not mean to imply that she has a kitchen full of dirty dishes, only that some of her pans are currently holding food in the fridge.)

3 Bake in a preheated 350 F (180 C) oven until top springs back when lightly touched, about 35 minutes (or longer--test to see if it's done). Let cool in pan on rack. Dust with icing sugar.

Makes a nine-by-nine-inch (2.5-litre) cake.

SOURCE: CANADIAN LIVING'S BEST MUFFINS & MORE, BY TELEMEDIA COMMUNICATIONS INC., ADISON PRESS BOOKS


Okay, now that Wicked Pumpkin Pie. This is not the solid-packed version that everybody makes from the pumpkin can label; this is fluffy and lightly spiced, and we look forward to it every year.

There are very similar recipes for this in two of Edna Staebler's cookbooks (Food that Really Schmecks and Schmecks Appeal: More Mennonite Country Cooking). I've made them both and the only real difference (I think) is in the amount of filling that the recipe makes. So here is the Schmecks Appeal version, and if you happen to want a little more (extra company coming), you can look for one of the reprint copies of Food That Really Schmecks.

"Glorious Golden Pumpkin Pie"

2 cups pureed pumpkin (canned is just fine)
2 egg yolks, beaten
1/2 cup milk
2 tbsp. rum (optional) or 1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/8 tsp. cloves
1/4 tsp. salt
2 egg whites, beaten stiff (I use the food processor whipping attachment to get them good and stiff)
Pastry for a 9-inch pie (I use pat-in pastry because I'm lazy)
Whipped cream for garnish if you want

Mix the pumpkin, egg yolks, milk and rum or vanilla. (We use vanilla.) Add the sugar, blended with the spices and salt. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Turn the mixture into the unbaked pie shell and bake at 400 degress for 10 minutes (I start it at 425 degrees instead of 400 though), then at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes longer or until a knife comes out clean.

This is tofu? (Chocolate Pie)

This recipe was created by Jennifer McLain and was printed as a “Recipe Redux” (makeover feature) in Vegetarian Times, January 1994. I’ve found it in a couple of places online without any credit given.

Jennifer explained her need to create something wonderful (and somewhat healthier or at least lower in fat than other chocolate pie recipes) for a family special occasion: “it would have to have the taste and appearance of one that was spectacularly unhealthful.”

Well, it does! We’ve made it twice, once for Christmas when a vegan relative was coming, and once this year for dinner with friends. It’s very chocolaty (think mousse?) and very rich, and it really does serve 12 (because you won’t want a big piece. Well, maybe you will.).

This is the recipe as published, with my notes in brackets. (It took me longer to track down the right tofu and preserves than it did to make the pie.)

Chocolate Pie After Redux

(It can be made up to three days in advance.)

Ingredients

Crust:
*7 oz. chocolate wafer cookies or graham crackers
and
*2 tbsp. canola oil or melted margarine.
(My note: I just make a graham cracker crust following the directions in the Betty Crocker Cookbook. You can use any crumb crust recipe you like.)

Filling:
* 8 oz. unsweetened chocolate (a box of the supermarket kind is fine)

* 2 10-oz. packages silken tofu
(The first time I made this, I bought a 19-oz. box of aseptically-packaged silken tofu, because Jennifer insisted that the tofu be the silken type. The second time, I had to use what the supermarket offered, which was soft (but not silken) tofu in 300 g (about 10 ½ oz.) water-pack tubs. I used two tubs, and it worked fine.)

*10-oz. jar blackberry preserves
(Jennifer says that preserves made from any red berry (strawberry, raspberry or cherry) will work. You don't taste the particular fruit, it just adds sweetness and texture. The first time, I used a jar of black cherry preserves. The second time, I was again limited to what the discount supermarket had, and I had trouble finding anything in the jam aisle marked “preserves.” I settled for a cupful of E.D. Smith Triple Fruit Wildberry spread, which is thinner than normal jam and seemed to work well.)

*1 tsp. vanilla extract

*1 cup liquid honey
(You may think you need to cut back on the honey after putting in a cupful of preserves or jam. However, we tried cutting back, tasted it after blending, and agreed that it did need pretty much close to the whole cupful. Remember, you’re adding a lot of unsweetened chocolate.)

Directions

Crust (if you’re following the recipe here): Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In blender or food processor, combine cookies and oil or margarine and pulse to make fine crumbs. Press into bottom of springform pan or pie plate. Bake 10 minutes and cool.

Filling: Melt chocolate in double boiler or over very low heat. Put remaining ingredients in bowl of food processor or blender and add melted chocolate. Process until very smooth, stopping occasionally to scrape down the sides.

Pour filling into crust, smooth top, and refrigerate until firm, at least 4 hours or overnight. Serves 12. Per serving: 409 calories, 17 g fat, 57 mg carb.