Tart of Gold

Coconut Tart with Spicy Gingersnap Crust

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I needed a break from pie. Isn’t that awful? Who says that?

Every year for Father’s Day I make my dad a fruit pie. This year, I couldn’t get motivated to do it. I didn’t feel driven or inspired by any of my usual fruit pie variations. And actually, I hadn’t felt really inspired to bake much since we moved into our new house.

Did I mention that we bought a new house?

We’ve spent the last year unpacking, discussing color options, designing our gardens and sitting by our woodstove. A friend wisely said we would be nesting for a while, but didn’t expect settling into our new space to pull energy away from our other interests too. I guess it did.

Meanwhile, this all started to worry me. Was I giving up on baking? Who am I? What am I interested in now? What do I do next? Should I get rid of my cookbook collection?  Is it my interests that define me or something more complicated? The internal angst was intense and I was having crazy thoughts! Get rid of my cookbook collection? What?

Never fear dear reader, I got my groove back.  I was buying fresh local strawberries planning on slogging through a double crust strawberry something-something and then all of a sudden I had my plan. My plan! Inspiration was back! I had had a mini tart a week or so ago at another bakery. It had a cookie crust, vanilla pastry cream and away strawberries doused in powdered sugar. I wanted to make a version of that tart but make it better. And incorporate some of my dad’s favorite flavors.

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2017 Was My Year

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2017 was big and filled with momentous occasions, huge milestones, and travel. I celebrated a 20-year friendiversary on the Isle of Vieques, Puerto Rico. I traveled to Italy to attend a huge food show and ate a lot of beautiful prosciutto and parmesan. My husband and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary, bought a house then journeyed to Barcelona and Costa Brava Spain for a week of roaming and eating.

2018 is shaping up pretty well too.

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Apple Pie with Cheddar Buttermilk Crust

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Apple Cheddar Pie - the morning after

*Many of us need a little extra comfort in our lives right now. I know I do. I wrote this post before the election. Before most of us woke up to confusion and extreme disappointment.

I believe in the healing powers of making something good for the people you love. It is important that we all keep our spirits up so we can continue to fight for what is right. For me, making a pie for the ones I love is just the right medicine. The best thing we can do right now is to be the antithesis to hate. Share a meal with your neighbors. Reach out. Help someone. We have so much work to do, but first, let’s share a slice of pie.

So, we went apple picking. When I say apple picking, I mean APPLE PICKING. Between Evan, I and our two bags, we picked 90 pounds of apples! And it was awesome! It was a perfect afternoon. We went for a quick hike, stopped for BBQ and on the way home visited a pick-your-own orchard.  We romped with our dog to the farthest end of the orchard and picked our way back to the farmstand. It didn’t take very long until we were both gleeful and tired hauling our bags. We left feeling strong (I carried a 46-pound bag of apples uphill!) and dreaming of all the things we could make.

Did I temporarily forget I work for a produce company? Yes. Does this amount of apples we picked for the two of us make is prepsteaders? Possibly? It is now four weeks later I still have a lot of apples.

There have been many apple projects happening at our house. Our kitchen smells pleasantly of apples all the time. I have chipped away at our supply with pies and crisps. Honestly, we are not complaining….

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Chive Biscuits with Sausage Gravy and Roasted Tomatoes

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Chice Biscuits and Sausage Gravy

I mourn the loss of summer every year. I always want the longer warm days to last longer. It doesn’t feel right for dusk to come before seven pm. I still want more swing time in the hammock and time in the sun playing with my dog.

I am certainly not ready to say goodbye to summer produce. Pumpkin-spice-everything began showing up at the beginning of August. I am not a fan.  It seems sacrilege to pine for summer weather, foods and adventures all winter only to hasten fall flavors in the dead of the most anticipated season. Let’s savor summer while we can!

Every time I think my garden is done producing tomatoes, I turn around and find another basketful ready to harvest. We have eaten tomato everything this summer. There have been gallons of gazpacho and panzanella every which way. Now that it is a little cooler I am ok with turning on my oven to roast the last tomatoes of the season. I expect my plants to stop producing sooner or later!

My friend Josephina made me biscuits and gravy for the first time a few years ago. I don’t know how I had missed this perfect hearty breakfast for so long! Josephina’s methods are based on family tradition. She uses her grandmother’s recipe for buttery biscuits smothered with a creamy roux thickened gravy and browned sausage links. Josephina’s biscuits and gravy were a treat and kept me satiated long into the day. This is the breakfast one needs when there is a long day of work to do or adventures to be had.

Roasted Cherry Tomatoes…

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Hops Infused Vodka Tonic

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Hops infused vodka tonic

I know you want one!

I am on vacation! I have lofty goals for this week including napping in our hammock, light garden work, beach days and blogging. So far I have napped and look at me blogging! Woo-hoo! I am on a roll.  As soon as the weather cooperates, I will hit the beach.

A few years ago we let a friend plant a few hops rhizomes around our house. I innocently didn’t think we would have enough for the beer making projects we had planned. So, I planted some more. Silly me. We way more than we can use! Last summer, Evan and I harvested 8 pounds of the suckers! We made a few batches of beer, and a failed attempt at hops infused caramel (too floral), and some hops infused vodka. We gave a lot of the hops away.Hops infused vodka tonic

The infused vodka was delightful. The hops added a refreshing citrusy bitterness that I enjoyed in my late summer vodka tonics. The medicinal quality of hops is calming and slightly sedative, so this recipe is not for your party cocktail. This vodka and hops infusion is the libation of long warm afternoons spent sitting in the shade dozing with your dog. Sounds like vacation aspirations to me!

It is hop harvest time again. Since I am on vacation and I plan on spending some more solid hammock time reading and napping, a few thirst- quenching hops infused vodka tonics this week will set me right up.

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Vermont Rhubarb Tart

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Visiting our friends in Vermont always includes an unusual and surprising adventure. I don’t know if it is something about the Green Mountains or the high cow-to-person ratio, but all of my Vermont friends are crazy in only the best ways. We have visited abandoned ski mountains to swing on ski lifts in the summer, slid down snowy ski jumps on our rear-ends in the dark on New Year’s Eve, checked out many secret swimming spots, visited cool farmers, farms, breweries, and bakeries. Most recently we dug random rhubarb plants from the ground with our bare hands. I can’t tell you how happy this last adventure made me!

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Garlicky White Pizza with Homemade Ricotta and Ramps

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I’m not sure if spring has been late here in Maine or if the mild winter changed our perception of time, but I am so ready for spring and summer food! I have been dying for something green, wild and fresh. Luckily the warmer weather has arrived and so have spring ramps. Like the warmer weather in Maine, ramps won’t be around for long. As I write this, Rosemont received their last delivery of spring ramps for the season. So, hurry up! Get yours now!

What the heck is a ramp? Ramps are a kind of garlicky leek that grow wild in the forests of the northeast US, Canada and parts of Appalachia. Many people have been known to freak out upon ramps arrival in markets. They are harbingers of spring and a perfect remedy to heal the culinary wounds of too many winter root vegetables. If you can’t find ramps, this pizza is still delicious without.I have blanched my ramps for this Garlicky Three Cheese White Pizza with Homemade Ricotta. This softens both their sharp flavor and texture.

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Super-Fresh Rice Noodle Salad

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Montreal – We ate everything! This is the salad that saved me.

Last year Evan and I spent a quick three day weekend in Montreal at the tail end of a massive ice storm. The ice prevented us from traveling too far from our hotel. It was also during the seasonal closing time for many of the restaurants we wanted to visit. We were still able to have a lot of fun, but we didn’t get see and eat everything we wanted. This year we had our revenge trip of sorts. We brought friends for a four-night stay planned entirely around the places where we wanted to eat. We were going to eat poutine! Bagels! Smoked meat sandwiches! Visit all of the restaurants we missed! Healthy digestion be damned!

We hit all of the must eat places. We had bagels at St Viateur and smoked meat sandwiches at Schwartz’s. We ordered all of the appetizers at Joe Beef and Garde Manger and had amazing Lanzhou noodles at a place in Chinatown. We stuffed ourselves with Syrian and Armenian mazza at Alep and had breakfast on the veranda at Maison Boulud in the Ritz. Because, why not? We were on vacation, our reason for much eating.  I highly recommend visiting all of these places if you happen to be in Montreal. The food and the service were outstanding. And with the current exchange rate, you can’t go wrong.

In between meals we shopped, visited the Pompeii exhibit at the Montreal Museum of Art and hit a spa.  We took advantage of the mid-week deal at the Scandinave Spa in Old Montreal. Honestly, I can not wait to go back. We spent hours in their spa circuit, melting in their eucalyptus steam room, cedar sauna, hot pool and refreshing ourselves in the ice cold rain shower. We all ended our spa visit with the best massages we had ever had. I could have gone back each day of our vacation.

Our only folly was not having any breakfast before the spa. Four blissed out, starving adults are useless in deciding a lunch destination in an unfamiliar city. Luckily we started walking in a direction Evan, and I recognised as the way to the restaurant and bakery Olive et Gourmando. We were saved!
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Buttermilk Pie Dough

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Buttermilk Pie Dough

I love making pie, I really do. I would make pies more often at home if Evan and I didn’t eat every last crumb. Savory or sweet, there is little we can do to resist pie at every meal.

Making pie is easy as well, you know, pie. If you have a good recipe and a little experience in the kitchen you won’t have any problems. Pie baking experience is something I have in droves! I have been making pies for a really long time both at home and at work. I have learned a ton in the years I have spent mixing, rolling and baking thousands of golden buttery pies. Last Thanksgiving we made over 700 pies at the bakery. When we were finished making everyone else’s pies, I came home to try five new recipes to bring to our family celebrations. Yup. I get a little pie crazy around the holidays.

The most perfect pie crusts are both flaky and tender. Doughs made with butter, if handled well, will be flaky. And doughs made with shortening will be tender. Personally, I feel the flavor of butter outshines the flavor of shortening any day. Up until developing this recipe I sacrificed guaranteed tenderness for a flaky crust with lots of rich buttery flavor. So, how do we get a buttery crust that is both flaky and tender without using shortening?

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