The bad news: this month has been really, really hard. the good news: I can make pie. Lots and lots of pie. Some people deal with their struggles by going to church, running for miles on end, or cleaning their houses from top to bottom. Me, I like to make pies. I'm a lucky person. I live where produce is abundant, and I have in-laws with the most beautiful Italian plum tree that they graciously allow me to pick when the fruit is ripe. I love it.
Climbing up their ladder to pick the top of the tree (I don't have to, but I like to) reminds me of picking cherries in 7th grade with my sister when we hadn't lived in Washington long. It was a grind at the time--seriously early mornings--I was terrible at it, I was lazy, and didn't do it long at all--but we really did have fun. I picked that plum tree last week and brought the bag home and did nothing but look at it for days. I felt sad. I made some chutney and canned a whole gaggle of jars. I still felt sad. And then I made this pie, which made me feel a little better. I think I'll have some more tonight and feel even better. Got a little time? You might take a crack at it, your heart might just feel a little lighter like mine did.
Italian Plum Custard Pie on Hazelnut Crust
Ingredients:
Crust & Topping
1/2 C hazelnuts, shelled
1/2 C brown sugar
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/4 C all purpose flour
3/4 C unsalted butter, chilled and cut into domino-sized chunks
Filling
1 lb. Italian plums, pitted and quartered
1/4 C granulated sugar
2 T all purpose flour
1/4 C heavy cream
1/4 C whole milk
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place a heavy sauce pan on a burner over medium heat. Add the hazelnuts.
Shake the pan back and forth every few minutes for around 5 minutes, or until the hulls begin to come off, and they begin to smell delicious. Remove from the heat and allow to cool until you can handle the hazelnuts without burning yourself.
This will take around 10 minutes. Remove all the hulls and add to a bowl of a food processor. Combine with all dry ingredients and pulse a couple times. Add the butter, a few pieces at a time and pulsing until the dough looks crumbly, but combined.
Take about 1 1/2 C of the mixture and press into a pie plate.
Place in the oven and bake for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool.
Rinse, pit and quarter the plums.
Pour into the cooled pie shell. Combine remaining filling ingredients and whisk together.
Pour over the plums in the shell. Top with remaining crumble mixture. There may be some extra depending on how thick you made your pie crust.
Place on a baking sheet and bake for 55 minutes.
Late summer/early Fall is peak season for tomatoes and basil-perfect fodder for homemade pizza.It's also time for wild mushrooms such as chanterelles, corals, lion's manes and boletes to start poking out, also great pizza fixin's. No access to wild mushrooms? Don't give it a second thought. Use what you have--that is precisely the point.
Ingredients:
Pizza Crust
2 tsp dry active yeast
2 tsp honey
1 1/2 C whole wheat flour
1 1/2 C all purpose flour
2 tsp salt
1 1/4 C warm water
Wild Mushroom Pizza Toppings:
1 pound wild mushrooms, cleaned and sliced (if you can't find wild mushrooms, feel free to use what you have)
1/4 lb. Manchego cheese, torn into chunks
2 tsp Aleppo pepper--1 tsp per pizza (No Aleppo pepper? Substitute cayenne and decrease amount by half)
1 fresh sage leaf
1 tsp truffle salt
1/2 large onion, diced
2 T unsalted butter
2 T Extra virgin olive oil
Tomato Capicola Pizza Toppings:
1 lg. tomato, cut into 1/2-inch slices
1/4 lb fresh mozzarella, cut into 1/2-inch slices
6 pieces Capicola, cut into paper-thin slices (No capicola? Just substitute pepperoni or salami)
2 T extra virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 C fresh basil, torn or shredded for topping
2 T extra virgin olive oil and corn meal each, for prepping baking sheets
4 T extra virgin olive oil--1 T per pizza
2 T extra virgin olive oil for bowl for dough proofing
About 3 hours before you want to eat, add yeast and honey to 1/4 C warm water to make a sponge. Stir and cover with a towel. Leave for 15 minutes until foamy.
Mix flours and salt in a large bowl.
Create a well in the center. Add remaining warm water to the sponge. Pour into the well in the flour. Stir with a fork to combine roughly. Rub a little oil on your hands and knead the dough into a pliable ball of dough. This should take about 5 minutes. Coat a large bowl with olive oil. Place the dough into the bowl and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Place into the oven until the dough is at least doubled. This should take around 3 hours.
While the dough is rising, prepare toppings for the mushroom pizza. Heat a saute pan over medium heat. Add the butter until melted. Add the onions and stir often until they are amber colored.
Remove to a bowl. Mince the fresh sage. Return the pan to the stove. Heat the olive oil. Add the mushrooms and sage.
Season with truffle salt. Cook, stirring periodically until all liquid has cooked out. This will take around 15 minutes. Cook until slightly browned. Remove to a bowl. Next, prepare toppings for the tomato capicola pizza. Slice tomatoes and set aside. Prep basil and cheeses.
When the dough is ready, remove the bowl of dough from the oven. Heat oven to 450 degrees. Punch down the dough and recover with the plastic while you prep the baking sheets. Oil each sheet and sprinkle with corn meal (this helps the dough not to stick.) Cut the dough into 4 pieces. Press each piece into a round as thin as you can make it. Coat each crust with oil.
For the two mushroom pizzas, add the mushrooms first, followed by the onions, and pepper. Top with the Manchego. For the two remaining pizzas, add the cheese, tomato slices and capicola. Sprinkle the garlic over the top.
Bake the pizzas for 8 minutes. Switch the heat to broil. Broil for 2 minutes and remove from the oven. Allow to rest for 5 minutes before cutting. Top the tomato pizzas with the fresh basil. Enjoy!
Summer is literally blowing by--I can see it right outside my window. Leaves aren't turning quite yet, but the breeze is picking up and leaves are looking crispy. It's time to take stock of an outstanding season and eat the full-tilt summer foods like mad before they're gone. In my mind, watermelon and tomatoes are two foods that just should only be eaten fresh when in season. What you find in the market off-season are sad, mealy, flavor-free impersonators that should be avoided. Watermelon, also like the tomato, is a good delivery system for lots of flavors and textures, which is why I love it in salad, particularly when lots of other great goodies are in season too, like fresh local feta (bet you didn't think I was going to say cheese, did you?) It's sad to think we won't see them again for another year, but I suppose that's part of what makes them so delicious. I love this salad for lunch with some toasted naan and Baba Ghanouj.
Watermelon Feta Salad
Ingredients:
1 watermelon, seeded and cubed into chunks no larger than 1-inch
1 C basil leaves, torn
8 oz. feta
1 medium red onion, chopped coarsely
1/4 C white balsamic vinegar
1/4 C extra virgin olive oil
2 fresh red chiles (I used Thai chiles, but you could use cayenne or dried Aleppo Peppers)
Salt to taste
Mix the dressing by combining the vinegar, oil and minced chiles.
Combine all remaining ingredients in a large bowl and gently combine with the dressing. Season with salt to taste. Enjoy!
