I think everyone should keep a package or 2 of puff pastry in their freezer, ready to use at a moments notice. I’m not talking about homemade puff pastry, but the stuff you can find in most grocery store freezers. Sure, the store bought stuff doesn’t compare with the rich, buttery flakiness of homemade, but let’s face it, making puff pastry is a time consuming process. Don’t get me wrong, I think everyone should try their hand at making puff pastry, but let’s face it, going out and buying it is much more convienent.

There seems to be this feeling that puff pastry is some “fancy” food. Sure, beautiful gastronomic delights can be created using puff pastry, but I like because it makes a quick and flaky crust to wrap around all sorts of everyday fillings. Wrap it around a couple pieces of Hershey’s dark chocolate and a teaspoon of raspberry jam for a quick and tasty dessert. Fill it with thick chili for a latin inspired “empanada” or fill it with a mixture of browned ground beef and vegetables for a British inspired “pasty.” The ideas are endless and definitely need not be high cuisine.

I wrote up this recipe to help use up some stuff from our CSA box. We’ve gotten a little behind in using up the stuff as we were gone on vacation for a week and the vegetables started to pile up. We had plenty of kohlrabi to use up and half a head of Napa cabbage that was starting to get a little limp. Because I wasn’t particularly in the veggie mood I decided to cook them up with a bit of ground beef making a great filling for individual “pies.”

While these taste great on their own you could serve these with some sort of dipping sauce. An herbed sour cream, horseradish sauce or even applesauce would make a companion to these little “hot pockets.”

Individual Beef and Vegetable Pies
makes 8 pies ( usually serve 2 per person although paired with a salad 1 would make a nice light lunch)

1 1/2 pounds ground beef
1/2 head Napa Cabbage, shredded
1 1/2 cups kohlrabi, peeled and diced
1 medium onion, peeled and diced
2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1/4 cup worcestershire sauce
1 tsp. dried thyme
salt
pepper
1 box (2 sheets) frozen puff pastry, thawed per directions on box

Blanch the kohlrabi in boiling, salted water until tender but not mushy (anywhere from 1-5 minutes depending on how tender it is). Shock in ice water to stop the cooking then drain. In a large skillet brown the ground beef along with the onion and the garlic, seasoning with salt and pepper. Once the beef is cooked drain off all the fat. Return beef mixture to skillet and add the cabbage along with 1 cup of water. Cook until the cabbage is tender and all the water has evaporated. Add the kohlrabi, dried thyme and worcestershire. Cook until all the liquid has evaporated. Check seasoning and adjust. Place in the fridge to cool completely.

Once the meat mixture is cool, unroll 1 sheet of puff pastry and cut into 4 equal squares (they will not be exact squares but don’t worry). Preheat the oven to 375°F. Working with 1 piece at a time, place 1/2 cup of the meat mixture into the center of the square.

Lightly brush the edges with a bit of water to dampen, then bring up 2 corners to form a triangle. Pinch the sides closed then use a fork to crimp the sides together to ensure that they don’t separate during baking.

Repeat with the remaining 3 pieces of pastry then unroll the other sheet and repeat the process until you have 8 pies. Place onto 2 greased baking trays and place in the oven. Bake for 10 minutes then rotate the trays and bake 10 minutes longer or until the tops are lightly browned. Remove from the oven and allow to cook for 5 minutes before serving.

I had meant to post this recipe a couple of weeks ago, but I’ve kind of been off my game a little the last few months, as witnessed by the fact that I have been posting rather sporadically. Sorry, I’ll try and do better. Yeah, I know I’ve said that before, but this time I mean it!!!!

If you have followed this blog, or taken a look through the recipe indexes you will notice that I love rhubarb. While technically not a fruit-we use the stem of the plant-people most often refer to it as such since it is mostly used in the same context as fruits-meaning it is most often used in making desserts.

Here in Wisconsin, rhubarb is on of the first edibles to break ground in spring and by mid May it is ready to start harvesting. Because it is ready so early we often associate it with spring and early summer, often pairing it with other early summer fruits such as strawberries and raspberries. But, rhubarb can be harvested all summer long and into early autumn.

While pairing rhubarb with peaches is far from new, ground breaking work it’s not a pairing that you see regularly, so I thought I would whip up a Peach and Rhubarb pie to make use of our rhubarb patch one last time before it was done for the season. While this recipe comes a little late, I still see plenty of peaches in the markets and if you have a rhubarb patch you probably still have a couple of weeks left before the hard frosts kill it all off, so hurry up and make yourself one of these. You won’t be sorry!

Peach and Rhubarb Pie

3 cups peaches, sliced, with or without skins-your choice. I left them on.
3 cups rhubarb, sliced
1/3 cup flour
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
Your favorite pie crust for a two crust pie.
1-1 1/2 Tbsp. sugar

Preheat your oven to 350°F. Line a 9″ deep dish pie tin with one pie crust. Combine the peaches and rhubarb with the flour, sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon, tossing to coat well. Pour into the pie tin and top with the remaining crust. Pinch the edges of the crusts together, fluting the edges for a decorative look. Cut 4-5 steam holes in the top of the crust and place in the oven. Bake for 30 minutes then sprinkle the top with the remaining sugar and continue to bake another 15-25 minutes or until the crust is golden brown and the juices are bubbling. Remove from oven and allow to cool for at least 30 minutes before serving. I like to wait an hour or more to make sure the pie has set up properly.

This past weekend I celebrated my 40th birthday. I wasn’t nearly as traumatic as I thought it would be. Sure, I’ve come to the realization that I’m not as young as I used to be, but I also came to the realization that you are only as old as you feel. I certainly don’t act and feel like I thought 40 year olds act and felt, when I was a teenager.

The weekend was rather low key. No major party, just good times with family. My parents made the trip up from Indiana and my brother and his wife came up from Madison, WI to help me celebrate, and to have our family “Christmas.” Hey, better late than never. We filled the weekend with good food, plenty of games, and lots of laughter….and the occasional Hurricane.

We also filled with weekend with plenty of good food. For my birthday dinner, I chose hamburgers, done on the grill. Yes, I know, it’s not fancy, and surely doesn’t do justice to a chef’s birthday dinner, but I love burgers and besides, we had a big day of eating ahead of us the following day. The following morning started with coffee and Eggs Benedict, using another batch of homemade English Muffins. Eggs Benedict are another one of those dishes that I never tire of, and if I wasn’t afraid of what it would do to my arteries, I’d probably eat it a couple times a week!

Our main meal of the weekend was a full blown holiday feast with turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, in other words, the whole works. Over the last few years I have forsaken roasting the turkey and, instead, grilled the turkey in my Weber grill, flavoring it with hickory smoke. As usual, everyone ate too much, especially my brother who refuses to listen to both his body and our warnings about his past years’ gluttony.

Sunday lunch, leftovers, was saved by my brother and his wife, who had brought along a bunch of home canned pickles and relishes, including their fabulous Dilly Beans.

Overall, the weekend was a wonderful success and there were plenty of food highlights, as there always is when my family gets together. One of the standouts was this wonderful pie my wife created. She conceived of the idea a week or so ago while eating a snack of banana and peanut butter pretzels. While, at first, it might seem a little strange, the flavors work quite well together. The pie is ready a few hours after being made, but I found that allowing the pie to sit overnight allows the flavors to meld a little more. The best part is that the pretzel crust was still crunchy 3 days later, though I doubt the pie will last that long.

Peanut Butter Pie with Preztel Crust

FOR CRUST:
2 1/2 cups pretzels, crushed
3 Tbspl brown sugar
3/4 cup butter melted

FOR FILLING:
3/4 cup peanut butter, creamy
1 package (3oz) cream cheese, room temp.
1 1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 container (12oz) whipped topping, thawed
3 bananas, peeled and sliced 1/4″ thick

Preheat oven to 350F. Combine all the ingredients for the crust and mix well. Save 1/4 cup of pretzel mixture and spread the rest into a 10″ pie tin,working all the way up the sides and making sure that the crust is even. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Cool completely before filling. Sprinkle remaining pretzel mixture on s cookie and bake 10-12 minutes. Cool

In a large bowl, combine the peanut butter and cream cheese. Add 1/3 of the whipped topping and the sugar and beat until smooth and no lumps remain. Add remaining whipped topping and gently fold in until well combined. Fill crust with 1/2 of the filling then top with sliced bananas. Top with remaining peanut butter mousse. Garnish with remaining crushed pretzels and chill for 3 hours or overnight before serving.

It’s December 1st, and that means only 24 days left until Christmas, my favorite holiday of the year. Not only is it Christmas, but my wife and I celebrate our anniversary right around that time (Dec. 30th) along with my parents and grandparents. So, as you can see the holiday is a very special time for me.

I figured I would start the Christmas season off with a simple pie recipe. While it may be simple, it packs quite a punch in the flavor department. I tend to not drink a lot of eggnog. I’m not a big fan of it though I do like Tom & Jerry’s, which at their most basic are a frothy, warmed up version of eggnog. I also tend to use eggnog as a flavoring agent in many recipes this time of year, but I just can’t bring myself to drink more than a glass or 2 during the holiday season, and then only if spiked with copious amounts of bourbon.

My wife on the other hand loves eggnog and will drink a considerable amount over the next few weeks. Because of her love for eggnog I dedicate this recipe to her.

Eggnog Pie

1 each Pie crust for a 9″ deep dish pie
1/2 cup Sugar, granulated
1 pinch Salt
2 cups Eggnog (store bought)
4 each Eggs, large
Nutmeg, freshly ground

Preheat oven to 425F. Par bake pie crust for 7 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool while making filling. Reduce oven heat to 350F. In a large bowl beat eggs. Add sugar and salt and stir until mostly dissolved. Add eggnog and continue to stir until all sugar is dissolved. Try not to beat too much air into filling. Pour into pie shell, coming just below the edge of the crust. You might have a little extra filling. Don’t over fill the crust. Sprinkle with fresh ground nutmeg and place in oven, on a cookie sheet in case it overflows. Bake for 40-50 minutes. To check a custard for doneness, jiggle the pie. The custard should still wiggle like softly set jello. Don’t overcook the pie or it will lose its smooth, satiny texture and become grainy. Allow to cool on tray for 20 minutes then transfer to a cooling rack. Allow to cool completely before cutting. I even prefer to refrigerate it for a couple of hours to make sure it has set completely before cutting.

With summer coming slowly coming to an end (many would argue that it wasn’t much of a summer here in Wisconsin) and fall just around the corner, I am starting to look forward to the resumption of late evening fires in our neighbor’s fire pit. The thought of that inevitably leads to s’mores as my wife loves the things and almost always suggests them at our late night gatherings. Unfortunately, beer and s’mores don’t really mix so I usually decline. I have never been a big s’more fan anyway. Sure I love chocolate and toasted marshmallows and I even like graham crackers but I am one of those people that would rather eat them all separately then mash them all together. It was with these thoughts in mind that I was trying to come up with a dessert to surprise my wife with when I remembered that I had saved a recipe for a S’more pie from Gourmet, November 2006. Looking over the recipe I felt that ,while the chocolate filling would work well, the marshmallow topping seemed a little dense so I modified it somewhat to more closely resemble the recipe we use for making homemade marshmallows.

Chocolate S’more Pie
makes 1 8inch pie

1 each Graham Cracker Crust
FOR CHOCOLATE FILLING
7 ounces Bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 cup Heavy cream
1 each Egg, room temp.

FOR MARSHMALLOW TOPPING
1 package Unflavored gelatin
1/2 cup Water, cold
3/4 cup Sugar
1/4 cup Light corn syrup
1/2 teaspoon Vanilla extract
Vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 350. Put chocolate in a large bowl. Bring cream to a boil then pour over chocolate, stirring until smooth. Lightly beat egg and add to chocolate mixture along with salt then pour everything into pie shell. Cover edge of crusts then bake until filling is just set, about 25 minutes. Cool completely. Meanwhile make the topping. Bloom gelatin in 1/4 of the water in a large heatproof bowl. In a saucepan stir together remaining water, sugar, corn syrup and a pinch of salt and bring to a boil. Boil until mixture registers 238. Start beating gelatin mixture and slowly add hot syrup, in a slow stream. When all syrup has been added turn mixer to high and beat until triple in volume. Add vanilla extract then immediately pour over cooled pie. Chill, uncovered for 1 hour, then cover with oiled plastic wrap and chill 3 hours more. Before service brown top with either a blow torch or under broiler. If doing under a broiler protect the pie crusts.

If at all possible brown the top with the blow torch. Not only is a much more fun way to do it, I think it provides better flavor and gives it a more rustic look as some parts remain lighter while other parts get darker.

A few years ago my wife and I went out grape picking at a local “U-Pick” farm. The farm offered a variety of u-pick options, including raspberries and a number of different apples along with the grapes. We enjoyed ourselves, filling pint after pint of raspberries, a couple basketfuls of apples, and way more grapes than we could possibly use. The apples were turned into Apple Butter, pie filling, Apple Dumplings while the raspberries were all turned into jam including my favorite – Raspberry Jalapeno Jam. With the grapes, my wife canned our own grape juice and a couple varieties of grape jelly, but we were still left with a considerable amount of grapes, way more than we would eat, fresh, before they went bad. Wanda searched through cookbooks, and surfed the web for grape recipes and happened upon a number of recipes for Concord Grape Pie. Neither of us had ever heard of it, but it sounded interesting, if not a little time consuming so Wanda whipped up a pie and we fell in love with it. A Concord Grape Pie is like everything good about grape jelly and grape juice but none of the other’s downsides. The pie is sweet, but nicely balanced by a tartness that is provided by using the skins. It is also very “grapey” but not overwhelmingly so. Now when we go grape picking we make sure to pick more than we need and get our fill of Grape Pie during harvest. We also freeze a quite a few pounds of the little purple spheres so that we can enjoy a Concord Grape Pie anytime of year.

I am someone who believes that pie any fruit pie is best served with ice cream. That being the case, the first few times Wanda made grape pies we ate it with vanilla ice cream. While this proved to be a good pairing (and what fruit pie isn’t enhanced by a scoop of vanilla ice cream?), I began to think that I could come up with better. What is the ultimate kid inspired pairing? Peanut butter and jelly, so why not serve peanut butter ice cream along side this pie instead of vanilla. It’s not easy to find straight up peanut butter ice cream. Most of it is peanut butter cup or some other mix of chocolate and peanut butter. While not bad, I really wanted an ice cream with just peanut butter to create the Ultimate PB&J’s.

Each of the recipes below are wonderful on their own, but I hope that you try them together for a great adult take on a kid favorite. One thing to take note of ; the recipe calls for peeling the grapes. Don’t worry, Concord grape are not like the standard table grapes which are very difficult to peel. To peel Concord grapes just squeeze them between your thumb and finger, the skins should slip off. Don’t discard the skins as you will be adding them back to the grape puree.

Concord Grape Pie
Adapted from bhg.com

1 each Pie crust for a 9 inch pie
1 1/2 pounds Concord Grapes (about 4 cups)
3/4 cup Sugar
1/3 cup All-purpose Flour
1/4 tsp. Salt
2 Tbsp. Butter, melted
1 Tbsp. Lemon juice
For Topping:
1/2 cup All-purpose Flour
1/2 cup Sugar
1/4 cup Butter

Line pie plate with crust and set aside. Remove skins from grapes (see note above), setting skins aside and place grape pulp into a nonreactive saucepan. Bring pulp to a boil, lower heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Pass through a strainer to remove all the seeds then add the skins back into the puree. In a large bowl combine sugar, flour and salt. Mix well then add the grape mixture and the butter. Mix well again then pour into prepared pie shell. Cover edges with foil to prevent over browning and bake in a preheated 375 degree oven for 20 minutes. Meanwhile make the crumb topping by mixing together the flour and sugar. Cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Remove the pie from the oven. Remove the foil edging and sprinkle crumb mixture over pie. Bake an additional 25 minutes or until the pie is bubbling and the crust is golden brown. Allow to cool completely and set before cutting and serving.

Peanut Butter Ice Cream

3 cups 1/2 and 1/2
3 each Eggs, large
1 cup Sugar
2/3 cup Peanut Butter
2 tsp. Vanilla extract
1 pinch Salt

Heat 1 cup of the 1/2 and 1/2 over medium heat. Meanwhile combine the eggs and sugar and whisk until the sugar is dissolved. When 1/2 and 1/2 comes to a simmer pour 1/3 of it into the the egg mixture to temper the eggs, stir and add the egg mixture back into the sauce pan. Stirring constantly, over medium heat, cook the custard mixture until it thickens slightly and just starts to steam. Don’t overcook or you will curdle the eggs. Remove from heat and add the peanut butter and salt. Stir until they are dissolved. Pour into a large bowl and add the remaining 1/2 and 1/2. Place in the refrigerator to chill then freeze in an ice cream machine, following the manufacturer’s instructions. When done scrape into a container, cover and freeze until hardened.