This weekend was destined for pie baking. Pie fever kicked off a few weeks ago when I picked up the Thanksgiving issue of Martha Stewart Living. I’ve never read her magazine before, but the Sweet-Potato Meringue and Apple-Pear pies on the cover looked so beautiful that I couldn’t leave the bookstore without it.

Pie love continued on Friday when I rode my bicycle near Jack London Square and found the walk-up window for Pietisserie on Oak Street near 4th Street. At the 2011 Eat Real Festival I tried one of her handheld beet pies and found it to be amazing—not overpoweringly sweet as pumpkin pie and sweet potato pie can be. Her beet pie has a mild sweetness and the filling is very light. So I was excited to see her window, and the entire corner of Oak Street and 5th transformed.

I couldn’t leave without a miniature Spiced Apple pie with cardamom-oat crumble:

With extra-wide lattice crust on my mind Sunday, I broke down and made a blackberry-apple-pear pie laced with chocolate. I know. Crazy. I’ve never used chocolate in a fruit pie before, but I figured since chocolate-strawberry and chocolate-banana are great combinations…Why not pear and apple too?

The results: good. The fruit combination is delicious—a little tart from the berry, a little grainy from the pear. Truth be told, as much as I love chocolate, I might skip it next time. It overpowers the flavor of the fruit, and, really, I’m happy to let fruit pie just be fruit pie.

Super flaky crust recipe here, if you’re curious. So flaky in fact that I had a lot of trouble working with the dough. It calls for freezing 3/4 of the butter, which was all-new to me.

I baked my first ever loaf of crusty white bread this morning, and I am amazed. I am awestruck. The process could not have been simpler as I used a no-knead recipe, and most of the work involves just waiting for the dough to rise. Note: some planning ahead is required. I waited out the whole 20 hours of rising time, mixing the dough Saturday afternoon so I could work with it Sunday morning.

I’ve worked with dough plenty making pizza and baked dishes and desserts, but this is a whole other thing. Each time I peeked at the dough as it was rising, I was startled by it as a pulsing, moving thing. It was alive. And when I removed the loaf from the oven, perhaps the most exciting part was hearing it pop and hiss as the surface of the bread cracked.

I used the New York Times No-Knead Bread recipe, adapted from Jim Lahey at Sullivan Street Bakery. The only way I altered the recipe was by adding rolled oats and sunflower seeds to the flour mixture before pouring in the water. And before setting the round of dough to rise for the final two hours, I added another handful of oats to the top before placing it seam-side down on the cotton towel.

Hello, hi-yo. Yes, I’m still here, still cooking. An afternoon or evening spent in the kitchen helps soothe my soul, and I’m discovering that I truly enjoy sharing the results with my neighbors and friends as much as I enjoy making the dish. It might be true…my true calling might be food-related.

The last week was a tough one, culminating in an eerie Friday the 13th and a blue weekend. Cooking and baking can always be counted on to put me in better spirits—cooking combined with Sam Cooke, even better.

For lunch today I made pizzettas:

One topped with marinara sauce, salami, mozzarella, and bell peppers, and the other substituting the mozzarella for ricotta; a sprinkling of arugula on both.

I’m reading Ruth Reichl’s Tender at the Bone, had for only $5 at Owl & Company Bookshop, a memoir of her family, her childhood, and growing up in the kitchen. Recipes are scattered throughout the book and I was inspired today to try her recipe for apple dumplings.

I don’t have photos of the finished result, because my take on the dumplings was not that pretty truth be told…They look like big pastry covered baseballs. My task for next time: better presentation. But, the results were salty-sweet and delicious. It’s like a miniature apple pie served with hard sauce—try this link for Ruth Reichl’s recipe.

With the amount of greenery that gets stuck in teeth, to lips, and in hair (me, me, and me) you’ll have to really be in love with your partner before dining on this recipe together. That said, the simplicity of a fresh pesto sauce can’t be beat and thanks to my ma, a living, breathing cookbook, I now have a new favorite summer recipe.

I remember her pesto sauce well, made many times over the years, but as she noted on the phone today I was also confusing it with a sauce she made for salmon—similar to pesto but a thicker consistency with cumin and some other ingredients.

This pesto sauce recipe she rattled off on the phone and I altered it a bit to fit the available ingredients I had in the house.

In a food processor or blender, mix the following:

2-3 cups of basil
A handful of parsley (which I didn’t have, so I used cilantro instead)
2-3 cloves of garlic
2-3 tbs. toasted pine nuts or walnuts (I used a mix of pine nuts and sunflower seeds)
Salt and pepper

Once blended it makes a kind of paste, add olive oil to moisten and thin until desired.

I tossed linguine noodles with the sauce, added sliced mini heirloom tomatoes, and maybe half a cup of parmesan cheese.

1. Orecchiette with garbanzos, grape tomatoes, and feta

This pasta salad has gotten raves at every dinner party, bbq, or work function I’ve ever taken it to. As my mom said, it’s nice to have a go-to recipe that you can count on to wow people every time. And with just a handful of ingredients—grape tomatoes, feta cheese, green onions, mint, garlic, cilantro, and garbanzo beans—the prep time for this dish is minimal. Served warm it’s great for dinner with a side of greens or portobello mushrooms.

2. Roasted chicken stuffed with feta and bell pepper, served with roasted potatoes and broccoli

My first stuffed chicken ever! Only seven ingredients in this recipe produce tasty results. Next time I might roast the broccoli and potatoes with whole garlic cloves, since I find an excuse to add garlic to everything.

3. Grilled pizzas topped with grilled green onions, zucchini, and ricotta cheese, served with a radish, cucumber, and arugula salad

This was also the first time I’d grilled pizza dough, and watching it puff up in my grill pan and get perfect sear marks was, as a pizza enthusiast and lover of all-things-dough, very exciting.

Just leave a comment if you’d like any of the recipes!

So pretty and sweet, you’re guaranteed to want two pieces.

Saturday afternoon felt right for baking and I happened to see some enticing plums at the grocery store, so I revisited this recipe with happy results. Note, my plums were not red-fleshed (or 100% ripe…) so this recipe has the potential to be even more beautiful than pictured.

Upside-down cake is fun. That final moment of flipping the baking dish is nerve-racking and exciting, and when it sucks out of the baking dish and plops onto the plate all glistening and gorgeous—it’s a proud moment.

I used Cooking Light’s recipe, and started by sautéing plums in butter, then adding sugar, cardamom, and a pinch of salt. Once plums are tender, remove them with a slotted spoon and bring the remaining liquid to a boil; reduce until it’s a jammy consistency.

 

 

 

 

Arrange the plums in the bottom of a greased baking dish and pour the reduced plum juice over the plums—let cool. Next, whip up the cake batter with amaretto, pour over plums, and bake for 50 minutes. Top with whipped topping.

 

 

 

I’d like to try pineapple upside-down cake sometime. It’s such a classic, dotted with maraschino cherries; see images from every 50s/60s dinner party ever for reference.