Pie, Mixed Berries!

Haven't made pie in while. I have some visitors and some sweet berries at the house. Decide to surprise them when they get back from the day of adventure with mixed berry crumble pie. Strawberry, blueberry blackberry and raspberry [the blackberries and raspberries are frozen in my freezer] mix, I love this combination. 

Prepped the strawberries last night while the my blueberry peach jam was cooking. Before I started the crust this morning I went out for a morning walk. What a beautiful day. Even got to see a heron by the river. 

For my crust, I use Smitten Kitchen's buttery crust recipe . It is my go to recipe for pies, sooo buttery.

2 sticks of butter in this crust

all the ingredients are prepped and ready to become a pie

All done mixing, this looks good. Now for a good chill down in the refrigerator. A quick shower for me and run out to my farmers market.

can you see the butter chunks in the dough. yum!

I read up on how to avoid soggy bottom crust. Most article suggest blind baking the crust. I put it in a 450º oven for 8 minutes with parchment paper and pie weights [I use a lentils] then remove the weights and continue to bake for about 5–8 minutes more. Forgot to take a shot. Multi-tasking, making marinade for tonight dinner. Let cool while you mix up the filling

ready for the crumb . . .

. . . into the oven

Juicy, right out of the oven

Glad it didn't spill

For the filling, I had made a recipe a while back that I can't find anymore. It came out really nice, just thick enough that it wasn't not runny all over. 

UPDATE: Still VERY JUICY and it ran over the crust on the side to the bottom crust. Soggy. This is what I'll do next time. I'll mix the fruit with sugar and let it macerate, then drain the juice. Up the corn starch to 4 T and mix it in with the cinnamon. The taste was good, just the right sweet but I'd think it needed a 1/2 t more of cinnamon. The crumb was great. Maybe I'll make this one more time, to see if my adjustments work. Stay tune.

Here's a link from King Arthur Flour on pie filling thickeners that I thought was helpful after the fact. 

Preheat oven to 375º

Filling

6 c  mixed berries, I used 2 c strawberries, chopped, 2 c blueberries, 1 c blackberries and 1 c raspberries

zest and juice of 1 lemon

1/2 c brown sugar

1/4 c corn starch

1 t cinnamon

2T butter, chopped up into small pieces 

Mix together all the ingredient for the filling except for the butter. Pour filling into the your crust then add the butter pieces to the top. 

Topping

1/2 c brown sugar

1/2 c granulated sugar

1/2 c flour

1/2 c old fashion oatmeal

1 t cinnamon

1/4 t salt

1 stick butter, chopped into smaller pieces

1 c walnuts, chopped

Mix together all the ingredients for the topping till you get a crumbly appearance. Add to the top of the pie.

Bake for an hour, crumb should be golden brown and filling should be bubbling. Let rest for at least an 1/2 hour. Can be serve at room temp or even cold. 

Cooking up some savory goodies

Got these beautiful carrots [red, orange and yellow, I'm a sucker for these kinds of veggies] from the farmers market, with some red and orange beets,  swiss chard [my favorite)] and a delicata squash and decide to make up some savory goodies for my lunch this week.



Starting out roasting the some of the carrot and beets with olive oil, Herb de Provence, salt and pepper. 

I used only 1/3 of the bunch of carrots, so I decide to try making a carrot salad asian-style with the rest.

While the carrots and beets are roasting, I'm caramelizing onions for a zucchini and caramelized onion tart. Someone from work gave me a giant zucchini that I need to use and I found this recipe from One Perfect Bite. 

I found my way to One Perfect Bite while I was looking for instructions to make dried apricot jam in crock pot. I bought a big container of dried apricots a while back and I thought I better use it up soon. And loved the apricot jam made this summer. So that's also cooking away at the moment.

The onions are done now and I'm off to make some crust, making up 2 crust, one for the tart and one for an apple sour cream crumb pie from Martha Stewart. Yes, I got some apples from the farmers market. [my eyes are bigger than my stomach]


My kitchen smell amazing at the moment. I'll post some pics of the finish products later. 

I'm thinking of trying a stuffed delicata squash with swiss chard [and probably the leftovers of the giant zucchini] and cheese. But that's tomorrow's project. I have a ton of baking and cooking on my list for tomorrow. It's perfect weather for all this cooking. I'm taking advantage when I can. 

I know this all sound way too much for one person. But I have all of this great veggies and fruits from the farmers markets and friends that I need to use up. I guess I'll make someone happy when I surprise them with a sampling.

My attempt of being frugal and a foodie

This weekend I decided to bring my breakfast and lunch to work to save some money. I also have some time to test out some recipes that have been burning up my to testing list. 


First up Breakfast
Greek yogurt, banana, homemade granola and local honey. Been wanting to try Alton Brown's granola recipe for a while and had the time this weekend. Adjusted it a litte, switch out pecans for almonds [what I had in my freezer] and added a 1 1/2 teaspoons of cinnamon plus I added some craisins. 




At first, I had my doubts. Didn't smell as I thought it would, I nibbled on a litte kind at the beginning, kind of bland. I was hoping I didn't have to toss out the whole thing. That would be such a waste. But an hour and fifteen minutes later [stirring every 15 minutes], it turned out great. Makes a lot, I think enough for 2 weeks of breakfasts. Not too sweet and not bland, just perfect with my yogurt and banana. Nice and filling.


My Lunch
I'm writing it as I'm eating it: Roast Beef [from the restaurant], spring and vidalia onion marmalade [onion from my produce bag from work] on a hard roll with a broccoli parmesan fritter. Broccoli has become my new favorite veggies and I found this recipe on Smitten Kitchen. I actually at the whole recipe by myself this weekend. I loved it with sweet chili sauce. I'm eating the last one with my sandwich. Wish I had more.





Another Recipe Test
I had some very sweet strawberries from Costco this week and wanted to try out this strawberry pie recipe from Sauver. Wanted to make a fruit pie with what was in season. I'm still not sure about it. Very juicy but tasted good. I think the crust need some work. Last time I made this crust it was great. It's probably me. I guess I need to work on my pies. Maybe I'll try a pie a week.