Lentils and Pie Oh My!

No, its not a lentil pie. Although that is an intriguing idea to file away.
Last weekend I went to visit a friend in New Haven and we made a curried red lentil recipe that she had from a friend and it was fantastic.

Of course no weekend would be complete without making a pie. We didn't have a lot of time so went with a store bought crust and instant pudding but added a layer of melted peanut butter before putting the pudding in the crust and letting it set in the refrigerator. The lesson of the day however was that if you are going to melt peanut butter in the microwave make sure to do it in stages and mix it up. Otherwise the peanut butter will burn on the inside. Burnt peanut butter strangely smells almost exactly like burnt popcorn and that is a smell I could do without in my life.




Curried Lentils
Florence Minnis

9oz split red lentils (about 1 cup)
2 medium onions chopped
3oz butter (very important for flavour)
6 cloves garlic sliced
1 medium carrot grated (though I just slice mine)
2 teasp. whole cumin seeds
1 and a half teasp. whole black or yellow mustard seeds
3 teasp. ground tumeric
1 can coconut milk
4-5 slices fresh ginger
140z chopped ripe tomatoes (or a can but some fresh tomato good for texture)
juice of one large lime or 2 small ones
handful chopped fresh coriander
salt and pepper to taste

Fry onions in half the butter, add half the garlic, carrot and whole spices and cook for 5 mins. Stir in tumeric. Cool slightly. Tip in lentils, 10fl oz water, coconut milk, ginger, tomatoes, salt and pepper. Simmer for 30-40 mins. In separate pan, melt the rest of the butter and add the rest of the garlic, fry for a minute or two, and then tip into the lentil mixture. Add lime juice and coriander and leave to mellow for ten minutes. Remove the ginger slices. Serve warm, not hot, with rice and/or naan bread.

Thanksgiving: Dessert

The last three pies from Thanksgiving.
Cranberry Apple

This was again a plain butter crust, and the insides are just granny smith apples, fresh cranberries, sugar, and tapioca to hold it together. I used a little extra sugar than I normally would in a fruit pie. I believe it was about a cup and a half. I did not use any regular pie spices. This was all about that cran-apple flavor. I got to use my new food processor for the first time on this one. When I bought the bag of cranberries I had sudden flashbacks to the horror that was depitting cherries and the mess it made of my kitchen. I knew that I couldn't leave the cranberries whole in the pie. Luckily, my new Kitchen Aid chopped the entire bag in less than 20 seconds. True I had to then clean it, and that is never fun, but I think the trade off to not have to slice or crush a bag of cranberries and end up with juice everywhere was well worth it.

Sweet Potato and Pumpkin Pie.
I didn't make this one. In general I don't much like either sweet potato pie or pumpkin pie. As those go this was however quite good. It was made by the lovely Marci.

Chocolate Raspberry Pie

This one was a joint effort with Marci. I made the crust which was a baking experiment. I'd place it as a moderate success. It's a chocolate butter crust. I took the normal ratio I use for a single pie crust (1 cup of flour - 1/3 cup of butter) and replaced 1/4 cup of the flour with cocoa powder. The crust was baked for about 20 minutes using beans as weights to keep it from bubbling up. The filling comes from here.

FILLING:

10 oz. pkg. frozen raspberries
1/2 c. softened butter
2 eggs
2 oz. unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled
1 c. whipping cream
1/3 c. sugar
1/2 c. raspberry jam

Thaw raspberries and reserve juice. Cream together butter and sugar. Stir in chocolate. Add eggs, one at a time, and beat mixture for 3 minutes after each addition. Fold in whipped cream, berries and jam. Spoon mixture into the crust, making slightly raised crust. Chill for 2 hours.
Decorate the top with fresh berries or whipped cream.

It actually took a while for me to find a recipe that looked good for a chocolate raspberry pie. I think if I did it again I might experiment a bit more and rely a little less on the jam which stuck out a little bit especially the next day. Also, be sure to let it chill. We missed that step on Thanksgiving so it was a bit too pudding like. It was perfect the day after Thanksgiving.

We served all of these with a rum infused whip cream that was really excellent, especially with the cranberry apple pie.