Pie gadgets

Progressive makes a "pie slicer". I received one as a gift a few months ago and finally took it out to use this past Thanksgiving weekend.  Here it is slicing a blackberry apple pie. It did slice fairly effectively, but I'm still ready to stick it in the yard sale pile.  The slicer stores in a little plastic container, but that means that for each use you have to unscrew the base, slide each of the cutting wings in and rescrew the thing together.  To was and put it away is a pain as it is hard to pull the base cover off. Really, it took two of us in the end. You can use either six or eight wings, but even with eight wings the pie pieces are still enormous. According to the box you can store your pie with the cutter in place like a pie gate.  Mine however doesn't fit in my pie storage container as it makes the overall pie too tall.  So between the extra time, the clean up, and the giant pie slices I just don't see a purpose for this kitchen gadget. 

Roasted CSA Veggies

I'm terrible at keeping up with this blog (or any of them...) but here's a photo of a whole mess of vegetables just prior to roasting from both my CSA and that of a friend who disliked her Brussels sprouts.  I've been roasting vegetables all fall long as they are so easy and delicious!

Return to the CSA

Hey look! I got a box of vegetables. It's the start of the second year of my CSA share. Now that I have regular fresh vegetables and I'm free of classes for the semester, maybe I'll get back to cooking and baking.

This week's goodies:
Japanese salad turnips
Boston lettuce
Salad mix
Red Kale
Spinach
Rhubarb
Arugala

A return to the blog

Pie baking and general blogging took a bit of a back seat through the winter due to large amounts of school work and little time, but in an effort to resurrect the blog I offer you the results of Serious Eats Pi Day Pie Bake Off.
I'm seriously impressed with some of these pies. I think I'm most fascinated by how you bake a "pi" in a pie. I may have to experiment. Sadly, I missed Pi Day this year being preoccupied with writing a paper about Franz Liszt's Faust Symphony. However, should you ever need to know anything about that hour of music, I'm now well versed.

Haiku Tuesday!

Apple and plum pie
Baked in my oven Sunday
and made a big mess.

But the result sure was pretty even if I do have to clean the oven now where the pie bubbled over. Note to self: invest in a non stick liner that can be easily cleaned.

Haiku Tuesday and a flood

After the flood stops
many loads of laundry lead
to odd drying spots.

I've finally gotten around to washing everything that was in my closet when I discovered there had been a leak two apartments above mine that my management company (Vantage Management for those of you keeping track or looking for a landlord to avoid) had neglected to properly deal with by finding out how far the damage had gone. There were gallons of water in my closet that sat there for a couple of days. Sadly a great deal of stuff was damaged including a bunch of fabric and some dresses that had the colors run because they sat in the water. I'm still fighting to get the management company to at least pay for part of the damages. Of course it is now 3 weeks later and they haven't returned my calls or responded to the certified letter I sent. So stay tuned....

Cream of Cauliflower Soup

I got a new toy the other day: an immersion blender. Amazon was having a sale. That coupled with the weather in New York finally hitting actual fall temperatures meant that it was time for soup. Plus as an extra bonus I got a leek in this week's CSA bounty. (CSA pictures will be up soon from what I have, I promise.) So I made up a Cream of Cauliflower recipe.

1 big leek
3 medium sized potatoes (or in my case about 12 tiny Nicola potatoes from the CSA two weeks ago)
1 Tbs herbes de provence
2 Tbs fresh chopped parsley
2 Tbs butter
8 cups chicken stock
1/2 a cup of cream
Salt

Clean and chop leek and saute in the butter in a large pot until just beginning to brown. Add chicken stock, chopped potatoes and chopped cauliflower. Stir in salt, chopped parsley and herbes de provence. Allow to simmer for approximately an hour. Then using your brand new nifty immersion blender, blend away! Mine took under 30 seconds. Stir in cream. Serve. I enjoyed mine with some buttermilk biscuits.

You can even see the steam coming off the soup in this picture.

Stone Fruit Pie

A slightly belated Shana Tova to all.

I made this pie while up in New Haven a few weeks ago using leftover peaches approaching their last legs of ripeness that had been picked by a friend as well as some nectarines and apricots that were hanging out in her fridge. I'll probably be dreaming of it when I am fasting on Saturday.

Haiku Tuesday

Major leak leads to
leads to much laundry and dry cleaning.
and the loss of stuff.


There was a major leak two apartments above me this weekend. Anger at the landlord abounds for not taking care of the full problem when it happened. Apparently they knew about it and fixed the leak 24 hours before I opened the closet to discover the damage, much of which would have been negated had the clothes not been sitting wet and pressed up against each other. Apparently though, Vantage Management seems to think that either water or their building are uneffected by the laws of gravity. I've been doing all kinds of hand washing and trying to treat dirty water stains. The closet is still wet inside and there's mold and it is all just very unpleasant.

CSA Week 13

This week's bounty included

4 lbs of mixed beefsteak and plum tomatoes

Swiss chard

2 red and 2 yellow bell peppers

Parsley

Mixed salad greens

shallots

cherry tomatoes - of which there are never enough because I always finish my portion in the first hour they are in the house. Though they did make a lovely salad with the greens and some leftover cucumber.

Haiku Tuesday!

I had never seen

The roots of a cabbage

Before Saturday.

Seriously, I hadn't. But I thought this one looked really neat and I had to take a picture. It's from a farmer's market in New Haven.

CSA week something or other

I think it's week #12 but I've sort of lost track while I was away.

TOMATOES- Seven giant big red beefsteak tomatoes.
Fennel
Green Bell peppers
Red Bell pepper
Cherry tomatoes - sadly only a tiny handful of them
Red Batavia lettuce
Nicola potatoes

Haiku Tuesday!

Why yes, it is true
I am the cutest Mickey
baking dish ever.



I picked this up while on vacation. Luckily for everyone's sanity I could only carry the small size. I want to make macaroni and cheese in it.

New Pie Dish!

Shortly before I went away on vacation I got a belated birthday present of a fabulous new pie dish. I believe it came from Anthropologie. I think this brings up my grand total of pie dishes I own to six or possibly seven. Either way plenty to make an all pie Thanksgiving meal again if I decide to do that. Of course it may also be the start of an obsession with novelty pie dishes.


I was excited to use the dish for the first time the moment I go it. The only trouble was that I didn't actually have anything to make pie out of at the time since I was about to go out of town. Not that this would ever stop me. Instead of traditional pie in the new dish, I give you brownie pie.I love brownie mix and always have some in the house for just such occasions. Now I know it even makes great pie.

Haiku Tuesday!

Back from vacation,
Cleaning ad laundry and now
An Epic Roach War


Seriously, the little buggers have overstayed their welcome this summer.

In other bug related news apparently bed bugs prefer Democrats to Republicans. Perhaps that explains my fall horror.

On Vacation!

Happy Vacation!
I am eating with Mickey,
so no CSA.

Haiku Tuesday

CSA is great!
I get to order fresh eggs
straight from the chicken.






I also ordered meat, dog bones and rye bread. My share partner got raw honey. The eggs made some of the best tasting scrambled eggs ever.

Pesto

I made pesto for the first time and it was easier than I expected and also very good. Much better than the jarred kind.

I exchanged some zucchini for extra basil so I'd have enough to make pesto and managed to make the pesto just before the batch of basil went bad. I added garlic, pine nuts and Parmesan to olive oil and the basil leaves for less than thirty seconds in the food processor, and then added it to sauteed mushrooms over pasta.

CSA Week #8

CSA Week #8

Beets
Zucchini
Savoy cabbage
Red onions
Basil
Romaine lettuce
Cucumber
Red Norland Potatoes

I did my volunteer hours handing out shares on Thursday and as a special bonus I got some leftover peaches and blueberries that came with the fruit share. I promptly made pie:

Blueberry Peach Pie

1/2 pint of blueberries
6 large peaches
and I probably dumped almost a full cup of flour and at least 3 tablespoons of tapioca to try to make it less watery. And it worked! Finally a peach pie that isn't a liquidy mass.

CSA Leftover Lasagna

When I got back from Israel the greens from two weeks of CSA plus the week I had just picked up were a bit out of hand and so I made lasagna. This used up several kinds of onions as well as Swiss Chard and kale.

For the record the CSA weeks I didn't get photos of included:

Week #5 - Romaine lettuce, carrots, cippolini onions, beets, kohlrabi, Toscano kale, dill, broccoli

Week #6 - Zucchini, carrots, cabbage, radicchio, Romaine lettuce, green kale, cippolini onions, broccoli

Week #7 -Zucchini, Romaine lettuce, Toscano Kale, Broccoli, Scallions, Swiss Chard, Cucumber, Basil, Corn.
The corn was an unexpected surprise and though the ears were small it was pretty good corn.
I was also pleased to miss most of the zucchini run as it falls on the list of vegetables I just really don't care for.