go big or go home: lemon meringue pie

This is a birthday pie I made for my husband last month. He's born January 2nd and if there is a time when desserts are the last thing on my mind, January 2nd would be the day. But this pie works. There's no cloying chocolate or sticky caramel to wrangle with. Instead of a sickening sweetness, this pie is the perfect balance between sweet and tart. And let's just face it, this is a showstopper and while it may not be light in calories, the texture is ethereal and airy.

Glance down at the recipe and take a look at the steps involved. Scared? Don't be. Sure, there are crusts to make (but I make it easy by crushing cookies instead of rolling dough), curd to prepare and egg whites to beat, but really, this pie is about one hours worth of prep in the kitchen. The rest is just waiting. The waiting is murder, but like all good long waits, the results are divine. And like I said, it's a whopper of a dessert that packs a punch not only in pure deliciousness but in beauty as well. Make this pie and you will receive accolades and kisses (just make sure you make it for someone who you want kisses from).

So go ahead and make someone's day. Make this pie and celebrate in the most delicious way. The leftovers (if you have any) also make a wonderful *ahem* breakfast along side of a hot strong coffee. You know, just saying.

Also, I should mention that I'll be writing for ReadyMade's food & kitchen blog, Feast. I'm super excited that I was asked to be a part of the ReadyMade empire as I've been reading the magazine since nearly their very first issue. I'll be writing about different things than what I blog about here, but it will always be food-related. So please stop by, leave a comment and add us to your RSS feed!

lemon meringue pie
(filling & meringue recipe adapted from The Gourmet Cookbook)

vanilla cookie coconut crust
35-40 Nilla wafers, finely crushed
1/4 c shredded unsweetened coconut
1 T sugar
1/4 c melted butter

lemon filling
4 large egg yolks
1 scant c sugar
4 1/2 T cornstarch
1/4 t salt
1 c water
1/2 c milk
1 T unsalted butter
2 t lemon zest
1/2 c lemon juice

meringue
4 large egg whites
1/2 t cream of tartar
1/2 t salt
3/4 c sugar

Make the pie shell:
Preheat oven to 350F. If you have a food processor, I envy you. Whizz away. If you don't, just crush the cookies with a rolling pin. I put the cookies into a ziplock bag and then place a tea towel over top. Smash away and get your ya-ya's out. Dump crumbs into a large bowl, add in coconut and sugar and stir. Pour in melted butter and stir again. Press mixture evenly and firmly into the bottom and up the sides of a 9 inch tart or pie pan. Bake for 6-8 minutes until fragrant and slightly golden. Set aside.

Make the filling:
1. Whisk together yolks in a medium bowl. In a medium sized saucepan over medium heat, whisk together sugar, cornstarch and salt. Whisk in milk and water until cornstarch and sugar dissolves and mixture starts to thicken.

2. Very slowly pour one cup of the hot liquid into the beaten yolks and whisk away. Pour this mixture back into the saucepan and continue to whisk over a simmer, until mixture thickens, about 3 minutes.

3. Remove from heat and add in butter, zest and lemon juice and whisk until the butter has melted and the mixture is smooth and glossy. Place some plastic wrap or parchment paper over top so that a skin doesn't form.

Make the meringue:
With a stand or electric mixer, beat egg whites with salt and cream of tartar until soft peaks form. Turn up the speed and add in the sugar 1 tablespoon at a time and continue to beat until stiff peaks form.

Assemble & bake the pie:
Pour lemon filling into the warm shell. If the shell isn't warm, just reheat in the oven for a few minutes. Spread meringue smoothly and evenly over top, covering the lemon filling completely. Using your spatula, swirl and draw up peaks in the meringue so it looks pretty. Bake until the meringue is golden, about 15 minutes. Cool pie to room temperature for 2 hours and then refrigerate until cold, about another 2 hours.

winter squash & caramelized onion biscuit pie

Last summer I made a pretty spectacular pie. It was filled with sun ripe tomatoes, fresh corn and basil from my garden. I loved it and made it often. But then summer turned to fall and now winter and I still think of that pie. So instead of waiting, I did something about it. I made a great winter pie.

Squash and caramelized onions along with the strong tang of Swiss cheese take a pie that was the star of summer into the land of scarves, mittens and rain boots. This pie is winter and it's good. You can get the recipe for this beauty over at Poppytalk where I'm resuming my Wednesday column after a bit of a holiday break.

coronation grape galette

Yup, I made a galette out of grapes. I know, I know, you probably just snack on grapes or maybe scatter them into a chicken or waldorf salad. But making a pie out of my favorite grape ever is a worthy cause. Add a scoop of vanilla ice cream and I'm in heaven. Best thing, it's not even hard to make. You can get the recipe and the story over at Poppytalk, where you'll find me posting about food on Wednesdays.

make this now: tomato & corn biscuit pie

Three weeks vacation is a long vacation and we loved every moment of it. Well, maybe not getting bit by mosquitoes. If I'm thankful for anything about living in expensive Vancouver, I'm very thankful that there are no mosquitoes. Being bug-free, especially when camping for two out of three weeks, would have been miraculous. Highlights included driving the side roads in Quebec along the St. Lawrence, getting our feet mucky in the Bay of Fundy, driving the breath-takingly gorgeous Cabot Trail in Cape Breton, the fairy-tale village of Peggy's Cove, picking up shells off the red sanded beaches of PEI, and visiting the strangely deserted but beautiful city of St. John, NB.

I also fell in love with Montreal. Fell hard...and not just because of the poutine. It was exciting, relaxed, and perfect and I'm almost ready to pack my bags and relocate. French, do I really need to be that fluent? Honestly, it doesn't seem so! I also loved the Vermont town of Montpelier. It was beautiful and had everything I could want in a small town...except that it's not Canada. And as my friend Jason in Montreal beautifully put it, as long as you are in Canada, you are home.

Oh, and the food! We ate some pretty wonderful meals and I even managed to discover a love of cucumbers, peaches, plums and I even tried scallops for the first time (but definitely not the last). And while it was fun trying new foods, eating at new restaurants and beach-side shacks, it also feels good to be in my own kitchen. The first real meal I cooked when I returned was this pie. I had seen the recipe in my August copy of Gourmet magazine and it just looked perfect. Comforting and homey yet full of seasonal, fresh ingredients. It was the perfect meal to come home to.


The beauty of this recipe is that it takes all the complicated pie-making stuff and throws it out the window. Instead of a tricky pie crust, this one uses biscuit dough which is so much easier to roll out into a round-ish shape. If I had some zucchini, I'd even toss in a layer of that for a pretty green, red and yellow pie. It seems like a forgiving dish. And it's the perfect thing to make on a weeknight and it's good enough to serve to guests for brunch. If you aren't in your kitchen now cutting up your fragrant garden tomatoes or gently stirring up a batch of biscuits, you are clearly in the wrong. This meal must be made. Now. Get to it, I'll be waiting.

tomato & corn biscuit pie
(liberally adapted from Gourmet)
1 recipe of your favorite biscuit dough (minus the dill, onion & cheddar - but add some 1 t fresh oregano if you wish)
2 T mayonnaise
zest of 1 lemon
juice from 1/2 lemon
4-5 med-large tomatoes, deseeded & sliced
2 tablespoons finely chopped basil
2-4 fat green onions (about 1/2 c), sliced
1 c corn (freshly de-cobbed or frozen)
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
a pinch or two of kosher salt
1/4 c old cheddar cheese, shredded
egg wash, milk or melted butter

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix up your biscuit dough and divide the dough in half. Roll out one ball of dough into a circular shape and line it into a pie plate.

2. In the meantime, mix together the mayo with the lemon zest and juice and set aside.

3. Layer in half of the tomatoes to line the bottom and sprinkle with half of the fresh basil. Grind some black pepper over it all and a small pinch of kosher salt. Add half the corn and half the green onions and drizzle over half of the mayo mixture. Repeat. Sprinkle the top of the pie with cheddar cheese.

4. Roll out the remaining ball of dough and top the pie with it. Seal the edges and make it look pretty like Martha would (or be like me, cross your fingers and just try your best). Cut in a few vents to let the steam escape and brush the top with a bit of egg wash, milk or melted butter. Put in the oven to bake for about 30 minutes until the filling is bubbling and the top is golden. Remove from oven and serve.

move over pie: raspberry, black currant & nectarine galette

Baking a pie is a pretty wonderous thing. Somehow there's much more meaning and memories that end up baked into a pie than, let's say, a cupcake. Not that I'm dissing everyone's favorite cupcake. It's just that pies seem to remind us of days gone by, of grandmothers, of pies cooling on kitchen windowsills. They are a bit old-fashioned and antiquated, but the act of baking a pie from scratch shouts out love, plain and simple.

Let's face it. Pies can be fussy and a bit frightening, what with finding the perfect pie dough recipe to flirting with disaster just trying to roll out the damn thing. So that's why I've become enamored with the galette. A galette is what one would call a bit rustic and freeform. It only involves rolling out 1 piece of dough rather than two, since the dough folds over creating it's own top crust. It's brilliant, really. It's beautiful in it's own way and one bite will bring all those old-timey memories flooding back.

This isn't the first time I've made a similar pie. Last year I was very successful rolling out a wonderful cornmeal crust that held the fruit beautifully. It declared it a dream crust. This time, however, I wanted to try something a bit more traditional and stumbled across Molly's crust. It wasn't as easy to work with in that I had to add more water to the dough and it didn't hold it's shape very well. Figuring it was bungled, I just threw all the crumbs, loose bits and doughy bits together, and held it tight with some plastic wrap. After sleeping in the fridge overnight, the dough seemed just fine in the morning. I rolled it out and it surprisingly held together. And how did it bake up? Flaky and light, just like I had dreamed. I may just have a new contender to my dream pie dough recipe!


raspberry, black currant & nectarine galette
For crust (crust recipe modified from Orangette):
5 T ice water, plus more as needed
1 t white vinegar
1 ½ c unbleached all-purpose flour
1 T sugar
¾ t kosher salt
9 T cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes

2 c raspberries
2 nectarines, sliced
1/4 c black currants
1/2 c sugar
zest of 1 lime
2 T cornstarch
1 egg, lightly beaten

1. In a measuring cup, combine the water and vinegar and store in the fridge until ready to use. In a large bowl, combine the sugar, flour and salt together. Using a pastry knife, blend in the butter until you are left with a mixture resembling coarse crumbs about the size of peas. Slowly add in the vinegar/water combo and use a wooden spoon to gently blend the mixture so that it holds together lightly. Spread plastic wrap on the counter and dump dough into the middle of the plastic wrap. Seal tightly and press into a disc. Refrigerate for 4 hours or over night.

2. Preheat oven to 375. In a large bowl, combine together the fruit, sugar, cornstarch and zest. Blend gently. Set aside.

3. Roll out the dough on a floured surface until it's fairly thin (about 1/8" thick) and move dough over to a walled cookie sheet. Place berry mixture in the middle of the dough and then fold the dough edges around the fruit, pressing gently around each fold to contain the juices. Brush crust lightly with egg.

4. Bake galette for about 40 minutes until the crust is golden, the fruit turns soft and the juices run bubbly. Let cool and serve with vanilla ice cream.

dream pie

Life sure has been busy for the past few weeks. Along with lots of holiday fun, there was lots of work to be done as well. Presentations, proposals, lots of designing and a bit of coding here and there...and one of the highlights of this busy season was working with a fellow food blogger with a redesign of her blog! Alanna over at A Veggie Venture needed a new look and new functionality and I was so flattered that she felt that Cornelius and I were up to the task. She knew what she wanted from the get-go (hooray for clients with vision!) which made our working relationship as sweet as pie. Working with Alanna was great, so head on over to her blog and take a peek at all her yummy veggie recipes (well needed at this time of year)!

And speaking of sweet relationship pie, the day after New Year's Day was Cornelius' birthday! Before the big day, I sat Cornelius down and made him select his dream cake recipe from a skyscraper pile of post-it note marked cookbooks. And instead of a dream cake, he picked a dream pie! Coconut-banana cream pie with a dark chocolate lined crust, to be exact. Oh my! Lucky for me one of my resolutions for this year is to eat more healthy...so I was more than pleased to make a cream pie that I didn't want to eat (you know, back to the banana thing again). But don't worry about me, I loved making this pie! There were quite a few steps involved but I loved that intensity. Not that it was that difficult, but I did have to do things that kind of scare me...like making custard and pie crust* from scratch. But the pie was a success and well worth the effort (according to Cornelius and his parents who all sampled the pie). The recipe I used was adapted (I subbed light coconut milk for whole milk for that crazy coconut twist!) from the banana cream pie recipe from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook.

* The only problem with the crust was that it shrunk during baking quite a bit. Any thoughts as to why it happened? I didn't use pie weights so might that be the problem? Regardless of the shrinking, it apparently was tasty!

Delicieux!

I want to go to Quebec again. When I mentioned this to Cornelius, he wasn't too thrilled. Ten years ago, he rode is bike from Vancouver to Montreal and then lived there for 3 short months. He worked as a bike courier during the very cold winter months and lived in a cramped, roach-infested room. He doesn't have very good memories of "La Belle Provence"...except for the meal he ate almost everynight after his courier shift was over which consisted of 4 steamies (hotdogs) and a cup of beer from a fast food chain called "La Belle Provence". Believe me when I say that I've got better memories than that of Quebec!

When I was little, we would visit at least once a year my grandparents in their hometown of Trois-Rivières or spend the summer months at their beach-front cottage at Lac au Sable. Going to visit my grandparents always felt a little strange as my dad would stay home in Ontario while we took the long train ride with my mom to visit her side of the family. My younger brother and I did not speak french very well and although I could understand what was being spoken, I was still quite shy to "parlez vous en francais" out loud. Everything seemed a bit louder in that cottage than in our quiet house in London, Ontario. There was more laughter and more singing and more drinking. Everyone seemed to be having a great time. But for me, going to the lake meant swimming, reading and eating pie. And, oh those pies!

It was at their cottage where I first tasted tartre au sucre. My grandmother would make 2 pies that I remember during the summer, framboise (raspberry) and tartre au sucre (sugar pie). For the raspberry pie, we would head out into the woods with large giant white buckets and start picking all the wild raspberries....some making it into the buckets and some making it into my mouth. Raspberries were my favorite fruit as a child and I loved my grand-maman's raspberry pie. Nothing could top that feeling of biting into the warm pie and crunching the seeds between my teeth. But that was until I tried tartre au sucre. I never knew exactly how that pie came together or what was in it and since my mother never made it, it was a complete mystery to me. But when it arrived on my plate still warm from the oven, I couldn't believe what I had been missing. Sweet, yet not overly so, it was creamy and rich and delicious.

This pie recipe wasn't my grandmother's recipe. My grandmother used real cream, of course, but this recipe still brought those memories flooding back. It's an easy pie to make and not at all mysterious. It's probably not as delicious as my grandmother's pie, but that's the stuff of memories anyway. Enjoy.

tarte au sucre
6 T all-purpose flour
2 c packed brown sugar
1 1/2 c evaporated milk
4 T butter
1/2 t salt
1 t vanilla
1 unbaked pie shell

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

2. In a saucepan, combine flour and sugar. Turn heat to medium-high and stir in milk, butter, salt and vanilla. Stir constantly until mixture comes to a boil. Remove from heat and pour into an unbaked pie shell.

3. Bake at 350 degrees F for 35 minutes or until the pie sets (it should still jiggle but not be liquid).

trading places

Today a crazy thing happened. Through some kind of magic osmosis, Cornelius and I exchanged places. At 7pm tonight I realized that I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast! Instead of thinking about food, figuring out what I could prepare for dinner, or checking the fridge for snacks, I was lost in a pile of freelance work. I didn't think about food or eating once. Cornelius, on the other hand, called me from work to tell me that he felt guilty because he went out for dinner at a restaurant I've been wanting to go to for a while now. Now, this may not seem strange to you, but I know Cornelius. When we first started dating, I asked him what his favorite food was, and he replied "uh...flour?". You see, Cornelius couldn't really care less about what goes into his mouth. He's definitely thankful that he gets to share in the food bounty I cook up, but as long as his stomach isn't rumbling, he doesn't worry about it. So it was a definite shock that he not only told me about going to Senhor Rooster, but he raved on and on about how amazing the food was, intricities on the preparation of the food, about how there was a magazine doing a shoot the same time as he was eating and how he got to speak with the chef. Grrrrr!

But no worries, dinner is better late than never in my opinion! So at 7:30 tonight, I got back onto the computer and checked out Joe's recipe archives at Culinary in the Desert. I landed on the Broccoli Cheese Pie and dinner was settled. By 8pm, dinner was in the oven and 45 minutes later, I was able to cut myself a nice piece of cheesy, broccoli goodness. Delicious! And in just a few minutes, Cornelius will return from work and eat his second dinner of the night. Hmph!

Broccoli-Cheese Pie
(Adapted from Culinary in the Desert)

4 large eggs
1 1/4 c skim milk
1 t hot sauce
1/4 t salt, or to taste
1/4 t freshly ground pepper
2 c cubed multigrain bread
3 c broccoli florets & stems
2 t olive oil
1/4 c black forest ham
1 medium onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 c grated cheddar cheese

1. Preheat oven to 350. Lightly coat a 10" pie dish with cooking spray.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, hot sauce, salt and pepper. Add bread cubes and stir to coat. Set aside.

3. Steam broccoli until bright green and just tender. Chop coarsely.

4. In a medium skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic and saute until softened, 3 to 5 minutes. Add ham and stir about until heated through. Add the onion mixture and broccoli to the egg mixture. Stir in cheese. Pour into the prepared pie dish and evenly spread the mixture.

5. Bake until light golden and set about 45 to 50 minutes. Let cool for 5-10 minutes and then cut into wedges.

let's celebrate

This past weekend was our very first wedding anniversary and I don't think there is any better match for me than Cornelius -- he's my most perfect fella. Last June 25th, we tied the knot in a small little ceremony with all of our friends and family present (well, minus my dad who was too afraid to fly across country). The ceremony and reception was held at an indie gallery/diy workspace called Blim and it was a truely d.i.y. affair, with lots of homemade food and cake, dancing and way too much beer. My dress was handmade out of a set of vintage drapes and I even embroidered on a leaf and flower pattern on the skirt out of colourful buttons and left over fabric. Of course, Cornelius looked handsome in his pink shirt and grey suit found in a Seattle vintage shop. The day was lovely and perfect and way better than anything we could have dreamed up.

So when the date for our anniversary came around this year, we figured what better way to celebrate than to throw a party....a Mississippi Luau, in fact! We hustled around picking up decorations and groceries and lots of liquor (for the pina coladas and mint julips, dontcha know) and set it all up at Cornelius' (vacationing) parents house in the suburban wilds of Burnaby. Yes, we did ask permission. On Saturday, friends gathered and games of croquet and bocci ball were played and lots of food was grilled and eaten. A most perfect anniversary celebration, I think.

Out of all the food at the party, I was especially proud of my two desserts, the blue hawaii coconut cupcakes and the Chocolate/Bourbon Pecan Pie. I made these vegan cupcakes awhile ago but the pie was a first and very successful. I did run out of corn syrup and I substituted 1/4 cup of maple syrup which I wouldn't recommend...unless you leave out the bourbon. Just too many competing tastes! Just stick to the recipe and you'll do fine.

chocolate bourbon pecan pie
(adapted from epicurious.com)
1/2 c sugar
1/4 c butter, room temperature
1 T flour
3/4 c corn syrup
1/4 c bourbon
1 t vanilla extract
3 large eggs
1 c chopped pecans
1/2 c semisweet chocolate chips
1 pastry crust (cold), rolled out and placed in a pie plate

1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Line pie crust with foil. Fill with dried beans or pie weights. Bake until crust edges begin to brown and crust is set, about 17 minutes. Remove foil and beans. Bake until golden brown, pressing with back of fork if crust bubbles, about 5 minutes longer. Transfer pie crust to rack. Maintain oven temperature. If your pie crust is storebought, I'd just skip this step and put the filling right into the frozen pie crust.

2. Beat sugar and butter in medium bowl until smooth; beat in flour. Gradually beat in corn syrup, then bourbon and vanilla. Mix in eggs, then chopped pecans. Sprinkle chocolate chips over bottom of crust. Pour filling into crust.

3. Bake pie until filling is puffed around edges and just set in center, covering edge of crust if browning too quickly, about 45 minutes. Transfer pie to rack and cool completely. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate.)