Brown Sugar Graham Cookies

These cookies are so simple, and SO good... I grew up with them, and I have no idea where my mom got the recipe.  Mom made them last Christmas, and we realized that while these cookies are good with light brown sugar, they are AMAZING with dark brown sugar.  It makes a big difference!  


Brown Sugar Graham Cookies
Makes about 48, depending on how you cut them


Ingredients:

1lb. box Nabisco graham crackers (3 packs), broken into squares

1 ½ cups unsalted butter (3 sticks)

2 C. packed dark brown sugar

1 C chopped walnuts

1. Preheat the oven to 350°.  
2. Spread 1 layer graham crackers in greased 10 x 15” pan.  You may need to break them into the small rectangles to get a full layer. 
3. Combine HALF of butter and HALF of brown sugar (3/4 cup and 1 cup, respectively) in small saucepan.  Bring to a boil and let boil 3 minutes.  Pour syrup over crackers; bake for 10 mins.
4. Meanwhile, combine remaining butter and brown sugar in the saucepan, making another batch of the syrup.  Add walnuts when it starts to boil. 
5. When the pan comes out of the oven, add another layer of grahams (It’s important to act quickly when adding the second layer, otherwise the layers don’t stick together). Pour syrup over, and bake 10 more minutes.
6. When slightly cool cut in strips.  If you wait too long to cut, they break.

Concord Grape Pie

I married into this pie - so to speak - and oh, I'm so glad I did. You've probably never heard of a grape pie - it does sound weird, doesn't it? But if you can find Concord grapes where you are, you should make this. It's like grape juice in pie form, and it's delicious. It tends toward the sweet, so it's best with vanilla ice cream or, in a pinch, whipped cream.

Concord grapes have a really short season here in Seattle, so grab the grapes when you see them! The season is usually sometime in September, but the weather has been so weird this year that I'm keeping an eye out now. Alas, Concord grapes are not seedless, so you have to get the seeds out of them before you can make the pie. Just put on some comfy shoes and some good music and you'll be done in no time!

Grape Pie

serves 6-10

Filling:

1 ½ pounds (~4 cups) Concord grapes

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

¼ tsp salt

1 Tbsp. lemon juice

2 Tbsp. butter, melted

Bottom Crust:

Your favorite crust, homemade or store-bought

Top Crust:

½ cup flour

½ cup sugar

¼ cup butter

Filling: Slip skins from grapes (just squeeze them and the insides will eject); set skins aside. Bring pulp to a boil; reduce heat &simmer for approx. 5 minutes (until grapes fall apart). Press pulp through sieve to remove seeds; addskins to pulp.

Combine sugar, flour, and salt; add to grapes. Add lemon juice and butter; mix well. Pour into pie shell.

Crust: sift flour and sugar. Cut in butter until crumbly. Sprinkle over pie.

Bake at 400° about 40 minutes, until the top crust is just getting color around the outer inch or so.

Bonus: if you want to be able to make this pie when the grapes are not in season, you can can the filling in a hot water canner - just omit the flour and butter. When you open the jar to make the pie, stir in the flour, and then add the butter and dump the whole thing into the pie crust. It works great!

Peanut Butter Cream Pie - for Mikey

Sunday night, my Twitter stream sort of blew up with shock and sadness - I didn't know exactly what happened until Monday morning, but the food blogging community was reeling from the sudden loss of Mikey Perillo. His wife, Jennifer, is big in the food world.  I didn't read her blog, or follow her on Twitter, but I knew of her nonetheless. I knew she had young kids, and I was stunned by the news.

Later in the week, she posted about how fleeting life can be, and reminded us to treasure our loved ones while we can - don't put off loving them until tomorrow, because tomorrow is not guaranteed to arrive.  She asked that people make Mikey's favorite pie on Friday, and that we share it with people we love, because she'll never get to share it with him again.

So I did.  Peanut butter cream pie is not my husband's favorite (though I'm pretty sure he'll like it), so I'll make his favorite pie in the next few days.  For today, though, we have this pie, and we have each other and our son. And even though there are still things we long for in our life, today we'll remember to be thankful for life and love and the abundance we have been given.

Recipe: Peanut Butter Cream Pie

Strawberry Hand Pies

Today is my husband’s birthday (happy birthday, honey!), and he is a pie guy. He’d much rather have pie than cake, most of the time.  Conveniently, it’s also Pie Party day!

I love making small pies, especially strawberry – I love the flavor of the cooked, jammy strawberries, I love that everyone gets more crust, and I love that I don’t have to try to get the slices to hold together!

We just got back from camp yesterday, and I was running short on time and energy (camp is SO fun and SO exhausting), so I used store-bought crusts.  I used one Pillsbury and one from Grand Central Bakery here in Seattle, and the Grand Central ones held up MUCH better than the Pillsbury ones – I know which I’ll keep in my freezer from now on!





I got this fun little mini-pie maker a couple of months ago.  It’s supposed to make the pies round, with the filling area star-shaped, but the star shaping gets lost in the baking process.  I don’t really care – it’s still pretty fun and easy to use.  It has a cookie-cutter side to cut the dough, and is hinged to press the crust pieces together with the filling inside.







Strawberry Hand Pies
from Martha Stewart
Makes 8-10 pies

Ingredients:

• roughly 3 cups strawberries, hulled and halved or quartered, depending on the size of the strawberry
• 4 Tbsp sugar
• 2 Tbsp corn starch
• Pre-made pie crusts for 2 double-crust pies (4 rounds of store-bought crust)
• 1 egg
• water
• sanding sugar (optional; can also use granulated sugar)

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 425°.  Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper or a silpat.
2. Stir together the strawberries, sugar, and corn starch in a medium bowl.  Let sit while you prepare the crusts.
3. Cut an even number of 5-inch rounds from the crusts.
4. Put about 2 Tablespoons of filling in the middle of half of the rounds.
5. Brush the edges of the filled rounds with egg wash.
6. Top each filled round with another unfilled round.  Press and crimp the edges to seal.  Place the pies on the prepared cookie sheets.
7. Cut a vent in each round.
8. Brush each pie with more egg wash, and sprinkle with the sanding sugar.
9. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until golden brown.
10. Keeps in sealed container at room temperature for up to 2 days.

Oatmeal Scones

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it here before, but I’m not really a scone fan.  Even if they have good flavor, they tend to be dry and crumbly and just… disappointing.  I figured this was how scones were supposed to be, and that they just weren’t my thing. So I’d pretty much given up on them until I tried these.  My friend Rebecca made them for a baby shower and – knowing that she makes good food – I tried one.  Well!  They were anything BUT disappointing, and I smuggled one home in my purse.

Turns out I’d had the recipe for YEARS, as it’s in a 2003 issue of Cook’s Illustrated!  I made them a couple of weeks ago, and they’re easy and really good.   Not dry and crumbly!  I don’t think they need anything on them and will happily eat them plain, but my husband and son liked them with jam or honey.  I was hoping these would be healthy enough to make a batch a week and have one for breakfast every morning, but… I plugged the ingredients into an online nutritional calculator, and let’s just say that health food they are NOT. Despite the oatmeal.  Alas.

Make them anyway, though!  Just not for every day.  They keep well, too, if you don’t eat them all the day they’re made.

Oatmeal Scones
from Cook’s Illustrated, Sept/Oct 2003
Makes 8 scones

• If you use King Arthur flour (or another higher-protein brand of flour), ad an additional 1-2 Tbsp milk.
• You can substitute half-and-half for the milk/cream mixture (I did).

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups (4.5 oz) old-fashioned rolled oats or quick oats
1/4 cup whole milk
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 large egg
1 1/2 cups (7.5 oz) unbleached all-purpose flour
1/3 cup (2.25 oz) sugar, plus 1 Tbsp for sprinkling
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
10 Tbsp cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

1. Preheat oven (with rack in middle position) to 375°.  Spread oats evenly on a baking sheet and toast in oven until fragrant and lightly browned, 7-9 minutes (it took me more like 10-11 minutes).  Cool on wire rack.  Increase oven temperature to 450°.  Line second baking sheet with parchment paper.  When oats are cooled, measure out 2 Tbsp and set aside.
2. Whisk milk, cream, and egg in a large measuring cup until incorporated.  Remove 1 Tbsp to a small bowl and reserve for glazing.
3. Pulse flour, 1/3 cup sugar, baking powder, and salt in a food processor until combined, about 4 1-second pulses.  Scatter cold butter evenly over dry ingredients and pulse until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal, 12-14 1-second pulses.  Transfer mixture to medium bowl; stir in cooled oats.  Using rubber spatula, fold in liquid ingredients until large clumps form.  Mix dough by hand in bowl until dough forms cohesive mass.
4. Dust work surface with half of reserved oats.  Turn dough out onto work surface and dust top with remaining oats.  Gently pat into 7-inch circle about 1 inch thick.  Using bench scraper or chef’s knife, cut dough into 8 wedges and set on parchment-lined baking sheet, spacing pieces about 2 inches apart.  Brush surfaces with reserved egg mixture and sprinkle with 1 Tbsp sugar (you can use sanding or decorator’s sugar here, if you have it).  Bake until golden brown, 12-14 minutes.  Cool scones on baking sheet on wire rack for 5 minutes, then move scones to cooling rack and cool to room temperature, about 30 minutes (or, y’know, don’t.  They were wonderful warm!).