Appleberry Pie...Gone!

I brought three pies to my family reunion this past weekend. I came home with two slices of peach pie (promptly finished off last night), but the strawberry-rhubarb pie was gone, and so was the apple-blackberry pie. If it hadn’t been such a hot day, I might have had the ambition to take a few photos to share with you.....before we polished it off.

I have entered this pie in the Iowa State Fair a few times. It took 3^rd place in the two-crust fruit class at the 2009 fair and again in the 2010 fair. I try to improve my entries from year to year, at least until I earn first place…..so I guess I have a little work to do on this one! No matter the fair results, if you are a berry lover, you must try this pie. (And give me any suggestions you have to improve it!)

Yours in pie,

Mindy

Appleberry Pie

Pastry for double-crust 9” pie

2 c. frozen blackberries, partially thawed*

2 c. thinly-sliced, peeled Golden Delicious apples

½ T. freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 c. sugar

2 ½ tsp. cornstarch

2 ½ tsp. tapioca

½ tsp. ground cinnamon

2 T. butter

Milk

Sparkling sugar

 

*I often use one whole 12 oz. bag, which partially-thaws to about 2 cups.

Combine blackberries, apple slices, and lemon juice. In a separate bowl, combine sugar, cornstarch, tapioca, and cinnamon. Add to fruit mixture and combine gently. Let stand 15 minutes. Transfer to pastry-lined pie plate. Dot the top of filling with butter. Adjust top crust; seal and flute edges. Brush crust with milk; sprinkle with sparkling sugar. Cover edges with foil to prevent over-browning. Bake on lower middle rack at 400° for 10 minutes; lower heat to 350° and bake for 1 hour more or until crust is lightly browned and filling is bubbly in center. (Remove foil last 15 minutes of baking.) Cool completely on wire rack.

 

Grandmas, Horses, and Apple Pie

As American as mom, baseball, and apple pie.

I started thinking about that while making this apple pie -- except I was thinking about grandmas instead of moms, and horses instead of baseball.

While my husband was busy completing some projects in the warm autumn air, the kids and I spent Sunday visiting my grandma (the one on whose farm I rode horses as a kid). She will be 89 years young in a few weeks and now resides in an assisted living apartment. Though she still cooks for herself, I prepared a meal to take along, and of course, it being Sunday and all, an apple pie.

As a kid, I enjoyed running around on my grandparents’ farm. I remember the sweet smell of hay as I explored the barn, and the freedom I felt as I roamed the property. The farm is where I had my first driving lessons, imagining my own roads and stop signs (and trying not to crash into any buildings). When we weren’t begging to drive the pickup, my cousins, my sister, and I would race the three-wheeler across the length of the farm, from the highway, past the house, and all the way down to the crick.

(Yes, people. I said it. Crick. Also known as creek, for those of you who might be English majors, or unlike me, grew up somewhere north of the 43^rd parallel. South of there, sometimes we get lazy and just call it a crick.

Oh, and a pickup? That’s a truck, in case you were wondering.)

At the top of my list of things to do on the farm was riding horses. I didn’t get to ride very often, so it was always special when I did, and to me, horses have always been such special animals. One particular horse with a most calm disposition was Raebo.

My grandma and I talked about Raebo during our visit. A registered quarter horse, my grandma said Raebo lived to be 32 years old. I remember her being a kind and gentle mare, with the patience needed to handle young riders like my cousins and me, especially since I hardly knew what I was doing.

While being impatient ourselves and not wanting to take no for an answer (quite possibly a family trait), I remember a time when my cousin and I decided that we would ride anyway. We needed help with the saddle, and since no one would help us, Neil and I figured we could just ride bareback. We had done it before, but this time we would do it without assistance…and without reins.

Knowing how much the horses loved the apples from the Wealthy tree that stretched across the fence into the pasture, Neil and I lured Raebo to the fence with the apples. Standing on the fence post to give us some height, we carefully mounted Raebo once she was close enough to reach. I rode behind Neil, hanging onto him to stay atop the horse, and he held onto Raebo’s mane.

For a short while, we were quite proud of ourselves, mounting a horse without any adult assistance, riding bareback without a saddle, and without reins, we soon realized we had little control. Raebo was her usual kind spirit and moved slowly, though we had hoped for something closer to a gallop even for a few moments. But even patient horses have their limits, and we soon realized Raebo had reached hers. We did quickly enjoy those few moments of a gallop, and then suddenly, but ever so gently, Raebo put on the brakes, lowered her head and neck, and gave Neil and me our first trip down a horse slide. One right after the other, we slid off the front end of Raebo and landed softly in the pasture. I guess it was Raebo’s way of telling us to get a saddle, or get off.

While I enjoyed riding horses, I also enjoyed eating apple pie. My other grandma (the one who taught me about rendering lard and making pie crust), would take my sister and me to visit our great-grandma on occasion. I remember the pink walls in her bathroom, her cats who liked to bite, and her incredible apple pie. I was very young at the time, but I can still taste the apple pie she would serve us. It was very fresh-tasting, not overdone with lots of spices, just a small amount of cinnamon, perhaps even a dash of nutmeg. I have not tasted any apple pie like it since then, and though I try, I certainly have not been able to re-create it.

The apple pie I made for Sunday is as close as I’ve come to my great-grandma’s apple pie. It has a nice fresh apple flavor, and it reminds me of her. So if you make an apple pie, think of your grandmas, or your mom, and horses, or baseball…..or whatever it is that makes you feel American!

Yours in pie,

Mindy

 

Classic Fresh Apple Pie

My favorite apple for pie is the Jonathan. (It’s also my favorite name for a husband.) They are firm apples that hold their shape during the long baking required for pie, and I especially like their tart flavor, which allows you to add the amount of sugar needed to give the pie as much or as little sweetness as you like. If you use another apple (and the possibilities are endless), you may need to adjust the amount of sugar, and possibly the amount of thickener (flour in this case), to achieve the results you desire.

Pastry for double-crust 9” pie

6 to 7 cups peeled and sliced apples (I used 6 ½ c. for this pie)

2/3 c. sugar

2 T. all-purpose flour

½ tsp. cinnamon

Dash of salt

2 T. butter

Milk

Sparkling sugar

 

Combine sugar, flour, cinnamon, and salt; add to apples in a large bowl and mix well. Transfer filling to pastry-lined pie plate. Dot filling with butter. Adjust top crust, flute edges, and cut slits to allow steam to escape. Brush crust with milk; sprinkle with sparkling sugar. Cover edges with foil. Bake at 375° for 15 minutes, lower heat to 350° and continue baking for another 45-60 minutes or until filling is bubbly in center, removing foil the last 15 minutes of baking. Cool completely on a wire rack.

 

A Trip to the Orchard, and Caramel Apple-Pecan Pie

Apples.

 

 

Caramel and pecans.

Need I say more?

I’m going to anyway. It’s what I do.

Three quintessential flavors of Fall. Combined in a pie, they become decadent. This pie is so deeply rich and sweet; you’ll still taste it 364 days from now. And on the 365th day, you’ll make it again, just as I did on Sunday. (It may have been only 362 days since I made it last, but who’s counting…)

I love apple season. With the late Spring frost after the apple trees began blooming, I was rather concerned that there wouldn’t be any apples at the local orchards this year. While we haven’t been able to pick the apples ourselves, our favorite orchard does have their apples available in their store. So last week when my son had the day off from school, we headed to Center Grove Orchard near Cambridge, Iowa.

My kids love apples, too, but the draw for them at this orchard is not so much the apples. It’s The Farmyard. With a list of activities and “venues” much too extensive to mention, The Farmyard provides hours of fun and entertainment for kids big and small. A petting zoo, pedal carts, jumping pillow, and giant slide are just a few, and my kids’ personal favorite: the corn pool.

 

If it weren’t for the fact that millions or billions, quite possibly even trillions, of corn kernels had been dumped into a small arena and surrounded by straw bales, my kids would literally have ears coming out of their ears. (Get it? Ears. Of corn.)  While I didn’t find any corn in their ears, my daughter did deposit a kernel in the toilet as she undressed for the bathtub. She had corn absolutely everywhere. In places I didn’t know corn could reach.

 

Corny jokes aside (get it? corn-y), my favorite part of Center Grove Orchard, when not picking their apples myself, is the store. This is where I get my pre-picked apples, cider, and cider donuts, among other treats. On this trip I came home with a half-peck of Empires (we love these for eating as well as for making applesauce) and a peck of Jonathans (my favorite for pie).

There are so many versions of apple pie, I could probably make an apple pie every week and still not exhaust all the options. In the next few weeks I’ll be making my favorite classic apple pie, but for now I wanted a change of pace, something a little more indulgent.

Teresa over at My Homemade Iowa Life had requested a caramel apple pie recipe, and the recipe I had in mind certainly fit the bill for indulgence. This pie really is one that I make just once a year, and it comes from the book Pie: 300 Tried-and-True Recipes for Delicious Homemade Pie, by Ken Haedrich (2004). If you’re looking for a helpful companion on all things pie, complete with detailed step-by-step directions, tips for success with each recipe, as well as anecdotes, side-notes, and background on the recipes, this book is so worth the money for its 639 pages. And like the title says, you get over 300 recipes, for every kind of pie you can imagine, and then some.

I’ll admit that I haven’t yet made very many recipes from this book. Yet. That’s one reason I started writing this blog. So in the weeks to come, you’ll likely be seeing several pies from the pages of Pie.

This week, it was the Caramel Apple-Pecan Pie (pages 229-231). Be forewarned, this pie takes a little time. It’s not difficult, but it’s not a pie that you can throw in the oven and walk away from for an hour. It will keep you in the kitchen for a while. (Any pie recipe that covers three pages is going to take some effort, but any pie recipe that covers three pages might be worth it. And this one is!) The caramel makes it indulgent, but the crunchy pecans (incorporated three times) knock this pie out of the park. Even my four-year-old daughter, who doesn’t like pecans, loved this pie. Her comment: “Mommy, I really like the croutons you put on the top. They’re so crunchy!”

What???!

Is it a crime not to tell her?

Ken Haedrich calls for using Golden Delicious apples, which I have used for this pie in the past. This time I switched it up a little in an attempt to lessen some of the sweetness, using half Golden Delicious and half Jonathan. The reliable Jonathans did not disappoint, nor did they overpower with tartness, and still allowed for a decadent pie. So if you’re in the mood for some rich Fall flavor, spend a little time in the kitchen, after a trip to the orchard, and indulge in this Caramel Apple-Pecan Pie.

Yours in pie,

Mindy

 

 

Caramel Apple-Pecan Pie

Pastry for a one-crust 9” pie (deep dish will work fine, too)

10 caramels, each cut into 4 pieces

 

For the filling:

7 c. peeled, cored, and sliced apples (I used half Golden Delicious, half Jonathan)

½ c. packed light brown sugar

1 T. fresh lemon juice

2 T. sugar

1 T. cornstarch

½ tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. vanilla extract

 

For the pecan crumb topping:

¾ c. all-purpose flour

¾ c. pecan halves

½ c. sugar

¼ tsp. salt

6 T. butter, cut into small pieces

 

For the caramel and garnish:

3 T. butter, cut into pieces

1 T. water

30 caramels

Large handful of pecan halves

½ c. chopped pecans

 

Line pie plate with pastry and crimp the edges. Scatter caramel pieces in the pie shell and place in the freezer while preparing the filling. Preheat oven to 400°F.

 

Combine apples, brown sugar, and lemon juice in a large bowl. Mix well and set aside. Mix sugar, cornstarch, and cinnamon together in small bowl. Stir this into the apple mixture along with the vanilla. Scrape the filling into the chilled pie shell, smoothing the fruit with your hands. Cover edges loosely with foil or a pie crust guard. Put pie on center rack in oven and bake for 30 minutes.

 

Meanwhile, make the crumb topping. Combine flour, pecan halves, sugar, and salt in a food processor. Pulse several times, chopping the nuts coarsely. Scatter the butter over the dry mixture and pulse again until mixture resembles fine crumbs. Transfer to a bowl and finish combining with your hands to make damp, gravelly crumbs. Refrigerate until ready to use. (If you do not have a food processor, you can use a pastry blender for making the crumb topping. Very finely chop the pecans first.)

 

Remove pie from oven and reduce oven temperature to 375°F. Carefully dump crumbs in center of pie, spreading them evenly over the surface with your hands. Tamp them down lightly. Return pie to oven and bake until juices bubble thickly around the edge, 30 to 40 minutes, or longer.

 

Transfer pie to wire rack to cool for about 1 hour.

 

While the pie is still warm – approaching the 1-hour mark – prepare the caramel. Combine butter, water, and caramels in the top of a double boiler. Melt caramels over (not in) barely simmering water. When melted, whisk mixture until smooth, and then drizzle caramel over entire surface of the pie. Immediately press pecan halves into caramel, then sprinkle chopped pecans over the top. Let cool several hours before serving.

Farmers Feed Us Pie: Apple-Barb Berry Pie

Farmers helped me make this pie.

A lot of farmers.

They help me make all my pies.

Well, sort of…

(Can’t you just imagine about eight or nine farmers in their iconic seed corn caps, standing in my kitchen, pastry blenders and rolling pins in hand?)

No, farmers didn’t exactly assist in the making of the pie, but they did perform all the initial steps. And I’m glad they did, because if I had to do all they did on top of making dough and rolling it out, combining (no pun intended) fruits and thickeners for the filling, and baking the pie, I think I wouldn’t make any pie at all. Ever.

The flour for my pie crust was ground from wheat that some farmer grew, probably in the Dakotas or Montana. Maybe even Kansas. (Maybe even by the Peterson brothers while they sang “I’m Farming and I Grow It…”) Another farmer, likely here in Iowa, raised the hogs, parts of which were eventually rendered into the lard I used for the fat in my pie crust. More farmers grew the fruit, including berries, apples, and even rhubarb, that make up the basis of my pie filling. Even the corn starch I used to thicken the filling is an end-stage product of some farmer who grew, you guessed it…corn. And the tapioca? It came from the cassava plant, likely harvested by some farmer in South America. (I think. I don’t know much about tapioca and cassava plants, so if someone cares to enlighten me, I’d much rather claim that my tapioca arrived via a farmer here in the U.S.)

I’m bringing this up because this week’s pie on Sunday was originally inspired by a recipe in Iowa Farmer Today. How do I know? Because I read Iowa Farmer Today. I even have a paid subscription. I’m not a farmer myself, but I know how important farmers are to us all. All farmers. Whether they grow corn that becomes ethanol or soybeans that become, well, anything soy, like soy milk, vegetable oil, or renamed as edamame. Farmers who grow crops conventionally or those who follow organic methods. Farmers who raise cattle for beef or sheep for wool. Dairy farmers who sell their milk to processors, or those who use their milk to craft specialty cheeses. Large-scale farmers with thousands of acres of farm land, or small-scale niche farmers who raise things like aronia berries or operate CSA’s or u-pick farms. Farmers whose land has been in their families for generations, or rookie farmers who are getting their start with the guidance of some good-hearted veteran farmers. And I’m leaving out more descriptions of farmers and farm products than I’m including in this list.

The point is, there are a lot of farmers, and we need them all. Our sources for food, fiber, and fuel really do depend on them.

So I pay attention. I read Iowa Farmer Today. (Along with the Farm Cooks feature, I especially enjoy reading the advice column "Farm and Ranch Life", now written by Dr. Mike Rosmann, which was previously the "Family Life" column by Dr. Val Farmer. Coincidence?) On occasion, I browse through Successful Farming Magazine at the library. (Mostly, I like the family feature with recipes and news for the home. The rest is usually a little too technical for me.) When visiting my dad, I like to thumb through his copies of the Iowa Farm Bureau Spokesman as well as Farm and Ranch Living Magazine. Over lunch on weekdays, I tune in to "The Big Show" on WHO Radio. (My favorite segment is on Fridays at about 12:45 with Lee Kline. I've been listening to his stories since I was a kid.) I also follow the stories of bloggers whose families farm, like Emily Webel of Confessions of a Farm Wife, and Sara Ross of Sara’s House HD. And I gain a greater appreciation for where my food, fiber, and fuel begin their journey.

But I’m not a complete stranger to farming and the world of agriculture. Are any of us really? I bet there are fewer degrees of separation with farmers, for most of us, than there are with Kevin Bacon.

My roots, as well as those of my husband, begin in farming. My grandparents on both sides farmed; they grew crops and ran a dairy. Several members of my extended family, including aunts, uncles, and cousins, all farm. The same can be said for my husband’s family. I did not grow up on a farm myself, my own parents were not farmers, though my dad did some custom farming when I was young. He also worked at a grain elevator much of his adult life. A few years ago, my mom retired from John Deere. During part of her time there, she worked for their cotton division. That division manufactured cotton pickers and strippers. Here in Iowa. Where we grow corn and beans.

A little ironic.

For five summers of our teenage lives, my sister and I detasseled seed corn. By hand. Every year, we worked with a handful of others (our mom and aunt included) on a small crew. We contracted acres from a local seed corn company, which was owned by my mom’s cousin and started by my great uncle. When you grow up in a small rural Iowa town, in a place where you look out over a bean field from the front yard and a corn field from the back and can still say you are living in town, detasseling corn is what you do every summer. Back then, it was a teenager’s rite of passage.

And for my husband? The guy who laughs and jokingly asks me what price cotton is up to every Friday night while I watch “Market to Market” on our local PBS station? He grew up on a farm himself, and his parents and brother are still farming today. My husband also now works for one of the largest, leading seed and crop protection companies in the world.

And yet, he laughs.
 

Again, a little ironic, don’t you think?

(By the way, cotton was at $75.72 last week after a loss of $1.54 per hundredweight.)

While I’m no expert on agriculture and farming, I pay attention. Because it’s important. Just as the sign above the Machine Shed Restaurant at Living History Farms reads, “Farming is everyone’s bread and butter.” Whether it gives you money in your bank account, food on your table, fuel in your car, or clothes on your back, farming affects so many facets of life.

And that includes pie.

Farmers help me make my pies. And I’m so grateful they do. I couldn’t do it all by myself.

 

Yours in pie,

Mindy

The recipe for this pie was inspired by a recipe for Four-Fruit Pie, orignially printed in the Farm Cooks feature of Iowa Farmer Today on April 21, 2012. The recipe was shared by Alice Buman of Harlan, IA, though I made a few changes. I like to use corn starch and tapioca for berry pies. The first time I made this pie, I used 2 T. corn starch and 1 T. tapioca, and also increased the amount of sugar to 1 1/4 c. The pie was very sweet and a little more thick than I like. So this time, I decreased the sugar a little, and also decreased the cornstarch. I think it came out just right -- not too sweet, with perfect "ooze", and I could taste each fruit. A perfect marriage of Spring (rhubarb), Summer (berries), and Fall (apples)...in a pie.


Apple-Barb Berry Pie

Pastry for a two-crust 9" pie

1 c. diced rhubarb

1 c. apple, peeled, sliced and cut into 1/2-inch pieces

1 c. blackberries

1 c. red raspberries
 

1 c. + 2 T. sugar

1 T. cornstarch

1 T. quick-cooking tapioca

Dash of cinnamon

2 T. butter

Combine sugar, cornstarch, tapioca, and cinnamon in a small bowl. Pour over fruit in a bowl and combine gently. Set aside while you roll out the pie crust and place in pie plate. Spoon filling onto bottom crust and dot the top of the filling with small pieces of the butter. Roll out and lay the top crust on the filling. Trim and crimp edges. Cut slits in top of pie to allow steam to escape. Cover the edge of the crust with foil. Bake on the middle rack in the oven at 350° for 60-75 minutes, removing foil the last 15-20 minutes of baking. Cool completely on a wire rack before slicing into pie.

A few notes: If using store-bought frozen rhubarb, be sure to defrost it most of the way, and then cut it into smaller pieces (about 1/2-inch). If using frozen berries, only partially thaw them first. Also, I typically brush the top crust with milk and sprinkle it with sparkling sugar, but I was out of milk. Maybe if I had my own cow that wouldn't be a problem...