Sasha's Kitchen: Stone Fruit Pie

Fruit pies are the best this time of year. I might have just tired of baking pies for the summer already, but before I did, I made this one a couple weeks ago, using the *best* fruits from my local Greenmarket farmer's market. I love stone fruits - from peaches to apricots to plums. This pie was made just before apricots sprang to the scene at the local market, so I used peaches, nectarines and yellow sugar plums. But, you could easily substitute another stone fruit. I know I say this every time, but this really was one of the best pies of the summer.

Sasha's Stone Fruit Pie

Crust
2 1/4 cup of flour
pinch of salt
pinch of sugar
two sticks of butter cut into pieces, cold
1/4 cup of ice water (will then need to add an additional tablespoon or two)


Filling
2 1/3 cups of peaches, sliced in wedges
2 1/2 cups of nectarines, sliced in wedges
1 cup of sliced sugar plums
3 T cornstarch
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 T lemon juice
1 tsp cinnamon

To prepare the crust, follow my detailed instructions and techniques on crust making here.  I recommend using your hands and doing this the old -fashioned, rustic way, rather than using a mixer. Combine the flour and butter, salt and sugar with your hands. Add the ice water slowly and combine into two balls of dough until they just form. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for thirty minutes.  During this time, prepare the filling. Then roll out the bottom, fill the pie, and roll out the top and cut into a lattice. Using a pastry brush, glaze the top of the pie with an egg yolk. Bake at 400 (covered with foil) for 30 minutes. Then uncover and bake at 350 for another 25 - 40 minutes. Allow to cool somewhat before serving warm.  I think this would go amazingly with some Blue Marble ice cream from around the corner.

Have you checked out my recent post on Philly Style Cheesesteak on the ShopRite food blog, Potluck? Yum!

Sasha's Kitchen: Stone Fruit Pie

Sasha's Kitchen: Blueberry Crumbles

Happy independence America! Fourth of July usually means blueberry time in my house. Usually that's a blueberry pie, but this year I actually made a three layer giant chocolate cake with buttercream frosting and lovely floral decorations, which will be the subject of a future post. I was pretty much all butter-ed out after that, so I made a much healthier dessert for our Sunday night dinner - a blueberry crumble. This dessert has much less butter than a pie crust, but the same delicious fresh local blueberries in that filling and just a little but of crumble on the top. So perfect. I made four individual sized desserts from the recipe below, which worked out really well. So well, that I certainly will try it with some other fruits soon. Happy red, white and blue today - but especially blue(berry). Perfect way to cheer yourself up a bit.

Sasha's Blueberry Crumble
4 cups fresh blueberries, squeezed by hand
1/4 cup plus 1 T sugar
3 T plus 1 tsp flour
3 T lemon juice
3 T unsalted butter, cold, chopped into small pieces
1 tsp ground cinnamon
pinch of salt
10 nilla cookies
1/4 cups rolled Quaker oats

Preheat the oven to 375. Combine the blueberries, 1/4 cup sugar, 3 T of flour, and lemon juice in a bowl. In a second bowl, combine the chopped butter, cinnamon, salt, and remaining sugar and flour. Work with your hands gently until it forms a coarse, crumb/crumble like mixture - a bit like wet sand.

Spray four five ounce ramekins with Pam and divide the blueberry mixture. Top with the crumble topping. Bake for about 25 minutes until you have bubbling little caldrons (maybe all the witches from last night's True Blood are influencing my writing here?), and then they are done. Allow to cool enough to eat. Delicious!

Sasha's Kitchen: Blueberry Crumbles

Sasha's Kitchen: Blueberry Muffins

Blueberries are one of my favorite summer fruits. Lately , I have been getting some pretty fantastic blueberries from the farmers market here in Park Slope. Some went into that blueberry peach pie I posted recently, and there were just too many delicious blueberries not to make some blueberry muffins.  I never make my muffins with butter. Many people do and I am sure they are good, it's just that if I wanted to load them up with butter, I'd just make some cupcakes. Hence, my banana pecan muffins are also butter free. These blueberry muffins were delicious and the recipe I came up with wound up making about one and a half dozen. Use the best blueberries you can find - freshly picked ones from that summer farmers' market are idea. This is a great way to brighten up a sunday morning!

Sasha's Blueberry Muffins
3 cups flour
7 T canola oil
1/2 tsp salt
3 tsp baking powder
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs'
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup milk
2 cups fresh blueberries

Preheat the oven to 375. Combine the baking powder, salt and flour in a bowl with the sugar. Mix in the other ingredients (eggs, canola oil, vanilla, milk and blueberries) and combine well in a bowl. Divide in muffin tins and bake for about 30 minutes until just golden and toothpick clean. Allow to cool and unmold. Eat right away!

Sasha's Kitchen: Blueberry Muffins

Sasha's Kitchen: Blueberry Peach Pie

Another pie. Is that all I do in the summer, make pies? Well maybe. There's nothing better than a delicious fruit pie in the summer, made with fresh farmers' market fruits from the Brooklyn Greenmarket.  I swear, I've been making other things too - its not like we have pie for dinner every night, you know. And I promise I will be posting some of those soon as well. Peaches and blueberries are in high season. I didn't have enough peaches to make a peach pie, but I had some pretty amazing blueberries from the farmers' market so I threw them together. The result was pretty spectacular, and one of my best pies to date. 
To make this pie, I used the exact same crust for apple pie, with my own peach and blueberry filling.

Sasha's Peach Blueberry Pie
2 1/4 cups flour
big pinch of Kosher salt
pinch of sugar
2 sticks of cold butter
1/4 cup of ice water, plus a but more if needed (this time I used about 2 T additional ice water)

21/2 cups of fresh peaches, peeled and sliced
2 1/2 cups of fresh blueberries, squished with your hands
1/2 cup of sugar

1 T lemon juice
1/2 tsp cinnamon
4 T cornstarch
2 egg yolks

To make the pie crust, follow the detailed instructions that I gave in writing about apple pie.  Basically, combine the salt, sugar and flour in a bowl. Cut up the butter into small chunks and gently incorporate with your hands into the flour. Splash the ice water into the mixture, and mold until it *just* forms  a ball of dough, adding more water as needed so it just sticks together (be sure to add the water slowly so not to overdo it). The key to a good pie crust is not to overwork the dough, so it is best to do this by hand. There will still be clumps of butter in the dough - don't worry about that, as it will make the crust more rustic and also crisper. Divide the dough and bring into two balls. Plastic wrap and refrigerate for exactly twenty minutes to allow the dough to firm a bit.

Roll out one of the balls on a well floured surface, rotating after each roll or two so it does not stick to your surface. Roll to 1/4 of an inch thick and place in the pie dish, before trimming the edges with a pastry scissor. Using a pyrex pie dish is best.

Combine the ingredients for the fruit mixture. You should peel the peaches before slicing, and squish the blueberries a bit with your hands. Add most of this to the pie - about four and a half cups total. 

Roll out the second ball of dough the same way and cut to form a lattice. I glazed the top of the pie using two egg yolks and sprinkled some granulated sugar on top. Bake the pie at 425 covered with foil for 30 minutes. Then, reduce the heat to 350 and remove the foil baking for another 30-45 minutes (my oven required about 35). The pie is done when it is tender when poked with a knife.

Sasha's Kitchen: Blueberry Peach Pie

Sasha's Kitchen: Summer Nectarine Salad

I love peaches, apricots and nectarines in the summer - especially ones from a farmers' market that are fresh, juicy and delicious. Nothing captures the flavors of summer better. I've now made this simple nectarine salad a couple of times, and it's an easy, satisfying and rewarding combination of flavors. I love Boston lettuce - it goes so nicely with almost any salad, and has such a lovely buttery flavor.

Sasha's Summer Nectarine Salad
head of Boston butter lettuce
3 nectarines, sliced
bocconcini mozzarella
hazelnuts
balsamic vinaigrette (oil, balsamic vinegar and a tablespoon of lemon juice)

Assemble the salad ingredients. If you wish, you can saute the nectarines before using them, but they taste better fresh and juicy in my opinion.

Sorry such a short post, but stay tuned for some new and delicious updates from my kitchen. This is just a simple recipe for a monday night.

Sasha's Kitchen: Summer Nectarine Salad

Sasha's Kitchen: Strawberry-Blueberry Popsicles

Popsicles are the perfect summer treat. I had never made my own before, but really why not? It's easy enough to do if you have the right molds, and nothing could be a more refreshing summer treat than making your own with fresh local fruits and berries. I came across some basic recipes in Bon Appetit  and decided to give it a try using some popsicle molds that I bought at the Brooklyn Kitchen in Williamsburg. The molds are from a company called Tovolo than makes great freezer pop and ice cream sandwich molds. The key to making good popsicles from fresh fruit is balancing the fruit with a bit of citrus. I can't wait to use the molds again to make these banana pudding and chocolate sea salt pops next time!

Strawberry-Blueberry Popsicles (from Bon Appetit)
strawberry portion
1 lb fresh strawberries, hulled and halved
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp fresh lemon juice

blueberry portion
12 oz fresh blueberries
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp fresh lime juice

Puree the strawberries, sugar and lemon juice in a food processor with 1/4 cup of water until smooth. Strain using a wire mesh strainer, pressing on solids to extract the puree. Set aside. Puree the blueberries, sugar and lime juice with 3 T of water in a food processor, and once again, strain.

Pour some of the strawberry puree into the popsicle molds and freeze until just firm, about 30 minutes. Then, pour some of the blueberry puree on top and freeze for 30 minutes, alternating layers as you choose to. I just made bi-color strawberry-blueberry ice pops. One done, add caps and freeze until firm. To eat, dip bottoms of molds in hot water for 20-30 seconds to loosen the pops.

Sasha's Kitchen: Strawberry-Blueberry Popsicles

Sasha's Kitchen: Chocolate Strawberry Shortcake

All of my favorite fruits are in season, but in particular strawberries, apricots and peaches.  The best strawberries, of course, are the ones that I have picked myself.  There's a million and one delicious uses for farmers' market strawberries - one my favorites is a strawberry salad with goat cheese and hazelnuts.  But I just love strawberry shortcake as a sweet treat.  In the past, I have always made a traditional strawberry shortcake with a plain scone or shortcake.  But this time I decided to go the chocolate route for a fun variation - I made chocolate strawberry shortcakes with chocolate shortcakes which was delicious! I adapted from this recipe for the shortcakes.  For the topping, I did not mix the strawberries with a load of sugar as is commonly done - it's too much especially with the natural sweetness in the berries this time of year.  Instead, just serve the strawberries with a bit of lemon juice, nice and fresh.  Add a tablespoon of sugar, if you prefer, but not more. Some whipped cream is essential but you really don't have to make your own - I didn't - some store bought whipped cream will work just fine.

Chocolate Strawberry Shortcakes (shortcake portion derived from this recipe)
Makes 6
1 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
2 T dutch process cocoa
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
4 T butter, cut into pieces
3 oz semisweet chocolate chips
2 large eggs
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
extra sugar for sprinkling
1 quart strawberries, sliced
1 tsp lemon juice
whipped cream
1 T sugar (optional)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  To make the shortcakes, mix the flour, sugar, salt, cocoa and baking powder.  I used a mixer to blend in the butter.  Then I mixed in the chocolate chips, one of the eggs, the heavy cream and vanilla.  I prepared the dough on a baking sheet into about 6-7 rounds. This is very similar to the types of rounds that you would make if you were making scones.

Next, put the rounds in the freezer for twenty minutes.  Glaze with the remaining egg and top with some sugar.  Bake until firm for about twenty minutes.  Then allow to cool.

For the strawberry topping, combine the sliced strawberries (use farm fresh, seasonal strawberries if you can - they make this dessert what it is) with the lemon juice and a tablespoon of sugar if you prefer.  Top the chocolate shortcakes with the strawberries and the whipped cream.

Sasha's Kitchen: Chocolate Strawberry Shortcake

Sasha's Kitchen: Summer Peach Cobbler

Peaches are my absolute favorite summer fruit.  In fact, a fresh, sweet, succulent peach is just about one of the best part of summer.  As the peach comes into season in June, I thought it would be time to start cooking with some fresh peaches from the local farmer's market here in Brooklyn.

There's quite a few summer recipes that incorporate peaches, and I plan on sharing my quintessential summer peach salad soon. But there's nothing that says classic summer peach better than a peach cobbler or a peach crisp.  For this recipe, I started with Martha Stewart, but adapted and adjusted to get thing exactly to my liking.  This is the second peach cobbler I've made (the first was last summer) and this one was perfect. Then I baked it in my lovely Mackenzie Childs pie dish (one of my favorite items from our wedding registry).

Peach Cobbler (adapted from this recipe)
8 large ripe peaches, pitted and sliced (Martha calls for 10, but I used pretty large peaches)
1/4 cup cornstarch
3 T dark brown sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 T baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
6 T cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 large egg
2/3 cup heavy cream

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Slice the peaches and combine with the cornstarch, brown sugar and cinnamon in a large bowl.  Pour mixture into an 8 inch circular pie dish that has been sprayed with Pam.

In the basin of your mixer (or a large bowl, using a fork if you do not have a stand mixer) combine the 1/4 cup of granulated sugar with the flour, salt and butter.  Beat for several minutes to cut in the butter, until the mixture looks like a coarse meal.

Whisk together the heavy cream and egg and combine in the mixer until it comes together into a dough with the dry ingredients.  Cut dough into circular shaped portions (about 12 or so) and use to cover the top of the peach mixture.  Top with the remaining two tablespoons of granulated sugar. Bake for about 45 minutes until golden brown and until the inside bubbles.  Allow to cool a bit before serving warm.

Sasha's Kitchen: Summer Peach Cobbler

Sasha's Kitchen: Strawberry Apple Crumble

Strawberries are in high season now and are one of my favorite spring and summer fruits.  I love making pies, but you would never put strawberry in a pie.  However, a strawberry crisp or crumble is just perfect.  Other fruits will go in a crumble perfectly as well, such as raspberries or blueberries.  My initial plan was to make a strawberry rhubarb crumble after I had an amazing one for dessert at Blue Water Grill in Manhattan.  However, I could not find rhubarb for sale at any of the grocery stores and organic markets I went to here in Brooklyn.  I'd love to know where to find it, but everyone kept telling me that they don't keep rhubarb in stock because it doesn't sell.  So I decided to go with apples, which I thought would absorb the flavors and juices of the strawberries nicely. I used fresh seasonal strawberries, which are of course, the key to this recipe.

Sasha's Strawberry Apple Crumble
1 lb fresh strawberries
2 large Pink Lady apples
2/3 of a cup granulated sugar
1 T lemon juice
1 stick of butter, melted
1 cup of flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup rolled oats

To prepare the filling, peel and chop the apples and remove the tops from the strawberries before cutting each in half. Combine the apples and strawberries with the granulated sugar and lemon juice.  Mix well and put the mixture in a prepared pie dish that you have sprayed with Pam, or something similar so it does not stick.

Next, create the crumble for the top.  This actually does not require a mixer and is very simple.  In a bowl, add the flour, melted butter, rolled oats and brown sugar.  Mix well using a fork until it combines into a crumble-like mixture.  Cover the top of the pie filling with the crumble.  Bake for 45 minutes in an oven that has been preheated to 350 degrees.

My husband absolutely loved this dish.  It's such a classic presentation of the freshest fruit of the spring and we both really enjoyed it.  It's also very easy to make - easy as well, pie.

Sasha's Kitchen: Strawberry Apple Crumble

Sasha's Kitchen: Blueberry Ice Cream

Summer is just around the corner, which means that it's berry time.  It's so easy to make your own ice cream at home, using a conventional ice cream maker.  Making ice cream at home is much easier that it sounds and simply requires some freezing time and a very limited amount of prep work.  I have made a variety of flavors but this time, decided to try something that was perfect for the early summer - blueberry ice cream.  It came out great - nice and creamy with a perfect blueberry flavor.  I love the color purple, so the best part about this ice cream was the fabulous deep purple color!  This recipe is totally my own original recipe.  You will find that most blueberry ice cream recipes out there may use even more yolks than I did, but it really isn't needed.  This was creamy, delicious and oh so very blueberry.  I should add that I live next to a gourmet ice cream store, but I still like to make my own ice cream.  Next up will be peach in June (with fresh organic peaches of course).

Sasha's Blueberry Ice Cream
2 cups fresh blueberries
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
7 egg yolks

First, combine 1/2 a cup of the sugar with the blueberrries and cook over medium heat for about five minutes.  In the meantime, heat the milk and heavy cream with the remaining sugar for a few minutes until the sugar is dissolved.  Beat the egg yolks separately and add to one cup of the warm milk mixture. Then combine in full and continue heating for about 10 minutes until nice and thick, until the custard coats the back of a spoon.  Add the blueberry mixture and then freeze according the the manufacturer's instructions for your ice cream maker.

Blueberry Ice Cream

Sasha's Kitchen: Blueberry Ice Cream

Sasha's Kitchen: Blueberry Cream Pie

My initial efforts here were to prepare a blueberry tart, even though blueberries are not in season in the dead of winter. As you may have realized, I love colorful foods and love almost all fruits and vegetables, so when I saw that I could buy what appeared to be good blueberries, I couldn't resist the urge, even though they were twice as expensive as they would be on a balmy July day.  If you are looking for my blueberry pie recipe, with its decorative lattice, click here.

In addition, I remembered when I was ready to prepare the blueberry tart, that I did not yet have a tart pan (something every good baker should have, and that I plan to rectify before summer berry tart season is upon us). Thus, I adapted the original Martha Stewart recipe from the Everyday Food website for a blueberry cream pie. It may look like a pie, rather than a tart, but it was every bit as delicious, judging from how quickly it has disappeared from my refrigerator.

Pie/Tart Crust

1 1/4 cups flour

1 1/2 T sugar

1 stick unsalted butter

1 large egg yolk

1/8 cup ice water (you can add a tad bit more if you have trouble getting the dough to stick)

Combine the flour and sugar in the artisan mixer, and add butter until the mixture resembles a meal.  Beat in the eggs and ice water, until the mixture forms a dough.

Roll out the dough into a pie crust and fit into a pie pan (or a tart dish).  Refridgerate until chilled for 30 minutes.  Then, bake the shell alone at 375 for about 40 minutes, until lightly browned, using pie weights.

To prepare the filling, you will be making a conventional pastry cream, and will need the following:

Filling for Blueberry Cream Pie

2 pints of blueberries  (approximate - you may use slightly less)

1 cup milk

1/2 a vanilla bean, split

5 T, plus 1 tsp sugar

3 large egg yolks

1 T cornstarch

1 T flour

1 T butter

1/2 cup heavy cream

several T quince jam

Place the milk, vanilla bean (cut lengthwise) and 4 T of sugar in a medium saucepan over high heat and cook until almost boiling.  In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks, 1 T sugar and cornstarch together.  The resulting mixture will be very thick.  Remove and discard the vanilla bean, and slowly pour the milk mixture into the egg mixture, whisking the entire time.  Do this last step over medium high heat, until it thickens substantially for about 1-2 minutes.  Don't do it too long, or it will dry out and burn.

Next, beat the heavy cream with 1 tsp of sugar, using the whisk attachment of your mixer for several minutes, until the mixture has changed form and resembles whipped cream.  Fold this into the egg/milk mixture.

Add the thick, creamy mixture to your pie shell and top with the blueberries.  Glaze with some melted quince jam, using a pastry brush.  The pie (or tart) should be ready to eat, although you can chill it first, if you prefer.  Note that I do not prepare a lattice for this type of blueberry cream pie, like I do with my more conventional blueberry pie (pictured below). 

If you would like to enjoy the pie with a glass of wine, I would recommend doing so with a late harvest risling, or perhaps a Canadian ice wine.

Perhaps the fact that I prepared this recipe at all, in January, shows how much I miss summer fruits in the winter, and how the cold weather has been getting to me over the last couple of weeks.  Does this go against my acclaimed farm to table approach? Not really - because the recipe is certainly meant to be prepared in June or July, using fresh farmers market blueberries. 

Sasha's Kitchen: Blueberry Cream Pie

Sasha's Kitchen: Simple Blueberry Goat Cheese Salad

My Dad and my stepmother, Kim, keep a kosher home.  My husband and I are not as great about keeping kosher, but we do try in certain regards (which is why I never prepare pork-based products, and use Empire chicken;  I'm not so great with sea-life, however).  When we first moved to Brooklyn, they gave us a kosher cookbook as part of our housewarming gift, called Kosher By Design, Short On Time.  This book actually has some pretty tasty kosher recipes, all of which are easy to make, including a recipe for blueberry salad.  My blueberry salad is very different from the one in that book, but it does contain blueberries and a blueberry colored dressing that is just the pretties shade of purplish-blue.  Also, it looks creamy, but there is no cream at all in the dressing and its actually pretty healthy (not to mention all those antioxidants in the blueberries).

Dressing
1/2 cup canola oil
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
handfull of blueberries
2 T water
1/2 tsp dijon mustard
1/2 tsp honey

Salad
romaine lettuce or hearts of romaine
a couple handfulls of blueberries
1/4 cup chopped pecans
crumbled goat cheese

I should probably mention that it is a blustery and cold five degrees outside.  Blueberries are not in season and will not be in season for some time, but I had a blueberry craving, probably because I wish it was warm again.  Thus, although the blueberries I found at the grocery store are actually pretty high quality, they were a bit on the expensive side.  However, this does make wonderful and fresh summer salad, especially with a glass of Chardonnay.

If you prefer strawberries, I encourage you to check out Eric In Jersey City's Strawberry Salad, and if you like citrus fruit, check out my Mandarin Orange Salad With Caramelized Almonds.

Sasha's Kitchen: Simple Blueberry Goat Cheese Salad

Sasha's Kitchen: Blueberry Pie

I could not resist posting my blueberry pie recipe. Blueberry pie is my favorite pie recipe and although this is not seasonal (unless perhaps you live in California), it is a nice corollary to the apple pie recipe.

First make the pie dough following my recipe for apple pie.

Divide the dough into two balls - one for the pie crust and one for the lattice.

Prepare the pie crust in the pie dish you are using with one of the balls of the crust dough. I absolutely love the pie dishes at Mackenzie Childs, as they make gorgeous service pieces that are a bit different from your run of the mill cookware.

To make the filling:

3-4 pints blueberries (depending on the size of your pie dish). I usually use 3 pints
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 1/2 T lemon juice

Before you mix the filling you should wash and squeeze the blueberries, by squishing them with my hands.

Fill the pie. and then prepare a lattice by rolling out the other ball of dough and cutting into strips.

Prepare an egg wash glaze by mixing one egg yolk with 1 T heavy cream.

Bake for 20 minutes at 400 F and then for 40-50 minutes at 350 F.

Sasha's Kitchen: Blueberry Pie