The Pear Tree

Archive for the ‘Food’ Category

I made a terrible mistake. Followed by another.

First, I bought Martha Stewart’s new Pie and Tarts book. Then, at my favourite discounter of housewares, a ceramic pie dish.

Next thing I knew, all the ingredients for a pie showed up in a grocery bag, and my husband fixed me with a look that required no words to pass between us. Just pie.

There are two reasons I haven’t made a pastry crust for almost twenty years. (A figure that puts me all the way back in high school Home Economics class.)

My first excuse for shying away from pastry crust is that there’s a seat at the next Weight Watchers meeting, with my name on it, if I do.

Second, pastry is tricky. It requires patience. That you both stalk up to it with a certain swagger, yet treat it like the diva of the bakeshop that it is.

Pastry, in other words, has personality. It requires all ingredients and implements be ice cold, suffers no one with warm hands, and if over manipulated even a little, turns irreversibly tough.

But for someone who spends as many words as I do, writing about food as though I know exactly what I’m doing, twenty years without producing a single crust is a shameful amount of time.

It came to an end yesterday, though, when a Fieldberry pie emerged from my oven at 8 o’clock in the evening. Seven hours after first setting a bowl and pastry blender in the fridge to chill.

Then, with butter almost too cold to work with, and a package of cream cheese to predispose the dough towards a bit of forgiveness, I cut the fat into the flour and salt until no crumble was larger than half an inch.

Correcting for a typo in Martha’s recipe (two tablespoons of liquid simply cannot bring together anything that begins with three cups of flour: A fact confirmed by her other recipes) the crumble was sprinkled with ice water and cider vinegar, pressed together, patted into two disks, chilled and rolled. Folded into the pie plate, filled with sugared berries, covered, crimped, vented, egg washed, sugared, chilled again and finally baked until golden brown.

For five more hours the pie sat cooling. Overnight in the fridge. Back on the countertop to reach room temperature before dessert the next evening.

And how did it turn out?

Perfection.

Flakey, tender perfection.

Honestly, I don’t know why I didn’t do this sooner.

Oh right. Reason #1.

***

Fieldberry Pie

4-6 tbs ice water
2 tsp cold cider vinegar
3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
1 tsp salt
1 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
8 oz cold cream cheese, cut into small pieces

In a large bowl, whisk together flour and salt. Cut in butter and cream cheese using a pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse crumbs, with pieces up to 1/2 inch.

Combine vinegar and ice water. Sprinkle over crumbs, stirring, until mixture just begins to hold its shape when squeezed. Divide crumbs in half and place each amount on a length of plastic film and wrap tightly.

Press wrapped dough into a disk using a rolling pin. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

On lightly floured surface, roll out the first disk to 13-inches. Fit into a 9-inch pie plate.

Filling:
7 generous cups frozen mixed blueberries, raspberries and blackberries
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 tbs fresh lemon juice
1 large egg yolk
1 tbs light cream
sugar for sanding

In a large bowl, toss frozen berries together with sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon and lemon. Allow to thaw. Stir and heap into pie shell.

Roll out second crust and fit over top. Trim and crimp or flute edges, then cut six 3-inch vents in crust.

Beat together yolk and cream. Brush over surface and edges of pie (some will be leftover: discard). Sprinkle generously with sugar. Chill for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400F.

Transfer pie to a baking sheet and into oven. Bake 20 minutes, reduce temperature to 350F and bake 55 more.

Cool completely on a wire rack before serving.

- Words and photo by Darcie Hossack

Were you to look into my kitchen cabinets, it might be reasonable to assume a few things about she who accumulated their contents. Not unlike judging a book by it’s cover, of which I am in favour.

For example, the eleven cutting boards (seven dishwasherable plastic, two bamboo and one maple) might correctly lead to the belief that a lot of chopping, slicing, dicing, jullienneing, batonetteing and carving goes on at Chez Hossack.

Likewise, a wall of cookbooks speaks for itself. As might a sturdy antiquish dresser, painted white, and reinforced to hold all of the specialty dishes used to stage photos. Dishes that simply do not fit on the daily shelves.

There is a cupboard for oils and vinegars. Spice shelving that necessarily spilled over into a once-broom-closet-now-pantry, along with cooking and baking sundries that found no vacancy in the regular kitchen. At the bottom of this make-do closet is an overflow garage for small appliances. The breadmaker and Kitchen Aid mixer live there.

Next to the range is a barrel of whisks and spatulas, and assorted salt servers. Down below, four sets of (plus unmatched single) mixing bowls: glass for muffining, copper for meringueing and a perfectly-conceived bell for the whipping of cream. All of which allows a snoopy house guest to know that I like to have the right tool for every job, plus backups for when one, or six, are in the sink.

Uptight might be the word you’re looking for. I’m going with organized.

But just before anyone thinks to have me all sorted out based on the contents of my cupboards, there’s more. First, see that door to the right? The one above the coffeemaker? Go ahead and open it. Now tell me what you’ve learned.

In addition to a penchant for really good coffee (true story), I am an unrestrained lover of all things tea, right?

Well, I wouldn’t blame anyone for thinking it.

After all, there are rafts of teabags and exotic-looking tins of loose leaves. A stylish kettle, trendy teapot, glass teapot for flowering tea blossoms and two Japanese green tea servers. Tea tongs, timers, a pencil-shaped steeping device straight from a shop in Germany and a snazzy lemon auger.

I must adore tea!

Except that I don’t. I barely even like it. Yet, like a magpie to shiny bits of flotsam, I am beguiled by tea trappings. Smitten with prettily-painted tins and, well, with the very idea of tea.

Then there’s the smell, I am bewitched by the smell, which after the tea is tasted really just seems like a lie.

Tea, you see, is the embodiment of some of my favourite things. Like tea time, with scones and clotted cream and crust-cut-off sandwiches. Tea houses and tea cups and little sips of barely flavoured water.

But again, no. And there’s only one thing, maybe two things for it.

As seen from here, the road to an empty tea cupboard will have to be paved with a lot of London Fogs.

London Fog for One

3/4 cup hot water
2 Earl Grey tea bags
3/4 cup whole milk
3 tbs vanilla syrup

Steep both tea bags in water for very strong tea. Meanwhile, froth milk with the steam attachment of an espresso machine (or heat and use a latte whip). Remove tea bags from tea. Add vanilla syrup and steamed milk, reserving froth for the top. Serve immediately.

- Words and photo by Darcie Hossack

While we can’t resist indulging in chocolate and eggs and baskets stuffed with shredded tissue at The Pear Tree House come Easter, I also want to emphasize the Christian perspective to my kids, and the message of hope that it brings.

Last year, I came across a fun recipe over on the blog Fly Through Our Window, and couldn’t wait to try it this year. Called alternatively Holy Week Cookies, Easter Story Cookies and Resurrection Cookies (I  myself favour the latter), they’re a fun project to do with your kids or grandkids leading up to Easter, telling the story of the crucifixion and resurrection as you go. And, if you like them as much as I did, you’ll be pulling out the basic version throughout the year.

Resurrection Cookies

1 Bible

1 cup peacans

1 teaspoon vinegar

3 egg whites

pinch salt

1 cup granulated sugar

1 large ziploc bag

tape

1. Preheat oven to 300 F. The recipe I read said to line a cookie sheet with wax or parchment paper. I used wax. Do not follow my example or you won’t get your cookies off in one piece!

2. Crush the pecans with a rolling pin. Read John 19:1-3, which tells how the Roman soldiers beat and hurt Jesus. Set the crushed pecans aside until later.

3. In a separate bowl, add 1 teaspoon of vinegar. Smell the vinegar, and read John 19:28-30. This is what Jesus was given to drink when he asked for water.

4. Add your egg whites to the vinegar before explaining how Jesus gave his life in order to give us life. Read John 10:10-11.

5. Taste a sprinkle of salt (my son couldn’t get enough of it!). Read Luke 23:27 and relate how Jesus’ followers shed salty tears, and how it also represents the bitterness of our sins.

6. Add sugar. Explain that the sweet part of the story is that Jesus died because of his love for us, and he wants us to know that we belong to him. Psalms 34:8 and John 3:16 back this up.

7. Beat the mixture on high for 12-15 minutes. Don’t take any shortcuts here. I only went for 10 minutes and the cookies didn’t rise like they should. They still tasted great, but the “magic” trick at the end didn’t really happen Explain that the colour white represents the purity that is passed on to us when we accept the cleansing gift of Jesus’ death. Read Isaiah 1:18 and John 3:1-3.

8. Fold in the broken nuts. Drop the mixture by spoonfuls onto the pan. Explain how each mound represents the rocky tomb where Jesus’ body was lain. Read Matthew 27:57-60.

9. Place the cookies in the oven, close the door and turn off the heat. Tape or seal the door and explain that Jesus’ tomb was sealed so no one could get in or out. Read Matthew 27:65-66.

10. Go to bed, explaining how Jesus’ followers were sad to leave him in the sealed tomb. See John 16:20.

In the morning, open the oven and remove the cookies. When you break them open (if you beat them for long enough first), they should be hollow in the middle – an empty tomb! Read Matthew 28:1-9, between nibbles, and talk about how Jesus’ followers would have been so surprised to find the tomb empty, and what that empty tomb means for us today.

This is a recipe I think we’ll make every year, as something fun the night before Easter.

- Words and photos by Lori-Anne Poirier

“Couldn’t you at least put out a little cheese?”

By my assessment, Betty Jane Hegerat has already baked plum kuken, and a batch of apfeltaschen. The teacups are set out, coffee on the ready, and invited guests beginning to arrive for an afternoon of in-home author readings.

The occasion was an old-fashioned story salon – something just a little more intimate and social than the week of library talks and media interviews planned for the rest of my week in Calgary.

Having caught a morning flight, and ignored suggestions that breakfast is, if not the most important, at least a noteworthy, meal, I have to admit that a nibble of dairy protein around noon might help unjangle my nerves.

And, because Betty Jane is like so many other grown-up daughters, with daughters of their own, her mother’s voice on the phone still has sway. So, cheese there is.

An author herself, Betty Jane has become one of my favourite writers in the last few months. The characters in her novel, Delivery (Oolichan Books), are likely to be among the people I think are real when I finally become senile.

It’s one of her short stories, though, that has me thinking about the deep emotional attachments people have to food.

“Leftovers,” which is one of the short stories in A Crack in the Wall, unfolds its secrets through some of the 365 frozen meals that a dying woman leaves her husband for after she’s gone.

Meatballs in mushroom sauce comes with a note, a reminder to eat some salad every day. Lasagna to go with the memory of a first anniversary.

Stroganoff evokes being witnesses to a failing marriage, coming unglued in a kitchen. “Crap Casserole” is what their son dubbed the results of his mother’s fridge-cleaning expeditions. Chili, the same son’s favourite meal. And peach cobbler, evocative of an intimate moment on the back lawn.

There’s a meal for every day of an entire year. Whether to help her husband say good-bye, or to keep her with him, it’s hard to say.

What’s certain is that the food speaks of a shared life, and connections that have been melded together over pots of pastas and stews.

Back at Betty Jane’s house, readings by three authors are given in turn, from a rocking chair in the middle of the living room. And after a conversation about stories, which feels like friends and family chatting on a Sunday afternoon, we drift deliberately towards the pastries.

The plum kuken is something like the platz I make at home. I could linger over the squares the rest of the day.

But it’s the apfeltaschen that soon has my full attention: Tender pastry pockets, filled with sweetened, grated apples and jam.

Sometime after my fourth (they’re small, don’t judge me), I find myself asking for the recipe.

By the time I get to my hotel that evening, apfeltaschen is in my inbox. And I already know it’s a recipe I’ll always associate with storytime at Betty Jane’s house.

APFELTASCHEN

Yield: 36

2 cups flour
1 tbs sugar
1 cup butter
1 cup cottage cheese*
1 tsp vanilla
3 apples, peeled and grated
apricot jam

Combine flour and sugar. With pastry blender, cut in butter. Add cottage cheese and vanilla. Mix thoroughly, continuing to use pastry blender. Shape into ball.

On a floured surface, roll out dough about 1/2 inch thick. Fold in thirds, then shape into a ball again. Repeat rolling 3 times. Wrap and chill several hours or overnight. (May also be frozen.)

Divide dough into 3 parts. Roll out each part into a rectangle 1/8 inch thick. Cut each rectangle into 12 squares. Fill centre of each square with 1 heaping tsp of grated apple and 1/2 teaspoon of jam. Bring corners to middle, pinching points together to seal. Place on parchment paper-lined baking sheets.

Bake in 400F oven for about 20 minutes or until golden brown.

These can be drizzled with glaze, but are awfully good with a scoop of ice cream or dollop of whipped cream.

*Betty Jane drains the cottage cheese somewhat before incorporating it into the dough.

Mahlzeit! Und Guten Appetit!

- Words and photo by Darcie Hossack

Grandma Friesen never made anything in small amounts.

A mother of ten, and grandmother to twenty five, I can almost never picture her outside of her kitchen.

Like a lot of women born more than a hundred years ago, Anna was a stranger to certain luxuries her whole life. Even when my grandfather bought her a house with a modern kitchen and plenty of countertop space, she rarely used it.

Instead, in the attached summer kitchen, which was little more than a nook with a fridge, stove, sink and just enough room for a dish rack, she continued to cook as she always had when her family was young.

Dipping into a flour bin that contained a hundred pounds at a time, Anna baked bread and cream cookies, cooked vereniku topped with cream gravy, and fried roll kuken and New Year’s cookies. And doughnuts.

Not exactly one of her staple items, doughnuts were a special treat. Especially when I got to help make them.

Like her bread, my grandmother’s doughnut dough was mixed and left to rise in bowls the size of bathtubs, covered with grease-stained kitchen towels that were probably older than my oldest aunt.

After all, Anna wasn’t one to throw things out. Even plastic produce bags from the grocery store were washed and clothespinned to a string tied above the sink to dry. They then became bread bags for giving away her loaves to family and other villagers who dropped by.

Once risen, and with the kitchen already rich with the smell of yeast, my grandmother let me punch down the dough. First, I pushed my fingers into the warm sponge. Then my fists, which deflated it in the most satisfying way that I love even now.

With handfuls of flour tossed onto the kitchen table, we turned the dough out for a quick knead, flattening and shaping it with a wooden rolling pin so perfectly seasoned that not even sticky doughnut dough would cling to it.

We cut out circles and holes, and set them aside on every possible surface to rise a second time. And then slid them, one by one, into a pot of spitting lard, before sugaring and glazing.

A couple of months ago, someone gave me a little box of homemade doughnuts.

They were soft and pillowy and perfectly golden. And delicious.

Delicious but different.

Not only were they made with mashed potatoes and in a bread machine, but they were also baked!

Adapted from an old Czechoslovakian recipe, and a favourite treat made by the wife of a local chef, the doughnuts are tender and a perfect alternative for cooks who, like me, are terrified of boiling oil.

My grandmother would laugh if she knew that.

But then, since the cooking gene skipped a generation before resurfacing in me, I don’t think she’d mind. She’d just hand me an apron and ask whether I wanted to sugar or glaze.

Czecholslovakian Baked Doughnuts
(recipe courtesy of Christine Deschatelets)

2 medium white potatoes, peeled and quartered
1 cup milk
1/4 cup warm water from cooking the potatoes
2 large eggs, beaten
3/4 cup shortening
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast

Topping
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
3 tbs cup melted butter

Cook potatoes in boiling water until tender. Pass through a potato ricer and set aside 1 cup to cool.

Place potatoes, milk, water, eggs, shortening, sugar and salt in the pan of a bread maker. Cover with flour and place yeast on top. Set machine to “Dough” function.

When dough is ready, turn out onto a lightly floured surface, kneading in a little more flour, if necessary, to form a workable dough. Roll to 1/2-inch thick and cut using a 2 1/2-inch doughnut cutter. Place on greased baking sheets. Cover with lint-free kitchen towels and let rise until almost doubled (about an hour in a warm place). Bake at 350F for 15-20 minutes, until lightly golden. Brush warm doughnuts lightly with butter and dip in cinnamon sugar.

- Words and photos by Darcie Hossack