Southern Peanut Butter Pie

This is a family favorite but I haven't had a chance to work on pie experiments so I don't have a crust recipe and I am not sure there isn't anything I would change with this recipe to make it more healthy. I know pie is not always meant to be healthy but it should have something about it that makes us feel like we're nurturing more than our junk food genes. There's something about pie that brings us back to a more simple time - fruit pies cooling on the window sill. This pie is not so bad since it's packed with protein powered peanut butter. Use an all natural peanut butter and it would almost come across as a health food (almost).

Southern Peanut Butter Pie
9" pastry shell
3 eggs
1 cup dark corn syrup
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 teas vanilla
1 teas orange zest
1 cup salted peanuts, coarsely chopped.
Preheat oven to 400 - make sure shell has been refrigerated 1 hr. In bowl beat eggs until frothy. Add corn syrup, sugar, peanut butter, vanilla and zest. Beat until smooth. Stir in peanuts, the pour into shell. Bake for 15 minutes, reduce heat to 350 and bake an additional 30 minutes. Cool thoroughly before cutting and serving.

note: I don't think I have ever added orange zest to this recipe and I can't tell you where I got it from.

Month of pie

I have decided that June will be the month of pie recipes. I'm not quite sure where I am going to go with that plan but it should be fun. Pie is one of those dishes that can be sweet or savory and fits in any time of the year.
My son is starting a new therapy diet this summer and I thought it would be a good time to revamp some of my pie recipes to meet his diet. If you are interested in information go to my other blog.
Even if one is not on a particular diet, I think my recipes could use some updating. I would like to move away from some of the "instant" ingredients like cool whip and replace it with more natural ingredients like whipped cream. Not only are these ingredients better for us, there is more control over fat and sugar.
I look forward to experimenting with pie and sharing the recipes with you.

Garlic Soup

The weather here has been rainy all week and I thought it's a good day for soup. This Garlic Soup recipe came out of the WSU Alumni magazine. Cougar Gold cheese is made here at Washington State University and is rather famous in a smallish circle. Our family loves the cheese and many restaurants feature a mac and cheese made with Cougar Gold. It's an unusual sharp cheddar, it's made in tin cans. Maybe next week I will give you a brief history of the cheese. It's a fascinating story. Here you can buy a tin for as little at $15 (for about 2 pounds). I hear there are places in Seattle that sell it for over $50. On special weekends the lines at Ferdinands (the local ice cream/cheese shop on campus) wrap around the block and the cheese actually sells out.
When making this soup, remember that hot soups have a tendency to explode in the blender so don't fill up the pitcher and give it a little air now and again to prevent pressure build up. Also, you can skip the blanching if you peel the garlic by hand (I use a cloth designed to help grip jars to peel when I want whole garlic and do the smash and peel when I want minced)

Garlic Soup
2 heads garlic, separated and unpeeled
5 tb olive oil
5 cups chicken stock
2 teas fresh thyme or 1 teas dry
white pepper
3 egg yolks
grated cougar gold cheese (or other sharp cheddar)
blanch garlic 1 minute, drain and peel. Cook but do not brown in half the oil for 10 minutes. Add stock and seasonings. Simmer 30 minutes. Blend the soup in a blender, carefully. Return to saucepan and heat. Beat egg yolks and gradually add remaining oil. Stir a couple of spoonfuls of soup into eggs . Remove soup from heat and add eggs in a thin stream. Stir well. Sprinkle on cheese and serve.

Strawberry Salad

At this time of year, strawberries and cucumbers go on sale. It's a great time to make this simple salad. Quite often I use a pound of strawberries and 2 cucumbers but any amount will do.

Strawberry Salad
Peel a cucumber and slice very thinly. Sprinkle with a little salt and place between 2 plates with a weight on top for an hour or so, pouring off liquid at intervals. Cut an equal amount of strawberries into slices. Grind some black pepper over them and sprinkle with balsamic vinegar. Mix cucumbers and strawberries just before serving.

Fruit Pizza

I pulled this recipe out and am going to have it at my sister-in-law's baby shower this weekend. Normally we make this "pizza" in a large round cookie sheet so it resembles a pizza but we're going to make it into individual pizzas so that it's easier to handle. The pizza can get soggy if the assembled too far ahead of time but it still tastes good. I like to center a pineapple ring with a maraschino cherry in the center and then do rings of mandarin oranges, kiwi fruit and strawberries. You can add what ever fruit you like. I bet this would be fantastic with fresh cherries, blueberries and oranges. MMMM - makes me want some now.

Fruit Pizza
1 cup powdered sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup oil
1 cup butter
2 eggs
1 tbs. vanilla
4 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. cream of tarter
2 packages cream cheese
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp. vanilla
Sliced fruit: strawberries, kiwi, mandarin oranges, pineapple rings
Cream 1st two sugars with butter and oil, add next 5 ingredients, mix well. Divide onto 2 greased pizza pans, bake at 350 until brown, cool. Cream remaining ingredients together - except the fruit. Spread on cooled crust. Top with fruit.

Kettle Corn

I apologize for not posting yesterday. My husband and I made a nearly fatal error (not exactly but it sure felt like it) by leaving a cake with cream cheese frosting out on the counter. It made us horribly ill. My poor digestive system is not really ready to forgive me yet but it's healing nicely. Food poisoning is never fun. It doesn't happen often for us even though we are not overly cautious when it comes to food sanitation. I believe in good healthy habits but I am not over the top. The cake we had did not say it had cream cheese frosting and since we purchased it we thought nothing of leaving it on the counter over night. Anyway, this leaves me terribly behind with recipes. I am really having to think this through. I have decided, however, that June will be the month of pies. My husband and I have set aside a few days to experiment with pie crusts and will need a fair amount of fillings to try them with. I figure it's a good time to share pie recipes - sweet and savory.
For today, I thought I'd share a simple recipe. Kettle corn is a fair favorite - who can resist those large metal bowls swirling with sweet popping corn. It's an easy thing to make at home and so simple you'll wonder why you ever bought it in the first place. Using a popcorn oil will give you a buttery flavor but a plain cooking oil will let the sweetness take center stage.

Kettle Corn
1/2 cup unpopped popcorn kernels
3 TBS white sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
Place the popcorn and sugar in a large pot with vegetable oil. Over a medium heat, begin to pop the popcorn. Constantly shake the pot to ensure that the popcorn kernels and oil do not burn. Once the popping has slowed, remove the pot from heat.

Bug Juice

I realized that I haven't really shared beverage recipes. This is my go to party drink. I change it as theme dictates. It's a Halloween drink but would be great for a summer cooler (just omit the gummy worms). I originally got it from Family Fun (I think) but with everything I have changed a few things. Feel free to try different fruit and juices. The original recipe had you thaw all the ingredients, personally I am a little lazy and often throw everything together at the last minute. Using the fruit and juice frozen makes the drink nice and cool (and a little thick). I often use a 2 litter bottle of ginger ale and add it to taste.

Bug Juice
2 10-oz. pkgs. frozen strawberries
1 6-oz. can lemonade concentrate
1 quart ginger ale
6 gummy worms
Mix the strawberries and lemonade concentrate in a blender until smooth and thick. Transfer to a punch bowl. Gradually add ginger ale. Place the gummy worms on the rim of the bowl for a swampy effect. Makes 10 servings.