Either way, my MIL found this recipe in the local paper and while I prefer to do my recipe hunts on the web, this one was particularly intriguing.

What does smoked cream taste like?  Would it taste burned?  Can I smoke some nut flavor into it?

Answers: decadently rich reminiscent of goat cheese, no, not the way I did it

This is a sinful pie, made richer-tasting with the smoked cream.  Even in a 9″ pie pan, it makes at least 12 servings.  Then watch your visitors waddle away in happiness.

The store ran out of peeled hazelnuts and I didn’t want to deal with the hassle of peeling them.  But next time, I will incorporate some ground hazelnuts into the crust and put more on top instead of almonds.  I also used 2% milk and more heavy cream than the original called for.

Smoked Chocolate Cream Pie
adapted from Hedy Goldsmith of Michael’s Genuine Food and Drink in Miami

We are unfortunate enough to have an electric stove, so we smoked hickory chips in a large Dutch oven fitted with a rack with the bowl sitting on top.  Beware of burns as Hubby has some nice battle scars.  I used Ghirardelli cocoa powder and Valhrona 72% dark chocolate – don’t skimp with Hershey’s and Nestle, now.

1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 1/2 cups whole milk

1/2 cup sugar
3/4 tsp salt
1 split vanilla bean
2 T dark unsweetened cocoa powder

5 large egg yolks

10 oz. dark chocolate, finely chopped
3 T butter

Prebaked 9″ pie crust

Line stovetop smoker (or a roasting pan fitted with a baking rack and lid) with damp smoking chips and heat over low-medium flame.  When chips are smoldering, place bowl containing heavy cream and whole milk on rack and cover.  Reduce heat and infuse for 20 minutes or until cream is smoky.  (Err on the side of intensity: Adding chocolate will diffuse the smoky flavor.)

In a small saucepan, combine cream mixture with sugar, salt, vanilla bean, and cocoa powder.  Whisk over medium heat until simmering.  Meanwhile, whisk egg yolks in a small bowl.  Stir 1 cup warm cream mixture into yolks to temper, then add both back into the saucepan over medium heat.  Whisk constantly until temperature reaches 170 degrees.  Remove mixture from heat and pour through mesh strainer into bowl.  Whisk 10 oz. finely lchopped dark chocolate and 3 T butter into warm custard until well incorporated.  Pour mixture into a pre-baked 9″ pie crust.  Chill 3-4 hours or until set.  Serve topped with whipped cream and toasted hazelnuts.

Pie crust – that’s with an “e” – has been one of my arch-nemeses since I started baking.  I watched my BILs crank out one perfect pie after another from their family recipes with (un)guarded jealousy.  Mine would be dense, bland, shrunken – once my apples completely dissolved into mush!  I gave up pies for awhile, especially double-crust ones, in frustration, especially since my family didn’t warm much to them (except every once in awhile I graced my neighbors with a delicious scratch-roasted pumpkin pie – who knows how I manage to get those done).  I also didn’t like the flavor shortening imparted in crust – it certainly didn’t seem to help me with my flakiness problem.

This season, however, I came across a recipe for smoked chocolate cream pie (recipe to come) that brought all inspiration back.  Problem was, there was no pie crust recipe.  Determined to find an all-butter recipe, I attempted one from a very credible source (will not name for sheer embarrassment for my results) and at her suggestion, stuck to cutting with two knives instead of the food processor.  Failure – several hand cramps later, my butter lumps were still too big so when baked, it started frying the dough to oblivion.  I could have probably turned it into a Christmas ornament it was so solid.

Another search, and this super simple AllRecipes recipe saved my future with pie (and Thanksgiving dessert!):

All-Butter Pie Crust
adapted from AllRecipes.com with adjustments and baking instructions

I just added a touch more salt and added instructions for a food processor.  Also, I found that chilling butter in the freezer, then the crust once rolled out, increases flakiness and reduces shrinking.

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, diced and chilled in freezer for 15 minutes
1/4 cup ice water

In the bowl of a food processor, combine flour and salt.  Sprinkle butter pieces over flour mixture and pulse until mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs.  Alternatively, cut in butter with two knives, a pastry blender, or your fingers.  Stir in water, a tablespoon at a time, until mixture forms a ball. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or up to 3 days.

Roll dough out to fit a 9 inch pie plate. Place crust in pie plate. Press the dough evenly into the bottom and sides of the pie plate.  Trim off excess and make preferred decorative edge.  Freeze for 30 minutes.

To pre-bake
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Line crust with aluminum foil and pie weights or dry beans.  Bake for 20 minutes.  Remove foil and pie weights and bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown.  Cool and use in your favorite single crust pre-baked recipe.

I love gorgeously-wrapped presents with handmade fabric bows, simple kraft paper, and custom tags.  You can imagine now that it’s holiday time the volume of such images on Pinterest.  Brain explosion!!!

I came across a number of images featuring salt dough tags and ornaments.  They were so charming I decided to make them on a whim at 9:30PM on a weeknight.  Of course, starting after an already exhausting day resulted in a doubling of water and therefore, a doubling of dough.  3 hours and a passed-out Hubby later, we had a fairly cute assortment of salt dough tags that once sealed should last for a couple of Christmases to come.

A number of them bubbled up – I’m not sure if I was supposed to prick holes in the back or roll them thinner.  It could also be that I ran out of table salt and had to use coarse Kosher salt.  It made it really difficult to stamp post-bake except for the tiny letters, although I’ve seen other images with successful stamping.  Let me know if you’ve had experience making them before.

Salt Dough Gift Tags
The common recipe

1/2 cup water
1/2 cup table salt
1 cup flour

Makes 2 cups of dough

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.  Have ready a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or silpat.

Mix ingredients together with fork in large bowl until combined.  Knead until smooth – add additional flour if needed, it should be the consistency of clay.

Lightly flour counter.  Roll dough to 1/4-inch thickness.  Cut out desired shapes and prestamp (or wait to stamp with color afterwards).  Place on baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes or until very lightly brown and firm.

Dry overnight and seal with varnish, acrylic, or other sealer.

Enter young, or baby, ginger.  Young ginger is picked in infancy and doesn’t contain the spicy, stringy flesh of supermarket ginger.  It is very crisp and pale-colored, with a ginger flavor that is sweet and somewhat reminiscent of fresh water chesnuts.  I had only seen it in Asian supermarkets until I came across some from Gravity Hill Farm, purveyor of some of the most beautiful organic produce I’ve ever seen.  You can find them at the Stockton Market.  I’m not sure why you can’t find more local farmers making it, as I recently read that it is very easy to grow.  Guess it’s all those western European ginger-haters.

I haven’t yet had a chance to spring this new find on my in-laws, but the fact that Hubby actually used the word “yum” and proceeded to eat whole slices roasted with fish, I knew it would make a future appearance.

Out of fear I wouldn’t see it again, I loaded up and then promptly got overwhelmed by a series of household appliance breakdowns and discouraging service calls, so dinner was to be had elsewhere for awhile.  The ginger got a little old (and oddly enough got much spicier) so I decided to candy it, inspired by my sister’s own project just a couple of weeks prior and the fact that David Lebovitz posted a simple recipe on Facebook (love him).  A couple of days later and the spice has already died down – but they still retain that delicious gingery flavor to appear in future pies, cakes, and pancakes.  I also love things that stay shelf stable – great gift idea!

I cut much smaller slices so I dried mine on parchment paper instead, with outstanding results: http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2008/12/candied-ginger/

Nutty Apple Crisp
Original Recipe

5 large apples (about 2 1/2 lbs), peeled and cored

1/2 cup flour
1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp lemon zest
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

1/2 cup walnuts, roughly chopped
1/2 cup pecans, roughly chopped

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.  Put butter in freezer 10-15 minutes to chill (you don’t want it to freeze but it should be fairly firm).

Halve and slice apples into 1/2-inch slices and add to 10 inch glass pie plate or 9×9 glass baking dish.

Combine flour, oats, sugar, zest, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a medium bowl.  Add butter pieces and, working quickly with your fingers to avoid melting the butter, pinch the butter into the flour mixture until the mixture resembles the streusel topping on a coffeecake.  Still using your hands, pinch in the walnuts and pecans until just combined.

Sprinkle topping evenly onto apples.  Bake until apples are bubbling and crisp is golden brown, 45-55 minutes.  Let cool 15 minutes and serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

This weekend, we had a fantastic experience at our first Outstanding in the Field dinner, a farm to table series that spans the country.  I promise to tell you more about that another time.

We broke bread with some awesome people and, of course, talked about food for much of the time.  One mentioned that she was baking scones for an upcoming shower so Karen, this one’s for you!

These were actually inspired by a cheddar basil biscuit from Crossroads Bakery.  I love the tanginess from the yogurt and goat cheese – it helps to cut down on the richness of the butter.  Psst this recipe’s also originally a biscuit recipe – but potato, potata!

Basil & Goat Cheese Scones (or Biscuits)
Adapted from Baking Illustrated

I prefer plain yogurt instead of buttermilk because I tend to have more of the former than the latter on hand. 

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup pastry/cake flour (I use whole wheat flour from Castle Valley Mill)
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp kosher salt
8 T (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4 inch cubes and frozen for 10 minutes
3/4 cup + 2 T plain yogurt (or 3/4 cup buttermilk)
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil
1 cup mild goat cheese, broken into small pieces (we love the sliced stuff from Valley Shepherd)
Zest of 1 lemon (optional)

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Place the flours, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl.  Whisk together.  Using your fingers, two knives, or a pastry blender, quickly cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse meal with a few slightly larger butter lumps.

Stir in the yogurt, basil, goat cheese, and lemon zest (if using) with a fork until until the mixture forms a soft, slightly sticky ball.

Pinch off 12 scones and place onto an ungreased cookie sheet (I like to line it with a silpat).  Bake until tops are light brown and crisp, 10 to 12 minutes.  Serve immediately or freeze.

This was my 4th of July contribution.  Based on the custard-based ice cream techniques from David Lebovitz, I was inspired to make some blueberry ice cream with some leftover buttermilk.  Once you make a few ice creams, it’s little more than milk, cream, and egg yolks – easy!  Anyone else like me where you just can’t seem to use up the rest of the buttermilk after making those pancakes?

This recipe made many a family member happy – so happy that the entire 2 quarts was gone before I could take a picture!  Hubby’s aunt said it tasted just like blueberry

cheesecake, which I thought was way more fun than “blueberry buttermilk”.

Blueberry “Cheesecake” Ice Cream
Original Recipe

The turbinado sugar adds a very subtle molasses tinge to the blueberries, plus it’s not as sweet.  Use brown sugar if you don’t have any; increase sugar to 3/4 cup if you use frozen blueberries.

Makes 1.5 quarts

1 quart fresh or frozen blueberries
Zest + 1 T juice from 1 lemon
1/2 cup turbinado or brown sugar
2 cups heavy cream
5 large egg yolks
1 cup buttermilk

Heat blueberries, zest, lemon juice, and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally until sugar is dissolved and mixture is thick and mostly smooth.  Scrape blueberry mixture into a heat-safe bowl.

Return saucepan to heat and add heavy cream over medium heat.  Meanwhile, beat the

egg yolks in a medium bowl until thick and yellow, about 30 seconds.  When the heavy cream comes to a simmer, whisk about 1 cup of cream gradually into the beaten egg yolks to temper.

Add the yolk mixture into the heavy cream and heat, whisking constantly, until custard is thick enough to coat the back of a spatula.

Mix the custard into the blueberry mixture; stir in the buttermilk.  Try to resist drinking it all as a smoothie – you’ll want to.

Cool until room temperature and then chill for at least 4 hours or overnight.  Freeze according to your ice cream maker’s instructions, then take cover when the masses come.

Rice paper, or spring roll, wrappers are translucent and super thin like this.  You just need to dip them in warm water for all of a second on both sides and it turns into this noodle-y wrapper.  It’s traditionally used for Vietnamese spring rolls, and filled with cilantro, rice noodles, shrimp, and other ingredients.  I didn’t have any of the aforementioned ingredients; instead, I had the menage-a-trois of local ingredients that I mentioned at the beginning of this post (and I snuck in some sea beans to be extra saucy).

Since I only had to tackle a few for the both of us, I decided to make this fun fresh lunch, with a sweet and sour chili sauce as a dip (which I admit is out of a bottle).

There is no real recipe to be had here – I poached the chicken, shredded it and sauteed with the mushrooms in some sesame oil and soy sauce – ok, I lied, I also put in some garlic scapes – then rolled the mixture with shredded Napa cabbage and sea beans.  Yum!

The ingredients I remembered to photograph

Lining up the filling

Rolling it up like a burrito

Before devouring

OWowCow Creamery opened its second location today in Wrightstown, PA, and we had to take a stop there 10 minutes before it closed to get a fix.  I tell you, folks, there was too much ice cream left in the case for their own good.

OWowCow is our hands down favorite place to go for ice cream in Bucks County.  Every ingredient is either locally sourced or organic, down to the homemade fudge sauce.  And the flavors!!  Here are just a few: I Hate Chocolate (and I normally do but theirs is like ganache in a cup), Espresso Bean, Chocolate Covered Pretzel, Garden Berries, Grapefruit with Chocolate Covered Lemon Peel (which is fantastic), Coconut Curry, Cava Cream with Strawberries…and 3 kinds of vanilla – Tahitian, Madagascar, and Indonesian – and they truly taste different from one another.  You can just taste the love that Bless and her crew put into every artisanal flavor.  Our favorite is the 5 flavors for $5 – wear your fat pants, guys.

My favorite part?  They tell you which farms they source from.  It’s all about the transparency.  I can just tell that the cows that bear my ice cream’s milk are happy ones.

We haven’t had a single person NOT fall in love with this place when we take them for a spin.  It’s going to be the late night (well, until 10PM) craving stop for Hubby when I’m good and pregnant.  So please guarantee that it’s still there by then and go for a visit!!

Bless and her handcrafted ice creams

Check out this doubly great post from locavore extraordinaire Lynne Goldman: http://www.buckscountytaste.com/sweets/welcome-owowcow-to-wrightstown/

When I went for my bi-weekly (give or take) mushroom purchase, they tossed in a bag of ramps – aka wild leeks – and these weird green things called sea beans.  The ramps I could handle – they’re more or less akin to a leek in flavor but they are super cute and little.  The sea beans?  My new secret flavor ingredient.  These succulent plants, found during Chris’s foraging excursions, grow in marshes or along beaches.  They look totally bizarre (you can Google them now) and weedy but have this wonderful natural sea salt flavor with a green bean-like crunch.  It was a nice change to the traditional salt and pepper seasoning on our Father’s Day potatoes.

We also picked up some crisp green beans with some greenhouse tomatoes and our favorite criminis for a tangy green bean side dish to accompany Hubby’s Father’s Day ribs.  Nothing better than fresh vegetables – no need for fancy sauces or flavorings.

Pan-Roasted Potatoes with Ramps and Sea Beans
2 large baking potatoes, diced
1/2 cup ramps or onion, thinly sliced
1/4 cup sea beans, chopped (or add salt and pepper to taste after cooking potatoes)
Drizzle of olive oil

Heat a non-stick skillet with 2 teaspoons olive oil over medium high heat.  Add potatoes and cook until golden brown and tender, stirring occasionally, about 25 minutes.  Remove to a bowl and top with ramps, sea beans, and drizzle with olive oil.

Tangy Green Beans and Portabella Mushrooms
8 oz. green beans, ends trimmed
1 tomato, seeded and diced
5 oz. crimini mushrooms, sliced
1 T lemon juice
1 tsp red pepper flakes
Salt and pepper to taste

Have ready a large bowl with ice and water.

Boil 3 cups of water in a large skillet; add green beans.  Blanch beans for 3 minutes until crisp-tender (they will turn bright green).  Use tongs to remove beans to the ice water bath and stop the cooking.  Empty the skillet and dry with a paper towel.

Heat 1 T olive oil in the skillet over medium high heat.  Add the mushrooms and saute until just tender; add the green beans, lemon juice and pepper flakes.  Saute until beans are just heated through; season with salt and pepper.  Remove to a bowl and toss with tomatoes.