Grandpa's Home Cooking

Sugar Cream Pie

When I was a boy in the 1940s my great grandmother, Margaret See, regularly baked and served Sugar Cream Pie to our extended family as a lunch pie. The other pie great grandma often made for lunch was a custard pie. Then she fixed up fruit pies, cakes, and other baked goods for supper. Far as I'm concerned, you can serve this pie anytime. 

Grandma called this her sugar pie. Some folks call it a Hoosier Pie. Hoosiers is what they call folks from Indiana. Just what does the word "Hoosier" mean? Depends on who you ask. There are all kinds of theories about what the term "Hoosier" means. I don't know, but the one I like is "Hows yur?" (meaning how's your kin).

I'll tell you what. There is not an easier delicious pie to make than this one.

My great grandmother Margaret inspired me to cook. And when I expressed interest, she taught me to cook. She was in the kitchen all day cooking and baking wonderful food for our large extended family. She was a Saint. 

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees if you're using a pie tin or to 425 degrees for a glass pie plate. 

Ingredients:

• 1  9" unbaked pie shell
• 1 1/3 Cups sugar 
• 1/2 Cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 pint heavy (whipping)  cream
• 3/4ths Cup milk, + some to brush around crust (yeah, best be whole milk)
• 2 Tablesppons butter (cut into small pieces)
• Pinch or two of ground nutmeg.

Note: It works well to keep a few unbaked frozen pie shells in your freezer to make pies like this. 

Instructions:

How easy can it get. Pull out a large mixing bowl. Pour in the sugar, flour, cream, and milk. Combine ingredients with a whisk. Pour the mix into the unbaked pie shell. Spread the small pieces of butter about the top of the pie (and watch them disappear). Use you fingers to sprinkle nutmeg over the top of the pie.   

Cover the edge of the crust with foil. I sit my tin or dish on top of a piece of aluminum foil and bring the edges up to cover just the edge of the pie crust. You don't want to burn your crust at the higher temperature.  Bake the pie for 10 minutes. 

Reduce the heat to 350 degrees.

Very carefully pull the pie out of the oven and remove the foil.  Use a brush to apply milk around the edge of the pie crust so it will bake to a golden brown. 

Now put the pie back into the 350 degree oven and bake it for 30 to 35 minutes until the crust is golden brown. It's still going to seem lidquidy, so carefully remove the pie from the oven to the top of the stove. Let it sit to cool for 30 minutes or more until the pie sets up. Then put the pie in the refrigerator.

Your pie ought to look as pretty as the one in the picture. I just pulled this pie out of the oven 30 minutes before I photographed it. The pie is in the refrigerator now and it will be served for supper. Keep what's not eaten in the refrigerator as this pie ought be serve cold. 

Mom's Apricot-Pineapple Pie

Charlotte Lou Allen Pipes was a great pie baker. Mom’s Apricot-Pineapple Pie has been a family tradition for more than 60 years. Baked to mouth watering perfection, we could expect one of these delicious Apricot-Pineapple pies every Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years day, as well as other special days throughout the year. In fact, Mom sometimes made several of them along with other baked goods, such as her delicious pumpkin and apple pies. Cake? Well of course.  Mom made wonderful cakes and brownies too. We had lots of fresh baked goods in our house. And Dad (Lloyd) always brought a big container of French Vanilla or Peppermint ice cream from the freezer and put generous dollops of ice cream on the warm baked goods.

Ingredients:

• 2 pie crusts
• 2 packages of *California dried Apricots
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 Tablespoons cornstarch
• 1 small (8 oz) can of crushed Dole pineapple, undrained
• Dab of butter (1 Tablespoon)

Intructions:

1. Cook apricots until tender in just enough water to cover (about 12-15 minutes). I like it better when the apricots are still a bit chunky and not sauced.

2. Mix together sugar and cornstarch. Add to apricots and cook until clear and thickened.

3. Remove from heat and add pineapple and a dab of butter. Pour into pie crust.

4. Cover with the second crust. Bake at 350 for about an hour or until crust is gold and bubbly.

Mom did one more thing that I haven't mastered and this little touch brings the taste even more alive. She somehow put very tiny bits of pastry dough ball crumbs with salt on the top crust. It was good. 

* I wouldn’t substitute with Turkish or Mediterranean dried apricots. There is a big difference. California dried apricots are superior in taste. My experience is that gourmet markets only sell dried apricots from the Middle East. They are much larger and much prettier. California dried apricots are smaller and darker--but they are sweeter! I sometimes have to work at it, but I often find the California dried apricots (Sunsweet) at chain super markets. There you will often find 2 rows of Middle East apricots and one little row of California apricots. And for some reason, the packages are often not marked California. You must look at the fine print. When I find them, I stock up.

“Probably anywhere between 30% and 40% of our business is done internationally, be it retail or bulk packs,” said Jeff McLemore, product manager for North America at Yuba City, Calif.-based Sunsweet Growers Inc. “Consumption levels are strong, if not stronger, in places like Japan. The eastern European countries are also strong.”

History:

Mom invented this pie in the 1940s. On the day before Thanksgiving, Dad was flat on his back in bed as a result of a bad fall. He couldn't work for weeks. When he didn't work he didn't get paid. Mom was about out of money. She had already bought a turkey, potatoes, and vegetables. But she was worried about how to make dad a nice pie for Thanksgiving. She went to the pantry to see if there was anything to put together a pie. She found two packages of dried apricots and a small tin of Dole crushed pineapple. This was enough! She immediately recognized these would be the ingredients she'd use to make Dad a pie. She thought about how she would do it and came up with this recipe. 

This pie, along with pumpkin and pecan pies, have become a family tradition. Mom and members of our extended family have baked this pie for every Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years day for over 60 years. My daughter helped me bake the pie pictured. The tradition continues.

Fresh Fig Tart

Put a taste of fig in your mouth. Fresh figs are delicious! My wife brought home a bag of fresh figs. We had never eaten a fresh fig. After we ate one and found it to be delicious, I wondered if they might make a nice tart. I got on the Internet to see what I could find. There were quite of few recipes posted for fig tarts and most of them were identical. I printed a recipe that appeared in the Los Angeles Times. Then I thought, I don't have a tart pan. I looked to see what I did have and found a little dish that I thought I could use. Then I got busy and baked the first tart I've ever made. My wife said the tart is delicious and that's good enough for me. I confess that some of the pictures of tarts on the Internet look prettier than mine, but I think my picture is okay because it shows the goodness of this beautiful fruit.

Ingredients:

• Prepared pie shell

• 3/4 pound figs
• 1/2 lb. of blanched/peeled almonds (I used/ground Planters almond slivers)
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4th teaspoon salt
• 2 Tablespoons soft butter
• 2 teaspoons lemon zest
• 2 teaspoons honey

Note: The next time I make a fig tart, I've a notion to try orange extract instead of lemon zest:-)

Instructions:

Heat the oven to 375 degrees

If your using a prepared pie shell from the grocery, put the dough in your tart pan and trim off any excess. Prick the dough in each of the tart pans in several places with a fork. Mold a piece of foil or parchment paper on top of the dough in the tart pan. Fill the bottom of the shells with baking beads or beans. (I came to hate using beans a long time ago and bought the very inexpensive ceramic baking beads. Splurge and buy a yourself a bag of beads!) Stick the pans in your freezer or refrigerator. Your dough ought to be cold when you put it in the oven to bake.

Make your own pie crust if you do not wish to use prepared crust from the grocery and follow the above instructions. 

Remove the foil or parchment paper and the pie beads or beans from the tart pan. Pre-bake the tart pie crusts for about 10 minutes or until the crust rim is lightly golden.

Use a food processor, a coffee bean grinder, or a blender to grind the almond slivers.  Mix the ground almonds, sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, salt, soft butter, and honey into a smooth paste. Spoon the paste into your pre-baked tart shell. Use the back of a spoon to smooth the paste evenly in the bottom of the can.

Cut the stem off your figs and then cut the figs into quarters. Artfully:-) (better than I) put the figs on top of the paste and push them into the past just a little as you do. Complete your beautiful arrangement and bake the tart for 40-45 minutes in your preheated 375 degree oven.

Enjoy your tart!

Suggestion: Why don't you use some exotic ground coffee and a glass push-pot coffee maker to make you and/or yours some extra good coffee to drink while eating your delicious tart! One of these days, I'll post instructions for using a glass push-pot coffee maker to make great coffee..  

  

Key Lime Pie (Updated)

 
One of my favorite meals includes steamed Maine lobster or steamed Connecticut Blue Point oysters in the shell, warm basmati rice, and a select cold crisp Alsatian white wine. I like to finish this meal with a slice of bright Key Lime pie. But I also like to serve this pie after a lot of festive summer meals. I baked and served this pie at a cookout for family before leaving town for a terrific Fourth of July Celebration. 

Key Lime pies are so easy to make. There are generally three ingredients needed to make a good Key lime pie; eggs yolks, sweetened condensed milk, and Key lime juice. You might find the biggest difference to be the number of egg yolks required to make the pie. My view is that more eggs make a better Key lime pie. 

The "Key" in "Key Lime" refers to the Florida Keys. The distinctive taste of Key limes are preferred but you can also make this pie from limes. Key limes can be difficult to find. More often than not, I can find them at a neighborhood Harris Teeter supermarket. Some might expect to find them more often at Whole Foods, but this has not been my experience. Ask a store produce manager or store manager if they will offer them. I love the bright taste of real Key limes.

Make your own graham cracker crust. It tastes so much better than prebaked pie shells sold at supermarkets, and a homemade graham cracker crust is so easy to make that you'll wonder why you didn't do it before!

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups ground graham cracker crumbs (a package from the box usually meets the need) 
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 6-8 Tablespoons butter, melted (enough to mold the crumbs in the pie dish)
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees

Instructions:

Mix the graham cracker crumbs, sugar, melted butter, and cinnamon until the ingredients are blended well enough to use your hands to form a crust in a pie dish. Press the mixture into a 9 inch pie dish. Bake the crust at 375 degrees for no more than 7 minutes. If you bake it longer your crust will be too hard.

Remove the crust from the oven and start making the pie filling.

Ingredients:

• Prebaked graham cracker pie shell 
• 5 egg yolks, gently whisk to combine
• 1, 14-ounce can of sweetened condensed milk
• 1/2 cup of Key lime juice
• A can of whipped cream, from the grocers dairy case
• Lime slices or sprigs of fresh mint for garnish

Instructions:

After eliminating the egg white, roll the egg yolks from your egg separator into a mixing bowl. Whisk the yolks until they are combined. Add the sweetened condensed milk and Key lime juice. Whisk the ingredients until they are mixed well. Pour the filling into a prebaked graham cracker pie crust. Make your own graham cracker pie crust for it will taste better than a packaged pie crust. 

Bake the pie in your preheated oven for 15 minutes. Then chill the pie in your refrigerator. As you serve the pie, decorate the slices with a small crust border of whipped cream and a slice of lime and/or a sprig of fresh mint. I use Redi-whip, but if you want to whip your own cream, go for it.

Luscious Georgia Peach Pie

Sometimes I need to take a quick picture and quickly move the food to the table. This was the case with this Georgia peach pie. Folks were at the table ready to eat it! I wish I had a picture of a slice. I like to make pies with lots of filling and this pie stood the test of being deep with fresh Georgia peaches that were at the peak of ripeness. There is nothing quite as good as a Georgia peach pie.  

Ingredients:

• Pastry for 2 pie crusts
• 5 cups of fresh peach slices
• 2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 1 cup of granulated sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 Tablespoons of butter
• 1 egg, beaten

Instructions:

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.

Put the peach slices into a mixing bowl. Drizzle the fresh lemon juice over the peaches. Use your freshly washed hands to gently mix the peaches and lemon juice. Yeah, you can use a wooden spoon if you must, but be gentle.

Toss the flour, sugar, and salt in a separate mixing bowl and mix the ingredients with a fork. Pour the mixed dry ingredients over the peaches. Use your hands to gently mix the peaches and dry ingredients. 

Take a ball of VERY COLD pastry from your refrigerator and roll it out. Line your pie dish with pastry. Pour the peach filling into the pie dish. Dot the top with chunks of the butter. Take a second ball of very cold pastry from the refrigerator. Quickly roll out the pastry and cover the pie filling. Brush the crust with the beaten egg. Use a paring knife to cut a heat vent in the top of the pie.

Bake the pie for 10 minutes in the 450 degree oven and then reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees. Bake the pie for another 30 to 40 minutes. Keep an eye on the pie and pull it from the oven when the pie is golden brown.

Note: You may have noticed that my ingredient list does not include nutmeg and cinnamon. I've never understood why anyone would want to mess with the succulent taste of fresh fruit. I want to taste the fresh fruit, not nutmeg or cinnamon. 

  

Twice Baked Cherry Pie

I only like 3 kinds of pie. Hot pie, cold pie, and more pie! But if I don't say so myself, and I believe I will, Grandpa's twice-baked cherry pie can't be beat (until I post Mom's Christmas Apricot Pineapple Pie served warm with a big dip of French Vanilla ice cream). Well ... ahhh yes, there is my wife's Hershey Chocolate Pie. Then too, there is my mother-in-law's fabulous Lemon Meringue pie. Whatever. With my daughter assisting, old Grandpa baked this pie yesterday afternoon and its 'bout gone!

Now here's the deal about the twice-baked cherry pie. What you need to do is bake the pie shell before you put the filling in, and afterward fill it and bake the pie. This is not difficult and I believe you will love the taste of the wonderful crunchy crust.

For the Pie Crust

Ingredients

• 12 Tablespoons of very cold pure butter (1 1/2 sticks)
• 1/3 cup of very cold Crisco
• 3 cups of all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 Tablespoon of granulated sugar
• 6-8 Tablespoons of ice water (put cubes of ice in the glass and add water)
• This recipe will produce enough crust for 2, 10-inch crusts that I use when I'm making a 9-inch pie. Why? Because I want to have plenty of dough to work with! 

Use a food processor if you have one. Grandpa uses a mixing crock and an old fashioned stainless steel pastry blender because this is what I have. Ya ever seen one of these old fashion tools?

They work jus' fine and don't take up half your counter space and it don't come with 12 dozen attachments to store. Well, er yeah, I do have an electric drill. I ain't that old-fashioned! Anyway, back to the business at hand.

Instructions:

Combine the flour, salt, and sugar into your old fashioned country crock mixing bowl. Now add diced, ice cold butter chunks to the crock (yeah, dice 'em ahead of time and keep them in the fridge until you're ready for them. Otherwise, the butter is going to be warm if you stand there and dice them while you're stopping to take umpteen calls on your cell phone). Add the ice cold water; I put 4 tablespoons in to start.Now pick up that handy stainless steel pastry blender and gently break down and blend that butter into your dry ingredients. Add more cold water as it is needed. I generally make do with a total of 6 tablespoons. Keep at it until that mix resembles a bowl of peas. Then use your hands to bring all of that dough together into a big ball. Don't be messing around a lot with the dough or you're going to have a tough crust. For this pie, I separate the ball into one large ball and one small ball, so that I have plenty of dough to work with for the pie shell and because I don't need a lot of dough for the top crust. Wrap each ball tightly with plastic wrap and put the dough in the refrigerator. Keep that dough very cold for at least 2 hours or even over night if you want to. While that dough is chilling out, as it were, you're free to go out to the garage and change the oil on your car if you want to:-)

Several Hours Later:

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees!

Wash your hands up good and get back to the business of makin' your pie!  Put your rollin' pin on the counter. Take a little flour in your hands and spread it on the counter or that fancy pastry cloth you bought for rollin' out dough. Now take the big ball of cold dough out of the fridge and commence to roll out a big 10-inch circle. The best way to do this is to keep turning the dough around as you roll it out. 

Pick up the dough and place it inside your 9-inch pie dish. Use your thumbs to fancy up the dough at the top of the pie dish and trim off the excess (maybe your thumbs are better at it than mine are:-() Now take up a fork and prick the dough in 5 or 6 places in the bottom of the pie plate.

Lay a big piece of wax paper over the pie crust (totally). Pour your bag of ceramic pie dough weight marbles all around the bottom of the wax paper covered dough. If you don't have ceramic pie dough weights you can substitute dry pinto beans. Okay ... here's just a word about pie weights. It is not an excessive unnecessary expense to go buy some as some people say. You try the beans one time and you'll see what I mean. After the crust is baked, you'll toss the burned up beans into the trash! You can buy a nice bag of pie weights at A Southern Season for something like $6.77 or $3.77 on their annual summer sale. How much you gonna keep spendin' for dry pinto beans? Give me a break!  Okay, if you live out on Pugent Sound, call A Southern Season toll-free and order a bag of ceramic pie weights. Oh yeah, you can also buy some metal chain pie weights ... but I don't like the looks of them. You can also wash your kids marbles and use them.

NOW ... slide that pie dish into your oven, making sure the wax paper is totally covering the crust. In about 20 minutes ... pull that pie crust out of the oven ... peek under that wax paper good real good to see if your crust is totally baked (not wet anywhere). If not, pop the pie crust back in the oven for 5 minutes ... then peek again. When it's done, pull the pie dish out of the oven and set the crust to the side.

While the bottom crust is baking ... start fixin' up your pie filling. I prefer to use the Oregon brand of pitted tart cherries ... and their recipe for making the filling is darn good!

Cherry Pie Filling Ingredients:

• 2 cans of Oregon brand tart, pitted cherries (or 2 lbs of fresh tart cherries if you're into pitting cherries)  
• 1 1/2 cups of sugar
• 3 Tablespoons of cornstarch (I prefer using 3 T of quick cooking tapioca)
• 1 Tablespoon of butter
• 1/4th teaspoon red food coloring (optional)
• 1/4th teaspoon almond extract (optional)

Put your favorite saucepan on a medium hot range burner. Pour the cherry juice from 1 can of cherries into the saucepan (dump the juice from the second can of cherries). 

Add the sugar and cornstarch to the pan and start stirring ... and don't you stop stirring until the juice becomes nice and thick. (If my old arm starts wearing out, I add just a little more instant tapioca 'cause I don't want a pie with juices running out all over the oven or the dinner table!). When the pie filling sauce is thick gradually add the cherries and and optional ingredients. Take the filling off the burner and let it sit for about 20 minutes.

Now pour the filling into the pre-baked pie shell!

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees

For the decorative top crust:

Now take the small ball of dough out of the refrigerator. Roll it out on the counter. Use several sizes of biscuit cutters to cut circles for the top crust. Place the discs decoratively on top of the pie filling. Brush cream on the disks and then sprinkle the top of the dough discs with granulated sugar.

Bake the pie:

Put your beautiful pie into the preheated 400 degree oven and bake it for 45-50 minutes. When your pie is baked and beautiful, pull it out of the oven and eat it when you can't wait no longer! Let me tell you what, I love this twice baked crust concept. The crust is delicious! 

    

  

 

 

Grandma's Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie

I often write about the greatness of my Great Grandma See’s strawberry-rhubarb pie, as well as my mother’s. Now I want to tell you there will never be anything like my wife Nancy’s strawberry-rhubarb pie. This pie, baked Sunday, March 21, 2010 (the first day of spring) was the best strawberry-rhubarb pie I’ve ever tasted in my nearly 69 years of life. I’m convinced there will never be anything like it because it was baked with love and great care, and it tasted so good I wonder how any strawberry-rhubarb pie could ever taste better than it. My wife, Grandma Nancy, turned out a beautiful pie that would surely be awarded the Blue Ribbon in any pie contest. Nancy made this pie using Grandma’s Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie, a recipe provided on the Food Network web site, courtesy of Valerie Enters, of Sanford, Florida; Ms. Enters must be proud when she tells the world that her grandmother’s pie is the world’s best strawberry-rhubarb pie ever made. After all, this pie has a rating of 5-stars and is from the Food Network Challenge, Great America Pie Cook-Off. You should retrieve this recipe and make your family very happy. I’m here to tell you; it’s fabulous! http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-challenge/grandmas-strawberry-rhubarb-pie-recipe/index.html

 P.S. Nancy didn't include the lemon juice and zest because we didn't have a lemon; This goes to show you that variations abound and Nancy might therefore rightfully call it My Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie Recipe.  I once attended a cooking class lectured by the great Charleston Chef, Louis Osteen, who remarked, "There is no such thing as an original recipe. Ultimately you'll find that every recipe comes from another. I get some of my best recipes reading magazines and modifying the recipes I've seen while waiting for the barber's chair." This is not a verbatim quote, but its close, and stated as best as I can remember it. They are all of our recipes.