A month or so ago I know I mentioned that I’d acquired a Vitamix blender. A workhorse of a machine that could mix cement, I think, if the quantities would fit in the container. (I’m joking, you’d never want to do that to a blender.)  A couple of weeks later, with me having not used the blender for anything except salad dressings, I saw a class listed at our favorite cooking school in San Diego (Great News, in Pacific Beach) on the Vitamix. I suggested my DH and I both go – he hardly does any cooking, but he was game. It was very inexpensive – although it didn’t include a meal – just a few samples of what the blender would do and we learned a bunch of techniques too. We had a strawberry agua fresca, a peanut and almond butter (wonderful), an orange vanilla vinaigrette (fabulous), kale and basil pesto (also fabulous) and a hot soup.

The very first thing the instructors did was a green smoothie. I was intrigued about that, because I’ve heard people say they’re really good and good for you. I watched The Chew one day a year or so ago when Daphne Oz  prepared green smoothies for all the other show cast. A few would just barely take a sip or two. Others loved it. Hers contains spinach, celery, kale, cucumbers, mint, parsley, apples, fresh ginger and lime juice.

In our class there was a recipe included in the handout for a “Spring Green Smoothie,” but this one we had in the class (below) was so good, I’ve barely ventured any further.  I’ve made this 3 times, so not every day – I have to have kale on hand, or baby spinach and I don’t always. Kale keeps for at least 10 days or so – spinach only a few days, so kale is my green of choice when I make this.

Please don’t make a frownie face about this – you should try it before you decide you really don’t like it. Our friends, Judy & Jerry say they liked it (at right)! Jerry even asked for the recipe, so does that tell you how much? These are our friends from Newtown Square, a village outside of Philadelphia. My DH, Dave, and Jerry have been friends since high school, bonding early-on at sailing. These friends have a home in Florida also and they SAIL their boat from Annapolis to Naples, FL (it takes a month of sailing each way) in the fall and return in the late spring.

The fruit balances out the greens – it really does. The couple-instructors were vegetarians mostly, but they said they start every morning with one of these drinks. There’s all kinds of good nutrients contained in kale and other dark leafy greens that are so very good for us, and particularly if you have them as your first meal, or part of your first meal.

Providing you have a blender that will chop ice (a requirement here), this smoothie is very simple to make. You want to include some very fruit-forward fruit – meaning fruit that has lots of flavor like mango, pineapple or apple. You can use grapes, blueberries, strawberries, peeled oranges, or other stone fruit, but stonefruit, doesn’t have as much flavor as you might hope. It’s good, but not exceptional. I’d use an apple before I’d use peaches, nectarines or apricots.

About the only trick to making these things is to put the heaviest items in first (i.e. the kale goes in last). So ice, fruit, water, greens and sweetener, if using. Start the motor on low, then increase as it continues to blend. Stop and push any greens down into the liquid. Add more water if needed, more fruit, more sweetener . . . whatever suits your taste buds. The greens are the star of the drink, but you actually don’t TASTE the greens.

The next day after making the first version you see below, I made another one (the 2nd recipe below). A bit of a sweeter one, and everyone liked it better. Me too. I added just a little bit of apple juice, an apple and a small knob of fresh ginger. No other fruit, just the kale, parsley. Oh gosh was it GOOD! And we all really liked the little hint of heat from the ginger. Next time I’m going to add fresh mint leaves – just a few.

What’s GOOD: Well, what can I tell you – not only do these taste good, but they’re good for you. I like these a lot – the 2nd one maybe a bit better, but probably because I’m a novice at green smoothies and I prefer a bit more sweeter flavor.
What’s NOT: nothing – it takes a few minutes to make, that’s all. And really not all that many.

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Horchata is a refreshing rice-based drink from Latin America. It’s very easy to make, and if you’re so inclined, you can add some Kahlua to it as we did. Not traditional, but oh-so good.

Recently our four-couple gourmet group got together for a brunch. What fun we had, even though it wasn’t a nice day – one of those cloudy, overcast days that we, here in Southern California, don’t understand much, except in June, when we usually  have that kind of weather for the entire month, hence we call it “June Gloom.” But it was on Cinco de Mayo (the 5th). Early May!

One of the gals brought my Tuscan Sangria with Tuaca. We had 4 different salsas with chips (2 of them you’ll see here in a few days), then our main food included a egg/chile/cheese baked dish, caramelized carnitas tacos served with hot flour tortillas, guacamole and slivers of radishes. We also had a no-bake vegetarian enchilada dish that was surprisingly good. I’ll post that too. This, our dessert, was a horchata milk shake. I’d seen the recipe in Food and Wine, and since I like horchata, this one, with ice cream, sounded more like a dessert than a beverage to serve with a meal. So that’s what I did. And most of us ended up adding some Kahlua to the drink – making it a boozy drink, but not much. Just enough to taste it.

Horchata (hor-chaatah) is an agua fresca (meaning fresh water). All agua frescas are non-alcoholic and are common refreshing drinks served all over Latin America. In many Mexican restaurants here in California anyway, they serve some type of agua frescas – either horchata or tamarindo (tamarind) or hibiscus (also a favorite of mine – have never made it, I just buy it when I see it). We visit a Saturday morning farmer’s market some miles from us, and one of the food trucks there almost always has the hibiscus agua fresca, or the tamarind one. They’re all sweet, including horchata.

Anyway, horchata is easy enough to do, but since I’d never made it before, it was all new to me, other than I knew it was rice based. First I measured out rice, added water and whole cinnamon sticks (horchata typically is a cinnamon flavored drink). That sat overnight (out on the kitchen counter, not refrigerated). You remove the cinnamon sticks (see ERRATA below), then pour the entire mixture into the blender. The rice was not cooked at all, but after it sat in liquid all night, it was softened somewhat. Nothing is heated up during the making of horchata. I turned on the blender and let it go a bit, then added in some toasted sliced almonds, sugar and cinnamon. And here’s the most difficult thing you’ll do – pour the mixture through a fine-mesh strainer. Do NOT try to push the mixture through – you want the sieve to catch whatever rice it can, although it is ground up, you understand! I poured in about a cup and just let it sit until it had drained through. I rinsed the sieve and did it again, and again. It will take a few minutes for that, but truly that’s the most time consuming thing you’ll do making horchata.

At that point in the making I poured it into a pitcher and refrigerated it (several hours before our get-together). When I was ready to serve it I put it back in the blender, added sweetened condensed milk, the banana, vanilla ice cream and ice. I tasted it and put in a tiny bit more of the sweetened condensed milk. Truth to tell, in our drive to the hosts’ home, my pitcher, with lid, slid and some of the horchata ended up on the carpet in my car’s trunk. Ooph! I wasn’t sure how much quantity I really had left, so needed to guesstimate how much to add in. Pour into glasses, add a straw and sprinkle the top with the cinnamon sugar mixture.

OPTIONAL: I served the horchata milk shakes in silver tumblers – they’re actually mint julep cups. Some people were drinking coffee with whipped cream on top and Kahlua was on the table. One person added a little jot of Kahlua to their horchata and he made very noisy mmmmmm’s, so someone else added Kahlua, and in short order nearly everyone had added Kahlua. Knowing that horchata is really a non-alcoholic drink, I wasn’t so sure it would be a good thing! Oh, was I wrong. It was fabulous. My only caveat: don’t add too much Kahlua or it does overpower the delicacy of the cinnamon, almond and banana flavors.

ERRATA: I have to confess, I forgot to take out the cinnamon sticks after the rice had soaked overnight. I glanced at the recipe and didn’t see the instructions. I just missed it. So our horchata was a bit grainy from the ground-up cinnamon – but you know what? Everyone seemed to love it that way. They said they liked it grainy and would definitely do it that way if they made it. Well, okay then!

What’s GOOD: every little sip of it was fantastic. I’d definitely make this again, with or without the Kahlua. I didn’t mind the grainy texture from the cinnamon sticks, but that’s up to you. Traditionally, remove the cinnamon sticks! You could lighten up the recipe some by using sugar-free ice cream, or light ice cream. There’s also low-fat sweetened condensed milk in grocery stores too. This one’s a keeper.
What’s NOT: nothing. Absolutely nothing wrong with this at all!

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The scones we made for the tea – apricot orange on the left, and the favorite, lavender white chocolate chip on the right.

Today you’re going to get 2 recipes – for both scones Sara and I made for her tea recently. They were easy and totally different. The lavender ones used heavy cream as the fat (mostly) and the apricot ones used butter and buttermilk. Both were good, but everyone seemed to favor the lavender white chocolate chip ones over the apricot. Maybe because the texture was slightly different – they were a bit more moist – in fact the batter was really wet when Sara scooped them onto the cookie sheet. It’s hard to tell from the photo but the apricot ones were actually cut in rounds, while the lavender ones were drop scones and they spread some as they baked.

If you happen to have lavender in your garden, do harvest and dry some (providing you don’t use any pesticide on it – you’d not want to be eating that!). If not, you can buy Culinary French Lavender (1 oz) online. Lavender buds don’t keep fresh and vibrant tasting for all that long, so I’d recommend you use whatever you buy within 6 months or so. If you buy any online, unless you use it a lot, I’d buy the smallest quantity available. The one linked above offers free shipping – that’s nice since herbs don’t weigh all that much in small quantities!

The lavender scones came from an article in the San Diego Union Tribune. The recipe is from a bakery in San Diego called Cups. The buttermilk scone recipe came from a very old cook book of Sara’s, a Sunset Breakfast & Brunch cookbook (out of print). She mentioned that it’s her favorite go-to scone recipe and has been for years. I should compare it to my favorite go-to Buttermilk Scones recipe that I’ve been making for about 25 years or so.

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The easiest of sauces – you can make it as sweet as you prefer – I made it on the tart side. It would be great on top of French toast, breakfast yogurt (I can attest to that one since the left overs have garnished several morning bowls), or as a fruit puree with a creamy dessert like cheesecake. Yum.

If you read my blog regularly, you already know that I made Lindy’s Cheesecake and wrote up a post with a very brief history of Lindy’s deli in New York City. It closed in 1957, but the famous cheesecake lives on in home kitchens, and perhaps a lot of restaurants too, since the recipe became public. It was recently listed in Saveur magazine as one of the top 100 recipes ever.

When I made it, I decided it needed something along side – something with some color. It’s too early in the season for reliably sweet strawberries, so I decided to use mangoes. It was perfect. The recipe came straight out of the Joy of Cooking: 75th Anniversary Edition – 2006. Maybe it was in Rombauer’s earlier editions, but this is the book I own because my old one from the 1950’s was falling apart. I looked up many other recipes, and they were all the same – mangoes, sugar of some form and either lime or lemon juice. Plus just a bit of water to make the sauce almost pourable. That’s it. See? I said it was easy!

I whizzed it up in the food processor, although the blender would likely work just as well. I used the frozen mango chunks from Trader Joe’s. You could use fresh mangoes too. Do defrost the frozen ones some so they will puree. Add some citrus (the lemon juice or lime juice) and add as much sugar as you want – I used about a rounded 1/4 cup of powdered sugar. You can use regular sugar too. Either one. And then some water – the texture of the mangoes will determine how much water you’ll need – you want it thick, but not so you can’t pour it. In the photo at top you can see it’s almost the consistency of pudding, but it spread out flat once I put it on the plate with the cheesecake.

What’s GOOD: the delicious FRESH taste of mango. Citrus does that in all of its guises. I made mine on the tart side since the cheesecake was already plenty sweet, but use your own judgment based on what you’re serving it with. It keeps for several days. I think the recipe said 3, but I don’t know why it wouldn’t keep a week. It is also fantastic drizzled over Greek yogurt for our breakfast. And I just know it would taste wonderful on French toast.
What’s NOT: it was perfect for how I needed to use it, as a sauce for cheesecake.

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You know what those little bug-like things are? Star anise. Not commonly in every kitchen, I suppose. I don’t use them very often, but when you need them in cooking, they’re essential. They wouldn’t normally go on top of the salad, but I wanted to get your attention.

For a brunch a couple of weeks ago I needed some kind of fruit. I have a wonderful Spiced Fruit dish I’ve made for years – it’s great for a morning kind of thing. Spiced Peaches also go well with a brunch, but this time I thought I’d try something new. I’d just read the recipe in The Essential New York Times Cookbook: Classic Recipes for a New Century. My go-to cookbook these days. This is actually in the dessert section of the cookbook, but it says it’s great with breakfast or brunch. It’s flavored with whole vanilla, some lemon zest and the star anise, all soaking in a simple syrup kind of sugar and water concoction. The other good thing about this is you have to make it the night before – so the fruit has time to marinate in the tasty syrup. There above is the mixture before I brought it to a boil.

Here at left is the mixture after I brought it up to a boil – the sugar is dissolved and hopefully the heat will have opened up the flavors of the vanilla, lemon and star anise. The recipe calls for Bosc pears, fresh apple, dried figs and dried apricots. I added some dried Braeburn sliced apples I had in my box of dried fruits in my pantry. The syrup is mixed up with the vanilla bean (sliced in half to release all those lovely little tiny beads of flavor), a few strips of fresh lemon peel and the star anise. It’s brought to a boil, the sugar gets dissolved, then you pour that hot-hot syrup over the fresh fruit. You let it cool to room temp that way, then cover with plastic wrap, poke a couple of holes in it to ventilate it, store in the refrigerator. By pouring the hot liquid over the fruit, it almost “cooks” the fruit, but not really, and not quite. The fresh fruit still has texture, and the dried fruits and pleasantly toothsome. I liked the combination a lot.

When you serve it, you’ll want to remove the star anise, the vanilla bean halves and the lemon peel. So you’re left with the nice bowl of mixed fruit. I had ample left over and it’s still tasty some days later. The pears probably won’t last – as I write this (about 5 days after I served it) I still have left overs and the pears are not so nice in texture anymore, but all the remaining fruit is fine. So probably you could make this a couple of days ahead if you needed to.

What’s good: it’s make-ahead easy. Nice flavors, considering it’s all winter-type fruit. Went well with a brunch (an egg dish) and left overs were very nice for several days. Try not to make more than you’ll eat at the one meal. I made the recipe below and could have served about 10 people, I think. Keep that in mind, unless you’re feeding fruit fanatics! Save the syrup – you could use it to flavor and sweeten iced tea (or hot tea) or pour over other fruit. Strain out all the fruit dredges first, though.
What’s not: only that you must plan ahead – it’s got to be made the night before (or maybe 2 days before) you want to serve it.

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Here’s another of those – TRUST ME –  recipes. When I tell you these are worth making, please just do it, right? Do you like vivid orange flavors? And chocolate? This positively is a match made in heaven. And they’re super easy too.

A group of women was coming to my home to attend a cooking class, and each time we meet, the hostess (me this time) provides beverages (hot and cold) and some breakfast sorts of things (croissants maybe, fresh fruit, occasionally champagne) and a bread – perhaps banana bread or muffins. Even cookies. I had nothing particular in mind, but turned to one of my favorite little tiny cookbooks. What I’ve learned over the years is that every recipe in this book, Muffins: Sixty Sweet and Savory Recipes… From Old Favorites to New is reliable. Written by Elizabeth Alston,

Our daughter Sara, and her 15 & 7/8 year old daughter Sabrina

it’s out of print, but you can still find it in a used book store. And if you click on the link there, you’ll find some used copies for a penny (plus shipping, of course). I bought it for myself in 2003, when it was new (along with the companion book about Scones – Biscuits and Scones: 62 Recipes from Breakfast Biscuits to Homey Desserts). I also gave these to my daughter Sara, because she and her daughter love to bake. She was telling me a few weeks ago that it’s her go-to cookbook for anything close to a muffin (there are all kinds from savory to sweet, and biscuits too). What’s good about this one is that every single recipe I’ve ever tried (and Sara says the same thing) has been exceptionally good.

Looking online to see what other people thought, I found several versions of this recipe, all with a few little changes. Never did find the exact recipe, so I stuck with Alston’s original, using yogurt as the dairy (you can use buttermilk too).

You might be skeptical at the amount of orange zest in the recipe – 12 muffins require the zest from 2 oranges. My oranges were very large, so I probably had more than usual – about nearly 3 tablespoons that I got using the microplane. And it uses 3 ounces of bittersweet chocolate. I rarely use anything but the best chocolate (SharffenBerger in this case), and the bittersweet is worth seeking out. I did NOT use chocolate chips, and I’m glad I didn’t because they’re too sweet and too uniform – it’s nice to have dots of larger pieces of chocolate. You know you’re eating a really good chocolate that way.

The muffins are standard as far as mixing – cream the butter and sugar, add eggs and beat until light and fluffy. Add the yogurt,  orange juice and zest, then the dry ingredients are gently stirred in with the chocolate at the last. There are two secrets to making muffins: (1) don’t over mix the batter – just stir until you don’t see any errant streaks of flour; and (2) bake them to EXACTLY 205°. In my oven that took 18 minutes. I used my fantastic Thermapen thermometer to test them and they were 204.9° exactly. Perfection. I cooled them in the muffin tin for about 10 minutes, then carefully used a plastic knife to release them and let them cool to room temp. And I’m absolutely guilty as heck – I ate one while they were still barely warm. Oh – my – gosh.  Was it ever good. Ideally bake them within an hour of serving, when the chocolate is still almost molten, but not quite. As it was, I made them the day before and kept them in a ziploc bag overnight. Reheat them if you’re going to make them ahead – but not for long as they would dry out, I’m sure.

What’s good: oh, the orange flavor and the chocolate. As they say, those are two flavors that are marriage material. Loved the intense orange flavor – much more orange-y than usual in a baked good – but it wasn’t over the top (as in bitter). And the irregular pieces of chocolate were such a sweet surprise as you eat it. Definitely a make-again muffin.

What’s not: absolutely nothing at all.

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So what is it, you want to know? Tortillas in a stack of 3 with a hole cut out of the middle, like doughnuts, I suppose, crisped up with a little butter, then an egg dropped into the hole and fried both sides. Garnished with your choice of toppings: salsa, sour cream, cilantro, avocado. Yum.

Here’s how it went together. First I stacked up 3 of the smaller 5” diameter corn tortillas.

Then I cut a hole in the center with a 3” cutter. You need to use 3 tortillas because anything smaller – well, once you add the egg in the middle, it will overflow the hole! That doesn’t work!

Next I heated up a nonstick frying pan and melted about oil and butter, and set the tortillas in there to sizzle a bit. After about 2-3 minutes sizzling, I used a wide spatula to turn the group over on the other side – but first I melted more butter on the side of the pan (I pushed the tortilla stack over a bit first), then I held the tortillas up on the spatula while I tilted the pan so the melted butter would go into the center.

Once turned over (no picture of that part) I let that sizzle a bit. THEN I added the egg in the center and let it cook for about 45 seconds. Gently. Next I turned it over again, putting a last little pat of butter to melt underneath. If you don’t do that part the egg may stick – even though this was a nonstick pan, I’m recommending the additional butter anyway. I put a lid on it for about 20 seconds, then out onto a plate it went and everybody could add whatever condiments they wanted. I didn’t have avocado; if I had, I would have added that to the garnishes. The trick to this dish is getting the pan hot enough that the tortillas cook and get a little crispy, but not have it so hot that the egg over cooks or cooks too fast. Which would be easy to do. That’s why I cooked the tortilla stack some at the beginning. Adding a little oil to the pan will crisp it up, and I definitely think you should do it on both sides before you add in the egg. The recipe came from Pioneer Woman‘s blog.

Our grandson suggested that next time I fry up a few slices of bacon and put them in between at least one layer. That was a good idea. To be more authentic, a little spread of chorizo on one of the doughnut type tortillas would be good too. It might fall out when you turned it over – that’s the only possible down side. Maybe you could mix the chorizo with a little egg white so it would stick. Hmmm.

What I liked: the “huevos rancheros” taste combo. It was EASY to make. Really it was, as long as you have fresh salsa at hand and a little light sour cream. Do cook the tortillas long enough that they crisp up a bit, though. You want the egg to be a little runny, so it soaks in. This is not low calorie or low fat cooking; sorry!

What I didn’t like: nothing at all!

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The minute I spotted this recipe I knew I wanted to try it. Fresh thyme in a sweet muffin? It sounded so interesting. Plus some fresh blackberries, which are available in our markets almost year ‘round now. And lemon – we have an abundance of them on our trees, although in this case it was only the zest that was needed. The recipe is in the most recent issue (March, 2012) of Bon Appetit.

Since I love to bake, it was a no-brainer to try this – read the recipe through first (something I often forget to do) – and begin. The crumble topping (cake flour, butter, fresh thyme baking powder, sugar and an egg yolk) is made first and chilled (even a day ahead is okay). The muffin batter has several steps – and in fact this particular batter requires lots of stand-mixer time – 2 minutes of just butter, 2-3 minutes once you add sugar, another 3-4 minutes once you add the eggs and vanilla. Then everything slows down – you add the buttermilk, then the dry ingredients. What it made was a really, really light batter

Meanwhile, the blackberries are halved – that’s not something I’ve ever done before I must admit – and you actually want some of the berries to macerate a bit in the batter to give it some dark berry color. The berries are just folded in, then plopped into lined muffin cups. The recipe indicated using those fancy paper liners – the tall, waxed paper type that makes a very large muffin. I just used regular muffin liners and my regular muffin tin. The chilled crumble is sprinkled on top (about a tablespoon per muffin) and into a 325° oven they went for 40 minutes. I ended up with quite a bit of topping leftover – I suppose I should have made 18 muffins, or even 20 of them so I used up all of the crumble. Don’t know exactly what I’m going to do with the rest of it. It’s too nice to throw out . . . any ideas for me, kind readers?

Since I now have a Thermapen Instant Read Thermometer (wow, is that thing a real beauty – expensive – but it does register temp within about 3 seconds) I use it at any and all occasions. I quickly looked up online what temp the interior is supposed to be of a baked sweet muffin – it said 210°, and at 40 minutes that’s exactly what they were. They cooled in the tin for about 10 minutes, then I took them out and onto a rack while I baked the remaining 4 muffins (the recipe makes 16).

My DH has just planted a new herb garden for me – in two deep and long raised flowerboxes that sit outside on a short wall in our patio, and we have new, tender thyme in one. I chopped up two teaspoons of it (one went in the crumble topping, the other in the muffin batter itself – next time I’d add more).

What I liked: well, I liked the thyme. A lot and I’ve upped the amount in the batter by half (from 1 tsp to 1 1/2 tsp). Loved the blackberries. I’d also add just a bit more sugar. Maybe because an insufficient amount of the topping ended up on top (where there was some sugar) the muffins were just a bit too savory. I’d have to try them again to know for sure. I’ve increased the sugar in the recipe below or serve with a sweetened butter. I liked the silky cake-like texture (from the cake flour and all the long mixing). I also liked that each muffin had just 11 grams of fat! Surprising, when there was a cube of butter in the batter and 3/4 of one in the crumble.

What I didn’t like: really nothing – all the flavors were delish, and the cake so very tender. I might add some toasted walnuts? More vanilla?

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Are all scones beautiful? Certainly not if you look at mine! But, these have a nice rich, tender scone texture with all those lovely spices (similar to pumpkin pie), some crystallized ginger, and pumpkin puree.

Can you just tell these scones are craggy? I love that word – craggy. Means rugged and uneven: a craggy face, for instance. These are not your more common –  pretty, perfectly formed triangular scones with smooth tops and edges. The dough is raggedy and slightly bumpy. Even a tad on the difficult to form. But I didn’t over-handle it just so it wouldn’t get tough. I needed a breakfast bread for my DH’s men’s Bible Study group, and went to my internet file, and there was this one. It came from King Arthur Flour about 2 years ago, and if you want to see their version, click here.

My pantry shelf still had two large cans of pumpkin puree from 2010. Long past its use by date, but I know those dates are just suggestions. Canned goods usually don’t have a problem for several years. But I only used 2/3 of a cup of the pumpkin, so I’ll have to find something else to use some of the remainder. I could freeze it, but that’s taking up valuable real estate in my freezer. Not what I want to do with it for sure! If I had 3 freezers, they’d all be full. I just know it. But those kinds of confessions are for another post . . .

The scones were cinchy easy to make – flour, baking powder, sugar, some spices (cinnamon, allspice, ginger and nutmeg), a cube of butter, a couple of eggs and the pumpkin puree. That’s all there is in it. As I mentioned the dough was a little on the dry side – I ended up adding a couple of tablespoons more pumpkin to help bring it together. I could have added some milk instead, but with so little pumpkin in it, I knew a little more wouldn’t hurt. You could easily makes these in rounds, or the triangles – whatever you prefer. I molded the dough into a kind of rectangle and cut the wedges easily enough.

One unusual step was putting the baking sheet (with raw scones on it) in the freezer for 30 minutes. I’d guess that’s to freeze the butter – or at least chill it a lot – helps to make tender pastry products. Into an oven it went. I looked up what the finished temp is supposed to be (the internal temp) for scones, and found out it was 200°, so that’s exactly how long I baked them. Actually it went a couple degrees over that.

Right out of the oven one of those scones yelled out to me – I had to taste one, right – this is quality control! They’re delicious. I made half a recipe (6) so those were mostly eaten by the guys. I knew if I wanted to know how they tasted I needed to eat one. Actually I cut them slightly smaller and had 7, so eating one was just right!

What I liked: the very tender crumb. The pumpkin flavors – the pumpkin itself, but also the spices. AND the crystallized ginger. Love that stuff!  I’m a fan of crystallized ginger, so I loved the little bit of sweet-tart crunch from the little nuggets. Worth making.

What I didn’t like: the dough was a bit hard to shape – not un-do-able, just craggy, as I mentioned. Didn’t make a whit of difference to the taste, which was really good!

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Will you just trust me on this one? Make it, please. Providing you like tomatoes. And cheese. And fresh corn. And pie crust. Oh, it’s so utterly delicious.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a long time, you may remember that I posted a similar pie two years ago. It was called a Savory Tomato & Gruyere Pie. And, in fact, this one is also savory, also full of tomatoes, and gruyere cheese. But after I made that pie in 2009 I also made another one – a Tomato & Corn Pie in a Biscuit Crust. I particularly liked the corn in the 2nd rendition. But I thought the first one had better taste. So this time I had both recipes handy and decided to make some changes. All for the better, I assure you! I think this recipe has all the best of both recipes in it. If you’d prefer to use the biscuit crust, by all means do so.

I made a short crust tart shell (you can either roll it out and place in the pie plate, or press it in if you’re piecrust-challenged) and put it into my 9-inch pie dish. I sautéed some onion, added the fresh corn cut off the cob, and a little bit of Sriracha sauce. After the pie shell baked for awhile, I spread the bottom of the crust with about 3 ounces of garlic-and-herb Boursin cheese. It’s a protective layer to keep the moist veggies from soaking into the tender, flaky piecrust. And I used Boursin because I didn’t have any cream cheese in the refrigerator. This worked just fine. The pie shell was still fairly warm, so the cheese really softened a lot. Then I poured in the onion-corn mixture and spread it around. Meanwhile, I’d cut up about 2 1/2 cups of fresh heirloom tomatoes. I cored the tomatoes, cut them in wedges, then squeezed the dickens out of them and put them on some paper towels. Then I squeezed them again to get almost all the juice out of them but still keep the pieces intact. Then I cut the tomatoes into pieces and placed them in the pie and sprinkled the top with a small handful of sliced basil. Then I mixed up the Gruyere cheese, mozzarella cheese and mayonnaise (sinful, I know) and dabbed little pieces all over the top of the tart. There isn’t enough to really spread; besides, the mixture is very sticky, so I used my hands and dropped little bits of it all over the top, then used a spatula to sort-of spread it more evenly. There will be a few holes here and there.

That’s it – bake for about 30 minutes – until the cheese is bubbling away. I let it sit for a few minutes (letting it rest for about 10 minutes would be best – it will cut better), slice and serve with a few more bits of fresh basil on top. I made a green salad with some soft butter lettuce and my latest Lemon Sherry Vinegar Salad Dressing. Perfection. My DH raved.  And raved. I cut us each one slice for dinner and it was all we could do to keep our forks out of the pie plate to have more. We were good. But I had it for lunch the next day, heated in the microwave for about 45 seconds. More perfection!

printer-friendly PDF – doesn’t include the pie crust
MasterCook 5+ import file (click to run MC or right click to save file)

If you’d like to try my short crust shell, this is the recipe I use most often (and that isn’t often because I rarely bake pies, but when I do, this is my go-to recipe). It’s one I got from a Joanne Weir cooking class eons ago (probably 10-15 years) and once I saw how easy this was (even for me who is sometimes piecrust-challenged) I’ve made it many, many times. Sometimes I roll it out, other times I use the press-in technique in the recipe.

printer-friendly PDF (short crust only)
MasterCook 5+ import file – click to run MC or right click to save file

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