Millions of Peaches... Peaches for Me...

So. I made a pie. 

There really is no better feeling than making an entire pie from scratch and have it come out beautifully (or not so beautifully).  My Aunt Patty made pies with ugly crusts.  One year, she came to Christmas at my house with a pie plate as part of my gift (with a pie in it, of course!) and she told me about how she liked her crusts no matter how ugly they were. Everytime my pie crust is a little funny I just mush it together and think of Patty.

Peaches are in season right now so I decided to adapt this Blackberry and Nectarine recipe from Vegetarian times to make a peach pie.  WARNING: I LOVE TAKING PICTURES OF PIES.   There will be no apologies for overloading this post with beautiful pie making pictures.  I am not going to post the recipe, since I linked to it. I'll just tell you some tips, and changes from me. Here goes.

FIRST: FREEZE EVERYTHING!!! Before I make my pies, I freeze my rolling pin, my food processor (I use it to make the crust) my flour, my margarine, etc..   Pie crust will come out so much more flaky if everything is icy when you use it.

Also, quality flour is everything. War Eagle Mill. Enough said.

I pulse my crust in the food processor. The idea is to get whatever fat you are using (oil, shortening, margarine, I use Earth Balance vegan margarine) to be in tiny little pebbles covered by flour. THIS is how you get the flakiness.  If overworked, you get a chewy unflaky crust, so the food processor works best. Otherwise you'll need a pastry cutter. This is how it should look before you form it into a ball:

After you have made two dough balls (one slightly larger than the other) just chill...  Put them in the fridge to chill for an hour in plastic wrap while you make your filling.

Lots of recipes call for you to blanch nectarines or peaches to help peel them. Do yourself a favor.. SKIP IT. It is too time consuming. Bust out your peeler and get to peeling like a potato.

Another tip about the filling.  This recipe calls for tapioca flour, but you can sub arrowroot powder in my opinion.  If you use tapioca flour, you'll need a little more than called for if you use peaches. I subbed the vanilla bean for 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract, and used 3 1/2 lbs of peaches, and no other berries.

Now it's time to roll the crust out. Confession: I have no good tips for this, because I always tear my crust and have to do some magic patching... so maybe you should google that one. The only advice I can add is that you should use the larger doughball to make the bottom crust so you have plenty of edges leftover to fold over the top one.
Notice husbands mouth in corner... I have got to start putting bells on him.  Always sneakin into my pictures..

I always use a pie crust protector for the first half hour of pie baking so my crust isn't too brown. You can buy them anywhere that sells baking supplies.

Voila! It's pie!

It was the flakiest, most delicious crust I've ever made!  We had some after it cooled last night.. and I can't wait to have pie for breakfast tomorrow morning!

Southern Fried Chick-free.

     Saturday I went to the farmer's market and came home with a loot.  I got peaches, zuchinni, tomatoes, salsa, green peppers, pasta, and a giant bag of okra.  So Saturday night I set out to make some deliciousness. I really wanted to use the okra so I did some research and fired up the oven to roast it.   Next, we needed to figure out a main course, so we opened up the cookbooks.
    
     My favorite cookbook is Veganomicon... or really any of Isa Chandra Moskowitz's cookbooks.  Greg and I both use this cookbook regularly and have never had anything less than great results and a delicious dinner.  So we usually just pick something and go for it.  This time we picked the Chickpea Cutlets.  We're going southern here, so of course I had to add some country gravy.
  
To roast the okra:
Preheat oven to 425.
All you have to do is wash it and cut into pieces about 1/2 inch thick and toss it with some olive oil, salt and pepper. Spread the okra in a single layer on a baking sheet and roast for about 30 minutes until carmelized and slightly crisp edges. (stir and turn every 10 minutes or so). I like to line my baking sheet with parchment paper or foil so there is less mess. I chopped a few fresh tomatoes up and roasted them on a different sheet at the same time (I recommend parchment paper for that one).

Here is my gravy recipe:
            1/4  C all purpose flour
            2 Cups unsweetened plain soy milk  (you could use oat milk too, but rice milk and almond  milk are a little too sweet)
            1/2 tsp onion powder
            1/4 tsp salt (more to taste)
            pepper to taste
            3 TB Earth Balance butter

Add the flour  to the "milk" in a medium saucepan over medium heat, and whisk until combined. Add onion powder, salt, and any other variations, and keep whisking over medium heat until gravy thickens.  Once gravy begins to thicken, add the Earth Balance and pepper, and whisk in. I like lots of pepper.  Remove from heat when desire thickness is reached.

variations: add 1/2 tsp or more of sage, or thyme.
 

Note: Greg reccomends that we cut a little bit of the vital wheat gluten out of this recipe. So we might try a little less of it next time!

           

I should also add that I made sage and dill biscuits the next morning and we had this all over again as leftovers! 
    





Too much goodness! Spaghetti Squash with Spaghetti sauce!

Here's the short story.  I have been wanting to start a food/life blog for awhile now but never seem to have the time.  Now that school is getting underway again I am sure I will have even less time, but the problem is I have made SO much fun food this week that I felt I should share some ideas.  I don't have the pictures I would like for these, but it's a start and I will update and revise later. 

First of all, if you have never had Spaghetti Squash you MUST try it ASAP.  It's healthy for you and so easy to prepare.  A couple of nights ago, I made it with homemade spaghetti sauce.  I like to make spaghetti sauce from fresh tomatoes, but no salt added canned tomatoes work well too.

You can google many ways to cook a Spaghetti Squash and pictures to see the magic of it, but I don't have any this week. So the short answer is: Cut in half, rub with olive oil, roast with cut sides down for 30-40 minutes at 350 degrees.   After it cools for awhile, use a fork and run it across the flesh. A magical thing happens and suddenly you have hundreds of spaghetti like strands to set aside and use for your pasta.

Here's my basic, quick, spaghetti sauce.  You can cook this in the slow cooker for a few hours for a more complex flavor, but 25-30 minutes will do on a simmer.

2 tsp TB olive oil
1/2 small onion diced
2 cloves minced garlic
2  14oz cans organic-no salt added diced tomatoes
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp dried parsley
1/2 tsp dried basil
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 red wine

Saute onion in olive oil over medium heat until translucent.  Add garlic and saute a minute more.  Add remaining ingredients. Use a potato masher to mash up some of the tomatoes.  Bring to a gentle boil, then turn down to a simmer and simmer for about 30 minutes (or however much time you have).  About 5 minutes before you are done simmering, add the red wine.  It should have a little time for the alcohol flavor to cook out.

That is how easy a basic spaghetti sauce is.  It gets a little more complicated if you use fresh tomatoes, but not much.  Also, you can add whatever you like. Suggestions: saute some green pepper and mushrooms with the onions.