This fresh strawberry pie, stacked high with just-picked farmers-market berries in a strawberry-juice glaze, comes with a great backstory. Liberace (pianist Vladziu Valentino Liberace)—once the world’s highest-paid entertainer, loved this pie, ordering it by the dozen from the place it was born: the now-defunct Hess Bros. Department store, of Allentown, PA. The man who sold it to him–Max Hess, Jr., was nearly as big a showman as Liberace himself. Continue Reading…
Juneberry, Sugarplum, Shadblow, Saskatoon…there are many names around the U.S. and Canada for what we know in Illinois as the Serviceberry tree. We planted ours to beautify the landscape 24 years ago and were delighted to learn that the pretty red berries are edible, with a flavor profile similar to blueberries (but more redberry-ish) and even higher in protein, dietary fiber, calcium, magnesium & manganese. No wonder Native Americans used them to make pemmican!
This year, I used the berries in combination with raspberries, blackberries and blueberries to make this fabulous summer berry pie. You can alter the berry-to-berry ratio, just be sure to use fewer blueberries than the other types of berry, and you will still need about 7 cups of fruit which should mound up nicely in your 9-inch, deep-dish pie plate. While American farms don’t grow serviceberries for sale, my foodie friends let me know that they are available frozen here, from Canada: Saskatoon or Juneberries Continue Reading…
Turns out those cute pumpkins you purchased for Fall decorating are very easy to bake into delicious fresh pumpkin pies. With names like Baby Bear, Cinderella and Early Sweet Sugar Pie, these 1 ½ to 2 pound darlings stand about six to eight inches tall, have sweet, dense flesh and were cultivated specifically for cooking and baking.
Our Sugar Pumpkin Cream Pie is made with Sugar Pie pumpkin, although you can use one of the other varieties. Simply cut in half, culled of seeds and strings, and roast for 50 minutes, the little pumpkin yields the perfect amount of smooth flesh to make two pies. To make this dessert extra special, we’ve included maple sugar and cream in the mix, plus cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg. You’ll separate the yolks from the whites of the eggs in the recipe, whipping the whites to soft peaks and then folding them in to the filling for a luscious velvety result. Continue Reading…
Except for the no-sex and separation-from-the-world rules (pretty hard to overlook), I admire most everything I’ve read about Shakers. Progressive thinkers who supported full equality for men, women and all races, Shakers embraced technological advancements, were amazing architects and craftspeople and made a not for the faint-of-heart lemon pie. Continue Reading…