Best's Ever

Ithaca called.  Heat wave #5 was in full swing (#6 is on the horizon) and so getting out of town seemed like the best thing ever this past weekend.  Long story short:  air conditioning in my place is pretty much non-existent.   I should work on that.  Add it to the list.

I headed up to my Mom’s place just north of Ithaca, NY where temps were forecasted to be a lovely 10 degrees cooler than here… and to boot, gorges and lakes offer chill zones you just can’t get around here so much.  I had a lovely time – probably spent too much money down on The Commons and at the farmer’s market (to give you an idea, one of my purchases was a bench for goodness’ sake…) but that is all part of the fun.

I also put some money down on blueberries.  Money well spent…  Mom and I picked over 11 lbs of blueberries at Glenhaven Farm just outside of Trumansburg (http://www.glenhavenfarm.com/).  Mom’s bucket was heavier by not quite a pound... it turns out that I was fairly busy stuffing my face while she was definitely more focused on the bucket.  We’ve picked there for years (me a little more sporadically) and the blueberries are outstanding.  We picked a lot. It was decidedly hot (low 90’s, but keep in mind that was still 10 degrees cooler than eastern PA where the asphalt was melting) and we worked up a sweat, but really the bushes were so loaded that it didn’t take all that long and a quick trip to Lodi Point State Park after - where we floated our toes to the sky in Seneca Lake - cooled us right off. 

 

Now, as you may remember from previous posts, my baking skills are on the skimped on side of the gene pool coin.  I can bake a cookie and I'm working on the bread, but pie crusts are something I typically get out of a box.  Mom just whips them up like nothing and in doing so this trip, has inspired me to try it again.  I’m not sure why I’ve had so much trouble because oh my gosh, she abused that dough… it was a warm day and she just threw ingredients into the bowl, stirred it all up, overworked the dough, didn’t chill it, rolled it out, and voila:  it came out beautifully.  She did nearly everything you aren’t supposed to do to the dough and it still came out great.   I decided that I could do that.  Gimme the recipe for that magical pie crust.   And so I give to you:  Blueberry Peach Pie with the Pie Crust that can’t be stopped.

Best Ever Pie Crust    Now, here for years and years I’ve seen this recipe and Mom has given it to me a few times in an effort to spread the wealth, but I really don’t think I’ve used it up to now…  I always thought she just called it the Best Ever pie crust because it was good – and it is – but the reality is that it is adapted from a recipe from Best’s Fruit Farm in Hackettstown NJ.  Ah ha!  Gotta’ love the play on words.     Here it is:

4 C Flour

1 Tsp. salt

1 Tbls. sugar

1 ¾ C Crisco

½ C Water

1 Tbs. Vinegar/or Lime Juice/or Lemon Juice (my aversion to vinegar inspired the fruit juices and they work just as well)

1 Egg

Mix all dry ingredients and cut in Crisco until it is all pretty homogenized and with the Crisco in little bits.  Per Mom….  “You can work this part to death” and she is right.  Little bits the size of peas?  No way.  Just work the crap out of it. Then add wet ingredients that have all been mixed together so that the egg is completely beaten into the water.   Bring this all together and it will still probably be a little soft but not sticking to things.  At this point, I believe the original recipe says to chill it, but Mom sure didn’t and when I got home and tried it in the confines of my own kitchen, I didn’t either.  It came out great both times.  I had to add a little more flour to mine as it was pretty humid out and the Crisco may have been melting in the heat, but again…  I feel like you can abuse this dough pretty hard and you’ll still be just fine.

Roll it out and plunk it in your pie pan (this will make 4 nicely thin crusts for the experts of you out there or 3 if you’d like to not worry about getting holes in your dough for the boxed crust ilk out there like me).  Either way, it makes plenty for 2 pies with crusty tops, too.

My Favorite:  Blueberry-Peach Pie

Assemble the crust as above (or, you know…  keep the Crisco clumps and chill and don’t handle much, blah blah blah)…  Into this crust add the following filling:

Mix together well (preferably in the pie crust bowl so you have one less dish to do):

4 C blueberries

2-3 nice sized peaches all pealed and chunked up

4 T (or slightly less) flour

3 T brown sugar

½ tsp. cinnamon

Juice of half a lemon

Dab a few dollops of butter on top if you are feeling it…  if you don’t, it doesn’t make a whole lot of difference, but it does add a nice added level of flavor complexity.  Top it with more crust however you may see fit:  cookie cut out shapes, or lattice, or if you are like me, just fold over the excess bottom crust dough or take the lattice strips and just strew them over the pie.  My Mom enjoys the lattice, and I do as well, but I’m not quite that patient with it. I find the more rustic versions just as tasty.  Brush the top crust with milk or water and sprinkle with sanding sugar or regular sugar to add to the festiveness.

Cook pie mid oven for 15 minutes at 425° F and then 350° F for 45 minutes or until the fruit is all bubbly and the top crust is lightly browned.

Voila. Best Ever.