Adventures in Eclectic Home Cooking
Posted in Recipes on Jan 9th, 2012
When I was a child, every party the family threw had “spinach cupcakes” for the kids. We all loved them, probably because we thought they were cupcakes and not healthy grown up food. As an adult I make them because they are a huge crowd-pleaser and are pretty quick to throw together. I’m too lazy [...]
Posted in Recipes on Jan 3rd, 2012
A few Thanksgivings ago, Jen and her mom went to the store to get a can of pumpkin for the pumpkin pie. They got home and realized that they had grabbed a can of sweet potatoes instead. Back to the store once more for an exchange, and back home again. The pie was made. And [...]
Posted in Recipes on Dec 25th, 2011
We’re finally done with the dessert pies! As good as those all were, savory pies are one of my latest obsessions. Making a savory pie can be just as easy as making a sweet pie, but for some reason we don’t always think of them. We should, however, because savory pies are a great way [...]
Posted in Recipes on Dec 21st, 2011
When you first see a pie like this one, it’s hard to know what’s under the surface. It’s certainly not what you’d expect. Crack beneath the crackly sugary top crust and you find a velvety lemon curd that you’ll wish you could spoon out of the entire pie just for yourself. Sweet and tart, gooey [...]
Posted in Recipes on Dec 15th, 2011
“Shoo fly, don’t bother me!” I have to sing this little song to myself every time I think of shoofly pie. Most people I know are not familiar with shoofly pie, and I don’t even when I first heard of it. Shoofly pie is a cakey molasses pie that seems to come together from nothing. [...]
Posted in Recipes on Dec 8th, 2011
**So it’s not a pie in the usual sense, but baklava is pastry stuffed with nuts, sweet syrup, and butter. The pie spirit is there. And really, who would complain about getting baklava?** Growing up I never knew that there was more than one kind of baklava. The sticky, crispy, little diamonds with pistachio and [...]
Posted in Recipes on Dec 4th, 2011
Sour cherries aren’t really in season this time of year, but they can often be found jarred. They lose their characteristic bright red coloring when they are jarred (I believe the bright red “cherry pie filling” that you can find cans of has added coloring to make them look as they do when they are [...]
Posted in Recipes on Nov 29th, 2011
I’m very particular about my apple pie. I used to think that I didn’t like it, but it turned out that I didn’t like how soupy and sweet many apple pies can be. Then I found the joy of baking specifically with apples that could stand up to the heat and retain some firmness. To [...]
Posted in Recipes on Nov 25th, 2011
Pumpkin pie is a classic Thanksgiving pie, but there’s no reason you can’t have it all year round. During the fall, I usually get tasty pumpkins and squashes on sale, and then I bake and puree the flesh so that I can freeze it and use it all year long. Canned pumpkin is also generally [...]
Posted in Recipes on Nov 23rd, 2011
The first pie in the parade is pecan. This pie screams Thanksgiving to me, even more than pumpkin pie. Growing up, I remember there always being a pecan pie on the Thanksgiving dessert table. It was probably especially popular in kosher households because it’s an easy pie to make pareve, or non-dairy, so you can [...]
