A day of really good eating plus a pie recipe March 30, 2008

The promise of spring keeps being made and then broken here in Edmonton, while back at home on Vancouver Island I hear the cherry trees are blooming and the daffodil harvest has started down the road from my parent’s house. I have promised myself in the meantime that once I am done my thesis the Canadian prairies will know me no more, no matter how good the job market is in Alberta.

Today was a day of good food. It started off with brunch for one:

In this example you can see why being able to cook has its dangers. You make a cheese and apple loaf to go with your broccoli soup one night. The next morning, you think “That bread was quite sweet. Really more of a breakfast bread. I should have some for breakfast. What would go with a slice of cheese and apple bread?” Then you wind up frying bacon, scrambling eggs, preparing a grapefruit, and squeezing some fresh orange juice. It really is quite sad I have no one in-house to impress with my culinary skill, isn’t it? It’s also sad I have no one to share the calories with. When you can make exactly what you want to eat whenever you want it, it presents some challenges in terms of staying slim.

My friend Khyati invited me over for dinner tonight and she went all out, as she always does. It’s been a few months since I have been over there for dinner and oh, how I have missed her cooking. If all of India has food as good as hers it is absolutely imperative I get over there to eat. She served poppadums, raita, pickles and chutney, a dish of tender cubes of tofu in white sauce flavoured with fenugreek leaves, rice pilau, samosas, and seasoned potato slices. I took my camera to take a picture for you but the batteries were dead. Fortunately she sent me home with some leftovers so I can show you the wonderful potatoes:

These taste like heaven. I keep telling her that she is a genius with potatoes but I don’t think she believes me. I got the recipe from her, which she says is a family recipe, so I am going to try them soon. As soon as I get to the Indian store and buy some mango powder. I love anything made with mango powder, that taste is so addictive.

I took a blueberry pie over for dessert. Her son Aranya announced that it is the only kind of pie he likes in the world.

This picture is no magazine-worthy shot, but I am including it because homemade food is about taste and health. Anyway people don’t seem to mind rough-looking food when it’s about sweet fruit pie juices and pastry made at home with butter. They’re just excited to eat it. I tried tweaking the recipe again and I think I have got it down now, so here is my blueberry pie recipe for you to try. I’m calling it “winter” pie because it’s made with frozen berries, so it can be made in the depths of winter, and pure because I made it wanting the simple taste of the blueberry and nothing else.

Winter’s Pure Blueberry Pie

4 1/2 cups frozen blueberries

3/4 cup sugar

pinch of salt

4 tablespoons cornstarch

pastry for a double-crust 8″ pie

Dredge the blueberries with the sugar, salt, and cornstarch. Fill the prepared 8″ pie shell with the berries; cover with a lattice top, because blueberry pie demands a lattice. Be sure to seal the edges of the lattice to the bottom crust with a bit of water. Brush the top pastry with egg white, milk, or melted butter to help browning; sprinkle with sugar to make it pretty.

Bake the pie in a preheated oven at 425 F for 25 minutes, then lower the heat to 350F and cook for another 50 minutes. If your berries are fresh, obviously this will take considerably less time. Make sure you place a cookie sheet on the rack below the pie to catch any boiled-over juices. The pie is done when the top is a golden brown and the juices are bubbling through the lattice. Make sure the juice is boiling before you take the pie out, or you will be able to taste the cornstarch.

This pie was an improvement over the last in that it was not pie soup, but it is still runny, and that is something I suppose I will have to accept as part of the nature of homemade blueberry pie. Plus, as Ash has pointed out with masculine wisdom, the juices go really well with vanilla ice cream. I do want to warn you that this pie is not very sweet, which is how I like it. So if you are used to store-bought pies you might want to increase the sugar by one-quarter to half a cup.