SWEET CHERRY PIE FROM FROZEN CHERRIES. (Announcing it with bells and whistles so I can find it later.)

One quart glass Corning measuring cup filled to the top with frozen sweet cherries–so, between five and a quarter and five and a half cups’ worth. Thawed in microwave.

Meantime, 3/4 c. sugar, the juice of one large juicy Meyer lemon plus its yellow (only the yellow) zest (the whites are bitter), was supposed to be 2 tbl of the juice but I threw the whole thing in and it was probably a fair bit more than called for so I upped the cornstarch from 3 tbl to an extra half teaspoon. Add 1/4 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp vanilla, and 1/2 tsp almond extract. The random internet recipe didn’t have almond extract in it, and man, how do you live with yourself if you don’t put almond with cherry? Right?

It said to let all that sit absorbing for a few minutes, and I was doing that, not liking the lumps in the cornstarch nor the fact that baked, previously-frozen sweet cherries don’t have a super-lovable texture–and nuts to that, I just threw the whole filling thing in the blender.

That time, when I dipped a spoon in to taste, I felt like, I got it!

Poured it in the crust in the new pie pan and it’s in the oven.

Update: it’s not burned, that’s just the camera.

I whipped some cream to cover any faults and make it look pretty in layers and took it to the potluck, where people swooned over it: “You MADE this?!”

Hah. And I’d been worrying about experimenting on my friends. This is definitely how I’m making from-frozen sweet cherry pie from here on out.

This is your better-than-random Internet recipe for the day.

Writing it down so I can find it later: I experimented to see if I could adapt my favorite blueberry cake recipe from chocolateandzucchini.com to use some of the freshly- made almond paste they sell at Milk Pail, with a higher almond and lower sugar content than any I know of.

For a few more weeks, anyway, till they shut down because Steve wants to retire. I need to find out where he sources it.

Okay, here it is:

Highly-Requested Blueberry Almond cake

Mix in one bowl:

1 2/3 c. flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

In Cuisinart: the almond paste is sold in small random packages; I used .35 oz the first time and about .5 oz the second. Both worked, they were just a little different. So, pulverize it in a Cuisinart; add in 1 stick butter, sliced and at room temperature. (Note that Wayfare brand dairy-free vegan butter worked great, too. Now I have to find someone besides Steve who stocks it.)Whirr. Add 1/2 tsp almond extract and 1 tsp vanilla, whirr, 1/2 c heavy cream (sour cream, plain yogurt, or going dairy-free, Kara brand coconut cream worked, too), then add 4 eggs and 1 c. sugar and whirr some more.

Add dry ingredients in. If you have a small food processor you might want to pour the wet ingredients into a mixing bowl first and add the dry in over there; one more thing to clean but easier to scrape into the pan, your choice.

Pour half into a greased 9×13″ pan. Cover with four cups (don’t be stingy) of fresh, rinsed, patted-dry blueberries, then add the rest of the batter on top. Sprinkle 1/4 c of brown sugar across the top and bake at 350 for 50 minutes or till a toothpick comes out clean.

I made this for Richard on Monday and it was so good that he and Michelle asked me to make it again, dairy free so she could have some, and the Wayfare dairy-free whipped butter (butter beans are an ingredient. Who knew) with the coconut cream worked both in texture and flavor. I also happened to overdo on the almond extract a little that time and it obliterated any mention of coconut flavor.

Blueberries, almond paste, Wayfare, Kara coconut cream, sour cream, butter, and the particularly good versions of almond and Bourbon vanilla extracts: I have no idea what I’m going to do when that place shuts down. They are small but they have all the best stuff.

A funny story on the side: twenty-five years ago there was one single herd of Wensleydale sheep left in the world. Handspinners pitched in to try to help save the breed; I’m not the only one who bought ten pounds of their wool, and I’ll have a hand spun coat just as soon as I finally finish that button band in time for the SpinOff Magazine Rare Breeds Contest. Of 1999. Well anyway. So, I was at the doctor’s waiting room working on it once and someone with a British accent came over to sit next to me and ask me about my knitting.

The yarn was a new thing to her, and so I told her it was Wensleydale I’d spun.

Wensleydale! She smacked her lips loudly. That’s good eating!

I was so not expecting that reaction. I was speechless. I knew they ate a lot of mutton over there… I had no way to respond to that.

It wasn’t till years later that I found out what she’d been talking about and had a good laugh at myself and wondered what she’d thought I’d been thinking.

All of which I was reminded of last night as I made toasted cheese sandwiches with Wensleydale with cranberries. From Milk Pail.

Thank you for all these ingredients all these years, Steve!

In their picture, using an iron skillet, the fruit still shows in the center when they took it out of the oven. 

For mine, using an 8×3 (interior measurements) round stoneware pan by Mel and Kris, the last of the blueberries disappeared beneath the waves sometime between the 35 and 40 minute mark, and I probably should have gone to 45 to get it solid like their video. Although note that I didn’t have any whole milk and substituted half 1% and half heavy cream.

We got a crispy-edged vanilla lava cake with blueberries and goodness flowing from the center. Which is setting somewhat as it cools–what there is left of it.

I might tone down the amount of sugar slightly next time, but this is definitely something I’d feed to company.

Re that Instant Pot yesterday: I got a 3 qt Mini on Black Friday last year and had enough Target gift cards that it cost $11 cash. Note that Target is increasingly giving out small gift cards with purchases of multiple items to entice people to come shop in their physical stores.

Costco sells sets of individual pork sirloin tips. I’ve learned they’re perfect in an Instant Pot–if, but only if, they’re thawed when you put them in; frozen ones come out really tough. (Or at least mine did.) Thawed, it came out as tender as you could ask for even though there was practically zero fat in that dish.

So, recipe: one chopped onion. A bunch of small apples (I was trying to use up the last of my tree’s Yellow Transparents) or one or more big ones, peeled and chopped. A cup and a third to a cup and a half (somewhere in there) of fresh apple juice from Trader Joe’s or any variant thereof. And here’s what totally makes it: cherries on top. The more the merrier. I used (frozen) sweet cherries and sour apples. Note that all this went into my little Mini. It was tight, but it made it. Meat setting, 19 minutes.

I’m no great cook, and I’m sure there is some spice blend out there that would make this fabulous, but this made a good throw-and-go main course that had us coming back for seconds.

And it can cook your dinner on its own and then turn itself off and keep it hot but not too hot while you sit under the trees locked out waiting for help.

I replaced my spare key today. Horses and barn doors and all that.

This version of blueberry clafoutis. Half a cup of sugar was plenty. Other than that, that’s the one I want to make again. (These are by far the best 8″ cake pans I have ever owned. Highly recommended.)

Meantime, just finished, another cowl in this pattern because it’s an easy one to widen out at the bottom so that it will ease into perfect folds around the neck without messing up the continuity of the lace within.

I was in the home stretch, one eye on the clock, thinking, I can get this done before bed and even still get a little blogging time in.

Michelle, who’s in town for her friend’s wedding, texted me: could I? Pretty please?

She’d been going to make an almond cake from the fresh almond paste she got at Milk Pail this afternoon: one of the perks of a trip home. But there was no way she was going to get back from that reception in time tonight–it takes an hour to bake.

Well, hey, I can make one of those really fast… (The recipe says baking powder in the list of ingredients, baking soda in the instructions. Do it in baking powder.)

The cast-off was finished at 10:55. The cake came out at 11:00 pm. I did it!

Cooper’s hawk. Adult. Right there, intently watching my patio and back door as I came around the corner of the yard from trimming back the kids’ old climbing tree that had been shading my tomatoes a bit.

I stepped quickly back behind the house–but I think my startling it cost it its dinner. Sorry about that.

I came inside a few minutes later with  these Yellow Transparents. It is a sign of how different things are this year, drought-wise, that I still have plenty on my tree, proof that the squirrels don’t touch the tart stuff unless they’re starving: this year they have better options.  (Whatever they are out there, starting with my California Coffeeberries).

A little apple juice, four small quartered apples, cover, zap five minutes, cool, scrape off the skins and voila! Apple sauce for two.

And a Mathias picture just because.

So today the House of Representatives, having decided that, Ethics Committee? We don’t need no stinkin’ Ethics! found that having the voters storm the gates by the thousands and thousands in protest meant that, Oh wait, what we meant to say was of course we do!

Meantime, we had one last Pilgrim butternut squash from the garden. It had been sitting on the kitchen counter for months. There was no way my still-broken right knuckle was coming anywhere near the size of knife and amount of oomph it would take for me to break into that thing and I didn’t like that stringy variety enough to ask Richard to bother–we’d tasted those.

It was left for last because it had a bit of a Death Star look to it: a squirrel had taken a bite out of the bulbous end when it was quite young and it had crusted over and healed while the rest of the bulb part swelled and grew huge around it. I figured there was no squirrel spit inside, but still…

Sunday, the Merc ran this column. Don’t slice your fingers. Just put the whole thing in the hot oven like a baked potato. Simple.

Well, that would finally get it off my counter, at the very least. I tried it. No foil, it didn’t deserve it and it kinda came in its own anyway, I just threw it in and on second thought grabbed it back and put a cookie sheet underneath. Good thing.

I’d felt a bit conned by the ad copy claiming it was one of the best-tasting.

Well let me tell you. It is now. Or at least til I grow me some Walthams later, as someone suggested here for next time. But man that was good! It steamed and caramelized itself and the shell peeled off like paper. Still slightly stringy inside, but I could Cuisinart the leftovers (it had been six pounds) into a pumpkin pie that wouldn’t need much or any sugar added; it’s got its own this way.

It did try to live up to that Death Star persona one last time, though: it exploded at the flaw straight down onto the cookie sheet, where the sugars blew up like a marshmallow and then blackened into a finely molded dust while the smell let you know that that squash really did need to come out of there!

Oooh, but the rest of it…! I am definitely growing squashes again and I wasn’t sure of that before.

I am reminded of the time when I was a young mom of thinking I would finally put the actual fillet knife someone had given us to its purported use and I bought a live fish from an Asian market. I chose it, they cleaned it, and then I painstakingly tried to follow James Beard’s instructions on how to carve the scales off. I spent quite a bit of time ever so carefully hacking away while trying not to damage the thing and finally, feeling like an utter failure, looked at how little I’d gotten done and how bad it looked, said nuts to this, and simply threw foil around it and let the oven take care of it while I caught up with whatever my kids had been getting into during my distraction.

I pulled it out of there with the skin falling away with the foil. The idea of trying to ditch the scales and keep the skin for the perfect restaurant presentation had been ridiculous all along. It didn’t have to be the hard way at all.

Fish, squash, and Congressmen: they can come out right after all, all you have to do is surround them with heat.

“Oh, you do it fancy,” said Michelle as I got out the wire basket to lower the peaches into the boiling water with; “I just use a ladle” at her house.

One one thousand two one thousand…  Sixty seconds, lift, and quick into the icewater.

And then the peels just kind of melted off. I squeezed one lemon from the tree, she added just a touch of sugar–not much–a taste test all around, just a spoonful more from the sugar container and then we food processored the heck out of those four or five pounds of perfect peaches.

Plug in and wait.

Direct side-by-side comparison between the plain pureed mixture and what came out of there and all I can say is it was magic. That electric ice cream maker is suddenly going to get used a whole lot more.

I think we can officially call it eighteen fruit trees now.

Last year’s volunteer fig seedling that I dug out on a whim from under a tomato plant got put in a small pot and paid only just enough attention to to keep it alive.

If that. But it wanted to survive. It didn’t grow much at all but no matter what I did or didn’t, it hung in there. It even added a third leaf when the weather started warming up again. It had demanded a chance, so I moved it to a #10 pot the end of this May.

Actually, some credit should go to the squirrels: they tried to stand on the flimsy #10 that I forget what had arrived in and dug holes and they’d pretty much knocked the fig half out of the pot. There wasn’t much root structure and I didn’t think it would make it but I couldn’t bear to just let it be destroyed for no reason–not when I didn’t even know yet…

I mentioned the large ceramic pot the other day that was given me by a friend moving away; there were two others as well (but they didn’t require the dolly.) One was this big, very lightweight, plastic gray one. I would never have bothered with the expense for a tree with no knowable payback and given that some fig varieties hit 40′ high in our climate I would never have planted it in the yard, but a free pot big enough for it to stay in, yeah, I can buy a bag of dirt and try and if it doesn’t work I’ll plant something else in there.

So tonight I filled it up (which took more than one big bag), soaked the soil, scooped out the center, and went to go get that little fig tree.

In just those two months after staying tiny for a year and despite having been partly exposed to the air till I rescued it that rootball had grown to fill that much space that fast. It was highly gratifying–and it took some doing to get it out. Who knew? And the tree, still only a foot tall or so, had grown thicker and happier and leafier, which is why I’d finally decided I really really did want to see what it could do. It was my first thought when Sheryl said she needed to give away large pots.

All we can do is wait now to see if the variety is any good, or if it produces at the exact time my Black Jack is going whole hog. If the figs are no good (how can a fig not have at least some goodness) then no great loss, it’s just fun to find out what life has randomly offered us. I’m assuming it’s the offspring of my neighbor’s, which means it may even be another Black Jack.

But from what I’ve learned so far, we probably won’t have long to find out. And if I’d given it this much room at the beginning of the spring we’d probably be seeing fruit on it by now.

Visions of rolling them in butter, roasting them, drizzling with honey, and serving them hot out of the oven…

The idea behind using the very lightweight pot for it (although the soil certainly isn’t) is that if it does turn out we’ve got a good one but it duplicates what we have, it’ll be much easier to wheel it away on the dolly to hand it down to someone else and spread the joy.

Call it my inner squirrel.

With thanks to Catherine B for prompting me to finally type this out. My one single written-out copy was getting pretty beat up and was the only place I had this with all its updates and notes. And so:

My personal version to add to all the other ones floating around out there. I promise you it is well worth the effort.

Take a 9″ springform pan and cover the bottom with parchment paper and butter the bottom and sides. Or just the sides, but then you’re going to have to peel it off really, really carefully. You can buy it in 9″ rounds or, I often just put the pan bottom against the paper and cut around it to fit. A little too big is better than a little too small. I do *not* just tuck a length of it between the pan and the sides and snap it in because I don’t want to damage how they fit together–learned that the hard way a goodly while ago.

Set the oven to 325 (my old oven) or 350 (my new oven, which by all evidence as well as expectation is far more accurate.) My pans are a bit on the dark side and are nonstick– a gift from my late friend Don, delivered by him and his son Cliff, and I think of them every time I use them.

Ingredients:

10 oz really good dark chocolate. If you have a Trader Joe’s store handy, that would be 22 squares from one of their Pound Plus (500g) bars. I use their brown-label bittersweet but their red-label extra bittersweet would be really good, too.

6 eggs, separated

1/2 lb hazelnuts and

1/4 lb hazelnuts, roasted and the skins rubbed off as much as possible. Blessings on Trader Joe’s for selling toasted unsalted ones now with most of the skins off.

1 c sugar

1 c powdered sugar

2 tbl (or tsp, I won’t tell) sugar

1/4 good cocoa. I use Bergenfield Colonial Rosewood. Don’t use one that’s dutched. The dutching process generally speaking is a cover-up for inferior beans, according to a lecture my husband attended given by Mr. Scharffenberger of Scharffenberger Chocolate (which more recently has been bought out by Hershey) and it removes the flavinoids that justify the cocoa.

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 c butter or, if you prefer, coconut oil. For good or bad you will taste the coconut if you do, though, just be forewarned.

2 tsp bourbon vanilla, the best variety for using with chocolate.

And now you:

In the Cuisinart: pulse 1/2 lb hazelnuts. Once it’s at the nut meal stage add the 1/4 c cocoa and the 1/2 tsp salt. Whirr till almost nut butter, or less far along if you want a more rustic texture to the finished cake. Scoop this out of the Cuisinart and set aside.

Next in the Cuisinart: make the hazelnut paste. Pulse the other 1/4 lb hazelnuts till quite fine.  Important note: start ONLY with the hazelnuts, because if you try to grind whole hazelnuts with egg yolks you may well destroy your motor. Once the nuts are nearing the nut butter stage it’s not a problem. Okay, so: now add the 6 egg yolks and the 1 c confectioner’s sugar and whirr till it’s pretty smooth.

Melt the chocolate in the microwave in a container not much bigger than it; I do one minute, stir, then ten seconds more, sometimes twenty. Stir a lot to make it smooth. Chocolate burns very easily, better to stir more than heat more.

Meantime, in the KitchenAid or whatever mixer you may have, beat the six egg whites, adding the two tbl sugar gradually after it starts getting frothy. Set aside.

In a separate bowl, beat the 3/4 c butter, 1 c sugar, and the 2 tsp bourbon vanilla till light. In my KitchenAid mixer I now change the beater from the wire whisk-type beater to the heavier white beater (not the bread dough hook). Spatula in the melted chocolate, beat some more. Then the hazelnut/cocoa mixture. Beat. Then the hazelnut paste with the egg yolks.

Then by hand carefully work in those egg whites, starting with a large spoon. If you squish some of the whites into those last stubborn hazelnut globs through your fingers you’ll be in good company. Pour into prepared pan.

Bake 45 minutes, to as much as 50 minutes if you’re baking at the lower temperature.

Cool, unsnap the pan sides and remove, put a flat plate on top of the cake, flip it over, peel the parchment off, put another flat plate there and flip it over again so the top is back at the top and the cake is on a serving plate: tadaah!

Refrigerate, especially if the hazelnut-and-cocoa mixture was whirred only to the gritty stage–it’ll help hold it together as you slice.

———–

Allergy notes: powdered sugar almost always comes with a bit of starch to keep it powdery, usually cornstarch but you can get it with tapioca starch instead at Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and various health food stores if this is to be served to someone with a corn allergy. Coconut oil substitutes straight across very well for butter for the dairy allergic. This recipe is definitely gluten-free to the best of my knowledge, since wheat comes nowhere near it. Freezes beautifully, including in individual slices separated by two layers of wax paper if you so choose. Makes a great breakfast.

Note, 5/31/22: Makes four dozen mini cupcakes. Bake at 350 for 17 minutes.

Last night I made the spiced pecans and baked the chocolate tortes and bought the apple cider and was glad my part in Thanksgiving dinner was done.  All but the glaze on the tortes, no biggy.

Only, I hard-crack-staged the sugar syrup and those pecans were right at the edge of too caramelized. Crunchy, though, and I really liked them, but there was a bit of fussing while someone here was trying not to be unhappy but they just weren’t quite…

No problem, I can make more.

No I couldn’t. We didn’t have enough sugar. We always have sugar. (Can you make this with that grainy organic Trader Joe’s stuff? Better not experiment and mess any more with his family’s tradition.) You know what this means, don’t you? We had to go to the grocery store the day before Thanksgiving.

I toasted more pecans, but that was the easy part. We put it off and put it off and finally headed to Costco about an hour before they closed.

It was actually less crowded than a typical Saturday, to my great surprise–but even better, people were being mellow. Clearly anticipating the next day’s meal and company, and people seemed to be picking up that one last thing they’d forgotten.

There was one mom with a crying one year old and a toddler and she–the mom–absolutely melted when I pulled out a Peruvian finger puppet for each of her little ones, an orange lion with a furry mane and a vivid green octopus with a hat. Handknit as always.

So. The tortes got glazed. The pecan coating got done to the soft ball stage only, the way Richard likes it: because after I got the 1/2 c water/1 c sugar/1 tsp cinnamon boiling, there could be gadgetry involved and there is no better way to get a geek to take over than putting electronics into the process. He put a glass thermometer on the side and with the laser thermometer in his hand pointing constantly at the center of the pot he compared temps and kept up a happy running chatter and soon announced, There! It’s 238!

Already?

Okay, so I put in the vanilla (one teaspoon) and stood back as hot steam burst forth, and then–hey, you have to put in the *pecans immediately now, honey, not just admire them.

Right, right, and he dumped them in and stirred hard and it takes some doing at that point. Finally, he poured them onto the cookie sheet the pecans had been toasted on.

See? To softball stage and it comes out like this!

I grinned. He preferred his and I liked mine and Aunt Mary Lynn will be quite happy to have both. Trust me.

(Meantime, it’s 9:50 pm and 33F already and the mandarins are covered, too, tonight. It is COLD out there.)

*Fanny Farmer says two cups. I put in closer to four. Stretch that sweetness across as many nuts as possible as far as I’m concerned.

An old New England dish for cold nights: chopped onions and peeled chopped tart apples, sautéed awhile with some good sausage (fat drained). Take off the heat, pour a little maple syrup over it–grade B if you can find it has more flavor than A–and that’s it.

Except that the sausage had a bit too much sage to it. It needed…something. Hmm. I have tiny frozen cubes from Trader Joe’s that are a teaspoon each of pureed basil and I let one melt into the pot, trying not to let it actually cook since that can make basil bitter.

I had no idea how it would come out–basil and Granny Smiths and maple syrup? But just a bit, and it totally made the dish and I am definitely doing that again. Writing here to remember.

And then the other discovery: Trader Joe’s small chèvre cheese logs rolled in blueberries and vanilla. I put a slice on one of their crunchy little Triple Ginger Snap cookies on impulse rather than a cracker.

Holy.

Cow.

WOW that was good.

Lots of places sell such a goat cheese in various sizes; Trader Joe’s is just the right width for those small snaps with bits of candied ginger in them.

Thanksgiving table here we come. Definitely earned its spot.

Pansy cookies. Seriously. I have to try these. Only, would you trust a flat of pansies from the garden center to be pesticide-free? We seem to be quite out of homegrown this year… (With a shout-out to Margo Lynn for the link.)

I dangled what I hoped would be happy anticipation: I put this picture on Facebook with how to make it and said I had a lot more of these zucchini/pattypan hybrid squashes to bring to knit night.

So. Cut cupcake squash in half and place cut side down on plate.  Add a spoonful of water; nuke for three to four minutes till soft. Turn right side up again and scoop out seeds. Fill each with a big spoonful of Alfredo sauce mixed with one egg, sharp cheddar (or blue cheese and/or parmesan as you choose) and cherry tomato halves. Bacon bits if desired. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes.

Found one more squash this morning, but to be sure before heading out tonight I checked under those huge leaves one more time and found two more of a good size: how on earth had I missed those? (Well hey. Zucchini.) Seven went into a cloth bag.

All the way to Purlescence I was seeing the most unusual cloud formations–dalmation dog. Leopard print. Lots of little clouds against lots of blue.

Reactions when I put those green balls on the table ranged from oh cool! to oh okay to facial expressions of no no no please keep those far far away from me.

David came out of the back at the last and his face totally lit up when he saw those last two squash and I thought, okay, now I know who saw that post and was hoping. All yours, hon, please, take them–I have five more tiny ones and these have got to go. (I did not count the blossoms. I couldn’t bring myself to. I know you can stir fry those but an awful lot of them seemed to already have even tinier squashes already attached.)

He totally made my day as he made off with them in great delight.

Just before the shop closed down for the night, someone threw the doors open so we could hear the sounds and smell the ozone: it was RAINING! In August! And no it had not been in the forecast. A little, then more, then a good steady rain and lightning as I drove home. Rain rain actual rain, .04″ worth.

Those five tiny squash? With that extra water I’m guessing they’ll be full grown in time to try to ditch them at church.