There is nothing better than seeing love like this. Adam Joseph from 6ABC is at the East Goshen Farmers Market today and he brought his baby with him.
Category Archives: farmers markets
guest recipe: josie’s easter pizza
So my sweet ricotta pies are not the only variety – there are also savory ricotta pies. I remember my great aunts making one around Easter, but I never knew how they made it.
Lucky for me I have an amazing guest recipe today to share. This recipe comes to me from my friend, writer Lisa DePaulo! I am very excited to share this with you and this was her mother’s recipe. (and if you want to check out a little of what Lisa has been working on at her new home at Bloomberg News, click HERE and HERE.)
Without further ado:
Hi, honey. So this is my Mom’s Easter Pizza recipe, aka Pizza Rustica, aka ricotta pie. Funny aside: She had the recipe scribbled down on a yellowed piece of paper that was passed on from her mother and probably her grandmother from Naples. Then one day, it was in the Sunday New York Times—the exact same recipe! It is amazing. And the sweet crust with the savory fillings is divine. Also, super easy to make. Particularly the crust. xoxo
Josie’s Easter Pizza
The following is for a 10-inch square or 9 x 13 (or whatever!) ceramic or glass baking dish.
Crust:
2 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1 stick margarine (yes, margarine)
2 eggs
Mix flour, sugar and baking powder together in large bowl. Work in the margarine with your fingers. Make a well in the center. Drop in the eggs. Knead from sides to center. Let dough stand under a bowl for at least 10 minutes while making your filling.
Filling:
2+ pounds ricotta (if I have a 3 lb container, I add a little more than 2 lbs)
4 eggs
1/4 pound prosciutto, chopped
1/2 to 3/4 pound sweet Italian sausage, baked (about 20 mins), skinned and chopped
1/2 pound mozzarella, diced
1/2 cup grated parmesan or locatelli
A heaping 1/4 cup fresh Italian parsley, chopped
Beat ricotta and eggs (I just use a whisk). Add the rest of the ingredients and mix it all together.
Divide the dough into quarters. You’ll want 3/4 of it for the bottom and sides crust and the other 1/4 to cover the pie. Roll out the bigger portion, using a bit more flour to roll it out. Dough should be the consistency of Play-doh, and the sides can be pieced together with your fingers. (Really, you can’t mess it up. I always piece most of it together.)
Do not grease the baking pan.
Put your bottom and sides crust down in the pan. Then add the filling. Then the top crust, rolled out.
Prick top of pie with fork.
Bake at 400-degrees for 15 minutes. Then lower the temperature to 325 for another 45-55 minutes. You will know it is done when a knife comes out wet but clean and top is beautifully browned.Do NOT overcook (it will set more as it cools).
When it is totally cool, cover with foil or saran and put in the fridge. It tastes better after a day or so. Serve it cold or room temperature, sliced in little rectangular wedges. Or whatever. Yes, cold or room temperature. Do NOT heat it up. Mangia!
growing up pumpkin bread
I love pumpkin bread, it is probably my favorite of the quick breads. I wanted to do something different with it and have worked on a quick bread recipe that was without nuts and raisins, but not boring. The other day I decided to make it with molasses and not just sugar. I think that made all the difference. I have a very moist quick bread that has some depth to it. Molasses is definitely something fun to experiment with.
New Pumpkin Bread Recipe
2 cups canned pumpkin
1 cup oil (canola of olive)
2 cups sugar ( can use all white or half white, half brown)
1 cup molasses at room temperature
4 eggs beaten in a small bowl
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cardamom
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon table salt
Mix together with mixer the following: pumpkin, oil, molasses, and sugar. Add eggs. Mix really well. Add vanilla mix a little more.
- Add remaining ingredients and mix just until all dry ingredients are well incorporated and there are no flour lumps.
- Pour into 2 well greased and floured 8 or 9 inch loaf pans. Use butter or oil or Crisco as the grease, not a baking spray. Baking spray just doesn’t work as well as the traditional grease and flour for baking pans. Dust the batter in the top of the pans with sugar – either turbinado or plain white – it gives you a nice little crust.
- Bake at 350° for 1 hour or until a toothpick comes out clean, and depending upon your oven it may take slightly longer than an hour to cook. I found they cooked perfectly in an hour.
When you remove the loves to cool on a rack let them sit in their pans for about 20 minutes to half an hour, then remove them from the pans and allow to cool completely. These loaves freeze nicely.
* you can serve this pumpkin bread plain or for breakfast with a little almond butter or whipped cream cheese or Greek Cream Cheese which has lower fat and calories.
all about the pot pie
Yes yes…continuing my quest to get vegetables into a teenager.
I make pot pies all the time. They aren’t that complicated. It’s basically meat, vegetables, gravy and the crust. Today I just didn’t feel like doing a double crust and a pie pan, so I opted for the crust on top kind of pot pie. A biscuit topping.
Preheat your oven to 350°.
First I made the filling. I used leftover roast beef that I had cubed into bite-size pieces and frozen for just this purpose. I would say probably about 2 1/2 cups was what was in the bag. I had let it thaw in the refrigerator overnight.
I also used a container of leftover beef au jus I had made with mushrooms. This has been in the freezer in a container as well. I let that also thaw overnight in the refrigerator.That was also about 2 cups. I turned that into a traditional gravy after creating a rue with a little bit of flour and maybe 2 tablespoons of butter in the bottom of the pan.
As for vegetables it was a combination of fresh and frozen. One cup each frozen peas and corn thawed, one sweet onion diced, three smaller but not mini carrots diced small, and a handful of fingerling potatoes sliced thin. (You may wish to slightly parboil potatoes first. )
I mixed that together with a little salt and pepper to taste, paprika, garlic powder and rosemary, and put into a good-sized baking dish that I had greased- a 12″ x 9″ baking dish that is a little over 3 inches deep.
The biscuit topping was really simple. Get out another mixing bowl.
One cup of buttermilk, 1 1/2 cup plus 4 tablespoons of flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 generous teaspoon baking powder, 1/2 cup melted butter, a 1/4 cup of grated Italian blend cheese out of the shaker (Parmesan and Romano blend), and fresh ground pepper.
Mix biscuit ingredients all together and it will be goopy and not the kind of biscuit dough you roll out. Put it on the top of your pot pie mixture in your baking pan evenly. Bake at 350° for 45 to 55 minutes depending on your oven.
Allow to cool slightly when you remove it from the oven because it will be really hot.
Enjoy!
holiday sweet treats pick
Available at select merchants….these are amazing. Locally and deliciously made. (You read it here first 🙂 )
the great granola experiment
So this morning a member of my cooking group posted about making homemade granola. It got me thinking about trying to make a batch myself. I love granola, but the fresh granola that is available at any of the local farmers’ markets has been climbing in price to a point that I can’t justify the cost for what it is.
Now my mother has a granola recipe that she has used for years, but I just don’t like it. Too many ingredients and too many nuts and seeds. So I went hunting for a recipe I liked better.
I found two recipes I liked and combined them. One recipe is from epicurious.com and one recipe is from Real Simple.
Here is how I combined them:
Preheat your oven to 300°F
Ingredients
4 cups old-fashioned rolled oats (not quick cooking)
1 cup chopped almonds
1 cup shredded UNSWEETENED coconut
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
2 tablespoons canola oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup white raisins
1/2 cup dark raisins
4 tablespoons dark brown sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons ground ginger
Directions:
Mix everything EXCEPT for the raisins together in a large mixing bowl.
Line a rimmed baking sheet or jellyroll pan with a piece of parchment paper.
Spread your mixture from your mixing bowl evenly on the pan.
Place in preheated oven (300°) . Bake until a golden toasty brown color approximately 40 minutes. Make sure that you stir the granola around on the cookie sheet approximately every 10 minutes while you are baking. You need to do this to make sure the granola bakes evenly. This is also why you have to use a jellyroll pan or another kind of baking sheet with a big enough lip or your granola will end up all over your oven.
Once granola is cooked, bring out of your oven and cool in the pan for about 20 minutes to half an hour. Stir in your raisins. Allow granola to come to room temperature and store in airtight containers. I like using canning jars for this purpose.
Enjoy!
Thanks for stopping by!
chutney season
Today when I was taking down what was left of my tomato vines in the garden I had a bunch of green tomatoes left over, and I decided to make chutney.
Chutney is basically something that is semi-pickled that has a sweet and vinegary finish to it. In other words it’s spicy condiment made of fruits or vegetables with vinegar, spices, and sugar. Chutney has its origins in South Asia/India.
There are many recipes available that are easy to follow. I have been making chutneys much like fruit butters for years that I pretty much do it in my head.
This chutney consisted of eight medium and small sized green tomatoes small chopped / minced, two large apples peeled cored and minced, one chopped red onion, 1 cup golden raisins, 1 1/4 cup cider vinegar, 1 cup white sugar, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 2 tablespoons mustard seeds, 1 tablespoon pickling spice, couple of dashes of ground allspice, cloves, nutmeg, red pepper flakes, two whole cinnamon sticks, some grated fresh ginger, a couple teaspoons of salt, three ribs minced celery, 2 cups of minced sweet orange peppers that I had gotten at the farmers market, one minced jalapeno pepper seeded, and one minced medium hot pepper that I grew in my garden.
Tossed everything into a pot gave it a stir and turned on the stove and brought up to a boil and then reduced the heat, covered and simmered for 50 minutes.
I then put the chutney into sterilized jars. I did not give them a hot water bath. When my jars have cooled I will refrigerate and they will last a few months in the refrigerator, but realistically will be gone by the end of the holiday season.
I like to serve chutney not only with main courses of poultry and pork, but with cheese and crackers as an appetizer. Green tomato chutneys are especially delicious with turkeys at Thanksgiving.
quince-apple butter
I don’t do much jelly and jam making (yet), but I love “butters”. Pumpkin butter, apple butter, peach butter, pear butter, and now quince-apple butter.
My friend Meredith had given me a lovely basket full of quince the other day, and I had a bowl full of apples sitting on the kitchen table.
So after I peeled, cored ,and chopped everything I threw it into a crockpot with a scant couple cups of apple cider three cinnamon sticks a couple chunks of peeled and slightly smashed ginger (to release the flavor), sugar, juice of one lemon and lemon peel , a little mace, and two days worth of cooking…and the end result is here.
In the end I think I used close to 3 cups of sugar because quince is so tart. And quince is a very hard almost prehistoric looking fruit and halfway through cleaning the quince I wondered if it would be worth it. It is.
It smells and tastes delicious! The butter is thick and velvety, and it is a coral meets red sort of color. It looks very pretty in the canning jars. I had started cooking this yesterday afternoon but then we went out for dinner so I turned off and unplugged the crockpot. This morning I turned the crockpot back on low for three more hours of cooking and this is the end result.
I realize my method of preparing this must be maddening to serious jam, jelly, and preserve makers because I’m a little of this and a little of that in the pot. but it works! I used a couple of recipes as a guide to make sure my proportions were right, but that is about it.
Thanks for stopping by!
’tis the season!
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peach and ground cherry galette
I purchased a pint of forgotten fruit at the farmers market yesterday. Ground cherries. They were in little papery husks almost like a tomatillo. They are a very old-fashioned fruit that you see once in a blue moon at farmers or local organic markets.
Preheat your oven to 400°F
Get out your frozen two sheet package of puff pastry – Pepperidge Farm or whomever and allow it to thaw at room temperature. If it’s really frozen it can take over half an hour.
First make the Frangipane (almond cream):
In a large mixing bowl whip together with your mixer the following:
3 tablespoons butter, preferably unsalted
One large egg
1/3 cup granulated white sugar
One half teaspoon pure vanilla or almond extract
One half a cup of almond flour or almond meal (I order mine from nuts.com)
1 tablespoon of regular white flour
Beat together until fluffy and set aside.
In another bowl, put your ground cherries (after removing the little husks from them) in with a 1/3 cup of light brown sugar and a couple dashes of cinnamon. (I had purchased a pint’s worth of this fruit.) To this I add 2 teaspoons of fresh lemon juice. I then take a hand potato masher and macerate slightly the ground cherries and the sugar and cinnamon and lemon juice.
Next take out a jellyroll pan – otherwise known as a cookie sheet with an edge and line it with parchment paper
Take one sheet of puff pastry and gently unfold it and put it in the center of the pan on the parchment paper.
Next take an icing spreader or spatula and spread the almond cream/Frangipane evenly on the bottom layer of puff pastry.
Next slice two to three medium size peaches in thin slices. Arrange neatly on top of the cream. Next spoon the ground cherry mixture evenly on top of the peaches.
Take the other sheet of puff pastry and unfold it and lay evenly on top of the fruit mixture. Crimp the edges of both sheets of puff pastry together all the way around.
Cut quite a few vent holes in the top of the path pastry. You can do it in a pattern if you want. Take one egg yolk and add a tablespoon and a half of water and whip it together. Use a pastry brush and brush the egg yolk lightly over the top of the pastry. Dust this with sugar. (egg yolk acts like a glue for the sugar)
Bake at 400° for about half an hour. My oven wasn’t doing something right today so I might have even taken longer baking. This is something you have to keep an eye on or you will burn it.
When everything is all golden and caramelized brown pull it out of the oven. It will also smell really amazing!
Cool before moving to a serving platter. I have a large round plate I picked up at a church sale years ago that I love for desserts that are a different than normal size.
You can serve this warm or cold. A little dollop of whipped cream should accompany each serving.
Refrigerate the leftovers.
