Blueberry Toaster Tarts

This is a nice snack to pack for lunch. You can also use it as a take-along breakfast treat on those mornings when a sit-down breakfast just isn’t happening. Made with whole wheat flour and filled with a low-sugar (or no-sugar) blueberry chia jam, these toaster tarts have much more fiber and anti-oxidants–not to mention much more flavor–than store-bought toaster tarts.

Don’t be turned off by the idea of whole wheat flour or the chia jam. These tarts have flaky, tender crusts with a flavorful filling–exactly what handheld fruit pastries should taste like.

Tarheel Pie

This is a super easy dessert: brownie batter baked in a pie shell. It sounds like not much, but people love it served warm with ice cream.  Maybe you have had brownie pies before, but do try this especially good version.

Super Easy Chocolate Pie a la Mode (Dairy Free)

 

Imagine a pie that has the flavor of brownies, but the texture of pecan pie. That is chocolate chess pie. Now, imagine that pie, served warm, with a scoop of coffee ice cream (pareve).

Sounds delicious, right? The best part is that it is ridiculously easy.

Wordless Wednesday: Too Good For Words Banoffee Pie

Googleberry Pie!

Well, not really googleberry pie. Really blueberry lime pie. But I kept hearing that googleberry pie song in my head as I was making it.

Inspired by a recipe for Key Lime pie on the Naysoya Silken Creation box, I added lime juice (2 extra large limes, around 6 Tbl.) and some extra cornstarch (2 Tbl.) to Nasoya Silken Creations vanilla and heated it up in a pot until it was really thick. Then the filling went into a graham cracker crust. After scraping out all the lime pudding filling from the pot into the pie shell, I put 2 pints of blueberries and four spoonfuls of blueberry jam into the still warm pot and mixed them up to make the topping.

Result: the pie was bit sweet because there was a bit too much sugar in the premade filling and premade crust. This would be better with from scratch pudding and a homemade crust. But my husband loved it.

The blueberry topping was just right. The blueberries cooked only slightly and tested fresh and the blueberry jam pulled the berries together and made them taste pie-fillnig-ish.

Not to digress, but I really liked the Silken Creations chocolate flavor better than the vanilla. Vanilla is much harder to pull off in a non-dairy format.

Easy as Pie

For Thanksgiving my sole responsibility was bringing dessert. I brought pecan pie, apple Breton (a kind of French apple pie), and pumpkin pie.

My pecan pie recipe is from Nick Malgieri. The recipe as posted on Food Network calls for 3 ounces of butter, but I have another version of this recipe from Nick that calls for 4 ounces. I used just 2 ounces and it was fine. Also the Food Network version calls for 2 cups of pecans, but the version of this recipe that I have calls for 12 ounces. I haven’t measured, so I am not sure whether or not this is the same.

I once served this pie to a hard-to-please southerner and it got high praise, and I have been sticking to the recipe ever since. It is good with chocolate chips added in, too.

My pumpkin pie was originally Nick’s, too. I have tweaked it considerably. The original recipe was more or less the same as Nick’s sweet potato pie (notice the reference to pumpkin). I used homemade pumpkin puree this year, and it seemed a little thin, so I added in some roasted sweet potato and left out any other added liquid. I also added in some allspice.

This Year’s Pumpkin Pie
1 1/2 cups homemade roasted pumpkin puree
1/2 cup roasted sweet potato puree
3 eggs
2/3 cup sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp. allspice

Combine all and pour into a pie shell. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

The apple Breton is from Nick, too. I cut down the recipe so that I could make it in an 8″ round pan instead of a 10″ pan. I have made this many times. It is better with butter (of course), but the lemon rind in the dough makes it remarkably tasty with margarine. Sometimes I let the sugar caramelize before adding the apples. That adds an extra dimension of flavor, too. I used two-thirds of the ingredients, which was perfect for a 8″ pan.  I wished I had made the full amount of filling instead of cutting the amount down, though.

It was so good, I made a simple apple galette on Friday. I used up the golden delicious apples I had left over from the Breton recipe and tossed in a gala apple, too. The crust was half the recipe from the Crisco container. I had some egg wash in the fridge from the Breton and used that, too.

Easy Apple Galette
3 apples, peeled, cored, sliced
1/4 cup sugar
1/8- 1/4 tps. cinnamon
1 tps. lemon juice
extra sugar for sprinkling on crust
egg wash for crust
Crust
3/4 cup flour
4 Tbl. Crisco
1/4 tsp. salt
2-3 Tbl. ice water
Combine the apple slices with the sugar and add a bit of cinnamon and a drop of lemon juice. Make the crust following the instructions at the Crisco site (also see video). Roll the crust out very thin on parchment paper. Mound the apples in the center of what should be a rough 10-11″ circle. Fold the edges of the dough over the apples to partially cover them. The center of the galette will remain exposed. Brush the galette with egg wash and sprinkle with sugar. Bake at 400 degrees (375 degrees in convection mode) until crust is golden and apples are soft, about 1 hour.