Key Lime Pie

How is everyone's long weekend going? I am really loving the hot weather that Toronto is experiencing. I can't remember a more glorious summer than the one we're currently having. With above 25°C temperature, I can finally ditch the jackets and dig out the dresses and skirts! It's like seeing good old friends again when I take out my underused shorts and T-shirts. It also makes me feel a lot more body conscious, but then I remember not to care so much and gobble down another piece of pie.

This pie is an homage a publicity intern at work. Hey, I've been there and done that - it's not an easy gig. But despite all the work we have to work together to finish, our publicity intern found the time to make key lime pie (not once, but twice) for us. I have the vantage point of sitting near our kitchen and got to hear a lot of joyful food noises that my colleagues were making upon taking a bite. So Anyka, this is for you!

Key Lime Pie
(Makes one 9-inch pie)
Recipe from Perfect Pies by Michele Stuart

Crust
1 1/2 cup of graham crackers, finely chopped
1 tablespoon of granulated sugar
5 tablespoons of unsalted butter, melted

1. Preheat your oven to 350°F.
2. In a bowl, mix the graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and melted butter together. If you have cracker sheets, you can use also place all three ingredients in a food processor to chop and mix. Or you can purchase the graham crackers already chopped, I've tried both methods and they work fine (see photos above).
3. Spread the mixture evenly across the bottom and sides of your pie tin. Try using something with a flat bottom that you can use to press the crust firmly down. I use a measuring cup (see photo below).
4. Bake the crust for 5 minutes and cool the pie shell for half an hour before adding the filling.

Filling
6 large egg yolks
3 teaspoons of key lime zest
2 fourteen-ounce cans of condensed milk
1 cup of key lime juice

1. Keep your oven on at 350°F.
2. Using an electric mixer fitted with the beater blade, beat the egg yolks, lime zest, and condensed milk together. 
3. Add in the lime juice and mix well until the filling is combined.
4. Pour the filling into the graham cracker pie shell.
5. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until the pie is firm in the middle, but still soft. Allow the pie to cool and set. Cover and place the pie in the freezer for at least an hour before serving.

My pie tin is a bit shallow, so I had leftover filling. Not to waste it, I poured it into some dessert jars and popped those in a water bath for the oven. Same process as the pie, I had it cool and then covered to freeze it.

When it came time to eat it, I took it out to defrost for 5 minutes and added a layer of graham cracker crumbs on top.

Yummm!

Howard preferred the pie version, more graham crackers that's why. You know what? I agree!

Looking Back: 30 Years

Happy New Year (23 days into 2016, so it still counts)! How was your 2015? How were your holidays? I hope everyone had a wonderful end of year. I love how everything feels so festive in December, twinkly lights and decorations everywhere. The atmosphere is fun and light, especially at work when everyone is looking forward to some time off.

I actually made this pie on Christmas Eve because I was hosting a family dinner with my dad and brother. I figured Howard likes citrus flavours and my brother loves meringue that this pie would be the perfect dessert to serve. It was . . . but it tasted better the day after when I brought it to my in-law's for Christmas day dinner. Letting it set and chill in the fridge actually tasted better than fresh!

Speaking of chill, do you have Netflix? We watched a lot of shows during the holidays that had us doing all-nighters. My whole sleeping schedule got flipped thanks to the addicting series. We managed to finish Luther, Narcos, and started Making a Murderer. Have you seen these shows? What did you think? What would you recommend we watch next?

I'm deciding to make this a combination post too. Not only are we celebrating national pie day, I also want to chat birthday. I've also hit a new milestone, I'm officially in my thirties!!! Way to make myself feel old there. My favourite cousin recently turned 13 - gasp, a teenager - and I remember babysitting him as toddler. He's still not taller than me yet, I hope that takes a bit more time (we have a height bet). It's amazing how fast time flies. There has been so many neat changes in the past year alone that I'm excited for this year.

Looking back, here are thirty highlights:

1. WE GOT MARRIED! Finally!
2. Had an amazing and memorable honeymoon in Jamaica. Which reminds me, I want to share that in a post soon.
3. In Jamaica, we visited the Luminous Lagoon. Very cool experience, we'd recommend going if you get a chance.
4. Tried scuba diving for the first time. 
5. Met new relatives that flew in from Taiwan and South Africa.
6. Felt the love at my bridal showers. Good friends and colleagues are hard to come by, so when you do find them, make them bake and cook for you.
7. We were fortunate enough to squeeze in some travel. We visited Chicago and flew Porter for the first time!
8. Work perks: Met Judy Blume and had my book signed. Had my photo taken with Chef Curtis Stone. Ate dinner with Alan Doyle. Shook hands with Al Gore. Saw Chef Michael Smith. Shook hands and had my booked signed by Chris Hadfield. Felt the excitement when Ethan Hawke and Rainn Wilson were in the office. Seen Margaret Atwood roam the floors.
9. Helped plan Anne Michaels' book launch for The Adventures of Miss Petitfour. She's a fantastic reader and there were sea shanties.
10. Gained a godson because we're awesome godparents. Still watching in awe as our goddaughter becomes more vocal.
11. Survived an office move. Boxes of books are incredibly heavy.
12. Made new friends with new colleagues thanks to the merge.
13. Switched from the editorial department to the marketing and publicity department. Every day is a learning experience, but we do such cool things.
14. Working with the coolest children's marketing and publicity team ever, I love my pod.
15. Finished watching Veronica Mars as numerous interns vouched for it. It lived up to the hype.
16. Lost at Pongapalooza. In the first round.
17. Made lots and lots of bunting. Then more and more. I've been given the title Baroness of Bunting.
18. Also been given the title Countess of Cake.
19. Featured in the Globe and Mail as an office model.
20. Had an amazing dinner at Grand Electric's Champagne Room.
21. Discovered my new favourite chocolate chip cookies recipe!
22. Had my hair coloured and my nails done for the first time.
23. Got a waffle maker. Just you wait for all the waffle posts.
24. Saw the Pan Am excitement around the city of Toronto.
25. Gave pop pilates a try and was surprised I enjoyed it.
26. My orchid bloomed!
27. Not getting cable and just having Netflix was the best decision ever.
28. Discovering canelés. Ugh, craving one now.
29. Howard surprised me with a spa date. His first one ever!
30. Booked an ambitious trip to Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Taiwan for 2016.

And if you were just here for the pie. The recipe is from the New York Times, which they adapted from Alice Water of Chez Panisse. If you read the comments, you'll see that lots of people doubled the lemon recipe. I ended up doing so as well and it gave the pie a nice inch of lemon filling. I also found that the lemon filling set better in the fridge, despite the recipe's instruction saying not to place it in the fridge after letting it cool for one to two hours.

Recipes: Flaky pie crust | Chez Panisse Meyer Lemon Meringue Pie

Classic Cinnamon Apple Pie

Flaky, no fail pie crust? Challenge accepted.

I've never been great at making pies and this would be my first made-from-scratch pie without the help of a friend or family member. I'm glad it's a classic cinnamon apple pie, can't mess that up, can I? The instructions look easy enough.

Using a food processor, I combined 2 cups of all-purpose flour and 3/4 teaspoon of salt. The Crisco all vegetable shortening is already measured out into one cup.

Just toss that bad boy into the food processor with the flour. Give is a few quick pulses.

Stop when it resembles coarse crumbs. You're at a good place here.

Beat 1 egg, 2 tablespoons of cold water, and 1 tablespoon of vinegar together to blend. Pour this mixture into the crumbs. Again, give the food processor a few pulses until everything comes together. The dough is now moistened and ready to scoop out.

Shape the dough into a disc shape, wrap, and refrigerate for at least 15 minutes (of you can do this ahead of time and chill it overnight).

Can I say how much I love my apple peeler and corer? Made the job of slicing 8 Golden Delicious apples a lot easier!

Place the apples in a large bowl. Throw in 3/4 cup of sugar, 2 tablespoons of cornstarch, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, and a pinch of salt and nutmeg.

Give everything a good toss.

Take the chilled dough out of the fridge and roll it on to a floured surface. You'll need it to be 2 inches wider than your pie dish to accommodate the sides.

Gently and carefully place the dough into your pie dish. Place cinnamon apple filling onto the bottom pie crust. Spread and pack it down firmly. It's okay if the middle is slightly higher, the filling will shrink when it bakes. Place the remaining dough on top of the pie and brush with a beaten egg yolk. Sprinkle with sugar.

Bake on the bottom rack of your oven at 425F for 20 minutes. Then, reduce the heat to 325°F. and bake for about 60 to 65 minutes. The crust should be golden and the filling will be bubbly.

What do you think? I think it is picture perfect! Fine, my pie decorating skills and trimming could use some work, but it looks good! I'm quite proud of it! And not only does it look good, the crust is flaky and the filling is delicious. A successful pie made in the afternoon makes for a great after dinner dessert.

CRISCO® No Fail Pie Crust
From Crisco®
For one double-crust pie or two 9” (23 cm) pie shells

2 cups (500 ml) of Robin Hood® Original All Purpose Flour
3/4 teaspoons (4 ml) of salt
1 cup (250 ml) of Crisco® All-Vegetable Shortening
1 egg
2 tablespoons (30 ml) of cold water
1 tablespoon (15 ml) of white vinegar

1. In a large bowl, combine the flour and salt. Add the shortening. Using a pastry blender, cut shortening into the flour until it resembles coarse crumbs.
2. In a small bowl, beat together the egg, water and vinegar. Add to the flour mixture and stir with a fork until moistened.
3. Divide the dough into 2 pieces and shape into a 4" disk. Wrap each with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for 15 minutes. This will make it easier to roll out the dough.
4. On a lightly floured surface, roll out on disc of dough into an 11 inch circle. Carefully transfer to a lightly greased 9" pie plate. Fill with Classic Cinnamon Apple Pie Filling (recipe below).
5. Roll out second disc of dough to an 11 inch circle. Cover the pie with the rolled out dough. Tuck the edges under and pinch to seal. Flute the edges. Bake according to directions for the filling.

Classic Cinnamon Apple Pie
Adapted from Canadian Living

Prep Time: 25 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours 15 minutes
Portion Size: 10 to 12

Filling:
8 firm cooking apples (such as Golden Delicious)
3/4 cup of granulated sugar
2 tablespoons of cornstarch
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
Pinch each salt and nutmeg
2 tablespoon of unsalted butter, softened
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon of coarse sugar

1. Preheat oven to 425°F.
2. Peel and core the apples. Cut into 1/4" slices and put in a large bowl.
3. In a small bowl, combine sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, salt and nutmeg. Sprinkle over apples. Toss the apples so all are coated with the sugar mixture.
4. Transfer apples to the prepared pie shell. Pack the apples down and dot with butter. Top with the second circle of dough. Tuck the edges under and pinch to seal. Flute the edges of the pie dough.
5. Whisk the egg yolk and brush on top of the pie. Sprinkle the sugar on top. Cut steam vents in the top.
6. Bake on the bottom rack for 20 minutes. Reduce heat to 325°F and bake until the bottom is golden and the filling is bubbly, about 60-65 minutes. Allow to cool on rack.

And now the contest:
Snap a photo of your favourite pie. Share it using #CLEasyAsPie and you could win a $4,000 baking experience! For more details, visit Canadianliving.com/easyaspie!

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post by Canadian Living and Crisco. I received compensation for it. There was no requirement to produce a positive review of this recipe. All opinions are our own.

Co.

Co.
230 9th Avenue
New York, NY 10001
(212) 243-1105

On our last day in New York, we had to narrow down our restaurant choices. What do we really want to try? What can wait until our next visit? So after some discussion, Howard and I decided to have lunch at Co. (pronounced Company).

This is Jim Lahey's restaurant, author of My Pizza, in which we've had many successes. Based on his recipes, I think we hosted three do-it-yourself pizza parties this summer.

Here are the pies we ordered, above: the Boscaiola with tomato, mozzarella, pork sausage, mushroom, onion, and chili. Below, the Mushroom and Jalapeno Pie with béchamel, pecorino, gruyère, garlic confit, seasonal mushrooms, shaved jalapeno, and fresh dill.

What did we think? Make at home or eat out? First, their pizza dough is really good and it is rolled super thin - much thinner than we dare to stretch at home. Their topping combinations are great, but in the end, the bottom of the pies were too burnt for our liking. You can even see it in the photos, the edges are burnt to a crisp! Our hands were dusted with charcoal when we finished eating. With that said, we prefer making our own pizzas at home!

Blueberry Pie

We had ordered some products (we got mini pans and a zester) from CSN Stores for review. I want to say that their website is easy to use and ordering was quite simple. They ship pretty fast and keep you updated on each item's transit!

To test our new products, I had thought it would be fun for Howard to make some pies:

Wow. The perfect pie dough is hard to make! Howard and I were pretty sad about the way ours turned out, I think we may need to learn the techniques and practice more. With that being said, this is no reflection of the recipe we tried, we're pretty sure we messed up because the dough didn't turn out as flaky as it should. We will keep practicing in order to add pies to our repertoire!

Pie Dough
Adopted from The Grand Central Baking Book
(Makes one 10- to 12-ounce disk)

1 1/4 cup of all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon of granulated sugar
1 teaspoon of salt
1 stick of cold unsalted butter
3 tablespoons of cold water
Omitted 1 1/2 teaspoon of lemon juice (maybe this is where we went wrong?)

1. Measure out your flour, sugar, and salt in a bowl. Let is refrigerate for at least two hours or overnight.
2. Dice the cold butter into 1/2 inch cubes and toss them with the flour mixture.
   
   
3. Add in your cold water. (But don't. This is where you're suppose to add the cold water to the lemon juice, so do that instead.)
4. We mixed our dough by hand, move quickly so that your hands don't warm up the butter. Use your fingertips and thumbs to rub the butter together with the dry ingredients. The butter should be cold enough that you're coating the butter cubes with the flour.
5. Stop mixing when the texture of the flour changes from silky to measly.
6. You can hydrate your dough with the cold water and lemon juice mixture, one tablespoon at a time.
   
7. Check your dough, if it holds together, it's ready. If it's dry and crumbly, mix a little longer before adding more water.
8. When the dough has the proper amount of water, it will come together with minimal effort and no deliberate packing.
9. Wrap the dough tightly and chill it (don't roll it out, it isn't ready to be used yet) for at least 1 to 2 hours or overnight (we left it overnight).
   

Blueberry Filling
Adopted from The Grand Central Baking Book
(Makes about 3 to 4 servings)

2 cups of blueberries
1/2 cup of sugar
2 tablespoons of lemon zest
2 tablespoons of cornstarch
1 tablespoon of lemon juice

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C (375°F).
2. Begin by zesting your lemon and squeezing out the lemon juice.
   
   The Microplane zester was easy to use and easy to clean. Look at how quick Howard is zesting!
   
   
3. Toss the blueberries with the sugar and lemon zest.
   
   
   
4. Combine the cornstarch and lemon juice, stir it a little.
5. Roll out your pie dough, work quickly so that the dough doesn't soften. If it becomes too soft or sticky, cover it and refrigerate until firm.
6. Place your rolled out pie dough in your pan and trim off the excess sides.
   
   
7. Pour your blueberry filling in.
   
   
8. Bake for 20 minutes until the crust is a rich golden brown and the filling is bubbling. Funny note: our crust remained quite pale and did not reach a golden brown colour. =(
   
   

The blueberry filling was really good, so we just have to work on creating flaky, buttery pie crust. The pans we tested out are non-stick and do just as they say. The pies popped out of the pan with ease and were easy to clean (since nothing stuck to it).

A Cry for Pie

Pie!

Buttery, delicious pie crust.

That's what Howard likes baked. Not my cute and sweet cupcakes. He needs something savoury to chew on. So, from time to time I attempt to make pie. But Howard doesn't like it. The reason? I don't make real pie crust. My pie crust is sweet and crunchy (the way I like it) and not buttery and flaky (the way most people make it).

Every time we order a slice of pie, Howard asks, "can't you make real pie instead?" or "do you know how to make real pie crust?"

I answer with, "we technically do know how to make pie crust. I have numerous cookbooks that teach us." It's just a matter of picking a recipe and following the steps, right?

It is time we tried.

This is also good timing as the folks over at CSN Stores offered to let us do some product reviews! They're an online store carrying lighting, bookcases, cookware, and more. I've been browsing their cookware section, but more specifically, the pie pans!

Now, if we get ourselves some real pie pans, I think that Howard should show us how to make real pie! All in favour? Leave a comment below if you would like to see Howard bake pie! ;)