a pie for your travels

these pies are miniature. and cute. and totally free-form. making them quicker to bake than a whole pie, much less exact and portable enough for a summer picnic or road trip. you can make them as small or as large as you'd like, if you make them larger you can slice as you would a pie. AND, you can use this method for any fruit filling peach, blackberry, strawberry-rhubarb, apple, you name it.   

CHERRY GALETTES

For the filling:

1/3 cup cornstarch

1 cup water

6 cups cherries, pitted, and halved (bing or sour cherries)

1/4 cup sugar (increase to 3/4 cup if using sour cherries)

2 tbsp. lemon juice

1 tsp. vanilla extract

4 tsp.  butter

Combine 1/3 cup cornstarch and 1 cup water in a saucepan on the stove.  Bring to a boil, stirring with a whisk until mixture has thickened. Mix cherries, sugar, lemon juice and vanilla in a large bowl and stir.  Add thickened cornstarch mixture and combine with the fruit.

FOR THE CRUST:

2 2⁄3 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp. salt

2⁄3 cup vegetable oil

6 tbsp. cold milk

Preheat oven to 400°. For the crust: Sift together flour and salt into a mixing bowl. Measure oil into a measuring cup, then add milk, but don't stir together. Pour oil and milk into flour mixture. Stir until dough just holds together. Divide dough into four sections, shape into 4 balls, and flatten slightly. Roll out each ball between two sheets of wax paper into 6" rounds. 

Place about 3/4 cup of fruit filling in the center of each piece of crust, and fold edges up over fruit to make a barrier.  Back for about 30-45 minutes, or until fruit is bubbling and the crust is golden brown.

rolling in the dough

I was recently introduced to homemade pasta made by the infamous Pasta Attachment on Lily's KitchenAid, two of her fabulous wedding gifts. We shared a meal together, the pasta and I, gazed into each other's eyes and the rest is history. 

I left Lily's that night, and came home to find the pasta maker I had recently been gifted, it's of the hand-crank variety, but a pasta maker nonetheless. Using this new gift, the next week was filled with four nights of homemade pasta in various preparations topped with many a sauce. It was beautiful. Just beautiful. These photos below are the noodle fruits of my labor of pasta-maker-love. The sweet sweet product of eggs, flour, a little basil, and a lot of mixing, followed by rolling rolling rolling, followed by machining. A lot of machining. It is truly a process, and because I used a machine to do much of the work, this isn't even considered "homemade" pasta by old world Italian standards. Yes, I'm an impostor, I know.  

If you haven't already tried your hand at making homemade pasta, I highly recommend it. It opens up so many possibilities for dough thickness, shapes and flavors. In fact the possibilities are so endless that you might find yourself too overwhelmed to experiment at all. Don't let that happen. Take this new task in stride. Start small, like with a plain spaghetti or fettuccine, and then think about the other flavor options. 

Oh yeah, and want to know the coolest part about this project? This pasta maker was purchased from JC Penney circa 1980 (possibly earlier) for $19.99, my mom gave it to me for keeps this year and it's the best. It's in its original box with price tag and all. The same machine will now set you back between $60-100, but it's worth it.  Otherwise a rolling pin, a ruler (to measure the dough's thickness) and a sharp knife can get the job done.     

the rolled dough ready to be cut

like magic, the dough turns to spaghetti

spaghetti, basil spaghetti and fettuccine

INGREDIENTS:

1 and 1/4 cups fresh basil leaves

3 cups flour

3 eggs

1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon water

2 teaspoons olive oil

Place the basil in a food processor, cover and process until finely chopped. Add flour, process until blended. Add eggs, water, and oil. Process 15 - 20 seconds or until dough forms a ball. Turn onto a floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 8 - 10 minutes. Cover and let rest for 30 minutes. Divide into fourths. Follow your pasta maker's instructions on rolling the dough to the desired thickness.