Sometimes there is a person in your life as a child who opens your eyes to the possibilities of a life lived with style and joie de vivre.  Hattie was just such a person for my husband Rick. “She had class oozing out of her marrow. Her being was effortless.” is the way he describes her. Hattie did things her own way. She was a family friend and as a teenager he worked for her doing yard-work and was rewarded with her homemade chocolate milkshakes which became his ideal. She is a legend that lives on past her years and we often drink to her memory when we are having a celebration. This is her recipe for pumpkin pie that my mum-in-law, Bobbie, has passed on to me. I added a bit of cloves and vanilla to it because I like that flavour and because I believe that’s what Hattie would do- add her own twist of style- so I think it honours her in that way.  Bobbie’s note on the recipe card reads: “This makes a dark pie because of the brown sugar. The Bourbon adds depth to the flavor. Good!”

Hattie’s Pumpkin Pie (with a bit of Gabi)

• one chilled unbaked pie shell, see last post
•  2 eggs, beaten
• dash of salt
• 1 heaping teaspoon of cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp of nutmeg
• generous 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1-1/2 cups pumpkin puree, canned is preferred
• 1 cup minus 2 Tablespoons heavy cream
• 2 Tablespoons good Bourbon
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white granulated sugar
• My additions are: add 1/8 teaspoon of ground cloves and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract. Serve with softly whipped, vanilla flavoured and lightly sweetened whipped cream

Beat the eggs, spices, salt well and blend in the sugars. Mix in the pumpkin puree, cream, (vanilla)  and Bourbon. Pour into the unbaked pie shell and bake at 400F for 15 minutes. Reduce the heat to 350F and bake for 45 minutes more or until set in the middle. 

Cool completely and serve with whipped cream if desired.  The pie will shrink a bit from the edges of the crust as it cools and inevitably it will crack in the middle. I like to make a little decoration to cover the crack such as the pumpkin and vines above. I baked the vines around a metal skewer to get the curl.

We had this pie as part of our second Thanksgiving meal with friends this year.                      I enjoy the tradition of including recipes from those who have touched our lives as part of our celebratory meals. It makes our lives richer and happier.  Hope you enjoy this pie if you make it and please, if you will- drink a toast to Hattie!

The best pie crust, in my humble (pie) opinion, is this all-butter pie crust which I have tweaked over the years. It has a great flavour, is flaky and doesn’t leave the roof of your mouth feeling greasy as shortening based crusts tend to do. Plus, I just don’t like shortening.

Gabi’s Best Pie Crust

• 2-1/2 cups unbleached All Purpose wheat flour
• 1 cup cold, cold butter, salted or unsalted as you have on hand and cut into small bits
• large pinch of salt if using unsalted butter, smaller if using salted
• 2 Tablespoons granulated sugar, can omit if making a savoury pie
• 1/2 cup of iced water  (a bit more or less as humidity requires)

That’s it. If using a food processor, place the flour, salt and sugar into the work bowl fitted with the metal blade. Pulse a few times. Add the butter and pulse until only a few pea sized bits of butter coated with the flour mixture remain. It should look like coarse sand or cornmeal. Place a few ice cubes into a 1 cup liquid measuring cup and add cold water, let sit for a minute then remove the ice cubes and pour off all but 1/2 cup of the water. Add to the processor whilst pulsing, add just enough for the dough to become a bit moist and start to clump together. Remove the top of the processor bowl and dump the bowl onto a square of cling film (plastic wrap)  on your counter or work surface. Use the cling film to gather the crumbly, shaggy dough together into a uniform shape so you can divide it in half. Cut in half with a bench knife or something not too sharp, taking care to not cut through the cling film. Put half of the dough onto another square of cling film and gently shape each half  into a disk on its own piece of cling film. Wrap securely and chill until ready to use- or at least a half hour. Can be made a day ahead and kept refrigerated or frozen for up to a month. Thaw in the fridge overnight before rolling out, if frozen. Roll while chilled out, let it sit for no more than 5 minutes out of the fridge before rolling, to about an 1/8″ inch  (3mm) thickness. Makes enough for 1 double crust or two single crust pies. This recipe can be doubled easily.

If you don’t have a food processor, or just prefer to make it by hand, mix the flour, salt and sugar together, then cut or rub in the butter to the flour mixture using cold hands or two table knives. Add the iced water bit by bit until the dough starts to come together and proceed as above.

You can line a pie plate simply or decorate with a lattice, cut out leaves or a crimp. Rick made the beautiful lattice pictured first for his Thanksgiving Apple Pie this year. I love a man who can make a beautiful pie, don’t you?

This crust likes an initial blast of heat and then a reduction depending on the filling or whether it is being baked “blind”, something like 400F to start for 10 minutes and then reduced to 350F to 325F for the duration of a filled pie. I like to paint the top or rim with an egg wash of a beaten egg mixed with some cream to make it golden and shiny.

Next time I post I’ll give you the recipes for my new favourite Pecan Pie and Pumpkin and Apple Pies as well so we’ll all be set for the upcoming Holidaze!

Today there is a Pizza Party around the world that is being hosted by Zoë François and Jeff Hertzberg, M.D. , the authors of “Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day.”

For the last year or so, Rick and I have been working on a wood fired pizza oven in our back garden. So this was a fun event to unveil the (almost) completed oven and share this great book with you too. To family and friends who have been (patiently) waiting for a pizza party- it’s on its way- I promise.     We’ve just been working on the practical aspects of using the oven. The doughs in the book will be helpful because we can mix up different batches of dough without a lot of time or effort and have them on hand for when the time is right to fire up the oven.

I have a separate post planned for when the last bit is complete on the oven to show you how we made it  and the different stages of completion- so more on that later. Right now let’s party with some pizza!

First gather the book and a few ingredients. I used four litre buckets to mix each dough in,  instead of the 5 quarts recommended because it was either them or a 6 qt which takes up too much space in my fridge.  So here are the ingredients. I made the “00″ flour variation of the Ultimate Tender Neopolitan Crust from page 73- because I happen to have about 40 lbs of Caputo “00″ flour from Central Milling on hand. It’s in the 5 Gallon bucket with the red lid pictured. The blue crock is my salt cellar.

I also made the “Cornmeal Olive Oil dough” on page 86, although I substituted purple cornmeal for the yellow listed. I know- I’m a rebel. Plus I had some to use up.  :)

I like to use my King Arthur (thingamajig)  mixing tool that my sister, Tonya, gave to me a few years ago for mixing things up in the buckets. It works great! Funny note:It’s in a gift box on their site featured with Bread in 5′s book.

This is what the doughs look like after raising and being chilled overnight:

So fire up the oven…

Rick just finished the spire on top of the onion dome. There is more to do but it works and more on the pizza oven to come in a later post.

It makes a great fire.

Toppings:

San Marzano tomatoes that I bottled this Summer from our garden, whizzed in the blender with a little salt and then strained make a delicious sauce.

I make pesto during the summer and freeze it in flexible ice cube trays. Just thaw and use.

Cubed Turkey Breast, Goat cheese, Brie, Ricotta,  Fresh and shredded Mozzarella, BBQ sauce, San Marzanos, pesto, homemade Bechamel, Ambrosia Apple, artichoke hearts, cooked sweet Italian sausage and pepperoni, shallots, onions and red peppers.

Prepared Margherita, San Marzano tomato sauce and fresh Mozzarella on "00" dough

Margherita out of the oven and topped with fresh Basil from the windowsill

Prepared Apple, Bechamel and Brie on Cornmeal Olive Oil Crust

After the fire:Turkey Breast on BBQ Sauce Before and after:

An “Italian Flag” one third each Margherita, Pesto and Bechamel Ricotta Before and after firing:

This is an "Italian Flag" before cooking

I had another pizza and some wood fired Naan to show you but I’ve lost this post twice running out of room so I’ll save those for another day. Party on and check out the other parties over at the Artisan Bread in 5 site.

Enjoy!

Gramps in the Army in WWII

Thanks to all the Veterans out there who have given service to our country and thanks to their families for their support and sacrifices.

Honours to them today!