Blue Ridge Cherry Pie

Can she bake a cherry pie, Billy boy Billy boy,
Can she bake a cherry pie, Charming Billy
She can bake a cherry pie
Quick as a cat can blink her eye.....

HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!!! Have you, composer of this song, ever made a pie crust from scratch??? You would not make such flippant claims, even in jest, if you have. A blink of a cat's eye eh? Yes if it is blinking in slow-mo for about 24 hours -lol!

The biggest challenge of making a pie is without doubt the crust - if you nail that, then the rest is a breeze - And to master my pie-making skills, I once again turn to my lovely patient Canadian friend Stephanie of Joys of Baking. I followed her like the Lamb did Mary (ah- there is another rhyme I've inadvertently alluded to) you cannot but make a perfect pie crust. So my advice - follow this link for pie crust lessons.

What I claim to be mine is the filling -

In my Cherry kachal post, I told you about our wonderful cherry picking adventure, right? This was the first recipe I made with them - I have another very informative post on how to freeze cherries properly coming up soon.

What sets a pie apart from any other, other than a deliciously flaky crust? The filling, of course.
What a turn on it is to pick your own fruits, clean them, pit them and use them in a recipe - I made it my own by adding two ingredients that all my Indian friends would approve of and applaud :) Ginger and Cardamom. I ditched the same old Cinnamon and went for the exotic, the tingling spicy and what was pronounced a fabulous pie - I had taken this to a friends home and there was this gent there who was not a big cherry anything fan - I think he just got converted that evening :) I quote loosely "best pie ever" and went for seconds. That mes amies is a good compliment, n'est pas?

Here is the recipe for the pie filling
3lbs or 5-6 cups of pitted fresh cherries
3/4 cup of sugar
2tbsp corn starch
2 tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice
1tbsp powdered cardamom
1 tbsp ginger powser

Preparation

In a heavy bottomed pan, throw in all the ingredients and cook for about 3minutes only until the ingredients come together.
Allow to cool down completely
Pour into the pie crust spreading evenly
Oven set to 350 and baked for 34-45 minutes

Follow Stephanie's baking directions please - Link here

Here is my pie crust, pie filling and finished pie pictorial - enjoy y'all. Sorry I did not have the time to take pictures from the start - too preoccupied trying to get the ingredients right :)

Dough is made

cut into 2 halves if making a covered pie

Roll out flat and wrap in saran wrap and refrigerate 

They can be in the fridge for up to a week and in the freezer a lot longer

here are my two wrapped pie halves ready for refrigeration

The pie lady :)

Rolled and transferred on to the greased pan

Note little fingers have poked the pie!!

Following Stephanie's instructions to design the corners

Fixing poke marks

Look at that!

cut the excess crust from the rim

keep refrigerated until ready to roll out and bake

The stars are coming along

My little one helps press the stars

There she is in her Rapunzel outfit :)

The pie is filled

arranging the stars

The oozing that indicates a fully cooked pie :)

The color is off - not enough light :(

This is a good one!

Get your forks and dig in folks

CherryKachal/ Thokku (Spicy Cherry Preserve)

When first tasted it after making this rather incredible thokku, almost in unison, my hubby and I declared it was cherry kachal - let it be known he said pulikachal  and gave me the idea to call it a cherry kachal.
Memorial weekend and nothing to do - WRONG - we went to a beautiful orchard set in a very scenic place about 45 minutes from where we live - the weather was perfect and there we were, six of us, my little one leading the pack, all armed with plastic bags. Long story short, we got SO carried away, we ended up with 20 lbs of cherries- Since they expect you to buy all of the cherries you pick, we ended up buying $80 worth of cherries :) !!! Not an issue since my head was immediately buzzing with the different things I can make with them - The pie was the first of course. When we came home, we got busy washing and sorting them into grades of ripeness. Before we made our way to the actual trees with the dark fully ripened cherries, our enthusiasm had led us to pick not so ripe ones - My three year old went about it with clear intent and picked a bunch of red, pink and semi-rotten ones - all part of the deal folks.
My kids, hubby and mother-in-law (who is visiting) took the lead role in washing, sorting, pitting process. While I got busy listening keenly to my good friend Stephanie from Joy of Baking, refreshing my pie-crust recipe.

That will be a post to follow. The semi ripe ones are the ones that I decided to make this thokku with.  I decided on a really simple recipe and let the cherries take on the spices and do what they will with it. And we ended up with a tangy, tongue-tickling thokku, perfect as a side for bondas, doasi and idli, or to mix with freshly prepared fluffy white rice :)

here is my recipe

ingredients
2lbs pitted semi-ripe cherries
5 green chilies
5 red dry chilies
1tbsp whole black peppers
2 tsp urad dal
2 tsp crushed rosemary
a small pinch of nutmeg
1/2 cup of gingely oil (sesame oil) (approx 6 tbsp)
salt

Preparation

Dry fry the green chilies, red chilies, peppers, urad dal and rosemary and dry grind into a powder.
Take 1/3 of the cherries (aprrox) and grind them coarse -
Add 2 tbsp of oil and and add the powder and roast for a minute.
Add the ground up cherries and the remaining pitted cherries into the pan
Add salt (about 3 tsp) and all it all to simmer and simmer and simmer in a low flame
in intervals of 5-7 minutes, keep adding a tbsp of oil until you've exhausted the oil
You will have a finely simmered thokku in about 45 minutes.

Allow it to cool down. Transfer into a mason jar. Refrigerate and use as needed.

Kara Boondhi

This is a simple and immensely addictive snack made in many parts of India, but perhaps called by different names. In Tamil kara means spicy and boondhi means drops.  The kids had gone out for a swim. My hubby had just finished off a rather distasteful packet of something from the indian store, the kind that is excessively spicy and doughy and not much else - I decided to launch on the boondhi trail - after all, how hard can it be- In my mind, it seemed a cinch, since I had bought the boondhi ladle the last time I was in India.
I took my inspiration from the video from Vahrevah - he explained it quite nicely and it was easy to figure out what I should look for - And the bottom line is consistency - that's really all it boils down to when you consider how, oily or soft, or elongated they could get -if the consistency is incorrect - so what you are looking for is a thick flowing consistency that drops slowly from the ladle - You take a ladle to the ladle and assist the drops
The second point to not is don't over crowd the pan - there should be exactly one layer of boondhis per time else you get yourself and the boondhis into a sticky, clumpy mess.

Here is my recipe with a few changes that helped me make the best boondhi

2 cups of besan (or what you amount you choose)
1 tsp of baking soda
1.5  cups of water (divided)
2tsp of salt

kara podi (to mix in after the boondhi) I used homemade molagapodi, some roasted cashews and curry leaves.

Preparation of batter

Sift the besan to get rid of knots
add the salt and the baking soda
mix them in nicely with a whist
Add 1/2 cup of water first and and make a thick paste
Then slowly add the rest of the water in small installments, checking for thick flowing consistency

Note: Too much water will not make round drops and will absorb too much water. Too thick a batter will not allow the batter to drop into the oil -

Trial and error is OK! It took me at least two tries to know when to stop the dripping to avoid clumping. I had to add more batter because I had gotten it a little too thin for starters. I guarantee you that by the 3rd or 4th round, you'll have nailed it :)

Heat oil on a medium flame
Get the boondhi ladle positioned above the centre of the frying pan.
Now I will let my pictures speak for themselves.

The boondhi ladle

My watery atta

bad bad bad!!

Not so great -too much water and too much batter in one go!

Really good right :)

That's my wrist flying around with a ladle stirring the ladle :)

Check out these beauties :)

I had added to much batter

My best batches :)

You can see how I kept improving until it really did get perfect - I think adding the baking soda gave it the air to puff up nice and round.

Lavender Blueberries Muffins

This was a second treat I made in anticipation of my Zumba miss - Another no show,  I guess she had her reasons and her commitment to me did not figure at all in her list of priorities but the disappointment nor the slight irritation at being stood for the 4th time cannot be trivialized. However, my wonderful family was as always quite welcoming of this treat.
But they filled up the room with the most pleasing aromas and I was happy for a chance to use my lavender buds.
 I got the general idea for the recipe from a website called Wiki - I like the fact they'd used small amounts of oil as opposed to butter, because this gave me the option of using olive oil.


Here is the recipe


Ingredients as given in the Wiki but with some key modifications

• ¾ cup Sugar
• 3 cups unbleached Whole wheat flour
• 2 tbsp.baking powder
• ½ tsp.salt
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 1 ¼ cups milk
• 1 tbsp. Freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1 tbsp. Finely grated lemon zest
• 2 tsp. dried cooking lavender buds (1 tbsp. Fresh)
• 3 large eggs beaten
• 2 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

For Lavender Sugar

1tsp of lavender buds

3 tbsp of sugar

grind in a coffee grinder together and set aside for sprinkling on top of the muffin, if desired.

Preparation

Preheat oven to 375 F degrees. Combine first four dry ingredients in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, combine the lemon juice with milk and let stand for 5 mins. Add the rest of the wet ingredients including the lemon zest, lavender and blueberries to the milk and lemon juice mixture. Gradually stir wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until all dry ingredients are moistened. Bake 25–30 minutes. Cool completely before removing from pan.


Serve warn with tea!

Cashew-Pistachio Coated Sweet Potato-Paneer Sandwiches

Ahhhh! I know the name is a mouthful!! sorry about that :(
This recipe came about by sheer chance - We've made a habit now of having steamed sweet potato dinners - they are the best kind of carbs to eat and are touted to be the healthiest veggie. We LOVE it, luckily and I have been trying to get my little one to like it too - but she is too smart for just steamed, so my sweet hubby, who I have mentioned on several occasions is a fabulous cook too. He decided to cut the sweet potatoes into 1/2 inch rounds and roast them with the smallest amount of olive oil - He added a dash of curry powder and some salt and it tasted outtsight - I had made some paneer for her and after she'd eaten most of it, she said enough - I popped the sweet potato and the paneer in my mouth - Oh boy was the combo deadly! I decided I had to make that for the rest of us - and that's exactly what I did - In my zeal, I made more than I should've - so the next day, I improvised some more - added some spinach, lima beans all leftovers from the previous day- added a dash of sambar powder and that made for another excellent self-contained meal - I will blog it next - So please try it and let me know how you like this combo -

Prep time 30 making time 30
This includes steaming the sweet potatoes and coating them in the cashew pistachio,masala.

4-6 steamed sweet potatoes
a fistful of cashews and pistachios
2tbsp curry ma powder
salt and pepper
3 roasted red chilies

Preparation
Grind all these into a coarse-fine powder
Cut the sweet potatoes into 1/2 inch circles
Put them in the powder mic and press and roll the sides and flip over and press down again to fully coat them
In a shallow pan, spray some olive oil spray and roast until both sides are a happy golden crisp - Some of mine got a bit darker, but they were remarkably tasty even so.
In the same pan, roast the paneer - you have cut these into 1/2 inch cubes as well - once they are a nice brown, remove from pan - I added some salt and curry powder -

Serve hot.