Cute Little Pies

My sweet DIL Angie, who shares a love of cooking, has presented me with some nifty gifts for the kitchen in the last few months. 

                                                                                             Angie and my son Perry
 
One of the books she gave me for Christmas was Cutie Pies by Dani Cone. What a little gem of a cookbook! Fun for everyone in the family and the pies can be folded (called flipsides), made in little jars (called piejars) or made into pops on a stick (called piepops). Full and mini size pies as well. Dani Cone sells these adorable little pies at stores in Seattle called High 5 Pie and Fuel Coffee. They can be sweet or savory. 

For this post, I made some flipsides. Folded like empanadas, I had some berries in the fridge so made two different recipes; one with raspberries and blackberries and the other with mango and raspberries. The crust was flaky and delicious and although I filled them way too full, they still turned out nicely. Practice makes perfect with these little hand pies.  

Then, after a spring break visit, Angie thanked me by sending a Breville Mini Pie Maker! Can you imagine? 

More fun for me. I made mini rhubarb pies and then some Almond Frangipani pies. Not being certain how an open pie would work, I was amazed how beautifully they turned out. Next came a savory bacon and potato quiche mini pie. Delicious and so fast!  If you've got kids or grandkids around, this pie maker is going to become a favorite of theirs, but you'll love it too. You can be as inventive as you want.

What's really convenient is Breville suggests you use packaged pie crust on the bottom and if you are making a two crust pie, puff pastry for the top crust. What could be easier? And how to tell if they're done? The recipes all come with times of course, but you can open the pie maker and peek all you want, just to make certain the pies are done to your taste. The pies are usually done between 8 to 11 minutes.

Of course, I had to have the mini pie book from Williams Sonoma! Two of these recipes came from that book, but now that I have the hang of it, the sky's the limit.

If you'd like the recipes, please click HERE for printable recipes. The rhubarb isn't there, because I just cooked some rhubarb with sugar and boiled it down until it was a jam-like consistancy. There are lots of recipes for mini pies made with fresh fruits, but I wanted to use up the last of my jam. Thanks, Angie! My daughter-in-law knows exactly what my interests are.....cookbooks! (She checks my Amazon Wish List!)

Update! For Mother's Day, Angie and Perry sent me THIS:

I haven't even read it yet!

Gourmet's 50 Women Game Changers in Food: # 48, Cat Cora

Catherine "Cat" Cora was born in 1968 in Jackson, Mississippi.  Her father Spiro was Greek and Cat grew up around the restaurant industry with both a father and grandfather in the business. Her Greek national heritage, and southern Mississippi roots have resulted in a creative and unique blend of influences. Cooking and eating were the center of her young life; meals at the Cora house often combined spices from the South with fresh cheeses and home-cured olives sent by relatives from the island of Skopelos. 

Although her serious interest in cooking began as a teenager (at the age of 15, Cat had developed a business plan for her own restaurant), after high school, she pursued a traditional college degree in Exercise Physiology at the University of Southern Mississippi. Julia child was an early mentor and encouraged her to leave Mississippi for New York, where she followed her dream and attended the  Culinary Institute of America in New York’s Hyde Park.

Then came some real-time training which included a series of chef jobs in New York under the guidance of notable chefs like Anne Rozensweig and Larry Forgione.  She also made a career stopover in France where she was worked with Roger Verge, chef/owner Le Moulin de Mougins, and Georges Blanc, chef/owner of Georges Blanc restaurant. 

After returning to New York again, Cat became sous chef at The Old Chatham Shepherding Company under Chef Melissa Kelly. Next she headed West to Northern California, where she served as Chef de Cuisine at Napa Valley's Bistro Don Giovanni.

Cat made her TV debut in 1999, as co-host of Food Network’s Melting Pot with Rocco Di Spirito. She went on to host My Country My Kitchen: Greece, Date Plate, and was one of the featured hosts on Fine Living’s Simplify Your Life. A documentary, Cat’s In The Kitchen, was also made about her first James Beard dinner in April, 2002.

Preceding Iron Chef America, Cat co-hosted Kitchen Accomplished on Food Network. She also appeared in NBC’s Primetime Miniseries, Celebrity Cooking Showdown, where celebrities were paired with famous chefs and competed in a timed cook-off à la Iron Chef America.

In 2005, Cora was tapped as the first female Iron Chef on the Food Network’s popular Iron Chef America Show.  Chef Cat Cora's appearances as an Iron Chef has made her a household name.  She has three cookbooks to her credit titled, Classics With a Twist, Cooking From the Hip, and Cat Cora’s Kitchen (which was her first and was inspired by her Greek and Southern heritage and contains many of her family’s favorite recipes). She also boasts a line of branded products that includes cookware, knives, wooden utensils, and cutting boards.  

Cora expanded on her passion for food by forming Chefs for Humanity.  The charitable organization founded by Cora is a grassroots coalition of chefs and culinary professionals guided by a mission to quickly be able to raise funds and provide resources for important emergency and humanitarian aid, nutritional education, and hunger-related initiatives throughout the world.

Openly gay, Cora has four sons – Zoran, Caje, Thatcher, and Nash – with her partner, Jennifer Cora. (Jennifer bore the first three; Cat gave birth to Nash three months after Thatcher was born.) She currently resides in the Santa Barbara, California area with her family.

                                                                                 ***************************************

I've always wanted to make an olive oil cake and with her Greek background, I thought this would be a great choice for a Cat Cora recipe. I wasn't thrilled with the result, not that it didn't turn out exactly the way it was supposed to, but I guess olive oil cakes are not going to be on my favorite dessert list. I cut way back on the olive oil after reading comments on the recipe; no need for more.

Ladi Tourta (Olive Oil Cake)
Recipe courtesy Cat Cora

Ingredients:
3 large eggs, beaten 
2 cups granulated sugar 
12 ounces extra-virgin olive oil  (I used 8-9 ounces)
10 ounces milk 
2 ounces orange liqueur 
2 ounces fresh orange juice 
3 teaspoons lemon zest 
2 cups all-purpose flour 
1/2 teaspoon baking soda 
1/2 teaspoon baking powder 
1 teaspoon kosher salt 
4 ounces blanched almonds, finely chopped 
Powdered sugar, for garnish


Method:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 10-inch cake pan. 


In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, olive oil, milk, liqueur, orange juice, and lemon zest. Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Mix the dry mixture into the wet mixture. Whisk until well blended. 
Fold in the almonds. 
Pour the mixture into the buttered cake pan. Bake for 1 hour. Place on a rack to cool. Run a knife around the edges and place it on a plate. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve.

Join Mary from One Perfect Bite and all the other participants in this fun series.

Val - More Than Burnt Toast
Joanne - Eats Well With Others
Taryn - Have Kitchen Will Feed
Susan - The Spice Garden
Claudia - A Seasonal Cook in Turkey
Heather - girlichef
Miranda - Mangoes and Chutney
Jeanette - Healthy Living
April - Abby Sweets 
Katie - Making Michael Pollan Proud
Mary - One Perfect Bite
Viola - The Life is Good Kitchen
Sue - The View from Great Island
Kathleen Van Bruinisse - Bake Away with Me 
Kathleen - Gonna Want Seconds
Martha - Lines from Linderhof
Amy - Beloved Green
Linda - Ciao Chow Linda

Nancy - Picadillo
Mireya - My Healthy Eating Habits
Veronica - My Catholic Kitchen
Annie - Lovely Things

Claudia - Journey of An Italian Cook
Alyce - More Time at the Table
Amrita - Beetles Kitchen Escapades
Martha - Simple Nourished Living
Jill - Saucy Cooks
Sarah - Everything in the Kitchen Sink

Bittersweet Chocolate Sorbet with Coconut Rum Sauce

One: you know I'm not a chocoholic, so
Two: if I post a chocolate recipe, it's going to be really, really special and
Three: prepare to enter chocolate heaven.....yes, it really IS as dark as it looks.

Nick Malgieri's book Chocolate is definitely a chocolate-lovers dream. I wouldn't normally make something as densely chocolate as this, but the sauce, oh my. THE SAUCE. You're going to make this sauce over and over and not just for this ice cream either. I even wish I'd made it to top my mother's Prune Whip in my last post. Or how about a rum coconut floating island?

But on top of this deep, dark, decadent sorbet, it's perfection.

Bittersweet Chocolate Sorbet with Coconut Rum Sauce
From Chocolate by Nick Malgieri

Yields 6 servings or 1 1/2 pints

Ingredients:
For the sorbet:
1/2 cup granulated sugar 
2 cups water 
1/2 cup light corn syrup 
3 ounces unsweetened or bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped (I used Scharffen Berger Bittersweet 70% Cacao Chocolate) 
2/3 cup cocoa powder

Method:
For the sorbet:
In a large saucepan, bring the sugar, water, and light corn syrup to a boil. Take the saucepan off the heat and add the chocolate. Let stand for 2 minutes before whisking smooth.
Sift the cocoa powder through a fine strainer into a small bowl. Whisk the syrup mixture into the cocoa in three steps. This will prevent the cocoa from getting lumpy. Cool mixture in the fridge for at least two hours.
Freeze the mixture in an ice cream freezer, following the directions according to your own machine.

Place the sorbet in an airtight container and freeze for at least two hours before serving.

Coconut Rum Sauce

Ingredients:
4 egg yolks, lightly beaten 
1 cup canned coconut cream (such as Coco Lopez) 
1 cup milk 
1 teaspoon vanilla extract 
2 tablespoons white rum

Method:
Place the egg yolks in a bowl.
Bring the coconut cream and milk to a boil in a saucepan. Beat a third of the coconut liquid into the yolks. Return to the saucepan and cook over low, whisking until the mixture thickens slightly. Do not allow to boil.
Strain the sauce into a bowl and cool it. Stir in the vanilla and white rum. A spoonful (or more) of the sauce can be poured over each serving of sorbet.