Tuesdays With Dorie: Double-Crusted Blueberry Pie

Alright, this post is seriously photo-heavy--sorry. But I couldn't help it; I'm excited. It's my first week as a Tuesdays With Dorie baker and I couldn't be happier about my decision to join the group, or this week's recipe: Double-Crusted Blueberry Pie. Kudos to Amy of South in Your Mouth, who chose the recipe.


To be honest, most of my photos were taken of the one lonely single-crusted blueberry pie I made with leftover crust -- I just couldn't get over how gorgeous the filling looked spilling out of the ramekin. But despite my usual aversion to pie crust (it's weird, I know), I went for the full double-crust, and I'm so glad I did.

Dorie Greenspan made me a crust convert. Not just me, but the boyfriend, too. We're both die-hard crust haters and yet this one had us drooling. Go figure. Boyfriend (side note: one of these days I'll come up with a more clever nickname or go for the classier first initial) swears it's the sugar, but I have my doubts. I'm pretty sure Dorie Greenspan is just a magician.

And I felt like a magician too when I turned this:


Into this:


Using only these two handy dandy tools:


I didn't know if I could make the crust successfully without a food processor, but it wasn't even that hard with a basic pastry cutter, and I felt way more accomplished than if I had just pressed a few buttons. With that said, I still wouldn't have minded to have been able to use a food processor. Convenience is a beautiful thing.

More food porn below!






Visit Tuesdays With Dorie to find the full list of food bloggers participating in this week's event. Have fun!

Nigella Lawson's Ham in Coca-Cola

I have a confession: one of my favourite past times is downright trashy. I don't hunt 'coons or go cow tipping, so I suppose it could be worse. But I do have this nasty obsession with celebrity gossip, to the point that I read Lainey Gossip and Perez Hilton multiple times a day. It's definitely trashy, but it's fun.

Sort of like Nigella Lawson's Ham in Coca Cola. Lawson herself even dubbed the ham trashy in Nigella Bites.


The technique is simple and very unexpected, but the result is delicious. Braise ham in a ton of Coke, then apply a sticky-sweet brown sugar, mustard and molasses glaze, and broil the beast til it's browned and bubbly.



I've been meaning to try this recipe since I snagged a copy of Nigella Bites from a thrift store for only $3 about 5 years ago. Even though it took me 5 years to finally make it, it was definitely worth the wait. Although I overcooked the meat (I was working with a smaller ham than the recipe called for and my estimation skills were lacking that day, apparently), the sweetness and spiciness of the molasses and cloves really complemented the Coke. Big time.

I've never cooked with cola before, but I definitely will again.

Click here for the recipe.

Trish Magwood's Chocolate Upside Down Cake

This cake is every bit as good as it sounds. I made it when I was at the "in-laws" last weekend. They were kind enough to let me warm up the house a bit in order to bake this, but it was cold and rainy outside, so I didn't feel that guilty. I managed to sneak a piece before it disappeared -- two teenage sons, not including the boyfriend, and a wild pack of their equally hungry friends tend to make baked goods disappear pretty quickly.

Especially when it's chocolate upside down cake. Trish Magwood is a culinary genius. It seems so obvious and simple, and yet I hadn't even considered that a chocolate upside down cake was even possible. Magwood's cookbook, Dish Entertains, which I got the recipe from, is fantastic, and it's got the James Beard award to prove it.


I can't find the recipe online, which for me means that I probably shouldn't publish it. But this recipe from About.com is very close to Magwood's recipe. The only real differences are that no actual chocolate is used in Trish's recipe (it's all cocoa powder), and the ingredients for the chocolate sauce are boiled together to form a syrup before being poured over the batter. Well, have at it!

A very compact Winning Wednesday: July 2, 2008

Maybe I'm just suffering from post-long weekend fatigue, but I just couldn't find many contests for this week. Sorry!

Although it's July and no longer her birthday month, Sarah from The Delicious Life still has a few cookbook giveaways currently open. Check 'em out.

If you're interested in a challenge, Canadians (at least, I think it's only for Canadians) can participate in Food Network Canada's monthly cooking club challenge. Every month, Catherine of the Food Network blog, Food for Thought, awards a handful of participants cookbooks. This month's recipe is Anna Olson's Field Berry parcels. I wish I was participating--the recipes are always so yummy--but I'm all berried out. I made that blueberry clafoutis last weekend, and for my first ever round of Tuesdays With Dorie, I'm making blueberry pie. I don't want to put myself off of berries (if that's possible!), so I'm sitting this one out.

Seasonal Ontario Food's Fruit Clafoutis

Ed. Note: I sort of goofed this post up. I originally wrote it Thursday but wanted to post my Mmm...Canada entry first. But I forgot to change some of the words in the post to reflect the change! I've changed the wording now, but wanted to be ethical and let you know.

Happy Canada Day!


I picked up a pint of blueberries from the grocery store last week, and since then they've just been sitting in the fridge, completely useless. I needed them when I saw them -- had to have them -- but didn't know what to do with them. So Thursday night, with the long weekend fast approaching, and knowing the fruit was likely to spoil over the weekend, I found the perfect recipe: Ferdzy of Season Ontario Food's Fruit Clafoutis.




What I loved about this recipe was its flexibility; you can use a variety of fruits. In my case, I had one lonely pear sitting in the fridge, so I made a blueberry-pear clafoutis. I also didn't have the lemon zest the recipe calls for, so I added a bit of vanilla extract instead to make up for the loss of flavour. The result was wonderful -- sort of like a baked apple pancake (one of my mom's best dishes; you can find a similar recipe here). I've never made clafoutis before and based on the name thought it would be complicated, but I was wrong.

You can check out Ferdzy's lovely recipe here.