Miss Peachberry Pie!

Fruit Pie (Peach & Blueberry) – Pies & Pastries, Pg. 196 – Lois J. Himmelman (Mrs. Thomas)

Here she is Boyzzzzzzzzz….Here she is Girlzzzzzz…..It’s PeachBerry Pieeeee!!!

Well, what better way to showcase two fabulous in-season Nova Scotia fruits, than with a DO fruit pie, mash-up style - peaches and blueberries in one sensational dessert.

The mash-up doesn’t end with the ingredients: Oh, no! It gets better…we used our favorite Julia Child’s no-fail easy as pie crust (find recipe here), and collaborated with Mr. Tyler Florence, Mizzzzz Martha Stewart, and tried to incorporate as much of the ambiguous “fruit pie” recipe from the DO as possible. Okay – the least you could have done is told us HOW MUCH FRUIT TO PUT IN IT!!!! We always feel guilty not doing the DO recipe straight up, verbatim, to help understand the essence of the historic Nova Scotia recipes, and then if we feel adventurous and time permitting, go a second round with a more current comparison and see what provides the grooviest outcome (in our humble opinion of course). But in this case, the recipe was very vague and we felt it not a blasphemy to the coveted book to go free-style on the inaugural testing.

Being a couple of fussy Gen X self proclaimed foodies, and trying very hard to jump on the natural, local, organic, sustainable bandwagon, the whole concept of translucent fish-egg cavier-like pearlescent balls, known to the rest of the world as tapioca, to use as a thickener…is well….icky. And, more scientifically, the tapioca seemed more appropriate for a straight up blueberry pie – by us inviting peaches to the party, we felt it justified to side with the professionals and go with corn starch as a thickener.

Tyler Florence’s recipe called for 2 lbs skinned and sliced peaches, and a pint of blueberries. Martha’s fruit pies called for 8 cups peaches or 5 cups blueberries…so for our mash up, we would like to introduce to the world, the one, the only, the Toast of Mayfair, second cousin, twice removed of Strawberry Shortcake, Miss PeachBerry Pie!

Peach & Blueberry Pie:

12 medium sized peaches and 2-ish cups Blueberries (enter tip….parboiled for 1 min or so and ice bath for easy pealin’)
½ lemon’s juice
½ cup sugar (tyler called for ¼ cup…our peaches were slightly under ripe so we added more)...
1 ½ tbsp corn starch
Tyler adds bit of butter – we forgot, so dollopped minis inside the lattice holes





Lattice work compliments of Mz. Martha, see instructions here.

Brush pastry with egg wash, place pie on cookie sheet, and back at 400 degrees for 50-60 minutes.

Punch it up a Notch!

Rhubarb Punch – Beverages & Canapés, Pg. 33 – May Eisenhauer (Mrs. D. M.)


Who knew that rhubarb could be such a versatile vegetable? We can now add drinks to our ever-growing list of recipe uses for rhubarb.

Punch, a beverage originated in India (pronounced “panch”) – tomata/tomato – potata/potato, came to us in the early seventeenth century from England. Punch is normally made with a fruit juice – not sure who takes credit with coming up with the idea to use rhubarb (a vegetable) – but we’ll pretend it was a Nova Scotian (a rhubarb lovin’ German settler perhaps). The German’s were apparently really into their punch as well. Pronounced “punsch”, the German version often added wine or liquor to the recipe – definitely seeing the Nova Scotia connection here…

Summer has made a late entrance this year in our end of the world – but with the sun shinin' and the temperature risin', it’s the perfect time to prepare this cool and refreshing, sweet and tart summer drink. If you’re lucky, you can still pick up some fresh rhubarb from your local farmers’ market (we spotted some last week at the Halifax Seaport Market), otherwise frozen will work just fine.

Ingredients:

1 quart chopped rhubarb (4 cups)
1 quart water
1/3 cup orange juice
4 Tbsp lemon juice
1 ½ cups sugar syrup (equal parts sugar and water – dissolve sugar in boiling water)
Few grains of salt
1 pint (2 cups) mineral water (or ginger ale)

Instructions:

Cut rhubarb into small pieces and cook in 1 quart of water until rhubarb is soft. Strain liquid through cheesecloth (if you’re fresh out of cheesecloth, a strainer will work just fine). Discard rhubarb. Add orange juice, lemon juice, sugar syrup and salt to rhubarb juice. When ready to serve – pour over ice in punch bowl and add mineral water of ginger ale. Allow to get very cold. Makes 8 regular glasses, or 24 punch glasses.

Dutch Oven Tips & Tricks:

This recipe was pretty straight forward to prepare, no big surprises. We reduced the recipe to half as we didn’t want a large amount and this worked just fine. This recipe is delicious as is, however if you want to really get the party started you could punch it up a notch, German style, by using sparkling wine instead of mineral water or ginger ale. Check out Wines of Nova Scotia for some great local options.

Cool-as-a-Cuke Salad

Cucumber Salad – Old Lunenburg Dishes, Pg. 20 – Catherine M. Creighton (Mrs. H. A.)

Cucumber salad - a common fresh summer salad, is prepared in many different ways. The Dutch Oven version of the cucumber is tied to Nova Scotia’s German heritage, derived from the German version of the salad know as gurkensalat. If anyone knows cucumbers it’s the Germans – right? They even hide pickles on their Christmas trees – seriously – “hide the pickle” or some sort of nonsensical business like that. Moving on…

As we prepared for this blog, we learnt that people are passionate about their cucumber salad. The popularity of cucumbers at our end of the world is really no surprise. This hearty vegetable is plentiful in gardens around Nova Scotia and has a long growing season from June through September. We like our cukes! Well most of us anyway…the truth is…wait for it…Peter hates cucumbers!!!

We’ll give you a moment to take that in…

Peter’s been carrying that burden for a while. The secret is out, Peter’s a cuke hater. Judge not, lest ye be judged and cast the first cucumber as they say…or some nonsense like that. Moving on…

One person who doesn’t hate cucumbers - a cuke lovah one might say – is Jan. She’ll eat’em raw, sliced, diced, chopped or pickled (Peter also likes pickles, although not a fan of pickled peppers for obvious reasons). In any case, differences have been put aside for the love of the Dutch Oven. Cuke haters and lovers unite to bring you the people’s beloved cucumber salad (gurkensalat).

Cucumber Salad

Ingredients:
3 medium cucumbers
1 tsp salt
1 small onion chopped finely (optional)

Dressing:
4 tbsp cider vinegar
½ cup white sugar
¼ tsp pepper
¾ cup sour cream

Instructions:

Peel 3 medium cucumbers and slice very thin. Cover with one tsp of salt and press with heavy weight for 2 hours. One small onion chopped finely may be added before pressing. Drain liquid from Cucumbers. Combine dressing and cucumbers. Add extra sugar or vinegar to taste.

Dutch Oven Tips & Tricks:






We used a mandolin to get a nice thin and even slice on our cucumbers. Our facebook page was aflutter with opinions regarding the addition of onions to the salad – despite popular opinion; we opted not to add the onion. We’re not fan of raw onion – sorry onion lovers. We had no idea how to press the cucumbers – so we MacGruber’d a press using two bowls, a pot and jar of oats – we’re in negotiations with Williams Sonoma to release the patent, so don’t get any ideas. We’ve since learned this can be done using a single object placed on top of the cucumbers – a facebook friend of the Dutch Oven suggested a pressing stone (whatever that is). Still think we’re onto something with our MacGruber press. Lastly, when it comes to draining the cukes, it’s kind of a personal preference. Some prefer to leave some of the liquid for added flavor, while other like to thoroughly drain them.




So get your gurke on ya’ll. This fresh summer side dish is super simple to prepare and guaranteed to leave you cool-as-a-cuke!