Strawberry Pie

Today our church had it's first "Summer Round Up". There was a chili cook-off and a pie contest. I was excited to have an excuse to make a pie, so I decided to make one.

I have a recipe from a friend (Janna) for a Blueberry Cream Pie. It's absolutely fantastic. Last year we used the recipe to make a blueberry pie and also tried it as a peach pie.

Now that strawberries are perfect in Michigan, I decided to try out the recipe with strawberries.

Last night I baked a pie crust. It was the prettiest one I've every made (which doesn't take much)! Wasn't perfect, but was waaay better than pie crusts I've done before.

Well, the church thing was tonight, so during my lunch break I went to the Farmer's Market, got some Visser Farms freshly picked strawberries, booked it home, ate a quick lunch and then prepared my pie filling. It didn't really have time to cool completely, but I finished it, filled the pie and booked it back to work.

Once I got done with work and booked it back home. I didn't have time to put the topping on the pie, so I gathered up what I needed and headed to church.

Once at church I topped the pie and added some little mint leaves for decoration to make it pretty. The mint leaves freaked a few people out since they made it into their slices of pie... Oh well.

Anyway, long story short, the pies were being judged. I didn't really expect much because our church BREEDS pie makers. I swear. They are all amazing in the kitchen, especially in the pie arena of food-dom.

Well... Apparently the judges were craving some fresh fruit, because they (and a lot of other people) loved my pie!

It was great hearing all of their compliments. Chris is excellent in the kitchen, but I tend to be a little bit more...still learning. I think I fit well into the baking, whereas Chris fits well into the cooking. A nice complement of each other. Anyway, I'm used to Chris getting compliments for what he makes, so it was really exciting for me to have made something that everyone seemed to love so much.

So thanks, North Holland church members!

I didn't have my camera with me, so these are from my cell phone:

Pies

I got a recipe from a co-worker the other day for some pies, so we made them for our Labor Day get-together at Kim and Chad's last night.

Basically they were like cream pies... One we filled with blueberries and one with peaches. I made the crusts from scratch (good ol' Joy of Cooking is such a help). I'm still learning on pie crusts though... I can never seem to get them to roll out nice without cracking or sticking. Then we made the filling and Chris topped them with freshly whipped cream and decorated them.

If I can bake it, he can make the presentation awesome for it.

Crusty Bread

This is our second loaf. The first one turned out just a little better... I wasn't there for the prepping stages of this one and a few steps were forgotten...

Mainly the baking stone was not in the oven as it was warming up. We used a fairly old stone (at least 10 years)... Needless to say, when you put a very moist dough in the oven with a room temp pizza stone and a tray of water for steam... Well, it's not a good mix. Unfortunately, I did not get a picture of the shattered stone. Yes, it shattered. We heard a mild "thunk" so I opened the oven and lo and behold, it was broken.

The bread tasted good anyways. Check it out.


Check out the steam coming off that baby!

Good Bread

Currently Reading: Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day

Made bread today. It was fantastic. Best part? Only took me about 5 minutes of actually working time. Yes, there was 40 minutes of "rest" and 30 minutes of baking. But the actual effort was only 5 minutes. And I guess maybe the 15 minutes it took me to mix up the batch on Sunday afternoon.

Anyways, the bread was fantastic. I'll have to make it for you sometime.

Bleu Cheese Fondue

This was pretty popular at this year's Pumpkin Stew. It's a great fondue - very easy to make and delicious with a crusty bread or fresh broccoli.

Ingredients:
• 4 oz. crumbled bleu cheese
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 8 oz. cream cheese, cubed (I use neufchatel cheese - 1/3 less fat)
• 8 oz. monterey jack cheese, cubed
• 1 Tbsp. kirsch (I use blackberry brandy)

Heat the wine and cream cheese, stirring until the cheese melts.
Add the monterey jack cheese a little at a time, stirring constantly.
Blend in the bleu cheese.
When it's smooth, add the kirsch.

Serve with French bread, fruit or veggies.