Kat of All Trades

After not making time to post for two weeks – it’s my busy season at work! – I’ve got so many photographs, recipes, and stories to share. Since pie seems to be everyone’s favorite topic, I figured I’d start with a post about that!

For those of you who don’t know, I’ve been involved with Gotham Girls Roller Derby since 2007, first as a skater for the Bronx Gridlock, and now as their manager. When you’ve been working together for a while – practice  three or four nights a week, plus other events – you start to develop team traditions, superstitions, and inside jokes. The more you bond off the track, the better your connection will be when you’re skating together as a team. You trust each other.

Throughout those three and a half seasons, one of the traditions we’ve developed is sharing a victory pie for each bout that we win. That’s 13 pies so far: we play four bouts per season including the championship, and have only lost one in that time frame. One of my other teammates usually bakes; however, after our last bout, she was hosting our team barbecue, so we decided that I would take a turn. I have, after all, made a few pies in my time.

I still had plenty of rhubarb left from rhubarb fest, and at that point, strawberries were still plentiful at the greenmarket, so I’d picked up quite a few. The perfect early summer victory pie? Strawberry-rhubarb. One of my teammates doesn’t eat sugar, so I looked up some information about baking with agave nectar and went for it. If nothing else, I knew it smelled amazing when it came out of the oven, and it looked stunning in the yellow pie dish my teammates gave me as a manager’s gift at the end of last season.

I’d be exaggerating if I said that people dove at me when I arrived at the barbecue; however, I mean it when I say that the 12-inch, deep-dish pie plate was empty in under ten minutes! I’m pretty sure there isn’t a better way to spend a summer evening than celebrating victory, conversing, and sharing pie with friends.

Part of why I’m telling you this particular story is that I believe that pie is an amazing food that carries on a long tradition of friendship, community, and sharing food. My friend Lauren is in the last days of her Pie in the Park Kickstarter project, and she needs your help to make it a success. She’s planning to publish a Pie in the Park cookbook, which will include stories of baking, recipes, and pie tips. Proceeds from book sales will go to Clinton Hill CSA to help fund their low-income shares. The money raised from her Kickstarter project will help cover printing costs, as well as paying the book’s designer and illustrator a fair rate.

If you love pie as much as I do – and I’m pretty sure you do – consider donating!

Either way, you can still enjoy this recipe.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie, sans Sugar
Makes one 12-inch pie.

1 unbaked double crust
5 c rhubarb (1 lb)
4 c hulled and halved strawberries
1/3 c cornstarch
3/4 c raw agave nectar
1/4 c spring wildflower honey
1/2 tsp cinnamon
3/8 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit, and coat the bottom and sides of  12-inch pie plate with butter.

Roll out half of the dough for the bottom crust. Put in pie dish and crimp the edges of the crust.

Combine the rest of the ingredients in a large bowl, making sure that the fruit is thoroughly coated with the cornstarch, sweeteners, and seasonings.

Roll out the other half of the dough for the top crust. If you prefer to do a lattice crust, cut the dough into long strips.

Pour the fruit mixture into the bottom crust. Top with the rolled out dough or the lattice.

Bake for 15 minutes, then add a foil ring around the edge of the pie plate to prevent the crust from burning. Bake for 25 more minutes, and allow to cool before slicing and serving.

(If you’re looking for bake-off details, scroll to the bottom! I think you should read about pie first, though.)

I’ve been experimenting with some pie recipes recently, taking seasonal favorites rhubarb and strawberry and playing around with flavors to see what I like best. They’re not quite ready for recipe sharing, but they are pretty enough for a peek!

I brought this pie to the Eagle Street Rooftop Farm pie potluck a few weeks ago (where I had the pleasure of seeing Brooklyn Homesteader and meeting Pie in the Park!). I’d been pondering what type of pie to bring, and then I remembered that I’d purchased 25 pounds of rhubarb the day before. I recalled baking a rhubarb custard pie last year, so I went back through my pie notes and decided to change up that recipe a bit.

In addition to the eggs for the light custard, I added some vanilla, cardamom, and orange zest. I think it needs a bit more work to balance things, but overall, people seemed to enjoy it, and I was pretty happy with the flavors. I think I’d like to try it without the custard, or with more time for the custard to chill; the day of the potluck, the pie came out of the oven and went directly to Greenpoint.

This beauty is a strawberry pie that I baked when I went to visit my cousins in Pennsylvania. Black pepper and balsamic vinegar both amp up the flavor of strawberries, so I tried them in tandem. It was good, but a little too much, or perhaps not quite the right amounts of each. More experimenting will be necessary!

In other pie-related news, I’ll be competing in a pie bake-off this Saturday, June 12! The bake-off, which Jimmy’s No. 43 is hosting, is a fundraiser for the awesome bk farmyards, a Brooklyn-based decentralized farming network. Tickets are $20 at the door, and doors open at 1:00 p.m. There will be so many amazing people bringing pies, and I’m super excited to be part of the competition. I’ll be bringing my balsamic pie – this time with strawberries – and I promise you won’t want to miss it. You can get all of the details here. Come early and bring friends! (And after the bake-off, come to Hunter College, where I’ll be managing the Bronx Gridlock to victory over the Manhattan Mayhem! Tickets are available here; that will sell out before Saturday.)

That’s a previous iteration of the balsamic pie. It’s as delicious as it looks.

There’s been lots of baking happening this week, more than any other homemaking activity. Some of it has been for business; some has used up leftover produce and dairy; and all of it has been for pleasure.

Baking is really fun for me because it’s generally relatively quick for me to throw something together, and then we have tasty treats to last for a few days. I’m really looking forward to having all kinds of fresh farmer’s market fruit in the summer, but for now there are apples and dried fruit and chocolate chips, so I’m getting by.

Apple and rhubarb is one of my favorite combinations, and I think it’s a great transition from a fall and winter full of apples into spring flavors. I have a variety of pie and pastry cookbooks that I often use as inspiration; this recipe was for straight-up rhubarb pie, and I adjusted and tweaked and came up with what you see above. There’s apple and rhubarb and lemon and honey and…YUM. I think I’d like to try making and canning some apple-rhubarb jam or jelly. Y/Y?

The pie bites were free at MoCCA Festival this past weekend if you bought a pie comic from my lovely friend Tea. She is a purveyor of adorable things and draws awesome comics. The full-size pie went with me to my knitting group. I had a few apples that were at the end of their days, and rhubarb that had been hanging out in my freezer for a while. It was time to use them for a delicious cause.

One thing to note about recent pies: I’m officially obsessed with my pastry blender. I thought I made an awesome pie crust before, and I’m certain it’s gotten better since the holidays. The one change I’ve made is using a pastry blender, which was a Christmas gift from my cousins. I’m in love.

Then there are smitten kitchen’s dreamy cream scones, which are one of my current obsessions. I make them with dried cranberries or chocolate chips, though I’m going to try make them with tea leaves soon. One of my coworkers made Earl Grey shortbread cookies recently, and since then I can’t stop thinking about tea scones.

Last but not least, a quick and tasty treat that I threw together for a coworker’s goodbye potluck. I wanted to whip up a gluten-free and sugar-free batch so that I could bring some to my book club as well. I actually whisked the eggs whites and salt into a meringue by hand rather than using a mixer, and oh man, did that make me feel badass! I want to develop my whisking muscles!

One thing worth noting is that these definitely tasted better after being in the fridge overnight. I’d recommend making them at least a few hours before you’d like to serve them so that they have time to chill.

Coconut Macaroons (recipe adapted from Elana’s Pantry)

6 egg whites
1/4 tsp finely ground sea salt
1/2 c agave nectar
1/2 tbsp vanilla extract
1/2 tbsp almond extract
2-1/4 c shredded coconut
1 c coconut flakes

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. (Trust me, you’ll want to use the parchment, or these guys will stick!)

Whisk egg whites and salt until stiff. Fold in remaining ingredients until well combined.

Using a tablespoon, drop balls of dough about an inch onto the parchment-line cookie sheet. Pinch each macaroon at the top.

Bake until lightly brown, about 12-17 minutes.

Makes 20-24 depending on size.