rural

baking pie crust
Brenna

You read the title, it’s time for Saskatoon Pie!

Yum, yum, yum! Spicy, fruity, sweet but tart, this pie is all of my favourite things. I could eat plain Saskatoons for days, but they are best in pie. I was pretty young when I first started baking, and I must say pies are still my favourite thing to bake. When I turned eleven my grandma sat me down and told me that she was planning to teach me a secret. She said that some grandma’s taught their grandkids how to cook, or how to sew, but she was going to share with me how to bake. Shortly thereafter I was gifted a muffin cookbook, an apron and some measuring cups, and the rest, as they say, is history.

One summer I decided it was high time I learned to make a pie.

I come from a family of pie connoisseurs, and as an avid baker, it seemed like a natural step. If I remember correctly Mom offered to help teach me,  which I adamantly refused. If I was going to bake a pie, I was going to do it entirely myself. (In retrospect this was a very good idea, I tend to be a bit stubborn when it comes to all things kitchen related, and it very well could have been a disaster if this first endeavor was a team effort). Mom handed me a box of Tenderflake and told me to use the instructions on the box for the pie crust, which I still use to this day. I have the recipe memorized, but I reference it every time, just to be safe.

I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but that first pie was an absolute success and I haven’t looked back! My roommate always says that you either have pie hands or you don’t, and I guess I got pretty lucky in that department! I decided to make use of them yesterday. After a few hours and flour all over my kitchen, it’s never a good pie unless the kitchen floor resembles a grist mill, I was ready to feast!

Saskatoon pie is just so freaking good!

I can always go for a good slice of pie with a cup of coffee. Pop loves it with vanilla ice cream on it, and one of my friends swears it’s better without. Or, if you’re my beau, you come home with some peanut butter ice cream as a topping (not the best combination I will admit, and Pop never fails to tease him about it!).  Peanut butter goes with everything, right?  Not so much. Speaking of different toppings, I’ve also heard it is excellent topped with a think slice of cheddar cheese!

But seriously, I think it’s fantastic every which way, and I hope you do too! Below is your chance to give it a go.  Let us know what you think, if you get a chance to try it!

 

Saskatoon Pie

Prep Time: 25 minutes for filling, 35 minutes for crust

Cook Time: 40 minutes

 

Ingredients:

  • Pie crust – if you are making the crust I just use the recipe on the Tenderflake box, but you can also use store bought crust, I wont judge too harshly 😉 You will need a top and bottom crust.
  • 4 cups frozen Saskatoons (Mom and Pop have the BEST trees for this)
  • 1/4 cup butter
  • 3/4  cup sugar
  • 1/8 cup cornstarch
  • 1/8 cup flour
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 3 tablespoons lemon juice

Instructions:

  1. Heat oven to 375°, and place bottom pie crust in pie plate.
  2. In a medium pot simmer Saskatoons over medium heat. Once they have warmed and some liquid has accumulated in the pot, add the butter and sugar. Stir and bring to a gentle boil
  3. Lower the heat and add the cornstarch, flour and cinnamon. Stir until well combined, and then add lemon juice.
  4. Bring the filling to a boil to thicken and remove from heat.
  5. Place inside the pie shell, and add upper crust. Saskatoon pie works wonderfully with a lattice top. You can do basically any top style you like, I find this one the best as it doesn’t bubble out as much.
  6. Bake for 375° for 5 minutes.
  7. Lower the oven temperature to 350°, and bake for the remaining 35 minutes.
  8. Allow to cool, if you can resist it ’til then! Top however you’d like and enjoy! FYI, Peanut Butter ice cream? Not recommended.

Read more

corn field in fall
Jim

It’s Autumn. Summer chores are slowing, and will soon reach an end. All the hay has been hauled and stacked. You can literally watch the farm change from one day to the next. Each morning is new and different and exciting. The colours dance from every tree and every shrub. You can’t look down a fence line and see the same thing you saw yesterday. The leaves are a brighter red, the rose hips look richer, the grass and wild grains have become more golden. It’s always new, almost by the glance there’s something there that was not the day before.

Yellows, oranges, reds, browns and left-over greens sprinkled in. And if all that colour wasn’t enough, take a deep gulp of that air. You’ll never breathe anything like it any other time of year. It’s cool and quiet and crisp and full of scents from every grass every leaf, every pond, and every field. You will feel full to the brim just breathing all this in. There is no other time of year when your senses become so heightened and aware of everything that surrounds you as they do now.

This is autumn, and I can’t imagine a soul who wouldn’t fall in love with her.

Even better, it’s the start of the visiting season. It’s that time of year when the gentler days allow you to take that oft-delayed visit. It’s tough to do in the summer, but not so now. There’s no need to worry about rain or drought or pasture fences or water supplies or, or, or. It’s the season that has the two best holidays. You get to celebrate with an oven roasted stuffed turkey on one holiday and have the bejesus scared out of you on the other. Honestly, you can’t beat Thanksgiving AND Halloween! I love when it’s not too cold out, there’s no place to be, and no chores for me to tackle.

All you need to do, is take your time and use it to have coffee with a neighbour, enjoy some time with your family and find someone to scare the daylights out of!

Start with the visiting. Twyla and I have a number of ‘must sees’ on our list and beginning this weekend we will get on the phone, make some calls and try to figure out whom we get to see first. I confess, Twyla is much more of a social butterfly than I am, so she’ll be making most of these arrangements.

 

Of course we won’t be off to anyone’s house this weekend for coffee.

We can’t. We already have plans to attend the Spooktacular at Fort Edmonton. It promises to be a lot of fun. We’ve done this before and so know a little of what to expect. I can’t wait for it all to begin! We promise to tell you all about it and include pictures of our costumes when we get back home.

Come to think of, you could say that this weekend we will be combining a little of our visiting time with a little of our spine-tingling entertainment since there is a group of six of us going together. Fort Edmonton is beautiful all year round, and is the absolute best in autumn. And best of all, we’ll be costumed up!

On a side note, I also have some scary stuff planned soon. After all it is Halloween.

Someone has to get good and spooked, don’t you think? Now I’m not going to name names but we have one particular neighbour that is deathly afraid of Ouija boards. Who knows why? It’s not logical. We have a decorative Ouija couch throw pillow. You can literally chase her with it. I’m guessing she thinks if it touches her skin she’ll have a curse placed upon her. Maybe, something that changes her into a black crow with one wing, and a broken beak and that continually flies into the same pain of glass for all eternity. That’s just a guess folks…I don’t actually know anything about curses.  😉

So anyway, this autumn I was able to find a very old wooden chipped and worn Ouija board at a pawnshop. It’s seen some crazy hard miles from it’s planchette, just judging from the missing letter paint.  Much of the surface and finish has been scraped completely off.  Well I bought that Ouija board and have it tucked safe and sound somewhere inside her house.  When it’s dark and cold and windy and spooky and when the time is just right she’s going to ‘stumble’ onto that old antique. I’m hoping I have the good fortune of having my phone ready to record it when it happens. Something tells me that video will be worth loading onto the blog!

Happy Halloween everyone!

Read more

Twyla

Each year, the second Monday of October, we celebrate Thanksgiving Day. A counterpart celebration to a Thursday in late November for our neighours South of the 49th parallel. A time for gratitude and family, and to switch to colder weather clothing. Our seasons are more pronounced here in the prairie provinces. Especially Summer and Winter. Some years it feels as though we glaze past Spring and Fall in far too big a hurry. Our days are already noticeably shorter! Beautiful autumnal foliage abounds, brought on by dropping temperatures and a few brief dalliances with snow. Warm toned leaves holding on for dear life as brisk winds sweep over our landscapes.

Yes, it’s sweater season. Add a toque. A scarf. Maybe even wool socks. Boots.

But we don’t mind, us hearty Canucks are happy for anything above -40°C! Our thankfulness and appreciation worn on our shirtsleeves this time of year, as we celebrated our Thanksgiving this last weekend.

This is a time for family, reflection, appreciation and great food.

When we gather for a family meal, it is a feast! Generations of stuffing and gravy making skills have culminated in our kin. We produce fantastic fares for the holidays. Tips and tricks passed on through the lineage, create pleasing experiences for the eye, palate and stomach. While we tend to stick to the tried and true, every once in a while a new recipe joins the fold.

I could go on and on about my pride in family and family gatherings. I love them so dearly. But today I’m stuck on one aspect of the get-together: dessert!

Talk about blessings, I was born into a long line of very gifted women in the kitchen.

Pies are the Thanksgiving dessert of choice in our clan. All sorts of fruit pies, made from scratch, with love. My earliest pie memories; Grandma Nellie made the best apple pies. For many years, Mom took on the endeavour. She claims that she never cared for making pies. But obviously enough to make them great. Her lemon meringue pie cannot be beat!

I believe I was about 12 years old when I learned to bake pies. I quickly garnered it’s much more involved than muffins, breads or cakes; there is an art to it. And for some reason, just like my Mom, to this day, I’ve never baked just one. If I’m committing to bake a pie, a minimum of 6 are created. I laugh to myself, while skimming a magazine or Pinterest, when I encounter a recipe for a single piecrust, I immediately dismiss it. If the first ingredient listed doesn’t ask for 4 or more cups of flour, this recipe is not for me. It simply seems disrespectful to the craft!

I’ve made my fair share of pies over the years.

For family meals, special events, and just because. I take great joy in the process and the end products. As a young girl, Brenna took to these pastries!  A natural, if not a little messy, in the kitchen. After a few years of refining her skills, I think she was  about 14 when she made them the first time for the family Thanksgiving meal. They were amazing! Pies quickly became her specialty. She soon tweaked and reinvented and expanded her repertoire. We gladly sampled her fares.

This year, while Brenna remains clear across the country. Her cousin Kenny stepped up to the task!  True to teenager form, she even experimented with a new found piecrust recipe! Dangerous territory.  The results were tantalizing. Sitting there that evening, slicing through the flaky layers on my way through a gorgeous slice of peach pie. I knew exactly what I was most thankful for. Each beautiful bakers’ rendition of a classic recipe. Pie. Good old fashioned, home made pie, created and eaten with love. Pie. Tradition.

 

 

 

Read more