cape cod bluberry pie

1 cup minus 1 Tbsp sugar, divided

3 Tbsp flour

1/4 tsp salt

4 cups fresh blueberries

2 Tbsp lemon juice

2 Tbsp butter, cut into small pieces

1 Tbsp whole milk or cream

1 double pie crust

Preheat oven to 400F. (This temp is what original recipe says but I only baked it @350F and then for longer than it said.) Set aside 1 Tbsp sugar for topping the pie. Whisk together the remaining sugar, flour and salt and then add the blueberries and gently toss to coat. Fill bottom pie shell with berry mixture. Pour lemon juice over and dot evenly with the butter. Cover pie with top crust and cut vent design in the top and crimp edges. Brush milk on top crust and sprinkle with the remaining 1 Tbsp sugar. Cover edges of pie with foil so it doesn't get over baked too quickly. Bake for 40 minutes. Remove the foil from the edges and continue baking until fruit is bubbly and crust is brown. Let this pie set for a few hours. Filling thickens up very nicely. 

I actually googled blueberry pie, once, to see if luck was with me. It was. In particular I was searching out a recipe that the filling didn't have to be precooked as I was thoroughly indoctrinated when I was young that ALL fruit filling with the exception of apple, had, I mean HAD to be precooked. Nope! It certainly doesn't! Here's proof. Get out the ice cream, people and we shall indulge!

on cast iron skillet cooking/baking

Some of you have expressed a wish to know more about cast iron skillet baking or cooking. I guess if you "cook" in a cast iron pan you really ARE frying! You use mostly oil, lard, or bacon fat to cook foods in it. And you are also like me in that you agree the foods made in a skillet taste better than "regular food". Why? I'd like to know, too!

I'm just like you! I want to learn more. I have tried a few things, though, with marvelous results.

~corn bread: I used my ol' favorite 9x13 recipe and just popped it into my cast iron frying pan and baked it in there. One little change I made, though. I put the pan into the oven while it was preheating to 375F. It had the bacon fat (3 Tbsp for a 14" skillet) in the pan already so when I poured the cornbread batter in, it sizzled nicely. The bacon flavor was the reason Carl said this was the best cornbread he'd ever had. That and the fact that it was done in my skillet!

~buns/rolls: I mixed my regular bread machine dough recipe and placed into skillet to rise and bake instead of costco pan. SCRUMMM!

~of course, you can make any and every pan breakfast food in a skillet. 

If I think of more, I'll pass it on. Meanwhile, please forward any recipes you've tried with success to me and I'll post it here.

twyla's apple pancake

1/4 cup butter melted in 9x13 pan

2 apples, chopped into same butter in pan

1 tsp cinnamon and 1/4 cup brown sugar sprinkled on apples

Bake this 10 to 15 minutes to precook apples a bit.

Mix batter of following:

6 eggs

1 1/2 cups milk

3 Tbsp sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup flour

1/2 tsp salt

Pour over warm apples and bake half an hour @ 350F. Serve with syrup of your choice. Maple is particularly good.

grace's favorite salty party mix

16 to 18 cups of whatever quantities of the following you like...or substitute anything with anything!!!

(pretzels, nuts, goldfish crackers, ritz bitz, rice chex, krispix, cheerios, honeycomb cereal, life cereal, bugles...)

Melt the following in microwave:

1 cup butter

1/4 cup worcestershire sauce

1 tsp garlic powder

1 1/2 tsp seasoned salt, 

cumin and chili powder optional

Mix with dry stuff and bake at 250F for 1 1/2 hour stirring every 20 minutes or so. When cool add a pile of peanut m&m's. (3 cups or more!!!)

craisin party mix from my-friend-rachel

sauce: 

1/3 cup white syrup

1 1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup butter or margarine

Boil this for 1 minute and pour over the following stuff:

9 cups Krispix

1 cup craisins

1 cup sliced almonds

(ad-lib on amounts of craisins and almonds. Rachel adds more craisins; I add more almonds.)

Bake at 250F for an hour, stirring every 15 minutes. I always double the recipe and bake it more like an hour and a half, stirring every 20 minutes. Dump out on wax paper to cool. Addicting.

chicken noodle soup

(note: no measurements are followed exactly on this recipe...at my house anyway!)

1 broiler/fryer chicken

2 1/2 quarts water

1/2 medium onion, chopped

3 tsp salt

2 tsp chicken oxo

pepper to taste

1/4 tsp marjoram

1/4 tsp thyme

1 bay leaf

1 1/2 cups fine uncooked egg noodles

1 cup chopped carrots

1 cup chopped celery

I add curry as well (Epicure Madras curry is mild and flavorful)

In stock pot combine the first 9 ingredients. Bring to a boil. Simmer a couple hours and then debone chicken. Add the rest of the ingredients except noodles. Cook these and add just before serving. Simmer soup until done. Sooo good. 8-10 servings. This would work great to can without noodles.

p'butter oat cakes for the birds

stir together the following:

2 cups softened lard

2 cups soft peanut butter (crunchy or smooth)

2 cups flour

2/3 cup sugar

4 cups oats

4 cups cornmeal

Okay this is the original. I have long since started replacing some of the flour and meal with bird seeds of all sorts...sunflower seeds, niger seed, canola, cracked wheat, song bird mix that the birds refuse to eat UNLESS mixed with this concoction. Press into 9x13 pan and chill for a couple hours. Cut into 6 squares or whatever size fits your suet feeder best. You can also form into balls to fit mesh onion bags and hang outside. Our birds LOVE LOVE LOVE this. Woodpeckers, chickadees and if you're not careful, the magpies do too!