Strawberry Crumb Pie

Again yet another birthday this month. My mom LOVES pie and would rather have any kind of pie I could think of for her birthday. So I decided to make a Strawberry Pie (yuuummmyyyy).

Crust

Ok so this crust  was a little bit of an adventure do to the fact I do not own a food processor.... I have a magic bullet (not big enough to hold all the ingredients and when you leave it on for more than 10 sec at time it gets to hot)  and a blender lets just say USE UR HANDS!!!

 

All the dishes I made (minus strainer) because I tried to follow the directions in the recipe.... and this was just for the crust. I tried the magic bullet first had crossed my finger everything would fit in. Everything did fit in but did't really have enough room to mix. So then I was like will the blender work? It did work but It would have taken me probably an hour to get it all mixed up. So I decided to just use my hands and had it mixed in like 5 seconds it seemed like lol. 

Now it told me to make it into a disk and wrap in plastic wrap then put in fridge for an hr then roll it out and put it in for 20 more minutes.... Ya I said uhhhh no. I flattened it out in the pan using my hands and then plastic wrap on top and fridge. 

Ingredients:

1/2 cup (4oz) cold unsalted butter

3 oz cold cream cheese

1 1/4 cup unbleached all purpose flour

         (I did 3/4 cups all purpose and 1/2 cup wheat flour "we have been trying to use it up and we don't          like it by it's self")

pinch of salt

Directions:

1) Add butter and cream cheese to a food processor and process until smooth.

2) Add the flour and salt and process again until the dough comes together and forms a ball. (Just use your hands much faster, easier and less dishes)

3) Scrap out the dough, form it into a disk and wrap in saran wrap. Place the disk in the fridge for at least an hour. 

Pre-bake the dough

1) Preheat oven 350* put rack on middle shelf.

2) Lightly flour a flat surface and roll out the dough to 1/8 inch thick and fit into a 9" springform pan having the crust go to the sides. I don't own a pan like this and like I mentioned above I did this using my hands before putting in refrigerator. Return the crust to the fridge for 20 minutes. Trim off the excess dough to level off the crust. on the inside of the pan. 

3)Line the crust with foil and fill with pie weights or dried beans (I just lined with the foil) and bake for 18-20 minutes until crust is lighly golden brown. 

4)Remove the beans and foil and let cool. 

Crumb Topping

This was super easy but I added some ingredients like cinnamon and brown sugar. I really don't know how much I added I just did a little bit and guess-ta-mated lol. 

Ingredients:

3/4 cup oatmeal

1/4 cup unbleached all purpose flour

1/4 cup wheat flour

(it actually called for 1/2 cup all purpose)

1/3 cup granulated sugar

4 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled

Directions:

1) In a medium bowl, stir together all dry ingredients.

2) Add the melted butter and stir until combined and moistened. (I used my hands)

3) Refrigerate the topping until chilled. 

This was simple but instead of hulling the strawberries I cut the tops off and cut them in 1/2 or 1/4. 

Ingredients:

6 cups (2lbs) hulled, quartered strawberries

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 tsp lemon juice

2 1/2 tbsp cornstarch

1/4 tsp grated orange zest (I didn't do this and made it optional)

Directions:

1) Combine all filling ingredients in a large bowl and toss to combine.

2) Add strawberry filling to the crust and sprinkle with crumb topping over the strawberries. 

3) Bake in the middle of the oven for 50-55 minutes, until filling is bubbling and crumb is golden brown. 

I will not know until tomorrow how it taste but I promise I will come back and let you know how it ranks in our household lol. 

*Sorry it took me a little longer to let you guys know how the pie went over. I was sick this past week.

The crust on the bottom was actually really good but, the crust on the sides was a little burnt. As for the pie my mom loved it and I found it to be to sweet (but I don't really have a big sweet tooth it takes me a month - two months to eat a bag of oreo's). 

Rosemary-Crusted Potatoes

One of friends was cleaning out all her cookbooks and magazines and gave me a bunch. I don't remember which one I got this out of but It is so yummy! We decided to make these for Adam's parent's surprise 29th anniversary party and some picky eaters actually liked it also.

Makes 6 servings

Total Time 1 hour (don't worry it's really easy)

Ingredients:

1 1/2 lbs small red or golden potatoes, quartered (we decided to make them smaller after our first time making them though)

2 tbsp. minced fresh rosemary or 2 tsp. dried rosemary

1 tbsp stone-ground Dijon mustard (don't worry I don't even like mustard and I love this recipe)

1 Tbsp. Olive Oil

1/4 cup pank bread crumbs (we just used Kroger brand italian seasoned bread crumbs)

1/2 tsp Kosher Salt

1/4 tsp black pepper

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400*. Coat a baking sheet with nonstick spray.

2. Partially cook potatoes in boiling salted water to cover, about 10 minutes; drain.

3. Mix rosemary, Dijon, and oil in a bowl.

4. Add potatoes; toss to coat.

5. Sprinkle with bread crumbs, salt and pepper. 

6. Place potatoes in prepared dish. Roast them 30 minutes 

7. Then stir gently.

8. Bake until potatoes are golden brown on most surfaces, 10-15 minutes more. 

Peach Pie

So every year Adam's brother Eric always asks me what type of cake for him. This year he asked me to make a peach pie since peaches are his favorite. I was nervous because I have never made a peach pie and I don't like peaches (Well I love the smell just not the texture). I combined two different pie recipes I found (if you can't tell by now I do this a lot). Eric and his dad gave it a 11 out of 10 and said it would have been high but I forgot the vanilla ice cream.... ooops.

Ingredients:
Filling:
4-5 cups of Sliced and peeled peaches
1/4 cup All Purpose Flour
1/4 cup Whole Wheat Flour
1/2 cup honey
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp kosher salt

Topping:
1/4 cup Whole Wheat Flour
1/4 cup All Purpose Flour
1/2 cup old fashioned oats
4 tsp light margarine
5 tsp Brown Sugar

Crust:
I had one of my pre-made pie crust left over from Christmas time in the freezer that I use to just get rid of it.

Directions:

Filling:
1. peal and slice the peaches. Don't forget to cut the seeds off.
2. In a separate bowl mix together flour's, cinnamon, nutmeg and kosher salt. Make sure you lightly mix these together with a spoon (just enough so they aren't just piled on top of each other).
3. Pour the honey on the peaches (I put it in with the dry ingredients on accident "not thinking just dumped" but it did make it harder to mix up).
4. Pour filling into pie crust.

Topping:

1.Pour all the filling ingredients into a bowl and lightly mix them together with a spoon (just like you did in the filling). Set aside.

Put the pie (with out the topping) in the oven on 350* for about 10 minutes. Pour the topping on and then take pie out and put foil around the edges of the crust. Put the pie back in the oven for about 30 more minutes (might take up to 45).

I hope your families enjoy this as much as Eric did please feel free to let me know what y'all think of it. I love getting feed back especially positive feedback on this since I did not eat any (again I don't like peaches but I wanted to make a pie for my very soon to be brother in-law that he wanted and was crossing my fingers he would like).

Keeping The Romance ~ During Stressful Times

Ok so I am absolutely obsessed with the website called The Dating Divas. Even this particular blog is talking about stressful times I still do these during non stressful times. I feel during the stressful times its even more important to show your special someone that little reminder you still love them. One of the biggest stressful times me and my fiance have crossed so far is planning our wedding. I do wish I could have done little things like this more during this time period but, I have had a chance to do something a few times.

Last night my amazing fiance took me out on a date. We normally try to do this once a month but again due to wedding stuff we haven't been able to do date night each month which is yet another reason to do little gestures reminding each other how much we love each other. Last night we went to BW3'S and the movies to see Grown Ups 2 (by the way this movie was hilarious). Even though we didn't go anywhere fancy we still dressed up nice and treated it like we were.

Today I decided to make homemade chocolate chip cookies for Adam. First I printed a cute printout from the The Dating Divas website.

After filling in the blanks I then made his favorite cookies chocolate chip. But instead of getting the pre-made cookie dough I made them homemade. I think this gives it that extra little love into it. 

Since, Adam was out fishing with his dad and brother Josh I had to keep the cookies fresh instead of making a pretty display like I wanted to. I'm sure when he gets home I will get bunches of kisses and hugs since he isn't expecting them (lol I told them I would make him some 2 weeks ago).