I should’ve just titled this “prettiest pie ever” or better yet “best meringue ever” because that’s what I’m going to come back to this post for. I mean, just look at that pie. Is that not amazing? By far the prettiest pie I’ve ever made, and that meringue was to die for.

I made this pie for Canadian Thanksgiving at the same time as the Peanut Butter Honeycomb Pie, and it was tasty. It was also seemed like a lot of work for what ended up pretty simple flavours. First you make the lime curd, then let it chill for a few hours (or days, if you make it ahead). Then mix some gelatine with whipped cream, and gently fold into the curd. Then you make the blackberry compote (easy, yes – but not all that quick), then assemble the thing and let it chill some more. At the end you make the meringue, toast it (preferably with a torch if you want it extra pretty) aaand EAT! Okay, maybe it wasn’t really that hard – but I guess after all of those hours I hoped for flavours that were a bit more mind blowing. It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t all that special.

The meringue, however, was *awesome.* I was a bit intimidated by the instructions involving a candy thermometer – but in the end it was really very simple and it made the shiniest and most luxurious meringue ever. Definitely one I will revisit, and I recommend you do too.

Full recipe is here.

Did I mention this was a pretty pie? Yeah, just…. so pretty!

The photo kind of says it all.

A graham cracker crust with an extraordinarily rich peanut butter filling, topped with homemade honeycomb and a chocolate drizzle. Likely the best pie I’ve ever made.

Did I mention the peanut butter filling was rich? Yeah, it has eight egg yolks. EIGHT. This is not a pie for the faint of heart. It is, however, a pie worth savouring.

Another thing this pie is NOT is quick and easy. It’s a bit of a process, but it’s worth it for a special occasion. I recommend making the honeycomb the day before so you don’t have to do everything in one day.

The full recipe is here.

One note: With my first attempt at the honeycomb, I didn’t let it get very brown for fear of it burning, but then it didn’t turn out at all. I let the second batch get pretty dark and ended up with a slightly “toasted” flavour, but it was still good.

“I would really like to make ketchup with you guys.”

While relaxing at the cottage this summer, that’s what our friend Carina posed to Cari and I.  At that point, we had hoped that the bounty of our garden would at least provide some of the tomatoes that went into the ketchup, but since our garden proved a bit of a bust this year that didn’t happen.  Not to mention the fact that to yield seven pints of ketchup, we had to start with 24 lbs of tomatoes.

24 lbs!  To put it in perspective, that’s about how much an 18-month-old would weigh (yes, we’re parents and have to make those kinds of comparisons).  Thankfully we live in an Italian neighbourhood, and many of the local vegetable markets sell bushels of tomatoes.  We were actually able to get approximately 50 lbs for $18.  Not bad!  We went on to use the leftover tomatoes to make oven-roasted tomatoes, tomato sauce and tomato soup.

Like many other canning projects, ketchup is a long, involved process.  I don’t think Rick and Carina expected it all to take quite as long as it did (and we didn’t either).  The resulting ketchup is very good.  Runnier than commercial ketchup, but still very tasty, much like the homemade ketchups you might have in a high-end restaurant.

Here’s the recipe for Tomato Ketchup, courtesy of The Complete Book of Home Preserving

Ingredients:

3 tbsp celery seeds
4 tsp whole cloves
2 cinnamon sticks, broken into pieces
1 1/2 tsp whole allspice
3 cups cider vinegar
24 lbs tomatoes, cored and quartered
3 cups chopped onions
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/4 up pickling or canning salt

Directions:

1. Tie celery seeds, cloves, cinnamon sticks and allspice in a square of cheesecloth, creating a spice bag.

2. In a stainless steel saucepan, combine the vinegar with your spice bag.  Bring it to a boil over high heat.  Once boiling, remove from heat and let stand for 25 minutes.  Discard spice bag.

3. Meanwhile, in a large stainless steel saucepan, combine tomatoes, onions and cayenne.  Bring to boil over high heat, stirring frequently.  Reduce heat and boil gently for 20 minutes.  Add infused vinegar and boil gently until vegetables are soft and mixture begins to thicken, about 30 minutes.

4. Working in batches, transfer mixture to sieve placed over a glass or stainless steel bowl and press with the back of a spoon to extract all the liquid (we used a food mill which was WAY easier).  Discard solids.

5. Return liquid to saucepan.  Add sugar and salt.  Bring to boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally.  Reduce heat and boil gently, stirring frequently, until volume is reduced by half and mixture is almost the consistency of commercial ketchup, about 45 minutes.  For what it’s worth, this step took WAY longer than 45 minutes, hence the whole process taking a lot longer.

6. Meanwhile, prepare canner, jars and lids.

7. Ladle hot ketchup into hot jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace.  Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace, if necessary, by adding hot ketchup.  Wipe rim.  Centre lid on jar.  Screw band down until resistance is met, then increase to fingertip tight.

8. Place jars in canner, ensuring they are completely covered with water.  Bring to a boil and process for 15 minutes.  Remove canner lid.  Wait 5 minutes, then remove jars, cool and store.

I think we can all agree that part of what makes French Onion Soup great is the involvement of bread and cheese.  So what if a similar strategy were applied to tomato soup?  In the case of this one, courtesy of Smitten Kitchen, the classic American favourite of grilled cheese and tomato soup is rolled together into one bowl of heaven.  Cari surprised me with a generous sampling of this soup one night and I am already eager to have it again.

We were lucky enough to have leftover fresh tomatoes from our ketchup making experiment, so we were happy to put a lot of them to use here.  Head over to Smitten Kitchen and give it a try!  You won’t regret it.

I followed this recipe, and it turned out great! Very simple to make… basically a simple syrup with lots of added spices and a bit of pumpkin thrown in for good measure. You do have to strain it – but that’s a simple step, so don’t let it deter you. And really, you could skip it all together and just end up with extra goopy spice stuff at the bottom of each latte… not such a bad thing. I have an espresso machine (that I hadn’t pulled out in well over a year), but according to the original site you can make it with just strong coffee as well. And I will say that this syrup can make a pumpkin spice latte as good (or better?) than what would cost $5 at a Starbucks. I’d recommend this to anyone who shares my addiction!

As an added bonus – this syrup can be used for other things too. Last night I mixed it 1:1 with some dark rum, filled up the glass with some boiling water, and added some whipped cream on top… Instant awesome hot spiced rum! So perfect for a fall evening.

The cookie book itself is lovely – full of full page photos of beautiful cookies, with a nice description of each cookie and what was happening in the world at the time of it’s publication. It also includes adorable notes helping clarify recipes that may be a bit lost in the translation 50 years later, or that are made easier by modern appliances. Things like “”Soda” is baking soda.” and “Rather than working the almond paste with a wooden spoon, use a food processor.”

After more than a year of this cookbook sitting on my shelf with little more than “Yeah, we really need to make some of those…”, I’ve decided I’m not going to make some of the recipes: I’m going to make ALL of the recipes. I’m not nuts – I’m not going to set a time limit for myself. But I am aiming to get each recipe made at some point – and I’m going to make them all in order.

Much to my surprise – the very first recipe listed was for Cajun Macaroons. It certainly doesn’t *sound* like a cookie from 1941. I first envisioned something… spicy? Perhaps with nuts and/or coconut? No, these little cookies weren’t much more than almond cookies with a lot of egg white.

Unfortunately 1941 did not prove to be that exciting of a year. I think Adam liked them better than I did… they’re just a bit… boring. Perhaps I didn’t make them right. In fact, I definitely didn’t do it 100% correctly.

It calls for almond paste… I’ve yet to find almond paste in any store. I always sub in marzipan, knowing that it will be sweeter than it should be. As far as I can tell marzipan is a type of almond paste, but it’s sweeter than what is sold as almond paste.

I also did it all in a stand mixer instead of a food processor – so I don’t think it really mixed the right way. They ended up oddly chewy. The recipe does note that they “should be baked a few days in advance” and that “they will keep several months when kept in a closed tin”… several months? Hmm. Perhaps they are better once they’re dried out a bit.

Anyway – the full recipe:

Cajun Macaroons

• 1/2 pound almond paste
• 3 egg whites
• 1/2 cup cake flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar

In case you hadn’t noticed, Cari and I have started to get back into the kitchen more and more.  Predictable nap/bed times for Violet have not only given us a lot more uninterrupted free time, we’ve also had a lot more energy for all things food.

That’s not to say our enthusiasm for food ever wavered.  Flipping through the March 2011 issue of Bon Appetit, the baked pasta feature especially caught my eye.  And since the weather has started to cool down and we were having some good friends over for dinner, we decided to take a crack at the Moroccan-Spiced Pastitsio with Lamb and Feta.

So what is pastitsio?  It’s effectively a Greek/Mediterranean version of a meat lasagna, with ground meat, pasta and bechamel sauce.  This particular recipe uses ground lamb, which – as it turns out – is hard to find in Canadian grocery stores.  Thankfully, the butcher at Longo’s was very helpful and provided me with a nice piece of boneless lamb that Cari and I ground with our Kitchen-Aid mixer’s meatgrinder attachment.

The other unusual ingredient is a Moroccan spice blend called ras-el-hanout.  Rather than seek it out, I decided to make it myself after learning that ras-el-hanout is made from a whole bunch of spices already located in our pantry.

Apart from that, the dish was somewhat time consuming but relatively easy to assemble and bake.  And considering the amount of awesome flavours loaded in to the dish, it was a big hit at our dinner and made for some delicious leftovers the next day.

Moroccan Spiced Lamb Pastitsio (courtesy of Bon Appetit)

Makes 10 servings

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 1/4 cups chopped red onion
• 2 large garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 pound ground lamb
• 1 28-ounce can diced tomatoes in juice
• 2 tablespoons dried mint
• 1 1/2 tablespoons ras-el-hanout (see below for recipe)
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 3 teaspoons ground cumin, divided
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 3 cups whole milk, divided
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, divided
• 6 tablespoons all purpose flour
• 3 large eggs, separated
• 6 ounces feta cheese, crumbled
• 1 pound penne rigate
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese, divided

Directions:

1. Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic; sauté until onion softens, about 5 minutes.

2. Add lamb; cook until brown, breaking into small pieces, about 8 minutes.

3. Stir in tomatoes with juice, mint, ras-el-hanout, tomato paste, 2 1/2 teaspoons cumin, and cinnamon. Bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium-low. Simmer until lamb mixture is thick, stirring often, 15 to 18 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

4. Meanwhile, bring 2 cups milk to simmer in medium saucepan. Remove from heat; cover to keep warm.

5. Melt 6 tablespoons butter in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add flour; whisk until smooth. Reduce heat to medium-low; cook until roux is pale golden, whisking often, 3 to 4 minutes.

6. Gradually add warm milk to roux, whisking until sauce is smooth. Whisk 1 cup milk and 3 egg yolks in medium bowl; whisk into sauce. Whisk in feta and 1/2 teaspoon cumin. Bring sauce to boil, whisking often.

7. Reduce heat to medium-low; simmer until slightly thickened, mashing with potato masher to break up cheese, about 5 minutes. Season sauce with salt and pepper.

8. Preheat oven to 400°F. Butter deep 14-cup baking dish. Cook pasta in large pot of boiling salted water until tender but still firm to bite, stirring occasionally. Drain pasta; return to same pot. Mix 2 tablespoons butter into pasta. Add egg whites and 1/4 cup Parmesan; stir to blend.

9. Spread 4 cups pasta in dish. Spread lamb mixture over. Top with remaining pasta. Spoon sauce over; sprinkle with 1/4 cup Parmesan. Place dish on rimmed baking sheet.

10. Bake pastitsio until heated through, about 40 minutes. Let stand 5 to 10 minutes.

Ras-El-Hanout (courtesy of Epicurious commenter AliceAC)

Mix the following (you’ll get much more than you need, so save the rest for later):

• 2 teaspoons ground nutmeg
• 2 teaspoons ground coriander
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 2 teaspoons turmeric
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons paprika
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 teaspoon cardamom powder
• 1 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

For most of us (myself included), cinnamon rolls were always either something that came out of a tube, or a specialty item that you buy at a bakery. As tasty (and easy) as the the Pillsbury tube-o-cinnamon-rolls are, I’ve been wanting to make cinnamons rolls completely from scratch for quite awhile. The downside is it’s not a quick thing to make – as a yeast dough with several rising steps, it takes several hours, so it’s tough to actually have for breakfast unless you’re a very, very early riser.

After I saw a tweet with this recipe, I knew it was time. It proved to be more of an indulgent lunch than breakfast, but it was an awesome weekend treat. I’ll definitely be doing it again – though perhaps next time with a group invited over to help us eat them. While I’m sure Adam’s coworkers appreciated the bulk of the batch, it would have been more ideal to have them all eaten fresh out of the oven, at their peak.

I made no adjustments to this recipe whatsoever, so I’ll just link to the recipe here. One comment I will make is that if you’re not planning on eating all of them right away – only glaze the ones you plan on eating, and save the rest to put on when reheating. Otherwise it kind of dissolves into the rolls making a sweet sticky mess.

If you have time to put these together, I highly, highly recommend them! YUM.

Enter Pizza e Pazzi.  Located in the spot that once housed another Italian restaurant, what struck us right away was that Pizza e Pazzi actually had people in it from the start.  Never more than a few tables, sure, but it gave the impression that people were interested in eating there.  My curiosity was piqued.  A little while later, I noticed that Pizza e Pazzi served apertivo from Mondays through Wednesdays, offering those willing to spend $10 on a beverage the chance to sample some of the restaurant’s offerings.

It wasn’t until Pizza e Pazzi was ranked #4 on Now Toronto’s Best Pizzas in Toronto list that I was convinced that this was a place we needed to try.  Not surprisingly, this high praise from Now Toronto (as well as other local publications) led to a significant uptick in business.  And now that we’ve eaten their pizza a few times, we can honestly say it’s one of the best pizzas we’ve had outside of Italy.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise just how authentic this pizza tastes.  Pizza e Pazzi had their pizza oven flown in from Italy, and is one of the few pizza places in Toronto to have received certification from something called the Associazone Verace Pizza Napoletana.

With prices ranging from $9.50 to $24.75 a pizza, this is more of a high-end pizza than the place you’ll want to order from weekly.  Well, you’ll want to order from them weekly – but your wallet may disagree.  Our favourites so far have been the margherita verace, diavola (spicy salami), quattro fromaggi (four cheese) and tartufata (the priciest pizza on the menu, loaded up with mushrooms, truffle oil and aged prosciutto).

As great as it is to have a fantastic pizza place in our neighbourhood, it’s even more exciting to see a place around the corner with lineups out the door on a Saturday night.

First of all – ignore any pie crust recipe you see on this blog (or elsewhere, really), and just make this one. Always. I screwed it up in my most recent attempt and it still turned out awesome. Trust me – just listen to Deb at Smitten Kitchen, make that pie crust, and (perhaps with a little practice), you’ll be hailed as the best pie crust maker ever.

For this recipe you need half of the dough – so either make half, or make two pies!

Now, for the rest of the pie:

Vanilla Peach Custard Pie With Struesel Topping

Crust

• See above

Filling

• 4 medium size peaches (or more – extra filling is always good!)
• 1 cup vanilla yogurt
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 cup vanilla sugar*
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1 tablespoon vanilla paste (use extract if you have to -but paste makes it all that much better)

Streusel Topping

• 4 tablespoons butter
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/4 cup vanilla sugar*
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon (Recipe says optional, but I disagree. Not optional.)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425°F.

1. Make crust, and line pan.

2. Make Filling:

• Peel and slice peaches 1/4 inch thick and place in pie shell.
• Whisk together yogurt, egg yokes, sugar, flour and vanilla until just blended and pour over top of the peaches. Bake for 30 minutes until custard is mostly set.

3. Streusel Topping:.

• Combine butter, flour, sugar and cinnamon with your fingers until crumbly.
• Sprinkle evenly over top of pie and bake for an additional 15 minutes until custard is set.

Let pie cool and serve cold or warm. Enjoy!

*Regular sugar works fine too – but if you haven’t already, make some vanilla sugar! Just throw a few vanilla beans into a jar of sugar and let it sit. Soon enough you’ll have fragrant vanilla sugar!