Jambalaya and Cherry Pie!

Hello friends. Calypso is always yelling at me, "Steve you never post on the blog! I'm going to change the name of the blog and divorce you!" And we're not even married. But look at me now, writing a post. Recently, I made something like jambalaya based on a recipe for shrimp jambalaya in How to Cook Everything. But where is the shrimp in the picture? Nowhere, but rather little slices of andouille sausage. I don't have exact measurements for anything in it, but here's what to do.

Dice up onion, bell pepper (I wish we could afford fun color bell pepper but we used boring green), and fry it in some oil with half a pound of chopped up andouille, then add garlic and paprika and whatever herbs you have on hand that will work. When you feel it's ready, then some tomatoes, then some rice (2 cups), and then top with twice as much stock or water as the amount of rice you put in. Then just let it simmer uncovered until the rice is done and the liquid is at the consistency you want, adding more liquid if it evaporates too quickly. If you have nicer rice than we do the rice will be a nicer consistency.

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Thanks Steve for finally writing a blurb on a blog that shares half its name with you!  Anywhoo...this was a fun night because while Steve sat at the table dicing up veggies for our yummy Jambalaya, I sat there with him and pitted a bunch of cherries for a delicious cherry pie.

 It was fun just spending the evening around the table making good food and then of course eating it after.

Last weekend at the farmers market one of the stands had an awesome deal on cherries and I couldn't resist.  The basket was huge and although they looked like they wouldn't last long, I knew they'd last long enough for a cherry pie.

When it comes to baking I always start with good old Betty Crocker, her recipes always come out good and solid.  I also managed to make a decent crust this time by really following the directions about how to mix the shortening.  All too often I forget and just throw all the shortening into the flour at once and get a big glob of unrollable dough.  So it's key to cut the shortening in correctly.

I'm also super proud of my lattice work!  It could have probably been tighter, and the strips thinner, but this is the first time I've actually gotten it to look like a real lattice topped pie and not some big mess.  The only thing I need to do next time which you can see clearly in the photos is wrap the outside of the crust in foil so it doesn't get so dark.  It wasn't the end of the world, the pie still tasted great, but it would be nice to not have burnt edges.

Steve wouldn't let me go buy any ice cream for the pie ( :(  ), but lucky for me I had some cream in the fridge so I whipped it up and it made an excellent topping.

Everything ended up be delicious, filling, and fun to make (even pitting the cherries wasn't as bad as I thought it would be). 

Enjoy
:)

Recipes from Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book
Ingredients for 9'' Two Crust Pie:

• 2 cups sifted flour
• 1tsp salt
• 2/3 cup shortening (ideally you should find a recipe that uses butter and not shortening or adapt this recipe to do so because shortening has trans fat in it, which is extremely bad for you.  I however was out of butter.)
• 4-6 tbsp water

Sift your flour into a bowl and add the salt.  This part is important: add HALF your shortening and cut it into the flour until it's very FINE and looks like MEAL.  Then add the rest of the shortening and cut that in until the clumps are the size of GIANT PEAS.  According to Betty, cutting the shortening in fine gives you the tenderness while the larger chunks of shortening lead to the flakiness.

Sprinkle the mixture with water, one tbsp at a time until the flour is all wet.  Collect it into a ball and divide in half.  If you are not using it right away refrigerate it.  You should put it in the fridge for a while anyway if you have time because it will make working with it easier.

Roll out half the dough and press into the pie pan.  For a handy little tutorial on lattice work check this out.

Cherry Filling
I adapted this slightly because the recipe calls for sour cherries and I had sweet ones so I cut the sugar back from 1 1/3 cup to 1/2 cup.
Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup
• 5 tbsp flour
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 4 cups fresh cherries - pitted
• 4 drops almond extract ( I left this out)

Preheat oven to 425.  Mix everything together throw into pie crust and dot with butter.  Cover the pie and cook for 35-45 min.  If you don't want burnt edges you can take it out partway through and cover the rim with foil or you can buy this nifty little gadget.