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Pie
MorePie
Fourth of July
Banjo Man
Glen the Banjo Man
the saga of unsoggy pie
Gather ’round the campfire, as I am going to reveal the secrets to an unsoggy pie crust.
I am not going to reveal the secrets to photographing food, for obvious reasons.
After four years of testing and trying and experimenting and blog-reading, I think I’ve come up with the right combination for a nicely-baked peach pie.
How I wish you could taste it! I will try to take a picture of the remaining pieces of pie and add them on to this post.
1. Coat your bottom pie crust with a couple of tablespoons of powdered sugar before putting in the peaches. Pat that stuff right on there.
2. Drain the peaches (I slice them into a colander that sits inside a bowl) before adding flour and sugar. You can always add juice back into the mix if it seems too dry. The peaches I used were very, very juicy.
3. Don’t use a top crust. Instead use a topping, as it won’t trap the steam inside the pie. I used a Martha Stewart topping recipe, but I halved it so all of that sugar, etc. wouldn’t overwhelm the taste of the peaches.
4. Use the rack on the lower third of the oven. Set the oven for 400 degrees. Some recipes tell you to lower it to 350 after 20 minutes, but I didn’t this time. It baked, in a glass pie plate, for an hour and 20 minutes.
5. I used flour in this pie. I’ve also tried cornstarch and ground tapioca. All were fine.
Adapted from Martha Stewart: Peach Pie Topping
Mix together: 3/4 cup flour, 1/3 cup brown sugar, 1/6 cup white sugar, pinch of salt, 1/4 tsp cinnamon. Add in 3/4 stick cold butter slices and mix with fingers ’til crumbly.
Peach Pie filling: 9 large peaches, 1/3 cup sugar, 3 TBS flour, approximately 1 TBS lemon juice.
Now, on to the Banjo-joke-of-the-day:
Why do they let banjo players play in pizza parlors?
Because pizza is the only food that you can taste over the noise.
Posted in food
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back to work
View from the “office” at 5 AM.
Today I must get serious. This is the day I divide the number of pages I need to complete the book by the number of days I have in which to complete it. Result? How many pages I need to write per day in order to meet my deadline.
Sometimes I get a little queasy just thinking about it.
Except when I look out the window.
Good morning to you all!
Posted in lake
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to market, to market
Banjo Man hauled me out of bed early Saturday morning to go to town. He wanted goat cheese. He wanted goat cheese bad.
You might recognize the woman in the pink apron as one of our mandolin players in the band. Her daughter owns and operates www.wheywardcheese.com , so on Saturdays Ann aka Emmy Lou dons her apron and sells the finest goat cheese in Idaho. Seriously, there was a line, as there usually is.
Cheeses in hand, we strolled through the rest of the market. We didn’t have an “Old Geezer” sandwich, though it was tempting. Sort of.
But we bought a pie, basil, basil plants, an apricot scone, fresh spinach and a loaf of gluten-free bread.
Then we went to the Hell That Is Walmart On A Holiday Weekend, but we finished up the trip to town with ice cream from the Conoco gas station, where there was a bit of gridlock at the gas pumps and some shouting (not from us–we were on the sidelines and not getting gas) but the long-haired guy in the 1950’s motor home hauling an old boat looked pretty mellow despite his parking issues. Peace, bro.
Banjo-joke-of-the-day:
Why is a banjo like an artillery shell?
Because by the time you hear either of them it’s too late to run.
Posted in food, lake
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why i haven’t blogged a lot lately
Yes, you guessed it: I’ve been practicing my sawing skills.
What? You don’t believe me???!!!!
Okay…how about this? My laptop, camera, camera card and connecting usb cable with card adaptor attachment are never in the same place when I am (a) able to sit down for an hour, (b) thinking of something fun to blog about or (c) awake.
Go for (c).
Yesterday I went to town by myself. I bought two enormous tomato plants. Please do not ask me what I intend to do with them or what kind of tomato plants they are. I watered them this morning and can’t think about them any more today. I have no gardening skills. But I am optimistic. In fact, my Inner Optimistic Gardener wanted to buy basil and dill plants and cherry tomatoes, but the plant store was out of them.
Today I went to town by myself again. Why? Because when I arrived home yesterday, there was a message from our drummer, Julie, who said The Peach Man actually had peaches for sale. I had been there, in The Peach Man’s Tent, twenty minutes before she called. Which meant I missed the peaches’ delivery by 10 minutes after having been told by The Peach Man’s assistant that there would be no peaches until next week.
I was up at 5 AM, so anxious was I to buy peaches. I washed dishes and drank coffee and then went back to bed, which wasn’t my original plan, but felt pretty darn good. After I woke up again I went to town and bought two cases of peaches.
I also went to Walmart, which was a big mistake on a Friday morning on a holiday weekend. There were hordes (maybe even thousands! millions!!!) of people shopping in there. I had planned to go to the Walmart Outdoor Center to buy basil and dill plants and cherry tomatoes, but…I couldn’t face it. After loading up groceries (fruits, vegetables, beans, pesto and sour cream), I stood in line to order a Blimpie Tuscan pannini and a large Diet Pepsi before fleeing back to the lake.
It is a beautiful day, but not a very exciting one to blog about. If I decide to chop down a tree later, I’ll make sure to bring my camera.
Banjo-joke-of-the-day
How can you tell if there’s a banjo player at your door?
They can’t find the key, the knocking speeds up, and they don’t know when to come in.
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red, white and blue
July 3:
After rain, thunder and lightning, the sun finally came out and the Krewe of Cougar Creek met to decorate the float for the parade. We’re so happy the Dollar Store sells such shiny, patriotic decorations!!!!
Banjo joke-of-the-day:
A banjo player went running up to a cop and said, “Arrest that kid, he just changed one of my tuning pegs!!.”
Cop said, “Oh, come on, you can fix that.”
Banjo player says, “Maybe, but he won’t tell me which one!”
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music and moose
Moose burgers, that is. A guest chef arrived during band practice to grill his special moose burgers for us.
They were really, really good.
And I stupidly left my camera back at the house.
There was a chocolate-frosted guitar cake to celebrate the 60th birthday of our bass player, the professional of our group. But he had a last-minute gig and couldn’t come. Darn! We also celebrated birthdays for Mandolin Ann (recently returned from Tuscany bearing mushrooms and truffles) and Accordionist Linda (recently returned from Seattle with a glitzy new b&w accordion). Our singer and horn player was off fighting fires in Colorado, but he’ll be home in time for the parade on the 4th.
There were visitors from Oklahoma, kids that looked 12″ taller than they did last summer, and a devastatingly delicious shrimp cocktail.
Today the sun is shining and the air is cool. Whatever allergies and sinus problems I’ve been dealing with since we left RI will be cured by all of this pine-scented air, I just know it. Banjo Man and I agreed that we were beginning to relax a little bit this morning, after a hectic couple of months in pre-wedding and road-trip mode.
We are slowly unpacking.
Banjo Joke of the Day:
How do you get two banjo players to play in unison?
Shoot one.
Posted in lake, the band
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in honor of july…
…and Banjo Man’s upcoming birthday, I have declared July to be Banjo Joke Month.
Did you hear about the bass player who locked his keys in the car?
Took him three hours to get the banjo player out.
There.
Happy July!!!
p.s. I’ll be back tomorrow with road trip pics, travel stories and western boots, but right now I have to practice the fiddle, take a nap and unpack my stuff before the band gets together at 4 pm. I’ve talked Banjo Man into singing a new song.
Posted in lake, music
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rules of the road
1. Never discuss speed. One of us drives too slow; one of us drives too fast. It’s a mystery why we enjoy road trips.
2. Sometimes the GPS doesn’t work and you have to find the Perkins by actually looking for the tall sign.
3. Nothing you eat at a gas station is fattening or artery-clogging.
4. It’s good to see old friends, no matter who is in their bedroom.
5. When one of us says she needs to stop at the next gas station, she means it.
6. If you are looking for a specific vintage metal strainer at antique malls, you will not find one, but you will find others and you will buy them.
7. If you buy four colanders, you don’t expect any grief. Especially from the man who demanded to stop at an outlet mall and buy a seersucker shirt at Eddie Bauer’s (see #5 for more info).
8. The person with estrogen is always in charge of the air conditioning in the car and hotel.
9. The driver is usually in charge of the radio or music-to-be-played-while-driving except when the person with estrogen can’t work the mp3 player that is the size of a mouse’s briefcase.
10. It is useless to try to find the ringing cell phone before the call goes to voice mail because it is usually under a bag of sunflower seeds and bottled water.
I would like to think up more rules, but it is time to leave Casper, Wyoming and head west for the day. In Billings, Montana there is a western wear shop that boasts 10,000 pairs of Tony Lama boots. We need to get on the road asap.
Posted in road trip
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is there any more pie? 