An ordinary, wonderful spring day

I couldn't have predicted that today would be one that I would especially want to remember. We had an extra three-year-old hanging out with us all day, we just moved into a new house and things are still quite chaotic, and I had a dentist appointment scheduled in the afternoon. A hum-drum day, at best.

I woke up and, suspecting that I would not have a lot of time to myself throughout the day, I immediately treated myself to a shower, complete with hair-washing. I put on makeup and got dressed before going downstairs.

I made coffee, and as I sat sipping it and reading, I heard Anne wake up. I heard her pad into my bedroom where Eleanor was still sleeping. Anne knows to check and see if Eleanor's head is popped up before talking to her - if her head is still down, she silently creeps back out of the room. She must have been awake, because Anne greeted her in the sing-song voice she saves for her baby sister, then sang the song I sing to them every morning as soon as everyone's awake:

Good morning to you!

Good morning to you!

We're all in our places with bright shining faces

and this is the way we start out our day!

Unable to resist seeing their sweet faces at that point, I joined them upstairs, and then we all came downstairs for breakfast and read-aloud time. Soon after that, our 3-year-old buddy Evan (son of some of our dearest friends from college) arrived, and he and Anne ran off to play.

I nursed Eleanor, put her peacefully in her pack and play, and she went to sleep for 2 hours. 

Anne and Evan quickly took up residence in the back yard. For almost 3 hours. As aforementioned, we just moved in, so we don't have a lot of outside toys. I found a plastic tub, a funnel, some plastic cups and bowls, and our sand toys, filled the tub with the hose, and let them have at it. I left the door open and listened as that tub of water morphed from a stew to a "mixture" to a mud puddle (after they dug up some dirt from under our fence and mixed it all together).

In the middle of this, a huge delivery truck pulled up in our alley and a delivery man maneuvered a pallet full of closet organizing hardware into our garage while the two kids stood transfixed. Their outdoor time ended with them happy, tired, and muddy from head to toe. I carried them inside one by one and plopped them in the shower to hose them down, got them into clean, dry clothes, and made lunch.

My sister in law stopped by to see the new place, and we had lunch together. The kiddos had chicken nuggets, mac and cheese, and the strawberry-coconut water popsicles we had made in the morning.

After lunch, I set the kids up with a movie and I cleaned up and unpacked a bit. Eleanor went down without protest for another hour-long nap. This may not seem amazing, but she has pretty much exclusively napped in a baby carrier of some kind for her entire life, so I'm not sure how she knows how to sleep alone. I take no responsibility. She's a magic baby.

Soon after that, another delivery truck! Another crew of guys unloading and carrying and assembling,  and poof! A couch!!

Then, I enlisted the help of my small cohorts in baking a lemon meringue pie, requested by Anne after several readings of Amelia Bedelia. It turned out just right! So beautiful! So GOLDEN, as Anne will tell you. (Recipe here!)

Jamie got home and as I started to make my way out the door to my dentist appointment, Anne begged to go with me. I told her it would be very boring, but she insisted. As we walked out the door to the car she grabbed my hand, looked up at me and said, "Mamma! We're going on a date!"

Arrived at the dentist, and it occurred to me that as long as Anne was there, and Eleanor wasn't, she might as well get her teeth cleaned too!



2.5 hours later, all teeth shiny and clean, and me with half my mouth numb from a new filling (thanks to our awesome dentist for the triple dose of novocain. I love you.), Anne and I waltzed back out to the car, called in an order for takeout sushi, picked it up on our way home, and ate our miso soup, edamame, and sushi in the kitchen together, followed by a piece of lemon meringue pie.

It was just an awesome day. Not for any one specific reason. I think my expectations were appropriately low. I think I said "yes" whenever I could. I think I ate good food and drank enough water, and that I'm a better mom when I'm not hungry or craving sugar. Thank you, Jesus, for days like this. With nothing terribly remarkable in them, but somehow adding up to something spectacular. May my life be the same. A series of good days, where I did my best, enjoyed the people around me, loved, laughed, baked, played outside. Nothing flashy or ostentatious, just a life LIVED.

An Impromptu Michaelmas {Pear + Blackberry Pie}

I didn't have any plans to celebrate Michaelmas this year, because with a 9/28 due date I was frankly hoping to be otherwise occupied. But when this morning rolled around with no labor at all, much less a baby, I decided to throw together an impromptu celebration with some of our best friends. It was so much fun that I was really able to enjoy day #1 of being "overdue," instead of just sitting in my extra-clean and well-nested house twiddling my thumbs and poring over hilarious lists of things to do to get labor started.

Since I had exactly no plans for today, I had all the time in the world to make a big project out of dinner. We had roast chicken, honey-glazed steamed carrots, and green beans. For dessert, a pear and blackberry pie! (Why these foods? Haley has it all laid out for you.)





And we put our capes of light to good use for the second year in a row! Stickin' it to the devil, one small person at a time. :-)







There's a beautiful free downloadable version of the St. Michael Prayer on Carolyn's blog today - check it out! Can't wait to see more of her beautiful work, soon to be available via her new Etsy shop, Brass & Mint Co.

Pear + Blackberry Pie

My favorite crust, as always.
5 cups peeled, cored, and chopped pears (1-inch pieces)
2 cups blackberries
zest of 1 lemon
juice of 1/2 lemon
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch of kosher salt
2 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons milk or cream
coarse sugar for sprinkling

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Combine the fruit, lemon zest, and lemon juice in a large bowl. In a small bowl, whisk together the sugar, spices, salt, and cornstarch, and add them to the fruit. Toss together gently.

Roll out half of the pie crust and fit inside a 9- or 10-inch pie plate. Fill with the fruit mixture, and then roll out the second half of the crust and top the pie with a lattice. Brush with milk or cream and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for one hour to one hour and twenty minutes, until the crust is deeply brown and the filling is bubbling. Cool before slicing. Serve with vanilla ice cream!

Rhubarb Streusel Pie

This is it. The best rhubarb pie in the world. Did you hear me? THE. BEST. Perfect crust. Tangy-sweet rhubarb flavored with vanilla bean. Crumbly, crunchy, nutty streusel topping. This afternoon I'm planning to make my fourth in a span of two weeks, because if I'm with people, I need them to be eating this pie. And I need to be eating it. I ate almost the whole first one by myself.

I mean, I had help. A little. In the person of a tiny baby girl who is making her presence known more and more each day with kicks and jabs to my abdomen.



I'm a late sharer of pregnancy news online. I so love telling people in person and seeing their reactions; hugs and squeals of excitement and actual congratulations are SO MUCH BETTER than Facebook likes and comments. When mostly everyone knows, and it's starting to be visible no matter what, then I finally share the news online. It's a girl, and she's healthy! I'm feeling great.

{Apparently, I like to announce I'm having baby girls by sharing recipes for pink vegetables. Last time, Radish Pickles! And more thoughts about the weighty responsibility of raising girls into women. Head over to check it out.}

Rhubarb season is just warming up in the Midwest, so you have plenty of time to get some reddish pink treasure from the farmers market and make yourself and those you love an amazing pie.



Rhubarb Streusel Pie

I always, always use Heidi Swanson's pie crust recipe, and it is amazing every time.

Filling:
5 cups (about 2 pounds) fresh rhubarb, chopped into 1-inch pieces
1 cup sugar
1/2 vanilla bean (or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste)
3 tablespoons tapioca starch (corn starch will also work)

Topping:
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
3/4 cup finely chopped walnuts
1/4 cup butter, cut into cubes
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup flour

Make the crust and refrigerate it until ready to use (making it a day ahead of time breaks up the effort required to make the pie, and ensures the crust is fully chilled - win-win).

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Place the sugar in a small bowl with the vanilla bean (if using), and use your fingertips to rub the sugar along the inside of the vanilla bean, scraping out the seeds and distributing them through the sugar. (You could also do this ahead of time - the vanilla flavor will be more pronounced if you leave the vanilla bean in the sugar for a while.)

Place the chopped rhubarb in a large bowl with the vanilla sugar (or sugar and vanilla extract/paste) and tapioca starch and stir to combine. Set aside for about 15 minutes, while you prepare the crust and topping.

In a small bowl, stir together brown sugar, walnuts, cinnamon, salt and flour. Add the butter, and use your fingers to rub it into the sugar mixture until well-combined.

Roll out the crust and fit it into a pie plate. Decoratively crimp the edges, and pour the rhubarb filling into the crust, being sure to scrape all of the sugar and juice out of the bowl. Sprinkle the topping evenly over the fruit (ahem, vegetable) filling and slide into the oven. Bake at 450 for 15 minutes, then decrease the heat to 350 and continue baking for 50-60 minutes, until the filling is bubbling, and the topping and crust are golden.

Cool at least 2 hours before slicing, and serve with vanilla ice cream.

Pear-Raspberry Pie

There's something about a pie. It's homey. Nostalgic. Comforting. The cozy interior of Hoosier Mama Pie Company is tiny: a couple of tables and chairs, an old sea-foam green dresser serving as a checkout counter, and a display case full of pie. But it's where I want to go when my spirits need lifting. I made my husband take me there after some careless knife handling necessitated a trip to the emergency room a few years ago. I sat there with my mom, sharing buttery pie and hot coffee after I found out I had lost a baby, only 8 weeks into my first pregnancy, almost exactly two years ago.

Paula Haney's new cookbook, The Hoosier Mama Book of Pie, is a veritable encyclopedia of pie knowledge. Step-by-step photos of important, hard-to-describe processes (pie crust, anyone?), funny stories, and page after page of fantastic recipes. Pear-raspberry was the first one to jump out at me, because the window for both fruits at the farmers market is happening right now. I know it won't come as a shock to you that I love to cook, and that time in the kitchen is relaxing and very rewarding for me, but making a pie is a special sort of culinary meditation. Mix the dough. Wait. Roll out the dough and shape it into a crust. Peel and slice the fruit. Toss. Wait. Bake for a long time. Wait. Wait. Slice and eat. It's almost a full day from start to finish, and so worth it. Every step is magic. And then, of course, there's pie for breakfast the next day: one of the highest pleasures in this life.



Pear-Raspberry Pie

from The Hoosier Mama Book of Pie



Make sure to use soft, really ripe pears. I didn't, and while the flavor was still amazing, the pears were a little crunchy. This recipe is printed as is from the cookbook. I'm not going to print any other recipes from this book, and I'm not including the crust recipe, because I think you should just go buy it. It's awesome. Go.

1 9-inch double-crust pie dough (preferably from page 24 of the cookbook linked above)
5 cups ripe pears, peeled, cored, and chopped into bite-size pieces
2 cups raspberries
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
pinch kosher salt

Place the pears, raspberries, and lemon juice in a medium bowl. Do not mix. Place the sugar, cornstarch, ginger, and salt in a small bowl and whisk until thoroughly combined. Gently fold the dry ingredients into the fruit, until most of the mixture is absorbed. Take care not to break up the raspberries. Sprinkle Crust Dust (a mixture of equal parts flour and sugar, designed to absorb some of the fruit juice and ensure a not-soggy bottom crust) into the empty pie shell. Pile the fruit into the shell and smooth the top with a spatula. Finish the pie with a lattice top, and freeze for at least 20 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Brush the lattice with Pie Wash (equal parts cream and whole milk) - be amazed at how easily you can brush a slightly frozen pie crust without smashing it - and sprinkle liberally with coarse-grained sugar. Bake for 60-80 minutes, rotating 180 degrees every 20 minutes, until the crust is dark golden brown and the juices are bubbling thickly. Cool for at least 2 hours before slicing.

Southern Comfort Apple Pie and Thoughts about Crust

T-MINUS ONE WEEK UNTIL TURKEY DAY!

Are you ready?

Up until very recently, I had experienced nothing but failure when I tried to make pie crust on my own.  Oh, I could cobble together something moderately respectable, but I would never have called it a success.  So when my mom came to visit this summer, I dragged her to the kitchen to show me exactly how it's done.

There are a lot of different opinions floating around out there about pies.  Butter, lard, or vegetable shortening?  A combination?  Food processor, pastry blender, or by hand?

Here are my conclusions, based on a couple of months of research:

FATS:
Butter is best for flavor, but the crust does not hold shape as well as a combination butter-shortening crust.  Read this article for a full run-down on the pros and cons of different fats (and, incidentally, a step-by-step photo recipe of my preferred method for making dough).

METHOD:
I like the food-processor method.  It's consistent, it's easy, and it's fast.  If you want to do it by hand, there's a great tutorial over here.  I love the idea of doing it by hand.  I really do.  And I may change my mind in the future, but for now, this method is really working for me.

OTHER INGREDIENTS:
When I was baking test pies for the Bucktown Apple Pie Contest, I had this idea in my head that I should bake something extra-special into the crust.  I blame Pushing Daisies for putting a bee in my bonnet.



I tried baking in a little maple syrup, a little lemon zest, honey...  And none of them worked.  Pie dough is a very delicate balance, and you can't just throw extra things in.  The one exception I've found is Heidi's rye pie dough, which is hands-down the dreamiest, easiest-to-handle, flakiest, most amazing pie crust I've ever made or tasted.

The key ingredient, I've found, is patience.  Don't cut corners, don't rush, and you'll come out the other side with a buttery, golden pie crust you can be proud of.

Southern Comfort Apple Pie
adapted from 20 Something Cupcakes

It's important that you use a deep-dish pie plate for this recipe, because the caramel filling expands while baking, and you really, really don't want hot sticky stuff bubbling out of the pan onto your oven.  I baked my pie on a cookie sheet just in case, and my pie plate is ginormous.

Basic All-Butter Pie Crust:
This recipe makes enough for one 8- or 9-inch double-crust pie, two single-crust pies, or one 10-inch deep-dish single-crust pie.

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
3/4 cup very cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
4-5 tablespoons ice water

Place flour and salt in a food processor with the blade attachment.  Pulse a few times.  Place half of butter cubes into food processor and pulse a few times, until pea-sized clumps form.  Add the rest of the butter, and pulse only two or three times, just to break it up a little and coat it with flour.  The next step will take care of the bigger pieces.  Add apple cider vinegar and water, one tablespoon at a time, pulsing a few times after each addition, and stopping the moment the dough starts to come together.  If it gets too wet, it's impossible to work with, and really hard to fix.  Dump the dough out onto a piece of plastic wrap, squeeze into a disc (or two, for two crusts), wrap tightly, and let rest in the refrigerator at least 30 minutes.  All day is fine - the colder it is, the easier it is to roll out.

Topping:

1/2 cup pecan halves, roughly chopped
1/3 cup sugar
3 tablespoons firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup chilled unsalted butter

Place sugars, cinnamon, salt and flour into a food processor fitted with the blade attachment.  Pulse a few times until well incorporated.  Add butter and pulse a few times more, until uniform small-ish pieces form.  Remove to a bowl and stir in pecans. Set aside.

Filling:

5-7 medium-size baking apples, such as Cortland
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup Southern Comfort liqueur

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Peel and core the apples, and slice into 1/4-inch thick slices.  In a large skillet, melt 1/2 cup butter over medium heat.  Add apples, and saute for about 5 minutes.  Add sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg, stirring to combine.  Using a slotted spoon, remove apples to a baking sheet, leaving as much liquid as possible.  Add Southern Comfort to the skillet, and cook about 10 minutes, until alcohol is burned off and mixture is thick.  Remove from heat and return the apples to the skillet, stirring to coat.  Roll out pie crust to a 1/8-inch thick circle, and place gently in pie plate.  Flute edges and prick all around bottom and sides with a fork.  Pour apple filling into prepared crust, leaving 1/2 inch of headspace at the top.  Sprinkle with pecan topping, and bake 50-60 minutes, until filling is bubbling and topping is crisp and brown.

Serve with unsweetened whipped cream.

Pie oh my.

 

I've been going through some stuff.  When I'm not feeling like myself, and having to lean on friends and family more than usual, cooking grounds me and reminds me of who I am again.  There is such comfort in putting together simple elements and turning them into great food.  It's a sort of alchemy.

You can't lose with peaches like these.

I had been having a losing streak with pie crusts before this one.  But my mom happened to be in town, so I asked her to give me a lesson, since she is the queen of predictably delicious and flaky pie crusts.  Sometimes you just need to watch a master at work.

So I got myself this beautiful new enameled deep-dish pie plate, 5 pounds of ripe peaches from the market, and this lattice-top how-to from the August issue of Bon Appetit.  Oh my goodness.  If I had only known how easy it was to accomplish this wonderful, so-super-fancy-looking top, I would have been doing it forever.  You must try it. 

I mean, look at that!  Who wouldn't want to take that to a Labor Day party?

Peach Pie
adapted from Bon Appetit, August 2011

I used my brand-new shiny 10.5-inch deep dish pie plate, but this recipe will work in a standard 9-inch one.  Just use a little less fruit, but leave everything else the same.

For the crust:

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1/4 cup vegetable shortening
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

Combine flour, half of butter, shortening, salt and sugar in bowl of a food processor.  Process until ingredients are well incorporated.  Add remaining butter, and pulse a few times, until the remaining butter is in pea-sized pieces (this is the secret to the flakiness).  Add apple cider vinegar and a few tablespoons of ice water and process in short pulses until the water is incorporated, adding one tablespoon at a time and continuing to pulse until the dough comes together in a cohesive ball on the blade.  Be very patient, allowing each tablespoon to completely incorporate before adding more.  The exact amount of water you'll need will differ each time you make it.  Remove from the processor and divide in half.  Shape each half into a disc about 5 inches in diameter, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 30-60 minutes.  In the meantime, prepare the filling.

For the filling:

5 pounds fresh ripe peaches (or other ripe stone fruit), pitted and sliced into 1/4-inch slices
1/2-cup plus 1 Tablespoon granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
5 Tablespoons cornstarch
1 large egg, beaten to blend

Place peach slices into a large bowl, and sprinkle with sugar.  Toss to coat, and let sit at room temperature for an hour.  Strain liquid out into a bowl.  Whisk together 1/4 cup of reserved liquid with cornstarch and nutmeg, and pour back over the peaches, tossing to coat. 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Roll out half of the dough into a circle on a floured surface, working patiently and starting from the outsides of the disk, repairing small cracks as you go along.  It should be about 1/8-inch thick.  Gently roll the crust up onto the rolling pin and place it into the pie plate.  Pour the prepared peaches into the bottom crust.  Roll second crust into a 14-inch circle, and use a pizza wheel or sharp knife to cut it into 1-inch strips.  Using half the dough, arrange parallel strips over the surface of the pie.  Working one half at a time. lift up every other strip and place a new strip perpendicular to the others.  Replace them over the new strip, and continue until the whole pie is covered in lattice.  Trim edges of strips, and fold overhang of bottom crust over.  Crimp edges decoratively.

Place pie onto a baking sheet that is lined with parchment, and bake for 20 minutes at 400.  Decrease the heat to 350 and bake for another 40 minutes, until the filling is bubbling and the crust is deeply browned.  Allow to cool completely before serving.

Cherry Pie... with issues.

My mom always paints stuff on the top of fruit pies with food coloring. 
Except the tops of her pies don't have fault lines...

The Cherry Festival starts this weekend!  Eeeep!

Wait... you've never heard of the Cherry Festival?  Let me fill you in!

It always takes place the first full week of July in Traverse City, Michigan.  Did you know that Traverse City is the cherry capital of the world?  Michigan produces 70-75% of the tart cherries grown in the United States, and most of those are grown in the counties surrounding Traverse City.  The Cherry Festival is a week-long celebration of cherries, including parades (a Cherry Queen is crowned), cherry pit-spitting contests, cherry pie-eating contests, concerts and more.  For people who live in Traverse City, it renders our tiny hometown nearly useless for a week, as 500,000 people descend and cause unbelievable traffic.  But it's fun!

In honor of the Cherry Festival, and because they had fresh Michigan tart cherries at the farmer's market last week, I decided to bake a pie.  I've never baked one with fresh cherries before, because the pies that my mom makes from frozen Michigan Montmorency cherries (which I told you about when I made Chocolate Cherry Cheesecake Bars) are flipping amazing, and I never felt the need.  After having pitted what felt like a million cherries the other night, I don't think I'll ever do that again, at least not for a pie.  Or not until I get a cherry pitter.

My hand, stained bright red with cherry juice.

Did I mention that my mom makes utterly amazing pies?  Seriously.  At Thanksgiving, we have three.  Pumpkin (obviously), and pecan for my dad, who's from Memphis, and then cherry.  Because... they live in Traverse City and it's my mom's favorite.  You really can't blame her.  One of my favorite things about Thanksgiving is actually the piece of cherry pie I get to have for breakfast the next day.

I pitted each one of these with a knife!  It took forever!

I had some trouble with this pie.  The crust just wouldn't stay together!  I rolled it out, and everything seemed to be going well.  Then I tried to get it off the counter and into the pie plate, and... it fell apart.  Not like one little tear, or a rip down the middle that's easily fixed.  Like, fell apart into a million crumbly pieces.  So that I had to pick up each tiny piece, put it in the plate, and try to smash it into the other pieces to get a pie crust that was resonably intact.  Thankfully, I had a little bit better luck with the top crust - you can't exactly patch-as-you-go on top of the fruit, now can you?  I was more than a little frustrated.  Then I almost burned it.  But it's still cherry pie, and it still tasted ridiculously good.  That said, I still won't give you the recipe, because it is woefully incomplete, and only escaped becoming a total trainwreck because, well... it was still made with butter, sugar, and fresh fruit.  And that can only get so bad.



What is your hometown famous for? 

The Crostata That Almost Wasn't



Sometimes things just work out.

Yesterday afternoon, the Coppertop Guy called me.  A friend of ours who lives in Indiana had a really early flight out of O'Hare this morning and needed a place to crash.  We expected him to get in really late, say hi, go to sleep, and then leave before we woke up.  At about 5, CG called again to say that our friend had gotten on an earlier train and was going to be to our place at about 7.  I love to feed people, so I was happy about this new development.  I got home from work, looked at the messy house, decided that people like to eat more than they like to look at clean rooms, and went straight to the kitchen.  I threw together the crust for this absolutely lovely strawberry rhubarb crostata that I had been planning.  CG got home and I found out immediately that he did not share my opinion about messy rooms not mattering.  Ah well, marriage is a learning experience, after all.  I baked chicken breasts and potatoes, made these butter-glazed radishes and carrots, and tossed together a quick spinach salad.  While everything was working (I love braised and baked things - you can get them going and then go do something else!), I made the strawberry-rhubarb filling.  Then we sat down to eat.

I love when friends unexpectedly drop by.  This is probably due in part to my leave-the-mess-and-let's-have-some-cake mentality, but mostly I just love having people around.  This particular friend just finished his Master's degree and is about to start a new job, left this morning for a week-long trip to El Salvador, and his wife is having a baby in August.  It was so nice to have this impromptu get-together to catch up and hear about his life.  With all the ways we have to communicate with each other, nothing can replace a face-to-face conversation over a shared meal.

Not to mention, it can really pay off to have an extra pair (or two) of hands in the kitchen.

Caught up as I was in the lively conversation we were all having, I didn't give my full attention to the crostata assembly.  I took the little disk of dough out of the fridge, sprinkled flour on the counter, and started rolling.  I got it all rolled out, poured the filling on top, folded up the edges... and then remembered that I was supposed to have done all this on a piece of parchment so that I could transfer it from the counter to a baking sheet. 

Pause for a moment of panic.

These two sweet men who were casually chatting in the kitchen saw the impending catasrophe, and with barely a word from me, they sprang into action!  It took six hands and two spatulas to get that sucker onto the pan, but it didn't fall apart!  Woohoo!  Crisis averted!

I am very thankful for my friends.

Rhubarb and Strawberry Crostata

adapted from Bon Appetit, May 2011

The flavor of the whole wheat flour adds a whole new level to the crust, and its nuttiness stands up well to the intense flavor of the rhubarb.  I used coarse kosher salt, and I loved coming across the little intact bits of it as I ate!  Salt + butter + sugar = good.

Ingredients:

Crust:

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1 1/2 tablespoons sugar

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cubed

1 large egg

1 tablespoon whole milk

Filling:

1/4 cup cornstarch

4 cups 1/2-inch-thick slices rhubarb (about 6 stalks)

1 cup fresh strawberries, quartered

2/3 cup sugar

1 large egg, beaten

Raw sugar

Combine both flours, sugar, and salt in a processor; blend for 5 seconds. Add butter; pulse until butter is reduced to pea-size pieces. Whisk egg and milk in a small bowl to blend; add to processor and pulse until moist clumps form. Gather dough into a ball; flatten into a disk. Wrap in plastic wrap; chill at least 1 1/2 hours. DO AHEAD Can be made 2 days ahead. Keep chilled.

Dissolve cornstarch in 3 Tbsp. water in a small bowl; set aside. Combine rhubarb, strawberries, and sugar in a large heavy saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring often, until sugar dissolves and juices are released, about 4 minutes. Stir in cornstarch mixture and bring to a boil (rhubarb will not be tender and slices will still be intact). Transfer to a bowl. Chill until cool, about 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400°. Roll out dough on floured parchment paper to 12" round; brush with beaten egg. Mound filling in center of crust; gently spread out, leaving 1 1/2" border. Gently fold edges of dough over filling, pleating as needed. Brush border with egg; sprinkle with raw sugar. Slide parchment with crostata onto a large rimmed baking sheet and bake until crust is golden brown and filling is bubbly, about 45 minutes. Let crostata cool on baking sheet on a rack. Transfer crostata to a platter, cut into wedges, and serve with whipped cream or ice cream.