Pies and Pastries

Barefoot Contessa Set of 2 Brownie Mix Set

Product Description: Nobody remembers what they had for dinner, but everyone remembers what they had for dessert. Here are some favorite Barefoot Contessa desserts - made really easy! This Barefoot Contessa brownie mix is rich, dark and chewy…these brownies are incredible! And this box mix makes them easy to bake. Great to have on hand to make a fabulous dessert for guests or when you are craving a sweet treat. Set Includes: Outrageous Brownie Mix: “I tested this recipe so many times I am positive it is the best brownie recipe you will find.” - Ina Garten (20.8-oz.) Peanut Butter Swirl Brownie Mix: Chocolatey brownies with peanut butter swirled into them…nothing can beat that! Easy to make, these brownies will rival any baker’s recipe! (27.2-oz.)

Barefoot Contessa Set of 2 Lemon Pound Cake Mix

Product Description: This intensely flavored, rich pound cake is wonderful served with Lemon Curd or Raspberry Sauce. Served with a cup of freshly brewed tea it makes the perfect afternoon snack. Set includes two 22.4-oz. Lemon Pound Cake boxes. (Look how deliciously beautiful they look!)

Barefoot Contessa Set of 2 Jam Thumbprint Cookie Mixes

Product Description: A traditional crisp cookie dabbed with our finest preserve. Serve with a piping hot cup of tea or a glass of milk. Kids love helping to make these delicious cookies. Included in the box is an 8.9-oz. jar of Barefoot Contessa Raspberry Preserves.

Barefoot Contessa Set of 2 Peanut Butter & Jelly Bar Mix

Product Description: The best of two classics, peanut butter and jelly in a dessert bar that is easy to make and simply delicious. Rich peanut butter and sweet jam are swirled together to create the perfect after school snack. Along with top-selling cookbook author and Food Network star Ina Garten, The Barefoot Contessa, Stonewall Kitchen has developed this line of specialty foods. With this collection of Ina’s favorites, you can make her delicious recipes in minutes. How easy is that?

Barefoot Contessa Set of 2 Homemade Marshmallow Mix

Product Description: Forget everything about those rubbery marshmallows from the grocery store. These are melt-in-your-mouth delicious, light and fluffy. Easy to make, you’ll love them in cocoa or as a quick vanilla flavored snack. Along with top-selling cookbook author and Food Network star Ina Garten, The Barefoot Contessa, Stonewall Kitchen has developed this line of specialty foods. With this collection of Ina’s favorites, you can make her delicious recipes in minutes. How easy is that?

Barefoot Contessa 3-pc. Barbeque Collection With Gift Box

Product Description: With these products on hand, great meals are minutes away. One of Ina’s most requested recipes is her Favorite BBQ Sauce. The Mango Chutney is perfect served with grilled fish or chicken. Try the Balsamic Onions on a fresh green salad or use them to top a grilled sirloin for incredible taste. The festive band around the gift is laser die-cut poinsettas with a coordinating gift card. Gift Set Includes: Mango Chutney Ina’s Favorite BBQ Sauce Balsamic Onions. (!!!!!!!!!)

When you click through for any of the above products, you’ll be able to find even MORE. I don’t know about you, but I’ve got shopping on my mind….

…..shopping and those Lemon Pound Cakes.

1/4 butter or margarine, melted
1 cup sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
4 eggs, beaten
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. salt
1 unbaked (9 inch) pie shell
1-1/2cups pecan halves

Combine sugar, butter, and salt. Beat eggs well, then add in the sugar mixture. Add syrup and stir well. Add the vanilla and pecans last. Pour into unbaked pie shell.

Bake at 325 degrees for 50 to 55 minutes.

What would you get if you crossed a chocolate chip cookie with a pie, then spread homemade whipped cream on top and sprinkled miniature chocolate chips over the entire production?

Besides ME at your side, you’d get Paula Deen’s Chocolate Chip Pie. Click the link for the recipe.

I make her Whipped Cream all the time. I serve it in my coffee, on top of hot chocolate (topped off with a drizzle of chocolate syrup), and on top of pie. It’s also a perfect combination with pudding. Spread some of the whipped cream in a small bowl or dessert dish…making sort of a nest, then add your favorite pudding (you can never go wrong with chocolate, but vanilla’s amazingly good, too). Finish it off with another dollop of the cream on top.

It’s as angelic and heavenly as Dolly Parton’s voice…and that’s saying something.

1 cup sugar
2-1/2 TBS corn starch
1-1/2 cups water
1 small box strawberry Jell-O
2 cups strawberries (fresh)

Cook the first three ingredients until thickened. Add gelatin and allow to cool. Add strawberries and set aside.

FILLING:

1 pkg. (8 oz.) cream cheese
1 carton (8 oz.) Cool Whip
1/2 cup sugar

Mix sugar and cream cheese. Add Cool Whip. Make a “bird’s nest” in the pie shell with the filling (be sure to reach the edges), then add the strawberry mixture and chill.

Delicious!

Nothing says “Welcome Spring!” or gives a nod to Summer quite like fruit pies. And, if you’re anything like me, after a flu-ridden, long cold winter - you’re like BRING IT ON!

2 - 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) cold butter
1/3 cup ice water

In a food processor fitted with a steel blade, combine the all-purpose flour and salt. Cut the butter into 1 inch cubes and add to the bowl. Process until “grainy.”

Add the water gradually through the tube until the dough forms a ball that seems to want to chase itself around the sides of the bowl.

Remove from the bowl (watch out for the blades!) and divide the dough into two disks. Wrap each in plastic wrap or waxed paper and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Flour a pastry board - or your counter if you’re kicking it old school - and toss some flour on your rolling pin as well. Roll each disk out to 1/8 inch thickness and fit each into a 9 or 10 inch pan. The crusts can either be used for two single crust pies or one double crust pie.

Butter crusts are believed by most to have a better flavor than pie crusts made with shortening. They’re a little bit trickier to work with, to be sure - but I have to agree whole-heartedly about the flavor. I prefer it.

Remember, when adding ice water for pie crust, be certain that the temperature is so cold you can barely touch it. Fill a glass with ice, add water and leet it sit. Then measure into a chilled measuring cup. It is that important to go through the extra trouble.

2 eggs
1/2 to 3/4 cups sugar
3 tablespoons flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
pinch salt
2 tart apples (peeled, cored, and chopped)
1/2 cup coarsely chopped, toasted walnuts
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup heavy whipping cream - whipped to soft peaks

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Beat the eggs with sugar in a large mixing bowl until light in color and mixture forms a heavy ribbon when trailed from beaters. Blend in flour, baking powder, and salt. Fold in apples, nuts, and vanilla.

3. Pour mixture into a buttered 9 inch pie pan and bake until top is well browned and puffed, 30 to 35 minutes. Remove from oven. Puffed top will fall during cooling.

Serve warm or at room temperature with the whipped cream.

Yield: 6 - 8 servings

In this instance…and in all other instances….I recommend using the whipped cream that you whip up yourself. For a little extra goodness, a small amount of vanilla can be added. You’d think that the whipped topping you buy in stores would have basically the same flavor, right? For some reason it doesn’t even come close. Especially not the ones that have been frozen. They really lose their lightness as well as their “jump out of your skin” yumminess.

The recipe above is from the September/October issue of “The Cook’s Magazine.” If you ever get a chance to snag any old issues of this amaaaaazing magazine on eBay, go for it. My husband has a system - when he bids on something for himself on eBay (golf clubs, Tommy Bahama top, books), he automatically bids on something to surprise me. Then, a week or two down the road, I get a doll, a few cooking magazines, a cookbook, or some other great thing that makes my day - something I never even saw coming. Awesome!

An amazingly popular restaurant here in Kentucky is Patti’s 1880’s Settlement in Grand Rivers. One of the things that helped make them famous is their pies. Below is a recipe for one called a Sawdust Pie. You’ll love it much…much…muchly!

7 egg whites, unbeaten
1-1/2 cups granulated sugar
1-1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1-1/2 cups pecans
1-1/2 cups coconut
9 inch unbaked pie shell

Mix all ingredients together and stir by hand. Pour into unbaked pie shell. Bake in preheated 325 degree oven until glossy and set (about 25-30 minutes).

DO NOT OVERBAKE! Serve warm with sliced bananas and whipped cream. Serves 8.

Visit their website at http://www.pattis-settlement.com, and if you’re ever in the Land Between the Lakes area, don’t even think of eating anywhere else until you’ve had Patti’s!

There are only a few ways the Food Network could appease me if they gave me an evening with no Alton, Paula OR Rachael: One would be a lifetime supply of chocolate, another would be my own personal Starbuck’s in my backyard, and yet another would be a night devoted to garlic.

They chose to go with the latter - which is, oddly enough, fine with me. Besides, my other faves - Emeril and Jim O’Connor will be there. Check out some of the recipes that’ll be featured in tonight’s line-up:

• Romaine Salad with Creamy Garlic Dressing and Roasted Garlic Croutons (Emeril Live)
• Grilled Pork Chops with Garlic Jam (Emeril Live)
• Charlotte’s Pan-Roasted Latin Style Garlic Soup (Emeril Live)
• Stuffed Shrimp with Garlic Cream Sauce (FN Challenge)
• Garlic-Good Crab “Cakes” (FN Challenge)
• Chicken Florentine Risotto with Garlic Parmesan Cream (FN Challenge)

Emeril + Pork + Garlic = I’m there. With snacks.

Unwrapped and Secret Life Of also get in on the garlic fun. You can check the tv guide in the sidebar to see other highlights from today on Food TV. Paula Deen has a soup that’s spiked my interest (Senate Bean Soup) - it’ll be on her Paula’s Home Cooking show this morning. She’s also lined up to make a few pies that I KNOW I’ll have to introduce myself to.

I’m not sure why, exactly, but making pies is one of my favorite kitchen activities. There’s something very, very comforting and satisfying about making, baking, and eating a great pie. Especially if you make the crust yourself - that makes it even more special.

Joi

On a recent episode of Paula’s Home Cooking, she made a delicous-looking pie (Old Fashioned Fudge Pie). It looked about as good as any pie could possibly look, so my daughter and I scurried off to the store for the ingredients.

Oh. My. God. This is the most amazing pie I’ve had in a long time - a very, very, very long time. Trust me, you want to make this pie. The recipe recommends whipped topping or ice cream - but I wouldn’t suggest letting anything at all come between your mouth and this pie.

It takes me back, but to where I’m not sure! There’s a nostalgic, purely Heavenly chocolate taste to this amazing pie, but I can’t figure out if it’s one my mom, aunt, or one of my grandmothers used to make. Whoever, wherever, however….I know who’ll be making it now - moi….and often!!!

Here’s the link to the recipe - trust me, you’ll want to print this out. Then you’ll want to go to the store. Then you’ll want to make it. Then, on to the good stuff - eat it all! Old Fashioned Fudge Pie
If you have a certain someone special who you’d like to give something special for Valentine’s Day, this pie would earn you many, many sweetheart points. Of course, you’ll need to make one for yourself, too, because she/he isn’t going to share.

Just a side note: I’ve NEVER made anything of Paula Deen’s that wasn’t sheer Heaven. The woman knows her stuff like no other.

Everyone pretty much has a handful of websites they visit each day. The type of website they’re type in so frequently they don’t even have to look at the keyboard. With me and Food Network.com, my keyboard just types it in for me before I even sit down. The printer has also gotten pretty wise, too. He knows there’ll be plenty of recipes to print out, so he turns himself on and starts grinding them out.

A fairly new feature they’ve added is a collection of amazing video tutorials (Click HERE to see what I’m talking about). I watched one on Napkin folding a few minutes ago that was pretty slick. If you click HERE, you’ll find 5 by Paula Dean (love her, love her, love her) with the following quickie lessons: Whipping Egg Whites, Caramel Tips, Old Fashioned Pie Crusts, Whipped Cream, and Toasting Nuts.

Great stuff!

Joi