Wash the dishes
Wash the dishes
The christmas dinner dishes
Three generations in the kitchen
All at once
Go and get a camera
And go and wake up grandpa
Three generations in the kitchen
All at once
Play a Christmas album
The Elvis Christmas album
Three generations sing Blue Christmas
All at once
Light another candle
Come sit near the piano
Three generations sing together
All at once
Put away the turkey
To make sandwiches tomorrow
And put away the bones to make soup for the winter
But not the wish bone
We’ll just put it on the counter
To let it dry out this week
In time to make a wish for New Years Eve
Take turns with the washing
And take turns with the drying
Three generations in the kitchen
All at once
Soak the tough ones ’til tomorrow
And save the suet for the sparrows
Three generations Merry Christmas
All at once
Put away the turkey
To make sandwiches tomorrow
And put away the bones to make soup for the winter
But not the wish bone
We’ll just put it on the counter
To let it dry out this week
In time to make a wish for New Years Eve
Put away the fancy dishes
Just to take them out next Christmas
Three generations are only together for so long
Telling stories of the good times
The bad times and the war time
Three generations
Are only together for so long
In a bowl, combine the prepared pears with the cranberries, sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice, orange zest and the egg.
Roll out your pastry to line a pie plate with.
Fill the pastry with the pear-cranberry filling.
Roll out the remaining pastry, and either cut into 1 inch strips for a lattice top, or cut out some fun shapes with cookie cutters for a slightly funkier one.
Bake in a 350° oven for 1 hour, or until the pastry is golden and the filling is thickened.
Allow to cool before serving.
I really was impressed with this pie. It’s not too difficult to impress a pear addict with a pear pie, but what was really impressive is the way the filling held up. A too watery pie is a sad one, and I was worried that with the way pears can really go to mush when cooked that this pie would be runny, but the cornstarch as well as the egg kept the filling from spreading too much after being cut.
The flavor of the sweet pears and the tart cranberry came together well, and the orange zest really fragrantly permeated the pie. It was just the right thing to bring to Christmas dinner.
Mr was too full after dinner to have a piece, so I guess we’re going to have to wait until I make another pie to get his opinion.
“Be careful not to overfill them. When they overflow you’ll lose almost all of the filling.“ She warned, across the city, through the phone line.
I wrote it down at the bottom of the recipe; do not overfill. It’s just that after the whisking, the rolling, cookie cutting and pressing I stood with a great big bowl of filling and overfilled almost every tart shell. The debate of whether or not to risk overflowing butter tarts by maximizing the ratio of gooey delectable filling to pastry went to the side of risking overfilling.
The moral of the story? Listen to your Mum, she knows what she’s talking about. If she says to be careful not to overfill when she gives you a recipe, don’t push your luck. To my good fortune though, another batch is not too difficult to make, and an overflown butter tart is still very much worth eating.
Put your raisins or currants in a bowl and cover with hot water from a recently boiled kettle. Allow them to sit and plump up while you prepare everything else.
Gather a bowl and a whisk for making the filling.
Put the brown sugar, corn syrup, egg, butter, vanilla, vinegar and salt into the bowl and whisk frantically until the filling is uniform.
Why does it seem like this is a lot of filling for what the recipe calls? I made a triple batch.
Roll out the pie crust to 1/4-1/8″ thickness. Cut out rounds of pastry with a biscuit cutter or an inverted cup.
Press the pastry circles into the wells of a muffin pan (or mini muffin pan for mini butter tarts).
Drain your raisins/currants. They should be nice and plump now. Put some of the fruit into each of the tart shells. Different people like different amounts of raisins, I like enough to at least cover the bottom of the tart.
Pour the butter tart filling into the shells, being careful not to overfill.
See the upper left corner? That is overfull.
Bake in a 425° oven until the pastry is golden and the filling is puffed (~1o minutes).
From what I’ve read, it seems like butter tarts are kind of a Canadian thing. I cannot imagine Christmas, or trips to West Hawk Lake for that matter, without them. And these ones, my mum’s gooey butter tarts are the best. The sticky-sweet brown sugary filling is somewhat reminiscent of a pecan pie (just trying to give those of you who haven’t had them a reference point) without the pecans, or the Quebecois tarte au sucre. Neither are the same though. We’re already running out of them, so we’re going to have to make another batch in order to have some remaining at Christmas!
Mr. says: I love butter tarts during the holidays. They are a party platter staple. If you cheat and buy the tart shells it shortens the process of making butter tarts greatly.
Grapes are very versatile little gems. You can eat them off the vine, turn them into jelly, make them into juice, or even better make them into wine (hurray for wine!).
Pie has the same adaptability. Pie can be sweet, or it can be savory. It can have one or two crusts, or like shepherds pie have no crust at all. You can bake a standard pie in a pie pan, a stand alone hand pie, or a free form galette.
So why, my dear readers, in all their versatility, do grapes and pie not go together?
Part of me imagines some great all-knowing baker from the days of yore announcing, “Grapes are grapes and pie is pie, and never the twain shall meet,” in the style of Rudyard Kipling. Maybe this baker of yore had good reasoning, grapes are a rather juicy fruit, maybe they would cause a pie to be too wet and not set up properly. But then peaches are juicy, and they make a fantastic pie.
Either way, grapes and pie did meet. Their union was a wondrous thing.The grapes retained their structure, my piece of pie was sweet but not too cloyingly so, and the prize winning pie crust made for a beautiful lattice top. If you’ve never had grape pie before (or heard of it either) let me assure you, there is “greatness in grapeness” (thanks Mister) when it comes to pie!
I made grape pie with my cousin Ginger (Hi Ginger!) on one of my days off. We got together in the kitchen and between playing with the baby and eating pizza sandwiches for lunch we tackled quite a list of recipes we wanted to make:
Place your grapes in a colander and rinse well with cold water. Shake them (in the colander) to get remaining water off.
Remove the grapes from the stems, and discard the stems.
Halve the grapes. All of them. (This job is tedious, but it allows the fruit to retain most of it’s shape, which I felt was important. The original recipe chunks them up in a food processor.)
Place the grape halves back in the colander set over a large bowl. Allow them to sit until a little less than a cup of grape juice drips out of the cut surfaces. (I was impatient and squished the grapes a little bit. Patience is a virtue, but not always one of mine).
Pour the grape juice into a cup, and enjoy your treat! It was so tasty.
Pour the grapes into a bowl, and add the sugar, cornstarch and grape concentrate. Mix it all up with a spoon to coat the grapes.
Roll out the bottom crust of the pie, and put it into the pie pan. Pour the filling into the pie crust.
If you want a lattice crust, like I made: Roll out the pie crust and cut it into strips about 3/4 inch thick. Weave the strips together into a lattice top. I like to make a cross and then work outwards with subsequent strips.
If you want a solid top, roll out the pie crust as per usual.
Bake in a 375° F oven for 40-50 minutes, our until the crust is golden brown and the grape juices bubble.
Let cool and slice up!
This pie is a juicy one! You really need to let it cool, if you cut it too soon it will become a puddle quite quickly. In a rush, I was driving to my next destination while the pie cooled, and so got grape pie juice all over the towel it was resting on (luckily I brought a towel).
Try something new! A combination you never thought of before! Maybe grape pie!
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