Pie Crust, Crabcakes, and Other Odds and Ends

The Very Best Pie Crust Recipe
(Courtesy of Grandma and Grandpa Landre)

Ingredients
2 1/2 c all-purpose flour
1/2 c cold unsalted butter, cubed
1/2 c Spectrum shortening
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1/2 to 1 cup ice water

Tools
Food processor or pastry blender
Rolling pin

Method
Place flour, salt, sugar in a food processor, spin to combine. Distribute fats on top of flour, close processor, and pulse until it resembles coarse cornmeal.
Sprinkle about 1/4 c of the water on top of mixture. Pulse a few times to mix evenly, sprinkle a little more water, pulse again. What you are looking for is a mixture that will just hold together when squeezed. You don't need any more water than that.
Scoop out into a bowl or a floured work surface and press together into a ball. Flatten the ball into a disk, roll out.
I always roll and shape my crust, then chill it in the refrigerator while I'm making the filling. Easier to work with that way.

I find this easiest in a food processor, but it can also be done with a fork or pastry blender (that weird D-shaped thing in the back of your kitchen drawer with wires or blades and a handle).

I used this recipe for my second pumpkin pie on Sunday, and it was just perfect. Flaky, not tough, the right amount of brown.

Mike made the salmon version of the cakes below for lunch today, which we had with an iceberg wedge salad. A very nice lunch. When I see canned salmon in the pantry, all I can think of is an unsatisfactory sandwich experience. (I love tuna, but for various and sundry reasons, I don't buy it anymore.) So these delicious salmon cakes were a nice surprise. Crab season has been postponed in small pockets of the San Francisco Bay due to the oil spill, but the local supermarkets and fish markets have still had plenty. A couple of dollars a pound more expensive, as it is coming from Washington and the outer regions of the Bay, but it's there if you want it.

Crab cakes
(Courtesy of Susan Ridley)

Combine:
1 egg
2 tsp Worchestershire sauce
1/4 tsp dry mustard
2 Tblsp mayo
1 tsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp mustard
1 Tbsp melted butter (olive oil works fine)
1 tsp parsley flakes (totally optional)
1 tsp Old Bay seasoning
1/2 c bread crumbs (scant)

Allow bread crumbs to soak up the liquids.

Gently fold in 1 lb crab meat
(canned salmon tastes pretty good too)

Make into 6 patties
Pan fry approx 6 minutes each side on medium heat, or until brown and crisp.

Due to the dry weather, we have had an extended fall here in the Napa Valley. I can't even describe to you how beautiful it has been. This week it is just starting to get nice and crisp outside, but the vineyards are still in full golden color. They are so gold, and so orange, and so numerous that there have been days that I felt overwhelmed by all of the warm colors. Enough already! Can I just have a little bit of something else!? Then we had a sprinkle of rain, and we got a dash of bright green. Many of the fields are being plowed, so that adds a nice dollop of chocolate dirt brown, too. Ahhh. The guys are out doing "pre-prune" this week, so by the end of the week, all that pretty color will be on the ground.

Here is a nice fall soup recipe that I found on chowhound.com. We had this for lunch or dinner one of the days this week, and I had it again for lunch yesterday. The flavor really improved after a day or so. I added an extra sprinkle of salt to mine when I served it, as I found the parsnips to be a little sweet. Great flavor.

Parsnip and Cauliflower Soup

Ingredients

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 medium leek, white and pale green parts only, halved lengthwise, rinsed, and thinly sliced
1 cup peeled, coarsely chopped parsnips (about 2 medium Parsnip:parsnips)
2 cups coarsely chopped cauliflower florets (about 1/2 of a small head)
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 3/4 cups water (I used homemade chicken stock)

Method

1. Heat olive oil and butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat until foaming. Add leek and season well with salt and ground white pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until leek is softened but not completely cooked, about 3 minutes.
2. Add parsnips and stir to coat in oil. Cook for about 4 minutes, or until parsnips are softened but not completely tender. (Do not let the vegetables color.)
3. Add cauliflower, stir, and cook for about 1 minute. Add salt and water. Bring to a simmer, reduce heat to medium low, and cook until vegetables are completely tender, about 8 to 9 minutes.
4. Remove from heat and allow soup to cool slightly, about 10 minutes. Process soup in a blender until completely smooth. Return soup to the saucepan and place over medium-low heat. Taste and adjust seasoning as necessary.
   

The soup as made on chowhound (a great recipe resource, by the way) was served with fried beet chips, but I think it would be terrific with homemade bacon crisps on top. We had it with some warm, buttered, savory pumpkin bread. It needed the salt from the butter, but there was plenty of flavor besides that in the soup, which tastes creamy and hearty without cream. It was a nice break from all of the heavy eating. This recipe could serve as a master recipe for any pureed vegetable soup, from broccoli to pumpkin to butternut squash, cauliflower, potato, beet, you name it.

Speaking of pureed soups, I mentioned my stick blender. As I also mentioned, the whole messy idea of pouring hot soup into a blender and then back into a pot is just silly to me. Not to mention potentially dangerous. I have had a hand blender since the mid-1980s, when I actually used to demonstrate Braun products in department stores. They are also called immersion blenders, because when you are making soup, you can stick the blender right into it and puree to your desired thickness without moving the soup. Makes great smoothies for one, and cleans up with a quick rinse in the sink. As I mentioned, I've used mine for 20 years (yikes, I think that makes me really old). It does not, however, crush ice very well, so unless you already have a crushed ice dispenser to break down the chunks, I wouldn't recommend using it for margaritas.

This week, when I made the soup, I barely had time to finish cooking it before we had to go somewhere, so I threw the whole pot in the refrigerator on a hotpad and pureed it in the food processor the next day cold. If you are going to do that, I recommend spooning the vegetables in first, getting them good and pureed, then adding the liquid slowly. This would probably also work well when blending the hot soup with a blender.

Note: By the way, Robert Redford was right about the dishwashing detergent. It really is working well, with no residue. It's even getting chicken stock grease off the reusable plastic containers, which is pretty impressive.

That's it for now. More soon.