Peach Pie

Pies always looked complicated to me, with all the fancy crust and the delicious filling, I thought of it as something only professional bakers could pull. But then I ran into this recipe in a cook book which looked pretty doable to me. So here it goes..

Ingredients for crust:
2 cups of flour
1/2 cup oil
1/4 cup milk
pinch of salt

Ingredients for filling
4cups peeled and sliced peaches(I thawed my frozen peaches)
1/4th cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
5 tbsp sliced butter
1 tbsp flour

Method:
Knead together the ingredients for the crust and make a pliable dough. Divide the dough into 2 balls. Roll the balls into sheets to line your baking pan, this will make the crusts for your pie.

Place one sheet in your baking pan and spoon peaches on it. Reserve a tbsp of sugar and sprinkle the rest on the peaches. Next sprinkle all of the cinnamon and top it with slices of butter and 1 tbsp of flour. Place the other sheet on top of this and pinch the ends of the 2 sheets together to seal the filling in between the 2 sheets.
Sprinkle the reserved 1 tbsp of sugar on top. Using a fork poke holes on top of the pie.
Bake at 350F for about 55mins or until you see the pie crust turning golden brown.

Strawberry preserve

I didnt know making preserves would be so easy. We recently bought a lot of strawberries(25lbs) from the local farm. I froze all of it except for about 1 lb that I used for making the jam.

Though the original recipe requires a lot of sugar,about double the quantity of berries you use, I used just 1/3rd. The result was the preserve didn't set well.. it ended up slightly runny. Which didn't bother either of us. Also the natural sugar in the strawberries gave it the perfect sweetness. We have loved the preserve on our toasts and bagels so far. Yet to try it on some vanilla icecream.. :) yummmm..

Ingredients:

2 cups crushed strawberries
1 cup Sugar
3 FL oz pectin

Method:

1. Mix crushed strawberries and sugar into a bowl and set aside for 15 mins
2. In a pot boil water and pour the pectin, boil for another minute mixing thoroughly
3. Pour this mixture into the strawberry-sugar bowl and mix well.
4. Pour it into sterilized glass jars and let it stand at room temperature for 24 hours

You can store this preserve in the freezer for a long time. They have a shelf life of 1 month in the refrigerator, if it lasts that long that is :)

Cauliflower soup

Usually if the dish in front of you is yummy then you had probably assume that the cook spent a long time in the kitchen making this elaborate looking dish. Not always true! Especially with this cauliflower soup that I have here today. Its as simple as it can get, but it will keep people thanking you for the yummy food and appreciating all the effort you have put into it. Little do they know.. :)

Ingredients:
1 cauliflower head roughly chopped
1/2 cup onions chopped
4-5 sprigs of rosemary
3-4 stalks of celery (optional)
2 cups milk
4 cloves of garlic
1 granny smith apple peeled and diced for garnish
1 tbsp oil
salt and pepper for taste

Method:

Take 1 tbsp of oil in a pan and chopped onions, rosemary, garlic cloves. Followed by salt and pepper for taste.
Saute until onions becomes translucent and garlic cloves turn a golden brown.
Add cauliflower and celery, cover and let it cook through. Once the cauliflower is slightly mushy add milk and bring it to a boil. Turn off the heat and pass it thru a blender to make a coarse mixture.
Return it to the original vessel, warm it again and adjust salt+spices as per your liking.

Before serving add a tsp of the diced apples to each bowl. Alternately you could slightly fry the diced apple in butter before garnishing. I tried it with and without frying the apple but didn't notice a significant difference, so I skipped the frying business this time around.

Enjoy, the simple yet delicious soup!