Tag: cranberries

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Pear Cranberry Almond Tart

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Looking through my collection of recipes, I realize I bake a lot. Well, I do love my oven, so there’s that. It’s nothing fancy or anything but its GAS. And it bakes the best bread, and pies, and tarts, and muffins and lasagna. 🙂 I love baking, did I mention?  And since cooking with gas, I will never, ever want to live in any place I cannot cook with gas (alright, if the choice is living in a house with an electric stove or living under a bridge…, but short of that)

And on to another fall/winter treat…

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Can you tell I got a good deal on pears recently? After shopping the local farmers market at the end of the day on Saturday, I suddenly found myself with bags of produce that now needs to be eaten. As for pears, it’s a race against time, as they are only at that ‘perfect ripe but not mushy’ state for so long, or should I say, so short. Sometimes it really seems like that window is measured in minutes not hours. So what’s a girl in possession of 12 pears to do? Well I made this, twice. And this deep dish pie uses another 6, so doing pretty good overall.

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I also have been on a quest for the perfect pie crust recipe and am trying out different ones to see what to add or subtract from my two standard go to recipes in order to make a perfect and foolproof everyday crust. But more on that after the study has been completed.  😉 Here I used an amazing flaky, slightly sweet, all  butter crust.

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So for this seasonal recipe besides using the abundance of pears in my kitchen, I used some cranberries. I think that the tartness of the cranberries very nicely offsets the sweetness of the ripe pears, but you could just as well leave the cranberries out. Almond and pear are a natural match and a lot of fancy French pastry draws on that flavor combo, you can do the same here, just easier.

imageFresh in the oven

You will need a Deep dish pie plate

Ingredients

  • Single pie crust (home made or store bought, your choice)
  • 6 medium pears * see note
  • 1 cup cranberries
  • 3/4 ground almond
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup almond milk (or dairy, if you prefer)
  • 1/3 cup sugar (i used coconut/palm sugar)
  • 1 tbsp coconut flour (you could use cornstarch instead)
  • 1 tsp almond extract (you could also use vanilla)

* note: I used pear the size of your fist, like the ones that come in 3lb bags at the grocery store; if you use bigger ones, you might need less

Directions

  1. Roll out pie crust about 1-2″ bigger than the pie dish. Fold crust in half and in half again to easily transfer it to the baking dish. Refrigerate
  2. Preheat oven to 400°F
  3. In a bowl or 4 cup measuring cup, mix the eggs, sugar, ground almond and almond milk. Then  add the coconut flour and the almond extract. Beat with a fork until well mixed.
  4. Wash pears and cut in half, core and cut each half into 4 slices (you should have 8 slices per pear)
  5. Remove crust from refrigerator, arrange pears in circles into the crust, layering the cranberries in between (or if you almost forget like me, just put them over top the pear before it goes in the oven). You should end up with two layers of sliced pear.
  6. Pour the filling over the pears into the pie pan, doing circles as you pour to distribute evenly
  7. Bake for about 35-40 minutes or until the filling is set and not liquid any longer.
  8. Serve warm or at room temperature!

imageand that’s light Asparagus Quiche in the background

Copyright © 2011 Simple Healthy Homemade. All rights reserved

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Cranberry Oat Scones

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Guess what I found in my freezer? Cranberries! …and I remember putting them in there too. At the very tail end of winter, they were on sale, and I can be such a sucker for sales when it involves things that can and will be eaten. As for those cranberries, well, apparently they did not. So since they endured summer somewhere in the recesses of my freezer, I decided it was time to finally turn them into something, well, more than just frozen cranberry taking up space in the freezer.

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For those of us that enjoy an occasional baked treat, scones are the perfect marriage between sweet and substantial. These scones are just a touch sweet, and even though full of oats and other goodness, have a surprisingly light texture. Having made the discovery before that finding a good scone, isn’t as simple of  task as it seems. I remember the taste bud disappointment from biting into what I expected to be slightly crunchy on the outside and soft crumb in the center,  just to bite into a brick, a extra sweet brick 🙁 Not a fan, no can’t say. So with this recipe I made sure that would not happen. Try them still warm for breakfast or reheat in the toaster oven.

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Ingredients

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 cup sugar (sucanat, coconut sugar or turbinado/raw)
  • 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 7 tbsp butter, cold, cut into cubes
  • 2/3 cup + 2 tbsp rolled oats
  • 1 cup fresh or frozen cranberries
  • 1 cup + 2 tbsp milk (dairy or almond) or half & half
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla
  • 3 tbsp turbinado (raw) sugar for garnish

Directions

  1. Combine dry ingredients (flour through salt)
  2. Cut butter into flour mixture using a pastry cutter or 2 knifes, or pulse in the blender until coarse meal forms
  3. Add 2/3 cup oats and stir to mix
  4. Add cranberries, then add the milk and vanilla
  5. The resulting dough is going to be quite sticky. Using a measuring cup, drop by the 1/4 cup onto a parchment lined cookie sheet, spacing about 2″ apart. (I made them in the 1/2 cup size before, but they get really big)
  6. Sprinkle with the remaining 2 tbsp oats and 3 tbsp sugar
  7. Bake at 350F for 30 minutes or until skewer inserted from the side comes out clean

Makes about 12 scones, (or 6-7 big ones )

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Copyright © 2011 Simple Healthy Homemade. All rights reserved