Katie Stew

Winter is a time for Pecan Pie. Thanksgiving, Christmas, or any special occasion during the cold months. My sister in law and I made these last year for a party and they were delicious!

Now generally, I’m not the biggest fan of Pecan Pie. It is generally too rich and gooey for my tastes. So, when a request was made for pecan pie, I did not have anything up my sleeve. So, we did what I always do when in doubt about food, we turned to the Contessa and found these wonderful bars. 

These are basically short little pies on top of a beautiful shortbread crust. The cookie crust is divine. The citrus zest brings a refreshing zing. These make for very decadent bars that are sure to be a pleaser.

Doesn’t that just look yummy?

 I have one very important tip for this recipe. When I followed it as is, it made an insanely large mess in my oven, which the day before the a party is really annoying. That is why I suggest that you line the oven with foil. If you have a very high lipped cookie sheet, that could help as well. The problem is, while it will all fit in the cookie sheet after you pour the topping on, it won’t exactly stay there. As the bars are cooking, the sugary nut concoction will boil and overflow the pan. If you don’t put anything under it, you will have a heck of a mess to clean up. Also, be careful pulling from the oven so that you don’t end up with hot syrup on your wrists. That would be bad.

But, despite all that, these are absolutely worth your while. The recipe makes a ton of these wonderful bars. Enjoy!

Pecan Bars 

Recipe from the Barefoot Contessa

Ingredients
Crust:
1 1/4 pounds unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3 extra-large eggs
3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
Topping:
1 pound unsalted butter
1 cup good honey
3 cups light brown sugar, packed
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 teaspoon grated orange zest
1/4 cup heavy cream
2 pounds pecans, coarsely chopped

Directions
Line the bottom of the oven with foil. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

For the crust, beat the butter and granulated sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, until light, approximately 3 minutes. Add the eggs and the vanilla and mix well. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix the dry ingredients into the batter with the mixer on low speed until just combined. Press the dough evenly into an ungreased 18 by 12 by 1-inch baking sheet, making an edge around the outside. It will be very sticky; sprinkle the dough and your hands lightly with flour. Bake for 15 minutes, until the crust is set but not browned. Allow to cool.

For the topping, combine the butter, honey, brown sugar, and zests in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan. Cook over low heat until the butter is melted, using a wooden spoon to stir. Raise the heat and boil for 3 minutes. Remove from the heat. Stir in the heavy cream and pecans. Pour over the crust, trying not to get the filling between the crust and the pan. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the filling is set. Remove from the oven and allow to cool. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate until cold. Cut into bars and serve.

This website was insanely helpful. It will tell you anything you need to know about canning peaches.

In fact, I’m not even going to publish a recipe here on this, because that other website was so insanely helpful and tells you all you need to know. I will tell you that the method of dropping the peaches in boiling water for a few seconds and then dropping them in ice water was a great trick. The skins slid off so easily. It saved me a lot of time peeling peaches, and a it saved a lot of peach that would have come off with the peels. It also made the most beautiful sight. The skinless peaches were beautiful. There can’t be enough pictures of them really.

I love fruit cups. For years I always kept them stocked in the fridge. They were a great snack. A sweet treat. But I stopped buying them when I started reading the labels. Too much sugar. Too many preservatives. Too much stuff that I couldn’t pronounce. But, after my canning class, I came to realize there was no reason I couldn’t just make my own.  So now I have a pantry shelf full of homemade fruit cups. It wasn’t a hard process. It wasn’t complicated. It is basically just peaches in a simple syrup. I added a little cinnamon and was done. I used the “medium syrup” from the peach canning site. And I know this may be an over the top number of photos of canned peaches, but I just couldn’t choose. They were all just so beautiful. 
They will make me think of summer in the dark rainy winter months. They will taste like sunshine. I only wish cherries were still in season when I started this canning adventure. Then I would have some nice cherries to put in my Manhattans. And though peaches are pretty much done for the year as well, it is the perfect time to get some pears cooked up and saved in your pantry. That way you’ll have some fruit to enjoy in February that didn’t come from the other side of the world.

Enjoy.

Photographs by Jessica Yager

Apple Sauce. So simple. So delicious. It seems almost like kid stuff. I know I ate a ton as a kid, but then again, I also ate a ton of apple sauce in my dorm room at college. Last summer I made batch after batch of apple sauce from the tree in my backyard. This year, instead of harvesting the buckets and buckets that I did last year, I think there were about half a dozen apples on my tree and I didn’t get to eat any of them before the squirrels got to them. I’ve been told that apple trees cycle through years of abundance and years of very little, but it was still a bummer. But luckily, living here in Washington, there is certainly no shortage of apples. I hit up my local farmer’s market and bought a five pound bag of fresh picked apples and went to funky town. Or, I made apple sauce with them. You know what I mean. But unlike last year, I canned the sauce so that I could keep it in my pantry all winter. Last year, I froze small portions of the apple sauce, which worked just fine, but was less than perfectly convenient. I would have to set some of the little jars in the fridge the night before I wanted to eat them to thaw out, and who thinks a day ahead about if they’ll want apple sauce? Now I’ll just have to grab it off the shelf and dig in! Just like the little cups of Mott’s you can buy at the grocery store, but when you make your own, you can control how much sugar you want (and you can even add some booze!). When you are making your apple sauces, I encourage you to experiment. I told you last week about a canning class I went to. When we were there, we made two kinds of apple sauce. One had lots of apple brandy in it. It was delicious and my favorite. But, we also made another kind. One with sage and rosemary cooked in with the apples. The herbs were chopped very finely and they added a delicious, fresh, herbal flavor to the apples. I wouldn’t have thought of putting fresh herbs in my apple sauce, but it was a real treat.

You will find my original recipe for apple sauce here. Make the sauce according to those directions and then can them like this:

1.) Prepare boiling water canner, or large stock pot with a strainer that will keep the jars off of the bottom of the pan. Heat jars and lids in simmering water until ready for use. Do not boil. Set bands aside.
2.) When the apple sauce is ready, remove jars from hot water and set somewhere clean. Allow to dry. Ladle hot applesauce into hot jars leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Wipe rim clean. Center lid on jar. Apply band until fit is fingertip tight.
3.) Put jars in a simmering water for 20 minutes. Remove jars and cool. Check lids for seal after 24 hours. Lid should not flex up and down when center is pressed.

Should keep for one year in your pantry. Store canned goods out of direct sunlight. Enjoy!

Photographs by Jessica Yager