Medlar Pie

Last month, at our raw foods potluck, I ate Durian for the firs time. It stunk to high heaven, but had the consistency of a creamy pudding or custard and had a mild, sweet taste. Last Sunday, we hosted a holiday raw foods potluck and party here at Le Roost Lorane. I thought it would be fun to introduce another food that most of us have never tasted. Medlar. It was the first time for all of us. Tastes a bit muddy and feels a bit gritty. You pop it open, suck out the fleshy part and spit out the cluster of small seeds inside. Since no one helped themselves to seconds, I made a medlar pie this afternoon with the rest, and for the remainder of the two cups I needed I added Leroux Creek organic apricot applesauce.

Don't know what to do with Medlar once you find it at the market? Join me and experiment. Make yourself a Medlar Pie:

Filling:

2 cups medlar pulp, skin and seeds removed* (I used 1 cup medlar** and 1 cup applesauce)

12 oz. (1/2 cup) evaporated milk

1/2 c. sugar

1/2 teaspoon ginger

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 eggs, beaten

*If you don't have a full 2 cups of medlar pulp, you can use unsweetened applesauce to make up the difference.

**I swished the innards out by hand; quite messy.

Place everything but the eggs in a saucepan and simmer over low heat until slightly thick. Don't let it boil, or the milk will curdle. If needed, run the mix through a food mill or sieve to remove seeds and lumps. Let it cool slightly, then whisk in the eggs. Pour into an unbaked pie shell (I use a gluten-free shell) and bake for 15 minutes at 425 degrees, then at 350 degrees until done (for me, it was 30 minutes more in a convention oven).

Yummers!

Gluten-Free Pecan Pie Crust

My planned visit to see my granddaughter and introduce her to Knox Blocks was waylaid when a Realtor called to schedule an appointment to bring her clients out to view our property in a couple of  hours. So, about the same time our home was being shown to potential buyers, I met up with my daughter in town to give Sephira her tray of orange "jigglers". She's going to share them with her cousin Max this weekend. 

Effie had a treat for me, too. She had made a pumpkin pie for a friend, but with a little of the filling left over she poured it into an oiled ramekin with a gluten-free "crust" of pecan bits, and baked it just for me. Effie and Sephira delivered their pumpkin dessert to me chilled with a side of whipping cream and a fork. Maybe it was the element of surprise, or that it was a very fall-ish sort of day, or the fact I hadn't eaten breakfast and it  way beyond breakfast time, or that I was sitting alone in my car in the parking lot of my allergist's office and didn't have to share it with anyone else... I devoured every bite of it in bliss! I wish I had a picture of it to show you. It was Yum! Loved the pecan crust! Here is the recipe Effie used from the back of the Santiam Classic Fancy Golden Pumpkin can. 

Ingredients:

1 can Santiam Pumpkin, pureed
4 eggs, lightly beaten
1-1/2 cups white sugar (we did 1/2 cup white sugar, 1 cup brown)
2 (12 oz) cans evaporated milk
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg or allspice (we did 1/4 tsp. nutmeg and 1/4 tsp. allspice)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425F. Combine pumpkin, sugar, salt and spices. Blend in beaten eggs and milk. Pour into unbaked pie shells. Bake 15 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350F and bake 45 minutes or until knife inserted in center come out clean. Bake as instructed above. Recipe makes 2 nine-inch pies.

For Pecan Ramekin Tarts: Spray casserole ramekin dish with cooking oil. Sprinkle pecan pieces into bottom of dish. Pour pumpkin pie filling over pecans. 

Here is another way to make a gluten-free pecan crust. This particular recipe was created for a raw vegan pumpkin-less pumpkin pie. I plan to make and bake this crust with Effie's baked pumpkin pie recipe this Thanksgiving, using all organic ingredients.

Pecan Crust as shared by Melissa Breyer

CRUST

2 1/4 cups pecans, soaked overnight and dehydrated for 24 hours
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tablespoon coconut oil
1 tablespoon date paste
1 pinch sea salt

Directions:

1. Place prepared pecans in food processor; pulse into small crumbs.
2. Mix pecans and all remaining ingredients together well by hand.
3. Press into plastic (or parchment) lined 9-inch tart pan to desired thickness. Dehydrate 48 hours.
4. Chill crust in freezer for 15-30 minutes before filling. If not using all of the crust mixture, store extra in a container in the freezer.

FILLING

1/2 cup cashews, soaked
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup agave

1/2 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons carrot juice
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 vanilla bean, scraped
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons nutmeg

Directions:

1. Blend all ingredients in a basic, heavy duty blender until very smooth.
2. Fill tart crust and chill in freezer overnight. 
3. Remove pie from tart pan and cut into 12 even slices and serve, or wrap each slice in parchment and store in refrigerator.
   

Adapted from the great raw cookbook Everyday Raw (Gibbs Smith, 2008) by Matthew Kenney

Recipe for "Sense of Wonder" Pie

One of the reasons I love the movie Waitress is the song Jenna sings to her toddler Lulu with the words "Gonna make a pie with a heart in the middle...gonna make a pie from heaven above, gonna be filled with strawberry love... gonna make a pie, and hold you forever in the middle of my heart".  

Thinking about the end of the movie, I got to thinking about the contrast between the life Jenna had before giving birth to her baby girl, fraught with unhappiness, threats and fear, compared to the new life she created for Lulu and herself filled with love and wonder.  Then I got to thinking about all those pies that Jenna made and the crazy names she gave them, which got me thinking about her recipes, which got me to thinking about what  ingredients would go into a "Sense of Wonder" pie? 

According to Dr. Peter Haiman, a sense of wonder is a key ingredient in the life of every newborn infant, saying that "Wonder is possible when children are free from threats and fears."

If we were to make a "Sense of Wonder" pie, then... imagine Dr. Haiman as a pastry chef and this is his recipe: 

"Here are some ideas of how parents can provide an atmosphere in which wonder can flourish in children. A sense of wonder is created, nourished, and sustained when:

• Sensitive parents react in a prompt, responsible, and satisfying way to the voiced and unvoiced needs of their children.
   
• Children are well-fed, rested, and allowed ample opportunity to run, jump, ride, climb, and play.
   
• Parents have lovingly held and cuddled their child in ways and amounts that addict not only the child but the parent to their mutual comfort and joy.
   
• The child feels secure in the child-satisfying love and attention of her parents.
   
• Parents and other adults who are models for the child regularly show their surprise, interest, and attraction to the natural world and its happenings - from the movements of a worm, the wag of a dog's tail, bubbles popping in a bath, the shadow cast by the sun, and a spider's web, to the mold on an old slice of bread.
   
• Parents and other adults close to the daily life of the child interact with the child and her world from evident interest, spontaneous humor, and joy.
   
• Parents encourage children to freely experiment, taste, feel, hear, see, explore, and get into things that are interesting and safe.
   
• Parents show their pleasure and delight and create novelty in what otherwise would be life's daily mundane chores and routines.
   
• Children see and hear their parents become engaged and responsively enlivened when doing such things as reading a story and playing or listening to music.
   
• Children safely and playfully enact the stories in their imaginations or the imaginations of creative, empathetic parents.
   
• Children notice that their parents let themselves get lost in the fun and creativity of play.
   
• Parents find something good about the mistakes children will make as they grow and learn.
   
• Parents are flexible enough to postpone their planned activities from time to time and let a child's creative idea or direction lead the way.
   
• Children are encouraged to voice their emotions and to talk about their hurts and fears with attentive, responsive parents.
   
• Children can choose play activities based on their own feelings of interest and boredom and not the decisions of another person.
   
• The efforts of young children are regularly encouraged and prized. Children's sense of wonder is damaged and grows weak if their efforts are often met by adult corrections and criticism.

"Wonder becomes possible when children can risk being themselves without there being any risk at all."

Excerpted from Developing a Sense of Wonder in Young Children as posted on The Natural Child Project.

Richard Louv's "Sense of Wonder" pie ingredients are... "The earlier the better. Three and four seems to be a time when that sense of wonder comes alive." Author of Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder ( a favorite book of mine)

"Reducing that deficit—healing the broken bond between our young and nature—is in our self-interest, not only because aesthetics or justice demands it, but also because our mental, physical, and spiritual health depends upon it. The health of the earth is at stake as well. How the young respond to nature, and how they raise their own children, will shape the configurations and conditions of our cities, homes—our daily lives."

Excerpted from Last Child in the Woods.

Rachel Carson's "Sense of Wonder" pie ingredients are...

"If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in."

 "A child's world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the good fairy, who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from sources of our strength." Carson, Rachel. The Sense of Wonder. New York: Harper & Row, 1956.

I highly recommend the movie Sense of Wonder about Rachel Carson.

If we want to hold our children forever in the middle of our hearts, then part of loving them  to that depth of heart is to encourage their inborn sense of wonder and love for their creator, so  that we  enjoy a healthy, life-affirming bond with them. Our nurturing puts the joyful responsibility on us to model  a lifelong relationship with God through Jesus Christ and an appreciation and respect for His creation, so that they will mature holding the beauty of God's diverse and magnificent natural world in the middle of their hearts, too... with a growing capacity to lovingly care for all that God has created.
 
A scriptural ingredient...

"Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it. " Proverbs 22:6

It was such a joy to take our 13-month old granddaughter on a walkabout this past weekend with her Mama and Dada, giving her  opportunity to explore Le Roost Lorane, and meet our neighbor's crowing "doo-dle" and fat cackling hens,  their gentle horse and frisky pony, and  a cute"itty" that hopped about like a bunny. Sephira jumped about in the crunchy autumn leaves, her Papa raked up for her to play in,  swishing them about and offering us samples, and swinging beneath the fiery red maple tree as we looked around at everything lively and arrayed in fall colors. Here are some of our precious moments experiencing her sense of wonder... slices of our "Sense of Wonder" pie...

 

Until the next time we go on another Le Roost Lorane walkabout, we hope you enjoy creating your own "Sense of Wonder" pie and will share a slice or two with us.

Check out my "Quiching in the Dark" Pie made with chanterelles gathered from our walk in the woods near our home.