Tag Archives: pie

Banana Cream Pie for bananas times

What to do with the just ripe to just over ripe bananas? Pie, of course. The hard way around is to make your own pie crust, but a store bought version will work out just fine. Bake the pie crust til golden brown, and set aside to cool. For the filling you'll need:

5 tbs flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups whole milk (very important it's whole milk...)
2 egg yolks
1/2 tsp vanilla
3-4 bananas

Method:
Scald the whole milk in the bottom of a double boiler. Essentially you want to bring the temp of the milk to 180 degrees F. While milk is warming on the stove combine the flour, sugar, and salt in the top half of the double boiler and whisk to combine. Stir the milk to keep a skin from forming, and once the milk is scalded add to the dry ingredients. Rinse out the bottom of the double boiler and fill with enough water to warm the upper half sufficiently. Once the liquid has warmed temper the eggs by adding a few tablespoons worth of milk mixture to the eggs at a time. This will keep the eggs from scrambling once they're added to the milk. Stir in the eggs and reduce the pudding you've made to as thick a consistency as you like - in this case thicker is better so that you don't have runny pudding pie, but it's really dealers choice - When you've just about reached your desired pudding texture stir in the vanilla, slice the bananas into the pie shell, and then fill pie shell with the pudding. Place the whole works in the fridge to chill for a couple of hours.

Sweet Potato and Goat Cheese Hand Pies

I had a hankerin' for some sweet potato pie, and a hankerin' for an english hand pie. So, naturally, I combined my desires into one delicious dinner / breakfast / whatever, portable meal. A slice or two of crumbled bacon wouldn't hurt this recipe one bit, fyi.

2 Medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 inch cubes
2 packages frozen puff pastry sheets
4-5.5 oz goat cheese
2 green onions
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp smoked paprika
salt and black pepper to taste

In a medium pot, cover cubed sweet potatoes with salted water, and bring to a boil. Boil potatoes until fork tender, remove from heat, drain and return sweet potatoes to pot. Gently mash the potatoes with a potato masher. Crumble one small package (4-5.5 oz) goat cheese with a fork into the sweet potatoes. Mash and stir the cheese and sweet potato mixture until almost smooth, and then add 1/4tsp cayenne, 1/4tsp smoked paprika, and two green onions, including greens, sliced thin to the pot stirring to incorporate. Add salt and black pepper to taste.

Preheat your oven to 400˚ F. Remove thawed puff pastry and cut each sheet into 9 equal squares for a total of 32 squares. Place 18 of the squares onto an ungreased baking sheet. Fill the interior of the square with a tablespoon to a tablespoon and a half of the sweet potato and cheese mixture leaving about a 1/4 inch gap all around. Lightly wet the edge with water, place another square on top, and seal the edge with a fork. Repeat for remaining pies. With a very sharp knife, or razor blade, cut two vent slits in the top of each pie. Bake according to the puff pastry package instruction, about 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.