Campfire Bars – Butter Baked Goods

My mom’s 60th birthday was yesterday, December 21st and we kicked it off (and her time in Vancouver) with a surprize visit from my sister, a trip to Cavalia’s Odysseo and dinner at Sula. It was an incredible day, and truly it was also a celebration of my mom’s retirement which began on Thursday! Odysseo was incredible, the horses were beautiful and so well trained. There were often 20 horses on the stage and as many people, moving around without problem. The acrobatics were incredible, as is to be expected from a Cirque du Soliel show. The set was incredible, with a hill climbing up the back, the set was like a real field. It’s hard to describe the vastness of the set, but trust me, it was amazing and I would recommend anyone to go.

Also, and probably most importantly, after my sister, mom, and I finished our dinner, Kellie went up to pay for her part while I went to the washroom. Kellie mentioned that I, her sister, would be paying the other half. The cashier said, “Oh nice, are you all sisters?” Well my mom was just tickled! She does look young for 60, and clearly they thought she was young enough to be a sister to us, her daughters in their 20’s! There mom, now EVERYONE knows!

CampfireBars

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Magic Bars… Double Brown Sugar Cookie Bars

Honestly, I am in a bit of a state. I cannot believe that we are a week away from December and just over a month from Christmas. Oy, this fall has flown by. I need to finish getting Christmas presents. I need to tell people what I want for Christmas. I need to make stacks and stacks of gingerbread houses for my gingerbread house party. I need to make my Food Blogger Cookie Exchange cookies and send those out. I need to do SO MANY THINGS.

At least it is sunny, my paper is coming along nicely, and I live in a city I love. Mom gets here for a visit in less than a month, and I am going to do some awesome tub renoing (redoing the caulking) next weekend, which I am strangely excited for. So things are moving quickly, but stuff is happening and that is great. Also, I had my contract extend at the NFB for another session, so that’s great news as well, and I am happy to get to stick around.

Magicbars

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Almond Puff

Oh sunshine and daylight savings, I love you both. Waking up this morning at 7:45am to sunshine and feeling well-rested was GLORIOUS. I’ve been happily working away at my thesis, and pondering a trip to Fort McMurray to visit my sister and her family. Hopefully I will get to go this coming weekend, in lieu of my trip for Thanksgiving. It would be so nice to see my sweet little nieces in person again, as well as meet my new dog niece and of course see my sister and my brother-in-law.

As I sit here, typing up this beloved recipe, smelling the ham and black beans Gen has cooking on the stove, and anticipating my piece of almond puff after dinner, I feel so crazy lucky to be living in Vancouver, doing something I enjoy. I mean, I’d feel luckier if all the people I love were in the immediate vicinity, but as it is, life is good.

Almondpuff

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Fruit Pizza, like Momma Crocker makes it

Oh Vancouver and your fickle weather. Our summer seemed over a couple weeks ago as it started to cool off and the days became, almost suddenly, shorter. The fall feeling of sloth and the need to hunker down all cozy-like washed over me and while I was sad that we were losing our sunny mornings, I was happy for the coolness. THEN, well, then last week was a glorious burst of heat and sunshine again. I was caught unprepared because the mornings still felt like fall and I’d throw a sweater on to go to work, our office is cool, and then I’d leave the office in the evening and step out into a hot summer day.

But now we are back to fall. We are into day two of thick fog, though it only started in the afternoon yesterday. I like it, it is like a blanket over the city, tucking us in for a little nap. I mean, I am not going to like it come Monday when the fog-muted sun fails to wake me, but right now, on this quiet Sunday morning, I am digging it.

Looking back on summer, I am excited to share a childhood favourite of mine, that also happens to be an adult favourite too. The recipe was given to my mom by my wonderful Auntie Janice. She’s shared a few recipes with us that I will be using on here eventually, because they are all incredibly tasty (including a Grape Salad and a cheese ball that I distinctly remember being awesome).  Quick segue, my Aunt Janice and my mom are in Florence right now! Which is unthinkably exciting. They are having a lovely time, I got to speak with my mom yesterday. They are great friends and I am so happy that they are on this adventure together.

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Saskatoon and Fruit Pies… an experiment of sorts. A wonderful experiment.

Living in berry country is great. Our friends, the Taylors have Saskatoon bushes out at their house on the lake and a couple weeks ago Natalie, their daughter, called to let us know that she had picked a batch of berries for us. Huzzah! Pies were to be made! We made these pies for Dad’s party, as they were another favourite of his. They were supposed to be straight Saskatoon berry pies but we realized that we didn’t have enough Saskatoons. So they were going to be Saskatoon and blueberry pies… but when Kellie and I got to baking we realized we didn’t even have enough of those two combined… so we frantically looked around the kitchen and assessed the fruit situation. We had oranges, bananas, five measly plums, and two apples. Huzzah! We quickly dismissed the bananas and oranges (whew) and started cutting up the rest of the fruit. We ended up with enough Saskatoon and blueberry filling to fill the first pie, I scooped out four scoop of that filling to round out the Saskatoon Blueberry Plum and Apple Pie. Both were huge successes and Mom really couldn’t tell the difference in them, the Saskatoons really took over the flavour profile perfectly. Enjoy!

Saskatoon Pie with variations

INGREDIENTS

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Klondike Pastry (makes enough for the crust and tops of two pies)

  • 5 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 3 tbsp brown sugar
  • 1 lb (2 cups) shortening
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tbsp vinegar
  • 3/4 cup cold water

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Saskatoon and Blueberry Pie (makes one 9-inch pie)

  • 7 cups fresh or frozen Saskatoon berries
  • 1 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1/4 cup lemon juice
  • 1 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 1/3 cup all-purpose flour

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Saskatoon, Blueberry, Apple, and Plum Pie (yes, it is many things) (makes one 9-inch pie)

  • 1 cup fresh or frozen Saskatoon berries
  • 1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries
  • 2 apples, sliced and chopped
  • 4-5 small plums, roughly chopped
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1/4 cup lemon juice
  • 1  cup white sugar
  • 1/3 cup all-purpose flour

DIRECTIONS

  1. Heat oven to 425°F.
  2. Prepare your Klondike Pastry:
    • 
    In a large bowl, whisk together your flour, salt, baking powder, and brown sugar. Cut in your shortening until you have pea-sized bits throughout.
    • In a small bowl, whisk together your egg, vinegar, and cold water.
    • Pour your egg mixture into the flour mixture and mix only until a dough forms, don’t over mix. Split dough in half, roll out each half to desired thickness, lay into your pie plate, press lightly to fill and cut around the edges. Re-roll left over dough to form the top. Cut a shape out of the top layer before laying it onto the fruit mixture.
  3. Onto the fruit! In a large saucepan, simmer berries (and apple and plums, if doing that version) with the water for 15 minutes.
  4. Stir the lemon juice into the fruit mixture, allow to cook for another 5 minutes.
  5. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour and sugar, stir into the berry mixture.
  6. Pour the filling into your pie crusts. Place the top layer over the pie, pinch to seal the edges. If desired, use a pastry brush to brush the top with some milk and sprinkle with sugar.
  7. Bake at 425°F for 15 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 350°F  and bake for an additional 35 to 45 minutes, or until golden brown.

Delicious berry filling (pre-realization that we needed WAY MORE FILLING)

The first pie, gloriously filled.

The second pie, the four-fruit filling pie.

This Saskatoon berry shape is old and well used.

Pre-baking.

Post-baking.