grace grits and gardening

ramblings from an arkansas farm girl

Buttermilk Pie with Raspberries

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“Make You Wanna Slap Yo Momma”
Buttermilk Pie with Raspberries


This is an awesome pie. Adapted from Southern Memories by Nathalie Dupress, it’s an easy pie to bake. It will make you think back to your childhood and wonder why your mother only baked pies at Christmastime. Or Thanksgiving.  And that just might make you want to slap yo momma…

Ingredients
Favorite Pie Crust (homemade or not)
1 stick butter, unsalted, melted, cooled
3 eggs, room temperature
1/4 cup buttermilk
2 T flour, all-purpose
1 3/4 cups sugar
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt


  • First of all, read this entire recipe before you even think about cooking.  This will eliminate surprises and make sure that you allow enough time to assemble and bake this pie.  It will turn out better. I speak from experience.
  • Secondly, gather all of your ingredients and measure them out beforehand. Yes, you will dirty more measuring cups and bowls, but you will know well in advance that you are out of vanilla or your flour has bugs in it, saving yourself a mad dash to the grocery store during mid-stir. Plus, you will feel like the Barefoot Contessa with all the little bowls sitting around pre-measured.  
  • Be sure to melt your butter and then let it cool to room temperature.  And the eggs need to hang out for a bit as well. While your butter is cooling and your eggs are chillin’, roll out your crust and press it into the pie pan.  Press it into the corners, and try not to stretch the dough. Stretching causes shrinkage while baking. And we all know shrinkage is ugly. Trim the edges and try to make them look somewhat neatly crimped.  But don’t worry too much about this…a rustic-looking pie tastes better and perfection is overrated. (I am assuming you are working with the pre-made Pillsbury pie crusts – the kind that you unroll. If you buy a pie shell, then just unwrap it.)  Once your crust is pressed into the pan and all trimmed, place it in the freezer for 30 minutes before baking. Trust me on this.
  • Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. 
  • In your KitchenAid or in a mixing bowl, mix the butter and eggs together until well combined.  (Did you melt your butter and then let it come to room temperature? If not, guess what? You just made yourself some scrambled eggs. If so, stop right here, make a scrambled egg sandwich for sustenance and start over…) Add the buttermilk and vanilla to the butter/egg mixture and mix well.
  • In a separate bowl, combine the flour, sugar and salt.  Stir this dry mixture into your wet mixture a bit at a time until mixed.  Don’t over mix. At this point you may want to drink it like eggnog.
  • Pour the filling into the crust and bake on the middle rack until set and lightly browned.  About 45 minutes. Cool to room temperature on a rack. Be patient. Raspberries or other tart fruit sprinkled on top will help balance the sweetness. Don’t put your raspberries on when the pie is warm. They will bleed. 
topped w/ pomegranate thingys 
Total shweetness!! Try not to slap yo momma. 

talya

Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.



This recipe was adapted from Central Market which adapted it from Southern Memories, by Nathalie Dupree.


Sinful Pies & Magical Jello

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Nana’s Recipe Box!
While scrambling eggs this morning, my mother started cleaning a cabinet in her kitchen. It contained expired cough syrup and gummy vitamins, along with a shelf of old cookbooks. Basically, my mother hung up her apron in 1994 after my dad died, so I doubted these cookbooks had seen the light of the kitchen in years.

As we ate breakfast and drank coffee, she handed me Nana’s recipe box to peruse. I had no idea she had this bit of heritage hidden behind the spice rack like a secret diary. It was a small wooden box exploding with bits and scraps of papers, jammed inside at all angles so that the lid would not close. I loved to cook and try out new recipes so this was a treasure trove! Plus I remembered some of Nana’s delicious pies.

I carefully unfolded the bits and pieces of fragile paper which were yellowed and coated in an oily film- probably Crisco. I loved that I was touching papers that she had touched. Each was written in pencil, in her easily recognizable cursive handwriting. She wrote the way we were all originally taught in elementary school – slanted to the right with loops and curves and each letter gracefully flowing into the next.  Most recipes had no title, and they all began with a simple listing of basic ingredients.  As I read the ingredients aloud, my mother identified most,  “Oh that was her fruitcake recipe”. And, “That was her chocolate pie”. Oddly enough, almost every single recipe included jello. Who knew jello was such a magic ingredient?
 
Studying the castoff papers on which these recipes were written was as much fun as reading the actual recipes. She was the quintessential recycler! Chocolate Pecan Delight was written on the back of the Keiser Baptist Church program from 1976. Nana was a faithful member of that church until she died.  I still remember the preacher there (I’m Facebook friends with his daughter), and I knew the organist and Sunday school director, who were also identified in the program. The sermon on that particular Sunday morning was “Sin is Sin”.  I think baking and eating pie every day was probably the only sinful thing she ever did.

Chocolate pie was written on a Bank of Wilson deposit slip, along with her grocery list for tuna, milk and sugar. An unnamed recipe was written on Keiser Supply Company note paper. We always bought our Christmas tree at Keiser Supply, and they sent us a giant smoked ham every year – the best ham ever.

I plan to try out these recipes.  It will likely take years, but as this is part of our family history passed down in Nana’s handwriting, it seems like an important use of time. Maybe somewhere in this treasure box is the perfect pie crust recipe I’m determined to master.


talya

Musical Pairings:
Hymn, “Blessed Assurance”

You R What U Eat

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I attended elementary school in the 1970s, in a quaint little town in northeast Arkansas surrounded by cotton fields and towering cottonwood trees. In the fall, as the farmers hauled trailers to the gin, cotton fell along side the roads giving the appearance of an early snowfall.  In the spring, the female cottonwood trees shed cotton, turning the playgrounds and nearby lawns white, and wrecking havoc on every one’s allergies. I can smell the aroma of that school cafeteria where we were served wholesome food by our substitute hair-netted grandmothers. On the wall there was a large poster with the Food Pyramid and the saying, “You Are What You Eat”. I always found this fascinating.

Ok, I must briefly interrupt this bucolic scene to inject that to our delight, we did have fried bologna cups every other Friday – not our most wholesome fare and definitely canceling out any healthy food we managed to consume the prior few days. These gray-haired cooks were so ahead of their time. This recipe would easily win the fried food competition at the State Fair of Texas, falling right in line with fried butter, fried bubble gum and chicken fried bacon.  In case you haven’t fried bologna in a while, or EVER, as bologna sizzles in the skillet the edges brown and curl up, forming the perfect cup in which to hold a scoop of mashed potatoes with a slice of cheese (American, of course!) melting on top. And voila – the 1970’s Bologna Cup. But I digress as I disgust.


Apparently the phrase “you are what you eat” has been around for a very long time. It was referenced in a 1820s French cookbook “Dis-moi ce sue tu mangoes, je the dirai ce sue tu es.” (Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are.) As my personal food tastes, ideas and ideals have evolved – in part out of necessity – I understand the wisdom in this saying. Food should be an offering to the body. It fuels the body. It can heal the body and even reverse the signs of aging. Alternatively, it can age the body, harming the organs. We should all slow down and enjoy meal preparation. Take the time to actually feel the textures of the food. Smell the food. Vary the colors of fruits and veggies for maximum benefit. Arrange the meal on a favorite plate and sit, relax and enjoy. No distractions. If you chew slowly, you will actually taste the flavors. You are what you eat. Bologna cup notwithstanding.

talya

Musical Pairings:
Louis Armstrong, “What a Wonderful World”

Food. Farm. Garden. Life.

THANKS FOR READING!