Inspired

Cold temperatures and a professor's New Year's resolution to bake pies inspired me to try making a meatball pie.  As he noted, his resolution was to make pies, not homemade crusts, or meatballs from scratch. Sometimes, I make homemade sauce but for today's recipe, I used store-bought sauce. This simple recipe is adapted from one offered by Better Homes and Gardens.

I learned the trick of making lattice pie crust from the folks at Inspired Taste.

Meatball Pie

Ingredients

2 refrigerated pie crusts

1 egg, lightly beaten

2/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 cup ricotta cheese

2 teaspoons dried basil, crushed

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1 pound (approx. 23) frozen cooked Italian meatballs, thawed

1 24 ounce jar purchased tomato and basil pasta sauce or marinara sauce

1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese (6 ounces)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
2. Thaw meatballs by cooking for 2 minutes in the microwave.
3. Grease a 2-quart square baking dish. Take crust out and bring to room temperature (15 minutes) Spread crust out in glass dish. Prick crust and bake 10 minutes. Take out of the oven and reduce temperature to 350 degrees F.
4. In a small bowl stir together the egg, the ricotta cheese, the basil, and the pepper. Spread ricotta cheese mixture over crust. Spoon 3/4 cup of the pasta sauce over layers in pan. Sprinkle with 1/2 cup of the mozzarella cheese.
5. Toss meatballs with 3/4 cup of the pasta sauce and 1/2 cup of the mozzarella cheese. Arrange meatball mixture over layers, forming a mound. Top with 1/2 cup of the remaining pasta sauce (reserve remaining pasta sauce and mozzarella cheese).
6. Cut second crust into ¾” lattice strips and cover the layers*.
   
 

7. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes more or until heated through. Watch for browning and tent pie lightly with foil if needed. 


8. Sprinkle with remaining mozzarella cheese and bake an additional 5 minutes to melt cheese.
9. Let stand, uncovered, on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Using a serrated knife, cut pie into wedges. Heat and pass remaining pasta sauce.

Lattice pie crust: Cut one 9" refrigerated pie crust into ¾ inch strips. Lay 5 strips across pie. Pull #2 and #4 back toward you and lay a strip perpendicular to the three remaining strips. Lay #2 and #4 back flat. Pull back #1, #3 and #5. Lay another perpendicular strip and then lay #1, #3 and #5 flat. Repeat until the lattice is completed. Crimp edges together with your fingers. Watch a short video at Inspired Taste.

If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen!

In honor of the 102 degrees in St. Paul, Minnesota this week and the paltry 93 degrees that we endured in western North Carolina over the last week, I am sharing two cold salad recipes. Trust me that these involve more than iceberg lettuce on chilled plates. (Of course, that would be a reasonable expectation from my kitchen. When I met my husband Jamie, I didn’t know how to make grilled cheese sandwiches, so I am not a culinary genius.) I’ve learned one or two things since then, but I still deplore cooking everyday six o’clock dinners. After all, for nine months of the year I eat in the dining hall at the boarding school where we live. My favorite food is… “cooked by someone else.” Add to the dinnertime chore the delight of summertime heat, and I am delighted to find ways to make the whole task more enjoyable. So here are two new discoveries and both have passed our Test Kitchen, also known as the dinner table, this week. You can find more by Googling “Too Hot to Cook”!

Shrimp Salad combines fresh/frozen shrimp and black beans with summer vegetables like fresh tomatoes and gold and white corn, mixed with honey mustard dressing to serve up dinner. The recipe says 4 – 6 servings, but it served our family of 4 and left several lunches leftover.

Steak Salad is even simpler, using marinated round steak cooked on the grill, corn, bell pepper and tomatoes, mixed with cubes of cheese and creamy Italian salad dressing. Recipe says 4 -6 servings and we had a little meat leftover but all the vegetables were gone.

Incredibly, we served both on beds of butter lettuce and the kids even ate the greens.

Finally, here’s food for thought, last summer St. Anthony Park Lutheran Church in St. Paul sponsored a “Chef School” on Sunday evenings once a month, inviting older youth and adults to come together in the church kitchen where they learned new tricks like Solar Cooking, Sausage Making and Canning. As with any chore, cooking dinner is a lot more fun when you have company!How do we move beyond simply sharing a pew with someone and share our lives?

Things I Learned Recently

Often, I forget more than I learn, so I thought I'd write a few notes to remember new lessons.

Playing scrabble across three generations, I was taught
peavy or peavey : a lumberman's lever that has a pivoting hooked arm and metal spike at one end —called also cant dog

What a squeeze chute is and how it operates


How to make pear jam:



Peel and grate 4 cups of pears
Measure 7 1/2 cups sugar
Mix 1 Sure Jell Pectin with fruit using high heat to bring to a boil
Add the sugar all at one time.
Bring to a full boil, and boil hard for one minute.
Remove from heat and skim foam for five minutes.
Ladle into jars leaving 1/4-inch space.
Water bath in boiling water for ten minutes for pints.
Set 24 hours.