Browsing Tag

Pie

Appetizers/Starters, Dinner, Lunch, Sides

Venison and Mushroom Medley Hand Pies

As I have mentioned before, I am a big fan of “wild game” whether it be venison, boar, elk, etc. This recipe takes my Vension Ragout, adds a whole lot more mushrooms to make it very thick, and then fill into delicious, buttery puff pastry. totally decadent. Very earthy, savory, comfort food.

Hand pies freeze well! Wrap in foil, then pop each one in a ziplock baggie. To reheat bake in the tin foil for 12-12 minutes, then unwrap and bake an additional 5 minutes without the foil to crisp up. Great for a lunch or dinner with a salad.

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Breads, Breakfast/Brunch, Desserts, Sweet Snacks

Braided Puff Pastry Apple Strudel

Just seems like a week ago when I drove from Munich to Innsbruck to have “homeland” Apple Strudel. Oh wait, that was just last week!

If you follow me on social media, you know that almost every time I am in Munich, a friend of mine and I do this crazy drive just for a piece of strudel, aka The Strudel Run. Sometimes in addition to Austria, we end up in Italy or Lichtenstein or Switzerland, but it’s always an adventure. Often, you’ll see that I hashtag my posts with #bergblicksteuer, and I suppose I should actually explain that so here goes: “Berg Blick Steuer” translates to “Mountain View Tax”. A number of years ago, on a Christmas Strudel Run with some additional adventurers, the topic of conversation was “Taxes that Germans Pay, that others don’t” — examples are Kirchensteuer (Church Tax), Luftsteuer (literally, “Air Tax”; a commercial tax if a sign extends into public space off your property), Hundesteuer or even Pferdesteuer (Dog or Horse Tax — we would call those permits or registration fees, but not taxes). Anyway, when the view of the mountains came into sight, someone made the off-handed comment like “Well, I see that we paid the Mountain View Tax”, and #bergblicksteuer became a thing.

Train of thought: Strudel > Strudel Run > View of the Alps > Berg Blick Steuer!

This is a pretty straight forward recipe, easy to make because I used store bought puff pastry. The recipe is actually for two strudels, but you can either halve the filling recipe, or make both and freeze one of the strudels (they freeze really well; reheat from frozen loosely wrapped in foil for 25 minutes at 350F). Or just eat both. They are delicious with vanilla custard sauce (my favorite), ice cream or whipped cream.

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Appetizers/Starters, Breakfast/Brunch, Lunch

Crostata Primavera: Puff Pastry Tart with Asparagus, Peas + Baby Arugula

Here’s a delicious little spring tart (hence the name, Crostata Primavera), with all sorts of early in the season bounty: asparagus, peas and baby arugula/rocket. It’s very green, which is the intent as it is Easter Week and this is something for “Green Thursday (Gründonnerstag)”, which is how some people in Germany refer to Holy Thursday. Was very easy to make, required very little prep time and was ready in under an hour. Can be eaten hot or at room temperature, for brunch or lunch. Might have to put this one on the regular spring rotation.

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Sweet Snacks

Sugar Bee Honey Whiskey Apple Pie

It’s March 14, commonly known as Pi(e) Day here in the US, so I baked a pie…. just a standard old lattice top apple pie, but it is delicious. I found this new variety of apples called “Sugar Bee”, and they turned out to be a great baking apple; I definitely recommend seeking them out.

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