Fall must be here.  I’m collecting recipes for fall baking, particularly things with apples.  Obviously, DH and I can’t eat all the stuff I’d like to bake, so I hope to share some of it with the coffee group that meets following exercise.

The cover of Southern Living features a fabulous Apple-Spice Cake with Caramel icing and pecans.  I bought a Bundt pan and a cake carrier just so I could try this recipe.

I have another magazine with fall baking that features sweet things made of pumpkin, or apple, or cherries, raspberries, cranberries or pears!  Clafoutis, slumps, grunts, cakes, quick breads, cookies….you name it and they have a recipe for it.  I want to make them all.

I love Fall!

No, I didn’t make three of them.  This is just the third time I’ve felt the need to post about Farmer’s Tomato Pie.  My sister, Frankie, found this recipe and shared it with us.  It’s the perfect recipe for the heat of August, when tomatoes are at their peak.  It’s not the kind of recipe you’d make in February when all you can get is the cardboard they market as tomatoes.

You can use a store-bought pie crust for this recipe.  You can buy the bag of finely shredded Italian cheeses, if you don’t want to fill your refrigerator with cheese.  But, you need to have warm from the garden tomatoes and freshly picked basil for this to live up to its mouth-watering promise.

I might not have made this recipe this year, given that we’ve been moving, but Frankie brought me all the tomatoes I needed from her own garden, and a large bouquet of basil, to boot!  It was part of an incredibly generous housewarming gift that included dried herbs from her garden, dill vinegar which she had made, and three plants, in pots that she had also made.  She hit all the things that we love in common, including a bottle of wine!  Thanks, Sis, for such a wonderful gift!

So, for those of you who may be interested, here’s the recipe:
Farmer’s Tomato Pie

30 minutes preparation
32 minutes baking
10 minutes stand time
1 piecrust
1 1/3 cups shredded Italian blend cheese (5 ? oz.)
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbsp. Fine dry breadcrumbs
2 lbs. Ripe tomatoes cut into wedges
1 cup Cherry tomatoes, cut in halves
1 tsp salt
1/4-1/2 cup loosely packed small basil leaves

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
Pie crust
Roll out a prepared piecrust to a twelve-inch circle. Place in a 9″ quiche pan or a 9″ pie pan, and trim. If using a pie pan, crimp the edges. Line the unpricked pastry with TWO thicknesses of foil. Bake 8 minutes. Remove foil and bake another 4-5 minutes, until set and dry. Remove from the oven.
Reduce the temperature to 375 degrees.
Filling
Sprinkle 1/3 cup cheese evenly over baked shell.
Sprinkle garlic over cheese.
Sprinkle 2 tsp. Breadcrumbs over garlic and cheese
Top with 1/3 of the tomato wedges and 1/3 of the cherry tomatoes
Sprinkle 1/3 cup cheese
Sprinkle 2 tsp of the dry breadcrumbs
Top with 3 of the tomato wedges and 1/3 of the cherry tomatoes
Repeat last set of instructions once more and then sprinkle with salt.

Bake 20-25 minutes or until pastry is golden brown and tomatoes are just beginning to brown.
Remove to wire rack
Sprinkle with basil and let stand for 10 minutes

Apparently I’ve been busy the past two weeks. I think my last post was July 24th. I know there was a trip to visit with my youngest sister and her family, but the rest has flown by with all the basics of life. Chores, errands, cleaning, cooking, some packing, a little quilting, just the usual stuff, plus a lot of my annual doctor visits.
So, for my first post in August, I want to talk about making pesto. My house smells fabulous. This is how I think Italian houses must smell all the time, and my sense of smell is saying, “Yuuuummmmmm!”
I surfed for recipes for pesto and learned that there is a classic version that most people use. Garlic, lots of basil, pine nuts, kosher salt, fresh ground pepper, Parmesan cheese and olive oil are the ingredients.
I bought a pot of basil in May, intending to plant it outside, but it kept residence on the shelf between the sink and the kitchen window. My sister, Frankie, repotted it for me when she was here, and I’d been watering it. It was long and leggy and had started to grow shoots off the stems, so I had a LOT of basil. I was shopping with a friend yesterday and saw Colavita olive oil on sale for a great price, so I decided this was Pesto Weekend!
I peeled the garlic and cut off the root end. I have a VERY basic food processor. It has no amenities. It is either off or on, and you can pulse the contents, but that’s all it has to offer. I use it about once a year, so I didn’t really want to spring for the terribly expensive one that I’m sure Cook’s Illustrated would like me to use. It chopped the garlic very nicely. Next I added the basil, which I had snipped from the stems. It took four cups. The only thing the recipe didn’t explain was how densely packed the leaves should be, so I went for a medium amount of compacting. The processor chopped the leaves finely.
At that point you add the pine nuts, Parmesan, salt and pepper and blend it all together. It looks odd, and was trying to form a ball. The final step is to add, with the motor running, one cup of olive oil. Almost immediately I got something that more resembled pesto. Once all the oil had been added, I unplugged the machine, took the top off, and scraped down the sides. I reassembled it and gave it another whirl to be sure everything was well incorporated. It was beautiful, and smelled heavenly.
The recipe advised freezing the pesto in ice cube trays. Each “cube” takes about one tablespoon of pesto. I ended up with 18 tablespoons. To prevent the basil from turning dark, you cover the pesto with a light film of olive oil, and then cover the ice cube tray with plastic wrap. I pressed the wrap down onto the oil to push out the air, and then put the trays in the freezer. When they are frozen, I’ll pop the pesto out of the trays and store them in a freezer bag to use as needed. I’m positive I’ll be using it in my minestrone soup, and probably on pizza dough as the base of an appetizer.
I think next time I will try packing the leaves more tightly. And, next time, I may try doubling the recipe. Although, homemade pesto has a shelf life of about six months. I may need to keep an eye on the basil season at the Farmer’s market, to see if I could make the next batch closer to the end of September. That batch would take me through March.
2012 shall be known as “The Year of Pesto!” *G*
For the complete recipe, visit The Yummy Life. Here’s the site if you’d like pictures of the process.

There is a restaurant near my home that sells a “muffaletta” sandwich that knocks my socks off. It’s a very non-traditional muffaletta, made using Italian rolls, lunch meat, and mozzarella. The topping is what I like. It’s made of very finely diced green olives and garlic, and it makes my mouth go, “Yuuuuummmmm!”
I’ve tried other tapenades, and like them, but I like this one the most. I’m going to have to see if they will sell it to me by the half pint.
I’ve been trying to link to a picture of a muffaletta for you, without luck. Go to Google Images and type in “muffaletta,” and you can see hundreds of them! Thanks to all of you, I may know how to make the tapenade! I have a small food processor called a “Little Oscar.” If I put green olives stuffed with pimentos, a few cloves of garlic and some olive oil in the base and chopped them fine, I might have what I’m looking for!
YEA!!!

Cop Car, the ever helpful, sent me a copy of the recipe that I shared with her. She suggested in her blog that I post this recipe, and I said I would, as soon as I found it! *G*
Here’s the Spicy Nut Slices that Dear Husband likes so much:
Spicy Nut Slices
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup finely chopped almonds
Cream butter and sugars. Add eggs; beat well. Blend in vanilla. Stir flour with next 4 ingredients; stir into creamed mixture. Add nuts. Shape into two 9-inch rolls. Wrap in waxed paper or plastic wrap. Chill well. Cut into 1/4-inch slices; place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 degrees about 8 minutes. Cool 1 minute; remove from pans to a cooling rack. Makes 72.
We don’t use almonds. Usually Mother made them with pecans or walnuts. The two rolls can be rectangles with the upper edges rounded. We never get 72 cookies from this recipe, so we must be making over-sized cookies.