Wedding Backstory part 3

Part 3: The Pies

Everyone loves pie.



At the wedding we had multiple peach pies, apple pies, pecan pies, wild Maine blueberry pie, pumpkin pies, pineapple pies, blackberry pies, raspberry bavarian cream pies . . . oh my oh my.

Momma's Amazing and Never-Enough-of-it Raspberry Bavarian Cream Pie:



Step 1: Grow raspberries in your yard. This is important. If there are not little crushed up bugs and blood from your pricked fingers in the pie then it is no good. My mother's porch has a raspberry bush growing right up through it. Some litte volunteer seed was dropped and up sprang the most delicous and voracious rasberry bush ever there was. During the berry season you walk out onto the porch with a bowl and pick berries for breakfast- talk about joyism.

Step 2: Make the Graham Cracker crust. Or, ok, you can buy one.

12 whole graham crackers crushed
3 TBSP brown sugar
6 TBSP melted butter
Combine the crumbs sugar and butter. Press into the bottom and sides of a greased pie pan. Bake at 300 F for ten minutes. Cool and set aside.

Step 3: Eat some spoonfuls brown sugar and a handful of berries.

Step 4: Make the Filling
-Wet down a mixing bowl and pop it in the freezer
-Crush 1 quart of raspberries
-Add to that 1 cup of sugar
-Let this stand for 30 minutes
-Soak 2 tsp of gelatin in 3 tbsp water
-Dissolve that into 3 tbsp of boiling water
-Whip 1 cup of whipping cream in your chilled mixing bowl until it peaks.
-Stir water mixture into berry mixture
-Fold cream lightly into the berries before the berry/gelitan mixture sets up
-Pour the whole delicous mess into the cooled pie shell
-Put into fridge and wait patiently until it all sets up and holds its shpe upon cutting.



Yummmm

Mom made Joey and me a heart shaped half-and-half pie for our wedding. Half pecan (Joey's fav)and half raspberry bavarian:



Everyone at the wedding got a little sweeter!:

Wedding Backstory Part 2

Part 2: Mason Jars


In creating my dream 1930's country wedding, I knew mason jars had to be involved. Growing up, mason jars were everywhere. Mom canned everything in our garden. At any given time one could find mason jars of all sizes on the kitchen shelves, sink, refrigerator, laundry room or garage.

The Jams :
Mom offered to make jams and jellies for our table favors, perfect. I instantly printed a whole bunch of 'Spread the Love' and 'Relish Love' labels for the jars. All of the jams and jellies and relishes featured locally and home grown ingredients.

There was jalapeno jelly, mint jelly, raspberry jam, blackberry jam, blueberry jam, apple butter, "blue raspleberry" (which I think was a blueberry/raspberry apple butter), beet relish, basil green bean pickles, dill bean pickles, piccalilli (green tomato relish) and curried squash pickles...! Needless to say, one one left without their favors.
Jalapeno Jelly:
Follow measurements on jelly pectin box, but this gives an idea:
12 jalapenos
2 cups cidar vinegar
6 cups sugar
2 packets of liquid fruit pectin

Blend 12 jalapenos and 1 cup of cider vinegar until smooth in processor
Add remaining cider and all sugar
Boil over high heat stirring frequently for 10 min
Remove from heat, skim off foam, put immediately into jars and cap them.
Submerge 1-2 inches into boiling bath of water for 10 minutes

Raspberry Jam
2 quarts raspberries
5 cups of sugar
1 box powdered gelatin
1/2 tsp butter
Smash fruit with a spoon, measure our 5 cups of smashed fruit.
Mix with box of gelatin and add 1 tsp butter
Put on stove under high heat and stir until it has a full rolling boil
Add sugar all at once
Bring to boil again stirring constantly
Keep at rolling boil for 1 minute
Remove from heat, skim off foam, cap immediately and cap. Follow same water bath as Jalapeno jelly.

Dilly Beans:
Makes 10 1 pt jars
4 lbs snapped green beans per jar
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes per jar
1/2 tsp mustard seed per jar
1/2 tsp dill seed per jar
1 whole clove garlic per jar ;)
5 cups vinegar
5 cups water
1/2 cup pickling salt
Wash jars.
Put all 'per jar' ingredients into their jars
Boil water, vinegar and salt. Pour boiling liquid into jars.
Tighten lids and place into boiling water bath for 20 minutes.

The Flowers
So of course the flower vases had to be mason jars. Lots came from dad's garage. They needed cleaning.

Mom planted all of these beautiful flowers for the tables and bouquets, not to mention all the surrounding fields and ditches that grew an extraordinary amount of weedy wonderful wild flowers this summer (thanks WV). The morning of the wedding Mom, Martin and Hanna picked and picked and came up with this:


My bridesmaids and I sat on the cool porch a few hours before the wedding putting together the flowers for the table and our bouquets. Playing with flowers with my closest friends and family was such a calm and wonderful way to spend the last hours before such a big event. It turns out that Sherri had quite a knack for flower arrangement:

Our Process:
Put long pointy flowers in the back
Put bushy flowers in the middle
put big faced flowers up front
fill in with weedy flowers
cut stems at an angle
wrap with pretty ribbon
pin in place with colorful plastic headed straight pins

In the end, beautiful flowers abounded and our bouquets were completely unique to each lady:






If YOU love mason jars as much as I do, check out Jill's gift jars.

Happy November

Halloween is over. I cut out bats all night Friday and baked a cake then cooked up a storm Saturday after work, iced a cake and hung bats. So here are the results:


Marinara dip with Meatballs is in the chicken with a witch hat:

Home made meatballs. Served with garlic bread sticks. Joey didn't like these because of the bay leaf and basil BUT OTHER people said they were good:
1 lb ground beef
1/2 lb Italian sausage
Bread crumbs
egg
Parmesan cheese
Salt, pepper, bay leaf, whatever else
Cover cookie sheet with foil and lightly grease it. Broil for 10 minutes, flip them over, broil for 10 more.
Simmer in tomato sauce for however long you have.

Next up, the Cake:

Honestly, it's a cake box. I wish I had the time for a cake from scratch because I love to bake, but it was just fun assembling this.
Chocolate cake box makes 2 circular cakes. Bake and let completely cool. Ice in between the layers.
Melt squares of semi-sweet bakers chocolate with some candy wax stuff and poor over cake. Hang bats is a tangley mess.

The Delicious Swiss Fondue is in the awesome orange cast iron pot, I wish I took a picture of inside:

Swiss Fondue, from Martin's dad:
Emmental cheese
Gruyere or white cheddar
Dry white wine
Garlic
Bread (I like Germany ones- pumpernickel, rye)

Rub down pot with garlic cloves as you would buttering a pan. Leave in chunks of garlic. Chop up the cheese, equal amounts of each. Melt slowly over the stove, move to fondue stand. Lightly toast bread chunks. ENJOY Don't forget to stir it and scrape up the bottom of it occasionally or you'll scorch it over the Sterno.)

Mexican-ish. . . . More like Taco Bell-style. . . Mexican Dip:
Heck of a lot of white american cut into chunks
Lots of red pepper flakes
Green onions chopped up
Paprika
Fill up the pot with water to the top of the ingredients.
Melt slowly.

With all cheesey fondues you have to heat them slowly over low heat. In my experience, the longer the take to melt all together, the longer they have to infuse all those flavors (like the dry wine and garlic or green onions) Stir occasionally while still in watery/chunky phase, then stir vigorously when everything is starting to melt to get it a good consistency.

Enjoy.