Baked Cucumbers and Pork Pies

Yes you heard me correctly.  Baked cucumbers.  This is one of my favorite summer recipes and I just have to share it.  The wonderful and immortal Julia Child published this recipe in her Mastering The Art Of French Cooking and it is a rare and undiscovered gem of a dish.  It's a great way to use up an abundance of summer garden cucumbers and also tasty in winter with hydroponic supermarket cukes.  This is also one of the few recipes I will happily use the oven for in the summer heat.

 Start with 6-8 good sized cucumbers.  Peel them, cut the ends off and cut them in half.  Scoop the seeds out.  Slice each half lengthwise into 3 strips.  Cut each strip into 2 inch planks.  Meanwhile, combine 2 Tbsp. red wine vinegar, 1/8 tsp sugar and 1 1/2 tsp. salt in a large bowl.  Throw your cuke planks into the bowl and toss to coat.  Set aside for at least 30 minutes or for several hours.  At this point, you have the best natural air freshener sitting on your counter.  The whole room will smell like cucumbers!

 Here are my 8 cucumbers from the garden of my parents-in-law tossed in my bowl.  Next, wring them out in batches using 2 or 3 paper towels for each batch.  You will be amazed how much water comes out as well as how much has collected in the bowl.

 Here is the same bowl and the same amount of cukes after wringing out.  If you simply baked chopped cucumbers, they would turn to mush because of the water content.

 Next, spray a 12 inch wide x 1.5 inch deep baking dish with oil or rub with butter.  Toss your treated cukes with 3 Tbsp melted butter, 1/2 tsp dill or basil, 3-4 Tbsp minced onion, and 1/8 tsp black pepper.  Here are my cukes tossed with the above.  I absolutely LOVE dill and have never tried this recipe with basil.  I am always very generous with my dill.

 Bake at 375 for 1 hour, stirring every 20 minutes.  As you can see, they very barely brown and are still quite crunchy after baking.  They almost have that "squeak on your teeth" quality to them.  I usually end up adding another 1/4 to 1/2 tsp of salt to these after they come out of the oven.  Like I said, you can burn up a bunch of cucumbers with this recipe and 2-4 people can easily finish this off.  I also don't mind using the oven in summer for this because they are so tasty.  I am going to try using my crock pot on high for this and see if I have decent results.  Num num!

These are my second attempt at the pork pies I baked last weekend.  I first ate a real live pork pie back in Thirsk, England years ago on a trip there with my mother.  Mr. Granger of Are You Being Served? fame was always eating them.  They are North England's answer to the pasty.  Miners would often eat them because they were filling and portable.  I enjoy all the cooking shows on TPT on Saturday mornings and unexpectantly saw an episode of Around the Farm Table.  Here she was, in Wisconsin, making pork pies!  She very cleverly baked them in a jumbo muffin pan and I couldn't wait to try it out myself.  I baked them as described in the written recipe but unfortunately, I couldn't hack them out of my muffin tin and they were quite bland.  This second time around, I added 1.5  tsp salt to both the meat mixture and the pastry mixture and I baked them free-form.  I smushed the meat mixture into a 3/4 c measuring cup to form 4 meat 'cakes'.  Then I used a large circle cookie cutter to cut the top and a small bowl to cut the body.  I set the meat cake on the body round, placed the top round on top, and then folded up and crimped the body to the top.  I baked them for 45 minutes but I forgot to brush them with the egg mixture.  Otherwise they would have browned better.  These were so much more like the ones I ate in England.  Traditionally the meat shrinks inside the pastry casing and they would pour a gelatin mixture into the dough slits after baking.  The gelatin mixture would gel and prevent the shrunken meat from knocking around inside the pastry.  I did not do that extra step and thought these were just fine as they were.  My father in law loves pork and he concurred that these were just fine as they were.  These are not an every day entree because the pastry crust contains lard.  They are a nice treat every now and again though.

Speaking of not every day food...here is a picture of a deep fried grilled cheese sandwich!  Dave and I went to the Washington County Fair on Friday.  This was our favorite terrible food of the day.  It is amazing what you can find deep fried at fairs.  This was delicious though!  I am also proud to say that I took home the top 3 prizes in knitting this year:  Grand Champion for my bead knitted drawstring bag, Reserve Grand Champion for my red striped jacket, and Top Place Knitted Exhibit for my 3 piece baby set.  As well as the 2 top rosette ribbons, I also won the 2 $25 gift certificates to local yarn shops!  FREE YARN!  Next is the State Fair!