Maine Crostata

A Crostata is a traditional Italian desert that is very similar to a pie. An irresistible combo of sweet and flaky pastry filled with various types of fruits and baked until golden brown. For this Crostata I was inspired both by my trip to Maine and from the great movie The Cider House Rules which also takes place in the gorgeous state of Maine. Lobsters may be the first thing you think of when you put "Food" and "Maine" to mind but it's equally known for it's sweet Blueberries in the Summer and it's lush Apples in the fall. This Crostata is the perfect desert to have with a warm cup of coffee watching a good movie or sitting on the back deck watching the Autumn leaves fall.

Makes 1 Crostata / Serves about 6

1 cup of All Purpose Flour
1/4 cup of Granulated Sugar
1/8 teaspoon of Salt
Pinch of Cinnamon
1 Stick of cold butter
3 Tablespoons of Ice Water
For the Filling
4 large Apples
1/2 pint of fresh Blueberries
1 Tablespoon of Flour
1 Tablespoon of Sugar
1 Teaspoon of fresh lemon Juice
1/8 teaspoon of Cinnamon


In a food processor with the steel blade attachment. Pulse together the flour, sugar, salt, and cinnamon together 3 to 4 times just to combine. Cut the butter into smaller chunks and add into the flour mixture. Pulse the mixture together again about 8-10 times until the butter is cut into small pea sized pieces. This is the key to any pastry, the piece of butter will melt in the oven and give off steam that results in a light and flaky pastry. Next, fill a small dish with ice and pour very cold water over top and let it stand for a few minutes to ensure the water is as cold as possible. Turn the food processor on and all at once add 3 tablespoons of the cold water.

Once the dough begins to come together shut off. Carefully remove the blade and dump the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Pat the dough into a circular disc shape about a inch or so thick. Cover the dough in plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for one hour.

Wash the apples and peel if desired. Cut the apples in halves and remove the cores. An easy way to do this is by using a metal measuring spoon. Slice the apples thinly. A quick and easy way to slice the apples is by inserting the slicing blade into your food processor. Place the sliced apples in a large mixing bowl. Add the fresh blueberries, the lemon juice, sugar, flour, and mix together gently.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Remove the dough from the refrigerator. Flour a flat and clean surface and your rolling pin. Roll the dough out so that it's about 1/4 inch thick. Transfer the rolled out dough onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Place the fruit in the center of the pastry leaving enough room along the edges to fold over for an edge.

An optional crumb topping for the Crostata can be made by mixing together 1/2 stick of cold butter cut into cubes, 1/2 cup of flour, a half a cup of brown sugar, and a pinch of nutmeg. Mix everything together with your hands until the crumb topping forms and begins to hold together into large clumps. Sprinkle over top of the fruit and fold the edges over top. Don't worry about making them look perfect. Bake the crostata for 20-25 minutes or until the crust is golden brown and the fruit is tender. Allow to cool slightly. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Chai Tea Ice Cream

Chai Tea Latte's are one of the most popular items in Coffee houses around the world. Sweet and cream with exotic spices, it's the perfect pick me up treat. I got the idea once to turn that into an ice cream recipe and I've been very happy with the results. It's everything you love about Chai and Ice cream all in one!

6 Vanilla or Spiced Chai Tea bags
1 cup of Sugar
1/2 teaspoon of pure Vanilla extract
Small pinch each of Nutmeg and Cinnamon
1/2 cup of half and half
4 cups of heavy cream

Begin my measuring out 1/2 cup of the heavy and cream and add it to a small sauce pan. Add the 1/2 cup of heavy cream and a pinch each of nutmeg and cinnamon. Unwrap the tea bags and place them into the half and half and cream mixture. Heat the cream over a medium low heat and stir gently nce the cream begins to steam. If at any point the cream begins to boil, reduce the heat. Continue stirring until the mixture becomes tan and the tea has released it's flavors.

Remove from the heat. Carefully take the tea bags out and squeeze to get all the moisture out of them. While the cream is still hot, add 1 cup of sugar. Stir the sugar in until it's dissolved. Add our sweetened Chai spiced cream to the remaining heavy cream and set in the refrigerator to cool.

Once the mixture has cooled, place in your prepared ice cream maker and churn for about 20-25 minutes depending on your unit. Place the ice cream in a container and freeze for another hour or two until the ice cream is a bit firmer for serving.

Funnel Cakes and Big Fish

With all the visual treats at the carnivals, fairs, and circuses around the world, is it wrong I look forward to the food more than anything? Among all the culinary options, funnel cakes are far and away my favorite. Fried until golden brown then dusted with a generous amount of powdered sugar, their really is no resisting a hot funnel cake. In Tim Burton's 2003 film, the main character Edward Bloom spends a few months of his life working at a Circus in order to find out the name of the love of his life. That portion of the movie always makes me crave being at a carnival or a circus and eating a funnel cake. Since we can't just hit pause and run down to the big top and pick up an order of funnel cakes, we'll make them at home! It's a simple recipe that anyone can make and it's sure to impress your friends and family. This recipe will yield about 5 to 6 large funnel cakes

2 Eggs
1/4 cup of Sugar
2 cups of Milk
1/2 teaspoon of Pure Vanilla
3 cups of Flour
1 tablespoon of Baking Powder
A pinch of Nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon of Kosher Salt
Peanut or Vegetable Oil for frying (Peanut recommended)
Powdered Sugar (For dusting)

In a large mixing bowl, whisk two eggs together until slightly beaten together. Add the sugar to the eggs and beat for 2 to 3 minutes until the sugar had dissolved. Once beaten, add the milk and the vanilla to the egg mixture and whisk to combine.

In a separate bowl - sift together the flour, baking powder, nutmeg, and salt together. Slowly add the dry ingredients into the milk and eggs while whisking together, add about a cup at a time. Whisk everything together just until the batter forms and it's very smooth and there aren't any lumps of flour.

To fry the funnel cakes, add about 2 to 3 inches of oil to a cast iron skillet, dutch oven, a deep fryer, or a heavy duty pot. Peanut oil is the best oil to use here because it tends to not absorb into the funnel cakes as much as the vegetable oil. Heat the oil to around 375 degrees. Once heated, test the oil by dropping just a small spoonful into the hot oil. The batter should sink for just a moment and rise bake to the surface and start bubbling. Before you start frying the funnel cakes, have a plate with a few paper towels nearby to set the cakes on once we remove them from the oil.

If you don't have a funnel to pour the batter into the oil, pouring from a liquid measuring cup will do just fine. Fill the funnel with batter using a ladle and keeping a finger underneath the spout so the batter doesn't leak out. Bring the funnel over the batter and carefully remove your finger from the bottom and pour the batter into the oil. Move the funnel in a circular and criss cross motion to form the cakes.

Fry the funnel cakes for about 2 to 3 minutes. Much like a pancake, you should see air bubbles at the top of the batter and the sides around the bottom start to turn golden brown. Carefully flip the funnel cakes and allow them to fry for an additional 2 to 3 minutes.

Carefully remove the funnel cake from the hot oil and place them onto the paper towels to drain any excess oil. Immediately dust the hot funnel cakes with a generous amount of powdered sugar.

Serve the funnel cakes while they are still hot. If you're making a large quantity, you can store the funnel cakes in an oven that's been preheated to 275 degrees. After you're finished frying, let the oil cool completely and you can strain the oil and store in an air tight container to use again at a later date.

Once you've fried your funnel cakes, it's time to start our movie of the week. This weeks film is the larger than life story of Edward Bloom and is extraordinary adventures in Tim Burton's 2003 film Big Fish.

When the fascinating life of Edward Bloom (Albert Finney) seems close to it's final chapter, his family gathers by his bed side to spend what time they have with him left. For Edwards son William (Billy Crudup), it's the final chance he has to really understand his father. All his life, Edward lived a fascinating and eventful life and chose to share his experiences with people through him telling his over the top stories that played out more like fairy tales.

While young William saw the allure in his father's tales, he quickly out grew hearing the same stories over and over and no longer saw the charm in what he know saw as lies. Trying the understand what were true events and what were fabrications, William sorts through his fathers past in hopes to understand him and makes sense of his stories.

In the flashback portions of the film, Edward's younger self is portrayed by Ewan McGregor. Edward's life was never filled with a dull moment and met some interesting people along the way including a witch, a giant, a werewolf, and plenty of other folks that became apart of his stories. Through the recreation and the retelling of his father's stories, William may finally learn about both his fathers greatest achievements and his failures. Marion Cotillard, Jessica Lange, Helena Bonham Carter, Steve Buscemi, and Danny Deveto co-star in this fairy-tale fantasy of a film.

Big Fish is among the most original films that's been created in recent memory. It's tag line "An adventure as big as life itself" perfectly describes what this movie is about. A heart warming, funny, and magical film that tells a story fit for all ages. At it's core, it's a father and son film that portrays the special bond between them. Tim Burton's eye for fantasy and stunning visuals is very apparent in Big Fish and I don't think any other director other than Burton would have done this story justice. If you've never seen this film, I can't urge you to do so as soon as possible. Click here to watch the trailer for Big Fish.

Cappuccino Ice Cream and "50/50"

Ice cream is the perfect treat for any hot summer night and, of course, for any movie night! A timeless treat that children, teenagers, and adults have been enjoying for years and homemade ice cream is the way to go. You can customize it to just about any flavor you'd like and you might even surprise yourself just how good your own ice cream can be. An ice cream maker may not be a regular in every home's kitchen but with many options to fit various budgets, I'd highly recommend you look into getting one. This week, I'm pairing my ice cream with the 2011 film 50/50 starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogan. Taking place in the beautiful Pacific Northwest city of Seattle, I couldn't help but be inspired by the city's love for coffee. This isn't going to be just any coffee ice cream though, I call this my Cappuccino ice cream because I fold in some fresh whipped cream in at the end to represent the frothy top of the cappuccino everyone loves!

3 cups of heavy cream

1 cup of half and half

2½ Tablespoons of Instant Coffee

3/4 cups of sugar - plus 1 teaspoon

¼ teaspoon of Vanilla extract 

In a small saucepan, pour in 1 cup of heavy cream and heat over a medium low heat. Once the cream begins to steam just slightly, add instant coffee and stir in until it's dissolved completely. Once the coffee has been incorporated, add 3/4 of a cup of sugar and mix into the cream. Once the sugar has dissolved, should only take a minute or two, stir in a ¼ teaspoon of vanilla and  remove the cream from the heat.

In a large glass measuring cup or a mixing bowl, pour in the cream that we just sweetened and infused with coffee flavor. To that, add the half and half and 1½ cups of additional heavy cream. We're reserving the last ½ of a cup of cream to make fresh whipped cream that we'll fold into our ice cream a little later.

Gently mix the cream mixture together. Chill the mixture in the refrigerator for about 10 minutes or so. Place a metal whisk and a metal or glass mixing bowl in the freezer - we'll need this for making our whipped cream. Once the cream has chilled, pour it into your ice cream maker and allow the ice cream to churn for about 25 minutes (depending on the model ice cream maker you have.)

While the ice cream is churning, now is a good time to make our whipped cream. Using the bowl and whisk we placed in the freezer, beat the heavy cream along with an additional splash of vanilla extract and 1 teaspoon of sugar. Beat the cream until soft peeks begin to form and store the whipped cream in the refrigerator for the time being.

You'll know that this ice cream is ready once it begins to resemble soft serve ice cream. Remove the ice cream from the inside of the ice cream maker and scrape into a container to be placed inside your freezer. Gently fold in our whipped cream into the coffee ice cream and freeze the ice cream for about an hour until the ice cream has had a chance to firm up. Once the cream has set, scoop out a dish and head to our at home movie theater for this weeks film, 50/50.

Based loosely on screen writer Will Reiser's own life experiences, the movie follows a young man who finds out he has cancer and the dramatic and life changing events that follow. Joseph Gorden-Levitt plays Adam, a 27 year old non-smoker, non-drinker, exercise daily, eat all the right things kind of guy who finds out he has a rare form of spinal cancer. With the help of his best friend Kyle (Seth Rogen) and a young and inexperienced hospital psychiatrist Katherine (Anna Kendrick) Adam tries to cope with the stress and strain of his illness. 50/50 is a film with a lot of heart mixed with humor despite the emotional story.

The cast for 50/50 is one of the films greatest strengths. Joseph Gordon-Levitt continues to shine in leading roles over the past few years and his performance in 50/50 is among them. I was convinced when I first saw the film he would have at least been honored with an Oscar nomination. Anjelica Huston gives a strong performance for what little time she's on screen as the overbearing but lovable mother. Seth Rogen gives the best performance so far in his career playing the supporting role of the best friend who tries to lighten the mood in his own way. Though he focuses more on using Adam's cancer as a way to pick up girls, he still brings the element of the concerned best friend. Bryce Dallas Howard also lends her talents as Rachael, Adams girlfriend who sees is illness as more of a burden than anything else.

While 50/50 certainly deals with a very sensitive subject, it manages to tell a dramatic real life story but still works well in delivering a good amount of laughs when appropriate. To make a film about cancer was a huge risk but the pay off was even greater. One of the better dramatic comedies to arrive on screen in recent years, 50/50 is a must see. Click the link here to watch the trailer for the film.