Author Archives: Jack & Barbra Donachy

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About Jack & Barbra Donachy

Writers, photographers, food lovers, anglers, travelers and students of poetry

Deep Dish Garlic Margherita Pizza

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Uptown Chicago on the Chukchi Sea: Pan-fried garlic chips and lots of parmesan create a tasty topping for this Margherita-stye deep dish pizza. 

Barbra’s formative food experiences were considerably more worldly than mine. For her, deep dish pizzas were part of growing up. But I still vividly remember my first encounter with deep dish pizza. It occurred during my senior year of high school when one of my track teammates qualified for nationals in the javelin. The meet was in Chicago. When he got back, he raved about a strange and wondrous food called “Chicago Deep Dish Pizza.” The way he told it, a single lare slice of this thick, crusty, meat-and-cheese-stuffed pie would constitute a meal for a regular person.

After that, I kept my eyes open, hoping to find such a pizza on a local menu or in our supermarket’s frozen food section. But back then, in my small town in western Pennsylvania, there were no Chicago Style Deep Dish Pizzas. (I felt like an epicurean adding a little extra cheese and a sprinkle of Italian Seasoning on my frozen Red Barrons.) Many years later, when I finally did get the opportunity to try a deep dish pizza, it was at a well-known pizza chain where, not surprisingly, the experience was entirely anticlimactic.

I’m happy to say that I have finally experienced the gustatory joy of digging into an authentic, perfectly baked, zesty, cheesy satisfying deep dish pizza. Barbra kept the ingredients fairly simple, starting with a Margherita-style filling featuring diced tomatoes, slices of mozzarella, olive oil and a blend of Italian herbs. She topped this with shredded parmesan and pan-fried garlic slices. In our view, pizzas ultimately stand or fall on their crusts. This one was perfect.

Deep Dish Garlic Margherita Pizza

Ingredients

Crust

  • 4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 3 tbsp yellow cornmeal
  • 2 3/4 tsp yeast
  • 1 3/4 tsp salt
  • 4 tbsp olive oil
  • 4 tbsp butter, melted
  • 1 1/4 cup water

Filling and Toppings

  • 3/4 lb. mozzarella cheese, sliced
  • 28 ounces (two 14 ounce cans) of diced tomatoes, drained thoroughly
  • 3 tsp dried Italian seasonings
  • 1 tsp dried garlic powder
  • 1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • garlic chips (see recipe below)

Directions for Crust

  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
  2. Place the crust ingredients in the bread machine pan in the order recommended by the manufacturer.
  3. Turn on dough setting.
  4. Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl.
  5. Oil a pizza pan or two 9-inch pie pans by pouring a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in pan and tilting it to cover bottom(s).
  6. Stretch the dough to make a large circle. Do this with your hands or with a rolling pin on a lightly oiled surface.
  7. Lay the dough in the pan and stretch the dough up the sides of the pan. Cover and let rest for 15 minutes.
  8. Bake crust for 10 minutes until set and very lightly browned

Directions for Filling and Toppings

  1. Combine tomatoes with herbs, garlic, salt and pepper.
  2. Cover the bottom of baked crust with mozzarella slices.
  3. Add tomato mixture.
  4. Sprinkle parmesan cheese on the top.
  5. Top with garlic chips (See below).
  6. Bake pizza for about 25 minutes. If edges begin to brown too much, cover edges with foil during baking. When finished, pizza filling should be bubbly and top should be golden brown.
  7. Allow pizza to cool for about 10 – 15 minutes before serving.

Garlic Chips

  1. Slice 6 large cloves of garlic into thin slivers.
  2. Heat olive oil over medium-low heat in a medium frying pan. Add garlic slivers and sauté until just browned and edges are crisp.
  3. Remove chips from heat and drain on paper towel.

Burebrot or Swiss Farmer’s Bread

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Just waiting to be slathered with fresh butter and a favorite jam, you can almost hear the crust crunching on a slice of this rustic Swiss Farmer’s Bread.

One of my fondest childhood memories is of visiting my favorite auntie in Switzerland and talking with her in broken English and Swiss over my favorite breakfast: cafe mit schlag with a schniteli: milk coffee and farmer’s bread slathered with freshly made creamery butter and jam.

As I began baking different kinds of bread last year, I wanted to see if I could create Burebrot in my own kitchen. It turned out that every recipe I could find included rye flour. So, I had to wait until this fall, after we did our annual summer shopping.

After the bread finished baking, Jacked whipped up a small pot of tasty broccoli soup. I cut two generous pieces of Burebrot and topped them with butter. The bread was just the way I remembered it: hearty and wonderfully crusty. This is the perfect bread to pair with a slice of savory swiss cheese. We have a few pounds of rye flour for the year, so this bread will be making several encores.

The following recipe is a result of adaptions of several recipes to match the ingredients that are in my pantry. I processed the dough in my Zojirushi bread machine so it would rise properly in my Arctic home.

Burebrot

Ingredients

  • 8 oz buttermilk
  • 7 oz water
  • 2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
  • 1 1/2 cups rye flour
  • 3/4 tsp salt
  • 2 1/2 tsp dry yeast

Directions

  1. Place the above ingredients in the bread machine pan according to the manufacturer’s recommendations.
  2. Turn on dough cycle.
  3. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
  4. Shape the dough into an oval on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Cover and let rise for 30 minutes.
  5. Cut a lattice pattern into dough with a sharp knife.
  6. Bake for 40 – 45 minutes. Bread will be crusty when finished.

Coffee Ice Cream

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Patiently steeping coffee beans in a cream mixture base creates an ice cream infused with coffee flavor.

When I suggested coffee as an ice cream flavor to Jack, he shrugged his shoulders, obviously not impressed. But it’s one of my favorites, and since it seemed like I’d come up with the right egg ratio for the ice cream base, I ignored his indifference and went for it. I could already imagine my creamy cold dessert topped with homemade fudge. The process of steeping coffee beans in a custard base brought the coffee flavor to life. Jack’s response after a sample of the final product? “Wow!” That’s what a cook wants to hear.

Coffee Ice Cream

Ingredients

  • 1 cup whole milk
  • 3/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 1/2 cups whole coffee beans
  • 2 cups heavy cream
  • 5 egg yolks
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions

  1. Heat cream and milk in a medium saucepan over medium heat.
  2. Add coffee beans and sugar and heat until mixture almost boils, about 5 – 8 minutes.
  3. Remove from heat, cover and let steep for one hour.
  4. Beat yolks and vanilla until the mixture is light yellow and smooth.
  5. Strain coffee beans out of coffee mixture. Leave any remaining specks of coffee.
  6. Reheat coffee-cream mixture until it almost boils.
  7. Add 4 tbsp on hot cream mixture to egg mixture and stir until combined. This will temper the eggs.
  8. Slowly add warmed yolk mixture to warm cream back into saucepan. Stir continuously in order to not cook/curdle eggs.
  9. Cook entire mixture over low heat until slightly thickened and mixture coats the back of a spoon.
  10. Cool completely. I put the mixture in the refrigerator overnight before I use it.
  11. Pour into freezer bowl of ice cream machine. Turn machine on and mix until mixture thickens, about 20 minutes.
  12. Transfer to airtight container and place in freezer until firm, about 2 hours.

Cinnamony Sugary Buttery Cookies

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These cinnamon vanilla snaps are addicting! They key is in the ingredients…

A secret behind the best pies, cookies and breads is that they start with excellent ingredients. Organic butter from grass-fed cows and Bob’s Red Mill all-purpouse flour give these cinnamon sugar cookies a head start, and Penzeys double-strength vanilla extract put them at 11 on a 1 – 10 scale! The “double-strength” description is spot on; you truly only need half the required quantity of vanilla recipes call for and the flavor is divine. High-quality Saigon cinnamon added the final touch. These cookies come out of the oven ready to melt in your mouth!

Cinnamon Sugar Cookies

Ingredients

  • 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • pinch salt
  • 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract (or 1/2 tsp Penzeys double-strength)

For topping –

  • 1 1/2 tbsp granulated sugar
  • 1/2 tbsp ground cinnamon

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.
  2. In a large bowl, mix together sugars at medium speed.
  3. Add butter and mix until incorporated.
  4. Add egg and vanilla and mix until light and fluffy.
  5. Add flour, baking soda and salt. Mix on low speed just until incorporated. Do not overmix.
  6. Mix topping ingredients in a small bowl.
  7. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Roll in cinnamon mixture.
  8. Place onto ungreased cookie sheets, about 2 inches apart.
  9. Bake for 18 minutes.
  10. Cool immediately on wire racks

Yields 2 dozen cookies.

Recipe adapted from At Home in Alaska.

Matcha Green Tea Ice Cream

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A Japanese ramekin heaped with a couple of scoops of matcha ice cream is the perfect dessert after a sushi dinner.

A few years ago after a lovely meal at a Japanese restaurant in San Francisco, I enjoyed a scoop of creamy green tea ice cream. Inspired by that memory and an abundance of matcha tea powder in our pantry, I attempted to recreate that delicious dessert. The intense flavor of the matcha powder gave this ice cream a rich, complex flavor. Keeping with Japanese preferences, this recipe calls for only about half the sugar American palettes might prefer, but is still satisfyingly sweet.

Matcha Green Tea Ice Cream

Ingredients

  • 3 cups heavy cream
  • 1 cup whole milk
  • 3 egg yolks
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 2 tbsp matcha green tea powder
  • 1 tsp vanilla bean paste

Directions

  1. Heat cream and milk in a medium saucepan over medium heat.
  2. Add vanilla paste and green tea powder and heat until mixture almost boils, about 5 – 8 minutes.
  3. Reduce heat to low.
  4. Meanwhile, beat yolks and sugar until the mixture is light yellow and smooth.
  5. Add 4 tbsp on hot cream mixture to egg mixture and stir until combined. This will temper the eggs.
  6. Slowly add warmed yolk mixture to warm cream. Stir continuously in order to not cook/curdle eggs.
  7. Cook entire mixture over low heat until slightly thickened and mixture coats the back of a spoon.
  8.  Cool completely. I put the mixture in the refrigerator overnight before I use it.
  9. Pour into freezer bowl of ice cream machine. Turn machine on and mix until mixture thickens, about 20 minutes.
  10. Transfer to airtight container and place in freezer until firm, about 2 hours.

If you liked this post, you might like to read about matcha green tea cookies.

Extra Rich Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream

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Almost like gelato…

For the third year in a row, I’ve gone to the trouble of obtaining several quarts of heavy cream (whipping cream) out here in the Alaskan bush. It’s an item our Native Store doesn’t stock. The past two years, I’ve paid a tidy sum for a grocery store in Fairbanks ship out cream on a cargo plane. Another year I happened to be visiting a village where the Native Store did stock heavy cream; I hand carried several quarts of the precious liquid on the bush plane back to our village.

We love homemade ice cream, so it’s worth the trouble.

And we like variety. Last year, I experimented with eleven different flavors of ice cream and sorbet. We treated guests to rocky road, toasted almond, fireweed and honey, peanut butter chip, toffee crunch and more. This year, I stretched my ice cream making wings a bit further by experimenting with new flavors and by improving last year’s favorites. I’m happy to report that all of this year’s batches turned out terrific. One of the biggest hits has been this year’s vanilla.

I have a vanilla ice cream recipe that came with the Cuisinart ice cream maker Jack’s daughter Maia gave us a few years ago. It’s a good recipe as it stands, but I wondered what would happen if I were to leave out the milk and only only use heavy cream. The second modification I made was to use vanilla bean paste. A new addition to our kitchen, this paste packs an intense vanilla flavor. The result was a thick, creamy, gelato-like creation that has left guests exclaiming “Wow!”

Extra Rich Vanilla Ice Cream

Ingredients

  • 4 cups heavy cream
  • 2 tsp vanilla bean paste
  • 3 egg yolks
  • 1/2 cup sugar

Directions

  1. Heat cream in a medium saucepan over medium heat.
  2. Add vanilla paste and heat until mixture almost boils, about 5 – 8 minutes.
  3. Reduce heat to low.
  4. Meanwhile, beat yolks and sugar until the mixture is light yellow and smooth.
  5. Add 4 tbsp on hot cream mixture to egg mixture and stir until combined. This will temper the eggs.
  6. Slowly add warmed yolk mixture to warm cream. Stir continuously in order to not cook/curdle eggs.
  7. Cook entire mixture over low heat until slightly thickened and mixture coats the back of a spoon.
  8.  Cool completely. I put the mixture in the refrigerator overnight before I use it.
  9. Pour into freezer bowl of ice cream machine. Turn machine on and mix until mixture thickens, about 20 minutes.
  10. Transfer to airtight container and place in freezer until firm, about 2 hours.

Bagels 3 Ways: Blue Poppy Seed, Roasted Sesame Seed and Onion

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Just the way we like them – chewy on the outside and soft on the inside, these bagels are topped with Penzey’s minced onion, blue poppy seeds, and roasted sesame seeds.

I let the Zojirushi bread machine do the first steps of mixing, rising, and kneading the bagel dough while I tended to other things today. After about one and a half hours, it was my turn to finish the bagels by shaping them, boiling them and baking them. When the finished bagels came out of the oven, we knew the dinner menu would feature these beauties smeared with cream cheese and topped with Jack’s smoked salmon.


Bread Machine Bagels

Ingredients

  • 1 1/4 cup water
  • 1 1/2 tsp salt
  • 2 tbsp granulated sugar
  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • 2 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
  • 3 quarts boiling water
  • 3 tbsp sugar
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • toppings of your choice

Directions

  1. Place first 5 ingredients in the bread machine pan in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Select dough setting.
  2. When cycle is complete, turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and let rest.
  3. Bring 3 quarts of water to a boil. Add 3 tbsp of white sugar.
  4. While water is coming to a boil, cut dough into 8 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball. Flatten balls into discs about 1/2 inch thick. Poke a hole in each disc and twirl the disk around your finger to enlarge the hole. Place bagels back on the lightly floured surface to rest until the water boils.
  5. Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper.
  6. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
  7. When water is boiling, place bagels in water. Boil for 1 minute, then flip to boil for an additional minute. (I fit 4 bagels at a time in my pot.)
  8. After bagels have boiled, remove them from the water with a slotted spoon or strainer spoon made for frying. Place bagels on a clean, dry towel.
  9. Arrange bagels on baking sheet. Brush tops of bagels with beaten egg. Sprinkle with topping of your choice, or leave plain.
  10. Bake for 20 – 25 minutes, until well browned.

Smokey, Spicy Butternut Squash Soup with Almonds

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This hearty, flavorful butternut squash soup will take the chill off of crisp autumn evenings. 

Recipes go through iterations until, it is hoped, something approaching perfection is obtained. Of the many squash and pumpkin soups I’ve made over the years, this, so far, has been our favorite. The secret? Smoked chipotle peppers. These robust, pleasantly fiery chili peppers have been this fall’s find in our kitchen. Combined with even hotter arbol chili peppers, the combination has been adding extra zip and depth to our chilies and soups. (Barbra’s worried I’m going to start putting these chilies into our morning oatmeal and waffles.)

The other twist to this particular squash soup was the addition of toasted almonds. As with many recipes, this one invites experimentation. Roasting or grilling the tomatoes and squash adds a dimension of flavor, as does toasting the chopped almonds. And don’t overlook the small pumpkins that are available this time of year as a possible main ingredient. A mug or bowl of this soup served with a hunk of crusty French bread is just the thing as fall days turn wintery.

Ingredients:

  • 3 cups butternut squash purée (made from steamed, roasted or grilled squash, or from canned pumpkin or squash)
  • 1 large sweet onion, chopped (about 2 cups)
  • 1 pound diced tomatoes, seeds removed
  • 1/2 cup chopped almonds (preferably toasted)
  • 2 cups chicken broth (I used Better than Bouillon)
  • 3 dried smoked chipotle chili peppers, chopped fine
  • 2 dried arbol chili peppers, chopped fine
  • 1 tsp powdered coriander
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 1 tsp powdered ginger
  • 1 tsp powdered cinnamon
  • 1 tsp grated nutmeg
  • freshly ground black pepper to taste
  • sea salt to taste
  • 1 cup heavy cream
  • olive oil

Directions:

  1. Cut up a butternut squash into discs roughly 1 inch thick, and then cut the discs into halves or quarters. Scoop away the seeds and fibrous matter. Roast, grill or steam the squash and peel away and discard the skins. To oven-roast, heat oven to 400 degrees F., place a baking sheet covered in olive oil in the oven, and when it’s hot, add the squash. Roast for 30 to 40 minutes, or until some of the squash starts to brown.
  2. Combine the chopped onions, tomatoes and garlic and grill, roast or sauté until onions are translucent. This can be done by placing some olive oil in a large skillet, heating over medium heat, and adding the tomatoes, onions and garlic, stirring occasionally.
  3. Combine all of the ingredients except the cream in a large mixing bowl. Purée with a stick blender (or in a food processor or with a conventional blender).
  4. Scrape and pour ingredients into a large pot. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until soup begins to simmer. Continue simmering on low heat for 20 minutes. A flame tamer may be necessary to prevent soup from boiling. Continue to stir occasionally.
  5. Stir in cream and return soup to a simmer.
  6. Serve piping hot.

Garnish individual bowls of soup with sun-dried tomatoes cut into thin strips, a spoonful of toasted garlic and almonds, or both.

Alaska’s Permanent Fund and Trout Unlimited

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Daughter Maia works a pool in the canyon country of Oregon’s Deschutes River.

This past summer, we fell in love with the film Away We Go in which Verona De Tessant (Maya Rudolph) and Burt Farlander (John Krasinski) find themselves in the enviable, daunting and sometimes scary position of realizing that, although they are not wealthy, they can live virtually anywhere they choose to. Their story unfolds as a touching, insightful comedy as they criss-cross North America searching for just the right place.

Verona: I can do my job from anywhere. And all you need’s a phone, right?

Burt: Well, we don’t want to go back to Chicago, do we?

Verona: No, we did Chicago.

Burt: I used to picture myself in Alaska. God, I love that landscape.

Verona: Alaska?

Burt: Yeah.

Verona: You’ve never mentioned Alaska.

Burt: Wow, they pay people to live in Alaska.

Burt’s line about people being paid to live in this great state gets laughs from audiences, although for different reasons depending on who the audience is. While it’s not true that people are paid to live here, there is something called the Permanent Fund. Without getting into the complexities, Alaska’s Permanent Fund is a constitutional provision established in 1976 that, essentially, taps oil revenues allowing the state government to pay an annual check to every Alaskan resident once they’ve lived here one fiscal year. The amount of the check varies from year to year. The current five-year average is $1,341. This year’s payout was lower, but still appreciable at $878.

That’s where Trout Unlimited comes in.

Barbra and I feel a deep commitment to helping to conserve, protect and restore America’s cold water resources. This commitment flows naturally from our love of salmon and trout and the beautiful and often pristine environs they inhabit and depend upon. Protecting our cold water resources, though, is about more than protecting fish. Trout Unlimited has worked in concert with others to bring down dams that are no longer useful – thus restoring countless miles of free flowing rivers and streams. They work with vineyard owners and other farmers to help ensure water-wise land use. And all across the landscape, TU has, for decades, been instrumental in ensuring that mining, timbering and other resource extraction be carried out with sensible respect for its impact on rivers, streams and estuaries when sensible respect is possible, and that extractive industries be turned away when they can’t conduct their business without destroying watersheds.

At present, TU is in the midst of several critical battles. One of them involves a multi-national mining proposal that threatens the world’s greatest salmon estuary, Bristol Bay. The proposed Pebble Mine could wipe out runs that number into the millions of salmon, as well as fishing jobs and subsistence fishing that generations upon generations of Alaskans (and salmon consumers throughout the world) have depended on. TU is also on the vanguard in fighting against irresponsible extraction of natural gas locked underground in Marcellus Shale. The extraction requires fracking, and it is posing a major risk to the streams and rivers I cut my teeth on as a young angler in Western Pennsylvania.

Again, this isn’t just about trout and salmon. We humans, too, drink the water, grow our farms and forests with it, admire its beauty, and are responsible for passing down a legacy of clean water to future generations.

And so, presented with money that is essentially a gift from our adopted state, the choice on how to spend it was easy. This year, Barbra and I will become lifetime members of Trout Unlimited.

After vetting dozens of organizations, we came to feel that in TU, our contributions will support the causes closest to our hearts. Not just for us, but for generations to come.

To read more about TU’s efforts, click on the following links:

Trout Unlimited’s Home Page

Marcellus Shale Project

Bristol Bay

Maia on a seldom-fished hike-in lake raptly watching her fly line for a twitch. 

Smoked Salmon Quiche and Butternut Squash Pie: Savory and Sweet Breakfast (or Dinner)

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Savory smoked salmon quiche, sweet butternut squash tarts, a strip of smoked salmon and a mug of black French roast coffee make for a hearty Fisherman’s Breakfast. 

Whether served as breakfast, lunch or dinner, we’re big fans of quiche. It’s easy to make, and since it’s delicious either hot or cold, there are no complaints about leftovers. In making this particular quiche, I set out to resolve two questions. First, would smoked salmon that has been frozen and then thawed work well, and second would the Penzeys dried shallots I’d recently gotten live up to their billing. I’m happy to report that the smoked salmon seemed to suffer not at all from freezing, and the dried shallots were flavorful enough to merit making them a standard part of our kitchen here in the Alaskan bush.

For the squash pie, I used a modification of Craig Claiborne’s pumpkin pie recipe that has long served well. Since the baking times and temperatures for these two pies was similar, I baked them together. We had a bit of squash purée and pie crust dough left over, so Barbra used a muffin pan to make a few squash tarts.

Smoked Salmon Quiche

Ingredients:

  • 1 pie crust
  • 4 large eggs
  • 3/4 cup heavy cream
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1 cup shredded Swiss or Gruyère cheese
  • 1/4 cup shallots chopped fine (I used Penzeys dried shallots,which were excellent)
  • 1/2 cup mushrooms, cut into less-than-bite-sized pieces
  • 1/3 to 1/2 pound smoked salmon, cut into less-than-bite-sized pieces
  • 1/3 cup sun dried tomatoes, cut into small pieces
  • 1 tsp dried majoram
  • sea salt to taste
  • freshly ground pepper to taste

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Bake pie crust for 20 minutes. Halfway through baking, cover edges with aluminum foil or a pie ring to prevent edge of crust from burning.
  2. Remove the pie crust from the oven and set aside.
  3. Turn oven up to 400 degrees F.
  4. Whisk eggs until blended. Add cream, milk, shallots, marjoram, salt and pepper and mix together.
  5. Add mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes and smoked salmon, mixing together gently so as not to break up the salmon.
  6. Pour and scrape ingredients into the baked pie crust and place on oven’s center rack. You do not need to place on a baking sheet.
  7. Bake quiche at 400 degrees F. for 15 minutes. Turn down oven to 350 degrees F. and continue baking for 25 – 35 minutes – until a wooden toothpick poked into the center comes out clean.
  8. Serve hot or cold.

Butternut Squash Pie

Ingredients:

  • 1 pie crust
  • 3 cups butternut squash (or pumpkin) purée
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp powdered ginger
  • 3 large eggs, lightly whisked
  • 2 tablespoons Bourbon (optional, but very tasty)
  • 1 cup heavy cream

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
  2. Have a chilled, unbaked pie crust ready.
  3. Squash purée: Cut away the stem of the squash and discard. Then slice squash into into round discs approximately 1 inch thick. Cut the disks into 4 to 6 parts. When you get to the bulb, remove the seeds and fibrous part and slice into 6 strips as you would a pumpkin or melon. Steam, oven roast or grill the squash until a fork passes easily through the flesh. Let cool and cut off the skin. Use a stick blender, regular blender or food processor to purée the squash.
  4. Combine the purée with all the other ingredients in a large mixing bowl, blend together, and pour into the chilled pie crust.
  5. Place on oven’s center rack. Bake for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 degrees F. and continue baking for 30 or 40 minutes, until the filling is set. Cracks will begin to appear on the surface of the pie when the filling is set.
  6. Serve warm or chilled, with or without whipped cream.

For a great recipe for making smoked salmon, see Smoked Salmon with Soy Sauce and Brown Sugar Brine.