Making Cheesecakes and Quiches – Sweet and Savory Pies!

Hello, welcome to At Home today. We’re so glad you could join us. It just wouldn’t be the same ifyou weren’t on the other side of that camera. It would not be the same without you. We’re so glad that you take the time to drop by our home. And today we have a really special guest who’s going to be making some special dishes for you to think about preparing for your family. The pie crust is front and center because she’s using pie crust in everything that she prepares as a main dish and also as a dessert. Her name is Cynthia Bowen and she is a freelance journalist and columnist. I think you’re going to enjoy meeting this lady. She’s quite interesting. Let me read a couple of letters that I get. I tell you all the time that I really enjoy this and I do. This one says hi Arlene. I really enjoy and look forward to watching you on Wednesday evenings after church. In the Pittsburgh area we’re seen on Wednesday evening. We’re seen here at 10 o’clock. So this is what she’s talking about. She’s I’ve told others and now they are watching also. Your show gives me courage to cook for others as well as my family. All I have made they love. Your love flows out to others. Thanks for being there. Love you, Martha. And I appreciate those comments. Thank you very much. I’m glad that you feel that love that’s coming from us because we really do care about your family, right? The second one comes from Vineland, New Jersey. And her name is Barbara and she says dear Arlene, I so enjoy your program. You are like a good friend that I visit with on Wednesday nights. This is my first request for a recipe but it won’t be my last. Thanks so much. And just like Barbara many of you are requesting the recipes now that we’ve put them in a newsletter. And we’re having good success with that and your comments are important to us. So please let us know how you feel about it. And everything we’ve heard so far is positive. I’m sure there’s some things that we can do to make it better and we’re working striving toward that. But we’re going to be meeting Cynthia Bowen in just a minute. So stay tuned, we’ll be right back to get started.

Here’s today’s At Home hint, try stirring some halved red grapes, miniature marshmallows and chopped pecans into your favorite coleslaw recipe. It makes the salad a real treat. If you’ve got a helpful hint that you’d like to share with us, we want to hear from you. Send your hint to At Home hints, CTV, Wall, Pennsylvania 15148-1499.

Well, we’re back and I’d like to introduce you to Cynthia Bowen. Nice to have you here with us today.

It’s a pleasure to be here.

Aww. I have seen some of your articles in the local papers here in Pittsburgh area. And how long have you been writing?

Been writing now nine years.

Nine years.

I have a cooking column through Gateway Press. And I also do what they call Oak News, which is just a little community happening. So I’ve done that for a couple years for Gateway. And now I write also freelance articles feature articles for the Post-Gazette.

Post-Gazette which is our daily paper here in the Pittsburgh area. Well, that’s interesting. And when we contacted you, you had an idea what you’d like to present, and you’re going to do quiche today.

Yes.

Is that right?

I’m going to do a quiche first.

Okay.

And this quiche, it is very, very easy.

Go ahead. Let me just move this off because I hear this butter getting too hot here.

I like refrigerated pie dough or —

I do too.

— premade pie dough. This, I can do French pastry, I can do candy, I can do a lot of things, but pie dough is something I don’t do well.

Okay.

So I found it can be a blessing.

You know your limitations and you say why press the issue.

That’s right.

And you know, these are really flaky, these little, these ones that you get already made up.

They are wonderful. They really, really are. So we’re just going to use one of those.

Okay.

And before I get into that, I’m going to saute. For this quiche, I’m going to use quarter pound mushrooms, fresh mushrooms.

Okay.

The nice thing about making quiche is that you can do anything with it. Your basis of course is eggs, cheese, milk, or milk or cream and then vegetables, meat, whatever you want.

Yeah, because you can put broccoli or ham or sausage, about anything in a quiche. Now, let’s talk about this, Cynthia. They say that real men don’t eat quiche. Is that true?

In my house they do.

Do they?

Yes.

Yeah, we like it. I mean, Paul eats it. I have brothers, they, you know, everybody I know eats it. The nice thing is too, you can prepare it to a point ahead and have it ready. Like you’re coming home from early church service, or you need to go somewhere in a hurry one evening. You can have it ready in the refrigerator and just put it in the oven. Serve it with a green salad, some nice French bread and you have a wonderful meal. And I think this is a nice luncheon. Or this is something that can be a nice breakfast even like a brunch type thing.

Yes, exactly.

And why not? Right?

That’s right.

I like, I like things like this if I’m having some ladies to my house or if I’m having an aunt or somebody over there I haven’t seen for a while. And because I know people think that you have really worked hard to prepare this, don’t they?

I do a lot of cooking like that. I do a lot of, a lot of desserts that way. It just makes things a lot simpler.

Now, I think it’s interesting. She turned her crust over to fold it over. I always turn mine under. But that’s nice because it makes —

I did it like this.

— decoration there for you.

This is — I have to tell you jokingly. This is called my plastic surgeon crust.

Oh, is that what it is?

Yes, because I’m doing nipping and tucking.

Okay and it repairs very easily too.

And it does.

That’s another good part. So now the mushrooms are browning.

They’re browning and we have about a quarter pound as I said in a couple of tablespoons of butter.

All right.

And I use butter.

Yeah. You can’t substitute butter, can’t you?

No. You can’t. The flavor —

Not the flavor.

Frankly, you can’t get margarine anymore. It almost doesn’t exist.

There’s a lot of water in margarine now, isn’t there?

You can’t cook with it.

It affects the — it changes the whole, your dough, your batter, anything you make with it, because it adds so much moisture to it.

They spread too. I’ve had a lot of complaints, well not complaints, but I’ve had people write me and say, what’s wrong with my cookies? Why are they spreading? And it’s usually —

That’s the reason, huh.

It’s usually one of two things. It’s either their using margarine, which is it’s now called spread by the way, or they’re using sugar that is not good sugar. It may say pure sugar, but if it isn’t pure cane, you can forget.

Ah okay, what would they add to it if it was not pure cane sugar again?

They put beet sugar. Sometimes it’s another corn starch.

Oh, really?

There are some powdered sugars on the market that have cornstarch in them.

Wow. All right. Now I think it’s interesting. You only use two eggs for the whole pie.

Yes.

Could you use egg leaders if you wanted to?

You could use egg beaters.

Okay, so that would help with the cholesterol. Of course with the cheese and the fried butter and all this.

Yes.

But sometimes every little bit helps. Right?

That’s right. So we have that.

And I’ll take care of this.

And then I have about a cup and a half of shredded Swiss cheese.

Swiss.

And that’s another thing. Sometimes Swiss cheese, if it isn’t natural, it will separate. So you need to watch the kind of Swiss cheese.

What’s that?

And this is a quarter cup of Romano cheese.

Romano. Okay.

I prefer —

You like the flavor, huh?

I like Romano to Parmesan. With us, that started with our second son Mark David who’s now 25. We noticed that anytime he ate anything with parmesan he broke out.

Oh, and I mean, we can’t have spaghetti sauce without —

No. That’s right.

— so we started Romano cheese, he didn’t have a problem with it, and we liked the flavor better.

Good. Okay, so now we have the — are they almost there, because —

They are almost.

— only have three more minutes to this segment.

I think they could probably be drained now.

Do you want me to do that for you?

If you’d like to do there for me. All right, and then what I’m going to do while you do that, I’m going to put a portion of the cheese in the pie shell.

Okay. Now you want these well drained, all the butter off?

As much as you can.

Okay, and then I have about a tablespoon of flour.

Okay.

That should be mixed with a cheese too. That’s more to thicken. And we’ll just put a little bit of the cheese and you can layer this. Another thing, a lot of recipes that I’ve, that I’ve made the past were for the small pie shells. And now all of a sudden, everybody’s making large.

Large ones.

Sure. So you have to add.

Do I just put this in?

Just put that right in.

You mean just sprinkle.

That’s it.

Okay, there we are. Now, you could, at this time, you could add onions, you could add, like we said the ham. It’s good for leftovers, if you want to do that.

If you had a little bit of something that you really didn’t have enough to feed everybody with, right?

And it’s an extender if you want to call it that.

All right.

And that’s all you do is top it.

And then you pour the egg.

Now we take the beaten egg and the cream and simply pour it over.

Wow. It doesn’t almost doesn’t look like it would be enough, but it will, huh?

It will. You can add another egg to this. You can add a little bit more cream and it won’t upset the balance.

Or change it. Yeah.

If you were baking something, you of course, wouldn’t do things like that because you wouldn’t want to upset the fat and right and flour ratio.

That’s right.

But with this, it’s okay.

Yeah.

You can do it like that.

Now that needs to go on —

It needs to go in at —

Do I need to put that on a tray?

No. This this can go, well, I’ll tell you what. It could be because —

Be easier to hold huh, because they’re kind of wobbly.

And then that goes in at 400 degrees.

In a preheated oven, right?

Preheated oven for about 35 minutes.

Thirty five minutes. Okay, we’re going to keep a track on that.

Or until a knife inserted in the center will come out clean.

Clean. Okay, so that’s our quiche. And it’s going to take just 35 minutes in a preheated oven and when we come back she’s going to do some dessert pies. So stay with us. We’ll be right back.

Well, the quiche is in the oven and now Cynthia Bowen who is our special guest today is going to make us a dessert pie and it’s called a raspberry what?

Cheese cake pie.

Raspberry cheesecake pie. Okay.

And for this we start with 16 ounces, two blocks of cream cheese.

Which is a pound really.

A pound of cream cheese.

All right. Have you ever made this with the low fat or the no fat?

Not with low fat.

I know. You know what you fight about that? You fight, well, gee. I’ve gone to all this trouble. I want to make it good.

I do with some things and I try to justify like using light Cool Whip, which works but I have some allergies and I can’t eat Aspertame or NutraSweet.

Yeah.

So I have to watch.

Okay.

And now I’m adding about a teaspoon of —

Teaspoon of vanilla?

Clear vanilla.

Okay.

This, you can get. There are different brands, but the nice thing about using clear is that it doesn’t show. It doesn’t turn.

It doesn’t spoil whatever you’re trying to do.

That’s right.

Sure. Okay.

So we’ll just —

Okay. And you’re just going to cream that together?

I’m just going to cream that.

What do we need now?

And I’m going to get my eggs. We need two eggs. It’s basically like a cheese cake. Now when I first got this recipe, it had a cooked chocolate frosting on it, it was a lot more complicated. I prefer to make things easier.

Make it easy. Keep it simple, huh?

That’s it.

Does this baby grab those — you might want to scrape down the sides because for some reason that’s —

This is —

Yeah.

Isn’t heavy.

Now is this going to be cooked or baked or anything?

This is going to be baked. This is baked also. And we’re going to put in the sugar.

How much sugar?

We have a half cup of sugar.

Oh half cup, okay.

And now you can make this. Okay. I see what you mean. That is powerful. You can make this as it is. And then you can take and fold your, your raspberries in. Or you can do what my girls like. My girls like the color. They don’t like to see the little lumps of berries all the way through it. So I just simply —

So you just add them in there and let them blend.

That’s all I do. And it gives it a beautiful pink color. I mean, it tastes good no matter what you do.

It’s more evenly distributed throughout the whole.

Yes. And the seeds aren’t that bad. Unless you have a problem —

Now what kind of a crust are you going to use for this one?

On this one, we’re going to use one of the pre made chocolate pie crusts.

Chocolate with raspberries. Oh, that sounds nice.

Oh and the finishing touches are the good part too.

Really? Okay.

Okay, you — do I pull this?

Can I help you?

I’m not used to yours here.

We’ll just go up with it. I’m going to clean that off there like that. That good?

That’s good.

All right. Cindy, how long have you been cooking? And when did you get an interest in it?

When I got married.

When you got married?

It was preservation.

Ten years ago, right?

Oh, I wish. No, I got married 30 years ago.

30 years, and we will celebrate our 31st this year.

That’s wonderful.

Merrill was in in optometry school.

I see.

And we moved to Chicago and I wasn’t near my mother or anybody else.

Chicago. We’re seen in Chicago. You probably have friends and maybe some family there, huh?

No.

No family. No friends.

No. Merrill just chose to go to school there.

Ah.

Now I have friends and I have relatives in South Carolina and Georgia.

Well, they’re probably watching.

Pennsylvania, California.

They see us everywhere. Yeah.

Okay, now.

Okay. And we’ll just turn that. Twist that and you got it.

This is nice.

Modern technology, right?

I’ll take one of these. Okay, and then we simply pour this mixture into the pie. Chocolate pie.

I’m going to move that so they can get a good look at that. Okay.

And then we bake this at 325, again, for about 30 minutes. And then refrigerate it and it has to have about four hours to refrigerate.

A real chill, huh?

That’s it.

That’s all there is to it.

Okay. And when do you decorate it? You don’t decorate or anything?

When it’s cold.

When it’s cold.

Before we serve.

All right. So this goes in for how long now? That’ll go in again for about 30 minutes.

Preheated oven. Okay.

Again, I did save a few of the raspberries for the garnish.

Okay, good. We’ll do that.

All right, so that’s our raspberry cheesecake pie. Okay. The next one is a little different, because I’ve never heard — when I got your recipe for this when I was amazed at what you’re going to be — what you call this and what you’re going to be putting into this. This is called what?

This is called California pie.

California pie. It’s evidently because of the yogurt, I guess.

Ah.

And for this one we’re going to use, this is a butter crust, but you could use a graham cracker.

Now these are all, you buy these in the supermarket. You don’t have to do anything with them. They’re already in there. They’re not a flaky crust. They’re more like a cookie crust.

This is more of a then the cookie crust then the graham cracker even. So we have that. And what we do is to start — Now what do we have here?

Now this is a box of instant French vanilla pudding, not plain vanilla, but the French which is which is —

More yellow.

— more yellow and a lot richer.

Okay. And we’re simply —

Well, you’re just going to put them right in there like that.

— I’m just going to put a cup of grapes or so. Actually, what I don’t even measure sometimes.

Just cover the bottom or whatever.

You know, that’s the thing about a recipe. A recipe is nothing more than a framework.

See, that’s what I like too. I think when people follow a recipe, every little detail, they’re not expressing themselves in that, are they?

No. That’s —

They’re just doing what somebody else thinks, but I always say no recipe is wrong if that’s the way you want it to be. Is that right?

Yes, that’s the way I feel.

All right. Now, what’s this?

We put a cup of whole milk into the vanilla pudding.

All right.

We simply stir it. And the original recipe called for Orange yogurt, but after going to several shops last night I couldn’t find it.

Find it, yeah.

So tonight we’re using, today rather, we’re using lemon.

Okay. And this is simply it can be any kind. You can use the low fat.

Pina colada.

You could use — oh, pina colada would be good.

That would be nice. I would like that.

And you just stir it and that’s it.

Now, our producer, she is a yogurt freak. She freezes them. And in the summertime she’s sitting in her desk across from me with a chisel trying to get it out. But when she gets a piece, she feels like she’s accomplished so much. And it’s so cool and so refreshing. But there’s a lot of yogurt recipes coming out now because —

Oh, there really are.

— especially if you’re on a low fat or no fat because you can get them now, you know.

Yes. I have salad dressings.

Sure everything.

Just so many different things. Okay, that’s all you do.

That’s it.

The milk, the yogurt.

Let’s go over this again, there’s one package of you have to be instant, not the cooked.

That’s correct. It’s instant French Vanilla.

French vanilla pudding. And that’s the four serving size, right? A cup of milk and a package of that yogurt or one of those little containers of yogurt.

The eight ounces of yogurt.

Anything else?

And the grapes and the crust.

And the grapes and the crust.

It’s really hard.

That’s fast.

And people taste this and they think oh, looks so good.

You actually work so hard on it, huh?

Yes. And then you can put, well, if you really want to be healthy you put the light Cool Whip on it. Or you can put regular Cool Whip on it.

Now you’re not freezing this right?

No. This is just a refrigerated.

Because I was thinking if you froze those grapes, it would be hard to get through that —

Yes.

— the crust. That would not work.

A little bit hard.

Yeah.

A little bit hard.

Have you ever made it with the red grapes?

No.

Wonder what that would be like?

I’ve always used the green. And then all you can do I even let the children this.

Decorate, sure.

And they just take the grapes. You’re supposed to cover it if you wish.

The whole top of it’s covered. Yeah.

Do want you want. We just simply —

Now where would you put the Cool Whip? Would you decorate around with it or something?

Probably, like in the center, maybe little edge around the edge?

Around it.

Or just when you serve it.

How long before you serve does this need to be refrigerated?

This needs at least a couple hours again because it has to get cold.

Because if you don’t —

The flavors won’t blend.

Right. And it doesn’t set up what I call setup.

Right.

When you cut that you don’t want it all falling apart. You want it to be a nice straight cut. So it looks nice. Don’t you think presen — I mean, you’ve been you’ve taught gourmet classes. You started gourmet schools and stuff. Don’t you think presentation is a big part?

Yes. It has to whet the appetite of the eye before it whets your natural appetite. Is that right?

Yes. You know what I think too? Like a lot of people talk about skimping and saving money. There’s a time to do I, but I think you need to know your ingredients. I like to think if Jesus were coming to my house for dinner, would I give Him something —

That’s right.

You know, less —

— less than the best, huh.

— then why can’t I serve my family the same love?

That’s exactly right. I agree. I absolutely agree.

So it has to look good.

And I think when your family knows that you have gone out of your way to prepare something nice for them. That’s not only tastes good, but it’s very pleasing to look at. I think it just makes them kind of come up for the occasion saying wow, you know, mom made this for me or dad prepared this. Wow. They must think I’m really important or I’m really special. And they, and your kids really are. Your family is special.

The best ingredient input in any recipe is your love.

That’s right. I agree with you, Cynthia. There’s our California pie with a little garnish of maybe some Cool Whip or Ready Whip or something like that. Let me show you too, when we come back we’re going to show you the final products, but here are two quiches that Cynthia brought with her. Tell us about this first one.

That one is shrimp and green onions.

Shrimp and greens onions.

Just a can of tiny little shrimp.

Okay, and this one?

And this one is spinach and mushrooms.

Spinach, mushrooms.

And simply you take a package of chopped frozen spinach. Again, make sure it’s very dry. And just layer it like we did the mushrooms.

And you don’t even cook them — you don’t cook it or anything.

No.

The same cheese in both of these?

Same cheese, same amount of eggs and cream.

Everything.

Yes.

What would you do with the spinach? Do you cook the spinach? I mean, I’m sorry, the shrimp.

No, they’re canned.

Oh, the little canned cooked ones. Okay, so there’s two other ideas for some quick supper ideas, how about a brunch or just a nice little luncheon. What kind of salad do you think you would serve with this, a tossed salad or would you go with the —

I like tossed greens.

Tossed greens.

I love leaf lettuce, especially red.

Oh do you?

And I tell you when I make things like this at home, I save the raspberry juice and I make vinaigrette dressing.

Oh, raspberry vinaigrette, one of my favorites.

Yes.

Well this is just some ideas of what you can do with those ready-made pie crust or the ones that you can buy already formed that are kind of like the cookie taste or the chocolate ones. This is a nice variety. And we’re going to tell you how you can get all the recipes that you’ve seen today. We’ll be back in just a minute.

To receive the recipes presented on today’s program plus many more great recipe ideas, send your best donation and a stamped self-addressed business sized envelope to At Home, CTV, Wall, Pennsylvania 15148-1499. You’ll receive Arlene’s heartwarming newsletter Enjoy! featuring an entire month of At Home recipes including today’s mouthwatering dishes. Be sure to include the Enjoy! issue number with your request.

Don’t forget now that’s newsletter number 505. Please include a self-addressed stamped business size envelope that’s really important and the very best gift that you can give us to help us with the printing. We’ll get the newsletter in the mail to you just as soon as we can. Cynthia, this looks wonderful.

It does.

This is — tell us again. Now this is the mushroom.

That’s the mushroom that we made.

Okay.

It’s just hot out of the oven.

And again.

This one is spinach and mushroom. And this is green onion and shrimp and that’s only a couple tablespoons of onion.

Okay.

because people don’t want it real heavy.

Or too much. And then we just added a nice little, just a green tomato salad. Very simple, very easy. This is a very complete. And here tell — that’s your California pie.

That’s California pie with the yogurt and the instant pudding. And this is the raspberry cheesecake pie.

Now what else did you, did you anything else with this?

I just put some whipped cream on that and the raspberries when I serve it. Then I take and I put Hershey syrup on it.

I’m ready. Here it is right here. I’m waiting.

Well, hope it’ll come out. You know, my grandmother always said the first piece of pies the hardest.

Uh huh. That’s true. But you know what I just read or someone sent me the hint. If you cut two pieces when you’re cutting — cut another piece and let’s see if it works. Whoever sent this hint, let’s see if the first one comes out better since you’ve cut the second one.

All right.

Because it kind of gives you some room there. Look at that. That might work, huh.

It might work. This has been out of the refrigerator, so.

Oh, and the hot lights here in the studio too. So now what do you do with it?

And then —

Okay.

You realize that the calories fall out when you cut it.

Yes, they do. We can pray that they do.

There’s that.

A little bit of —

A little bit more whipped cream.

Oh my. And this is called raspberry cheesecake —

Raspberry cheesecake pie.

Thank you for being with us today.

Well, thank you for having me.

It’s been a pleasure. You have to come back again sometime.

Thank you. I would like that.

And we’re always glad when you’re with us because as I always tell you it just wouldn’t be the same without you here At Home. We’ll see the next time and try one of these pies. I’m telling you, you’re going to enjoy it. We’ll see you then. Bye-bye.

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