Berry Good Fortune.

Dear Ovened,

If you are lucky, and it isn't too hot this week, and you have blackberries, an oven, and this recipe, you have everything you need.  Well, except for a million bucks and a fly automobile, but really, you'd soon tire of the car anyway- as I used to say to someone I knew who wanted a steam engine- "Are you kidding?  Leaking oil all over the carpet and steaming up the windows!?  I forbid it:  No steam engines in the house, young man!"  That slick automobile would sit where the coffee table is and you wouldn't even be able to put your feet up on it for fear of scratching the paint.

 

 

This simple and delicious recipe for blackberry turnovers comes from Ruth Reichl via Sunset magazine.  If you don't know Ruth Reichl, find her books, read her, and love her like a trusted friend.  She is a wonderful and disarming person to have in your kitchen.  Her recipes for fried chicken and apple dumplings are in heavy rotation at the Dodo - which is really saying something, because we don't often make the same thing twice here, mostly because there are so very many recipes to try in this huge old world!


Blackberry Turnovers

For the crust:
Put 2 cups of flour, 8 ounces of diced cold cream cheese, 3/4 cup of diced cold butter and 1 teaspoon of salt (leave the salt out if your butter is salted!) into a food processor and pulse it until you can press the little clumps together.  Divide it into two disks and chill it for an hour or more.

For the filling:
Toss about 2 cups of blackberries with 1/2 cup sugar, 3 tablespoons of flour, and a smidge of salt.

Roll out the dough fairly thin- maybe 1/8 of an inch or less.  Cut out circles or squares of 5 inches across and load the pastry with whatever it can fold over, maybe 1 to 2 tablespoons of filling.  Crimp the pastry closed with a fork, and prick it on top to vent it.  Then brush a bit of milk or cream over it and sprinkle on more sugar.  Bake them at 375 for about 25 minutes, or until they are good and browned.