In A Nutshell

I love desserts like this for many reasons; they are comforting, beautiful and everything can be assembled well in advance for ease of serving. You can make the streusel whenever you want and freeze it until you are ready to use it. The lemon custard should be made the day before you are planning to serve the desserts and the blueberry mixture right before assembling them-- it spreads out better if it slightly warm. This is a marriage of two different Fine Cooking recipes. For the Streusel : 2/3 cup flour 1/2 cup oats 6 T unsalted butter, cut into cubes 1/2 cup slivered almonds or walnuts 1/4 cup brown sugar 1/4 cup sugar 1/4 t kosher salt Pulse all the ingredients in a food processor until crumbly. Spread the streusel on a rimmed baking sheet and bake at 325º for about 20 minutes, stirring it every 5 minutes (until golden- don't overbake). Set aside to cool For the Lemon Custard : 3 egg yolks 3 T sugar 1 cup heavy cream (although I'm going to try this with w...

This recipe is slightly adapted from a long-ago issue of Midwest Living magazine; I used tomatoes from my parents' garden-- you can see the vibrant color and the taste of a home grown tomato is unparalleled. My brother recently told me that the most awesome (and truly foolproof) pie crust he has ever made came from Cook's Illustrated so I decided to try it out. He was totally right! CI has one of these irritating web sites where they actually expect you to PAY in order to use it!!! The nerve! Here is a link to the pie crust recipe ; you won't get the lengthy scientific explanation with the free version but you can trust that they've spent countless hours building humidity chambers to get this recipe right. 1 unbaked pie crust (1/2 recipe for a 9" pie)-- be sure to leave out the sugar for a savory tart; needless to say, I have a spare pie crust in the fridge because I didn't think of that the first time around..... 6 oz. shredded provolone or mozzarella c...