My Quick and Easy Hamantaschen

Tonight at sundown marks the beginning of the Purim, or the Feast of Esther--the celebration of the deliverance of Israel from the hand of the enemy as told in the book of Esther. I thought I'd share this quick and easy version of hamentaschen, or Haman's hats, that I came up with a few years ago. (hiss, hiss, stomp, clap) (In order to obliviate the very name of Haman, who schemed to destroy God's people, when the story of Esther is read or told, the audience must hiss or stomp or use noisemakers anytime his name is mentioned--thus the "hiss, hiss, stomp, clap"!)

Ingredients:

• pie crust--for this I want a smooth, even crust, so I use my old faithful ready-made crusts



• pie filling of your choice--I like cinnamon spice apple, or blueberry



• powdered sugar to sift over the finished product
  

You need a pie filling with small "bits", so when I do this with apple filling, I use my pastry cutter to smash the pieces so that I have smaller pieces of fruit.

Use a biscuit cutter or the top of a glass to cut as many circles as you can get from your pie crust. You can take the bits that are left and re-roll and cut again, if you like.

Place a small amount of the filling on each circle--I used a heaping tablespoon, and almost overfilled some of mine.

Fold the sides up into the traditional three-cornered hat shape.

It's been a couple of years since I made these, and the first batch I did started coming apart at the corners when they started baking, so I really pinched the corners together on the next batch. I had a reader leave a comment on my previous post about hamantaschen, suggesting using an egg wash to make the corners stick--I haven't tried it yet, but it makes sense to me!

Bake at 400-450 degrees for 15-20 minutes. Remove from the baking sheet to a cooling tray. (This was the first batch--see how they started coming apart? Still tasted good, though!)

Dust with powdered sugar right before serving.

These are so good--I'm not usually a big fan of fruit pies, especially apple, but these just the right proportion of crust to filling--and big dollop of whipped cream on top doesn't hurt any, either! (I suspect they would be good with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, too, but they never seem to last long enough for me to get to try that.)

Until next time, good cooking, and good eating!

This post is linked to:

Delicious Dishes at It's a Blog Party

Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam

Bizzy Bakes

My Favorite No-Cook Banana Pudding

I first posted about this recipe almost three years ago--and I called it "Not Your Granny's Banana Pudding".

I just made this again tonight to take to a church dinner tomorrow, and because I'm here alone, guess who got to lick the bowl?

You got it!

And I remembered why I liked it so much.

It has all the good stuff in it--sweetened condensed milk, cream cheese, and cool whip--not the mention the regular stuff, too, like pudding and milk and bananas and vanilla wafers. I mean, that's some pretty good stuff, too, right? But when you combine the really good stuff with the regular good stuff--you really do get Secrets of a Southern Kitchen.

Click on over and see the recipe, then add it to your must-try list of recipes. It's a real keeper.

Until next time, good (un)cooking, and good eating!

This recipe recap is linked to:

Delicious Dishes at It's a Blog Party

Meatless Mondays at My Sweet and Savory