Known at The Tailgate Gourmet as “the Pie Lady,” Valerie Saurer is also the self-proclaimed “go-to girl for weird food.” Recently, a friend gave her a moose heart and from it Saurer made a hearty soup.

When it comes to cooking, it all “started happening” for her, she says, when “I stopped being afraid of my food.”

Saurer hosts classes at The Tailgate Gourmet, a commercial kitchen in New Auburn owned by John Wyman that offers catering, prepared meals to go, cooking classes and more. While Saurer, who commutes from Naples, is known as the Pie Lady, she is “interested in bringing back old-school knowledge” about preparing all kinds of food, letting her own experience be her guide.

When she first learned how to make pie, she says, “I made pie for a solid year” to perfect the technique. Still, she notes, there are many elements that can mess up what should be a perfectly good pie, including humidity and other more esoteric factors.

Saurer’s interest in serious cooking started last year. “I was at my library and saw a notice regarding classes on becoming a master food processor (offered by the Cumberland County Extension Service). I had zero experience,” she says, but “I wanted to get closer to the food that I ate.” She registered and several months ago became a certified master food preserver.

After conquering those classes, Saurer developed a series of her own cooking classes, which she offers nearly every Wednesday evening at The Tailgate Gourmet’s Auburn location. Topics for these weekly hands-on sessions include canning cranberry sauces, making homemade chicken stock, making pie crusts and canning apple butter and apple jelly.

At October’s apple butter-apple jelly class, participants Tizz Crowley of Auburn and Holly Richard of New Gloucester went home with more knowledge, recipes (shared with readers today) and apple products to enjoy.

Saurer recommends using McIntosh apples for apple butter. While Cortlands — when mixed with Macs — make a great pie apple, they stay too firm for apple butters, she says. McIntosh, on the other hand, fall apart.

“When you’re making jelly,” however, Saurer notes that “if you use three-fourths soft (apples) and one-fourth firm you’ll get more jelly per pound.”

An apple’s stem and blossom “have the greatest concentration of enzymes, which cause the fruit to ripen,” explains Saurer, so when preparing your apples you have to cut those off. “They’re not bad so much as it’s better without them.”

“Most of the pectin (in an apple) is in the seeds and the skin,” she continues, so she recommends using them for the preparation of apple jelly. They are strained out in the process. Jelly is made by combining the strained juice from the fruit with sugar; one pound of apples will yield one cup of juice. When heated, “the pectin in the fruit combines with the sugar to make the gel,” she says.

“I like old-school cooking because the flavor is so much better,” says Saurer, who doesn’t use commercially prepared pectin when making jellies or jams. The cooking process may go more quickly using commercial pectin, but the product will be less desirable, she says. Also, with commercially prepared pectin you may see separation in things like strawberry jam.

Saurer uses just sugar, fruit and lemon juice in her jellies and jams. “I found out this summer that sugar is my friend,” she says, adding, “sugar preserves the flavor, the color and the shape of the berry.” She notes that sugar can even be used as a medium in which to freeze and store whole berries for future use – the byproduct of which is a delicious strawberry-flavored sugar to use elsewhere.

When you’re making apple jelly, says Saurer, “you can’t screw it up.” If you cook it too long, it becomes apple candy. If you undercook it, you can use it as a glaze for ribs or as a mixer for a martini. It’s so good, she says, “You can eat it with a spoon.”

To make apple butter you peel and core the apples and then cook them “until it turns to mush, then process it in a sieve,” before cooking it with sugars and spices and processing it to canning jars.

There are two canning methods: water bath and pressure, according to Saurer. “Nobody uses wax anymore.”

“If the canning process is less than 10 minutes (which is the case when making apple jelly and apple butter), then you need to sterilize the jars, lids and rings for 10 minutes” before you fill them, Saurer says.

She recommends you purchase a funnel or jar filler to make filling the jars easier, with less mess and less wasted product. You need a specific amount of space between the product in the jar and the top of the rim, and for that reason she  recommends that serious canners purchase an inexpensive “head space” tool to help with accuracy.

In applying the lid to the jar once filled, “you want a nice tight seal,” Saurer says. She recommends cleaning the rim with a wet paper towel before putting the lid and ring on. The canning process “sucks the air out of the jar,” so you “put the ring on just finger tight so that the air can escape,” she notes.

When the filled and lidded jars, with their finger-tight rings, are plunged into the boiling water bath, it is important to keep the jars off the bottom of the pot by using a rack, and to make sure the tops of the jars are covered with at least a half-inch of boiling water. They must boil for 5 minutes – “But don’t start timing until it’s at a rolling boil,” says Saurer.

Saurer recommends using a jar lifter to save you from scalding yourself when you put jars into and remove them from the boiling water.

After processing, let jars set and seal for 12 to 24 hours. Jar lids will “pop” in as they seal. “If you find one that hasn’t sealed you have to eat it right away because if the seal isn’t good it will mold. And once you open a jar,” says Saurer, “you have about two weeks before it goes bad.”

The Pie Lady’s December classes will cover canning chicken and chicken stock, making pumpkin pie and canning orange marmalade. The new year will bring with it more classes on pie making, old-school cooking skills, making bread and canning techniques.

Flaky cream cheese pie crust

(Based on “The Pie and Pastry Bible” by Rose Levy Beranbaum)

Yield: One 9-inch 2-crust pie

Ingredients:

12 tablespoons (170 grams) unsalted butter, cold

2 cups (284 grams) flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

4-1/2 ounces (128 grams) cream cheese, cold

2 tablespoons (28 grams) ice water

1 tablespoon (14 grams) cider vinegar

Directions:

Cut butter into small cubes. Wrap in plastic and place in refrigerator to cool.

Mix flour, salt and baking powder into a mixing bowl. Place in freezer until chilled.

Mix cream cheese into the flour mixture with your fingers until mixture resembles course meal.

Add butter chunks, mixing with fingers until all pieces are flat, and no bigger than small peas.

Place mixture in the freezer for about 30 minutes to allow butter to freeze.

Remove chilled mixture from freezer and add vinegar and ice water (lightly toss the water into the flour mixture with your fingers).

Very lightly, work the liquid into the flour mixture until the mixture holds together in one piece and feels slightly stretchy when pulled.

Divide the dough in half. Shape each half into a disc and wrap with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 45 minutes, preferably overnight.

Apple butter

(Makes about 9 or 10 half-pint jars)

8 pounds apples

2 cups cider

2 cups vinegar

2-1/4 cups white sugar

2-1/4 cups packed brown sugar

2 tablespoons ground cinnamon

1 tablespoon ground cloves

Wash, remove stems, quarter and core fruit. Cook slowly in cider and vinegar until soft. Press fruit through a colander, food mill or strainer. Cook fruit pulp with sugar and spices, stirring frequently. To test for doneness, remove a spoonful and hold it away from steam for 2 minutes. It is done if the apple butter remains mounded on the spoon. Another way to determine when the butter is cooked adequately is to spoon a small quantity onto a plate. When a rim of the liquid does not separate around the edge of the butter, it is ready for processing. Meanwhile, sterilize canning jars. When the apple butter is cooked sufficiently, pour it into hot half-pint or pint jars, leaving 1/4-inch of head space. Wipe jar rims, adjust lids and apply rings finger tight. Process 5 minutes in a boiling water bath.

Apple jelly

(Makes about 4 or 5 half-pint jars)

4 cups apple juice, made from about 3 pounds of apples and 3 cups water

2 tablespoons lemon juice if desired

3 cups sugar

To make the juice: Use freshly picked, firm, crisp apples. None of them should be soft or over-ripe. Up to 1/4 of them can be just under-ripe, but by no means should they be green or unripened. The more the apples ripen, the less pectin will be present. Sort, wash and remove stems and blossom ends; do not peal or core. Cut apples into small pieces.

Put into a large pot, add water, cover and bring to a boil on high heat. Reduce heat and simmer for 20 to 25 minutes, or until apples are soft. Pour mixture through jelly bag to extract juice

To make jelly: Sterilize canning jars. Measure apple juice into a stockpot. Add lemon juice and sugar and stir well. Boil over high heat until the mixture reaches 220 degrees or until jelly mixture sheets from spoon.

To preserve: Remove from heat and skim off foam quickly. Pour jelly immediately into hot canning jars, leaving 1/4-inch head space. Wipe jar rims and adjust lids. Apply rings till finger tight. Process 5 minutes in a boiling water bath.

Old-School cooking classes

When: Wednesday nights at 6 p.m.

Where: The Tailgate Gourmet, 272 South Main Street, Auburn

Taught by: Valerie Saurer, UMaine Extension master food preserver

Cost:$15 per class

Contact: Call 344-3043; or email pielady@thetailgategourmet.net; or go to http://www.thetailgategourmet.net  or http://www.thetailgategourmet.net/old-school-cooking-classes/

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