Strawberry Raspberry Crostata

I’m on  a mission to make new friends.  I’m in a new city, I don’t know many people, and I work from home on the Internet…. so, I’m really good friends with my cat, but at some point that’s just going to get weird.

Meeting new friends in my 30’s, outside of the context of work relationships and school relationships has been interesting.  By interesting I mean, um… how do I do this!?  It seems that calling people, making plans, not flaking on plans, and making eye contact is a good start because I’m slowing amassing a group of awesome ladies in this new city.  Slowly but surely.

A few weeks before I moved to New Orleans from Los Angeles I received an email from Anna of The Yellow Table.  She was in the midst of planning her cross-country dinner party road trip to support her upcoming cookbook, and wanted to host  dinner in my New Orleans home… that I didn’t even live in yet.  I said SURE because it seems like once you start making crazy moves across the country, crazy dinner parties make total sense.

The days run away, as they do… and before I knew it, Anna was in town with bags of groceries to cook in my New Orleans kitchen.  Around the table we gathered a group of total strangers/new friends:  Juley, Summer, Hannah, Rebecca, Anna, and Elise.

We laughed, talked in the imagined voices of our pets, and shared the most lovely dinner of shrimp and couscous, watermelon and feta.

I made this Strawberry Raspberry Crostata for dessert because making friends out of strangers often involves some sort of berry and fruit.  Try it.  Totally works.

Recipes that start with this sort of beauty hardly seem fair.  Summer is such a show-off.

Fresh strawberries are rinsed and sliced thick.  Fresh raspberries are rinsed and snacked on before adding by the handful to the strawberry bowl.

We’re also going to need some sugar, cornstarch for thickening, a squeeze of lemon, and a dash of Grand Marnier because we’re fancy.

I like how this feels.

Last time I had fresh raspberries in the kitchen I made these Lemon Raspberry Pie Crust Cookies.  This recipe isn’t a grand diversion of those cookies.  It’s just summer fruit and pie crust in a different form.

Berries, and their sugar and cornstarch partners.

The sugar helps the extract juice from the berries (the strawberries especially).  The process is called maceration.

I add lemon, Grand Marnier, and salt for extra flavor flav.

Pie crust with cold butter and buttermilk!  This is enough crust for a double crust pie.  We want to make sure that our crostata crust is thick enough to hold all of the fruit juice and goodness.

Do you have a kitchen ruler?  I do.  Do you have a desk ruler?  I don’t.  Priorities, I suppose.

With the extra pie crust, I cut flower shapes small and not so small.  I don’t usually do this sort of cutesy thing but… it’ summer, and why not!?  Plus, with the extra pie crust  we can make little cinnamon sugar cookies.  Not too shabby.

Fruit and its juice is placed in the center of the pie crust.

Also.. pro tip:  place the rolled out pie crust square on the baking pan before it’s loaded down in fresh fruit.  I still learn things the hard way from time to time.

Folded up, egg washed, and dotted with pie crust flowers.

Baked until golden brown, extra juicy, tender, and crisp.

I like this best served just slightly warm with vanilla ice cream.  It’s summer dreams come true.