The ICE raids that are raining cruelty on L.A.’s immigrant population are also provoking an outpouring of goodness. Nonprofits and businesses have come together to buy out the inventory of street vendors who have been afraid to show up for work, but need the daily income to survive.
“We’ve seen the videos from all over Los Angeles, Bell, Lynwood, Southgate, South Central, of fruit vendors, car washers, flower vendors being taken off the side of the road,” Andreina Kniss of K-Town For All, told KNBC4. “LA is an immigrant town, and we’re gonna protect them as best as we can.”
Want to do your part? It’s cherry season in L.A. — the fruit vendors have plastic quart containers of the fruit stacked up next to their mango and pineapple. Earlier this week, I pulled over and bought extra cherries and used them to create cherry rugelach hand pies, like those flaky half-moon treats I remember buying as a kid at the market.
For my far less industrial-grade version, I decided to use rugelach dough, enriched with cream cheese and butter. I rolled the dough into circles, folded each circle over some dark, jammy cherries, and baked them until golden. Sure, it takes some work — but not as much as trying to help feed Angelenos some nice fresh healthy fruit while dodging the callous realization of Stephen Miller’s lifelong obsession with ridding America of anybody who came to America after his own Jewish immigrant ancestors did.
Cherry Rugelach Hand Pies
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- ½ tsp. kosher salt
- 2 sticks 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 8 oz. cream cheese softened
- ½ cup sugar
- 2 1/2 to 3 cups fresh pitted cherries about 1 1/2-2 pounds
- ½ cup water + 1 tablespoon
- 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
- ⅔ cup granulated sugar
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- 1 egg beaten
- Powdered sugar
Instructions
- In a medium sized bowl, stir together flour and salt. In a food processor, blend butter, sugar and cream cheese until fluffy. Add flour mixture and pulse a few times until combined. (You can do all this in a bowl by hand as well).
- Form the dough into a rectangle on your work surface, divide into eighths. Form each eighth into a ball, and wrap each ball in plastic wrap. Refrigerate balls until cold and firm, about 8 hours (you can speed this up by popping them into the freezer for the first hour).
- For the filling, place a saucepan over medium heat,. Add cherries, water, lemon juice and sugar.
- In a small bowl whisk cornstarch with 1 tablespoon of water until smooth
- Bring mixture to a boil, then reduce heat, cover, and cook for about 5 minutes. Uncover. The cherries should have soften and exuded their juice. If not cover and cook until they are soft and liquidy. Let cool, then cover and refrigerate.
- Uncover and cook, stirring frequently, until the mixture is dark red, thick and glossy, about 15 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Tear off a few more pieces of baking parchment to ease rolling. Remove one ball from the refrigerator at a time and unwrap. Place the ball between two sheets of parchment and roll out into a circle until about 3/8 of an inch thick. Put a heaping tablespoon of filling in the center, Fold one half over and crimp with a fork. Cut a slit in the center with a sharp knife, or poke three sets of holes with the fork.
- Brush with a beaten egg and repeat with remaining balls.
- Place in oven on a middle rack and bake 15 minutes. Check– they should be just turning golden on top. If not, bake 5-7 minutes more. Remove from oven and place each pie on a baking rack to cool. Dust with powdered sugar before serving.
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