Pumpkin Bread Another Way

As I mentioned, despite my best intentions, I keep screwing up the amounts of thawed pumpkin I have on hand.  When I went to make the pumpkin pie for the Chief Taster's family's Thanksgiving, I read the recipe card (in my own handwriting, thus removing my last excuse) and found that I didn't need 2 C of puree, but 1.5.  This explained why my previous pie barely fit in the crust--I had used 2 C for that one.

I did it right for Thanksgiving, but then I had a tiny portion of leftover pumpkin, and I wasn't really sure what to do with it.  A couple weeks ago, I remembered it was still in the fridge, and I figured I should use it or toss it, and I hate to throw food away, so I decided to make pumpkin bread again.  I was all wound up for it when I remembered that I needed 1 C for a half-batch, and I only had 1/2 C.  Then I measured it (good call), and found that I really only had about 1/4 C.

But I still wanted to bake something, because it had been raining all day, and I was done working on Plan B for a while, and I had Spanish Chicken simmering away in the Crock Pot for five more hours, and it felt like fall, dammit, so I wanted to bake something.  Still, I only had 1/4 C of pumpkin puree.

Of course, there's also some leftover sour cream in the fridge that will pass its Use By date in a few more days.  Pumpkin puree is sort of creamy.  Sour Cream Pumpkin Bread doesn't sound like a bad idea, per se.

Kids: this will NOT taste like a creamsicle.

So I did it.  What follows is a sort-of recipe, or at least a record of what I did.

3/4 C pumpkin puree/sour cream slurry (I had about 1/4 C puree and 1/2 C sour cream.  I might have gone with 3/4 C sour cream, but that was all I had.)
1/2 plus 1/3 C sugar
1/3 C vegetable oil
1 t vanilla
2 large eggs
1.5 C flour (you can use whole wheat if you want.  Go ahead.  Pretend this is healthy.)
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
3/4 t ground cinnamon
1/4 t ground cloves
1/4 t baking powder
1/2 C chocolate chips

1. Move oven rack so the tops of the loaves will be in the middle of the oven, and preheat it to 350F.  Grease just the bottom of an 8x4 inch pan.
2. Combine pumpkin slurry, sugar, oil, vanilla, and eggs.  Mix well.  Really well.  Don't leave any lumps of sour cream.  Add everything except the chips. Mix well.  Add chips.  Mix again.
3. Pour batter into loaf pan.
4. Bake 50 to 60 minutes (I was closer to 65 before the toothpick test passed).  Check with a toothpick (inserted in the center, it should come out clean.  If it doesn't, give it a few more minutes).  Cool 10 minutes before removing from pan to wire rack.

Pumpkin bread the (almost) right way

Around the same time we went apple picking, I bought a couple small pie pumpkins at the grocery.  We had just had our first day of fall weather (it dipped below 60F for almost an hour one afternoon), and I was all fired up for warm baked goods, stews, soups, and cocoa.  Plus, we were going to go share a cabin and some hiking with friends who had requested pumpkin pie.  I had big plans for apple butter (check), pumpkin pies (multiple requests to fill), pumpkin cinnamon rolls (pending), and I had theorized a formula for apple walnut cinnamon rolls (still just a theory--I ran out of apples).  Then, because it's Virginia, temperatures climbed back into the 70s and 80s for several weeks.  I've lived here for almost two years, and I'm convinced that there are two seasons: Way Too Warm, and Slightly Less Warm Than The Other Season.

But I digress.

After roasting and pureeing the pumpkin, I sealed it in handy 2 Cup portions and tucked them away in the freezer.  I got three or four portions of that size, and an additional 2/3 C, which is coincidentally the exact amount that I need for SK's pumpkin cinnamon rolls (I've made them before, and sometimes find myself in mid-July wishing fall would hurry up and fall so I can make them again).  I took this as a sign of kismet smiling upon me: I was meant to have those cinnamon rolls.

Naturally, after making a batch of pumpkin chocolate chip cookies (1C pumpkin required), I screwed up and grabbed the 2/3 C portion when I wanted the 1 C leftover portion and... anyway, despite my luck in picking pumpkin puree portions, I've been doing ok--except that I was excited about all the 2 C portions, perfect for pies, before I realized I only need 1.5 C for a pie.  I didn't look too closely at the recipe when I made that first pie, and was puzzled when I barely got the filling to fit in the crust.  In fact, I didn't figure that out until just before I sat down to write this post, four pumpkin recipes later.

One of those recipes was pumpkin bread.  I knew I had that 1 C of leftover puree in the fridge (when I realized I had the 2/3 C portion thawed, I just made pumpkin pretzels, only to realize I couldn't taste the pumpkin at all.  Whoops), and I had already checked the recipe, so I knew that would work.  Except I forgot that I had determined it would be enough for a half recipe, and didn't halve anything else as I happily dumped ingredients in a great big bowl, so I had to thaw a 2 C portion and make a bigger batch of bread.

For someone who used to be good at math, I've been terrible at tracking pumpkin fractions this fall.

Pumpkin Bread (adapted from Betty Crocker)

2 C pumpkin puree (or one 15 oz can--don't use the pie mix.  Just pumpkin puree)
1 2/3 C sugar
2/3 C vegetable oil
2 t vanilla
4 large eggs
3 C flour (you can use whole wheat if you want.  Go ahead.  Pretend this is healthy.)
2 t baking soda
1 t salt
1 t ground cinnamon
1/2 t ground cloves
1/2 t baking powder
1/2 C chocolate chips
1/2 C chopped pecans (the original recipe called for 1/2 C each of raisins and coarsely chopped nuts, but I wanted chocolate.  I threw in the pecans more because I had them handy than because Betty told me to.)

1. Move oven rack so the tops of the loaves will be in the middle of the oven, and preheat it to 350F.  Grease just the bottom of a 9x5 inch pan (or two 8x4s).
2. Combine pumpkin, sugar, oil, vanilla, and eggs.  Mix well.  Add everything except the chips and nuts. Mix well.  Add chips and nuts.  Mix again.
3. Pour batter into loaf pan(s).
4. Bake a 9x5 for 70 to 90 minutes.  Bake 8x4s 50 to 60 minutes.  Check with a toothpick (inserted in the center, it should come out clean.  If it doesn't, give it a few more minutes).  Cool 10 minutes before removing from pan to wire rack.

The recipe says you should let it cool completely (around 2 hours) before slicing, but seriously?  You're going to look at this thing of beauty and think, "nah, I don't need to stuff that in my face right now, while it's still warm and the chocolate's gooey, and it smells so good and--" (furious chewing noises).

Rhinoceros

When I lived in Bend, a friend brought his family to visit for a few days.  We hiked to waterfalls, explored lava caves, and floated through town on rented inner tubes.  It was great.

We made quite a shoe mountain on the porch after every hike.

I did my best to feed them during the visit knowing that there were three children, and an adult who doesn't "eat anything that swims."  I managed ok.  One of our dinners became a running joke; I had filled the Crock Pot before we left that morning, and when we returned, one of the kids asked what we were having for dinner.  Their dad told them "rhinoceros."  They didn't believe him, but then I extracted a large piece of bone, which happened to be shaped very convincingly like a rhinoceros horn.  "Sure it is," I told them, holding up the bone.  "See?"  I don't know whether the kids believed us, but when the mom posted on Facebook that we were eating rhinoceros sandwiches for dinner, she was immediately met with responses of "where ARE you??"

NOTE:  it wasn't really rhinoceros.  I like rhinos, and I'm very sad that the black rhino was recently declared extinct.  That's horrible.  But calling pulled pork sandwiches "rhinoceros" is too much fun to pass up, so the name stays.

The recipe is from Betty Crocker.

Pulled Jerk Pork Sandwiches
2.5 lb boneless pork shoulder (get it with a bone if you want to convince children it's rhinoceros)
1 T dry Jamiacan jerk seasoning
1/4 t dried thyme
1/2 C chopped onion
1 C cola
2 C barbecue sauce
sandwich buns

(If pork is tied or in netting, leave it in place for now)  rub jerk seasoning over pork, sprinkle with thyme.  Place in slow cooker and sprinkle onion over it.  Pour in cola.  Betty will tell you to to pour it over the pork, but that will wash away a lot of the seasoning you just applied, so I usually pour it down the side of the crock.  It'll be in there for hours; there's no chance of it getting too dry because you didn't dump a cup of liquid on top of the meat.

No rhinos were harmed during the making of this delicious meal.

Cover and cook on Low 8-10 hours.

Remove pork from cooker and put on a large platter or (my preference) in a big bowl.  Shred with two forks, and remove any netting or string.  Remove juice from cooker, reserving 1/2 C.  (You can set the rest aside and re-heat it for au jus style dipping, if that's your thing, but it's not mine)  Return pork and 1/2 C juice to cooker.  Stir in barbecue sauce.  Cook on High 30-45 minutes.  Serve on buns.  Watch Animal Planet.

Butter me up

The Chief Taster and I decided to go apple picking one day this fall, mainly because she had the day off and we wanted to go do something.  Something that enables food usually seems like a good idea, and I had a lot of ideas for how to use apples.  Namely, I wanted to make apple butter.

The only time I clearly remember making apple butter was on a Scout outing.  It was a big council-wide event, and each troop had some sort of activity set up for people as we all cycled through the various areas.  My troop had built a rope bridge between two trees, but we also had a big iron pot sitting on the fire all day with apple butter slowly simmering.  That's the traditional way to make apple butter: outside, in a large batch, with a big group of people.  That's because you have to cook the stuff, stirring constantly, for about two hours, and it helps to have someone else take a turn with the spoon.  Sadly, they won't let me start fires in the courtyard outside our building, so I hung out by the stove for a while with a crossword and my nook.

Apple Butter
4 pounds apples
1 C cider vinegar
2 C water
about 4 C sugar
salt
2 t cinnamon
1/2 t cloves
1/2 t allspice
grated rind and juice of 1 lemon

1. Quarter the apples and put them in a large pot with the cider and vinegar.  Cover, bring to a boil, and reduce to a simmer for about 20 minutes.
2. Run through a mill (I have one of these, but Mom used one similar to this.  Either works.) and measure result.  Add 1/2 C sugar for every C of apple pulp.  Add seasonings, lemon rind, and lemon juice.
3. Cook uncovered over medium-low heat 1-2 hours, stirring constantly.  You want it thick.  The longer you cook, the thicker it will get.

A couple notes: the nice thing about either of those food mills is that they mash and strain what you want, and leave what you don't want.  Seeds, stems, peel, and core chunks can be separated, and you only get tasty apple pulp in your food, so you don't need to core and peel the apples first.  In fact, you shouldn't.  Natural fruit pectin is in the cores, and that will help the apple butter gel.  I had a little trouble while cooking the apple chunks, because only the ones which were down in the vinegar and water got soft.  Solution: scoop apples out of the bottom and run those chunks through the mill while others cook.  If it feels soft, it's ready to mill.

You'll want to have your jars and lids prepared by the time you finish.  Use your favorite method; I boiled the lids and put the jars in the dishwasher.  I don't have a funnel, so I had to be very careful while ladling the apple butter into jars.  Leave a little headspace at the top, make sure there's no apple goop in the threads, and screw the lids on tight.  Then set the jars aside, and leave them alone.  You might hear the lids pop down as the jars cool.  They'll be safe for quite a while until you open the lids--then you should put them in the fridge.

Night at the Improv, Part II

On the same afternoon I made the frankencookies, I decided to make stuffed peppers.  We had gone to an orchard that morning, and I bought three poblano peppers, and we had a little ground beef in the freezer.  The thing is, I had made stuffed peppers with Betty's recipe before, and I wasn't crazy about them.  So I made up everything on my own, thusly:

~ 1/2 # ground beef
1/4 # sweet Italian beef sausage
1 C uncooked rice
1 small tomato I found in the crisper
generous handful (about a cup, maybe a little more) grated cheddar
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 generously proportioned, full-bodied poblano peppers

Boil peppers 5 minutes to soften them a little.

Cook the rice.  I've found that despite the package directions, I get pretty good rice in about 25 minutes.  Halve the peppers lengthwise, keeping in mind they'll need to become bowls soon, so cut them to make deep pockets.  Discard stems and seeds, put the pepper halves in a pot, cover with water, bring to a boil, and cook five minutes to soften them a little.  While the rice simmers away at the back of the stove, cook the beef, sausage, and garlic.  By the way, is your stove in the corner, against a wall, like mine?  Does that force you to have pot and spatula handles in the middle of the range instead of off to the side, out of your way?  Did you fail to consider this, and leave a metal spatula handle sticking out of the meat pan where it could get heated by the pot boiling the peppers and burn the shit out of your hand when you grabbed it?  Put some ice on that.  When the meat's done, dice the tomato and toss that in there, too.  The rice should be done by now, if you planned well (and except for the spatula handle, I did), so you can add that and the cheese to the meat mixture and stir it all together over low heat.

Pretty much any meal can be improved with the inclusion of good sausage.

By this time, I had decided that I wanted to make popovers, too, but the popovers cook at two different temperatures (first high, then a little lower towards the end), and neither was where I planned to bake the peppers, so I compromised and set the oven at 375F.

Filled pepper halves, just before I baked them.  They didn't last long enough after baking to get their picture taken again.

Turn off all your burners and start spooning filling into pepper halves.  Set them in a glass baking dish.  I had a little filling left over, so if your amounts are all the same as mine, and your peppers are the same size, you might need four instead of three (eight halves instead of six).  I baked them about half an hour, maybe forty minutes, with the popovers.  Faked my way through the whole meal, and all of it was tasty.  I was really happy with how the peppers turned out, and felt even better about that because I really hadn't liked Betty's recipe the first time I made them.  However, I'd add some cumin and curry powder if I did it again (and I probably will).

Night at the Improv, Part I

As you may know by now (if you've been reading this blog for a while, and have paid any attention at all), I'm a big fan of faking it.  Sometimes that just means trying a new ingredient in a well-used recipe (adding cumin and curry powder to Betty's brown rice and lentils was brilliant.  Betty's diverse, but her recipes tend toward the bland and basic), but sometimes I make dinner winging it all the way.

Sometimes, I have no choice in the matter.

This story actually happened last year, but since I knew I'd be hiking by now, I figured it would be a good post to delay until I couldn't be relied upon to update regularly.  The next post is a continuation of the same afternoon in the kitchen.

First, the cookies.

I have this great book for chocolate chip cookies.  All the recipes were culled from a contest to find "the best" chocolate chip cookie recipe, possibly the most subjective idea since Miss Universe (click the link, or you can't really appreciate the joke).  I first liked it because I got it when I was still beginning to learn how to cook and bake, and there was a lot of good information in how the ingredients worked, and enough variety in the recipes to see those theories in action, assuming you eat an awful lot of cookies, which I arguably do.  Since I got the book, I haven't even hit the halfway point in trying all the recipes, but I have found a few very good ones, and this is one of them.  That should come as no surprise; it was a finalist.

Joyous Chocolate Chip Cookies (submitted by Robin Joy Minnick)
3 C flour
1 t baking soda
1 t salt
1/2 C butter, softened
1/4 C shortening
1 C brown sugar, firmly packed
1/2 C granulated sugar
1 t vanilla
2 eggs
1 T milk
3 T dark corn syrup
2 C semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 C pecans, broken

1. preheat oven to 350F
2. Cream butter, shortening, and sugars.  Add vanilla, eggs, milk, and corn syrup.  Gradually add flour, baking soda, and salt.  Add chocolate and nuts.
3. Drop by teaspoon-sized balls onto parchment-paper lined baking sheets (the original recipe says greased sheets, but greasing a baking sheet recently removed from a 350F oven will either be exceedingly painful, or a fire hazard.  Maybe both!  One sheet of parchment paper will last through an entire batch of cookies, and nobody get third-degree burns.).  Bake 7-10 minutes, until cookies are golden brown, and slightly darker along the edges.

I'd made it two or three times before, and didn't think much of launching into it that afternoon, but after I had reached the Point Of No Return on making a batch, I realized that I had a little less then half as much brown sugar as I needed.  And about a third of the corn syrup.

The dark glob is molasses.  Don't tell anybody.

Fine.  I'll fake it!  Instead of a cup of brown sugar and half a cup of granulated, I had almost half a cup of brown sugar, and just used enough granulated to make up the difference.  (Still 1.5 C total sugar)  When I realized I didn't have enough corn syrup, I used molasses for the rest.  I've made lots of cookies with molasses.  It's dark and sweet.  That's sort of like corn syrup.  Plus, it smells nice baking.  Besides, the recipe actually calls for dark corn syrup, and I'd always used the light corn syrup we had, so strictly speaking, I'd never made those cookies right, anyway.

The results were pretty great.  The Chief Taster, who was already a big fan of the original recipe, raved about this batch.  I might even make a note in the cookbook to try this variation again.

Snickerdoodles

My usual uniform is shorts and a T-shirt.  You can tell when I'm being dressy because my shirt has buttons, and if I'm really serious, it's tucked in, too.  For me, the first real sign of winter's arrival is the day when I realize that I have to start wearing pants again (jeans) and store the shorts for a few months.  That day was about two weeks ago.  Truly, a sad day for me and anyone who enjoys gazing upon my hairy kneecaps.

This Monday, driving back to our place after the fourth wedding we've attended this fall, I got another inarguable sign of winter: snickerdoodle craving.  Out of nowhere, I could taste them in my mouth, and feel the perfect snickerdoodle texture smashing between my teeth.  I warned the Chief Taster that we'd have a batch in the next few days.  She sighed her resignation, hoping that she would be able to bear the threat of more baked goods.

The last time I made snickerdoodles was over two years ago, when I still lived in Bend, and winter arrived much earlier than here in Virginia (I still have trouble with the knowledge that, for the first time in my life, I live south of the Mason-Dixon line).  When I pulled them out of my pack as Summit Cookies, my Scotsman friend laughed at the name.  He'd never heard of them before, and I thought that was odd, because I had grown up with them.  On the other hand, he'd never heard of zucchini bread either, and raved about it the first time he had mine.

I realized while making this batch that snickerdoodles are a primordial cookie; the most basic cookie form, before it gets tarted up with chocolate chips, nuts, bits of fruit, icing, bacon, or all of the above.  If you want to try your own batch, I suggest this recipe from Ms. Crocker.  I think my doughballs were a bit smaller than she suggested, and I used a very small bowl for the sugar mix, because it gets used up and spread out easily, and it's easier to get the doughballs coated when the sugar mix is piled up.  I also used a spoon to scoop some over the top of the dougballs.  I just said "doughballs" an awful lot, and the software tells me I spelled it wrong every time.

Just ribbin' ya

You know what's handy about slow-cooker recipes?  They take hours to cook, but there's a lot of wiggle room, so they're handy for when out-of-state visitors are coming, and you don't know exactly when they'll arrive.  When Dad and The Lady came to visit us this summer, I made these ribs for dinner the night they arrived, because it really didn't matter if they showed up right on time or an hour late--dinner would be waiting for them.  I also made some cornbread (in the picture) and a pineapple upside down cake (a post for another time), and managed to time them both to come out of the oven as our guests came up the stairs to our apartment, but that's just because I'm fantastic.

Caribbean Spiced Ribs
3 lb pork loin back ribs
2 T dried minced onion
1 t ground mustard
1 t crushed red pepper (you can use paprika here; I just used red pepper flakes)
1/2 t ground allspice
1/2 t cinnamon
1/2 t garlic powder (or a small clove, minced)
1 medium onion, sliced (I think I used about half an onion.  The onions we buy are always much larger than the recipes suggest.  One large onion, chopped, is NOT one cup.  More like three.)
1/2 C water
1 1/2 C barbecue sauce

This was only the second time I'd made this recipe.  The first time, we really liked it, but I kept thinking it was a stretch to call them Caribbean ribs.  On what grounds, Ms. Crocker?  Because there are pigs in the Caribbean?  Because there are onions?  Weak sauce.  I decided that they needed some pineapple, at the very least, which is why they happened on the same night as my favorite cake (it turned out better than ever before--I can't believe I forgot to get a picture).  I'll explain how below.  I also considered using rum instead of the water, but I didn't.  Mainly because we didn't have any.

1. Betty says to spray the inside of the crock pot with cooking spray.  I don't use it, so I didn't do that.  It didn't seem to matter.
2. Combine the dried onion and spices in a small bowl.  Rub the mix into both sides of the ribs.  Cut the ribs in 4" sections.  Layer ribs and sliced onion (and pineapple!) in the slow cooker.  Betty says to pour the water over the ribs, but I think that washes too much seasoning off them.  Pour it down the inside of the crock.
3. Cover and cook on Low 8-9 hours.  Remember the Crock Pot Rule: leave often so you can return to smell dinner cooking.  Good stuff, right??
4. Remove ribs from cooker to a large bowl.  Drain liquid from cooker and discard (or pour it over the kibble of a very lucky dog).  Coat ribs in barbecue sauce and return to cooker with any excess sauce.  Cover and cook on Low 1 hour.

Did I mention I found blue cornmeal at the store?  It makes blue cornbread!  How great is that?!  Food in weird colors is EXCELLENT!

What a crock-pot

When I was in grad school, Dad bought me a crock-pot.  I practically lived out of the thing for a solid year.  I could stuff it full of whatever (he also gave me a slow-cooker cookbook), have dinner when I got back from a very long day of classes, and live off the leftovers for the rest of the week (I usually had a sandwich for lunch).  That thing was the start of me really cooking on my own, but I didn't get to this recipe until I was in Oregon (maybe because it was from a completely different cookbook).  Too bad--it's a good one.

Spicy Chicken in Peanut Sauce
disclaimer: not that spicy, nor that peanut-y
1 T olive oil
8 large chicken thighs (about 3 lbs), skin removed.  Bones optional.
1 C chopped onion
2x 14.5 oz cans diced tomatoes with green chilies, undrained
1x 14.5 oz can crushed tomatoes, undrained (I can't always find this.  Stewed tomatoes also work.  So will diced.  Odds are good that nobody eating it will know exactly what the texture should be, so they won't know if you fudged it a little, either)
2 T honey (like I'd stop at 2 T of honey!  HA!)
1 1/2 t cumin
1 t cinnamon
1/3 cup creamy peanut butter (I won't even buy creamy peanut butter.  I get the kind that says "extra crunchy," or if it's available, "big damn jar of peanuts with a little peanut butter to fill in the gaps.")
2 cups hot cooked couscous

• heat oil in a 12" skillet.  Cast iron if you have it, because if you had it, why wouldn't you use it?  Cook the chicken thighs in the oil, turning once, until brown.  About 4 minutes.  DO NOT move the chicken around while you wait for it to cook.  Let it sit there, soaking in heat and crisping a little, until you turn it.  Turning it and removing it from the skillet should be the only times you bother it at all.

You can't beat a hot set of thighs.

• Mix everything except the peanut butter, couscous, and chicken in a slow cooker.  The couscous shouldn't be a problem, because it takes five minutes to cook, and you won't need it until you're ready to eat, HOURS from now.  Add the chicken.  Stir it in a little to make sure the chicken thighs are submerged--or at least covered--in sauce.
• Cover and cook on Low 7-8 hours.  Leave the room often so you can come back in and smell dinner.  It's one of the best features of a crock-pot.

This is exactly 1/3 C of peanut butter.

• Stir in peanut butter until melted and blended.  Serve over couscous (did you remember to cook it?  No?  That's ok, it only takes five minutes!  It will take longer than that for the chicken to cool enough to not burn you when you try to eat!).  I like to top it with some salted, dry-roasted peanuts.  Let people add their own.  It makes them feel like they have some measure of control over dinner.  They do not; you rule this kitchen!!

By now, the bones just flop out of their meat blankets.  Just add couscous!  And peanuts.  And maybe a salad?  Or pitas?  Your call.

Tiny Tart

Ever make a pie and have a little dough left over?  You could use it to decorate the top crust with pretty or lewd shapes, or you can fake a little dessert.  That's what I did.

When I finished assembling my chicken pot pie, I rolled out the little bit of dough I had left and put it on a parchment-lined baking sheet.  Then, guessing at all of the amounts, I topped it with a small handful of berries the Chief Taster had already washed, some granulated sugar, and a little cinnamon.  Maybe some nutmeg.  I don't know, it was back in July.

variation on the naked pie: tiny naked pie.

Fold up the edges around the filling and seal it as best you can.  It will probably leak.  That's ok; you have parchment paper.

Oh, yeah.  That leaked.

I already had the oven going for the chicken pot pie.  I just slipped this on to the other rack and kept an eye on it.  When things looked brown enough (see above, and below), I pulled it out.  Somehow, the Chief Taster managed to arrive within a bout 47 seconds of the tart's extraction.  She ate it before dinner.  I didn't get any.  I guess that means it was good?

aerial view.  Next time, I need enough dough to make two.  Or I just won't tell her about it.

Pi R Round

During my freshman year of college, when I was begrudgingly adjusting to the cafeteria food (I still blame that diet for preventing me from growing to a full six feet), I sent Mom a postcard.  It told her nothing at all of what I was doing, who my friends were, or when I would be home next.  Instead, I filled the message space with tiny print listing dozens of foods.  Every alternate item was a different kind of pie.  Granted, towards the end I started stretching that definition a little with things like Cheeseburger Pie or Spaghetti Pie, but they were all things Mom had made, and I missed every single one of them.  Oh, how I love pie.  To this day, my Dad calls me every year on March 14 to wish me a happy Pi Day.  He does not always call on my birthday.  I love that man.

In addition to noting my favorite mathematical holidays, Dad also makes a mean chicken pot pie.  This is not his recipe.  It's Betty's.

Chicken Pot Pie
10 oz box frozen peas and carrots (I couldn't find that.  Mine also had corn and lima beans.  Whatever.)
1/3 C butter
1/3 C all-purpose flour
1/3 C chopped onion
1/2 t salt
1/4 t pepper (or 1/2 t.  Suit yourself.  I did.)
1 3/4 C chicken broth
2/3 C milk
2 1/2 to 3 C cut-up cooked chicken
pastry for two-crust pie

First, a little confession/revelation.  I spent several weeks hanging out with Dad back in June/July of this year, and because hanging out with Dad means myriad projects, we made a few trips to the hardware store, and while Dad paid for stuff, I flipped through the Exhibitor's Handbook for our county fair.  They had a stack of them sitting on the counter.  In the category for Pies, there were two main subcategories: With and Without Lard.  This cracked me up.  Then, while making chicken pot pie for the very first time less than a month later, I discovered that I did not have enough shortening to make the two-crust pastry recipe.  Luckily, since we don't have a dog, we collect bacon grease in an old shortening container and store it in the fridge.  I subbed a little bacon grease for shortening, used the customary amount of vegetable oil, and went on my merry way.  The crust turned out pretty well, but I have no idea how much bacon grease was used.  Oops.

Filling for the pie.  Yours won't look like this until the end of step 2.

1.  Rinse frozen veggies in cold water to separate.  Drain.  Heat oven to 425F
2. Melt butter in 2 qt saucepan.  Stir in flour (roux!), onion, salt, and pepper.  Stir constantly.  Cook until bubbly.  Remove from heat.  Stir in broth and milk.  Return to heat, bring to a boil, stirring constantly.  Boil and stir one minute (ish).  Add veggies and the bird bits.  Remove from heat.
3. Betty wants you to make this in a 9" square pan, but it's a PIE, for Pete's sake.  Pies are ROUND.  Roll out a little more than half your dough to fit your pie pan.  Line the pie pan with the dough.  Dump in the filling.
4. Roll out the rest of the dough.  Betty suggests cutting out pretty shapes, then topping the pie with the cut-out pieces.  My dough was a little too pliable for that.  I was happy that I got the whole thing together.  I'll work on presentation in the future.  Maybe.  As it was, my aim was a little off when I added the top crust, and I had to do a little patch job.  You can see it in the next picture.  It looks a little goofy, but it tasted fine, so I don't care.
5. Seal the edges.  Make it pretty, if that's your thing.  Bake 35 minutes or until golden brown.

You know what that is.

One more thing: somehow, I ended up with a small handful of leftover pastry.  Check back next week to see what happened to it.

All or Naan

I still haven't gotten the hang of Indian food, but I will occasionally fake something similar (lately, using a jar I picked up at a food fair back in Oregon and only recently opened).  I use this as an excuse to do something I know I can do: make passable naan.

My recipe comes from the excellent and well-illustrated Bread.  I've only made it a couple times, but it works well with dinner (obviously), and I usually end up eating pieces for breakfast or lunch for the next couple days.

I'm having naan of it.

2 t dry yeast
1 C milk
4 C all-purpose flour
1 1/2 t salt
1 t sugar
3 T plain yogurt (I think I actually used vanilla flavored yogurt once--that's good, too)
2 T ghee or unsalted butter, melted (I can't find ghee and haven't yet learned how to make it, so I used butter)

1. Sprinkle yeast in 1/2 C milk.  Let stand 5 minutes, stir to dissolve.  In a large bowl, combine flour ans salt, then make a well in the center.  Add the melted butter, dissolved yeast, sugar, and yogurt.
2. Mix in the flour from the sides of the well.  Add remaining milk as needed to get a stiff, slightly sticky dough.  (the book says "stiff, sticky" dough.  I have trouble managing dough that is genuinely sticky, and I suspect you do, too.  You're not going for chewing gum stuck to your shoe consistency here; you just want it to feel a little tacky as you handle it.  You should be able to easily free your hand from the dough ball after picking it up)
3. Knead ten minutes.
4. Let rise until doubled.  It may take 3-4 hours.  Plan accordingly.
5. Punch down, let rest for ten minutes.
6. I diverge from the book again here.  It says to divide the dough into four pieces, then roll them to 1/4 thick and about 6 inches in diameter.  The math doesn't work.  I can get them to achieve one of those dimensions, not both.  So I divide it into 8 pieces, roll them to the specified thickness, and if they are still a little big in diameter, that's ok.  Make naan of manageable size.
7. Preheat your broiler on the highest setting (mine only has one setting, so that was easy).  Another side note here: If you have an electric oven, the broiler is probably at the top.  If you have a gas oven, the broiler is definitely at the bottom.  This has caused me trouble in the past, but it works fine for the naan.  Just move your oven rack to the bottom.  If you're using an electric oven, move the rack to the top, but maybe not all the way to the top.  These will puff up A LOT, and you don't want to burn the tops of them.  Much.
8. Preheat the baking sheet for 2-3 minutes.  Put a couple dough rounds on the sheet (I can usually fit three of my smaller rounds on my sheets.  It should be easy to gauge, because while they will expand upward--sometimes an awful lot--they don't expand outward) and bake 2-3 minutes on each side, until puffy and golden.
9. Stack baked breads on top of each other on a wire rack.  Cover with a clean, dry cloth to prevent drying.  Eat that night if possible.  Otherwise, they toast well, but the smooth outer texture makes spreading stuff like cream cheese nearly impossible.  Jelly might work.

just some pasta

I have a book of pasta recipes that I picked up a few years ago from the bargain table at Noble Barn.  The Chief Taster scoffed at it, proclaiming all you need for pasta is pasta, cheese, and sauce.  True, I suppose, but there's a pretty wide panorama of options in that range.  Back in Oregon, when I briefly had an intern (mwahahaha), we got to talking about pasta, and I told him you can never really know all the pasta recipes, because pasta is used as a staple item in so many different cultures.  Even if you master Italian cooking (motto: Just add tomatoes!  And garlic!), there's still Japanese noodles (Just add soy sauce!), Chinese food (just add fried meat nuggets!), Thai (Just add basil and three stars of spiciness!), and even German (Spaetzle is a food!).  The book I have is limited to Italian-esque food, but I can give it credit for teaching me how to fake a decent alfredo, make a tasty pasta dish without sauce (unless bacon and olive oil count as sauce), and muddle through making some sort of filling meal with the random stuff I find in the kitchen when I'm too lazy to walk to the grocery.  Worth the six bucks.

Most of the recipe titles read more like a list of the major ingredients, which is why in late July I made:

Farfalle with chicken, broccoli, & roasted red peppers
(except I used rotini, because that's what I had in the cabinet)
4 T olive oil
5 T butter
3 garlic cloves, very finely chopped
1 lb boneless, skinless chicken, diced (the book suggested breasts; I always use the cheaper, more nutritious, and healthier thighs)
1/4 t dried chile flakes (I probably used more.  I'm generous with the spices I like)
salt and pepper
1 lb small broccoli florets
1 lb pasta (the recipe said 10.5 oz.  I have never seen a box of pasta that size, and I don't have a kitchen scale.  A pound worked fine.  Use your favorite shape.)
6 oz jar roasted red peppers, drained and diced
9 oz/ generous 1 C chicken stock (bouillon broth worked for me)
Parmesan (of course)

Cook garlic in olive oil and butter in a large skillet until it begins to color.  add the chicken.
Do you at least have some water boiling?  You should check on that.
Add chile flakes, salt, and pepper to chicken.  When it's cooked, remove from heat.
Dump broccoli into boiling water.  Cook 2 minutes, or until tender-crisp.  Eat as much as you want for testing purposes.  There's plenty in there.
Remove broccoli to chicken pan. Cook the pasta in the broccoli water.
Add cooked pasta, bell peppers, and stock to the chicken pan.  Simmer, stirring frequently, until most liquid has been absorbed.

See what happened there?  Pasta, without any real sauce.  Neat, huh?  The Chief Taster was pretty happy with this.  I thought it needed more of something, but I never figured out what.  Still a good meal, and very easy to make.

pound it down

Sometimes my epicurean choices are dictated by what we have handy.  For instance, I have never found a can of evaporated milk with exactly the amount I needed, so I had a little leftover from a recent batch of soup.  My go-to recipe for excess evaporated milk?  Pound cake.

As luck would have it, I also had the last bit of a large jar of poppy seeds, and half a lemon that was left from... something.  Who knows?  Point is, I figured I could fake my way through a lemon poppy seed pound cake.  Then I checked my pound cake recipe, and found a lemon poppyseed variation on the same page that made my exciting experiment for the afternoon a pointless exercise in Following Directions.  Almost.

Betty Crocker's pound cake
3 C flour
1 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
2.5 C granulated sugar
1 C butter, softened
1 t vanilla
5 large eggs
1 C milk or evaporated milk (I used a mixture, because I didn't have quite enough evaporated milk)

for lemon-poppy seed variation:
substitute lemon extract for vanilla.  Fold 1 T grated lemon peel and 1/4 C poppy seeds into batter

Grease bottom and sides of two 9x5 loaf pans (there are size variations, but they don't mean anything to me because I don't have those pans, so I'm skipping them) and lightly flour the pans.  Heat oven to 350F.

Cream butter and sugar.  Beat in vanilla and eggs.  (Or lemon extract and eggs.  I didn't have lemon extract, so I squeezed the bejesus out of the lemon half I had, and poured the bejesus into the batter.  Boom.  I extracted it!)  Add dry ingredients gradually (and poppy seeds, if you're into that), and alternately with milk.  Beat just until smooth. Pour into pans.  Bake 55-60 minutes and test with a toothpick in the middle of the loaf (if you don't know this one, stick a toothpick into the center of the cake.  If it comes out clean, you're done.  If it comes out goopy and covered in batter, it needs to bake longer.).

Cool 20 minutes and remove from pans.  Cool completely before storing (the book says about 2 hours.  I have never in my life let a fresh pound cake sit that long without trying a slice or two).  You could top it with a bit of powdered sugar, but if you have some leftover raspberry jam, that's good, too.

Chowdah

There are two ways to make clam chowder.  I don't mean White and Red (or New England and Boston, if you like), but canned and fresh.

This is the easy way.  I still haven't tried fresh, but I will.  And you will hear about it here.

The recipe comes from my Oregon Cookbook, which I bought at Crater Lake, and for sentimental reasons is one of the first places I look when I want to make something and haven't decided yet what it will be.  The recipe itself is theirs; the pictures and commentary are mine.

Oregon coast clam chowder
4 slices bacon, diced
1 T pan drippings (I've never measured this; I just cook the bacon, then throw the veggies in on top and assume I have the right amount)
1.5 C chopped onion
1/4 C flour
1/4 C grated carrot (I'm lazy, and I like my fingertips, so I just thinly slice the carrot.  It works.)
1/4 C chopped celery
3 C peeled, diced potatoes (still lazy--I use yellow potatoes and don't bother peeling them.  But I do wash them well)
1 t salt
1/8 t pepper
2 cans (8 oz) chopped clams, drained, reserve liquid.  (the cookbook is not specific about whether those cans are 8 oz each, or total.  I assume each, and err on the side of more clams.)
1 C evaporated milk

I feel like these colors are indicative of a specific flag, but I can't figure out which one.

This is where my version diverges slightly from the book's.  We both cook the bacon until lightly browned, but then they drain the pan (except for the 1 T drippings mentioned above), and I've never had so much bacon grease in the pan that I thought that was necessary, even though I hardly ever stop at 4 strips of bacon.  Do what you want.  It's cooking, not a nuclear reactor.

Add the onion and saute until translucent.  Stir in the flour; it will combine with the remaining drippings and form a roux, which will help thicken things later.  Dump in the rest of the veggies and seasonings.  Stir well.

Add enough water to the reserved clam juice to get 3 C.  Stir it into the veggie-bacon medley, bring to a boil, then lower the heat and let it boil gently, uncovered, for twenty minutes.  Stir occasionally.  Check potatoes for done-ness.

Add clams and cook another five minutes.  Stir in milk and heat through.

Soup's on!

If you want my opinion, this should always be served with some hot bread or rolls.  Popovers are a popular choice in our apartment, and by happy coincidence their baking time coincides nicely with how long it usually takes to make this soup (after everything has been cut up).

Bourbon Chicken my way

Fun fact:  Bourbon Chicken is named for Bourbon Street.  I found out when The Girl asked me to find a way to use up the bottle of bourbon we had before the last time we moved.  I also found out that when you search the internet for Bourbon chicken recipes, most of them don't involve any bourbon.  I kept searching until I found one that did.  (I also made some bourbon chocolate chip cookies that day, and sampled the product before finishing either, thus saving us from packing that bottle when we moved.  I'm a hero!)

The first time I made it, I actually worked from a hodge-podge of a couple different recipes, and it's evolved a little since then.  What follows is unique enough from the source material(s) that I feel comfortable calling it:

Ryan's Bourbon Chicken
About 2 lbs cut-up chicken
1 t ground ginger
1/2 C soy sauce
2 T dried minced onion
1/2 C packed brown sugar
3/8 C bourbon
1/2 t garlic powder (or one clove garlic, finely minced)
10 oz package frozen broccoli
1 C cashews

Combine ginger, minced onion, brown sugar, and garlic powder in a bowl.

Add soy sauce and bourbon.  Mix well.  Add cut-up chicken, turning to coat, and marinate in the fridge for a couple hours.

Always make sure you are using quality ingredients.  Re-check as needed.

This is a good time to check your bourbon for quality, freshness, whatever bourbon is supposed to have.  I just know I drink a little every time I make it because I can't think of a good reason not to.

About 30 minutes before dinner, pour the chicken and marinade into a large skillet over medium-low heat and stir occasionally until chicken is cooked.

When the chicken is cooked, add the broccoli.  Stir it in well so it gets heat from all sides.  It needs to thaw and cook, but as long as there is sauce in the pan, the chicken won't get dry--but the broccoli can get mushy if it cooks too long.  Keep an eye on it.  Sample a couple pieces if you want.  It's a vegetable--that means it's healthy (even if it's swimming in booze and sugar).

When the broccoli is ready, stir in the cashews and let them simmer a minute or two--you really just want to get them in there.  They don't have to cook, but it's good to get them coated in the sauce.

Serve over rice.  This one's a winner.

Flantastic!

You've heard the expressions "piece of cake" or "easy as pie"?  Forget them.  Flan is easier.  I don't know how the International Flanmakers' Union has managed to keep it a secret for this long, but the word is OUT, people!

I needed to make something for dinner.  I chose chicken adobo, because "adobo" is fun to say.  Then, as I procrastinated the walk to the grocery, I figured I should make a dessert, too, and chose flan.  I thought it would fit well with the theme.  (Yes, I know that flan is Spanish/ Hispanic, and even though adobo is Spanish, I linked to a Filipino adobo recipe, and Filipino adobo isn't even true adobo, but I would like to argue that with two points.  First, maybe the theme was "things I don't know how to do yet."  Second, I just made you say "adobo" a whole lot, if you were reading out loud.  I was right, wasn't I?  It IS fun to say!)  I found two good contenders.  This one, and the one I used.  Why the second one?

1. I don't actually have ramekins, and I didn't have enough of the things I was going to use instead.
2. I've never made flan before.  I've never carmelized sugar before.  The second recipe uses one big dish instead of six little ones, so I don't have to work quite as quickly, which is nice if you're unfamiliar with the process, would like to avoid third-degree sugar burns, and have a tendency to take lots of pictures while you cook (you're welcome, food-porn enthusiasts).

I know I said it was super easy, but there was one part that intimidated me (a little) and one part that was really difficult.  The intimidating part was melting the sugar.  I'd never done it before, and the very first review on the recipe mentioned how difficult it was to clean the sugar off of everything when they finished making it. That caveat, coupled with my low confidence, made me pretty sure I was going to ruin the saucepan, so I used one of the Chief Taster's.  Don't tell her.  It was the only one she believes capable of boiling eggs.

I don't know whether you're supposed to stir sugar as it melts, but I did.  I was also preparing the custard portion at the same time, so I wasn't stirring constantly, and think that maybe I should have been.  You can see clumps here because it isn't melting evenly.

Luckily, I didn't ruin the pan, and it cleaned very easily (as soon as I poured the caramel glaze into the pie pan, I put some hot water in the pot.  That probably helped.).  It still takes a little time for the sugar to melt.  Don't sweat it.  Keep the heat low, and be patient.  Even the lumps you see in the picture above thinned out eventually.

one cup of sugar, melted.  Makes me wish I had some ice cream.

As the sugar becomes more liquid than solid, give it more of your attention.  Do not let it burn, and keep stirring it to get a nice, even consistency.  Then pour it in the baking dish, and tip the dish around to coat the sides a little.  I didn't have a 9" baking dish, so I used a 9.5" pie pan.  Close enough.

The sugar cools and solidifies quickly, so it's hard to get a coat of even thickness or  uniform height on the sides of the dish.  Call this "artistic license," and people will let you get away with it.  If they don't, then don't let them have any of your delicious flan.

I finished beating the filling ingredients together while the caramel glaze cooled a little in the dish.  That's fine.  The worrisome part is when you pour the filling into the dish and hear tiny crackling noises like fractures in glass.  More on that later.

Filled flan.  Cover it with foil, bake at 350F for an hour.

I had stirred the sugar with a normal metal tablespoon.  When I finished scraping the caramel into the dish, I looked at the spoon and thought, "mmmm, tasty," but instead of licking it, I set it aside and finished assembling the flan.  This provided two excellent benefits: I did not burn the ever-loving shit out of my mouth, and I got to witness something cool and science-y.  Remember before that last picture, when I mentioned the glass-breaking noises I heard when I added the filling?  It wasn't the glass*.  It was the sugar!  When I stuck the flan in the oven, I could still hear tiny cracking noises, like someone carefully stepping on tiny Christmas lights.  Then I saw the spoon I had used earlier, sitting on the counter with a thin glaze of sugar on it.  And I actually saw cracks form with those noises.  I was pretty excited about it, but I wasn't able to find a good, concise article explaining why it happened, so there's no link here, even though I wanted one.

Yes, after it had cooled sufficiently, I did chew on the spoon for  awhile.  I am not as ashamed of this as I probably should be.

Right out of the oven.  You can't tell, but some of the sugar was still bubbling a little at the edges.

I let the flan cool for a while before trying to remove it from the pan (it even spent some time in the fridge).  That's normal, but I wonder if I should have flipped it over a littler sooner, while it was still a little warm.  Tough call, since I don't know what I'm doing.

Thoroughly cooled, not as tectonically active.

I ran a knife around the edges of the pie pan to loosen things a bit (I was worried about the sugar gluing the whole damn mess inside), and turned the whole dish upside down over one of our biggest plates.  And waited.  A while.  I got worried, and a little annoyed, and went to go watch Futurama or something, and checked on it later to discover that it had mostly fallen clear.

works for me.

For a first effort, I was thrilled with that.  I scraped up what was still inside the pan and ate it straight, and cut a chunk of the flan out to have an actual serving.  Although the sugar glaze was crackling-hard when it went into the oven, it came out as a soft, syrupy caramel layer (it dripped off the pan and onto the counter--be aware).  The flan itself was rich in flavor, light in texture, and pretty damn good as far as I'm concerned.  Plus, I discovered that when I had it for breakfast, my morning run went really well.  Considering I had flan for breakfast, it's probably good that I went for a run an hour later.

adobo a go-go

This post is going to be light on content, but don't worry--next week is a dessert, and there are lots of pictures and WAY too much of my commentary.  First, though, can anyone explain this?

Who puts a shaker lid on a jar of bay leaves?  What purpose could this possibly serve??

I wanted to make chicken adobo.  I don't know why.  The name came to mind for reasons I no longer remember (I made it way back in May), and it was fun to say, so I looked up this recipe.  It's pretty straightforward, which is a great selling point for any recipe.  Mix everything but the chicken together, add the chicken, marinate a while, then dump the whole mess into a great big pot (wheeee, cast iron!) and cook it.  Serve with rice.  And in my case, flan (come back next week, you'll dig it).

cooking

The sauce is a whole lot of vinegar, but the vinegar taste cooks out along the way.  The final result tastes good, and the sauce can be dumped in the bowl for rice to sop.  It's easy, but it's pretty basic.  The most exciting part is saying "adobo," but as I learned along the way, Filipino adobo isn't even "true" adobo, so I may have to find another recipe to try to see what that's like.

cooked

protein power

When I lived in Oregon, I wanted to try making black beans and rice.  I had been introduced to the staple dish during a high school visit to Costa Rica (AMAZING), and I missed it.  I hadn't seen on menus anywhere, but I figured it had to be a pretty simple dish--after all, they serve it at every meal there.  It's as common as a glass of water.

It didn't go very well.  I cooked those damn beans for hours, and they still weren't as soft as they should have been.  Eventually, I gave up because I was hungry and tired and I wanted to eat and go to bed (thus solving two of my three problems; I haven't yet solved the Hard Bean Conundrum).  A couple weeks later, I just cooked a pot of rice, dumped in a (drained) can of black beans, reheated it, and ate it happily.  Much less effort, better results, but still somehow disappointing.

This year, I decided to try red beans and rice.  Maybe a different color softens better?  I used this recipe.  I couldn't find andouille sausage at the Chief Taster Approved farmers' market stall, but they had chorizo, and I'm happy to put that in almost any food.  Really, though, I think I just wanted an excuse to go buy the dry beans at a local Mexican market.  It entertains me to go there.  They have no carts because A: it's too small to bother, and B: there's no way a cart could make any of the turns between those aisles.  It's crowded when you're the only person in there, I can only barely read the labels, and it's filled with high, oddly-organized shelves of brightly colored packages, many of which are so completely foreign to me that I can't even guess what's inside them.  It's like going grocery shopping in Diagon Alley.  I love it.

Cooking beans.  The liquid level went down very slowly.

The good news is, I did a better job with the red beans than I did with the black beans.  The bad news is, that might just be the sausage talking.  The beans were still very firm, though edible.  I think next time I'd like to let them soak longer than just overnight.  Maybe overnight and most of a day, too.  That, or put them on the stove in the morning and let them spend all day cooking, but if I did that, it would have to be on a much colder day.  You don't want to cook anything that long in August.

I swear there's some rice under all those beans.  Really!