Sweet Redemption

This past weekend my best friend, Kelsey Kaufman, was in town. I had a few things planned for us and one of those was baking a pumpkin pie. Neither of us had ever made a pie before, let alone pumpkin, but Kels had watched her mother a time or two and picked up some tips along the way.

We went grocery shopping and Kelsey led me to the sweet pumpkins in the produce section. Without her expertise in groceries, I would have mistakenly purchased a jack-o-lantern pumpkin and had poor results, no doubt. After picking up a few other necessities for the crust and filling, we were back and ready to start in our tiny kitchen. Following a recipe from allrecipes.com, we:

1. split the pumpkins in half
2. scooped out the insides (saving the seeds!)
3. peeled the skin
4. chopped into chunks

Next, we put the pumpkin chunks into a big pot and covered them with water. Bringing the pot to a boil, we continued to cook the pumpkin until the pieces were fairly tender (boiling the whole time). In the meantime, we made our pie crust. We stuck to your standard crust - flour, salt and good ol' shortening, plus some other stuff... Kels was in charge of that. The main tips I learned with pie crust were these:

1. cut in the shortening (or butter, if using that instead). If you don't have the proper utensil (I didn't) use two knives and make parallel cuts into the dough, going in the opposite directions (i.e. right hand cutting away from the center to the right, left hand cutting away from the center to the left, simultaneously).

2. once you've added enough water to moisten the dough, kneed with your hands, but not too much.

3. flour a counter or pastry mat and place the ball of dough directly on it. flour a rolling pin and begin to roll out the dough. once you've got close to 1/8 inch thick dough, grab your pie pan (or cake pan, if you don't have a pie pan... like me :) )

4. place the pan, face down, in the center of your dough. measure about an inch or two out from the pan and cut the dough in a circle around the pan. remove the excess pieces but save them to bake! * just add a little cinnamon and sugar and put on a cookie sheet to make a bonus treat :)

5. flour the dough a bit, then using the rolling pin, roll the dough onto the rolling pin, then unroll into the pan. SO innovative!! i would have never thought to do it without Kels.

6. using a fork, make indentations into the dough on the top of the pan, removing any excess dough that might be hanging off (and add those to the bonus pieces with cinnamon and sugar)

You're ready for the filling!!

To make the filling, we blended the chunks of pumpkin (literally in our blender). You can also mash the chunks - they're soft enough to even use a big fork, if that's the best utensil you have. Then add the rest of the standard ingredients - nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, etc. (I'll include recipes later) We made the mistake of blending all these ingredients too well... it was literally a liquid. You might want to stir by hand and then proceed to fill the crust and bake.

One last key note, we were unsure when the pie was done. Especially since we had such a liquidy start, it was tough to tell. Unlike cakes and breads where you test the middle for solidity, with pumpkin pie you test an inch away from the edge; the pie is done when a knife comes out clean.

We took the pie to a party last night and it was a total hit! I haven't been that proud of my cooking/baking in a while, or at least it seems like a while since earlier this week was so rough...

Until next time :)

Epic Failure

Ironically, the first "real post" I am making is about a total disaster. But I promised I'd be honest, so, unfortunately I am held accountable. A brief piece of background - Ben is extremely frugal (in case you didn't know). We are currently both students, living off of a measly stipend of $1,000/month, plus whatever loans he has taken out for medical school. That being said, we have allotted $200/month for groceries which, for someone who likes to buy fresh fruits/veggies and experiment in the kitchen (me), it can be a tight squeeze, but is definitely manageable. Still, a meal the two of us eat quite frequently is rice and beans. Now, one can only eat rice and beans for so long without needing to spice it up (at least I need to... Ben is low maintenance, remember...) Last night I attempted to spice it up; key word: attempted.

In the cookbook I am currently obsessed with (see sidebar) - Mad Hungry - she gives a recipe for New Orleans style red beans and rice that look SO good. Plus, I was in New Orleans twice last year and completely understand how incredible they taste (yes, rice and BEANS, people!) So I thought, this doesn't look too hard, I'll give it a try.

Typically when I make beans, I make an entire pound of dried beans. First, I soak them all night, then I cook them in the crockpot for an entire day (cooked with a bay leaf). I'll fry up some sofrito (onion, garlic and pepper sauteed in olive oil) and add it to the beans with loads of salt - more than you'd think - and voila! This specific recipe called for dried beans but instead of using a crockpot, she had you cook them on the stove. Boiling for an hour with some spices, the recipe then calls for bacon and thyme and another 30-60 minutes simmering on the stovetop.

After spending about three hours preparing this meal, I was getting a bit nervous about the outcome. The picture in the cookbook made the sauce look thick and creamy, going well over a side of simple rice. My sauce was the consistency of water, colored with a strange mahogany color. I served it up anyway and Ben was encouraging as I scooped him a heaping portion. We took about three bites before I exclaimed, "this is awful!" Ben nodded and I asked him, "how long would you have kept eating?" "As long as I had to" was his response. If I wasn't so furious at the outcome of the beans, his comment would have melted me.

Hypothesized errors:

1. ancient red beans. Ben's mom recently gave us approximately 13 pounds of beans. No joke. A hefty 10 pounder and three individual bags. We're not sure how old they are... Ben's guessing at least 4 years old. At that age, we should have cooked the beans a lot longer, if at all.

2. thyme overdose. The whole dish tasted like thyme and thyme alone; I'm not sure if I got the ratio wrong (I swear I followed the recipe) or what, but you literally couldn't taste anything else.

Though I'm a bit wounded from this attempt, I am sure I will be making beans and rice again soon. Stay tuned for a hopeful improvement...

Inspiration

A few years ago I was on a flight and came across an article about an Irish grandmother who loved to cook. She spoke of her mother as her inspiration; growing up, the grandmother would walk home just to eat her mother's cooking for lunch, it was that good. Years later, the grandmother started a cooking school. Illustrating how we have truly lost a connection with our food, one of her stories involved a student who had made a mistake in a recipe and was about to throw out the creation when the grandmother stopped her, informing the student she had just created butter. This Irish chef is also a huge believer in the power of gardens and involving children in the process of cooking, which I love!

Since reading the article, I've been stirred to be a good cook for my own family. Not for the glory of it, rather to fill bellies with wholesome food and share in the joy and true sacrament of a meal spent together. My own relatives have always cooked for their families, and I want to continue that tradition in an intentional way - making each meal with love.