Honey pie? Quit pollen my leg!

I love pie! Pie is great! Everyone should eat pie. But I know so many people that hate to make pie. I understand, but that is not gonna stop me :P Usually I make fruit pies, so I wanted to try something a little out of the ordinary. The recipe I made is a Honey Pie, from my United States of Pie cookbook. Of course this book is awesome, because it's all about pies. The other thing I like about it is that there are no pictures. No unrealistic expectations of what everything is supposed to look like.

Honey Pie

3/4 c honey
1/4 c sour cream
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground ginger
pinch of salt

pie crust (Everyone has their own favorite, or just buy the roll-out stuff from the store, that's what I do when I'm feeling lazy!)

Preheat oven to 375º.
One a well-floured surface, roll out the rough until it is about 1/8" thick and will fit a 9" pie plate. Pick up the rough and ease into the plate. Trim the edges of the dough to leave a 1" overhang. Fold the edges under, and then decoratively crimp the perimeter. Return the pie shell to the refrigerator to chill until the filling is ready.
In a small saucepan over medium heat, warm the honey until it is completely fluid. Once heated, the honey should have the consistency of heavy cream. Set aside.
In a medium sized bowl, combine the sour cream, eggs, vanilla, nutmeg, ginger, and salt, and whisk to blend. Add the warm honey, and whisk until thoroughly incorporated.
Remove the pie shell from the refrigerator, and pour the filling into the shell. Bake the pie for about 40 minutes, or until the filling is set. The filling will puff substantially while baking, but will collapse once you remove the pie from the oven. Let the pie cool to room temperature before enjoying.

I also made honey whipped cream to put on top, as seen in the photo! The pie looks just like a pumpkin pie, but less orange, when it's done. I highly recommend tenting your pie crust with aluminum foil, or getting a crust protector. I put it on right when the pie went into the oven, and as you can see the crust still got pretty brown. I would rather be safe with the crust edges then end up with burnt ones! This pie is very very easy to make, and I will definitely do it again. I did just use the roll out pie crust for this recipe. Since you get two rounds in a box, I just put my extra one in the freezer for the next time I want to make a single crust pie!

I'm finally catching up on my posts. This finishes off May, and I have three for June. July has started off extremely well! I have already made three recipes this month, and will be making another today. Halfway through the year and despite a slow start I have completed half (16) of my recipes, woohoo!

Any has-bean can whip up this one!

My Slow Cooker Revolution cookbook is one of my favorites. I use it all the time and even try out new recipes regularly. I have had a hard time finding a chili recipe that I really like, but this might be the one! It is a Smoky Sausage and Bean Chili—yum! I did my best to keep to the correct ingredients, but I ended up making a few minimal adjustments. My favorite thing about slow cooker food has to be that it is super easy, and this fits that bill!

Smoky Sausage and Bean Chili

2 onions, miced
2 red bell peppers, stemmed, seeded, and minced
1/4 c chili powder
3 tbs vegetable oil
5 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbs ground cumin
1 tbs dried oregano
3 cups low-sodium chicken broth
2 1/2 c water
1 lb dried navy beans (2 1/2 cups), picked over and rinsed
1 lb kielbasa sausage, sliced 1/2" thick
8 oz andouille sausage, cut into 1/2" pieces
2 tbs soy sauce
1 tbs brown sugar
1 tbs minced canned chipotle chile in adobo sauce
1 tsp liquid smoke
2 bay leaves
Salt and pepper

Microwave onions, bell pepper, chili powder, oil, garlic, cumin, and oregano in bowl, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are softened (about 5 minutes). Transfer to slow cooker.

Stir broth, water, beans, kielbasa, andouille, soy sauce, sugar, chipotles, liquid smoke, and bay leaves into slow cooker. Cover and cook until beans are tender, 9 to 11 hours on low or 5 to 7 hours on high.

Let chili settle for 5 minutes, then remove fat from surface. Discard bay leaves. Transfer 1 cup cooked beans to bowl and mash with a potato masher. Stir mashed beans into chili and let sit until heated through, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

There ended up being two things I did differently. First, the amount of kielbasa and andouille was a little off. The kielbasa I got was about 12oz, so I just put in a little extra andouille. This definitely did make it pretty hot! Andouille is spicy as is, so if you like it like that, try doing it that way too. The other adjustment was with the liquid smoke. I really didn't feel like buying it, and I actually have a smoked chili powder. So I used that chili powder in lieu of having liquid smoke. The whole thing turned out great! Since it makes so much I put some in my freezer to enjoy for later. One of my other favorite things to make with chili is chilimac! Make a cheap batch of mac and cheese, put in a cup of chili and you've got yourself a tasty meal. 

I was going to buy some loose tea, but the price was way too steep.

The month of May was a good month for recipes! Not only did I make three things (woah!) but they all turned out pretty darned good. I made this Chamomile Chardonnay Ice Cream first, from my Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream at Home cookbook. It's got crazy weird flavors, most of which sound delicious!

Chamomile Chardonnay Ice Cream

2 cups whole milk
1 tbs plus 1 tsp cornstarch
1 1/2 oz (3 tbs) cream cheese, softened
1/8 tsp fine sea salt
1 1/4 cup heavy cream
2/3 cup sugar
2 tbs light corn starch
1/4 cup dried chamomile flowers
1/4 cup Chardonnay

Mix about 2 tbs of the milk with cornstarch in a small bowl to make a smooth slurry. Whisk the cream cheese and salt in a medium bowl until smooth. Fill a large bowl with ice an water.

Combine the remaining milk, the cream, sugar, and corn syrup in a saucepan, bring to a boil over medium-high heat, and boil for 4 minutes. Remove from the heat, add the chamomile flowers, and let steep for 10 minutes. Strain the milk mixture through a sieve lined with a layer of cheesecloth, pressing on the flowers to extract as much cream as possible. Return to the saucepan and gradually whisk in the cornstarch slurry. Bring back to a boil over medium-high heat and cook, stirring with a heatproof spatula, until slightly thickened, about 1 minute. Remove from hear.

Gradually whisk the hot milk mixture into the cream cheese until smooth. Add the Chardonnay and blend well. Pour the mixture into a 1-gallon Ziplock freezer bag and submerge the sealed bag in the ice bath. Let stand, adding more ice as necessary, until cold, about 30 minutes.

Pour the ice cream base into the frozen canister and spin until thick and creamy. Pack the ice cream into a storage container. Freeze in the freezer until completely firm, at least 4 hours. 

With this recipe I did a couple things differently. I thought I had loose dry chamomile, but I did not! So I used 4-6 tea bags in place of the loose stuff. It still worked great, and was very easy to strain because of that. Although the ice cream has a really rich flavor, it may end up even better with nicer chamomile. Otherwise, the ingredients stayed the same! However, I did not feel like making an ice bath. I just put everything in a bowl in the fridge and let it cool that way. It seemed to work fine for me! I wasn't expecting the ice cream flavor that I got, which doesn't really taste like either chamomile or Chardonnay. It has a really smooth light fruity flavor. All in all, great success! Now I want to try it with all the other absurd amounts of tea I have in my cabinet, because I'm sure most of them would also be awesome!

Stop! Hummu-time!

Slowly catching up to where I'm at with my cooking, woohoo! In the month of April I thought I was going to be great. I had all these good intentions. The first thing I made was Hummus, out of my Vitamix cookbook. It was only a couple days into the month....and then I didn't make anything else! Sooo, that's no good...but back to the hummus. It was okay, I have heard people have better luck with the roasted red pepper hummus. Also I might not have had really tasty olive oil. This was made for our all day gaming party, so I did not get the chance to take a nicer picture.

Hummus

2 15oz cans chickpeas, one drained, one with liquid
1/4 cup raw sesame seeds
1 tbs olive oil
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup water
1 garlic clove, peeled
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp salt

Place all ingredients into blender in the order listed. Put on your lid folks!

Start blender at lowest speed and slowly turn it up to about 80% power.

Blend for about 30 seconds.

Now that was nice and easy, wasn't it? It should work just fine with any blender, some will manage to make it a super smooth texture. One thing I did notice for sure was that the consistency wasn't was thick as I wanted it until I put it in the fridge and let it chill for a bit. Kind of makes sense, since that's how you buy hummus!

Mushrooms are vegetables with high morel standing.

I'm still here! Just not terribly good at updates. So go bad to a kingdom far far away about two months ago(March)....and I made Christmas Dried Mushroom Soup out of my Classic Polish Recipes book. Fair warning, it looks kind of funny! (At least I think so.) It did turn out tasty though :)

Christmas Dried Mushroom Soup

2 cups dries mushrooms
2 1/2 cups water, plus 6 cups water (keep separate)
1 large onion, diced
1 large shallot, diced
1 leek, thinly sliced
2 carrots
3 stalks of celery with leaves
3/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp white pepper (I still just used black)
1 tbs flour
2 tbs butter
3 tbs cold water
1 tbs vinegar
1/2 sour cream
1 tbs butter
1 tbs chopped fresh dill leaves, or 1 tsp dries

Soak the dried mushrooms in 2 1/2 cups of water for 2 hours. Strain the mushrooms through a fine strainer or cheese cloth to remove any sand, reserving the liquid for the soup. Chop the mushrooms finely. Put the mushrooms, reserved mushrooms liquid and the 6 cups of water in a large soup pot. Add the onion, shallot and leeks. Bring the mixture to a boil, cover and simmer for 30 minutes.

Add the carrods and celery. Season the soup with salt and pepper, cover and simmer for 30 more minutes. Remove the carrots and celery from the soup, press lightly over the pot to extract all the juices, and discard. Strain the mushrooms, onion, shallots and leeks from the soup and finely chop. Return the chopped mix to the soup broth.

In a saute pan, melt the butter and add the flour to make a roux. Heat for 3 to 5 minutes while constantly stirring until it turns to a rich amber color. Add 3 tablespoons of cold water and continue stirring until the mixture is thickened and smooth. Add the roux to the soup. Add the vinegar. Adjust the seasonings. Mix in the sour cream, butter and dill. Serve hot.

The steps to this are not your typical kitchen practices! I got the mushrooms from Williams-Sonoma of course, but I know you can find them in some grocery stores. Taking out the carrots and celery and tossing them? Kind of weird, but I'm sure it helped to flavor the broth. You can't really "press them" very well to 'extract juices"...they pretty just were a big bunch of mush! If you have a cutting board with a moat in it, I would highly recommend it for when you chop up the cooked mushrooms, onions and such. Even after straining everything there will still plenty of juices, and you definitely don't want to lose them. The only other part that threw me off was adding the sour cream. It ended up looking not as smooth as I wanted. Maybe I added it when everything was still too hot? I'm not sure. You could also try to temper it a little by adding some of the broth to the sour cream before putting all of it in the soup. That could make a difference! The one thing I let out was the dill...I'm really not a fan of it, so it doesn't even exist in my kitchen.

All in all, a fun one to try, and a different taste than I have ever had. It's got a little bite to it with the sour cream and vinegar!

The first leg of the chicken's trip would take her to Charlotte. From there she would wing it!

Here we are in April, and I'm writing for March. Booo procrastination! I finished two recipes in March, the first one being Chicken and Dumplings from my book Mad Hungry. I bought the book from work a few years ago, and we no longer carry it. I have made a couple things out of it that have turned out great though. This now being one of them!

Chicken and Dumplings

1 3- to 4-pound chicken
1 onion, halved but root end left intact
1 large carrot, coarsely chopped
1 celery stalk, coarsely chopped
4 springs of fresh parsley
1 turnip, trimmed and chopped
2 parsnips, coarsely chopped
8 to 10 cups of water
1 tbsp coarse salt

Dumplings:
1 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp coarse salt
3/4 cup milk
1 tsp chopped fresh dill or parsley

To make the chicken, place the chicken into a large pot with a tight-fitting lid. Add the onion, carrot, celery, parsley, turnip, and parsnips to the pot and barely cover with the water.

Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce the heat to a simmer, partially cover, and simmer for 50 minutes. Lift out the chicken and vegetables. Discard the onion halves and parsley springs. Continue to simmer the broth for 15 to 20 minutes. Add the salt. When the chicken is cool enough to handle, remove the meat from the bones and shred into large pieces. You'll have 4 cups of shredded chicken. Used 2 to 4 cups as desired.  (I used it all!)

To make the dumplings, in a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Stir in the milk and dill or parsley to combine.

Drop the dough, 1 tbsp at a time, onto the simmering broth. Cover and cook until the dumplings have cooked through, 3 to 4 minutes. Carefully return the shredded chicken and the vegetables to the pot. Reheat for 1 minute. Serve in wide bowls with big spoons.

This turned out super delicious! I had one problem though. I totally forgot to measure the water, and just filled the pot in the beginning to just below the top of the chicken. When the chicken was done there was hardly any broth left to drop the dumplings into. So I just added some chicken stock to it until it was a few inches deep in the pot. It worked like a charm! So if you try it, and still have the same problem, that will totally work. I do feel like it ended up adding more liquid than you're supposed to have at the end, since chicken and dumplings tend to be more like a stew. In my opinion, the more soup-like way it turned out was even better. Soup is one of my favorites! Other than that the only change I made was using dry parsley in the dumplings, and forgetting to put it in the soup. You will know the dumplings are done when the rise to the top.

And as you all know, chicken farmer's love to share a good yolk.  So here's another gem...
The chicken went to the middle of the road. She was going to lay it on the line!

Heheh Next up, another soup! What a surprise :)

Making your own hard liquor is a whisky business.

February recipe number two! I knew I had to pull of two things for the month, otherwise I would be really behind. On the 28th I looked at what I could do, and made a drink. My Blender 101 book came from Vitamix (the maker of the fancy blender I treated myself to last year). They did a recall to update the blade in the carafe on some models, so when you got yours back they extended their awesome 7 year warranty another year and gave you a book. No complaints from me!
The drink is called a Caramelized Pear Macerate. It was very easy, and very good. For a drink, there was more involved than usual though.

 

Caramelized Pear Macerate

1 Bosc pear
1 oz simple syrup
Dash of ground nutmeg, plus extra for garnish
Dash of ground cinnamon
2 oz cognac
1/8 tsp vanilla extract
2 oz heavy whipping cream

Peel the pear, core it, and cut into thin slices (save a couple to garnish). In a sauté pan over medium heat, sauté the pear slices with the simple syrup, nutmeg, and cinnamon until the pear slices become soft. (You made need to add additional simple syrup to prevent the pear slices from sticking to the pan.) Add the cognac and vanilla and scrape everything into a blender. Add the cream and blend for about 5 seconds. (At this point I did let it sit for a few minutes so it wasn't as hot.) Add about a half cup of ice and blend until smooth. Pour into a small cocktail glass. Garnish with pear slices and a dash of nutmeg.

The thinner you cut the pear slices, the faster they will cook. So if you are doubling or tripling the recipe, that would help the total time. The slices don't have to be pretty or uniform since they are just getting blended anyway. A Vitamix is totally not necessary for this drink either, just one that is good at pulverizing ice! This only makes two portions, that is the only drawback. But those who drink too much at night have to worry about the mourning after. ;)