A Christmas Pie

Guess which one I am

I write this sitting on the blue couch that was in our Kentucky farm house and has been transplanted to Cleveland. The wreckage of Christmas is around me--crumpled paper, presents, and a bottle of wine I occasionally sip from. This day has been characterized by board games, cooking, and drinking.

Last night we went to a Christmas Eve service. We heard about the World War I Christmas Truce, where soldiers stopped their fighting for one day to exchange souvenirs, cigarettes, and sing Christmas carols together. It was an incredible moment of peace, where the people actually doing the fighting recognized each other's humanity, and then the next day went back to killing each other. The service, for one out of practice with church-going, was almost intolerably long. I scribbled on my bulletin: "Must practice patience, stillness, breathing, listening," and then the sermon was all about that. A long, long version of that.

I had decided to make this pie weeks ago, without really looking at the recipe. It's a Christmas pie. Here's the recipe, with my edits in bold. Merry Christmas. Safe to assume I love you, or I would if I got to know you.

Soundtrack: Sylvan Esso and Sturgill Simpson

1 9-inch Nut Crust ("Your delicious nut crust" Howard entitled an email he sent me with a picture of this recipe, which still makes me laugh, but gross)

1/2 c. sugar
1 envelope unflavored gelatin
3 eggs, separated
1 3/4 cups milk
1/4 cup chopped candied brandied cherries

3 tablespoons light rum or 2 teaspoons vanilla extract no
whipped topping in aerosol can no

EARLY IN DAY OR DAY BEFORE SERVING OR LIKE AT FIVE THIRTY, AN HOUR BEFORE DINNER, WHICH IS WAY TOO LATE BY THE WAY: Prepare piecrust in the process burning out the coffee grinder, then chopping the nuts by hand, and bake crust for 8 minutes, or until you realize the timer has stopped for some reason, using Brazil nuts pecans; cool. Meanwhile, in medium saucepan, stir 1/4 cup sugar with gelatin until mixed. In small bowl, with wire whisk or hand beater, beat egg yolks with milk until mixed; stir into gelatin mixture. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring, until mixture is thickened and coats spoon at point of curdling; remove from heat. Refrigerate Freeze, because there isn't much time, until mixture mounds when dropped from spoon, about 40 minutes. Yes, still about forty minutes, for some insane reason. WHY DOES THIS TAKE SO LONG?
At this point, you are 1.4 beers in on an empty stomach, so it's getting a little harder to manage your smaller motor skills. With hand beater, beat mixture until smooth, stir in cherries and rum.
In small bowl, with mixer at "high" speed, beat egg whites until soft peaks form you've had enough. Beating at "high" speed, gradually sprinkle in 1/4 cup sugar, beat until sugar is completely dissolved. With wire whisk or rubber spatula, gently fold whites into gelatin mixture. Spoon filling into crust; refrigerate freeze until set Scrooged is over, about 4 hours 101 minutes.

Guest Post by Howard Simmons: Grasshopper Pie

Thursday was Michael’s birthday, so I’ve offered to write his blog this week. I also made a pie for him, but whatever.

Besides cats, Michael loves chocolate and mint (preferably together), so he kindly told me that I was going to make him a grasshopper pie. Me being the awesome boyfriend, I agreed, because that’s what awesome boyfriends do. And the fact that I knew people would read this and think “what an awesome boyfriend” helped as well. I crave approval.

Anyway, here are the ingredients:

Grasshopper Pie

Chocolate-Wafer Crumb Crust (I made this too *pats self on back*)

1 Envelope Gelatin (unflavored, obviously)

Sugar (the book just says sugar, but in the end you’ll use ½ cup)

1/8 teaspoon salt

3 eggs, separated (this is fun and gross at the same time)

¼ cup crème de menthe

¼ cup cold coffee

1 cup whipping cream

Angelica for garnish (I ignored this because I believed my pie would be so gorgeous I wouldn’t need garnish to distract from mistakes. What is angelica anyway?)

Chocolate-Wafer Crumb Crust

Oreos (about half a package)

Butter (about 1/3 cup)

Okay, so after preheating the oven to 375 degrees, I started on the crust, which allowed me to combine two of my favorite things: Oreos and sharp blades spinning very fast:

Basically you just pulverize the hell out of those delicious cookies until they’re completely crushed, much like your dreams after you graduated college.

Feel free to eat any large pieces that refuse to be broken up (Pro tip: Before grabbing cookie pieces, turn off blender!).

Next, dump them into a bowl and pour the melted butter on them (oh yeah, you have to melt the butter first). Then stir until it’s a tempting, heart-clogging crumbled mess. Then simply pour into your pie dish, and press down on them until you think, “That looks about right.” Bake for eight minutes then set aside to cool.

At this point, I was beginning to worry that I was moving too slowly, because Michael’s friend Elise and beau Josh were coming over for dinner, and there was still so much to do. However, I did not increase my rate of speed, just my level of worry.

So the recipe was divided into four steps, but basically it can be boiled down into Egg Whites and Egg Yolks. I separated the eggs, which is pretty easy – just crack the shell and, while holding both portions of the shell over a bowl, transfer the yolk back and forth between halves. Much like the contents of my father’s stomach on a fair ride, the egg whites can’t take the constant motion and they come spilling out in a disgusting ooze down into the bowl waiting below. Then you just put the yolk in a separate bowl. Easy peasy.

Egg Yolks: These yellow balls of cholesterol are combined with ½ cup of water and whisked. When it’s good and frothy, you add it to a saucepan in which you’ve already placed the gelatin, ¼ cup sugar and the salt. Stir it a few time and give it about 10 minutes. (Pro tip: Turn on the stovetop to a low heat! Gelatin thickens faster when there’s actually heat on the burner. Something I’ve just now learned!) It’ll go from dark green to bile yellow.

At this point, remove from heat. Normally, you would add the crème de menthe, but our local liquor store, cash only and with the motto “we’re sold out of that” (that being anything besides flavored vodka and Bud Light Lime), didn’t have crème de menthe, but it did have peppermint schnapps (which is delicious and a great throwback to that high school party where you sat on the back porch with your best friend and wondered why Ryan didn’t like you, even though you would be so good for him). So add the peppermint schnapps and cold coffee.

The egg yolk mixture is to be refrigerated, yet constantly stirred, for 20 minutes. However, other things took my attention and 40 minutes later Michael and I were staring at something that looked Nickelodeon Gak©®™

Being the quick thinker I am, I put the mixture back on the stovetop on low heat, until it resembled the consistency of “unbeaten egg white” as the recipe called for. Unfortunately, not all of the pieces of gelatin melted again, so it remained a bit “chunky.” In fear, I showed it to Michael, who was enjoying the week off by shopping online for a Christmas present for me (or at least I think that’s what he was doing). Michael remained admirably stoic, although I could tell that he was reconsidering spending his life with a man who couldn’t be trusted to follow a 45-year-old recipe. I also don’t think he ordered that iPad upgrade for me, either.

Anyway, that problem addressed, I turned my attention to the egg whites. I used Michael’s mixer to beat those egg whites like (insert inappropriate domestic abuse joke here). Once the eggs are peaking softly, the remaining ¼ cup of sugar is added slowly until dissolved (still using the mixer – this time at a medium speed and not full tilt like before). Then you “fold” it into the egg yolk mixture. “Folding” sounds intimidating, but it’s basically stirring it from the bottom up, and slowly at that.

Finally, the cream is whipped into stiff peaks and folded in as well. You dump it all on the crust and refrigerate. This is what it looked like when I was done:

  

Note the golden gelatin chunks, which, it can be argued, some might find appealing. Maybe.

And that’s it.  Basically you just refrigerate it until it sets completely then serve.

When Michael and I first began dating, I was a little dubious about his choice of recipe books, to be honest. As a child, when my mom cracked open one of her Good Housekeeping recipe books, nothing good could follow (my brother and I still remember with horror one particular asparagus casserole.) I mean, once upon a time, culinary sophistication was the following:

(Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised to find the second recipe in this book. Good Housekeeping loves them some gelatin.)

But each week he’s surprised me by creating something delicious while remaining pleasingly old-fashioned (in the same way that bell-bottoms are old-fashioned). The grasshopper pie was no different, as it proved very tasty. And most importantly, the beautiful birthday boy enjoyed it. Which, in the end is all that matters, really. I love that guy.

Peppermint Pie: The Family Dollar Edition

Lord, I love me some Christmas. I am full hog embracing that this year. I introduced Howard to the amazing Muppets Christmas Carol, which he has since been obsessed with (to my joy). We've been listening to a lot of "It Feels Like Christmas" lately. In the spirit of the season, Howard and I went to the Brown Elephant to buy used ornaments, picking through other people's abandoned mementos. Tonight, with the soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas playing, we made a peppermint pie. There are a few variations on this pie, including this one from Rocky Mountain Cooking, which uses Oreos for the crust and booze!

I thought it looked tasty, but it was completely different from my recipe, so I just opted with the Good Housekeeping version. I had to buy actual peppermints, which our grocery store doesn't carry, so I ventured across the street to Family Dollar, which, if you haven't been, is a similar to a post-apocalyptic nightmare:

"Excuse me, where are the peppermints?" 

There, a very well-dressed, nicely-coiffed young man (however, milksop is the description that comes to mind), younger than me, lingered over a junky children's toy. Like he was considering if it would actually make his niece happy, or maybe if it would just suffice.

How I feel about picking out your Christmas presents at Family Dollar:

For some reason, peppermints are super hard to find. I circled the war-torn Christmas candy stand, finding a lot of bubblegum-flavored candy canes, OLD-FASHIONED HARD CANDIES in a tin, and most horrifyingly, what they call a "fruitcake."

Who I imagine eats Family Dollar Fruitcakes: 

#fuckyeahsaturdaynight

I approached an employee, who was in the midst of the Sisyphean task of stocking and organizing Family Dollar. Wiping away sweat and maybe tears, she immediately located and delivered me a bag of the much-needed candies, which Howard later hammered on our kitchen floor:

Inspired by Rocky Mountain Cooking, I did make the crust out of Oreos, which is great! It looks pebbly and tastes...like buttery Oreos. Which of course is delicious.

The pie itself is very fluffy, pretty-pink and peppermint. It's great for this time of year and would also be a sweet Valentine's Day treat.

Worth it.

Spicy Gingerbread Cake

With my Christmas playlist "Eggnog" in the background, I made Good Housekeeping's spicy gingerbread cake today. For a change, I didn't need to buy a lot of ingredients for this one. It calls for flour, molasses (the only thing I didn't have), sugar, shortening, an egg, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, salt, and cloves. Super easy! Great for the season and a lazy day where I read in bed until about noon, but still wanted to do something productive-sounding.

I've never used molasses before, and expected it to be thicker and slower. "Slow as molasses," is something people say, so I didn't expect it to pour so gracefully from the bottle. It's very dark and silky. When it poured onto the mountains of flour it made little rivers and lakes, rolling thickly in the white powder like mercury.

While I write with a French bulldog on my lap, it bakes for 55-60 minutes at 350, and once it's cooled I'll frost with "4-minute" frosting (sugar, egg whites, corn syrup, vanilla extract and salt).

Cakes this easy are a quick way to boost your self esteem. "Look what I can do!"

Tomorrow will be the anniversary of my grandma Ginny's birthday, and we're always thinking about her around this time. She had such a sweet tooth--she loved soda, bourbon balls, and sin brownies, among other things. I found an email exchange between my mom and me about her sin brownies from when I was studying abroad in England. I wanted to make them for a potluck, so she sent me the recipe and we talked about GG. My mom wrote: "She loved chocolate and sweets, and made these often. They were always a big hit. She liked to pass the leftover caramels around to us while the brownies were in the oven. She was really indulgent when it came to sweets. Luckily we weren't all big as balloons because of it!"

The family is remarkably fit.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find caramels or German chocolate cake mix (and didn't think to make that from scratch) in Sainsbury's, so I went with a savory family classic: spinach casserole.

The cake is out of the oven, and it expanded quite a bit!

Now I'm off to visit with friends for the day, and will frost and enjoy this spicy cake tonight, or maybe tomorrow. I'm excited!

"It tastes like a prune": Vegan Mince Pie

The weeks are spinning by so fast, and Christmas is only 22 days away, as the Christmas Countdown Bar someone downloaded at work keeps reminding me (thanks, I didn't forget I have ALL my Christmas shopping yet to do). But see, I'm getting ahead of myself. Thanksgiving happened, though you may have missed it--it was squeezed in somewhere between controversy about stores opening the day before Black Friday and actual Black Friday.

My Thanksgiving was spent with wonderful friends of Howard's (now mine, too) in St. Louis. Since the mother of our host made three pies my offer of sour cream pumpkin pie was politely looked over. In truth, it was kind of nice to sit on the couch with the guys, feet up, dogs around, watching football. But don't think I watched football. I read Middlemarch.

My Thanksgiving pie was for the vegan Thanksgiving with coworkers. A bit ago I made the mincemeat, which I think I sort of slurred over when writing about hot toddies. Mincemeat is such an old-fashioned pie. It used to be made with actual meat and eggs and gradually bastardized into just a spiced fruit pie. If you buy normal mincemeat in a jar it often contains suet. What's suet? It sounds lyrical, like a song sung by two Susan. In fact, it's kidney fat from a cow or lamb. I don't think my vegan coworkers would have appreciated that addition, so I adapted a vegan recipe from Joy of Baking, making lots of exceptions for my wallet and our local grocery mart.

My mincemeat contained:

4 T vegetable shortening
1 c apple juice
2 apples peeled and grated
1/2 c golden raisins
1 c dried currants
1/2 c dried cranberries
1/2 c dried cherries
1/2 c dried prunes
zest and juice of one orange
2/3 c brown sugar
1/3 c dark rum
1/3 c brandy
1/2 t cinnamon
1/2 t nutmeg
1/4 t ginger
1/4 t cloves
1/4 t salt

Old people read that and be like:

PRUUUUUNES!!!!!

You bring it all to a boil and then simmer until almost all of the liquid is evaporated, then you add a bit more booze, cool, cover, and refrigerate until needed. I had it sitting for nine days and it was fine. I took a swig of brandy and stirred in a little more before putting it in the crust.

Howard put it in the oven for me, since I had to work all day before the party, and said he didn't think it looked "golden" enough, so melted some butter, took out the pastry brush, and was just about to give it a nice buttery glaze when he remembered he was about to attend a vegan dinner.

Close call.

If I say so myself, my lattice was the best I've made so far. And do I have a picture of the complete pie? Of course not. But here's the last piece, which I'm getting ready to eat:

Looks like it dragged itself to the rim of the pie plate to die, guts trailing, but it's good, trust me. It's really dense, nicely spiced, and I like the tiny bursts of fruit. At the party, Susanna squinted and said: "It tastes like a prune. But...like, good." I'll take that.

Not sure you could get a clear survey of how the desserts were, because by the time we ate them everyone was a little tipsy. And by that I mean most of us had had more whiskey-cider drinks and mulled wine than was altogether good for us. My Hangover Breakfast was this:

Note the Emergen-C and assortment of pills (also that weird Buddha Hand fruit in the background--I didn't have that for breakfast).