Moratorium

The blog posts have slowed down along with my baking. If I'm honest with myself, my taste for sweets has been going down since December, but my drive to complete a goal fueled me for a bit longer. Now, when I attempt to think of making and eating a pie/cake a week, it's as though my mind runs into a brick wall. I can't even think about it. Perhaps the noticeable gain in weight was part of it, but I think flooding my system with flour and sugar, along with other unfamiliar and new ingredients such as corn syrup and shortening, have taken a toll. I feel like a smoker trying to quit who eats a pack of cigarettes.

Howard and I went out for coffee yesterday and he ordered a luscious piece of pie. I didn't even look at their selection.

This isn't to say I've stopped eating sweets altogether. I'll still grab up a piece of chocolate when it's offered or share a pint of Ben and Jerry's while binge watching Brooklyn 99, but my desire for pie and cake is temporarily shot.

It also isn't to say I'm finished with Good Housekeeping. I made biscuits from from it today, and it is still my go-to cookbook. But for now, my bake-and-blog project is over. It does seem a shame to stop so close to the end, with just a handful of desserts remaining. When the occasion presents itself, I will make a butterscotch cream pie or angel food cake, but I will no longer attempt to make these weekly.

It feels good to write that, and free up my mind for other projects. For writing: Howard and I recently read each other stories we are working on, and it was an exciting experience which has prompted me to go back and edit a story I've been working on. For cooking/baking: A transition to a "lighter" diet, a combination of Dad's Mediterranean diet and exploring Korean food.

And really, baking isn't the only thing I make a mess of. I may continue to post here with other misadventures in cooking, or just life.

Double Peanut Pie

Skipped another week of baking, but that doesn't mean I haven't been cooking and using my Good Housekeeping book. On Valentine's Day I made linguine using GH while Howard made shrimp and scallop cream sauce. Yesterday I made chicken pot pie using a recipe from Southern Living and made the puff pastry using GH. I love making puff pastry--it's such a simple task with such a beautiful, delicious outcome.

This afternoon I made the double peanut pie using a butter dough I'd kept frozen for a few weeks (I think it was the remains of the shoofly pie). I rolled it out painlessly and transferred it to the pie plate, surprised to see little green lines speckling the crust. I had rolled the dough on the surface where my dying Valentine's bouquet had just been, and tiny bits of flower were now imprinted in the dough.

Oh well. They're probably edible.

Though the dough didn't make it quite up and around the entire pie plate, it was enough to satisfy me. Pinching the dough up just a little more, covering just a bit more of the glass plate was satisfying work. I did this on our new rolling butcher block feeling very "rustic."

The oven started smoking while preheating, and I had to pause to let it cool down enough before wiping up charcoal remains of pot pie drippings. This prompted a conversation about Sylvia Plath and how to turn off a pilot light in an oven.

The filling is made up of a cup of corn syrup (which I didn't have enough of, so I added homemade simple syrup, hopefully that's fine), half a cup of peanut butter, 3 eggs, half a teaspoon vanilla extract, and half a cup of sugar blended together until smooth, and then half a cup of salted peanuts gets stirred in. It's baking at 350 for 55 minutes, which gives me enough time to clean up the dog's vomit, try and get the cats to be together and not kill each other, and write this post.

Howard and I are going to be quite decadent today, and in addition to our peanut pie he's making a berry cobbler. We're welcoming the night with champagne and once we piece together a dinner, we'll enjoy our rich, comforting desserts on this frigid day.

Baking with Brittney

Howard and I rented a car and drove up to Milwaukee this weekend. My friends Brittney and Brian are living in Wauwatosa (or Tosa, as it's called) for Brian's residency, and this summer they're moving down to Greenville, South Carolina. I blame my atrocious geography for the fact that it's taken three years to visit them. If I'd known Milwaukee was just an hour away it wouldn't have taken me so long to make a trip up there!

I haven't seen them since their wedding, but like with all good friends, the lapse in time didn't matter. Brittney and I met while working at a tavern in Cleveland and bonded, among other things, over our love of good food and drink. In that vein, we started off our visit at this amazing Milwaukee restaurant called Wolf Peach, which I would recommend if you make a trip up there. We enjoyed delicious food while overlooking the city. After brunch we went to the Public Market and picked up some delicious Wisconsin cheeses and a bottle of Musar Jeune, a Lebanese wine. Over wine and cheese Brian taught us euchre and pinochle. When I asked Brian if he knew how to play, Brittney, with her characteristic snappy humor, said: "He's breathed Michigan air, of course he knows how to play euchre!"

After games, Brittney, Howard, and I went to a charming little French place called Pastiche. It was snowing heavily by that time, but the place was packed full. The food was incredible! It was so good we even each ordered desserts. There were no leftovers. 

We planned to leave the next day, but the snowstorm had other plans. We weren't bothered! Luckily, I have a great coworker and friend who made time to stop in an additional night to visit the cats, and Howard and I were able to rest easy and just enjoy our snow day with Brittney. Brian was at work for the day while we watched The Shining, shoveled the drive, and baked. 

Which brings me to what this blog really is about: Baking. Brittney had picked out a savory pie from Bon Appetit for us to make for this week's post. Here's what we aimed to make:

A carmelized garlic, spinach, and cheddar pie with a braided crust. Brittney and Brian have a nice big kitchen with everything you'd need.

Across the way you see evidence of a middle schooler: 

Mealy Cyrus?

I really enjoyed the other window that read: "Don't make me ginger snap!" Ginger pride!

We started making the crust as soon as I woke up on Sunday, using Brittney's family recipe. While the dough chilled, we went about our morning, and then returned to the kitchen to roll out the dough and start cooking the garlic. 

Brittney was in charge of the garlic, so I'm a little fuzzy on what all that entailed. Two whole heads of garlic were first browned, I believe, and then boiled in water and balsamic vinegar, lastly cooked with the herbs. 

We rolled out the dough, put it in a pie plate, and chilled it for fifteen minutes. Then we rolled out a second disk of dough and sliced it with a pizza cutter. This was the toughest part. I didn't actually expect we would make the braided decorative crust, but Brittney insisted we try. 

Hearing Brittney talk about food is one of the most exciting things about being with her. She's so passionate and knowledgeable and so clearly loves food. If she ever decides to leave social work, I think she'd be wonderful running her own catering business.

Despite years of braiding my sister's hair, I completely forgot how to do it when it came to strips of dough unattached to a head. Luckily, Brittney came to the rescue, and with copious cursing we managed to braid all the dough before it broke into pieces. We brushed the edge of the dough on the pie plate with egg and laid the braided strips down like this:

We were very proud of the result:

We then lined the crust with waxed paper and weighted it down with beans and baked for tenish minutes. If I remember correctly, it baked again for a few more minutes, and then we took it out and put down a layer of cheddar cheese, a layer of spinach, then drizzled a crème fraîche mixture over that, and finally added the carmelized onions. It baked about an hour and came out looking like this:

Delicious and beautiful! Considering that a lot of food pictures in magazines is made out of materials not at all edible but considerably more malleable, we were very proud of our finished product's appearance. Brittney really upped my game! I wish she lived in Chicago so she could continue to push my limits and help me braid dough.

It was such a pleasure baking with her and spending a couple days with that wonderful couple! Visits like that cement friendships, and I look forward to future visits, wherever we may end up.

Shoofly!

Howard's been out of town since Friday, so I've been living as a single man, getting into wild hijinks, like drinking alone with an entire frozen pizza or maybe Ramen noodles! I've also taken a bath using what is called a "bath bomb." It sounds violent and wet, but is actually relaxing and smells wonderful. I felt like I was bathing in an avocado. But mostly I settle onto the couch, surrounded by animals, for marathon viewings of Girls and Broad City. Who knows what I'll get up to next?!

Elise graciously stepped in to socialize with me and save me from the insane life I've been leading, and last night we had a sleepover, waking up to make an avocado-feta frittata. Listening to the McGuire Sisters while cooking and talking made me nostalgic for the period we lived together.

Patrick and Chelsea were coming over for tea, and Elise and I made a shoofly pie. It's not a recipe in my Good Housekeeping book, but it should be! Elise introduced me to it, and we used a recipe from Martha Stewart.

I focused on rolling out the crust while Elise made the filling and crumble crust.

I was really proud of the crust. It didn't break, it was enough for the entire pie plate, and trimmed sweetly.

Pre-bake:

Post bake!

"Like a landscape," Patrick said

Chelsea said it reminded her of home; it was very southern. It's like a chess pie, which is a pie I'm familiar with. We all wondered where the name came from: Was it something to do with the expression "you catch more flies with honey than vinegar"? But instead of honey it was molasses? Did it mean it was so good you'd have to shoo flies away?

According to Wikipedia, the shoofly pie came from the Pennsylvania Dutch, and its name may be "because the sweet molasses odor attracts flies that must be 'shooed' away."

All this reminds me of that rather strange, manic folk song medley in Meet Me in St. Louis:

"Flies in the buttermilk shoo, shoo, shoo!"

Tea was nice and relaxing. We spent a long time talking about Leopold and Loeb. Chelsea read For the Thrill of It, which I'm halfway through. We discussed what makes a crime famous or sensational, and also tried to come up with all the famous Chicago crimes we could: The Valentine's Day Massacre, the serial killer during the World's Fair, and Leopold and Loeb. Only after everyone left did I remember John Wayne Gacy! Drat!

Post-pie. Picture Elise sitting next to Patrick!

It was a lovely way to spend an afternoon off!

Merryfield Apple Cake

The past weekend was insane at work, a constant juggling act that left me exhausted at the end of each day. Sunday I couldn't stop, though, and came home (Howard was at a writing group) and fed the pets as well as myself while simultaneously making a Merryfield apple cake for our building manager. I don't know where it gets its name, but a Merryfield cake is supposed to look something like this:

Photo from amandascookin.com

Quaint and English, isn't it? A fitting cake to make as I came to the close of George Eliot's Middlemarch. Very Victorian.

I did not feel quite so proper as I measured out flour and then mashed up canned cat food.

My recipe made two cakes, and for some reason the batter is very dry and sticky. I had trouble spreading it out in the pans (and mixing in the diced apples, nuts, and raisins was a feat!). It baked for an hour, which gave me enough time to watch the first episode of this season of Downton Abbey, where by far the winning quote of the episode was the "are they kidding me?" line: "I'm going upstairs to take off my hat." I really enjoyed this summary, where the story is told as a group text.

By the time the cakes came out of the oven I was like -

So after ten minutes cooling in their pans I took them out, put them on my cooling rack, and forgot about them. In fact, I woke up this morning, went into the kitchen, and was surprised to see them there.

Howard and I examined the bottoms of the cakes like they had landed from another planet. They looked like they could have made the journey: They were crusty and dark brown, with crevices from where pieces had stuck to the cake tins on the way out.

"Are they supposed to...?"

"Powdered sugar covers them."

"Powdered sugar won't hide that," Howard pointed to an enormous hole in the bottom. We debated for a hot minute how stuffing a bit of the other cake into it would look: More or less terrible?

Then I flipped the cake over and we were like "Ohhh!" and cracked up. It was a lot better. A softer, lighter brown, with white squares of apple. We tasted the other cake and it was good.

The crowning moment of a Merryfield cake is when you sprinkle powdered sugar through a doily.

"I need a doily," I said this morning, and then: "I never thought I'd say that!"

"Really?" Howard was skeptical.

But where does one find a doily? So we folded up coffee filters and cut out shapes like we were kids and we were making snowflakes to decorate our daycare's windows, but the filter didn't want to lie flat, so I put it under a pile of board games and left it for Howard to do in the afternoon.

I came home and asked him how it looked before he gave it to Tom. Basically, it was a clumped mess and didn't look like much of anything. It'll still taste good, though.

(Unlike my Christmas pie. Sorry, fam.)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Tom and Wife! Thanks for letting us live here with four animals. And thanks for the free storage space in the basement! Do you know whose moldy fur coat that is?

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.