YUMMY PIES

Levi's fave pie is Strawberry-Rhubarb... especially the one his mom makes. So I've set about making a couple before (I think I blogged about those). Well I wanted to make another since the grocery store had rhubarb in stock again. Before the rhubarb went bad in my fridge, it was apparent we were gonna need to go with the quick and easy pre-rolled dough crust, so I asked Levi to pick one up on the way to my house. He picked up 2 pkgs which is 4 crusts. so much for just making one pie! I made one, and we shared it with his parents a couple days later after a fishing trip... DELISH and it wasnt runny at all! yay!

But what to do with the remaining 3 crusts? Looked up a couple of "low cal" recipes and decided to try one: Apple-Blackberry... http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/apple_blackberry_pie.html.
My notes:

• the only thing that I can tell that makes this low-cal is if you use their special low-cal crust recipe... I kinda failed to do that, but one day when I feel like making my own crust is worth it again, maybe I'll give it a whack!
• Peeling, coring, and dicing 6 granny smiths is more of a task than I thought! I was surprised that it rivaled the S-R Pie recipe! aside from that, however, couldn't ask for the filling to be more simple to put together
• I took a walk on the wild side... I used Marion Berries instead of Blackberries... A dear dear friend of mine and her Marth-loving sister :-) are from the area (Oregon) where these berries are grown, so I regard them fondly. When I saw them in the freezer section, I wondered what the consequence of my defection from the recipe would be. By the way, a Marion Berry is: a cross between the Chehalem and Olallieberry blackberry, so it's kind of a blackberry anyway!
• I don't know what happens if you use a different berry or if you use fresh berries... hmmm...
• The color from the marions leeched out into the apple + stuff mixture super fast... i was shocked and the color was like this bright magenta color... strange!
• The amount of filling was way more than i thought would fit in the pie. However, I put it all in anyway, as it heaped up in the crust bottom and covered it with the top. I am glad I did because it came out perfect! If I hadn't I guess i would have had a concave pie!
• When I pulled the pie out, a little had leaked out... perfect for tasting, no? well, lemme tell you, this dribble tasted like a jolly rancher! haha! I found it very interesting and wondered if I'd like the pie... or anyone else at the 4th of July BBQ for that matter! :-)
• But it was a hit! YUMMY! I would definitely recommend it!

I had promised many moons ago to talk about Pecan Bourbon pie. I will at least give the recipe here and a couple notes. Did these for Thanksgiving and Christmas I think... would definitely do them again, although they can be a little bit high maintenance... http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Chocolate-Bourbon-Pecan-Pie/Detail.aspx

My Notes:

• go ahead... use a little extra bourbon... or fail slightly to cook it all the way. OK maybe not unless you plan on getting people a little silly off of your pie. I had one such pie that folks could really taste the bourbon... then they could "feel" it... WOOPS!
• I found keeping the chocolate chips and pecans from sinking to the bottom to be a challenge... particularly the chips. they seemed to "stick" to the bottom of my bowl... particularly problematic when making 2 pies... so I learned not to pour the mixture... and spoon it instead ;-)
• I haven't figured out exactly how to make the top of this pie come out "pretty" just yet. I always get extra bubbles and what not that make it not look flat and pretty... hmmm...
• It's a crowd pleaser, but it is very rich... small slices!

Happy Birthday Levi - The Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Saga

***OK Apparently I am kinda lame because I never finished this post and posted it.. it's been sittin in my drafts***

Levi's birthday was last night (3/27)... a Thursday, which means it coincided with LOST night where we often are joined by a couple friends for dinner and commercial free LOSTness. The festivities...

I asked Levi to choose whatever he wanted to have for dinner. He requested the pecan-crusted fish and lemon beurre blanc and requested I use tilapia this time. No problema. I think I have finally mastered this lemon beurre blanc and don't have to measure anymore! Might I add that this time I used a chenin blanc from Trader Joe's called "Fish head" because it cracked me up and it was fish and well, it's Levi's birthday, so it was a no-brainer.

He also requested sweet potatoes. I'm not a huge fan of sweet potatoes so I looked for a twist. Got a great tip from a co-worker to make sweet potato fries... you can buy pre-cut sweet potatoes (I have since done some of my own cutting and experimented with different cuts - fries vs circles, wedges, etc). Also had a recipe for sweet potato salad, which I still need to try.

Ro brought a yummy salad, and so all that was left was a desert. I know Levi's favorite is Strawberry-Rhubarb that his mom makes. I have never had it, but he raves about it and I'm sure with as much expertise she has I could never measure up to that one, but I thought I'd at least try to make one of similar delight. Headed for a non-lattice topped one ;-) and found one Strawberry Rhubarb Pie with Almond Crumb Topping by Emeril Lagasse (BAM!) on FoodNetwork. It was the one that would cook the fastest, easy pie top (I was a little intimidated by the edge crimping business at this point, and it used rum and flaming... a slam dunk.

OK finding 2lbs of Rhubarb is no easy task. I went to 3 or 4 different produce specialty stores (Trader Joes, Henry's, Whole Foods, a hippie store in my neighborhood) and made several phone calls (each of the 3 previous in several locations plus Ralphs x2). I couldn't even find frozen rhubarb! I was about to give in and just do a strawberry pie or go buy one when I finally, at the last possible minute, found some rhubarb rumpled up in a bin at Vons... the bottom of the barrell... barely 2lbs once they cut of the parts that had deteriorated. Sonnet and I set to work on peeling and cutting the rhubarb and hulling and slicing the strawberries. The ingredients for the filling filled the pan on the stove to the brim, so it made quite the mess as it bubbled. I had hoped the torching would be a little more dramatic, but it was not. Apparently rum is tougher to light and flame than it looks. I am sure it was a snap for Emeril! The filling made 2 pies... an hour later when they finally seemed ready enough to pull from the oven we waited as long as we could for them to cool. Not long enough apparently because it was Strawberry Rhubarb soup between the crust! And let me tell you that at this point it was like 11pm or so! The second one, however, was great and I think we ended up enjoying that at game night at my parents' house or something. YUM! All in all, it was fun to make!

It's been a while...

It appears that once I took up running, Culinary Journey went on the back burner, so to speak. I haven't really done too much in the area of new yummies, but let me see what I will need to catch up on in the near future... Ummm...

I think the most notable would be the honey pineapple chicken... once in the crock pot and once in the oven. Ooh that reminds me... cranberry gravy pot roast will need to have it's piece. Did I ever talk about the bourbon pecan pie? I don't think I did... so we'll have to add that one in. Made some sugar cookies for V-Day with the little one, which was fun too.

Well I have a lot of catching up to do, but I think I'll just go ahead and roll with Levi's birthday dinner for now... stay tuned for others...