What's Cookin': Apple Pie

 Well, it's only been, what, a decade or so since I've done one of these posts... but frankly, I haven't exactly done a lot of exploratory cooking in that time, and this is the first thing I've made in a long while that I've said "I need to hold on to this recipe for later."  That said, my initial attempt's results were less than ideal (due to massive pie crust containment failure), so consider this a starting point for your own experiments.

For pie crust, I'll leave that to you, since you likely already have a favorite double-crust recipe to use.  Again, if I wasn't clear, you probably don't want to try this as your first pie, since you can practice on pies that take less work, like blueberry pie.  That all said, to the recipe!

Ingredients

• 4 lb. (about 6 large) "pie apples" (Granny Smith is the go-to here, but any firm, tart apple works)
• 1/4 t salt
• 1/2 c granulated sugar
• 1/2 c brown sugar
  
• 1 t cinnamon
• 1/4 t ginger
• 1/4 t cardamom
• 1/4 t nutmeg
• 2 T cornstarch
• 1 T butter

Equipment

• Large ("bigger than you think you need") bowl for mixing ingredients
• Knives and/or other tools to prepare the apples
  
• Glass pie plate
• Baking sheet
• Parchment paper

Procedure

•  Peel, core, and thinly slice the apples (I used a mandoline slicer for 1/16" slices, but anything up to 1/4" would probably be fine), and put the slices in the bowl.
• Sprinkle the salt, sugars, and spices over the top of the apple slices, then use your hands to mix everything together, coating the slices as thoroughly as possible in the process.
• Let the apple mixture rest at room temperature for one hour.
• While waiting on the apple mixture, prepare the lower half of your pie crust in the pie plate.
• After the hour wait time has passed, add the cornstarch to the bowl and mix again.  You will notice that the apples have shrunk, and there is a large amount of liquid (about 3/4 c) in the bottom of the bowl - this is normal.
• Pack the lower pie crust with the apple slices that will fit, level to the brim of the crust.  Unused slices can be discarded (or, pan-cooked and used as a topping for, say, ice-cream).
• Pour what you can of the collected liquid in the bottom of the bowl over the top of the apples in the pie crust.
• Cover the pie with your upper crust.  In my case, I tried doing this with a standard "full cover with vents cut after" method, which failed fairly spectacularly.  I would suggest doing a lattice crust with plenty of vent room for this pie.
• Line your baking sheet with parchment paper (cooking spray is handy to make it behave), then place the assembled pie on the sheet, to capture any spill-over.
• Bake the pie in a 400F oven for 75 minutes... is what the original recipe called for.  I'm going to say you should start checking on the pie at least 10 minutes beforehand.  The goal is to see filling bubbling up through the vents (or, if you prefer the scientific method, an internal temperature of 195F).  With the long cook time, over-browning is a valid concern, so you may want to employ aluminum foil to help with that.

After a few hours of cool-down time, you should have a very tasty apple pie (as in, even in its imperfect form, the one I cooked is easily top 10 of any apple pie I've had, ever).  It's a shame that prepping the apples is such a chore, otherwise I would strive to make this my go-to pie.

Instant Pot experiments: Beef Stew, take 3

With the weather cooling down again, it struck me, mid-grocery-trip, that some beef stew would be a fine idea, and proceeded to get all the necessary ingredients while I was there to give the ol' Instant Pot another whirl.  As if... as inevitably happens with on-the-fly shopping decisions like that, I forgot a few things entirely.  Most importantly, I forgot the beer!

Well, I wasn't looking to head out again, so improvisation was the name of the game.  Surprisingly, it actually came out better than I had any cause to hope... enough so, that this (with a bit of tweaking) is likely the "base" from which I'll make any further experiments.

Preparation

• Dissolve 1 beef bouillon cube in 1c. of water (mug and a Keurig works well for this)
• Re-hydrate about 2c. of dried mushrooms, and reserve 1c. of the resulting liquid
• Peel and quarter about 1lb. of potatoes
• Skin and cut an onion into wedges (8 worked fine for me)

Procedure

• Heat Instant Pot on Saute setting
• Add 3T. butter, allow to melt
• Add onion wedges, knock them about a bit with a wooden spoon while they soften to let the layers separate.  Once the onion has started to soften
• Add 1lb. cubed stew meat, brown on all sides.
• Add 3T flour and stir to absorb the liquid fats in the pot
• Add the reserved "mushroom water", use to de glaze the bottom of the pot
• Add the following ingredients and stir to complete the sauce/soup/whatever:
• Prepared beef bouillon
• 1c. off-dry mead (just because I don't have beer, doesn't mean I don't have anything useful lying around!)
• 1t. thyme
• 1t. garlic salt
• 1T. Worcestershire sauce
• 1T. steak sauce
• Add the mushrooms, potatoes, and a 1lb. bag of baby carrots to the pot, and stir to combine
• Top off with some fresh-ground pepper
• Cancel out of Saute mode, close/lock the lid, and hit the Meat/Stew button.  In my case, it was done cooking about 40 minutes after that.

And the results... good flavor overall, good mouth feel for the soup, and everything cooked through nicely.  Well... in truth, the carrots, for all they were fork-tender, still tasted a bit underdone, and the mushrooms, while tasty, were still a bit chewy.  I don't think the right answer is to wait for a natural release on the pot per se (that would just make mush of the potatoes), but it might be worth waiting for 5-10 minutes before doing the quick release next time, just to see what difference that makes.  Oh, and of course, if I do have beer handy, probably best to use that to replace the mead and at least some of the mushroom water, especially if I have fresh mushrooms handy to work with as well.

What's Cookin': Belgian Stew

OK, so this isn't one of those "OMG it's so tasty, you need to make it right now" sort of recipes, but it's one I go back to at least a few times a year... which is to say, posting this recipe here is as much for me as it is for you. As far as the question of "what makes it Belgian?" goes, I'm going to have to guess it's primarily the beer. Now, on to the recipe:

Ingredients

• 1/4c. flour
• 1T salt
• Fresh-ground pepper
• 2lb. stew meat, appx. 1" cubes
• 1/2 large onion, diced
  
• 1/4c. cooking oil
  
• 2 cloves garlic, whole
  
• 1lb. mushrooms, sliced
• 12oz. "dark" beer (you may need to experiment here for taste... I find stouts leave a bitter aftertaste when cooked, but most darker/more flavorful beers will work for this)
• 1T Soy Sauce
• 1T Worcestershire Sauce
• 1T Steak Sauce
• 2t. Thyme
• 1 bay leaf

Equipment

• Shallow bowl or similar for dredging meat
  
• Dutch Oven
  
• Wooden spoon, suitable for stirring/sauteing

Procedure

• Combine flour, salt, and pepper in the shallow bowl.
• Dredge the stew meat in the flour mixture, to evenly coat the meat cubes, discarding any excess flour mixture.
  
• Heat the cooking oil over medium heat in your dutch oven.
• Add stew meat and onion, until the meat is browned and the onion has softened.
• Add remaining ingredients, stir to combine.
• Bring the contents of the dutch oven to a boil, then reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 2 hours.

The source recipe I'm working from suggests boiling up some potatoes, tossing them in butter and parsley, and serving the stew with a little ring of potato bits around them... but, for my purposes, it's just fine to quarter and boil a potato, drop it in a serving bowl, and cover with stewy goodness. Either way, this recipe should handily serve 6-8 people... personally, I tend to just cook a half-batch, portion it out, and refrigerate or freeze what I'm not using that night.

What's cookin': Krumkake

For any poor benighted souls out there that don't know what krumkake is, it's a Scandinavian cookie-ish sort of thing, similar in form to an ice cream cone. Beyond that... well, they're generally sweet, but have a range of flavors and textures, and might or might not come stuffed with some sort of filling. This recipe makes a crisper, lacier krumkake... and, of course, being only a slight variation on my mother's original recipe, it's my favorite.

I won't go into quite the excruciating detail I normally do on these recipes, mainly because it requires specialized equipment (krumkake iron and form) that, if you are not already familiar with, you will have to first hunt down and, once found, would be well advised to read any manuals included to work out how to best use your gear.

Ingredients

• 1/2 c. butter
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 c. flour
• 1/2 t. baking soda
• 1/2 c. buttermilk
• 1/2 t. vanilla

Equipment

• small pan (suitable for melting butter)
• food processor
• krumkake iron and form

Procedure

• Melt the butter.
• Add the butter and sugar to the food processor, and combine.
• Add the egg to the food processor and combine thoroughly (looking for a uniform yellow color).
• Add the remaining ingredients and combine into a smooth batter.
• Cook your krumkake as usual.

In my case, this made 18 krumkake, of which three were sufficiently malformed that I had no choice but to eat them immediately... :)

One variant that I haven't tried yet... instead of 1/2 t. vanilla, 1/4 t. of ground cardamom might be tasty.

Blueberry filling/topping

Looking to make some pocket pies, but don't have enough for a full batch, or just want to have a little variety? You could do worse than this:

• 1 c. thawed frozen blueberries, with juice
• 1 T. sugar
• 1 t. lemon juice
• 1/2 t. corn starch

Combine ingredients in a small saucepan or metal bowl, cook and stir over medium-low heat to release more juices from the berries and thicken the resulting sauce, then let cool to room temperature.

The resulting consistency is just a bit too sloppy to spoon directly into the pies... but forking berries into place and drizzling with a bit of sauce works well. This recipe made me enough for a half-dozen pies, with enough left over to spoon over a bowl of ice cream later. Tasty treats all around... :)

What's cookin': Cheesecake

What can I say, I'm all about dessert, the "worse for you" the better. This recipe's one I get called on routinely to make for gatherings at work and the like. Oh, and for those of you that are gluten-averse, I suspect you could do a fair replica of the crust using pulverized gluten-free cookie bits instead of graham cracker crumbs, but that's an experiment I'll leave to you. On to the goodness:

Ingredients

• 1 c. graham cracker crumbs
• 3/4 c. sugar
• 6 T. butter
• 1 1/2 c. sour cream
• 2 eggs
• 2 t. vanilla extract
• 1 lb. cream cheese

Equipment

• Food Processor
• Small pan, suitable for melting butter
• Rubber spatula, bowl scraper, or equivalent
• Springform pan (8" or 9")

Procedure

• Preheat oven to 325F
• Melt 4T of butter
• Place graham cracker crumbs, 1/4c. of sugar, and melted butter into food processor, pulse to combine. You may need to scrape down the sides a bit to get the desired even texture.
• Pour the crumb mixture into the springform pan and distribute evenly across the bottom. Don't worry about being too exact, and don't expect to be able to compress this crust material... it'll come apart if you try, and it's totally unnecessary to do so.
• Set the remaining 2T of butter to melting
• Add the sour cream, remaining 1/2c. of sugar, eggs, and vanilla to the food processor and combine on low speed for 1 minute.
• Add the cream cheese in chunks to the food processor, then pulse to combine until smooth.
• Pour the last of the melted butter into the processor bowl, then pour the entire mess into the springform pan... it'll likely be viscous enough that you'll need to use your spatula to get it all out. Again, make sure the mixture spreads evenly throughout the pan.
• Place the pan in the lower third of your oven for 45 minutes
• Gently move the pan to a higher rack, and turn on your broiler... the goal is to get some browning of the top of your cheesecake, and (hopefully) minimize any cracking as it cools.
• Let the cheesecake cool at room temperature for about an hour, then refrigerate overnight before serving.

This is a tasty treat... depending on the group and the reason, I've found 8-12 servings works for this recipe. Some side notes for you...

• I'm not one for recommending specific brands normally, but I've found that the Philadelphia cream cheese works best for this recipe... I'm guessing the bargain brands have some ingredient variation that alters the final texture somewhat.
• Still on the cream cheese... I wouldn't recommend using "low-fat" or any other "non-real" cream cheese here... I forget where, but I heard that they won't "set up" properly.
• That 1-hour rest at room temperature is more than just a Good Thing... the cheesecake will still be quite warm when you're done with it, time during which the cheesecake will strengthen its internal structure and not be trying to cook nearby items in the refrigerator. For those of you with dairy-fiend kitties, letting it cool in the microwave isn't a bad idea... :)
  

What's cookin': Bacon and Chicken Risotto-esque

No, it's not quite Risotto... to my mind, that's Italian terrain, and I made some modifications that, historically, they wouldn't much agree with. So, its...

Ingredients

• 2c. chicken broth
• ~2T. olive oil
• 1/4lb. bacon (4 strips, in my case)
• 1 boneless skinless chicken breast (or 1/2c. or so of leftover roasted chicken)
• 1 red onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1T. butter
• 1/2c. risotto (arborio) rice
• 1/2c. mead (the original calls for white wine... but, while I'm not likely to drink leftover white wine in a reasonable time frame, I will drink mead)
• 1t. sage
• frozen peas

Equipment

• saucepan
• deep frypan
• wooden spoon
• slotted spoon or similar
• ladle
  

Procedure

• Prep those ingredients: chop the onion, mince or press the garlic, and cut the bacon and chicken into bite-size bits.
• Pour the chicken stock into the saucepan and leave on low heat (this preheat just helps keep things moving later on)
• Heat olive oil in frypan over medium heat... as you approach "working" temperature, add the bacon pieces and cook to your desired texture (for me, that's "not wiggly, but not crunchy").
• Remove the bacon from the pan with your spoons and drain on paper towels.
• If you're dealing with raw chicken instead of leftover, add it to the pan and brown. Careful, this is the most "spitty" part of the grease-cooking... long sleeves are pretty much mandatory for this. Once browned, remove the chicken from the pan and stash it with the bacon.
• Add the chopped onion to the pan, cook until softened but not crispy.
• Add the garlic to the pan, cook for about a minute.
• Add the butter to the pan, stir to melt and combine
• Add the rice to the pan, stir to coat and cook for about 30 seconds
• Add the mead to the pan. Once the mead starts to bubble, reduce heat to medium-low
• Let the mead reduce down to almost nothing... then (finally!) add the chicken broth to the pan, one ladle at a time, allowing temperature to recover between ladles.
• Add the sage and stir to combine
• Return the chicken and bacon to the pan
• Let the concoction stew, stirring occasionally, while the rice cooks and the liquid reduces. In my case, it was somewhere in the 20-30 minute timeframe before the mix was more "oatmeal" than "soup" consistency, by which time the rice had cooked nicely.
• Add frozen peas to the pan... at this point, it's really a personal preference as to how much peas to other stuff you want, so let your judgment be your guide. It should take about 2-3 minutes for the peas to cook sufficiently.

This makes a reasonably tasty meal without getting into the minute moisture-control that "real" risotto involves (think spreading out that broth adding across the entire cook time, and having to keep a closer eye on it the whole time). The recipe I worked from called for parmesan to be added at the last, but the recipe turns out fine without it... although, I might try some other "chicken" herbs (thyme and rosemary, for example) to tune the flavor a bit, maybe some pepper... at any rate, this should readily serve two people as a single-course meal, more with add-ons like bread, salads, or the like.

Edibles twofer

• If you're like me, every so often you go back to the basic 'pasta and tomato sauce' dinner... something I tried tonight that was surprisingly good -- cook some Brussel sprouts with the pasta, and brown up some cubed Spam to add to the sauce.
• In case you didn't know, the Easter candy's out... which means, in my case, the evil that is Cadbury Dark Chocolate Mini-Eggs. Not the gooey pseudo-eggs, although those are okay in small (like once-a-year) quantities, rather the oversized M&M replacements, with "better" (if not "good") solid chocolate innards, in your choice of milk or dark chocolate. Om nom nom nom... :)
  

What's cookin': Cottage Pie

Hey all... if I might first direct your attention to the sections at the far right, you'll see that I've added an "Occasional Labels" section. Frankly, most of what I write here I expect to be of brief interest, if that, to anybody stopping by, so I'm not about to start meticulously labeling every post I make here. However, there are a few that somebody might want to look up later, like the recipe I'm about to share, so now you should be able to find it without too much hassle... of course, if recipes aren't your thing, feel free to give this a skip.

Oh, and another warning for you all... when I bother to cook, I don't make any attempt at "healthy", "low-fat", "low-sodium" or the like... if those things are important to you, you can experiment from the base I provide. Now, on to the recipe...

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 lb. potatoes (about 4 "normal" sized russets, for example)
• 6T butter (like I said, low-fat ain't my thing... and butter's damn tasty. Also, keep it refrigerated until you're ready to use it, it'll make handling that much easier.)
• 1/2 c. milk
  
• 1 medium onion
• 1 stalk of celery
• 1 carrot
• 1 lb. ground beef
• 1T flour (unless I specify otherwise, All-Purpose flour is the standard)
• 3/4 c. Flavorful Liquid (I used a reconstituted beef bouillon cube, the recipe I worked from called for beef or vegetable stock... I'd suspect tomato juice or semi-dark beer might do, too)
• 1t dried thyme
• 1t dried rosemary
• "a pinch" of nutmeg (if you're buying for this recipe, then, by all that's good, get the whole nuts and a grinder or tiny grater... compared to the pre-ground stuff, well, there's no comparison.)
• salt & pepper

Equipment

• a pot big enough to hold your potatoes (medium saucepan worked for me)
• a mid-sized mixing bowl
• a masher (yes, you could make do with a fork... but it's more trouble than it's worth)
• a wooden spoon
• a mid-sized skillet (note, not frypan... you'll be doing a fair bit of stirring, so having a pan with high sides is a Good Thing)
• a 9" pie plate

Procedure

• Preheat oven to 400F
• Peel and quarter your potatoes and put them in the pot. Cover with water, bring to a boil, then cover and simmer for about 15 minutes.
• While your potatoes are cooking, you can prepare for the "filling" portion of your pie by: preheating your skillet over med-low heat, peeling the carrot, then chopping the carrot, the celery, and the onion. You could start cooking them at this point, but the time you'll save versus the stress of having multiple items coming up "ready" at about the same time isn't worth it, in my opinion.
• Once the potatoes are cooked, drain them and dump them in the mixing bowl, followed by 1T of the butter, and mash them. Add the milk, then beat with your wooden spoon until fluffy/smooth, then set aside.
• Add 3T of butter to your skillet. Once it melts, add the chopped veggies. Cook and stir occasionally until the veggies are softened, about 15 minutes. By the way, if anything's getting browned, the heat's too high... what you're after is what "real" cooks call a sweat.
• Turn up the heat to medium, and add the ground beef. Cook and stir for about 5 more minutes, to brown and break up the ground beef. Once this is done, there will be more fat in the pan than even I am comfortable with, so feel free to spoon the majority of it out and discard.
• Add the flour and stir to combine - the goal here is no visible flour in the mix.
• Add the Flavorful Liquid, thyme, rosemary, nutmeg... then salt and pepper "to taste" (I skipped the salt because, well, bouillon cubes are in large part salt... for pepper, a light sprinkling over the skillet should do). Drop the heat to simmer, and stir occasionally while the flour does its job and thickens the sauce (about 5 minutes)
• Dump the meat mix into the pie plate, cover with the potatoes (even coverage is what you're after), then cut up the last 2T of butter and distribute on top of the potatoes.
• Pop the pie into the oven for about 30 minutes... that should melt the butter into the potatoes, brown the top a bit, and heat the whole to an even, tasty meal, suitable for 3-4.

It's a tasty treat on its own... I might recommend some crusty bread or a roll to go with, mainly for textural variety. For those of you that need more veggies, well... maybe steam up some broccoli to go with, I'm thinking. There just won't be room for anything more in the pie itself.

Twofer: bits of no great interest

10,000 miles - my car just ticked over that magic number on the odometer today... it's nice, in some ways, having a car with a "normal" mileage display again.

meat pies - I did a little experiment tonight... turns out you can make some fairly tasty pocket pies using mainly biscuit dough and some of the contents of one of those tub o' barbecue-sauced meats... in this case, I tried it with some shredded pork, and liked it enough that I'll likely do a full batch over the weekend, to get rid of the leftovers in the fridge... and if I don't have enough meat, I'll have to cook up some blueberries, I guess... :)