Monthly Archives: May 2014

When Friends Come to Visit

19 Monday May 2014

Posted by in Chocolate Pie, Nut Pie

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It’s really great when friends come to visit. It means that we can do fun things such as: run around San Francisco for a couple of days.IMG_1398IMG_1112

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San Francisco’s a gorgeous city, no doubt, and we loved being there with Nathan and Nic. It’s not like we get to see them often–they live in Australia, after all. We just met Nic last year, when we met up and similarly ran around Salt Lake City (you can read that post, “Guilty Pleasures,” here. You should, it’s a good one.) Nathan we’ve known for quite a while now, and we still like him, so that’s good. People often ask me how come I have so many friends who live all over the world, and it does seem strange at first, I admit. But I know exactly why these friendships work and why they are so good; it has to do with Jesus.

If you ever want to know more, just ask. IMG_1263

Whilst running around San Fran, Nic and I stumbled upon this delight of delights. A chocolate factory! I sagely decided to purchase some chocolate baking discs, as I thought that we would probably be able to make use of them in a pie. (I was right, as you’ll see later on.) Tcho is pronounced with a long O, by the way. For a while I was thinking “Tcha”, like what the first syllable of the word “chocolate” sounds like, but pretty sure that it’s “Tch-oh.” You can read about one of the coolest aspects of the company here. IMG_1122

Nic is quite a cook and baker. A fun fact is that she has also acquired a copy of the Pie cookbook (by way of me and another willing Aussie traveler) and has made a few of the recipes on her own over this past year. This is more of a feat when you take into account the fact that all the recipes are written using American measurements, so I applaud her for her efforts. We were excited to get back home and start pie-ing it up.

One night, Nic showed me how to make a chicken and mushroom pie. I’ve ranted on this before, but, truly, we Americans do not eat enough savory pies. Not even close to enough. Cause they are delicious times a million.

IMG_2675Someday I’m going to try making my own puff pastry. Or maybe that’s a lie. Either way, it didn’t happen on this particular night, but I have no qualms about store-bought puff pastry until they discover a less time-consuming way to make it at home. I think it takes approximately seventeen hours and pounds of butter. Ain’t nobody got time for that.IMG_2678Here’s the finished product, all warm and flaky and lovely. Leave a comment if you’re interested in making a chicken and mushroom pie yourself and I just may be able to share the recipe.
IMG_2686IMG_2689IMG_2683Even Obi suddenly appeared at the table when he smelled the pie. What a little sneak. *Disclaimer: We do not actually feed our dog at the table, nor we do let him drink wine.*IMG_2695

Now let’s turn our attention to dessert. Remember those Tcho baking discs that came home with me from San Francisco? They made an excellent addition to Macadamia-Chocolate Chunk Pie.

IMG_2705Can anyone tell me why macadamia nuts are so delicious? Is it just all that good fat? The rich, buttery flavor? I have no idea, but there is a lot of attempted self-restraint that goes on when I have an open bag of macadamias around. It’s a massive struggle that looks something like this:

Me: I only need one and a quarter cups of macadamia nuts for that recipe, and I bought two cups. I’ll just have one small handful.

Me: Well, just one more small handful. That’s fine. Then I’ll clip the bag and put it away.

Me: I still have enough left for the recipe, so who really cares? I’m going to take out the bag and have only a couple more. Then that’s IT!

IMG_2707The end result of this pie has a texture that’s sort of half like a nut pie (pecan pie is what I’m sure we’re all the most familiar with), thanks to the egg/corn syrup/brown sugar base. It’s also half cookie-like, with lots of chopped macadamias, chocolate chunks, and coconut flakes. There are a lot of goodies in there. IMG_2719

When friends come to visit, it’s really nice to cook and bake and enjoy each others’ company. And unintentionally wear lots of maroon and take Apple Photo Booth shots of yourselves, as it turns out.

4-up on 2-21-14 at 9.47 PM (compiled)Hopefully it won’t be too long before we are reunited. Australia 2015? Sounds great to me.

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When Life Gives You Key Limes…

05 Monday May 2014

Posted by in Cream Pie

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…it’s probably time to make some key lime pies.

(“Life” in this case takes the form of our friends Will and Renee, who have an overabundant key lime tree–thanks, guys!)

Here are the steps.

1. Realize that this big tree-carved bowl full of limes complements what you happen to be wearing. Take a series of artistic selfies entitled “Girl with Limes.”

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Step Two: Juice roughly a thousand key limes (okay, probably forty) by hand with a press juicer. Be thankful you don’t currently have any paper cuts or hangnails, because the job would be a whole lot more painful if you did. This step will take you roughly forever (okay, probably half an hour.) If you have an electric juicer, by all means, please do that instead. It would be infinitely more logical.photo 1

Step Three: Freeze the extra juice, which you will end up with if you are gifted this many ripe key limes at once. I only made one key lime pie on this particular day, but the beauty was that I was able to freeze enough juice cubes to make two more exquisitely fresh tasting key lime pies about a month later. I like freezing citrus juice in ice cube trays because the smaller units are easier to defrost.
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Step Four: Make a homemade graham cracker crust. I think I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating. Homemade graham cracker crust is delicious; store-bought graham cracker crust is an edible container which isn’t necessarily bad but definitely would never be described as delicious. I wanted this Joe’s Stone Crab Key Lime Pie to be absolutely delicious, since I had already spent a good amount of my life squeezing the key lime juice that was to go into it. So, it had to have a homemade crust. The graham cracker crust recipe in Ken’s book is a quick mix of graham cracker crumbs, brown sugar, salt, and cinnamon with melted butter to bind it together. Once you’ve made one homemade crumb crust, you’ll never go back. Some things in life are a lot more work for a little payoff (aka hand squeezing a bunch of key limes instead of using already-squeezed key lime juice) and some are a little more work for a huge payoff (aka making a graham cracker crust by hand instead of buying one.) I think I’ve made my point, so I’ll move on.

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When making a graham cracker crust by hand, once you’ve got a bowlful of damp crumbs, you can just dump them into your pie plate and use your hand to pat it into shape. I usually try to make the crust go up the side of the plate just to the line I think the filling will go up to, though I often mess up and make the sides go nearly all the way to the very top of the plate. I mean, I don’t think it’s a super big deal either way. You just definitely want the crust to go at LEAST as high as the filling will. It definitely makes sense to err on the side of making the crust a bit too high. IMHO.photo 5

True to form, I left off taking step by step photos after forming the crust. So, Steps Five and Six, if I were to have included them, would have covered the blending together of the filling and the pouring of the filling into the gently hand-molded crust. We find ourselves now at Step Seven: Eat your delicious key lime pie. You’ll know it’s the real thing because it will have a serious tang to it. It will be creamy, even more so when freshly-whipped cream is dolloped on top. It will be so, so good.

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Step Eight: Put your scarf on your head and smile for one more selfie, cause you’re DONE and you’re thinking about how much key lime juice still awaits you in your freezer.

photo 3P.S. You guys caught me again. It’s not key lime season in California’s May. It’s key lime season in January. Shhh…don’t tell anyone how slow of a blogger I am, okay?