Pumpkin Pie

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving.  This was our dessert table.  Mini cheesecakes, pumpkin and Oreo; mini bundt cakes - Carrot Cake with cream cheese frosting, Chocolate with chocolate ganache frosting and Fresh Apple with caramel maple glaze; pumpkin pie and apple pie.  The pumpkin pie recipe is one I have used for years and is pretty much fool proof.  This year I had a small pie pumpkin that I baked and used in the recipe instead of canned pumpkin. 

Pumpkin Pie
(From Betty Crocker cookook)

Pastry for 9 inch pie
2 eggs
2 cups (one can) pumpkin
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 2/3 cup evaporated milk or light cream

Heat oven to 425 degrees. Line pie pan with pastry.  Beat eggs slightly, then beat in remaining ingredients. Pour into pastry lined pie pan.  Bake 15 minutes.  Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees and bake 45 minutes longer or until knife inserted in center comes out clean.  Cool before serving.

Baguettes

To go along with my French Onion Soup, I made Baguettes from scratch.  A little time consuming, but really no more than any other bread.  The taste was perfect, just like Baguettes are supposed to taste.  I was disappointed in the shape though.  They flattened during the rising so weren't nice and tall and round like they should be.  The dough was pretty soft, so less water? I got the recipe from KAF & they actually sell forms just for Baguettes.  You place the dough in the form to rise and also to bake.  I'm not sure I'll make Baguettes often enough to warrant the investment.  Maybe I'll just experiment with the water/flour ratio next time.

FRENCH ONION SOUP

After going through all the steps and buying the Gruyere cheese (13.98/lb) and dry sherry (7$ a bottle), I've kind of decided I'm not a big French Onion Soup fan.  I've had it several times, and even though I love onions, it just doesn't do it for me.  This recipe supposedly came from Cooks Illustrated.

French Onion Soup

3 tablespoons unsalted butter , cut into 3 pieces

6 large yellow onions (about 4 pounds), halved and cut pole to pole into 1/4-inch-thick slices Table salt

2 cups water, plus extra for deglazing

1/2 cup dry sherry

4 cups low-sodium chicken broth

2 cups beef broth

6 sprigs fresh thyme , tied with kitchen twine

1 bay leaf

Ground black pepper

1 small baguette , cut into 1/2-inch slices

8 ounces shredded Gruyère cheese (about 2 1/2 cups)

Adjust the oven rack to the lower-middle position and heat the oven to 400 degrees.  Generously spray the inside of a heavy-bottomed large (at least 7-quart) Dutch oven with a nonstick cooking spray. Place the butter in the pot and add the onions and 1 teaspoon salt. Cook, covered, for 1 hour (the onions will be moist and slightly reduced in volume). Remove the pot from the oven and stir the onions, scraping the bottom and sides of the pot. Return the pot to the oven with the lid slightly ajar and continue to cook until the onions are very soft and golden brown, 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 hours longer, stirring the onions and scraping bottom and sides of pot after 1 hour.  Carefully remove pot from oven and place over medium-high heat. Using oven mitts to handle pot, cook onions, stirring frequently and scraping bottom and sides of pot, until the liquid evaporates and the onions brown, 15 to 20 minutes, reducing the heat to medium if the onions are browning too quickly. Continue to cook, stirring frequently, until the pot bottom is coated with a dark crust, roughly 6 to 8 minutes, adjusting the heat as necessary. (Scrape any fond that collects on spoon back into onions.)  Stir in 1/4 cup water, scraping the pot bottom to loosen crust, and cook until water evaporates and pot bottom has formed another dark crust, 6 to 8 minutes. Repeat process of deglazing 2 or 3 more times, until onions are very dark brown. Stir in the sherry and cook, stirring frequently, until the sherry evaporates, about 5 minutes.  Stir in the broths, 2 cups of water, thyme, bay leaf, and 1/2 teaspoon salt, scraping up any final bits of browned crust on bottom and sides of pot.  Increase heat to high and bring to simmer. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove and discard herbs, then season with salt and pepper.  While the soup simmers, arrange the baguette slices in single layer on baking sheet and bake in a 400-degree oven until the bread is dry, crisp, and golden at edges, about 10 minutes. Set aside.

To serve:

Adjust oven rack 6 inches from broiler element and heat broiler. Set individual broiler-safe crocks on baking sheet and fill each with about 1 3/4 cups soup. Top each bowl with 1 or 2 baguette slices (do not overlap slices) and sprinkle evenly with Gruyère. Broil until cheese is melted and bubbly around edges, 3 to 5 minutes. Let cool 5 minutes before serving.

Roasted Chicken

A very simple roasted chicken.  Rinse the chicken well, dry with paper towels.  Rub with olive oil then salt and pepper inside and out.  Put a lemon that you have poked all over, 2 cloves of smashed garlic and a couple of sprigs of rosemary in the cavity. Roast for 45 minutes to one hour uncovered.  Of course, you are supposed to tie the legs together, but I never have any twine.

End of Summer

Its official - summer is over, I had to pick the last of my roses.  The roses, begonias and marigolds hung on until the last frost.  I picked the roses the night before we were supposed to get a hard freeze.  I'm always glad to have flowers to bring in the house,  but the last of them makes me sad because I know there won't be any more until next year.

STRAWBERRY PIE

I had a delicious piece of strawberry earlier this year & I've been wanting to replicate it ever since.  I found a highly recommended recipe on line & decided to try it.  As I was making it, I thought it seemed like a lot of sugar and once I tasted it I knew it was definitely too much.  I also found out that even though many of the recipes said to put whole strawberries point side up in the shell & that was attractive, chopping or quartering the berries is better in eating and serving the pie.  B didn't think it was overly sweet, but I did, so I'm not going to include the recipe.  I'll keep looking for the perfect not too sweet, not too tart strawberry pie recipe and when I do I'll post it!

Piccalilly

I cleared the tomato plants out of the garden a couple of weeks ago and had a bumper crop of green tomatoes. So I made a double batch of piccalilly.  Fortunately for me, my lovely Alex & Molly gave me a grinder attachment for my Kitchen Aide last Christmas.  THANK YOU! Can you imagine grinding up 30 1bs of green tomatoes, 8 lbs of onions and a dozen peppers by hand?  Really the instructions for making a double batch of this should start out "first get out all the giant pots and pans you own".  That's why I've included a picture of the pans & that doesn't even show the smaller pans that I put in the dishwasher all ready.  But its worth it, this is a flavorful relish that isn't too sweet and is infinitely better than the commercially available "sweet pickle" relish.  This is my grandmother Irene Kluck's recipe and I can remember her giving us jars of it growing up.

Piccalilli

1 peck green tomatoes (8 qts, 15 lbs) ground
12 onions (4 cups) ground
6 green and red peppers, ground
1 cup salt
1 pint sugar
1 pint cider vinegar
1 teaspoon each allspice, cinnamon, cloves and pickle spices
tied into a bag
Grind all vegetables add salt, let stand 2 hours then drain in a cloth.
Tie all spices into a small bag. Put drained ground vegetables, sugar,
vinegar and bag of spices into large kettle. Add 2 tablespoons
salt and bring to a boil, simmer 30 minutes. Add more vinegar if
needed.  Process in boiling water bath 20 minutes.

Scarf Surprise

When C & I were on the Plaza a few weeks ago one of the shops we stopped at was an upscale fabric store.  They had some beautiful hand painted silks that we both liked, but the price on the bolt was $50 per yard.  So we moved on.  Well, after we parted company, C went back and got 1/2 a yard of our two favorites and brought them to me as a lovely surprise.  (Fortunately they were on sale for less than what was marked)   We spent a Sunday making the four scarves, so we both got one of each.  Thanks C! You're the  best daughter ever!