Pie

I had a specific request for a pie entry since "pies were my specialty." I would definitely not call pies my speciality, especially since I cannot roll out a proper crust for the life of me, but it's a great excuse for me to use the special pie tool Mattsy (my grandmother and mother of all family cooking) gave to me. This pie cutter belonged to her grandmother, and she gave it to me over Thanksgiving, during the big lemon meringue fiasco. Needless to say, it's a pretty special utensil.

family heirloom pie tool

The circular side is used to cut the dough and the flat/rounded side is to shape the crust - but more on that later. First, I need to tell you about how to make the infamous Dullum family dough. Here's the recipe:

3 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 cup shortening
4 TBS butter
1/2 cup cold water beaten with 1 egg white

This makes 3 pie crusts or tops (or 2 crusts and 1 top etc.)

Combine the flour and salt, then cut in the shortening and butter until it has cornmeal consistency. Add the water/egg mix and mix lightly. Form into 3 balls and refrigerate until it is ready to use. At this point Mattsy always tells me "dough does NOT like to be played with or kept warm - stop playing with it and put it in the fridge!" You better do it. Mattsy will know if you don't.

dough ball getting ready to be wrapped up in
aluminum foil and refrigerated

The next step is to make the filling. Ian and I are not big traditional pie fans - pecan,  lemon meringue, rhubarb - but we both love apple pie. Unfortunately, the only recipe I have for apple does not use a crust (it's an "apple crunch" - baked apple with a cinnamon sugar crumble crust). So, I went to the recipe books and cobbled together an apple filling recipe that I thought would do. This is based on a Mastering recipe by MC [Ms. Childs]:

5-6 big apples, cored and pealed
1/4 cup brandy
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 TBS butter
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 orange rind grated

First up, core, peel and chop up the apples. Then you chunk the apples into a big pan and put them over low heat until they are soft - I did about 30 minutes. I figured that you would have to put butter or something in there so they wouldn't stick, but not at all.

unsticky apples

Then add in all the other ingredients and inhale because the scent is awesome. You let it simmer for a while, its suggested 20 minutes, but I did it for like an hour because I got caught up in making dinner and it tasted fine.

nom, nom

While this was going on, I also made the crust so I could pre-bake it for a little while. First step is to roll out the dough. I am reknown for my lack of skill in dough rolling - I always have one side a little bigger than the other, and about 25% of the time get the crust stuck to the cutting board. But, according to Mattsy, the trick is to pick up the dough and swish it around the board frequently, sweeping up the excess flour. Then use the pie dish to measure the size you want for the pie crust and flip it in.

Mattsy's trick for flipping it is to pull half of the dough onto the rolling pin the use that to place the rest of it into the pie pan. I did not get a picture of that because I only have 2 hands.

Then turn up the sides and make them pretty. This is where the pie tool comes in. Here is how I try to "make things pretty" without it:

blerg!

BUT with a quick press around the sides with the pie cruster tool it looks like this:

beautiful!

I need to work with it some more to get the technique down, but I'm pretty happy with the result so far. The recipe called for a "semi-baked crust" so I popped it into the oven for 15-20 at 375, then took it back out and filled it with the filling. Next I got started on the top - I rolled out another ball of dough, and got to use my pie tool again to cut out a perfect circle. You just set the pie plate on the rolled out crust, then follow the edge to get the perfect sized crust:

You also get a nice ridge design on the edge too. Next, lay the crust on the top and bake. I silly-ly folded it a bit in the middle since it was "too big", but I forgot to factor in the shrinkage that happens while banking, so the top was a bit shy of the edge. I should have trusted the pie tool that is 3x as old as I am.

I think the top was a little undercooked, so next time I'm not going to pre-bake the crust (take that MC!). On the top I have the "rosebuds" that Mattsy used to make for me when I was a kid. You take the leftover dough and form little flower buds (mine are more post-modern rosebuds), and roll them in sugar and place them on the top of the pie before you bake it. They may be my favorite part of a pie.

4.5 our of 5 on Yum scale

It was really yummy, and the whole process reminded me of  baking with Mattsy when I was a kid - probably where all this love of cooking came from. I think next time I am going to use a little less zest. It was perfect that night, but eating the leftover for breakfast this morning (yes Ian does that), Ian said it was a little too orange-y. With those modifications, this recipe is definitely going down in the family recipe book.

Small Personal Victory!

Ian and I try to go out on a fancy date once a month. On Friday we had a pretty open night, so we decided to put on "Colorado nice" clothes [this can be as casual as jeans and a clean shirt] and headed up to Larimar Square. As far as I can tell, Larimar Square is the only place to go for a fancy meal in Denver. It's sort of bizarre that all of the nice restaurants are stuck in a 5 block radius, but it's at least convenient.

We ended up going to Rioja, a Mediterranean influenced eatery. The meal was amazing, but the best part was that twice during the meal, Ian turned to m and said, "Hey this tastes like [fill in blank here] that you make!" Things I make taste somewhat similar to food in a Zagat rated restaurant! It's a small victory, but I'll take it.

Epic BBQ Bash: The Leftovers

Ha! You probably thought we  were done with all this BBQ nonsense. Well, so did I...then I realized we had 5 lbs of brisket-y goodness leftover. It was time to get creative. The first thing we did was make a bunch of brisket sandwiches with the thinly sliced brisket. I actually liked the brisket better on a cold sandwich (a BBQ sin I think), but after a day or two I was sandwiched out.

I decided to go to the trusty google and find out what to do. I typed in "what do I do with leftover brisket?" and got about a million hits. The one that looked best to me was brisket chili. Here's how I did it:

2.5 lbs of brisket, chopped up to bite size (we sill wanted the sandwich option)
2 jalapenos (seeded and chopped)
1 can black beans
1 can salsa
1/2 cup chili powder
1 TBS cumin
1 TBS paprika
1 lb of the leftover roasted potatoes

I was a little concerned about using salsa instead of regular tomato paste and diced tomatoes, but it was all I had on hand and I really did not feel like going to the grocery store (this is how most of my "new inventions" come about). I just dropped that all into a big pot then covered it with some beef broth I had in the fridge, and when that ran out, finished covering it with some water. Then it sat bubbling on the stove for a few hours, making the whole house smell amazing.

5 out of 5 on Yum sacle

The smells did not lie, it was amazing. With some cheese on the top and some orzo underneath (my current easy alternative to rice), it tasted like a completely different and really good meal. And thank goodness, because at that point I'm not sure I could have looked at another piece of brisket, much less eaten one. 

The last thing we did to get rid of el beef was to make brisket chili scrambles. Initially I intended them to be brisket omelets, but the brisket was too heavy/I flipped it too early so it became a scramble. 

Not a looker, but 5 out of 5 on the Yum scale

I put in some milk, lemon pepper and cheddar cheese with the eggs to keep them fluffy and tasty, then just dumped the leftover chili on top and mixed it all up. It was a great Saturday morning brunch food - but I would not attempt this for breakfast, unless you wake up with a very strong stomach. 

So after about 2 weeks of brisket, we finally made it though all 10 lbs of meat. As the indigestion slowly wears off, I am starting to wonder when Ian is going to attempt smoking another one, and if he will consider only doing 2 lbs. 

Epic BBQ Bash: The Desserts

I really only made one dessert for the BBQ, but I am going to count the margaritas we made as a second dessert - it qualifies in the high calorie category at the very least. This margarita recipe was my birthday present, and I am a jealous birthday person so I'm not going to share it/it's not my recipe to share. BUT I will tell you that it involves Paula's Orange, an Austin-only triple sec, which was the other part of my birthday present.

5 out of 5 on a Yum scale
Hat tip to Blair and Schex for the real Mexican Tequilla

I think the grad kids learned a valuable lesson about tequila drinks. Also, I didn't take a picture of it the first time around, so I just had to make a second batch tonight to show you all the glory. (This blog is not only a way for me to write non-legal things, but also gives me great excuses for indulging!)

The second dessert was oreo balls. It sounds disgusting at first, and then you think about it, and then it sounds amazing. And it is amazing. Here's the recipe:

1/2 bag oreos, crushed
4 oz cream cheese, melted (I used lite to make myself feel better)
1/2 bag of white chocolate chips

First step mash up all the oreos. I used a potato masher and it worked surprisingly well. Then add in the melted cream cheese and consider how much you underappreciate your arteries. Then form into 1 inch balls and put them to "dry" on a wax sheet. After about 30 minutes or so, melt down the white chocolate chips and cover the balls.

5 out of 5 on the Yum scale 

There are 2 strategies for this and I don't know which I liked better - (1) dunking the ball in the chocolate (which made the come apart a little bit, but were re-formable) or (2) pouring the chocolate over the balls with a spoon (which didn't get to the bottom part of them). I think I like (1) better, it's at the least messier - my favorite! - and also gets everything covered.

They were a big hit at the party, and I will definitely be making them again. This pretty much covers everything we had at the BBQ, except for what people brought...mainly beer. It was a really good way to get to know Ian's colleagues better, and reminded how much I love our little Tudor cottage-home.

Happy Valentines Day!

One day late. My Valentines Day got pretty hectic, so I didn't have time to post, BUT Ian gave me the best present ever.

No, it does not say "Big Love" it says PIG LOVE. And yes, that is a pig running around the bottom right side.  I saw this shirt at the fancy-pants grocery store when we were getting the brisket and mentioned how I thought it was awesome. Fast forward to yesterday, and on the way home from work we stopped by Ye Olde Fancy Pants Grocery Store again so Ian could get some steaks (part 2 of my Valentines Day present) and he came out with this! So perfect.

The dinner was also amazing, but I can't tell you how it was made because I didn't make a single bite of it. Ian made the rub, put it on the steaks and BBQed it with some broccoli all while I sat on the couch.

I forgot how nice it was to all of a sudden have a yummy meal to eat that you didn't make. To top it off Ian even watched a girly movie with me afterward (or at least pretended to stay awake during it). It was the perfect way to wind down after a crazy day.

Epic Superbowl BBQ Bash: The Meat

Ian has been studying the art of brisket making non-stop for the past month. He has called my brother in law (the ultimate brisket-er) about 10 times, cross referenced with my dad, and looked at every online recipe known to man. Here's the dry rub he came up with:

2 tsp seasoned salt
1 tsp black peppercorn
1 tsp white peppercorn
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp vinegar

Armed with the most researched rub ever, we went out to Marczyk Fine Foods Inc., the most fancy-pants grocery store in Denver. I fell in love with the grocery store on sight - it had 3 kinds of foreign cheese I had never even heard of. That is what I want in a grocery store, unknown, probably unpasteurized, dairy products. The butcher at Marczyk did a beautiful job at trimming down all the fat off our brisket, making it nice and lean. However, according to the 50 sources Ian checked with, you want up to an inch of fat all around the brisket to juicy it up. Sadly, the fancy pants Marczyk butcher didn't know that. Lesson one of the BBQ adventure: don't buy fancy pants brisket, you want the gross, cheap, nasty looking kind. On the plus side, we will pay much less for the next one.

10 lbs of beautifully inappropriate brisket

After about 10 minutes of moping over our too-trim meat, we mixed up the rub recipe and started marinating the brisket. To do this, we combined everything but the sugar and vinegar in a bowl, then massaged it into the meat. It was hands on, up to the elbow messy, just the way I like it. Then you sprinkle half the sugar on one side, followed by half the vinegar, flip and repeat. We kept it wrapped up in the fridge over night, then Ian got up bright and early the next morning to get the grill going.

For those who don't know, grilling on a charcoal grill in the cold is somewhat difficult, but manageable once you get the heat roaring. However, brisket smoking takes a low, steady heating of 200-250 over 8-12 hours. Thus, no roaring heat, and not as much success in the cold. But, Ian battled the elements and kept the grill going between 350-200 most of the day.

After a while we got concerned that the smoker itself might not get that hot since it is in a different section than the thermometer and is closer to the cold ground. So we brought the brisket into the oven for the last 2-3 hours to make sure we didn't food poison 20 guests. Lesson number two: try to wait for a warmed day to smoke meat.

After about 12 hours of effort, we had brisket. Unfortunately, there were a bunch of people over by the time it was done so I didn't snap a picture of 10 lbs Ian's labor of love, but I did take a picture of the last leftovers, sliced up for sandwiches.

4 out of 5 on the Yum scale

It ended up being a little dry initially (lesson 1 - don't try to be fancy), but the flavoring was great. The best part was the leftovers. Somehow "resting" for a day [does it count as resting if it is over 30 minutes?] intensified the seasonings and made it even better. And since we only made it through about 5 lbs of brisket during the party, we got to make all sorts of brisket leftovers throughout the week. Yummy!

Epic Superbowl BBQ Bash: The Appetizers

I have been avoiding sitting down and writing about Ian and my Epic Superbowl BBQ Bash because I know it would take me a long time to get through everything that we did. I've put it off long enough now, though, that I am worried that I would forget it all. So, to make it easier to remember, and not to create the longest blog post ever, I decided to break it up into parts of the meal, starting with appetizers/sides.

I wanted to make something fun and Texas-y that the grad students may not have had before, so I went with stuffed jalapenos. I'd experimented with them a few times before and come out with various results - form burn your mouth off - hot, to was there a pepper in there - mild. Since most people in Denver can't handle the heat I decided to stick with the uber mild style. That meant seeding and washing out all of the jalapenos, twice. It you have ever wondered what the inside of 11 jalapenos looks like, here you go:

deceptively mild looking

I decided to do only 11 because I wasn't sure how many people were coming/if they would eat something semi-foreign. That was a poor choice. I got this amazing jalapeno BBQ-cooker thing for Christmas and I don't think you can screw up if you use it.  You just put whatever filling you want into the jalapenos then place it on the grill to get that smokey-ness (and as a side benefit the meat will get a little jalapeno flavor as well). I went with a cream cheese/bacon filling:

4 oz light cream cheese, melted

3 strips bacon, cooked in the mircowave then crumbled

1/2 cup cheddar cheese

1/2 TBS cumin

garlic salt and pepper to taste

Mix it all up, find a tiny spoon to stuff it into the jalapenos - I used an actual tea spoon my grandmother, Mattsy, gave me - and you are done. They turned out really well...so I hear. When I saw how excited everyone was when I laid it out I went to the kitchen, a mere 3 steps away, to get a knife to cut them into halves. By them time i was back they were all gone. I'd say that's a success.

? out of 5 on the Yum scale
5 out of 5 on the make me feel good scale

The other side we made was roasted red potatoes. This is something I've done hundreds of times and is easy to throw together for a lot of people. You just chop up the potatoes into bite sized pieces, toss them into aluminum foil and cover with olive oil, salt, pepper and rosemary. I'd love to tell you how much of each, but I have no idea. It's one of those things that I've never measured before, and always turns out a little bit different. It then goes on the grill for however long you want - at least for 45 minutes to get them soft, anything after that is just getting them mushier/infusing the flavor more. I think we did it for about 2 hours (on a low 250 setting since we were brisketing at the same time). As always, they were a solid dish.

4 out of 5 on Yum scale

The last thing we had was queso. Nothing fancy, just the quick 1/2 block of velveta and 1 can of rotel with green chilies. Melt it together and serve. No pic, but for a visual, I did get to use my fancy chip and dip platter.

Soap Box Time. I don't understand how people cannot make a decent queso north of Dallas. It literally takes 2 cheap ingredients and 10 minutes. And yet, you go into so called "Mexican Restaurants" (the most hilariously named one here is Benny's Mexican Food Place) and their queso is the watery mess with no spice and possibly no cheese. They sell both velvata and rotel at the grocery stores here, so it's not that they can't access it. I think from here on out when I go to the grocery store I'm going to grab 1/2 the cans of rotel and place them suggestively by the velveta in hopes that perhaps Jack from Jack's Mexican Restaurant (another real place here) gets inspired. End Soap Box.


That said, does anyone have a great queso recipe? While Vel-tel mix works fine, I'd love to have a rockin' cheese-infused recipe to bring out when I'm really missing home.

That's all we had for sides, but don't worry, I'll fill you in on the main event in the next entry - Ian's First Brisket.

I Have No Words

Ian Knows How to Treat a Lady

And by that I mean me. Unless all the other ladies out there love messy BBQ, in which case, Ian has got you covered. This all stems from my awesome wedding present for Ian, an Oklahoma Joe Smoker and Grill. Not only does Ian get to play with fire, but I don't have to cook for one night.

So a few days ago, before this incredible cold snap hit, Ian decided to make my favorite - Dullum burgers on the grill. He's been picking up tips form my dad and has now got his own spin on it:

1 lb beef
.5 lb chorizo
1/4 onion (I insisted)
2 TBS Worcestershire sauce
salt and chili powder to "taste"

You just mush it all together in a bowl, the separate it out into burger-sized lumps, then fire up the grill. Apparently, we fired the grill too hot and got up to 500, so the burgers were a fast cook and the "toasted" buns were even faster.  It wasn't the most beautiful presentation I've seen, but it was tasty.

4.5 out of 5 on the Yum Scale

While Ian played with fire, I got to "not cook" by making the sides. I decided to keep the TX BBQ theme going by making jalapeno poppers. The first thing I did was to make a cream some cheese filling:   4 oz cream cheese, some parmesan cheese, cumin, cayenne pepper, and I think parsley to top it off. I wish I could remember all that I put into it because it was yummers. Whatever the combo, it was good AND to top it off the last few steps were in messy assembly line style!

Jalapenos, assemble!

You know the drill by now - egg it, breadcrumb it, then fry it up! It didn't work out too well the first time, I think it had something to do with the smoothness of the jalapeno, so these ended up being TWICE fried jalapenos.

3.5 out of 5 on Yum scale

As you can tell, it didn't work that great the second time either, but it still tasted pretty good. I think I over de-seeded them [technical term] because there wasn't as much heat as I wanted. I'm definitely in for round 2 of trying to make them work, though.

The last component was my take on potato salad - garlic mashed potatoes. Ok, it was really nothing like potato salad other than it consisted of potatoes, but it was delicious. I blogged about how amazing this dish is before so I won't bore you with the details - other than it has SEVENTEEN cloves of garlic. SEVENTEEN.

5 out of 5 on the Yum scale
I love every single clove that is in here.

It was a great meal and the leftover chorizo (you can only buy it in full pounds) made for a Texas-y leftover nacho dinner later that week:

3.5 out of 5 on Yum Scale

I may not be a Southern lady anymore, but with Ian around I can still eat like one - with BBQ sauce and cheese all over my hands and face.