Anythings Game Now: Cheesy Spicy Mashed Potatoes

I mentioned before that I was not sure what to do with this blog; whether or not I wanted to expand its scope outside pie.

I have been putting together a number of recipes lately for Tasty Kitchen, and one food came along and made the decision for me.

I created these mashed potatoes. They taste amazing, are easy to make, and need to be shared with as many people in the world as I can possibly reach.

They include the two best ingredients on the face of the planet: cayenne pepper and cheese. Mixed in with one of that which I will hereby name The Cream Dyad: sour cream.

I thought of these potatoes, and then thought about them for weeks waiting for the opportunity to make them. They were all I hoped they would be. It is so satisfying to not be disappointed by dreams.

The Potatoes:

The Recipe

(Makes 4 Servings)

1lb Potatoes

4 Tbsp Sour Cream

1 tsp Cayenne Pepper

1½ cups shredded Sharp Cheddar Cheese – the sharper the better and I recommend orange colored cheese to give potatoes that “yes, I am cheesy” hue.

Milk (a splash may or may not be needed)

Scrub potatoes and peel if desired. Cut into 1″ cubes.

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Boil potatoes until soft, about 15 minutes. Drain.

Start mashing potatoes, going until you have achieved a rough lumpy mash using whatever method you

prefer. (I just use a pastry cutter and a fork).

Thoroughly mix in sour cream. If the potatoes are not creamy enough, add a splash of milk and stir to combine.

Stir in cheese, adding it in batches of 1/4-1/2 a cup at a time. Keep stirring until completely and evenly combined.

Add cayenne pepper and stir. (This much pepper will produce a mild level of heat for spice aficionados while still preserving the cheesy flavor, so scale back a bit if this is too much for you.)

Creative leftover idea:

I had a bunch of these to enjoy a second night, and wanted to do something different with them. So I made my favorite mashed potato dish – potato tacos!

I stuffed them into flour tortillas, folded in half and broiled to get the tortillas warm and a bit crispy. Then I topped them with some more sour cream, shredded lettuce, and tomatoes.

It was Yummy. But warning, as with all things cayenne spiced, they got hotter with time.

Pumpkin Showdown : Pumpkin Pie

It's been A-WHILE, I know... Work got crazy. But not so crazy that I didn't find time for a few pies! Just no time to write about them.

But I will make up for it now with this ridiculously long post about pumpkin pie. (Seriously, this should be divided into two separate entries and would be if I had stayed on top of things.)

I have been really looking forward to making pumpkin pie using fresh pumpkin so as soon as I saw them at the store I bought four. You've seen the picture.

Pumpkin pie is not generally made with jack-o-lantern pumpkins (although you CAN do that, you just might want to add extra sugar); most people use smaller pumpkins labelled as pie or sugar pumpkins. They are apparently sweeter and less grainy. I say apparently because this what everyone says but as you will learn if you make it thru this ridiculously long post “everyone” is sometimes wrong and I have never actually cooked a jack-o-lantern pumpkin for any reason.

After purchasing these I did a little research to figure out how exactly I should go about this. I found this site to have lots of information and pictures and sort of used it as my guide. I also found some fresh pumpkin pie recipes at allrecipes.com.

First, you need to cook the pumpkin. It doesn't really matter how- steam it, microwave it, bake it. Whatever. There seemed to be some concern in my sources about drying it out so some directions called for baking or microwaving it in a bowl of water, but I thought that was a bit odd since one thing to keep in mind when baking with fresh pumpkin is that it tends to be more watery then the canned.

Me, I just baked it on a baking sheet until it was soft. Mostly because my microwave is way too small to fit a pumpkin and I do not have a put or steamer big enough to steam it. Despite some recent acquisitions my kitchen is still approx. 85% ghetto so I have to work with what I've got. This worked fine and did not dry it out. But steaming it is probably the fastest way to cook it. When it id done it will be totally soft and fall of the skin when spooned out.

At this point it needs to be pureed. Again, you can do this however works for you- blender, food processor, potato ricer, etc. I used my food mill and it worked out great.

Voila! You have fresh pumpkin.

Fresh pumpkin CAN be a little watery. I found two ways of dealing with this. #1, you can set up this little contraption with a pice of cheesecloth over a fine strainer suspended over a bowl. An hour or so seemed to be enough to remove most of the excess water. #2, and especially good for the minimalist kitchen, let your pumpkin sit in a bowl for a bit. If there is excess water it will be pushed out to the sides and there will be pure water surrounding the edges of your pumpkin. Place a paper towel at the edge and it will soak most of it up.

Here is also where I ran into my first problem. That helpful website, and many of the recipes I found, called for 1 pie/sugar pumpkin and gave the impression that it would yield plenty of puree. I did NOT find this to be the case. I realize there are different pumpkin sizes but since this experience I have looked around and have yet to find one big enough to do the job. Maybe it is just the area where I live that can't produce these mammoth pie pumpkins, but I always needed 2 – and this usually produced just enough for one standard 9” pie. For reference, a standard size pie should have 1 ¾ – 2 cups pumpkin, with 1 ¾ being the equivalent of a 15oz can.

So I cooked and pureed ANOTHER pumpkin. And then I had 2 cups. So I made the recipe at the website posted and scaled everything down because it uses the 3 cups(!) it claims will be produced by one of these pumpkins.

(I realize some of these measurements are a little weird, thats because two-thirds-ing a recipe is weird).

2 cups pumpkin puree

2/3 cup sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

2/3 tsp ground cloves

2/3 tsp allspice

~2/3 of ½ a tsp ground ginger

pinch of salt

2 extra large eggs

1 12oz can evaporated milk

1. Combine all ingredients

2. Pour into unbaked 9” pie shell

3. Bake at 425° for 15min, then lower to 350° and bake until knife inserted comes out clean, about 45-60min

Note: Canned pumpkin was heated on the stovetop and then allowed to cool before using. Why? Because I read in someone's comments on a recipe that doing this makes canned pumpkin taste better. I'm not sure if this is true, I haven't done a showdown for it yet, but I figured I had to give the canned pumpkin its best shot, so the safest thing to do was include this step JUST IN CASE it does make a difference.

And I was sooo excited for this pie, I didn't even care that I had to cook the pumpkin twice. Everything I read said that canned pumpkin does not even compare to fresh. (One source even mentioned that canned pumpkin is not made with pumpkin, but I think they are wrong because I checked the ingredients on a can and it listed just one thing: pumpkin.) I've never met a pumpkin pie I didn't like and I am pretty sure I never had one from fresh before, so I expected this to blow me away.

But it didn't. Don't get me wrong, it was good. But it didn't really taste significantly different from any other pumpkin pie.

(And...the crust was soggy. I tried to trust the recipe, even though the filling was like water. Lesson learned; I now par-bake pumpkin pie crusts.)

Obviously, it was time for a showdown.

What do I mean by showdown? 2 pumpkin pies, exact same recipe, one made with canned pumpkin and the other with fresh. I took hem both to work, and let the masses decide if one was better then the other.

I didn't want to use the same recipe, so I looked for a really high ranked one at allrecipes. I picked this recipe because of the rating and also because it was a little different from most, using sweetened condensed milk instead of sugar and evaporated milk. And I am pretty sure it was this one, if not exactly then really close.

1 3/4 cups pumpkin

1 (14 ounce) can Sweetened Condensed Milk

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 (9 inch) pie crust

1. Par - bake 9" pie shell

2. Combine all ingredients. The resulting mixture is completely liquidy

3. Bake for 15 min at 450. Turn heat down to 350 and continue to bake until a knife inserted comes out clean

I also decorated one pie, because I wasn't sure if I would be able to tell them apart. So, with the scraps left over from the bottom crusts I cut out all these little flowers.

Then I used them to decorate the crust edge like this. Its kindof pretty, I am still working on the decorating skills.

The results: again, 2 very good pies. And with par-baking the crust first the bottoms came out perfect.

So what about the showdown? My co-workers were awesome and once they knw what I was doing almost everybody tried both pies. The fresh pumpkin came out a little smoother, I think because I used the fine strainer of my food mill. The canned had a slightly stronger, more condensed flavor. But overall, they came out equal. One person (who have determined to be an outlier) found the fresh pumpkin one to be superior. Everyone else thought they were pretty much the same.

So canned pumpkin it is (at least for me). Because, seriously, there's no reason to work that hard if it doesn't taste better.

My First Failure, Second Success Story : Peach Crème Fraîche Pie

WARNING: I made this pie a long time ago, therefor errors in my memory of this experience may exist. However, to the best of my knowledge, this is my peach and crème fraîche pie story.

I first saw this pie way back in July. I knew immediately I would make it. I had not made a peach pie yet (remember my issues with peaches) AND it was written by my favorite food blogger, Deb of Smitten Kitchen, who got the recipe from one of the most credible recipe sources on earth herself: Martha Stewart.

Sidenote: Martha is, in my mind, the epitome of evil genius and although I am pretty opposed that much of what her genius represents I also have this weird respect for it. I even did a college research paper on her. I believe she is a ruthless business women. She understood brand identity before it was conceptualized as an overt marketing philosophy. She also marketed and sold “women's work”. It turns out it's worth a billion dollars. Thats what I call feminism.

Anyway, back to the pie...with this kind of endorsement it was a shoe in.

But of course it took awhile. (To be fair I just did not do a lot of pie baking this summer, there was simply no time because I was too busy playing.)

August was coming to a close and I still had not made it. And I was starting to get worried about peach season coming to an end. And we were having a bit of a heat wave. And I have no air conditioning. And I decided to make it anyway. With whole wheat pastry flour.

My thought process when making these decisions was simply flawed. Maybe it was the heat. But I just thought: “How

hard can it really be to roll out pie dough in a 90° kitchen?” Answer: VERY HARD!

And I had gotten this whole wheat pastry four awhile back because it was on sale, I am super cheap, and I though it might be interesting to play around with some different flours. I used it once and it was a bit of a disaster, but I OWED the flour and myself a second shot. Since this recipe only requires a bottom crust it seemed like a good time to try again (½ the trouble if it's difficult again.) FYI: Most people don't really use this kind of flour for pie crust and when they do- totally different recipe! Something about wheat gluten levels and moisture absorption...

And so I made this pie:

Rolling it out was so difficult I had resorted to breaking off pieces of dough, flattening them in my hand, and pressing them together into the pie plate. Which, yes, did lead to some sticking if that what you were thinking might happen. And overworked dough.

And see how the top of the crust is missing. Yeah, it burned and shrunk and I decided it was best to just break it off, especially since the overall pie plate I used was too big anyway so this still left a crust rim sized edge sticking up above the filling.

To top it all off, my crème fraîche was...not right. Runny, like a heavy c

ream instead of the sour cream consistency it should be. I thought it should be thicker, but having never used this stuff before in my life, I didn't really know.

So, to sum it up: This pie sucked. I knew it sucked. And it was mostly my own fault.

I don't really know what there is for others to learn from my stubborn insistence on making this pie that day. Crème fraîche should be thick? And don't even TRY rolling out a crust in this kind of heat? I realize these are lessons unnecessary for most reasonable people.

After this failure I was not very interested in making this pie again (at least not this peach season.) But then I was blog browsing and I saw it again. Another baker who had successfully produced an eatable pie from this recipe.

It mocked me.

So round two. The weather had cooled. I used a smaller pie dish. I bought a different brand of crème fraîche – see how it is all thick, like it is supposed to be.

The pie I baked this time?

Eatable! Not embarrassingly ugly! Success! (It's really not even a hard one to put together.)

It is not overly sweet. I was expecting it to be more custardy, so that was a little disappointing. The way you can see the reds of the yellow peaches poking out amongst the lite crumble topping is very pretty- so presentation points. And it has a good lightness for a summer dessert on warm days.

Like maybe you can make this on one of those freak rainy chilly summer days and eat it on the next day when summer has returned and it is warm again. That would be a good plan.

To Make This Pie Follow These Directions:

Pastry for bottom crust

Crumble:

1/4 cup confectioners' sugar

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Pinch of salt

1/4 cup cold (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, cut into pieces

Peach Filling:

1 1/2 pounds ripe (4 to 5 medium) yellow peaches, pitted and quartered

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

Pinch of salt

5 tablespoons crème fraîche

Roll out bottom crust. Line with foil and fill with pie weights. Bake at 400° for 10min. Remove weights and foil, bake for another 5-8 min until crust begins to turn golden. Turn over temp down to 375°.

Toss peach slices with sugar and salt, set side.

Spread 2 Tbsp of crème fraîche on bottom of crust.

Mix dry ingredients for crumble. Cut in butter until it it is blended with pea size lumps of butter remaining.

Sprinkle 1/3 of crumble mixture over crème fraîche.

Arrange peaches in a layer, fanning out from the center. Dot remaining crème fraîche over the peaches (like pictured). Sprinkle remaining crumble mixture over the top of peaches and crème fraîche.

Bake about 45min until crème fraîche is bubbling and crumble is a light golden brown. Serve warm or chilled.

Because the Amish Like It: Oatmeal Pie

And I am somewhat fascinated by the Amish. Why? Well...

#1 Because Devil's Playground was probably the most interesting documentary I have ever seen. If you have not seen it, go rent it. Watch it. Then watch it again with the Director's Commentary.

#2 I may be related to some Amish. Due to their practice of shunning people who leave, I will never know for sure but apparently my Great-great-grandfathers last name is a common last name among the Amish and we don't know anything about where he came from. So there is a family suspicion.

#3 I have a tendency (as my friends out their know) to become fascinated with random things for no particular reason.

So when perusing the pie section of Tasty Kitchen and finding Oatmeal Pie, which the poster described as popular among the Amish, I knew I had to make it.

The original recipe called for currents, as an optional ingredient. I think of currents as very similar to raisins. And I hate raisins. I think thats what it would taste like to eat ants (I don't know why, they just make me think of ants OK!?)

But I had these delicious fresh Medjool Dates that I had picked up at the farmers market so I used those instead. So I just chopped them into pieces. I probably used about ½ to ¾ of a cup.

First I mixed together the filling:

2 whole eggs

½ cup Honey

¾ cup Quick Cooking Oats

¾ cup Flaked Coconut

¾ cup packed Brown Sugar

½ cup Unsalted Butter, softened

½ cup Walnuts, chopped

At this point it looked pretty delicious. Very sweet. The author suggested cutting back on honey or coconut if you want it less sweet. The coconut is good for texture though, so I wouldn't opt for less of that.

I rolled out my single 9” crust and added half the filling. Then I kind of smashed my dates and spread them out into one layer across the pie like this.

I had this idea that with-in the pie there could just be one tasty layer of date, like a date bar, that would be really pretty. It did not work. It seemed to just melt into the pie while it baked and no layer was visible. But I took all these pics so I decided to tell you about it anyway.

As you can see, I also decided to flute the edges of the pie crust. I never do this. I AM a perfectionist about my pies, but this usually just seems like a waste of time. It doesn't make the pie taste better. And it's not even that much prettier then just trimming it off or folding it over for a rustic looking edge. I guess I was just feeling really motivated the night I made this. Anyway, fluting didn't work for me either. Live and learn.

Then I filled it with the rest of the filling and baked at 350°. The posted recipe said to bake for 40-45min until the top browned and a knife inserted came out clean.

In my oven, the top browned rather quickly, with-in the first 20-25 min and I was worried it would burn so at that point I just covered the whole thing with foil and kept baking until it was done, which took a long time. I'm not sure how long. At least an hour. I just kept checking and eventually I had a clean knife.

And here is what came out:

A beautiful, golden topped, loved by the Amish oatmeal pie (sans fluted edge).

When I started this pie I really had no idea what the resulting pie would be like. It turns out this pie is very sweet (I knew this once I was done mixing the filling) and very similar to a pecan pie. Similar enough that more then one person asked me if it was a pecan pie.

I have not made pecan pie yet, I don't know hard or easy they are to make, but this one was pretty easy. And different. No one I served it to had heard of oatmeal pie, therefore providing me lots of opportunities to talk about the Amish.

SNEAK PREVIEW

Guess what I'm making this weekend...

It's a Miracle! Microwaveable Milk Pie (Seriously, Microwaveable Pie!)

This is my first Tasty Kitchen pie recipe.

It made me think of some of my friends who, since staring this blog, have told me maybe I will inspire them to make a pie. And in particular one who said baking scares her. You can make this whole pie without ever turning on an oven. Or using the stove.

This Milk Pie was described by the person who posted it as being very light tasting, so I decided to put it in an Oreo cookie crust, and sprinkle some mini-chocolate-chips on top.

For the crust:

Mix 1 1/2 cups Oreo cookie crumbs and 4 Tbsp melted butter. Press into pan. Voila! You are finished! (I was actually a little nervous about this so I baked it for 5 min at 375. Alternatively, stick it in the freezer for 30 min before filling.)

For the filling:

2-1/4 cups Milk

1/2 cup Sugar

2 Eggs

1-1/4 Tbsp Flour

1-1/4 Tbsp Cornstarch

2-3 Tbsp mini-chocolate-chips, chilled in freezer.

Microwave milk 7 min.

Beat together sugar and eggs. Add flour and corntarch, beat until smooth and no lumps remain.

Add mixture to milk and beat until combined.

Microwave 1 min. Beat until smooth. Repeat until semi-thick. For me it took 5 more minutes.

Fill pie shell.

Sprinkle chips evenly across top of pie.

Chill in refrigerator until firm.

Warning: If you taste the milk mixture when filling pie shell, it will taste like warm milk. At this point I did not think it would make a very good pie filling. However, when it is all set it has a nice mild flavor and light custardy texture. I really like it and so did my co-workers.

Note: I am pretty sure this pie would turn out just fine made over the stove. I would suggest simply whisking together all ingredients until smooth and then heat over med heat until it is semi-thick, continuing to whisk constantly. And if anyone tries it this way, post a comment to let me know how it works out!

Not A Foodie Blog and Other Random Thoughts

#1 I would just like to state for the record that this is NOT a foodie blog.

I have nothing against foodie blogs, in fact I spend a lot of my time perusing them, getting recipes, and envying their photography. But I am not a foodie. Foodie to me is someone who may be a bit of a food snob expecting the best ingredients and has high standards for the finished dish. This is not me.

I was recently drawn in by a box of Hamburger Helper. It WAS gross, but I bought, made, and ate it. These are not the actions of a foodie.

#2 I have not been using my own voice.

It's like my sub-conscious decided that since I am writing about pie I have to use some weird family friendly voice or something. I'm going to try to stop. It's not me and this SHOULD reflect me and my personality along with my pie experiments.

And besides, 5 year olds don't make pies anyway.

#3 I just can't keep up.

When I started this I worried about if I would have enough to post. If there would be large gaps during those periods when I do not have lots of time for pie baking.

Now I worry because I am so far behind! Seriously, I may not remember what a pie tastes like by the time I write about it.

And if I take a pie baking break, well, that will just give me a chance to catch up.

#4 I am generally averse to joining any of the on-line recipe sites. Even all-recipes. They are just so big and it doesn't really seem to matter if you comment on a recipe 500 people have already have reviewed.

But this week I joined The Pioneer Woman's Tasty Kitchen. I have already found a great pie recipe there (look for the upcoming Milk Pie post) and it is small enough that I feel like commenting is actually worthwhile. She did not start it that long ago so I may not continue if it blows up into a huge thing, but for now I like it.

So far I have only posted my Concord Grape Pie, but plan to post more pie recipes when I make enough adjustments to consider them my own.

This is also a place for me to put up things other then pies. I am still struggling with how pie and/or dessert exclusive to keep this blog and have not quite decided yet, so for now...sticking to pies.

If your interested in anything else I might be cooking I can be found over at Tasty Kitchen.