[127] Damsel’s Heirloom Sour Cream Apple Pie

I’m just saying, blame Toni.

So, how did the PIE turn out? And how did I make it?

It turned out delicious! I won’t deny, I was pretty dubious about an apple pie with sour cream in it, but when I poked Toni for advice on apple pies, she mentioned her go-to recipe has cream in it and that baked in dairy often gives an “a la mode” flavor without the melty ice cream.

Well. I wouldn’t NORMALLY be in favor of skipping ice cream, but I knew the judges weren’t going to go for me demanding they not try my pie without ice cream. So why not?

I made the pie by doubling and tweaking the crust for Alton Brown’s pecan pie, and then using it for this particular sour cream pie in The Pie Town Cookbook straight.… Continue reading →

PIE.

Earlier this week, I got an email from Matt over at River North Beer asking if I bake as well as cook. Ha! Of COURSE I do both. 19 April 2014 Note: River North Beer is now Lakeshore Beverage Company.

Turns out that one of RNB’s clients, Virtue Cider was hosting an apple pie bake-off in conjunction with Sheffield’s. Oh, and there’s cider too. Yeah.

Well. I have just the thing. I mean, I’m crap at pies, but I like baking them. I also like having random blog fodder. You know I’m posting this to tell you I’ll be posting more about it.

So. My plan of attack. I’m going to get a pie recipe from that cookbook and try it out. I’m going to use a tweaked pie crust recipe from Alton Brown.… Continue reading →

Thanksgiving Menu & Cooking

Back before Thanksgiving, I was going to post my planned menu. I was going to ask for tips, tricks, and suggestions. I had a blogging plan.

Of course, I also had a turkey plan, and you guys see how well that went. I also had this plan that I’d do a bunch of cooking Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. That went about as well as you might expect.

The not cooking very early? That was totally my fault. Monday and Tuesday rolled around, and I realized my menu was small enough that I wasn’t sure it was worth any possible degradation in quality to cook so early. Though, to try to make sure it set, I think I made the cranberry sauce Tuesday. I may have made it Wednesday morning.… Continue reading →

Pie Town Cookbook from Pie Town, New Mexico

Yep, today’s about the Pie Town Cookbook. I got this the one and only time I went to Pie Town, to experience the Pie Festival1.

See, Bill and I attended undergrad in a town in New Mexico that’s about an hour and a half from Pie Town. Bill, being the younger man that he is, was in school a couple of years later than I was. Then he decided to go for his M.Sc. at the same school. Eventually, he realized how much better “the real world” pays than grad school pays, but in the time between my graduating and his leaving graduate school, he heard about the Pie Town Pie Festival and went with his friends once or twice.

I was visiting one year after he’d left graduate school, and ended up going with a group of folks, including him, to the festival.… Continue reading →

[36] Peach Crumb Pie (pg 170)

I love peaches.

I love them straight, I love them in jam, I love them in pies, I love them in crumble, I love them in cobbler, I love them in main course meals.

I don’t think I could love peaches more if I had the Platonic Ideal of “peach” in my hand right now. But I’d try.

Also, my Grandmother L. loves peaches (in fact, we had a peach canning session days before this pie occurred). My mother’s favorite pie is peach pie.

Hence, making a peach pie was a no-brainer. (Actually, I was going to make two peach pies, but the peaches I had didn’t ripen fast enough, and then we ran out of pie crust dough, and we said, “Four pies is enough!”)… Continue reading →