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Oct. 28th, 2005 10:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickI've made two pies this evening.
The first pie was apple, which is a pain in the ass because I had to peel and slice the apples. That *used* to be the easy part, I'll have you know, and I sweated blood over the fucking crust. However, since when it comes to pie crust now I am the master, the crust has become the easy part and the apple part still requires as much work as it ever did. Buggerit. (We are not entertaining commentary from the peanut gallery on the general desireability of the apple peeler-corer-slicer widget. I don't like the way it slices. The pieces are not *right*. Yes, I WOULD rather bitch about having to do *correct* slices manually than shut up and get easy (but wrong) mechanical slices. There is no *correct*-slices-without-bitching option, but on the plus side, there is also apple pie. Very good apple pie. Deal.) The pie apples, which have been sitting in the crisper compartment of my fridge for a week, are quite apple-y this year. Some years they are better than others. This year they are quite acceptable. I'm not sure how we got decent apples from a summer where it didn't ever rain, but whatever.
I don't know how the travesty that is the Red Delicious got foisted upon the Merkin apple-buying public, but man, whoever did that was one fuck of a marketer. They're blandly sweet, Red Delicious apples are. Yes, sweet. Yes, kind of crunchy. Yes, taste vaguely of apple, but... they ain't all that. They go mealy in the fridge. They get soft. They don't bake for shit. I don't really like very many apples, though I will eat them. I tolerate a wider range for apple quality than I do for peaches. Where peaches have to be ripe, I will eat craptacular apples. I just don't LIKE them very much. The problem, I think, with apples is that I have selected the one true apple and I can't be having with others that are not the right kind. I really rather the Stayman Winesap. It's a fine apple. It tastes like fall. It's crisp. You actually have to chew it. It eats fresh like scuffing your feet through the leaves. It bakes well, makes the best apple pies I've ever tasted. More people should eat this apple.
While waiting for the apple pie to get done, I was on the internet reading other people's apple pie recipes. (This was not because I needed an apple pie recipe. I have one. It was because I like to see how other people are fucking up their pies because that makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.) I was amazed at how many pie recipes included lemon juice and/or peel. WTF? This is not a lemon meringue pie. This is an apple pie. If you need to add lemon to make the apples taste right, then you are not using the proper apples. Also, nutmeg covers up the apple flavor and so does brown sugar. A proper apple pie contans two crusts (made of flour, crisco, salt, and ice water) and a filling made of apples, white sugar, cinnamon, flour, and butter. (The nice people who bring us Crisco make a no-transfats Crisco which I don't like as well as the original. It's close, but not the same. I could get used to it if I had to, but as I can still buy regular Crisco, I am not in any hurry to adapt to the no-transfat kind. It may, indeed, kill me to eat pies made with regular Crisco. I'm willing to take that risk.)
The second of the pies was squash custard. Squash custard pie is pretty easy because it uses pre-processed squash. You'd think I'd see pre-processed squash as cheating, but it's not, really, because I did the pre-processing. It's not okay if Libby's does it, but it's okay if I do it. In the fall, I buy a pie squash and render it into pie-ready premeasured amounts and phreeze it in der phreezer until it is time for pie. There's a bit of thawing, but really, squash custard is a lot easier than apple. Also, squash custard pie only requires one crust. It's like half the work of apple. And I lurv it. In fact, if nobody else at this function eats any of the squash custard pie (except for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
not_your_real, who asked for it on purpose and, therefore, is going to have to eat some of it), I will be only minorly hurt, a hurt I feel certain I can ease with better than three quarters of a squash pie at my disposal. I decided to experiment with the squash pie recipe this time -- I dropped the milk half a cup and added another egg.
Original recipe:
1 cup pureed squash
half cup sugar
cup and a half milk
2 eggs seperated
3 Tbsp each cornstarch and flour
1/4 teasp. cinnamon
1/8 teasp. nutmeg
Modification:
1 cup pureed squash
half cup sugar
cup of milk
2 eggs seperated
1 egg plain
3 Tbsp each cornstarch and flour
1/4 teasp. cinnamon
1/8 teasp. nutmeg
One egg (large) is about a quarter of a cup of more-or-less liquid. The original recipe makes too much slop (it's very, very liquid, runnier than pancake batter) for one pie shell by about a quarter of a cup. It's also occasionally fussy to set despite careful attention to cooking times and such. Adding an additional egg to custards generally improves their sturdiness and set without modifying the taste too damn much. We shall see how things turn out with this. I'll take notes. (I've done this without a problem for the pie-without-crust casserole thing -- three eggs makes a better set for that, so it's not like I'm winging it entirely here.)
Anyway. The pies are done. I have, after a substantial amount of searching, located the Martian Cock-Poison Porn that I misplaced earlier this week. I've packed up jelly for all that want jelly plus one for my mom and one for my cousin Sandra on spec. I've loaded the box for Sandra (from her mother), the MCPP, and the grape jellies in the truck. I have washed the pie carrier so that it is ready to load. I need to pack clothes for me and eyes for the opera (so that I can read the surtitles). I also need to remember to start the dryer tomorrow morning when I leave. (It vents in the house. Humidity is not good for pie crust.) I also need to burn myself some CDs so that I have something other than polka to listen to across the radio wasteland that is central Pennsylvania. (The function is in Philly, about three hours east of me along the PA Turnpike. It is probably the most mind-numbing drive I've ever met.)
Anyway, the pie portion of the evening is complete. I feel productive.
The first pie was apple, which is a pain in the ass because I had to peel and slice the apples. That *used* to be the easy part, I'll have you know, and I sweated blood over the fucking crust. However, since when it comes to pie crust now I am the master, the crust has become the easy part and the apple part still requires as much work as it ever did. Buggerit. (We are not entertaining commentary from the peanut gallery on the general desireability of the apple peeler-corer-slicer widget. I don't like the way it slices. The pieces are not *right*. Yes, I WOULD rather bitch about having to do *correct* slices manually than shut up and get easy (but wrong) mechanical slices. There is no *correct*-slices-without-bitching option, but on the plus side, there is also apple pie. Very good apple pie. Deal.) The pie apples, which have been sitting in the crisper compartment of my fridge for a week, are quite apple-y this year. Some years they are better than others. This year they are quite acceptable. I'm not sure how we got decent apples from a summer where it didn't ever rain, but whatever.
I don't know how the travesty that is the Red Delicious got foisted upon the Merkin apple-buying public, but man, whoever did that was one fuck of a marketer. They're blandly sweet, Red Delicious apples are. Yes, sweet. Yes, kind of crunchy. Yes, taste vaguely of apple, but... they ain't all that. They go mealy in the fridge. They get soft. They don't bake for shit. I don't really like very many apples, though I will eat them. I tolerate a wider range for apple quality than I do for peaches. Where peaches have to be ripe, I will eat craptacular apples. I just don't LIKE them very much. The problem, I think, with apples is that I have selected the one true apple and I can't be having with others that are not the right kind. I really rather the Stayman Winesap. It's a fine apple. It tastes like fall. It's crisp. You actually have to chew it. It eats fresh like scuffing your feet through the leaves. It bakes well, makes the best apple pies I've ever tasted. More people should eat this apple.
While waiting for the apple pie to get done, I was on the internet reading other people's apple pie recipes. (This was not because I needed an apple pie recipe. I have one. It was because I like to see how other people are fucking up their pies because that makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.) I was amazed at how many pie recipes included lemon juice and/or peel. WTF? This is not a lemon meringue pie. This is an apple pie. If you need to add lemon to make the apples taste right, then you are not using the proper apples. Also, nutmeg covers up the apple flavor and so does brown sugar. A proper apple pie contans two crusts (made of flour, crisco, salt, and ice water) and a filling made of apples, white sugar, cinnamon, flour, and butter. (The nice people who bring us Crisco make a no-transfats Crisco which I don't like as well as the original. It's close, but not the same. I could get used to it if I had to, but as I can still buy regular Crisco, I am not in any hurry to adapt to the no-transfat kind. It may, indeed, kill me to eat pies made with regular Crisco. I'm willing to take that risk.)
The second of the pies was squash custard. Squash custard pie is pretty easy because it uses pre-processed squash. You'd think I'd see pre-processed squash as cheating, but it's not, really, because I did the pre-processing. It's not okay if Libby's does it, but it's okay if I do it. In the fall, I buy a pie squash and render it into pie-ready premeasured amounts and phreeze it in der phreezer until it is time for pie. There's a bit of thawing, but really, squash custard is a lot easier than apple. Also, squash custard pie only requires one crust. It's like half the work of apple. And I lurv it. In fact, if nobody else at this function eats any of the squash custard pie (except for
not_your_real, who asked for it on purpose and, therefore, is going to have to eat some of it), I will be only minorly hurt, a hurt I feel certain I can ease with better than three quarters of a squash pie at my disposal. I decided to experiment with the squash pie recipe this time -- I dropped the milk half a cup and added another egg.Original recipe:
1 cup pureed squash
half cup sugar
cup and a half milk
2 eggs seperated
3 Tbsp each cornstarch and flour
1/4 teasp. cinnamon
1/8 teasp. nutmeg
Modification:
1 cup pureed squash
half cup sugar
cup of milk
2 eggs seperated
1 egg plain
3 Tbsp each cornstarch and flour
1/4 teasp. cinnamon
1/8 teasp. nutmeg
One egg (large) is about a quarter of a cup of more-or-less liquid. The original recipe makes too much slop (it's very, very liquid, runnier than pancake batter) for one pie shell by about a quarter of a cup. It's also occasionally fussy to set despite careful attention to cooking times and such. Adding an additional egg to custards generally improves their sturdiness and set without modifying the taste too damn much. We shall see how things turn out with this. I'll take notes. (I've done this without a problem for the pie-without-crust casserole thing -- three eggs makes a better set for that, so it's not like I'm winging it entirely here.)
Anyway. The pies are done. I have, after a substantial amount of searching, located the Martian Cock-Poison Porn that I misplaced earlier this week. I've packed up jelly for all that want jelly plus one for my mom and one for my cousin Sandra on spec. I've loaded the box for Sandra (from her mother), the MCPP, and the grape jellies in the truck. I have washed the pie carrier so that it is ready to load. I need to pack clothes for me and eyes for the opera (so that I can read the surtitles). I also need to remember to start the dryer tomorrow morning when I leave. (It vents in the house. Humidity is not good for pie crust.) I also need to burn myself some CDs so that I have something other than polka to listen to across the radio wasteland that is central Pennsylvania. (The function is in Philly, about three hours east of me along the PA Turnpike. It is probably the most mind-numbing drive I've ever met.)
Anyway, the pie portion of the evening is complete. I feel productive.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-10-29 02:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-29 03:29 am (UTC)Drive from Philadelphia to Dayton. It's like driving through a post-nuclear wasteland, but with more traffic and constant religious radio.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-30 08:34 pm (UTC)