The Tuna Melt

Before I even own an electric can opener, I now own both a mini food processor and an electric griddle. These are both birthday presents that decided to arrive about five days late, but I'm ok with that. Slightly ironically, I would have owned two mini food processors, as Mr. Tau didn't check my Amazon wish list to see if I might happen to have a mini food processor on there already. So, in short, he didn't get the one I had my eye one. But never fear, it turned out alright, because we had to go to a wedding last night. Can we say "Re-Gift?" So Mr. Tau instead ordered the other small kitchen appliance I had on my wish list, an electric griddle, and left it to Mother Tau to gift her daughter the correct mini food processor. So I now own two more small kitchen appliances that I did before, giving me a combined total of two.

Why you would ever put a cook top with two burners and a grill in a kitchen is beyond me. Obviously that person has never made a Thanksgiving dinner before.

With one week left before our two week "vacation" to Dublin and Barcelona, we are now in the process of using up all perishable items in our house, never mind the looming move that follows a mere five days after we get back. So, with the goal in mind to use many things from the fridge and use both my mini food processor and electric griddle, I made delicious tuna melts for dinner tonight. I now think that the perfect tuna salad is in and of itself enough of a reason to warrant getting a mini food processor. Not that Mother Tau's slightly obsessive compulsive method of giving the tuna exactly 100 energetic stirs with a fork doesn't work beautifully, but this is slightly less muscle cramp inducing.


The Tuna Melt
makes about 4 sandwiches


2 cans solid albacore tuna, well drained (Kitties love tuna juice!)
1/2 large carrot
1/2 small onion
pickles
4 TBsp real mayonnaise
1 TBsp mustard
sharp cheddar cheese
good and grainy whole wheat sandwich bread
your favorite tomato soup to accompany

This constitutes salad right?

 In your mini food processor, chop your carrot, onion, and pickle to your desired consistency. I like mine fairly small, as then I tend to forget that I'm eating vegetables. Set the chopped veggies aside, and add 3 TBsp of mayonnaise, the mustard, and the tuna into the processor and chop until well combined and no large pieces of tuna remain. Add the tuna to the vegetables and mix well. Add black pepper to taste. I don't usually add salt because of the pickles, but its up to you.

The tuna making process

The perfect tuna salad

Cheese, you know, for the "melt" part.

Mayonnaise on the outside.

Apply a hearty layer of tuna salad onto one side of your bread, and add a slice of sharp cheddar cheese. Now, this may sound strange, but it works, and it works really well. Smear a thin layer of mayonnaise on the outside of the bread. Yes, I know. You really want to just use butter. Mayonnaise, in this case, is so much better. The crunch you can get is unbelievable. Place over a low heat on your griddle, or pan if you don't have an awesome electric   griddle. This is to just heat the sandwich through to get it all warm and melty. Then, once melt-age has been achieved, turn up the heat to giver the sandwich a nice golden, crunchy outside layer. Go mayonnaise.

Grilled perfection. Nummers!

 Paired with a delicious tomato soup for dipping into, these sandwiches are awesome. Enjoy! 

Yes, I put a garnish on my soup.

Chocolate Bottom Pecan Pie

Nummers. The final sweet pie that I prepared for the pie party last weekend. Now, growing up we always had pecan pies for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but they certainly never included chocolate. Which, to tell the truth is really, really just a shame. All those years of awesome pecan pies could have been taken to a whole other level with a little (lot) bit of chocolate.

Yes, that's a "Pi" plate.

As previously mentioned, we're gifted with delicious, fresh pecans in Texas, and so while I know a pecan pie is out of season currently, (which was made obvious when, for once, it didn't win the "Best Sweet Pie" category!!!! I know right? Crazy.), I decided to make it anyways. Stupid berries and their currently being in season. 


I have to tell you a secret. Our traditional,"family" pecan pie recipe is actually just the Karo Syrup recipe. Yes, its right there on the back of the bottle of corn syrup. Its just like Libby's pumpkin pie, right? But, to be honest, its still one of the best recipes I've ever had, so why mess with a good thing? Plus, I've now started to change a few things (chocolate! more nuts!) and the results just keep getting better!


Chocolate Bottom Pecan Pie
adapted from Karo


1 cup Karo Dark Corn Syrup
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-1/2 cups (6 ounces) pecan pieces
1/2 cup whole pecans


4 oz good quality semisweet chocolate


1 9" ultimate pie crust
Preheat oven to 350°F. In a large bowl, combine the corn syrup, eggs, sugar, butter and vanilla until smooth. Next, stir in pecan pices until well coated with the custard mixture. Melt the chocolate in the microwave in 10 second intervals and carefully cover the bottom of your pie crust. Lick the chocolate bowl clean. Pour filling into pie crust, but leave some of the custard mixture in the bowl without and pecan pieces in it. Next, decoratively place your whole pecans in a pretty design on top of the pie. Pour the remaining custard mixture over the strategically placed whole pecans to give them a nice sugar coating as well. 

Bake on center rack of oven for 60 to 70 minutes. The bottle says its done with it reaches 200 degrees. It lies. The only reliable way to tell if it is done is to give the pie a jiggle, and if the center moves like jello, its not done, even if a thermometer reads 200. It should be completely firm when you take it out of the oven. If your pie crust edges are darkening too much, just cover them with foil. Cool as much as humanly possible before eating. This would be excellent covered with a nice Bourbon Whipped Cream. Enjoy!

Pre baking, but pretty!

Shoo Fly Pie

Shoo Fly. Its one of those pies you've always heard about, but never had? Well I decided to try it, and I'm really glad I did. This pie is like a nicely spiced and not too sweet molasses custard with wonderful little sweet crumbs giving it a somewhat cake like texture.

Bzzzzz.

I served this pie at the pie party we recently had, and it did have mixed review though. I think this is one of those pies where you are either going to love it or hate it. I loved it. My fiancee, we'll call him Mr. Tau, loved it. But others didn't like the molasses-ness. The other great thing about his pie is that it is considered a breakfast pie. You can eat it for breakfast. Woot. Which I did, this morning. It went great with a banana. So what if I already ordered my wedding dress and need to not get a single millimeter bigger before then? 


According to Sallie: "The Shoo Fly Pie was created when colonists in the early 18th century found their baking supplies running low late in the winter. The ingredients left in the pantry were usually flour, lard and molasses or refiner’s syrup. Many have presumed that the unusual name of the pie was due to it attracting flies as it cooled near an open window. However, the name “Shoo Fly Pie” did not appear in print until 1926. I agree with John Ayto in his An A-Z of Food and Drink when he states . . . “the fact that it originated as a Pennsylvania Dutch specialty suggests the possibility that shoofly is an alteration of an unidentified German word.” I totally agree with this conclusion because one of those antique recipe pamphlets that Harold Jamieson loaned to me mentioned that the pie had been associated with the name “Schuuflei Boi”."


Oh, and Happy Birthday Dad!


Shoo Fly Pie
Recipe by Sallie


Crumbs:
1 cup flour
½ cup brown sugar
2 TBsp butter
½ tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp ginger
1/8 tsp cloves

Liquid:
1/3 cup dark corn syrup
1/3 cup molasses
2 TBsp honey
¾ cup hot water
1 well beaten egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda

To make the liquid part, mix the syrups, hot water and vanilla. Then mix in honey. Making sure your mixture isn't too hot (you'll cook the egg!), carefully add your egg while stirring. Then add baking soda. The mixture will thicken slightly, but it will be runny.

Mmm, brown liquid.

Melty butter.

Next, make the crumbs by adding all the dry ingredients, and then I melted the butter and poured it in and stirred. Evidently I was supposed to cut it in, but it seemed to work just fine. I stirred until the crumbs were all even and very small in size.

Crumbs!

The bottom layer.

Next, in a nine inch pie crust, layer 1/3 of the crumb mixture on the bottom, followed by 1/2 the liquid mixture, following by 1/3 crumb mixture, followed by the rest of the liquid, followed by the rest of the crumbs. Layers!

Bake at 400° for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 350° and bake for 20-25 more minutes. Remove pie from oven and let cool on rack.

The delicious Shoo Fly Pie

Pecan Pie Truffles

My birthday, 2pi day, 6.28, is tomorrow, and so in that honor we held a pie party last night. Therefore the next several posts will be about the things I prepared for that party.

Mmmm, bite marks.

We all love pecan pie. Especially one make with fresh Texas pecans. Mmm. Pecans, when they're fresh are a light golden color. The dark ones you see in the grocery store, are probably several years old by the time you get them. And they're fine, but the honey colored fresh ones are just that good. But how can you make pecan pie even better? Make it into a delicious, alcohol laden truffle. Yes. Truffle. Yes. Alcohol.

Warning: These Gotcher Alcohol

Speaking of the alcohol, my local liquor store laughed at me when I asked for a mini bottle, which is almost exactly the 1/4 cup needed for this recipe, and then laughed at me again when I pulled out my chico sack, a reusable grocery bag. I was evidently too much a of a yuppie-hippy for the likes of that store. Then, you can't even buy just one. They come in two packs, so now I have an extra mini bottle of Maker's Mark sitting in my pantry begging me to make these truffles again and soon. Evil.

I've adapted these truffles from a wonderful New York Times article about a Vegan Thanksgiving meal. I've had them both ways, the original recipe and my adaptation, and I have to say, I like mine better. Of course.

Pecan Pie Truffles
Adapted from VegNews food columnist Hannah Kaminsk


Truffle Filling:

2 1/2 cups pecans, toasted and finely chopped (fresh pecans preferably)

1 cup graham cracker crumbs
1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1/2 tsp salt
2 TBsps maple syrup (the real stuff)
1/4 cup bourbon
1 tsp vanilla

Truffle Coating:
10 ounces Semisweet Chocolate
2 TBsp Dark Corn Syrup
2 TBsp Vegetable Oil
2 TBsp Water

Start by either using a food processor or a blender to pulverize the graham crackers into a fine powder. Using the same appliance, grind the pecans almost into pecan butter, almost. Mix the pecan butter, graham cracker dust, brown sugar, salt maple syrup, bourbon, and vanilla until completely combined and able to form a nice ball. Using the ever handy cookie dough scoop which I raved about earlier, form very nice truffle sized bits and place on wax paper.

Throw these in the freezer to allow them to harden up for the chocolate dipping process. To make the chocolate coating, over a low flame, double boiler, or microwave, melt the chocolate, corn syrup, oil, and water and mix until completely combined. This acts to thin the chocolate so you don't get a giant thick layer on your truffle. Although I'm not sure that would necessarily be a bad thing...

Carefully, coat each truffle center with chocolate and tap off the excess. I usually do this with two forks. The flat side of the truffle center is down on the fork, and then I just tap the fork on the side of the pan and the extra chocolate falls nicely back into the pan. Using the second fork, I slide the truffle off the first fork and back onto the wax paper.

Dip, dip, dip, all day long...

Place back in the fridge or freezer to set. Enjoy!

Male Hand Model Looking for Work

Om nom nom.

Pie Crust

Step away from the freezer isle. Do not get a frozen pie crust. Just don't. They're full of preservatives, the don't taste very good, and they're full of icky things like vegetable shortening just waiting to make your lipid bilayers inflexible. Plus, a from scratch pie crust is just so good. And so easy. Yes, I said easy.

This post will be your guide on how to make the most tender, flaky pie crust that will make everyone just die during that first bite of pie. And I do it without a food processor, so anyone can make their own pie crusts, no excuses.

To make a good pie crust, you have to be the pie crust, and really understand what's happening to you as you're being made. First of all, for a tender crust that doesn't shrink you want to avoid one thing: gluten. Yes, that wonderful protein that makes pizza crust just so good and chewy, will destroy your pie crust. This is why we add the vinegar into the mix, to help prevent the formation of gluten.The second thing is that you want little pieces of butter (fat) to be evenly distributed through your pie crust to allow for maximum flakiness. Finally, the dough needs to rest. In the refrigerator to be specific. The cold does two things: 1) relaxes any gluten that has formed (Darn Gluten!), and 2) hardens those wonderful little fat chunks so you need less flour (gluten!) when you're rolling out the crust.

In this recipe, we add fat in two steps. The first step is to effectively "water proof" the flour from absorbing too much liquid and then forming gluten. The second step is to evenly distribute our little fat bombs throughout the crust. Mmm.

The final thing to note about this recipe is that it keeps everything cold, all the time, a lot. So freeze your butter the night before, put your bowl in the freezer for a bit before you start. Turn up your air conditioning if you live less than 40 degrees of latitude from the equator, like I do, and its hot. :( It also helps to have things like marble rolling pins (thanks Grandma!) and stone counter tops, but I don't really think you have to have these things.

The Ultimate Pie Crust
adapted from my Grandmother and Rose Levy

Makes enough for a double crusted 9" pie.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups All Purpose Flour
3/4 cup Cake Flour
2 TBsp Sugar
4 1/2 oz full fat Cream Cheese
12 TBsp Butter
3 TBsp Heavy Cream
1 TBsp Apple Cider Vinegar
1/4 tsp Baking Powder

Fine Crumbs

Add your flours, sugar, and baking powder into your frozen bowl, and place back in the freezer to chill. Once cold, add the cold cream cheese, and using a pastry cutter, cut in the cream cheese until the mixture is the texture of fine crumbs.

Big Butter

Next, add your frozen butter and cut it in just until everything is smaller than a pea. You will be very strong at the end of this process. Yay muscles. 

Pea Size Crumbs

Combined

Next add your cream and vinegar, stir to combine, and then use your hands to incorporate the dough until it just comes together. You must do this quickly, as your hands are warm. Do not kneed any longer than is absolutely necessary. The dough should still be cool at the end of this process.

Plastic Dough

Divide the dough in half, and wrap each half in plastic wrap, shape into a disc and refrigerate for at least and hour.











Using a light floured surface and rolling pin, roll each disc into a 11 inch diameter circle about 1/8th of an inch thick. Fold the circle in half, and half again to allow for easy transfer into your pie dish.

Unfold the dough and trim off the excess with a knife. Make a pretty design on the edges. I'm demonstrating a simple finger crimp here, but the opportunities are endless. Combine with your favorite pie recipe.

Maybe little pinch?

 

Another design made with two fingers of spacing.

But wait, there's more. What do you do with the extra dough that was trimmed off the edges? Why you make dough babies, of course. Simply recombine your dough scraps and roll them into a long shape. Add melted butter, sugar, and cinnamon in whatever amounts make you happy. Roll of the dough, and cut to form little dough baby nuggets

 

Before Oven

Oops.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 mins or until golden. Enjoy! We obviously enjoyed a little too much because by the time I remembered to actually take a picture, there were only two left. They're that good.

Chocolate Dipped Chocolate and Toffee Chip Shortbread Cookies

For my first actual recipe, I thought I would start with an amazingly easy, show-stopper of a cookie. Every time I make these cookies, you'd think I'd just given everyone twenty bucks. They're so easy because they're shortbread: butter (lots), flour, sugar, flavor. Done. They're so show-stopper-y because, well, look at them. These cookies are so good, but then BAM! you dip them in chocolate and it takes them to a whole other level of buttery deliciousness. Let me emphasize, they do get even better after dipping. If any of them make it to the dipping process in the first place.

Chocolate Dipped Chocolate and Toffee Chip Shortbread Cookies

I recently made these for my grandfather's surprise 80th birthday party. My grandmother decided they were so good that we couldn't take them to the party. She wanted to save them all for ourselves. We're evidently not all that sharing of a family when it comes to our baked goods. So instead, they were saved and eaten in the adorable Brown's Point Lighthouse Keeper's Cottage, a living museum and hotel, that at which we had the honor of staying.

Without further ado, the Chocolate Dipped Chocolate and Toffee Chip Shortbread Cookies:

Chocolate Dipped Chocolate and Toffee Chip Shortbread Cookies
Recipe adapted from thekitchn

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Ingredients:
1 cup salted butter slightly softened
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 generous tsp good quality vanilla
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups mini chocolate chips
1/2 cup Health toffee chips
1 Tbsp vegetable oil

First, start by creaming the butter until light and fluffy with a sthand mixer.

Before creaming

After creaming

 Add 1/2 cup powdered sugar until combined.

Powdered sugar is added, go slow with the mixer so the sugar doesn't go everywhere.

Add a generous tsp of good quality vanilla extract and 2 cups of flour. Mix just until combined. Do not over beat the dough, we do not want any gluten forming and making our cookies chewy. Crisp shortbread is always better.

The final dough product

Now comes the fun part. By hand, mix in 1 cup of mini chocolate chips and 1/2 cup Heath chips. Your dough will be very nice and spotted when you're done, and all the chips will be combined into the dough.

Shameless product placement

Now that's shortbread.

Here is where I tell you my favorite two kitchen products. I feel these products even outweigh the mighty kitchen aid stand mixer in terms of their usefulness (Gasp, she didn't!) The first is parchment paper. Please, just go get some, it makes everything better! Second, a cookie dough scoop. They're like ice cream  scoops, but tiny, and they make perfectly evenly sized cookies. They even come in different sizes for when you want big or small cookies. Today, I used the smaller (2 tsp) size for the shortbread cookies. These are also good for things like scooping cupcake batter into the cupcake tins, melon balling, and making ice cream sundaes for your cats.

Me love cookie... scoops.

One of the really nice things about these cookies, is that they don't spread. Which means you can really pack them on your cookie sheet and bake forty plus cookies in about thirty minutes. Scoop the dough on to a parchment paper covered cookie sheet. Using a flat bottomed glass, press the cookies into a flat shape. I dip mine in sugar to prevent the cookies from sticking to the bottom of the glass, and giving the cookies a nice sugar crunch in the process.

Before Squishing

After Squishing

Bake the cookies for 13 minutes in a 350 degree oven, or until they've just started turning golden on the edges. Remove from oven and let stand until completely cool. Now combine the other cup of chocolate chips and the 1 Tbsp of vegetable oil in a small sauce pan and melt the chocolate over a low flame. You can also microwave (in 10 second increments) or double boil if you'd like. Dip half of each cookie into the chocolate and place on a sheet of wax paper. Repeat. I usually throw mine in the freezer to speed up the setting process, but if you have the patience, you can also just wait. Once hardened, remove from wax paper and enjoy. These keep frozen for quite some time, or a few days in an air tight container. Try to eat just one.

Cooooookies.