Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Still Damn Near 40 or: How I Learned to Hide Both Bacon and Booze Inside a Lovely Pecan Pie



Yesterday I decided to pickle up some eggs.  I turned to my old blog to find the recipe and was shocked that it has been almost a year since I wrote here last.  Lord knows I've had a lot to say over the last year, but I guess most of it has been better kept to myself, haha!  Reading through some of these old posts made me remember  how much I enjoyed it.   I should have known food would be the reason for the return, although food was not the intended subject when I first started this thing and I don't want it to be the only subject of my ramblings.  But I just can't help myself,  food is so much fun.  Fun to cook, fun to photograph, fun to write about, and most of all, fun to share.  There is not much in this world that makes my heart happier than knowing  that something I cooked conjured smiles on the faces of those that I love. 


Every winter I get the urge to cook and cook and cook.  During the summer I love to grill, but I don't get to do nearly enough of it.  Grilling for me is an event to be shared, usually with a crowd, something that must be planned and thought out and coordinated.  Cooking and baking in the kitchen is a little different.  I can cook and bake at work for a captive audience, or I can cook and bake at home and deliver it to someone who hopefully eats and enjoys it as opposed to chunking it in the garbage.  

I always love to try new, different, completely unhealthy things, like stuffed jalapenos deep fried in egg roll wrappers, or mac n cheese topped with a woven bacon crust.  But in all my Damn Near 40 years, one thing I had never attempted to produce is a pi. Until now.  I have assisted (watched) my Sweet Mama in making pies in the past, but I don't think I ever was allowed to put my actual hands on the actual ingredients.  Pie-making has been a daunting, scary task to me, and now I know why.  

Buttermilk pie with ugly crust
I am horrible at pie crust.  I have tried every different way I can find to make a crust that is both beautiful, flaky, and most importantly delicious.  So far they have indeed been delicious.  And hideously ugly.  They have shrunken up into the pie plate.  They have dripped over the edges and formed burned curtains of crust-like matter.  I have tried butter-only , shortening-only, butter and shortening, butter and lard.  Each has tasted delicious and looked horrible.  Everyone tells me "just go buy a crust at the grocery store" but I can't give up yet.  I MUST MASTER THE CRUST. Probably I'll eventually get over how it looks and just be glad that someone will eat it.  I am not a big pie eater myself and have only actually tasted one of the few I've made so far, and I gotta say, it was a delicious buttermilk pie and I was very happy with it.  Except for how ugly the crust was.




Calf slobbers!
A couple nights ago I decided to try my hand at a coconut crème pie with calf slobbers.  I have never had a coconut crème pie, but I tasted the filling and it  made me want a pina colada.  The funnest part was making  the calf slobbers themselves.  I don't eat meringue, have never liked it at all.  I pick it off the top of my Mama's chocolate pies and give it to someone else.  But it was so fun to make, and so beautiful on top of that pie, I may top everything with calf slobbers from now on. I delivered that one to my friends the Rushings, and Venna said it was good til I called them calf-slobbers. Somehow the image of a slobbering calf drooling all over her pie just didn't do it for her.  Hahaha!  I guess meringue does sound a bit more appetizing, but calf-slobbers is what they'll always be to me.



Last night,  I decided to try a pecan pie.  This was not just any pie, this was a MAN'S pecan pie.   


I have to preface this story by mentioning that I love bacon.  And I guess a lot of people know it because I get text messages and emails about bacon pretty much every day.  I had received a couple of text messages that demonstrated how beautifully bacon can be woven into a lattice-work that resembles the top of a pie crust, and it sparked the idea for a mac n cheese pie with a woven-bacon top.  But that's a story for another time.  

The point is, while I was googling for instructions on the art of bacon pie weaving, I came across a recipe that knocked my socks off.  MAPLE BACON BOURBON PECAN PIE.  Holy Pete!  Pie with bacon AND booze! You can find the recipe HERE. 
Boozy, bacony pecan filling ready for the shell
I knew that one day I would have to make this, but as I read about it to the fellas at work, they seemed a bit skeptical about bacon being mixed in with their pecan pie.  The truth is most of these crazy concoctions I like to try are met with apprehension until the initial tasting is over,  so I decided not to share the true nature of the pecan pie with my guinea pigs (the Rossers) until they had tasted and loved it first.   



 Then I revealed the delicious secret.   
6 pieces of bacon, cleverly disguised
Right there smack dab in the middle of all that Pe-Can gooey goodness are six pieces of center-cut bacon.  All chopped up small enough to be in full disguise.  And another little tidbit:  there is no butter involved, because the pecans and maple syrup were cooked in the bacon grease instead.  How could you go wrong!  Well, in my case you could go wrong with the pie crust, but at least the innards were tasty.  Maple Bacon Bourbon Pecan Pie.  You must try it for yourself.  And so must I.  



Pecans and maple syrup bubbling in bacon grease




Thursday, January 12, 2012

Wine Tasting Adventure: Root: 1 Carmenere


Root: 1 Carmenere ($9.77, Wal-Mart)
"Carme-huh?  Never heard of it!"  That's what I thought when I spotted this dark red in the local Wal-Mart's recently (and impressively) upgraded wine section.  My good friend and fellow wine lover, Keziah, had tried Root: 1 Cabernet Sauvignon and liked it; I was searching for some to try for myself when I accidentally stumbled across this.  It turned out to be a happy accident, not unlike the re-discovery of the grapes that it's made from.
Root: 1 Carmenere is a Chilean wine.  The grapes it is made from originated in Europe, and in the 1800's  they were exported to South America.  The European climate was all wrong for these grapes, and they eventually died out there.  They were thought to be extinct, but it turns out that for over a century, these grapes were growing happily in Chile and being mistaken for Merlot grapes due to their many similarities.  They were being mixed in right along with the Merlot grapes, and they are the reason that Chilean Merlot had a notably unique flavor.  In 1994  some smart fellow in a lab coat did some testing and discovered that these grapes were indeed the Carmenere variety, and since Chile has the perfect climate for growing them, Carmenere has become Chile's signature wine.







If you enjoy Merlot, you will undoubtedly like this one.  It is probably one of the deepest, purplest wines I've ever tried.  Dry, dark, smooth, slightly spicy and peppery. Delicious!  Probably not going to be a favorite for those who don't often venture beyond the White Zin, but any red-wine lover should give this one a try, as well as anyone who is looking to venture into the red-wine zone.  This would be great paired with smoky grilled meats and anything with a little spice.


Sunday, January 8, 2012

Come with me on a Wine Tasting Adventure!


Do you ever have the hankering for a delicious glass of wine, only to become befuddled by the endless choices at the market and apprehensive as to which bottle to spend your hard-earned money on?  I too have faced vast volumes of vino with fear in my heart.  Why is this one twice the price of that one?  What is a Sirah and why is it so petite? And why is a Petite Sirah not a Syrah, but a Syrah is a Shiraz? If malbec and merlot are so good on their own, why blend the two in a Meritage?  What the heck does Meritage mean, anyways?  It's all enough to drive a girl to drinking!

Well, friends, fear no more.  I am going to step up and take one (or several) for the team.  I am making it my mission to step outside my Clos Du Bois comfort zone (their reds are really delicious!) and branch out into the unknown.  I am going on a wine-tasting adventure this year and I am taking you along with me.  The clerks at World Market will know me by name. No wine is safe!  I will buy them ‘cause they’re pretty (c’mon, admit it, you know you judge a wine by it’s cute little label!) and do the sampling for you. Oh, and I may even take into consideration the alcohol content like my Sweet Mama taught me.  I don't plan to become a wine expert, but I will share whatever wisdom I find, and if you stop by the house, I'll share the wine.  Cheers!

Let's begin this journey with a Cabernet Sauvignon Rosé by Mulderbosch Vineyards,  South Africa.  I saw this in World Market and was drawn to its label. Yes, I am a sucker for packaging. Aesthetics aside, I liked that it was totally different from what I would normally buy.  Definitely out of my comfort zone. The little info card displayed with the wine announced that it was a new "customer favorite" that should be served well chilled.  This is the first rosé I've ever purchased and in the back of my mind I had visions of cheap White Zin. But the fact that it also had the words "cabernet sauvignon" on the label gave me some comfort, so I stashed it in the fridge and waited for it to cool off.  Let me just say that I was pleasantly surprised when I finally opened up the screw-top lid. 

This is not a super sweet wine, which makes me very happy.  The label pairs it with crab, chicken, turkey and pork, among others, and because its flavor is not overwhelmingly strong, I think it would be hard to find a food pairing that it wouldn't mesh with.  It is very crisp, refreshingly fruity, and just the right level of dry.  I am not used to drinking cold wines, and this was a very nice change.  I can see this being really great for a picnic lunch at the lake or a summer evening in the backyard tiki bar.  It is what I would consider "easy to drink", so those who are fairly new to wine or who are not fans of darker reds might enjoy this. I will definitely buy it again, and I think it would make a good gift wine for just about anyone from the experienced wino to the White Zinfandel swilling beginner.  Priced at $11.99, it won't break the bank.  If you decide to give it a try, let me know what you think! Oh, and Mama, it's a 12.5-percenter. Pretty good stuff, huh?