Easy Homemade Pie Crust – Now with 50% Less D’oh!

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Dec 222011
 

I’ve made a few pie video recipes on this blog over the years, but every single time I’ve used either a frozen shell, or ready to use sheets of dough. Some of you may have been thinking that I didn’t know to make it from scratch, or was afraid to show you my secret recipe.

Well, neither is true. I make a damn nice piecrust, but I just choose not to. And, there are really no secret pie dough recipes. The formula is pretty standard; flour, fat, and water combined with the same technique by virtually every chef. You will see a splash of vinegar added to the ice water, which is suppose to reduce gluten formation and help keep the crust tender and flaky – but that’s about as much of a secret as you’re going to get.

This version is an all butter recipe (my personal favorite), and is made using a food processor, which makes the always critical “cutting” the butter into the flour step very simple. By the way, you can make a double batch of this, and freeze the individually wrapped dough for future pie-related adventures. If you’d like the apple pie filling recipe, you can find that here.

Below the recipe, I’ve included my mother Pauline’s Key Lime Pie video, where she demonstrates how to properly “crimp” the dough edges to get that classic scalloped crust effect. I could have showed you in my video, but she has much nicer nails. Enjoy!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_3lBUMCRiA]

Ingredients: (makes enough dough for one 9 or 10 inch double crust pie)
12 ounces flour (about 2 1/2 cups)
2 sticks (1 cup) ice cold butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1/2 teaspoon salt
7 tablespoon ice water
1 tablespoon cider vinegar

Learn How to Crimp Pie Crust from My Mom!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4Rz7tUkX9A]

Roasted Pork Tenderloin with Balsamic Glazed Peaches – A Perfect Pairing in 2 Parts

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Dec 222011
 

Ahh, the perfectly ripe peach. My momentary guilt for not just eating it raw was quickly forgotten as soon as I tasted this amazing sweet and savory summer combo. By the way, this was filmed last summer before I even thought about wearing a Chef coat while shooting (thanks mom). So, that’s me in the lime green Polo shirt cooking this truly delicious recipe. This was one of the first recipes I ever filmed for the web (insert standard lower video quality disclaimer here), and it’s still one of my favorites. This was actually posted here back in May, when I converted a bunch of older clips over to this blog, but since peaches weren’t in season yet, I doubt too many people payed much attention.

Everything on this plate works so well together, and it’s also a very easy recipe with just a few ingredients. While I used a fresh, ripe peach, jarred or canned halves will work in a pinch. This juicy fruit is first caramelized with aged balsamic vinegar and then used in a salad sitting next to sliced, roasted pork tenderloin. As you’ll hear in the recipe I refer to another meat trimming demo (how to trim a butcher steak), as I remove the “silver-skin” from the tenderloins. Don’t bother looking around the site for that, as it no longer exists, although I plan re-shooting that one soon. I also prepare a very simple pan sauce to finish this amazing dish. This recipe demo is broken into 2 parts because of its length. In Part 1, we make our glazed balsamic peaches, and prep our pork tenderloin. We also “bruise” some rosemary …hey, that fragrant rosemary had it coming! In Part 2, we finish the pork, make our pan sauce, and “plate up” with our glazed peaches and salad. If you’ve only used peaches for summertime desserts, give this a try. You will think about our fuzzy friends in a whole new way. Enjoy!

Part 1:

Part 2:

Ingredients:
whole pork tenderloin (not loin)
3-4 rosemary sprigs
Black pepper and salt to taste
2 fresh peaches
2 tbl butter
2 tbl aged balsamic vinegar
1 clove garlic
olive oil
mixed greens
slice of toast to garnish

Note: If you are using fresh peaches make sure you get the “freestone” variety, not the “clingstone.” For more info on the difference, click this link to wikipedia.

Empal Suwir (Fried Shredded Beef)

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Dec 222011
 

Ingredients:

1 kg Gerello/Top side

3 tsp Salt

3 tsp Pepper

3 tsp Coriander powder

3 cloves Garlic

2 tbsp Oil

1 tsp Turmeric powder or 3 cm Turmeric

Water

Garnish:
2 tbsp fried onions

Directions:

  1. Flatten the garlic and crush the turmeric if you use stick turmeric.

  2. Heat in a pan the water an cook the meat slowly together with the salt, the pepper, the coriander, the garlic and the turmeric until done.

  3. Shred the meat using a fork.

  4. Heat in a wok the oil and fry the meat dry and crispy.

  5. Sprinkle the friend onions on top.

Find out more Amazing Indonesian Recipes and Stories behind them:

The Indonesian Kitchen : Recipes & Stories…

Image source:
http://makansiang.blogspot.com/2008/02/daging-suwir.html

Recipe is adapted from:
http://asiancook.eu/indonesian/daging/540-empal-suwir-fried-shredded-beef
http://users.tpg.com.au/stanolin/recipes/empalsuwir.html

Life Before IHOP – Hi, My Name’s Johnny, and These Are My Cakes

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Dec 212011
 

You’ve just been transported back to colonial America. You’ve been up since dawn, doing colonial stuff, and you’re hungry for breakfast. You open the cupboard to grab a couple of Pop-Tarts to toss in the fireplace. There are no Pop-Tarts. You decide to settle for some pancakes, and reach for the Bisquick. There’s no Bisquick. Okay, you decide to make your own pancakes from scratch. You check for the flour and baking powder. Again, you are denied. The only thing you have is ground corn and water. What do ye do…what do ye do?

Make Johnnycakes! This video recipe, I did recently for About.com, shows how to make America’s first pancake, the Johnnycake. Nowadays, the Johnnycake is nothing more than a regular pancake batter with a little cornmeal sprinkled in, but that’s not what it used to be. I decided to stay true to the earliest johnnycake recipes I could find, which were just fried cornmeal gruel. The Indians showed the early settlers how to make a basic cornmeal mush, which pretty much kept them alive in the early days, before Pop-Tarts. Well, if you have leftover cornmeal mush around, and some bacon fat, and a frying pan, you can turn that cornmeal into the surprisingly delicious Johnnycakes. Check out this video recipe, and experience what breakfast was like 300 years ago. Enjoy. Click here for the transcript and ingredients.

Aunt Mary Bea’s Cheese Bread

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Dec 212011
 

I love baking bread and I love bread with spaghetti or any italian dish. This cheese bread is very easy and I found the recipe on Rouxbe.com. This bread is made with compound butter and swiss cheese. What a yummy combination. For the full recipe click herehttp://rouxbe.com/embedded_player.swf

Rouxbe Online Cooking School & Video Recipes

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Coq au Vin – You’re Not Getting Older, You’re Just Getting More Connective Tissue

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Dec 202011
 

This is my video recipe version of the famous French fricassee, Coq au Vin, which means, “rooster in wine.” The reason that this delicious braised dish traditionally uses an old rooster is its generous amounts of connective tissue, like collagen, which breaks down to form an extra rich and sticky sauce. This gooey goodness is one thing all great stewed recipes have in common.

Having said that, my neighborhood grocery store suffers from a chronic lack of tough, old roosters. There are lots of old hens, but that’s a joke for another post. So, this version uses chicken thighs, which are still very delicious, and make the recipe much easier to prep, and faster to cook.

A couple of things to keep in mind when making this dish – Make sure the mushrooms are quartered, instead of sliced. This really gives them a meatier texture. Why? I don’t know, just do it. And for heaven’s sake, buy some shallots this time. Every grocery store with a parking lot has them now, so why do you keep leaving them out? They are just as easy to use as onions and garlic, and their flavor is fantastic in this recipe. Enjoy!
Click here for ingredients and transcript

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Dirt Pudding

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Dec 202011
 

Two 4oz boxes chocolate instant pudding
One 8oz cream cheese, softened
16oz chocolate cool whip
3 cups of milk
1 pack oreo cookies, smashed to resemble black dirt

Mix first four ingredients together. Make layers of pudding and smashed oreos. Save enough oreos to cover the top of your pudding.

Three End-of Summer Suggestions

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Dec 202011
 

Summer’s coming to an end soon, and you’re a little melancholy, but what better way to cheer up than by trying a few recipes that really shine this time of year?

You have precious few days of fresh peaches left, and this quick and easy tartlet recipe will give them the send off they deserve. A little Chinese Five Spice is the not-so-secret ingredient, and helps make these so delicious no one will even notice you used pre-made pie dough.

Okay, so you can get onions anytime of the year, but when I think cooler weather ahead, I think of root vegetables. By the way, if you were just thinking, hey, I should post a comment about onions being bulbs, not technically roots, don’t. I hate when the facts get in the way of a post’s theme. Anyway, this onion soup recipe always gets rave reviews, and is just perfect for a rainy fall day.

There are few tomato varieties as sweet as Sun Gold. These little orange cherry tomatoes are not only super-sweet, they are very plentiful this time of year. I’ll admit, they are best eaten raw, but they also make a very nice fresh pasta sauce.

Enjoy!

Opor Ayam

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Dec 202011
 

Ingredients:
* 1 pumpkin, chop into small dices
* 10 green chilies, finely chop
* 150g string beans, chop into 5 cm size
* 10 salam leaves
* 4 cabbage leaves, chop into pieace
* 100 g shrimp
* 10 shallots, slice
* 2 cloves garlic, slice
* 4 cup coconut milk
* 4 cup water
* 1 tsp salt

  1. Boil coconut milk in a sauce pan.
  2. Add pumpkin, shallots, garlic and salam leaves, bring to boil.
  3. Add grenn chilies, string beans, cabbage leaves, shrimp and salt, cook until all the ingredients are cooked.

Explore more of Indonesian Recipes and You’ll be surprised that most of them are Very Easy to be Prepared, I urge you to have a Comprehensive Indonesian Culinary Book that contains many Authentic Indonesian Recipes in your bookshelf,

“Authentic Recipes from Indonesia (Authentic Recipes Series)”

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