The Wanderings and Ramblings

Part of my contribution to this years Thanksgiving Dinner was dessert. While my chocolate mousee disappeared, my pear tart never quite got out of the kitchen. That just means more for me as far as I'm concerned. It made a lovely Saturday morning breakfast.





( More photos and recipe to follow )

( everything is pizza )

God.

This was GOOD!!!


Ingredients

* 1 pastry dough
* 3 large eggs, at room temperature
* 1 cup sweetened dried cranberries
* 1/4 cup rum
* 1 can (15 oz.) pumpkin puree
* 1 cup heavy cream, at room temperature
* 1/2 cup whole milk, at room temperature
* 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
* 2 teaspoons finely chopped crystallized ginger or 1 teaspoon ground
* 2 teaspoons cinnamon
* Pinch each cloves and freshly grated nutmeg
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 cup chilled heavy cream, whipped to soft peaks with 1 tablespoons confectioner sugar

Directions

1. Arrange oven racks in upper and lower thirds of oven. Preheat oven to 375 degree F. Butter and flour a 9-1/2-inch (1-1/2-quart capacity) glass pie dish. Lightly grease a cookie sheet. Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface with a floured rolling pin into a 14-inch round. Brush excess flour from dough and fit into prepared pie dish. Trim edge of dough, leaving a 1-inch overhang; reserve excess dough for decoration. Fold overhang under so it tucks just inside the pie dish. Decoratively flute edge of dough, prick bottom with a fork and chill until firm, about 15 minutes. Roll out remaining dough scraps on a lightly floured surface until 1/4 inch thick. Cut dough with a 3-2/4- by 2-1/3-inch leaf-shaped cookie cutter and transfer to prepared cookie sheet. Lightly beat 1 egg and brush over tops of leaves (reserve remaining egg); chill until firm, about 20 minutes.

2. Line pie shell with foil and fill with pie weights or dried beans. Bake in lower third of oven until middle is set and edges are golden brown, about 15 minutes. Carefully remove foil and pie weights. Brush leaves again with beaten egg. Return pie shell to lower third of oven and place leaf decorations in upper third; bake until middle of shell is golden and leaves are golden brown, about 10 minutes. Transfer pie dish to rack and cool to room temperature. Let leaves cool on pan on rack 3 minutes, then transfer with a spatula to rack to cool completely.

3. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degree F. Stir together cranberries, rum, and 1/4 cup water in a small saucepan; simmer 2 minutes. Let mixture stand, stirring occasionally, 15 minutes. Drain cranberries in a sieve, transfer to a bowl and let stand until cool.

4. Whisk together pumpkin, cream, milk, remaining 2 eggs, brown sugar, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, salt, and cranberry mixture. Brush edge of pie shell with remaining egg. Pour filling into pie shell, spreading evenly, and bake in middle of oven until filling is just set and center trembles slightly when gently shaken, about 50 minutes. Transfer pie to rack, top with leaf decorations, and cool completely. Chill until firm, about 3 hours.

Makes 8 servings.

All right, I'm making Christmas pudding, as I do every year, and I'm still trying to get the hang of it. This year, I studied over two dozen recipes (including George Orwell's!) that seemed to me to have good provenance, and learned some new tricks. For example, it's supposedly better to make it in a crockpot or slow cooker for longer, than to steam it. (And supposedly easier, too, even though it takes a lot longer.)

What I'm trying to figure out is if there are any good rules of thumb regarding proportions of the major ingredient categories. I.e., so much dried fruit to so much dry stuff to so much suet to so much sugar, that sort of thing. I make big puddings, so large quantities don't worry me, but I really want some better sense of how much of stuff to use.

One of the dry ingredients is crumb, and many of the recipes specify fresh, or bakery (because it's fresher than store-bought). What is the big difference, really? It's dry, crushed up bread either way, right? How much difference can it make?

Thanks!

( Click for more pictures and recipe... )

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Meh. No update this weekend; I'm sorry :/. I have been cleaning, rearranging, throwing out junk and whatnot - and the whole painful, long overdue process has taken up the better part of this week. No time to draw/write/scan/post. Unfortunately. Boy, how I hate chores -_-.

However, on the upside of things: I'll be able to actually work at my desk. Because there'll be space. Instead of piles of junk.

So in a way I feel pretty pleased with myself, despite the lack of comic-y fun and other activities more agreeable than sorting out a mess. Will provide comic next week. Srsly.

Now I need to go and cook myself a meal, because I haven't eaten since this morning, being too busy cleaning and all. Me and household tasks: it's all or nothing... ;-)

Hi! We're legoline and benitle and we're your hosts for this month's workshop:

Faking It: Pretending You're An US Citizen When You're An Ocean Away (language barriers and a lot more)

Even though Supernatural is a show based on two US American brothers, it is admired and loved by people from all over the world. From Day 01, fandom has been a global community, with the internet making it easy to access the show and fellow fen from anywhere in the world. It doesn't come as a surprise that it's not just the US American portion of fandom contributing through fanfiction. While it might be the ESLs (English as a Second Language speakers) who have it the hardest, it's not only them who might struggle with one major factor: not being American.

( Why does this even matter? )

This article explores the different roles that tactics and strategies play in the Supernatural world, and suggests that while the Winchesters are expert tacticians, it's their problems with strategy that have been causing their troubles, both personally and with the apocalypse. Spoilers up to 5.10 Abandon All Hope

Also posted at the Winchester Family Business - http://www.thewinchesterfamilybusiness.com/article-list/9-misc/3977-tactics-and-strategies-in-the-supernatural-world.html

( Read more... )

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( Vid Recs posted in November, Part 7 )

A small meta on Dean's crack at Sam in Abandon All Hope and speculation about 5.11 (the only spoilers of this episode are solely from the promo) here.

I got carried away picking sloes today and picked way more than I needed. I'm making sloe and apple jelly and sloe gin already. Is there anything else I can make with them? Google suggests not but has anyone here done anything different with them?

After my mom passed away my dad has been eating out a lot or making weird things for meals. He makes things like rice tacos (boxed rice in tortillas...). Lots of P&B and bologna sandwiches. He'll make spaghetti, but he makes the whole package and eats leftovers almost the whole week.

So I was thinking of putting together a binder of recipes to make 1-2 servings and giving it to him for Christmas. I was also thinking of getting baking pans that he can use in his toaster oven.

If anyone has any recipes they can share with me, I'd really appreciate it. He is not a picky eater and is willing to try just about anything. I would like to keep things as simple, easy and quick as possible.

Thanks!!!!

A Nightmare On Elm Street
262 Caps
1680x946
please comment on my links post if you take something.

samples + zip

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Hello cooking.

I'm a uni student living in England, and I frequent a pub called Wetherspoons - mainly because it's the nearest one to me. The one item I ordered the majority of my time was a wonderful chicken, leek and wiltshire ham pie that seems to have disappeared off the menu in my local Wetherspoons.

Needless to say, I am gutted that it's gone and would like to recreate the recipe at home. So, I'm looking for your recommended recipes for the aforementioned pie (or even something similar, as long as it involves chicken and ham together, we can forgo the leeks).

A problem I have is that I've never been able to make shortcrust pastry properly... ever. So if anyone can give me tips on foolproof pastry, I'd be happy.

Thanks in advance :)

So as a way of procrastinating on the last 10k of my NaNoWriMo novel, I've been playing Cafe World on Facebook kind of a lot today. One of the things I made in my little pretend restaurant was French Onion Soup, and that little pixelated bowl of melted cheese looked sooooooo good. I wanted to make my own, except I hate onions. I googled for a bit to see if there was a non-oniony variation, thinking that surely someone had been in a similar predicament before and maybe used potatoes or something. Alas, either my google-fu failed me, or no one else was quite as much of a dork as I am.

So I made up my own recipe. I googled for some French Onion Soup recipes, and modified the heck out of 'em based on 1) not using onions, and 2) what I had in my fridge and pantry. It turned out pretty tasty for a seat-of-the-pants experiment!



( Recipe! )

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I am tempted to sell some of my Anime cels.

On one hand, I could bank 200-300 easy on one or two of my Utena... and could cash in on my Brad and Schulding WK cels too.

On the other hand, I would not have them anymore...

Mind you, I am in no way shape or form separating from my favorite Quatre cels or my YYH collection (I have everyone of Importance. Except Karasu. I do not have a Karasu cel because good lord those were high...)

Daring Bakers challenge this month wasn't baking at all! Instead, we rolled up our sleeves and made cannoli. It was the first time I'd ever deep-fried anything, and it turned out well!

I topped my cannoli with:
1. Dark chocolate and chopped hazelnuts
2. Chopped peanuts and peanut butter chips
3. Cinnamon chips (definitely my favorite! Mmm!)



( recipe and photo )


To read more about these delicious 3-bite desserts and see more photos (including one off-topic photo of our delectable Thanksgiving turkey), please head over to my baking blog, Willow Bird Baking!

x posted to food_porn, picturing_food, and cooking

I'm looking into asking for some nicer pans for X-mas. Does anyone have any resources that do comparative reviews other than Cooks Illustrated? (the subscription fee is just too much)

Specifically, I think I'm looking for a high-quality saucier and a medium to high-quality >12" non-stick skillet/saute pan.

Daring Bakers challenge this month wasn't baking at all! Instead, we rolled up our sleeves and made cannoli. It was the first time I'd ever deep-fried anything, and it turned out well!

I topped my cannoli with:
1. Dark chocolate and chopped hazelnuts
2. Chopped peanuts and peanut butter chips
3. Cinnamon chips (definitely my favorite! Mmm!)



( recipe and photo )


To read more about these delicious 3-bite desserts and see more photos (including one off-topic photo of our delectable Thanksgiving turkey), please head over to my baking blog, Willow Bird Baking!

x posted to food_porn, picturing_food, and cooking