My Reputation Precedes Me

This past weekend, I went out to the midwest to visit some of my extended family (grandparents, aunts, uncles, and some of my cousins). I hadn't seen them in a long while, and my mom has been feeling really homesick, so as a birthday gift to her we flew out crazy early Saturday and returned crazy early today.

Somehow, "we'll help with dinner, Grandpa, since everyone who can is descending on your house the Saturday we arrive" turned into "Ms. Hermit and her intrepid mother with fix dinner for the gang- and Ms. Hermit will make one of her famous pies!" On three hours sleep. And it was two pies, since I had to feed eleven people. (I could go on a rant about why it is that the women do all the cooking, and the blatant sexism I encountered in the midwest, but that's going to have to be it's own entry)

And when did my pies get famous, anyway? The last one in this family to have really amazing baked goods was my great-grandmother Atha (yes, that's her real name), who won all kinds of county fair ribbons back in the day. I was maybe ten or twelve when she passed on, and I remember her pies and cookies. How can I live up to that?

But somehow, my pies, and especially my pie crusts, have become reknowned in my family. I'll admit, pie crust takes a certain amount of finesse, but it's deceptively easy. Here, I'll write it out. This makes two crusts, by the way.

You need:
2 cups flour
10 tablespoons cold shortening or butter (or a mix of both)
a pinch of salt (like 1/4 t or less)
between 2 and 5 tablespoons ice cold water

Put the flour in a big mixing bowl. Bigger than you think you need. Add half the shortening, and either use a pastry tool to incorporate to the stage of looking like cornmeal, or two knives (the two knives method: hold a butter knife in each hand. Start with your fists together, then pull them apart. Continue to run them through the flour and shortening so that the sides of the blades touch or almost touch as they pass each other for what will feel like a very long time. Consider it your upper arm workout for the day.)

Add the other half of the shortening, and incorporate "until it looks like little peas." Or that's what the recipe I use says. I can usually get most of it down to the size of dried lentils. What you're doing is trying to get the smallest unmelted little globs of fat possible coated in flour.

Now add the water, one tablespoon at a time, to bind it together. It should still look grainy. But when you pick up some of it and squeeze it together in your fist, it should mostly hold its shape.

Wrap it in a ball in wax paper if you will use it right away and stick it in the fridge or freezer (freezer for what I call "mix and dump" pies like pumpkin and pecan, fridge for things like apple where you have some chopping and peeling to do for the filling). Wrap your wax paper ball in lots of plastic wrap if you're going to freeze it for later (if it gets frostbite, it's gone bad).

Honestly, you can put just about anything in a pie, and fillings are surprisingly flexible. The ones where I went "oh no, I fucked up" are inevitably everyone's favorite (who knew people would like an apple pie that was over-flavored to the point of tasting like a spice cake? Or a cherry where I added so much cornstarch that it didn't run at all?)

Warning! This pie dough will not easily stand up to things like making a lattice. You can do it, but be prepared for lots of breaking and patching. but lattices are really too much work anyway. you want pretty, I recommend just cutting some diamonds out of the top crust in an artistic sort of way or something.

next entry: rolling pie dough and a couple of filling ideas. With photos, I promise!

P.S. the funniest part? I got my pie dough recipe out of a cookbook that I promise you every single member of my family already owns.

Soup, Part 2

So it took more than a day, but I finally made that soup and polenta. It’s just as well, because fresh polenta doesn’t fry as well as cold, molded polenta does. Polenta, by the way, is just a fancy Italian way of saying corn meal mush. Massive staple for pioneers, and comfort food for my family. I’m particularly fond of frying cold cornmeal mush for breakfast and topping it with brown sugar or maple syrup. It’s also crazy easy to make:

1 cup cornmeal
3 cups water
¼ teaspoon salt

Boil two cups of the water with the salt in it. Stir the cornmeal into the other cup of water to make a slurry. When the two cups is boiling, pour the slurry in and stir until it thickens. No, keep stirring. Thicker. Yes, I know you have big huge bubbles and you’re afraid you’re going to burn it. Keep stirring. 15 minutes. You’re aiming for gloopy here. (it’s during this phase that fancy recipes will tell you to stir in some kind of cheese or spices. I don’t because I like the plain kind better for breakfasts)

Spoon into a greased mold (I used a loaf pan, but if you want circles clean aluminum cans work), cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate.

That had been in my fridge for a few days before I got around to making the soup. I had a couple breakfasts out of it, and still had more than enough left to fry a couple slices and top them with cheddar to go with the soup.

I received for my birthday a cookbook of soups, and this is part of what got me in the mood to make soup in the first place. The cookbook has a ton of really tasty-sounding recipes in it. The only catch is they’re all designed to serve at least eight to ten people. Mr. Bo and I will get bored with it long before we ever finish that kind of quantity of leftovers. Also, I don’t keep most of the ingredients on-hand. So I kind of cobbled this spicy black bean soup together from what I had, based vaguely on like five different recipes I looked at.

Spicy Black Bean Soup
Oil (whatever you like, you only need a little)
1 onion, chopped
½ t garlic
2 c water
1 bouillon cube (any flavor will do)
1 t cumin
1 t chili powder
1/8 t cayenne pepper
1 t oregano
4 large cherry tomatoes (1/3 to ½ cup) roughly chopped
1 16 oz can black beans, drained
Dash worcestershire sauce
Tabasco to taste
(cheese and crushed tortilla chips to garnish)

Sweat the onions in the oil with the garlic. Meanwhile, heat the water in the microwave and add the bouillon cube to the water. Once the onions are translucent, add the spicy spices and give them a moment before dumping in the water, oregano, and Worcestershire sauce. Add the tomatoes, and bring everything to a boil. Add the beans, and boil for about ten minutes longer, to ensure everything is good and cooked. Then puree in batches in the food processor or blender. I needed two batches in my food processor so as to not go over the “liquid fill” line. I made that mistake once. Hot soup all over everything! It was un-fun.

At this point, you might have soup. Taste it. Is it at the spice level you want? Is it thick enough? If the answer to the first question is no, add some Tabasco. Go easy on this. I didn’t, and we wound up with Fiery Death Soup. If it’s not thick enough, a low boil with regular stirring should evaporate some of the liquid.

Serve it with cheese or sour cream, and crushed tortilla chips, and the fried cheesy polenta on the side.

We solved the Fiery Death problem actually by crushing up a handful of tortilla chips into our bowls. Which also gave it nice crunchy bits in the creamy soup for contrast.