Mini Lemon Meringue Pies

Last week I met a nice fella who saw the state of disarray of my phone. He offered to bring me his spare phone back from Portland, and I took him up on the offer! But being in the cooking/baking mood I've been in, I offered to make his favorite pie. That happened to be lemon meringue pie, which I've never made...and I'm not even sure I've ever eaten it. *sigh* However, he also said he preferred savory to sweets, but I wasn't about to cook him real food, so I decided to make mini pies.

(After I had finished browning the meringue, I finally found the setting on my camera to not make the pictures so yellow... This was most exciting, and will definitely result in many more posts :-) )

I only made 4 mini pies, as I was using leftover pie crust from a quiche I made. Also, I adapted this recipe from Martha Stewart, who may I say, pretentiously assumed her amateur bakers all own a stand-up mixer. For shame, Martha, for shame.

First it is best to prepare the crust. I used a muffin pan. Roll the crust out, use a large mug to cut out your circular crust for each pie. Then roll those individual small crusts out. Place them in the muffin pan, and stick it in the fridge to harden for awhile (15-30 min). Have the oven preheated to 400 degrees. Line each pie crust with parchment paper, fill it with beans or rice, and stick in the oven for 10 minutes or so. Remove from oven, remove parchment paper and rice... Be sure you get all of the rice ;-)

Filling
3 egg yolks
a little over 1/2 c pure cane sugar
a heaping Tbsp. of lemon zest
1/3 C of lemon juice (I used the zest and juice of two lemons)
3 Tbsp of cornstarch
2 Tbsp of butter, diced
a dash of salt











Combine sugar and cornstarch. In a "non-reactive" saucepan mix and continuously stir egg yolks and lemon juice. Slowly add sugar/cornstarch combination, and stir continuously for 10-15 minutes on medium to medium-high heat, until boiling. Remove from heat and add lemon zest, butter, and salt. Stir until well mixed. Set aside to cool.


Once filling is cool, spoon into baked pie crusts. Cool these in a refrigerator for at least an hour.

Meringue
3 egg whites
1/3 C of pure cane sugar
dash of salt


Once the filling is sufficiently cooled, turn on the oven broiler. Set a medium sized saucepan of water on to boil. Mix egg yolks, sugar, and salt in a mixing bowl and whisk over boiling water until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture is warm. It should be bubbly. Then use the whisk attachments for your mixer and run on medium to high until you have a nice, fluffy meringue that creates peaks. Using a smaller spatula, top the pies with this. I don't have suggestions on how to make it look pretty, sorry. Place in over under broiler for 30 seconds to 1 minute, constantly keeping an eye on it. You want the top to be lightly browned. Remove and let cool.














I had a mishap... and I had to redo the meringue. Thank goodness I had extra!!

Enjoy!

Chicken Sandwich plus plus

Tonight I made sandwiches for my roommate, his friend, and myself. We were all pretty pleased with how they turned out. Of course, I don't have any pictures. First of all, I lost my Blackberry (temporarily), and secondly my new, real camera was in my purse, in my car and needing new batteries.

Ingredients
4 chicken breasts
Italian dressing
lemon pepper
4-5 cups of cleaned baby spinach
4-5 white mushrooms, sliced
mozzarella cheese
tomato slices
balsamic vinaigrette
olive oil
cooking sherry

First, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Then place the chicken breasts in a shallow baking pan (I used 9x9) sprinkled with lemon pepper and pour 2-3 Tbsp of the dressing in the pan. Put into oven.

Yikes, I have no idea how long I actually cooked the chicken, but it came out perfectly. So I'll give you a blow by blow of what I did while it was cooking.

After I put the chicken in the oven, I took an eight minute shower. Then I posted on Twitter. So I guess about 12 minutes went by before I decided to start working on the other food.

I heated 2 Tbsp of olive oil and 2 tsp of sherry in a small pan. I added the sliced mushrooms, and let them saute, stirring frequently. While that was going on I washed the spinach, cut the mozzarella cheese into thin slices, sliced the tomato, and prepared the hamburger buns to be toasted.

I guess about another 10 minutes went by, and I added the spinach to the mushrooms, dashing in some balsamic vinaigrette. I removed the pan from heat, to let the spinach wilt more slowly. Then I put the buns in the oven for about 5 minutes. At some point around here, I checked one of the chicken breasts. It looked like they were ready to come out of the oven and rest for a couple of minutes.

Then I added the cheese to the buns in the oven, while I cut the chicken breasts in half. They really were soo juicy and flavorful. I removed the buns from the oven, put the chicken on top of the cheese and topped it with the spinach/mushroom mixture and a tomato slice.

The sandwich was a hit. I can't wait to make them again!

Orange Glazed Asparagus

I have no pictures for this one, sorry!

I had a friend over for dinner the other night, and in addition to a roasted chicken and mashed potatoes, I made roasted asparagus. To make it a little more fun, I decided to make a glaze out of orange juice and plum sauce. It was yummy.

Basically I used the juice from 2 oranges (and then a little from the carton), dripped in some plum sauce and set to medium heat in a saucepan, whisking fairly frequently. I used the oven at 350 degrees and about 10 asparagus stalks cut in half. First I drizzled them with oil, then I used a sauce brush to apply the, now reduced and sticky, glaze. I roasted them for about 20-30 minutes.

Even though there were only two of us eating, there was no asparagus left to be eaten by the end of the meal! Totally yummy.

Leftover Tacos!

*Sorry for the crappy quality of the pictures. My digital camera is broken, so all I had was my Blackberry.

For Thanksgiving this year, I roasted a smallish chicken. Even after sending my guest home with a plate and eating a couple of lunches with it, I still had plenty of leftover chicken. I'm sure many of y'all had this problem with turkey. So I decided to try and make a spicy tomatillo sauce to simmer the chicken and tortillas to make tacos!

Tortillas
These took longer than I anticipated, simply because I failed to remember the dough resting time. I'd recommend making these first. There are different types of flour tortillas, and the ones I made were thick and chewy (my preference).
2 cups of flour (low gluten, unbleached flour is supposedly best)
3/4 cup of lukewarm milk
a little less than a tablespoon of baking powder
a tablespoon or so of vegetable oil
a little salt
a dash of smoked paprika

Mix the salt, baking powder, paprika, and flour together. Add milk and vegetable oil and stir. It will start to be sticky and tough. Once all the flour is wet, use your hands to knead it. This was my favorite part. Once it's sufficiently kneaded, cover with a damp towel and let it sit for 15 minutes or so. This is when you can cut the vegetables for the tomatillo sauce.

After it has rested for 15 minutes, divide the dough into small balls, about 2.5 inches in diameter. Set those on a plate (not touching), cover and let rest for 20 minutes. This is when I made my margarita :-).

To cook them, I just heated up a pan on level 8 on my stove. I flattened the dough with my hands a little, and then used a rolling pin and flour to get it bigger and thinner. It should be preeettty thin. Then I plopped it onto the pan for about 30 seconds and watched it bubble (actually, while one tortilla was cooking, I started rolling out another one). Then I flipped it and let the other side cook for about 20 seconds. When the tortillas were done cooking, I put them on a plate, separated by napkins and covered with foil.















Tomatillo Sauce
This was awesome! As usual, I did not measure, so...sorry!
5 tomatillos, diced
1 medium sized jalapeno, seeded and sliced
the zest and juice of 1 lime
a handful of cilantro
some sliced garlic
about a cup and a half of chicken broth
cumin
smoked paprika

Puree the tomatillos, jalapeno, lime juice, cilantro, and garlic. Taste it and add more of whatever you like. The heat from the jalapenos diminishes a bit in the cooking process, so if it's too hot for you, don't worry. If it's just right for you --- add more. I wish I had added more. Pour the sauce into the chicken broth, and add cumin and smoked paprika. Add your shredded chicken or turkey (I had about 2 cups...maybe) and any skin you have (for flavor). I also threw in the leftover jalapeno. Let this simmer on low for awhile. Definitely while the tortillas are resting the 2nd time and while you're cooking them.

Jalapeno Rita
One half of a jalapeno, seeded and sliced -- I should warn you. This is pretty fkn spicy. Chill out on the jalapeno if you are sensitive.
the juice and zest of one and a half limes
the juice of half an orange (or..just orange juice)
Tequila
Triple Sec

Luckily my roommate is a bartender, and he was coaching me a bit on the real process of making a good margarita...plus he had bartender tools I could use. Crush the jalapeno in the lime juice, add your tequila, orange juice, and triple sec. Add a couple of pieces of ice, and shake with one of those metal shakers. Then strain into a glass of ice. If a couple of pieces of jalapeno make it through, no biggie. I put my margarita in the freezer til I was ready to drink it.

Once I finished cooking the tortillas, I loaded up a couple with the simmered chicken, sprinkled on some feta (cotija cheese or any other white cheese would work, but I wouldn't do cheddar). Then I nommed. SOO nommy. I had leftovers for lunch, and I'm about to have leftovers for dinner. Pretty stoked.

Blackberry Muffins

Right about this time of year all the random groups of bushes in Eugene start sprouting blackberries. It's awesome! In fact, yesterday on my walk with Luna at Elijah Bristow State Park, there was probably a good half mile of blackberry brambles all along the path. I've made blackberry muffins a couple of times, but yesterday's batch was so great. The people at work are raving about them.

Ingredients:

5 Tbsp butter

1 Cup of Sugar

1 1/3 c flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 egg

1/2 tsp of Pumpkin Pie spice

1 tsp (or more) of cinnamon

2 tsp of vanilla

1 c of milk

1/2 c (or more, I didn't measure) of chocolate chips (totally optional)

1 1/2 c (or more, again I didn't measure) of whole blackberries. If you use frozen blackberries, you'll want to let them thaw and then rinse them off.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees

line 12 piece muffin pan with cups or grease the pan

Cream butter and sugar

add baking powder, salt, and spices, milk and mix some more

add egg and 2/3 c of flour, mixing gently just until blended.

fold in the remaining flour, chocolate chips and blackberries

Pour batter into muffin cups, leaving a tad bit of room.

Bake for 25 minutes

Remove from oven and let the muffins sit in the pan for 5 minutes or so before removing.

enjoy!

These are the only pictures I have, and I had to take them with my camera phone (my digital camera broke). Sorry for the poor quality!

yummy brunch

I usually don't enjoy breakfast; the thought of food early in the morning is sort of revolting to me. But when I sleep in until 11:45, I wake up ready for a meal that is the size of lunch, but the flavor of breakfast. Today I wanted home fries and eggs with interesting ingredients. It turned out to be an amazing brunch, and I look forward to making it again in the future.

ingredients
2 eggs (the picture shows 3, but that's too many)
smoked gouda cheese
crimini mushrooms
spinach
1 tbsp of butter
1 large red potato
1/4 white or yellow onion
2-3 tbsp of canola oil
salt
pepper
kiwi
breakfast juice (I went with R.W. Knudsen Simply Nutritious Morning Blend)

Start with the homefries first:
Put the canola oil in a castiron (or other kind of) skillet on high
Peel and slice the potato, slice the onion

Gently place the potato slices in the skillet, they should sizzle, then cover with the onions and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cover with lid and lower heat to medium.
Let that cook for ten minutes, or until underside of potatoes is brown.



While that cooks, cut your mushrooms and gouda cheese into the amount you'd like in your egg mix. Then beat the eggs in a bowl with a little milk, like you would for scrambled eggs. Pour yourself a little juice while you wait on the potatoes.


Once the underside of the potatoes is brown, flip them gently. Cover again, and let cook for 10 minutes. While this cooks, put the mushrooms in a smaller skillet with the butter. Then add all of the spinach (a lot goes a short way). Add the eggs and cheese. Stir periodically like you would scrambled eggs.







Before the eggs are done, remove the potatoes from the skillet, place on an ovensafe plate with a paper towel and stick in a 250 degree oven. This will dry them out a bit, which is desirable.







When the eggs are done, scoop some onto your plate and load up with potatoes. Enjoy! I sure did.

Asparagus and Tomato - Food of the Gods

Asparagus and tomatoes, or rather the lack thereof, are two more reasons to hate Winter. I guess if I was being optimistic about it, I'd say they are two reasons to LOVE Summer. But the lack of awesome tomatoes and asparagus in the wintertime is annoying, to say the least.

However yesterday I got some amazing picks of these fruits and vegetables, and I decided to make a couple of REALLY easy salads with them. They were SO delicious. I will have them again today.

For the asparagus salad, you'll need:

5-6 stalks of awesome asparagus

lemon

feta cheese

lemon pepper

Blance the asparagus and cut the stalks into thirds. Sprinkle lemon juice and feta on top while throwing some lemon pepper on there too. Done.

Tomato salad

2 vine-ripe tomatoes cut to your liking

Italian dressing of some kind (I use Newman's Family recipe)

oregano

lemon pepper

parsley

salt

mozzarella

croutons

Combine all the ingredients (except the croutons) in a bowl and refrigerate for an hour or so. Add croutons to the salad just before eating.

Delectable and surprisingly filling, these are both tasty treats sure to please your friends. yumtime!