Bake. Laugh. Eat. Repeat.
We had our first haboob of the year here in the Valley of the Sun yesterday. So who do you think decided it would be a good day to run the trails of our fair city?
This girl!
Who do you think is still shaking dust out of the nooks and crannies on the front of her face today?
This girl!
Who do you think would like to casually change the subject to that of some luscious pound cake?
This girl! This girl! This girl!
Let’s continue the Spring train today (hoping Spring, itself, will hop on at the next stop) with some lovely, sweet pastries.
What do you say?
I say yes! And you can’t stop me!
But do you really want to?
Even if I offer you a warm empanada?
Made with flaky butter crust wrapped around a fruity, coconut-laced filling?
What’s that you say?
You wouldn’t even dream of standing in my way?
I didn’t think so…
So this girl walks into the kitchen and finds her dog eating a puffy taco.
Sounds like the start to a joke, right?
I mean, I’m sure you’re expecting the follow-up to involve three rabbis in a rowboat, or someone somewhere crossing the road for some reason other than just to get to the other side…
Right?
Sadly, in this girl’s case, the story of the dog and the puffy taco is nothing other than cold hard reality.
And a visual metaphor for the crazy chaos that has been my first 17 days of 2013.
Do you ever see something in front of your very eyes and it just hits you?
Well that was me, watching sweet lil’ 9 lb. B. dominate the sad leftovers of last night’s vegan puffy taco feast.
I don’t know how he got his hands on that puffy taco. And I don’t know exactly why my reaction was to burst out laughing like a hyena instead of trying to tear it from his grasp and scolding him vigorously.
No. Instead I laughed, I offered to pass him the salsa, I went to my inner Zen place, and I acknowledged that I may need to slow down a little. Calm down a little. Secure the trash more tightly a little.
I owe you an apology. And a slice of pie. OK, maybe a couple of slices.
Because although my little southwest kitchen has been bustling, I’ve been remiss in sharing all the juicy details with you over the past few weeks.
But I have an explanation! And it’s a good one! And it involves lots and lots and lots of technology fails, potty-mouthed tirades, and hatred of all things bandwith, byte, bitmap and Boolean. But I won’t bore you with the details.
Instead I’ll just tell you that the techno-troubles are resolved and now it’s time to churn out more goodness than you can shake a server at: there’s going to be cookies, there’s going to be gifties, there’s going to be laughter, and there’s most certainly going to be some good cheer.
But for now, there’s pie. The most delicious, candy bar-esque, toasted pecan-stuffed, Mexican-chocolate and graham-crusted pie that you can possibly imagine.
So dig in, strap up, and stay tuned. Because it’s about to get festive all up in here.
Mexican Chocolate-Crusted Pecan Pie
Chef’s Note: This recipe yields a thick, thick crust and quite a bit of filling – you’re going to want to be sure to use a 9″ deep-dish pie plate and, although I’ve never had any spillage while baking this pie, you may want to place the pie plate on a sheet tray before placing it in the oven, just to be safe.
For the crust:
1 package (9 whole) graham crackers
2 discs Mexican chocolate, melted (approximately 6.3 ounces)
5 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
For the filling:
2 c. dark brown sugar, tightly packed
11 tbsp. unsalted butter, softened
2 large eggs
2 c. pecans, roughly chopped
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/4 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
Preheat oven to 350°.
Spread the pecan pieces evenly over a sheet tray and toast for approximately 8 minutes or until deep brown and fragrant. Remove and set aside to cool.
Meanwhile, to prepare the crust, place the graham crackers and melted chocolate into the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade and process until smooth and blended. Process in the melted butter – the finished mixture should be the consistency of coarse, damp sand. Press the crust mixture into the bottom and up the sides of a 9″ deep-dish pie plate. Set aside.
To prepare the pie filling, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Mix in the eggs, vanilla, salt and then flour. Fold in the pecans. Carefully pour the filling over the crust and smooth across the top. Bake for 40-45 minutes. The finished pie will be crisp, puffed and golden on top. Remove and set aside to cool slightly before serving.
YIELD: approximately 10 servings
The other day I was watching a mainstream morning news program that will remain nameless (OK, fine, its name begins with a ‘T’ and ends in an ‘oday’).
The anchors were working with an ‘Idea Specialist’, who was sharing her thoughts on how to pass the time should you find yourself temporarily without power.
Aside from my feelings on someone referring to themselves as an ‘Idea Specialist’ and the fact that the very audience to whom she was speaking was notably, you know, WITHOUT THE POWER TO SEE HER, I found myself transfixed by the suggestions that were being tossed around: Turn each room in your house into a different vacation destination! Speak in code! Do everything backwards and act like you like it!
While I am willing to do everything backwards, I’m just not sure that I love the part about being told that I need to like it…
But I kept listening, because, as with so many things on TV these days, I just can’t look away.
And then I realized: I want to be an Idea Specialist, too! I want to travel the land slinging my sweet intellectual gems! I want to share my ideas with the world via Matt Lauer and Al Roker!
How can I get started?
I guess I’ll need some, uh, ideas…
I was working in the kitchen late one night
When my eyes beheld a tasty sight
For my Monster Cookies in the oven began to rise
And suddenly to my surprise
From the desert here in the great Southwest
To the Atlantic Coast where the big waves crest
Everyone came to take a lookie
At my very own version of the Monster Cookie
If you spend any time reading about food on the Interwebz like I do, you may have seen some pumpkin recipes floating around out there.
Just one or two.
Oh, wait. I forgot to include the ones that I read today – make that exactly 3,840,927.4 pumpkin recipes currently floating around the Interwebz.
That’s quite a bit of pumpkin. And quite a bit of Interwebz.
So when I got the craving for some of that most sumptuous squash, I decided that I needed to think outside of the box a little.
I thought about and I thought about it. And then I thought some more. I thought about it as I wandered into the kitchen and took out a big old bowl…
I considered my options as I cut a stick of cold, cubed butter into some flour.
I pondered the possibilities as I pulled together a sweet, buttery ball of dough.
And I weighed each and every choice as I waited for my dough to rest before trimming out some neat little 3″ circles…
Hmmm…..
Whatever can I do with this lovely pumpkin purée?
What can I possibly pair with it besides sweet cream butter? And just a bit of pure agave?
I don’t know… this is really a tough one.
Sundays are for relaxing, don’t you think?
Relaxing by tuning in to watch ridiculously beautiful people walk down a ridiculously fancy carpet on their way to receiving ridiculously glitzy awards for their roles in ridiculously silly TV shows that you never had time to watch anyway.
That’s just ridiculous.
Consider this a Sunday Turbo Post, because what Sundays are actually for, what I hope you’re doing right now, is sitting on the couch in your ridiculously silly pajamas, watching a ridiculously entertaining sporting event, eating ridiculously good Spicy Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes out of a ridiculously large serving bowl.
And since you’ve got some relaxing to do, I’m not going to waste any more of your time talking about it – that would just be ridiculous.
You can consider this a sort of ‘Wordless Wednesday’ post…
I mean, what could we possibly have to converse about that would be better than this cake?
This one bowl, one fork, one skillet, sticky bun cake laced with dulce de leche?
Right. Nothing. Exactly. Duh.
There’s butter inside the cake, which is really just a series of biscuits that are going to bake together.
Oh! And then there’s a butter, brown sugar and pecan crust baked into the bottom of the cake, which you’ll invert to become the top of the cake. For easier access, natch.
When I think back on all those first days of school, I, of course, remember them from my perspective:
Praying to the Homeroom Gods that I would get the best teacher assignment;
Packing away my sticker and Sweet Valley High book collections, knowing they would be gathering dust while I spent nine months doing stupid stuff like studying and learning;
Buffing my Trapper Keeper to a Bat-Signal-bright sheen;
And selecting just the right outfit to make just the right impression on that first, fortuitous day.
But, in retrospect, things must have been pretty rough for my Mom and Dad as well.
My brother, sister and I tended to want to eat regularly, and I’m sure keeping growing bodies in nutrition and energy requires a more sophisticated strategy than simply throwing some Flintstone vitamins into the morning’s pancake batter.
Plus there’s the matter of keeping up with food trends and what we would inevitably see our friends bringing to school lunch that we would then have to have for our own the next day, along with the question of what to prepare for the near-holy after-school snack. And dinner! Sakes alive, don’t forget dinner!
All that without having the benefit of hitting up the Interwebz for ideas. Talk about walking uphill to school both ways in the wintertime – that must have been rough.
