Friday, November 25, 2005
The Great Pie Fiasco
Hello internet. I bet you won't guess where I am today. Work, that's where, and it sucks too. I'm literally the only one in my entire office here today. It's not a paid holiday and because I just started this job, I haven't accrued much vacation time (I'll have accrued 3 whopping days by Christmas and I'm using all of them to go home to Colorado). So here I am. Ugh.On the bright side, the traffic was a breeze coming here today and the parking garage was a ghost town, so I flew up to the roof (yes, I'm still abiding by the where-I'm-supposed-to-park rule...I don't want another ticket*). Also, I'm wearing jeans and am blogging. Take that Work!
I hope a happy Thanksgiving was had by all. Mine was so-so. For one, I was pmsing and played on the mood swingset all day. For two, I spent a good two hours making a would be kick-ass pie and it came out of the oven a lovely shade of black. It was a bourbon pecan pie with bourbon cream and it took so long because I made a butter crust which required ample chilling time - both before placed in the pie pan and after. I realized while making this that I don't have the proper pie-making tools. For one, I don't have a deep pie pan as the recipe called for so when I poured the pie filling in it actually went over the edge of the crust and underneath. I also don't have pie weights, nor did I have any dried beans in the house. I could have gone to the grocery store, but that would have been my third time that day, so I looked for an alternative instead. Coffee beans? No, I thought they would burn and impart too much flavor. Rice? Why not? It turned out to be not such a good idea. Rice is really small and when you lift the tin foil filled with hot rice out of the pie plate, some rice grains inevitably fall into the hot, gooey butter crust. These rice grains have to be hand-picked out of the crust one by one with the help of your Huz who senses that the stress level has just gone up a notch (or seven).
Also, I made my own candied orange peel for this pie. I've never done this before and it entailed peeling an orange, meticulously scraping off all of the pith, simmering in water for 30 minutes, and then simmering in a sugar solution for 45 minutes. I cut the peel into 1/4 inch strips and coated them in sugar. I chopped these up and added them to the pie.
Our oven is not a good oven, as I've talked about before. It is way hotter than the dial says and it has definite hot spots (the turkey had to be covered in tin foil right after it went in because of this - it came out fine though). Even cooking the pie at about 5 degrees less than called for resulted in a black, black pie. I was so upset, but when I took a fork to it I realized that it still tasted good. What could I do? It looked awful but tasted good. I decided to scoop out the filling and put it into small dessert dishes covered with the bourbon whipped cream. Deconstructed pie never tasted so good! Phew.
I think we're going to William Sonoma tomorrow - I need some proper pie-making tools for next time. As for the oven? We'll have to live with it or try to talk the landlord into buying a new one (I'm not holding my breath).
*About the ticket: I picked up Huz from the airport Monday night (his plane finally landed at 10:30) and was trying to make my way out of the airport to get on the right highway home. As I've never been to this airport before I wasn't familiar with it and was paying attention to the direction signs, not the damn speed limit signs. As I was on the ramp to the highway, I noticed blue flashing lights in my rearview mirror. Lovely. I've only been pulled over once before when I was in highschool and I got a warning. This time? My first freaking speeding ticket EVER. For going 46 in a 30. Thanks Nashville. Love you too. |
