Gingersplosion, Friends, and (what else?) Pie

So, that was going to be a picture of me holding a pie, but that picture was kind of atrocious, and when I went to retrieve it from the camera, I found this picture--a much funnier one, because it pretty much entirely encapsulates my relationship with Lady. Firstly, you have us both in Research Mode (we had rented A Knight's Tale, which of course meant we needed to refresh our memories about the Knight's Tale. I'm reading about it on the webbernets while Bronwyn does the actual scholarship via a giant Penguin of The Canterbury Tales)--notice that we have barely removed our outerwear before delving nose first into our respective mediums. Secondly, you have the collection of glasses on the table, because if we love anything, what we love it is the almighty Beverage.

Anyway, it's been a weekend of pies and friends. Lady and I were blessed with some wonderful visitors from the land of Boston and three pies were created in the honor. The first was an entirely new pie, which I will have to make again soon because I didn't get a picture of it; it was a sort of butternut squash cheesecake with a ginger butterscotch sauce and a gingersnap crust. The second was only technically a pie--a Mexican pizza--but I feel it gets the title because crust-type-thing + filling = my reason for living. The third was another Chocolate Pomegranate, but this one had a graham-cracker crust rather than a flour-and-oil one. I used cashew butter as a sub for cow-butter in both the chocolate and butterscotch crusts with very good results in both cases, once again re-affirming my love of nut butter as a sort of crust panacea.

I read a crust recipe once that used frozen hazelnut butter as a partial sub for cow-butter in a flaky pastry crust, and I've been thinking lately it might be nice to make a pie based around that. It might be nice to sub out some of the all-purpose flour for a pastry-grade whole wheat flour and use the resulting crust for a filling that needs a really grounding crust (cherry?).

Insomnia Post

I can't sleep, so I decided now is as good a time as any for x-mas updating (with pictures, of course) (Side note about me and websites and blogs: despite better intentions, I have about a 3rd grade level taste for webpages, in that I tend to go for ones with lots and lots of shiny pictures, regardless of content. You have been forewarned.)

I may be making this up, but as far as I can tell or remember, this is the first time that I have ever missed Christmas with my dad's family. Instead, I had a lovely Christmas with Lady and her parents--a double blessing as it allowed me to make up for my Thanksgiving illness by making some pies:



I just got my hair cut, which is why it is so shiny and not like a limp mop of gross in this picture. This is not one of my aprons--but isn't it a nice one? So sunny and yellow.



This is the pecan. Remember: the best pecan pie is made with Golden Eagle Syrup . The reason it's all extra-brown is that I was telling a story when I poured the filling into the crust, and the filling sort of overflowed on one side. So it isn't burnt, it's just a bit of sugary browning on one side. Also, I added some walnuts, because I didn't think I had enough pecans.



Here's the Sweet Potato. I also made an Apple and a Pound Cake, but I didn't get pictures of either (which is a shame, because the lattice on the Apple was the best looking thing I did all night).





That's all for now.

For those of you trying to track my whereabouts, I'll be back in Birmingham on the 31st--just for a few days to see my mama and Shiloh on their birthdays, play with kittens, and dig through some boxes. After that, it's back to Phila, where I'll be looking for a job like nobody's business and re-wiring the new sewing machine.

I already have my plane-read (well, re-read) lined up: Sexing the Cherry, Jeanette Winterson.

Night, y'all.