Professional!

No, really. I baked a pie.

It was delicious.

Pie Notes:

This is the… okay, I’m at work and forget what it’s called, but it’s something to the effect of “Brown Sugar Apple Pie” recipe out of that book I mentioned earlier. I just ordered myself a copy so that I can return my mother’s and not feel helpless in the face of pie.

When I make a plan about how to cut the apples, I need to follow that plan. I read somewhere (perhaps in the recipe) that you can get a lot more apple into your pie if you cut the apple into uneven pieces. I had it all planned out so that I’d get big pieces and small pieces and then forgot and did them all the same size. While not a major problem, it did cause the pie to settle a little more than I’d have hoped, leaving the top crust well above the filling.

Cortland apples work very well; one apple is approximately one cup of apple.

Apologies for the formatting; I can never seem to make so-called WYSIWYG blogging front-ends put images where I want them.

Another weekend, another pie.

I’ve been really into pie lately. I borrowed a book from my mother– gosh, it must’ve been almost a year ago– but hadn’t really done anything with it until Mother’s Day weekend, when I “baked” a coconut cream pie for her in celebration of her federally designated day. I have to admit I was a little bit afraid. Pie crusts are serious business, after all.

I’m not sure whether it’s all the time I’ve spent watching Alton Brown on TV or some sort of natural talent, but it really didn’t seem all that difficult. Really, you just have to kind of know what a decent dough feels like and how not to overwork the fat into the flour.

Anyway, the recipes from the aforementioned book have been fantastic. One of the reviews on Amazon suggests that the book itself is great as a recipe book but contains substandard advice on technique and is somewhat short on more traditional recipes. There’s definitely some truth to that; I was looking for an apple pie recipe for my family’s Memorial Day thing and couldn’t find a plain old normal version. What I wound up with was a brown sugar apple pie, and it was delicious.

I took pictures, because I’m a dork like that. When I’m home for lunch today, I’ll see what I can do about showing them off. The pie was tasty, but it looked even tastier than it tasted. It looked almost, and playing games online I don’t use this word lightly, professional.

Trial and error

While I’m presently a computer programmer, I’m not entirely certain that’s what I want to do for the rest of my life. I’ve been considering off-and-on the notion of dropping everything I’m doing and applying to culinary school somewhere, because I think I’d have a blast doing it. In the meanwhile, I’m going to cook and bake and try things, just to see what happens.

Last night, I made a sort of variation on chicken cordon bleu. I took chicken breasts, cut a pocket into them, stuffed said pocket with honey mustard and cheddar cheese, and wrapped the whole thing in a thin slice of prosciutto. I then applied an egg wash, some panko, and pan-seared the things before putting them in the oven at 400F for 20 minutes.

They came out fairly well, but I’d definitely keep a few things in mind for next time. First, I probably want to get the prosciutto more thinly sliced. I’d never worked with it before, so I had no idea what exactly to expect; the flavor was great but a little too salty, and it was hard enough to cut with a knife that it just slid around on the chicken. The chicken itself was delicious, and I don’t need to salt it at all, as it will get plenty of that from the prosciutto. I think I’d stay away from extra-sharp cheddar next time as well, although I’m less sure about that.

I also think that next time I try something like that I’ll borrow my mother’s meat pounder (I’m not sure where she got it but it’s very similar to this) to see how I like that approach. The previous times I’ve stuffed chicken, making sure that nothing leaked out hasn’t been a priority, but the cheese pretty much melts out and causes a mess and I’m wondering if maybe it would be easier to deal with that if I had more control over the shape of the chicken. I guess I should also probably use a mix of cheeses that will melt more nicely as well, but that’s research I wasn’t at all willing to do last night.

All-in-all, it was a reasonable first try. There are definitely some things I could improve on the next time, but I think it was successful enough to warrant said next time.