YJPumpkin YJPie

I spent New Years' in Boston this year, and after ringing in the new decade in the most perfect way I could have imagined, I began a whole list (in my head) of things I wanted to accomplish in twenty-ten. Unbeknownst to me at the time, a mere two days later, I would have made my very first pumpkin pie. A fine accomplishment if you ask me!

Yep, I've never made a pumpkin pie.

I didn't grow up being a pumpkin lover, it wasn't until college that I was introduced to pumpkin bread (thanks to my boyfriends mom and her AMAZING recipe), which quickly became an all time favorite of mine. I've since enjoyed many pumpkin baked goods, muffins, pancakes, ice cream, the list goes on. Still - pumpkin pie is not my thing. It's the texture I think. I don't know. But I've never really loved it, and I've never made one. Until now.

It was a total last minute idea, and started about 45 minutes too late probably, but with the help of Nanio and his newly organized kitchen, we successfully threw together a pumpkin pie! We simply followed the recipe on the back of the Libby's Pumpkin Pie filling can, which included evaporated milk, some eggs, cinnamon, ginger, sugar, and probably a few other things. We used a graham cracker crust, because as I said we were extremely pressed for time.

I think I would have liked to have left it in the oven a little bit longer, but as it was we were leaving at the time we were supposed to be arriving at our friend's house for dinner - extra baking time was not an option.

All in all, I think the little guy turned out quite nicely. Everyone had a piece, and no one seemed to complain!

B is for Burrito

Are you sitting down?  I cooked something tonight!  Granted it was just a simple burrito (or two....or three....) but damn if it wasn't good.  And as I cooked it I thought, you know who should hear about this??  M and M!

My burritos are pretty simple, but I swear there are two secrets that make them all the better.  First I cook some rice, usually brown boil-in-bag rice.  When that's done I put it in a pot with a can of black beans, mix it up and leave it on a low burner.  In a skillet I grill up some veggies, tonight I used a red and green pepper, yellow squash and eggplant.  Here is secret number 1, I cut the veggies rather large to grill them.  Tonight I used some avocado oil instead of evoo (because I had it) and then I sprinkle on some store bought Burrito seasoning.  Once the veggies are grilled, I scoop some out onto a cutting board and then I chop them up small.  I find that grilling them bigger keeps in some more flavors, and then chopping them small helps make them fit in the burrito.  

I take my tortilla and put on some sliced cheese, tonight it was colby jack.  Then a scoop of rice-bean mix, and some chopped veggies on top.  Here the key is to pile things up right along the center of the tortilla.  Now to roll it, followed by secret number 2.  First I fold in two ends, say the right and left sides, only a little.  Now I start to roll from bottom to top - be forceful, get all that filling inside, and keep watching the ends making sure they are tucked inside.  Secret number 2 is to immediately wrap it in aluminum foil and pop that sucker into a pre-heated 300 degree oven.  This allows the cheese to melt, everything to get warm and toasty, and the burrito is less likely to come unrolled when you go to eat it.  Totally simple, totally delish!  

Let's go Red Sox!

Updatey

1) Cardamom in my coffee is where it's at, hot or cold. I loooooooooove the flavor!

2) Something else I tried recently is cold-brewed coffee. Have you ever tried this? You've got to, especially if you're interested in making your own iced coffee. Even if you don't like iced coffee, you can still use the cold-brew method. You can look for the article in the NYTimes that was published last year, but the premise is to brew the coffee overnight, or 12 hours, in cold water, at double the strength. I love the coffee brewed this way, it just has a different taste than the traditional hot water method; and again, I tried it with the cardamom and the flavor is even more pronounced (but still subtle, if you can believe it). I LOVE IT. It's not Morocco, but it'll do for now.

3) I made a curried spinach and pea soup with the pound of peas that was dying a slow death in my freezer. I love me a good curry, but this soup was disappointingly disgusting for too many reasons to list here. It's not really soup season anyway, but that doesn't matter; I wouldn't have liked this soup in the dead of winter, either. I will not be buying peas again in the foreseeable future.

The devil's in the details, apparently, and not in my coffee.

This morning I smashed open a bunch of cardamom pods and then pried them open so I could grind the seeds with my mortar and pestle. The problem with having a marble mortar and pestle is that I need to add a bit of salt for friction. If I don't, the seeds stay whole and it's harder to break them down. I don't know if that's just my lack of physical prowess or if it's the fault of the material. Anyway, I didn't think twice about adding the salt to the cardamom because I've been mainly using it when roasting eggplant. But then -- THEN!!! -- as I was transfering the ground cardamom into a jar (oh my gosh, it smelled SO GOOD), I said, "Shit, I can't believe I did that again!" See, I've been wanting to add cardamom to my coffee for the longest time. I figure if I can't afford the trip to Morocco, I'll bring Morocco to me. Foiled again! So my solution will be to brew the coffee with whole pods, rather than sprinkling some of the ground seeds into the cup post-brew. To be continued.