brown sugar

Brown Sugar Chess Pie

June 27, 2014

Oh, I am so glad it’s Friday!!!

It has been such a busy week, but such a great week.

On Monday I went to dinner with my friend Allie, who also had a baby last year. On Christmas to be exact! It was such a good night with dinner, drinks, and lots of catching up. It’s always so good to be able to share news, ideas, and funny stories to the point where you have tears in your eyes.

Allie is the kind of person who you feel you’ve known for decades but have only know each other a short period of time. She is wrapping up her degree to be in social work. I think she’ll he really successful as she has this great charm about her, which will help her communicate with her clients.

We’re both heading back to our guys’ hometown for the 4th of July so I’m sure we’ll get to hang there. And probably have some wine. And laugh until we cry again.

Oh, how is it already the end of June?!?! The month has breezed by! This just means that this is the last of my chess pies for the month of June!

So every week Price asked me what Chess Pie was and I’d say “I dunno, but it sure is sugary!” Super helpful, no?

Well, a little wiki later and ta-da! I know what a Chess Pie is! It’s a sugary custard pie that has it’s roots in England but has now become a Southern thing. And when you read the recipe and think ‘cornmeal, really?’ you’ll now know that it’s no mistake, there is cornmeal in the filling. But I swear you wouldn’t even know it.

All of the Chess Pies that I made were sweet but this was swaaaa-eeeaaattt! Got it? I’d say that you should skip the 8 slice cutting, and just go to 12-16 slices. Because gang, sugar. But it’s so good that you can get over the cavity you’ll have after eating it.

The brown sugar gives it a nice caramel flavor that isn’t over the top. It’s subtle so you know it’s there but it’s not all up in your face. I think it’s nice that it sets it apart from the other pies for that reason.

Brown Sugar Chess Pie

Makes a 9″ pie

Ingredients

3 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup of butter
1 tablespoon cornmeal
1 tablespoon vinegar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 unbaked pie shell

Process

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the sugar.
Melt the butter and add it to the sugars. Beat well until light and fluffy.
Stir in the eggs, cornmeal, vinegar, and vanilla extract until fully combined.
Pour the filling into the pie shell. Bake for 45 minutes or until set. If edges are browning too quickly, cover with foil. Remove from oven, place on wire rack to cool.

Sourced from Twirl and Taste

Turkey with a Brown-Sugar Glaze

April 8, 2014

My mom is coming up from Florida for a visit and it happens to be Easter weekend. I love cooking for holidays but I’m just not sure what to make for Easter. I know what you are going to say, you’re going to say “But you make ham for Easter!” This is true but we didn’t have turkey on Thanksgiving since we had just brought Autumn home Monday night and none of us were going to whip up a turkey just a few days later. (Side note: our super sweet Chilean neighbor brought us over some food- shrimp cocktail, roasted pork, and rice.)

So I’ve had turkey on the brain every since.

We did do an early Thanksgiving which was awesome but I’ve been thinking about making a turkey recently. It’s probably because I’ve been enjoying the work week more when I have dinner prepped or pre made so we are just assembling or reheating it. A big turkey cooked up on a Sunday would give us plenty of leftovers for lunches and dinners for a few days.

The turkey is really moist as the skin locks in the moisture. Plus the vegetable and the liquid in the bottom of the pan also helps keep the turkey from drying out. Can’t have a dry turkey! That’s the worst.

I always use a turkey with a built in thermometer as I’ve had issues with the done-ness in the past. When I’ve cooked turkeys without a built in thermometer I’ve under cooked them in the past when I’ve just stuck a thermometer in the thigh, received the reading of 165 degrees, took it out of the oven and when I’ve carved it up later I’ve discovered a pink bird. So, do what works for you.Feel free to use both thermometers… why not!?!

The brown sugar glaze is easy to prepare and it gives such a lovely flavor to the turkey. But the best is that it makes the skin sticky and crisp. So when you sneak a piece of skin before you serve it you have to lick your fingers clean of any delicious evidence!

As well the gravy is unlike any other gravy I’ve had before. The gravy is made with the drippings from the pan, leftover graze, and hard cider. The cider really does give it a lot of apple-y flavor but I liked that with the sweetness of the glaze but using stock would be just fine as well.

So give turkey a chance for Easter, or any lovely Sunday dinner. If not, the make it for Thanksgiving and your family will thank you. They will so so excited that you tried this Brown Sugar Glazed Turkey. I swear!

Turkey with a Brown-Sugar Glaze

Ingredients

For the Turkey

12-15 pound turkey brought to room temperature
2 medium carrots peeled, roughly chopped
2 celery stalks roughly chopped
1 large yellow onion roughly chopped
1 orange
herb bundle containing rosemary thyme, sage
1/2 cup 1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
Coarse salt and ground pepper
1 cup of orange juice mixed with 1 cup of hard cider or stock

For the Glaze

2/3 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup packed dark-brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon grated orange zest plus 2 tablespoons orange juice
2 tablespoons of butter

For the Gravy

drippings from the pan
2-3 tablespoon flour
any remaining leftover glaze
1-2 cups of hard cider or stock
sage leaves

Instructions

Place a rack in the lower third of the oven. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Place the turkey in a roasting pan with a rack. Tuck wing tips underneath the body of turkey. Stuff the tukey with the carrots, celery, onion, orange, and herbs.
Carefully seperate the skin of the turkey from the breast and place pieces of butter between the breast and skin of the turkey. Season the outside of the turkey with salt and pepper.
Pour the orange juice mixture into the bottom of the pan.
Roast the turkey for for 30 minutes.
Turn down the oven to 350 and let continue to cook for another 45 minutes before rotating for another 45 minutes.
While the turkey is cooking, make the glaze by combining the vinegar, brown sugar, and orange juice in a small saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil over high, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until mixture is syrupy, about 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and whisk in the butter and orange zest.
Brush the skin of the turkey with the glaze after it has been roasting for an hour and 30 minutes at 350. Brush and rotate the bird every 15 minutes until it has completed cooking, when the temperature ofin the thickest part of the thigh reads 165 degrees.
Remove from oven and tent with alumnium foil for at least 30 minutes before carving.

To make the gravy

Remove the drippings from the pan. (I suggest using a baster to do this task)
Let the drippings sit for a few minutes so that fat seperates and you can remove some of it.
In a large skillet pour about a 1/4 cup of the drippings into the pan and add the flour to a paste. Slowly mix in the rest of the drippings with some whole sage leaves.
Once that is all comined mix any remaining glaze. Then add the cider until you have reached the amount of gravy you would like. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Serve the carved turkey with the gravy and enjoy!
Inspired by Martha Stewart

Bourbon Chocolate Sauce

June 28, 2013

The past few weeks of milkshakes for our Thirsty Thursdays posts has left me with ice cream on my mind. I’m not actually a big ice cream person though. So Price was really enjoying the milkshake month! But ice cream every now and then is just so damn good!

And what’s even better than ice cream?

Ice cream with a homemade chocolate sauce!!

What’s even better than that?

Ice cream with homemade bourbon chocolate sauce!!!!

This weekend’s Sprint Cup night race in Kentucky calls for bourbon. Obviously! So I had to make something with bourbon for this week’s Sprint Cup Snack but with my inability to drink now requires me to put a spin on things instead of just making a drink. I had been thinking about a bourbon chocolate pie but then that developed into making a Bourbon Chocolate Sauce. Ah, I could just imagine enjoying some ice cream with this chocolate sauce while watching the cars zipping around the track.

Now that I’ve made this Bourbon Chocolate Sauce I’m already scheming about what else to make to serve with this chocolate sauce. Oh man I think I need to make some waffles and drown them in this sauce. That would just be intense. And PERFECT! ha

Bourbon Chocolate Sauce

Makes about 1 cup

Ingredients

2/3 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons (packed) dark brown sugar
8 ounces bittersweet or semisweet (not unsweetened) chocolate, chopped
2 tablespoons bourbon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Process

In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine the heavy cream, brown sugar, and bourbon. Stir until sugar dissolves and cream just starts to boil.
Remove from heat, add chocolate and vanilla extract, stir until smooth.
Serve immediately. Save extra in a heat safe, airtight container and store in the refrigerator for up to a week. To reheat the sauce, heat in a microwave safe container on DEFROST for 10-20 seconds or warm slowly on the stove top.

Adapted from: Craving Chronicles

Individual Apple Pie Tarts

October 9, 2012

One of my favorite things to do is rip out all the recipes in magazine that I think I would enjoy making. There is a big difference tween the ‘ooo this looks good’ recipe to the ‘I need to make this one day/right now’ recipe. Then I trim my recipes pages up and ~~file them~~ stack them all up so I can go through them and pick out things to make. Well, I recently came across a recipe of Individual Plum Tarts from my Rachael Ray magazine.

I made Individual Apple Pie Tarts by swapping out the plums for apples and adding some typical spices used in apple pies. These are easy with a capital E! The puff pastry does most of the work for you and you just need to dice up some apples and quickly mix with the sugar and spices. The important thing is to have a non stick sheet or one that is coated with non stick cooking spray so the puff pastry doesn’t stick. The rest is a breeze! And you’ll end up with really yummy little apple pie tarts!

Individual Apple Pie Tarts

Makes 6

Ingredients

1 sheet of puffed pastry, 1/2 pound
3 cups of finely diced baking apples (approximately 3 apples)
2 tablespoons light brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch of ground nutmeg
butter

Process

Let puff pastry thaw according to package’s instructions.
While the puff pastry is thawing, peel, core and finely dice the apples. In the bowl, combine the apples, brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
Unfold the puff pastry and cut along the 2 seams to get 3 strips, then cut those in half to get 6 rectangles.
Lay the rectangles out on a greased non-stick baking sheet, add 1/2 cup of the apple mixture to each rectangle keeping a 1/2″ border around the edges clean of apples. Add 2 tiny pieces of butter to the mound of apples.
In a 375 degree oven, bake until golden, about 25-30 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature. Ice cream or caramel sauce are great additions when serving.

Garlic Butter Noodles with Scallions and Sambal

June 18, 2012

When the cat’s away the mice will play. Or in this case, when Price is away, Nicole will eat garlic noodles. And Price was just in Vegas for a guys trip so I obviously made these!

Years ago I saw a post on White on Rice Couple for Garlic Butter Noodles. They were sharing a recipe they adapted from Jaden’s new The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook. Umm, big whoop! I’m Italian so I grew up on pasta with butter and a bit of garlic. Well, shutthefrontdoor this is totally different and amazing. I knew I would have to immediately make this recipe. The noodles, garlic, butter, some sugar, and fish sauce were all calling out to me.

I was hooked from the start. Price, not so much. So this is now a dish that I make when he is working late or away. When he works late the second he opens the door he exclaims ‘YOU MADE GARLIC NOODLES!!! NOOOOO!!!” Why does he protest so much? Because no matter how many times I brush my teeth I still stink of garlic. I don’t mind but I’m not on other end of it. So you have been warned, but I swear it is worth it.

The combination of the butter, garlic, and brown sugar is out of this world. The garlic is slowly cooked in the butter just enough to bring out the flavors. (Don’t burn it! If you do, start over!) Then when you add the brown sugar it becomes caramel-y with the butter. That alone is great but then you add the fish sauce and soy sauce and the whole thing get a 1-2 punch with umami flavors. The scallions are a nice touch for flavor and texture. I add the sambal bajak for some some heat and spice, which I can’t get enough of in this. The recipe is quick, addicting, and will be a favorite in no time!

Garlic Butter Noodles with Scallions and Sambal

serves 1

Ingredients

4-6 oz spaghetti pasta
3 garlic cloves, finely minced
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/4 cup chopped scallions
1-2 tablespoons of sambal bajak

Process

Bring water to a boil in a medium size pot. Cook the pasta until al dente. Before straining set aside a 1/4 cup of pasta water.
In the empty pot that you cooked the pasta in, melt the butter over medium- low heat. Add the garlic. Stir constantly to prevent the garlic from burning. Once the garlic is golden brown add the brown sugar in. Constantly mix the sugar until is starts to bubble. Add the fish sauce, soy sauce, and pasta water. Turn up the heat to cook until it just comes to a boil. Remove from the heat.
Add the pasta back to the pot with the scallions and mix until all the noodles are evenly coated. Enjoy with some sambal bajak (and a breath mint!)

What do you make when your significant other is away? Seafood? Wine and cereal? Dinner becomes eating cake while standing over the sink.

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