Kate's fruit monkey oatmeal lunch.

Homemade Angry Birds chocolate bird-day cake for @tinierbites' 2nd birthday.

Pig construction with nilla wafers, buttercream, toothpicks, and chocolate sprinkles.

Tasters' set of microbrew at Canmore's The Grizzly Paw

Tasters' set of microbrew at Canmore's The Grizzly Paw

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Halloween 2011, Trick Edition: Pumpkin and date hand pie party favours

Leave a Comment October 31, 2011

Jack o' lantern pumpkin and date hand pies

My birthday came and went this year without an explicitly planned Birthday Cake of Immortality (BCI). It was no real skin off my back to skip a year, as the 13-course Peking Duck banquet we threw at Red Star suited me just fine.

Red Star: Peking duck

It was brought to my attention, however, that the party favours that we created for our 30 guests not only made Halloweentastic gourmet treats but met the standards for a Birthday Cake of Immortality (a metaphoric eating of flesh).

Now that you’re done looking at previous BCIs and have managed to push your nausea down, I’ll share our tricks for creating these less controversial, delicious, and seasonally appropriate hand pies filled with pumpkin and Medjool dates.

The Filling

Time to meander over to The Cooking Photographer. Laura’s recipe is the one that came up when I Googled “jack o’ lantern hand pie”, and after seeing her handiwork, no other hand pie would do for my guests.

Since I needed 4x the number of hand pies that Laura’s recipe made, I naturally made 4x the amount of filling that a single batch called for. Big mistake!

Pumpkin and Medjool date pie filling

That’s all we needed per hand pie: a spoonful! One batch of filling was therefore more than enough to fill the 30 hand pies we made. It’s not too horrible if you make too much, though; stuff the remainder into a normal-sized pie and you’re all set.

The Dough

Rolling out the dough

My well-tempered friend Eagranie Yuh came over last August and taught me her tried-and-true pie pastry technique, which she had, in turn, learned from Kate McDermott, Seattle baker extraordinaire.

To give both ladies their proper due, I will simply link to their respective articles. Click away!

These particular hand pies were commemorating a Peking Duck dinner so I veered slightly off-recipe, using a smidgen less of leaf lard and making up for it with a heaping tablespoon of duck fat.

Specialized Tools

Since Laura clearly described how to cut, fill, and bake the hand pies, I won’t bother reiterating the assembly instructions here. Instead, I’ll share a few tips that may save you time and ruined tester pies.

To get your pies looking like a right old jack o’ lantern, find your neighbourhood Williams Sonoma and get these babies:

We chose not to cut out a nose in our hand pies, as doing so would have left us little room around the edges to seal the sides of the pie together. Similarly, we opted for the mouths and eyes that balanced our desire to have the filling stick out with our need to keep the pies sealed.

I didn’t want to create a separate label in the party favour bag to say thank you, so spending $30 on this message cutter set just to be able to press “Thank You” on the back side of the pie was well worth it. Also rationalized that this set would come in handy for future occasions where I feel like writing graffiti on my desserts.

I thought they came out pretty well, don’t you?

 

Categories: Dessert, Food, Recipes, Sweet

A one-pot, two-dish Filipino recipe for under $10

2 Comments April 14, 2011

Ginisang bitsuelas and torta

Ginisang bitsuelas (sautéed green beans) Frying torta Ginisang bitsuelas and torta Stack of torta Torta and banana ketchup

My mother taught me another recipe from our family’s archives the last time we visited her in Everett. It was an instant hit in our household, not only for its economy but for its amazing versatility. I’ve been tweaking and perfecting these variations for my non-Filipino and vegetarian guinea pigs; they insist that it’s time to share the details with them (and the world).

Since this recipe can make two different dishes, I’ve separated the ingredient lists and steps below into the base sautée, the green bean variation, and the potato variation.

Our favourite way to take advantage of this? We make the base, use a third of it for the green bean stir-fry to serve immediately, and use the same pan to make the potato variation from the remaining base, which is reserved in the fridge and then finished for a hearty breakfast the following morning.

When you try it out, let me know how you vary the recipe to suit your household’s palate.

The base sautée

Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
  • 4 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 large onion, diced
  • 1 lb lean ground pork [vegetarian: omit or substitute diced extra firm tofu]
  • 2 tablespoons a) fish sauce, b) tamari soy sauce, or c) light soy sauce
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 2 medium tomatoes, diced

Directions

  1. In a large wok or skillet, sweat garlic and onion in oil over low heat until onions are translucent. Don’t burn the garlic.
  2. Increase heat to med/high and add pork, fish sauce, and water. Stir to break the pork into tiny chunks. Cover and boil for 20 minutes until pork is cooked and liquid is completely absorbed.  [Vegetarian: skip step or use tofu and soy instead.]
  3. Reduce heat to medium. Stir in tomatoes and cook until soft and thoroughly incorporated.

Dish #1: Ginisang Bitsuelas (sautéed green beans)

Ginisang bitsuelas (saute?ed green beans)

Ingredients

  • 1/3 of the base sautée, above
  • 1/2 lb green beans, thinly sliced on the oblique
  • 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
  • Freshly cracked ground pepper to taste

Directions

  1. Using a sharp knife or mandolin, thinly slice your stash of green beans at a steep 20 degree angle. (That’s about as steep as the slant of a sandwich board.) If you’re really handy with a razor blade or are as old-school as my mom is, take a razor like the one above and shave off the slices like you would peel a carrot. Just don’t catch your wrist in it…

Razor blade, by scottfeldstein on Flickr

Razor blade, by scottfeldstein on Flickr (Creative Commons)

  1. Stir the green beans into the base sautée. Cover and cook on low/med heat until green beans soften and intensify their verdant colour. Don’t overcook – you want ‘em al dente for best mouthfeel results.
  2. Add butter and pepper to taste. If it isn’t salty enough, reseason with fish or soy sauce. Serve on a mound of steamed rice.

Dish #2: Torta (Filipino frittata)

Torta and banana ketchup

Ingredients

  • 3/4 of the base sautée, above
  • 1 medium Russet potato, cut into 1cm cubes
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1 tablespoon cooking oil
  • Freshly cracked ground pepper to taste

Directions

  1. Add potato to base sautée. Cover and cook on low/med heat until potatoes are softened.
  2. Transfer to a large bowl and cool mixture in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. At this point, you can also call it a night and do the rest in the morning.
  3. Whisk eggs. Pour into cooled base and mix thoroughly.
  4. Heat oil on low heat in non-stick skillet or wok. Pour in a circle of the egg batter – about 3 heaping tablespoons’ worth. Season with pepper if desired. Cook, covered, until egg is firmly set.
  5. Flip over – using a plate if the torta is larger than your flipper – and cook reverse side for 1 minute or till lightly browned.
  6. Served with steamed rice and a side of (banana) ketchup or sweet and sour sauce.

Categories: Breakfast, Dinner, Filipino, Food, Recipes, Savoury

My football food locks for Super Bowl XLV deliciousness

1 Comment February 5, 2011

T minus 24 hours till Super Bowl XLV! It totally sucks that my team didn’t make it this year, but I will still join fellow embittered football fans this Super Bowl Sunday to watch the remaining teams go head-to-head. At least they are two teams that I would be happy to cheer for: the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers. My money’s on the Packers for fear of the repercussions (they’re the team of the best man at our wedding, whose wrath I do not wish to raise).

Our usual Super Bowl ritual involves preparing a feast fit for the game, which is more often than not tailored to the teams that are playing. Since I’ve already done my due diligence about generic plus pro-Steelers football fare when I wrote about the big game in 2009, I will simply recap those details for you here so to pay more attention on how you could represent the Packers at your Super Bowl party.

Go Packers! Cheesehead food and drink

Tom the Cheesehead

Photo credit: Bjorn Hanson (Creative Commons)

What you can make to celebrate Green Bay will likely involve cheese. Cheese made in Wisconsin, to be precise. Ideally, cheese that looks like the wedge above. If you can fashion it into a hat on your head, give yourself bonus points. You could probably make a drinking game out of it: take a swig every time you spot a close-up of a Packers fan in this head gear.

Speaking of drinks…Wisconsin is home to many a good brewery but the best are difficult to get in Vancouver. If you are really dying to get a beer of appropriate origin, you could always default to MGD.

Solids

Liquids

Go Steelers! Pro-Pittsburgh food and drink

Roethlis-burger sliders

Last time Pittsburgh was in the running, we created Ben Roethlis-Burger sliders that appeased our guests and all the meat-loving deities that exist in our universe. We’ll probably repeat these again to represent the Steelers as cooking this is probably easier than finding Iron City in town!

Want something you can just heat and serve? Apparently the perogy is much heralded in Pennsylvania.

Solids

Liquids

Other football-friendly eats

Spicy oven-baked chicken wings

If you don’t care to pick sides or just want to have stuff to eat that washes down nicely with a cold brew, consider these options. Warning: not for the faint of stomach, and definitely not for vegetarians.

  • Bacon bourbon popcorn – Sarah Sprague had me at ‘bacon’. She had my husband at ‘popcorn’. With over a kilo of Chilliwack organic popping corn in our pantry, it would be a travesty to not attempt this recipe as soon as freaking possible.
  • Our rendition of Spicy Oven-Baked Chicken Wings (adapted from Fearless in the Kitchen: Innovative Recipes for the Uninhibited Cook by Christine Cushing)
  • Memphis Blues Super Bowl Party Pak - Don’t have a grill or the time? Feed 8 people with a slew of barbecued meats, chili and wings. Order ahead for this $95 eat-in /take-out special.

Enjoy the game around town

If the bar scene is more your style, check out what some of  Vancouver’s pubs and restaurants are offering for sustenance on February 6, 2011.  Know of others showing the game in the city? Drop me a comment here.

  • Red Card – Settle in as early as 1pm to get your fill of $5 Kronenbourgh lagers and sample the game specials: hot wings galore and Super Bowl chili with the requisite cornbread on the side.
  • Library Square Public House – or choose the Donnelly Group pub nearest to you. Come in after 3:30pm.
  • Kingston Taphouse – 11am marks the start of Kingston’s Super Bowl specials.  Buy a $10 ticket to assure you a seat, a Prime Rib Burger and some Granville Island Beer. You might even win a trip for 2 to Vegas.
  • Memphis Blues’ Super Bowl All-You-Can-Eat Party – If you haven’t called them to book your table yet, get on the phone right now. $20 gets you unlimited mini-ribs and fries, and buckets of Rocky Mountain Pilsner will be going for $10.

Other Super Bowl XLV resources

These additional sites may help you with the planning of this year’s Super Bowl shenanigans. Of note is the article with Southern recipes – a nod to the fact that the game’s being played this year at Cowboys Stadium in Dallas.

What will you eat and drink on Super Bowl Sunday? Send me your tips and/or your favourite Super Bowl recipes.

Categories: Events, Food, Recipes, Savoury

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