Bad Food Blog

Category: Food Journal

• Food Journal #5: Boston

  Posted at 12:47 am by Rachel, on August 19, 2018

  Earlier this summer we got to spend a few days in Boston. It was not nearly long enough (it never is!) but we did pack in a ton of our favorite things, including lots of good food! I probably would have gained 10 pounds here if we hadn’t balanced it out with a bunch of walking.

  Our AirBnB host left some oranges so we could make freshly squeezed orange juice. Oh man, this was so good! I don’t think I’ve had fresh orange juice before this trip. I’ll say that while I’m not usually an orange juice drinker, this had me considering getting my own juicer. It took 2 large oranges to fill this glass:

  

  Tatte was on our must-eat list for this trip; I have been dreaming of their Balakani sandwich (literally) since the last time I ate it in 2016. While Tatte has several locations, I’ve only ever been to the one in Brookline. It is such a cute little place! It was hard to appreciate the last time we were there because it was so packed (brunch on a holiday weekend is not a good time if you’re looking for a quiet spot!).

  

  

  

  The Balakani did not disappoint this trip either. The eggplant was so perfect – roasted to creamy perfection – and really wonderfully complemented by the salty feta. If you want something salty, this is a satisfyingly salty sandwich.

  

  

  We were there about an hour before closing but they still had a few grab-and-go style sandwiches. This one that my husband picked up wasn’t on the regular menu – it’s open-faced with prosciutto, arugula, and pear.

  Of course we picked out a few pastry items as well:

  

  

  

  

  Honestly, the top 2 pastries with the chocolate crusts are not something I would order again. They are so pretty to look at, and I love the fresh berries, but they are just not as chocolatey as I was hoping for. They were kind of dry too for my taste too. I know that we picked them up at the end of the day, but we usually buy a few items and do not eat them all immediately – if they’re dry after just a few hours, buying for a couple of days isn’t really good idea. The cheesecake cup was better – not dry and no disappointment in the intensity of its flavors. I would get this one again. Fortunately there are a lot of options here, so the next time I am craving a Balakani I can just try a different pastry.

  Next up was Eataly in the Prudential Center. We were headed to the Skywalk Observatory and planned to eat breakfast somewhere in the Prudential. Apparently the food court closed since the last time we visited, and I am the only person left from the Northeast who does not like Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, so we gave Eataly a try. This place is HUGE – so huge that you can grab a map on your way in. It was pretty early when we showed up, so most of the stations inside were closed. We still walked around the whole upper level just to see what there was, and I was impressed. I loved The Italian Store in Arlington, but I always thought that it should have been bigger or carried a wider variety of products. Eataly is more what I imagined the Italian Store would be like.

  

  

  

  The coffee was solid, albeit small. We also ordered a variety of pastries from the cafe next to the front entrance to share. We chose one with almonds, a cream-filled brioche, a chocolate pastry, and a ricotta and jam turnover. My absolute favorite was the cream-filled brioche, followed by the chocolate pastry. I enjoyed the flavor of the jam in the ricotta and jam turnover, and the pastry had a great crunch, but I wasn’t quite sold on the texture of the ricotta. It was kind of crumbly. Really it was not bad – none of it was – but I don’t know that I would order it again when there is brioche and chocolate pastry to eat.

  After breakfast we took the elevator up to the Skywalk. It was such a clear, beautiful day to be up there. You get free admission with a military or dependent ID, although these views are worth buying a ticket to see. My cell phone picture does not do them justice.

  

  After the Skywalk, we walked over to the Public Garden before heading back to the Prudential to pick up our car. It was almost nap time, so we grabbed some quick sandwiches from Eataly to go. By the way, if you do drive in and park at the Prudential, Eataly will validate your parking.

  My husband ordered a PLT (prosciutto, lettuce, and tomato) and I got the Cavolino, which had pesto, cheese, and caramelized onions. These are BIG sandwiches, and you could probably split one between two people depending on how hungry you are. I think I ended up saving part of mine to eat later. The Cavolino was very fresh tasting – I think there was some lemon in the pesto – great for an early summer sandwich. It was also very oily. It wasn’t oily in a gross way, but it was messy, so if you choose this sandwich, keep some napkins nearby.

  

  

  

  

  That night we picked up a few slices from Regina Pizzeria and took them to DeFilippo Playground around the corner. There were a couple of picnic tables and a great selection of toys in addition to the playground equipment. I was too hungry to wait to snap a picture, so if you’ve never been, it’s a perfect, delicious, thin crust pizza. I think I could eat it every day and not get sick of it.

  My husband walked down the street to Mike’s Pastry to pick up some cannoli. We got one plain ricotta, one strawberry, one Florentine, and one chocolate chip. The strawberry was for our 3-year-old, but I did try some – I can’t say I recommend this one unless you are buying it for someone who cares more about the color than the flavor. The others were all great. I always get the Florentine, which has nuts (I believe they are almonds) and honey in the shell, and chocolate chips on the ends. My husband tried a bite and he found the shell to be a bit *too* crunchy. If that’s something that would bother you, then the chocolate chip might be a better match. I really enjoy the extra flavor the nuts bring to the table though.

  

  On the way back, someone commented that we looked super touristy with our Mike’s box. Maybe it is a tourist staple, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t tasty. We’ve been getting cannoli from Mike’s for years and we love them, which is all that matters.

  I was sad to discover that Finale, a fixture of our college days and past trips, closed a couple of years ago. Apparently it was already closed the last time we were in Boston and we didn’t notice it! Whoops! Anyway, we obviously had more than enough food to fill our bellies this time around, and I am sure we will find some new places to visit in the future. In the meantime, I will miss their dessert-centric restaurant in general and their molten chocolate cake in particular.

  Until next time, Boston!

  Posted in dessert, Dinner, Food Journal | 0 Comments | Tagged balakani, Boston, breakfast, cannoli, coffee, dessert, Dinner, Eataly, Finale, juice, lunch, Mike's Pastry, pastry, pizza, Prudential Center, Regina Pizzeria, restaurant review, sandwich, Skywalk, take out, Tatte

• Food Journal #4: Frog Hollow Tavern

  Posted at 8:37 pm by Rachel, on August 6, 2018

  Frog Hollow Tavern is an upscale farm to table restaurant in downtown Augusta, GA. Augusta’s downtown is actually pretty big – which is appropriate considering that it was Georgia’s capital for a hot minute – but also has a lot of empty storefronts. Maybe one day it will fill up again, but in the meantime I will take the easy parking 😀

  Anyway, my husband and I went out to celebrate my birthday and the fact that we had a babysitter. It had been about 2 years since we had a dinner out without the kids, so this was a real treat. Really this is a place to go without the little ones. It’s kind of noisy (Frog Hollow is also a bar), expensive, and they literally clear the crumbs off of your table between courses. We had a reservation for 8 PM on a Saturday; it was busy when we arrived and without a reservation the wait was at least 30 minutes, so if you want to visit, plan ahead.

  

  

  We started with a couple of appetizers. I was not sure what to expect of the Eggplant Fries – I think the fact that they are topped with powdered sugar threw me off. Despite the sugar, they were savory and delicious with a creamy inside. It’s one of the better done eggplant dishes I’ve tasted. The watermelon salad was good but a bit underwhelming. The parts of the salad were all individually very good but it felt like there was something missing to tie it all together. We tried pickled watermelon rind in Williamsburg last year, and for some reason I anticipated something more like that. The most interesting element of the dish was the feta. Grocery store feta usually just tastes kind of salty to me, but this tasted very much like goat cheese to me. In fact, I double-checked the menu description to see that it was feta! This feta comes from a local farm and is made from goat’s milk – I guess I have never had fresh feta before – this is how feta should taste.

  

  I LOVE gnocchi, so of course I had to try the Spring Pea and Mushroom Gnocchi. There were more mushrooms on this plate than gnocchi! I was disappointed for about 30 seconds until I tasted it. The whole thing was amazing. I know my picture isn’t the best, but the hen of the woods mushrooms look so much fancier than any mushrooms I can buy at my normal grocery store, and I loved how the thinner caps have a more delicate texture. It looks like this was a seasonal item as it is no longer on the menu – I’m glad I caught it while it was available!

  

  My husband had one of the night’s specials – a pork chop that had been marinated for about 12 hours and some sort of tomato salad. While it was a special that night, our server said that it was a customer favorite, so I think they offer it somewhat regularly. It looks huge because it is bone-in but it was a reasonable serving size. Most importantly it was not dry, as pork chops, in my experience, tend to be.

  

  To finish off we shared a Peach Buckle. The peaches are a special variety (Lori Annes) from another local farm, and I’m pretty sure that the ice cream was house-made. I could have eaten this whole thing myself, even after everything else.

  I hope we get the chance to go back to Frog Hollow. It was such a treat to indulge my inner foodie for an evening and there are a lot more dishes on the menu that I want to try. This place is highly rated for a reason, folks!

  Posted in Dinner, Food Journal | 2 Comments | Tagged Augusta GA, Dinner, Frog Hollow, restaurant review

• Food Journal #3

  Posted at 12:00 am by Rachel, on March 15, 2018

  Welcome back to my Food Journal, where I share the more memorable things we’ve been eating, what we liked, and what we didn’t. Let’s get started…

  2/7 Sweet Potato Chickpea Buddha Bowl

  

  This recipe was a mixed bag. My husband loved it (as usual), but I was frustrated by how long it took to make and how the sweet potatoes ended up super crunchy. My #1 pet peeve with recipes is probably when the actual cooking time does not match up with how long the recipe says it will take. In the case of these Buddha bowls, the recipe states (many times) that this will take 30 minutes, and it ended up taking me about an hour. I often wonder if I am just a slow cook, and that may still be the case, however my prep speed would not affect the cooking times once food is in the oven. I did side-eye the recipe saying that a sweet potato half would cook through in like 25 minutes (because I usually dice mine and they take about 40 minutes to cook through), but I tried it anyway; as I have already said, the results were not good.

  I would be open to trying this again with diced sweet potatoes – it would be a little bit more prep work but at least they would cook through before everything else burned. I would also line the baking sheet with aluminum foil to make cleanup a bit easier. Overall the flavors were really good; I love the variety of vegetables this recipe incorporated, the chickpeas were outstanding, and the tahini sauce was something new for me. By the way, if you have never used tahini before (I hadn’t!), it is super runny when you open it, kind of similar to natural peanut butter in its consistency. I wish that I paid the extra dollar for the jar with a twist-on lid instead of one that needed to be opened with a can opener – that was a mess!

  2/13 Brunch at Founding Farmers

  For our wedding anniversary we decided to celebrate with our favorite meal of the day and took the kids out for brunch at Founding Farmers. This restaurant has a few locations and all of them are owned by the North Dakota Farmers Union. From what I understand, a lot of the ingredients they use are sourced from North Dakota farms – neat! We went at about 9 AM on a weekday morning, so it was not crowded – most of the other patrons looked like they were having working breakfasts.

  We were hungry when we arrived, so we ordered a Jefferson Donut, coffee, and a New York Egg Cream while we looked at the rest of the menu. Our waiter explained that the Jefferson Donut is Founding Farmers’s take on a cronut. It was fairly light and filled with a pastry cream. We all really liked the donut – if I could get a box of these instead of whatever Dunkin’ Donuts is offering, I would.

  

  

  I would not say I’m a coffee snob, but I don’t drink bad coffee anymore. If I order a coffee and it tastes old and watery, I throw it out. This happens more often than I like, so I didn’t have high hopes for Founding Farmers. I was pleasantly surprised, though, because the coffee was really good. I just got regular drip coffee; it was very smooth and delicious and when the waiter offered me a refill I gladly accepted. And how cute is that little milk carton?

  

  The egg cream was the most interesting item we ordered – I know that this is not unique to Founding Farmers, but it is the only time I have seen one on a restaurant menu. The best way I can describe it is watery, fizzy chocolate milk. We probably would not order it again – personally I would prefer regular chocolate milk – but it was fun to try it!

  There is no children’s menu here, so for our kids we ordered the Vanilla Cream Filled French Toast to share. This was a huge dish! My husband ended up eating some too because it was just so much (this was his favorite item we ordered, by the way). It was more like french toast sticks than french toast you would make at home, which is fine because my 3-year-old was all about dunking them in the syrup.

  

  I ordered the Roasted Vegetable Pan Scramble which comes with a biscuit (and butter & blueberry compote) and one side – I chose fruit. The sweet offerings on the menu were very tempting but we were going to have waffles for dinner so I went savory. This is an egg white scramble with a ton of veggies. Like most restaurant offerings, it was a large, filling dish. I found it a bit too salty, but overall still pretty good. I liked that I didn’t feel gross after eating it. The fruit was nice and fresh, and a good size for sharing with my kids. I really enjoyed the biscuit; if there was still room in my belly after eating everything else, I would have ordered more of them.

  

  My husband ordered the Traditional Ham Eggs Benedict with a side of Leek Hash Browns. If you are a fan of eggs benedict, this one was a well-executed classic that you may enjoy.

  

  We really liked Founding Farmers and are hoping to go back before we leave the area. The time that we went was pretty low-key, and we even saw some other people with kids towards the end of our meal.

  2/15 Dijon-Pecan 2-Step Chicken

  This is one of those rare recipes that is fast and easy to prep, inexpensive, and tasty. It took me about 5 minutes to put this together in the baking dish:

  

  I used Harris Teeter’s fresh chicken breasts (from the meat counter) – they are the best price in the store and they are massive. I used 4 of them since the recipe calls for 4 chicken breasts, but really 2 of these cut in half is probably the portion size the author had in mind. Mine took a little longer in the oven because the chicken breasts were so enormous.

  The fastest way to crush the pecans is to toss them in a plastic bag and roll a rolling pin over them a few times. If you want to be a bit greener, chopping them with a knife would probably not take that much longer.

  I served them with egg noodles (quick and in my pantry) and roasted broccoli and cauliflower. I took the lazy way out and used a bag of the already-prepped veggies from the produce section.

  

  

  2/20 Tuscan White Bean and Garlic Soup

  

  This soup is pure comfort. It is buttery and rich but not too heavy. If you are craving soup and don’t want to do a lot of work, then this is a recipe to try. I use Better than Bouillon to make my chicken broth; it has a great flavor that adds a lot to the depth of this soup. For recipes like this, I used to boil water and prepare the broth before adding it to the recipe, but lately I have just been adding water and the Better than Bouillon to the pot at the same time. I’m about to bring the water to a boil anyway, so why dirty another dish? Using the immersion blender to puree the soup cuts down on dishes too.

  I’ve heard that cream-based soups don’t freeze well, but I have frozen this one with a lot of success. Just give it a stir after reheating and it is as good as fresh. This is an easy recipe to double, it just takes a little longer to bring the soup to a simmer. I actually made a double batch this time because both of my kids slurp it up and I love the leftovers.

  2/21 Chipotle Portobello Oven Fajitas, Sweet Potato Cornbread

  We had company over this night and I completely forgot to take any pictures! These fajitas are great; all the deliciousness of Tex-Mex but without the heaviness of something loaded down with cheese. Now I am not always a mushroom person – I think it is a texture issue – but the mushrooms really shrivel up in the oven. Once they get mixed in with the other veggies I cannot usually tell that they are there. My kids have not eaten these yet because they do not really like spicy food, so I set aside some of the cut up veggies for them to eat raw with tortillas.

  The cornbread was interesting. The “basic” cornbread that I usually make is a lot denser and more savory. This recipe was very light and fluffy. It was also a lot sweeter (to be expected with that much added sugar). Honestly it kind of reminded me of cake… not that that is a bad thing! It was definitely more “dressed up” and I could see myself making this again if I find myself with some extra sour cream lying around, especially since it was not a big undertaking.

  2/22 Rosemary Chicken Thighs, Butternut Squash Gratin with Onions and Sage (Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone)

  

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  In case you missed the recipe for my rosemary chicken thighs, you can find that here. This is one of my family’s favorite recipes. It is so flavorful, tender, and easy. My 1-year-old gobbles it up!

  I took advantage of this super easy main dish to experiment with a new side: butternut squash gratin with onions from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. While it was time-consuming to make, it was not labor intensive. I cut down on my prep work by using pre-diced butternut squash. I did a cost comparison a few months ago and found that a whole fresh butternut squash cost about the same as the package of cubed squash – really I think my dollar goes further with more squash from the package because I am not paying for the seeds and skin. Plus it just takes way less time. My food processor made the rest of the prep very fast. I used it to slice onions, shred cheese, and make bread crumbs. Like I said though, it is a time-consuming dish – 15 minutes to cook onions, then 8 minutes to brown the squash, and 50 minutes total in the oven. I like the idea of this dish, and it has piqued my interest in other gratins. My one complaint with it is that I
  found it too thyme-heavy. I decided to use dried thyme instead of fresh because I already had it on hand, and I think I miscalculated the conversion between fresh and dried thyme, so the thyme ended up overpowering the other flavors.

  

   

  Posted in Food Journal | 0 Comments | Tagged breakfast, chicken, Dinner, Founding Farmers, freezer friendly, kid-friendly, restaurant review, side dish, soup, vegetarian

• Food Journal #2

  Posted at 2:30 am by Rachel, on February 8, 2018

  Welcome back to the Food Journal, where I share the good and not-so-good of what I’ve cooked recently.

  1/30 Lemon Chicken

  My mom gave me a copy of The Asian Slow Cooker for Christmas, so I have been trying out some new recipes from there. My kids are not really fans of spicy food at the moment, so this week I tried the not-at-all-spicy lemon chicken to up the odds of them eating it. I think they each had one piece – small victories!

  The recipe itself was pretty easy to make. The week before I made cashew chicken from the same cookbook and managed to mess up before the end of the first step – I opened the cookbook to the wrong page and didn’t check which recipe it was before I started cooking – whoops! So this time I triple checked that I was on the correct page and it was smooth sailing.

  

  The texture at the end is a bit mushier than I would ideally like (especially as leftovers the next day), but that is the trade-off of cooking in the crock pot. I do wonder how easily these recipes could be adapted to be cooked on the stove top like Budget Bytes’s Easy Orange Chicken. Something to experiment with some day.

  1/31 Spaghetti Aglio e Olio

  This was my second time making this pasta dish, and it is solidly easy and kid-friendly. My older daughter likes that there is no sauce; I like that there is still a lot of flavor. But really, I peeled and sliced the garlic and prepped a salad while the water boiled, started cooking the garlic when I put the pasta in, and dinner was ready about 2 minutes after I took the pasta out of the water – you cannot get much quicker than that. I perked up lunchtime leftovers with a bit of parmesan and an extra sprinkle of crushed red pepper.

  

  

  2/2 Mini Garden Turkey Loaves

  These are so delicious – probably the most delicious meatloaves I have ever tasted. How delicious, you ask? I gave half of a muffin each to my 1-year-old and my 3-year-old. It took some persuading, but once the 3-year-old tried it, she ate her entire portion. After she ate her dinner (meatloaf and veggies), my husband gave her a cookie. She ate the cookie and then asked for more meatloaf. Actually, she asked for 3 of the muffins, but we started her off with just one more, which she and her sister shared.

  

  The first time I made them I did as directed, but this time I realized about 10 minutes before I started cooking that I didn’t have any bread in the house! I usually make my own breadcrumbs, so I don’t keep those on hand, and I started baking my own bread a few months ago, but forgot to bake a loaf in time for this recipe. Anyway, I had some ritz-style crackers on hand, so I tossed some into a plastic bag and crushed them with a rolling pin – they were a perfect breadcrumb substitute!

  If you wanted to save some time, I think you could saute the veggies ahead of time. I would wait to mix them with the meat, egg, breadcrumbs, and seasonings until right before cooking so that the breadcrumbs don’t get mushy. We did freeze these the first time we made them and they froze very well! A few minutes in the microwave and they were as delicious as right out the oven.

  2/3 Sicilian Pizza

  

  I wanted to up my pizza game a few months ago, and my search brought me to the Serious Eats Pizza Lab. This dough recipe and this sauce recipe are my current defaults for pizza night. The dough is so easy – one thing about my previous recipe that I struggled with was stretching the dough, and this one stretches itself most of the way out. The little stretching that I have to do takes maybe 2 minutes tops. I like to lift the dough and stretch from underneath the center. I have found that bread flour works better than all-purpose flour, but all-purpose flour still does a decent job. I also like to use the mixer’s paddle attachment to mix the dry ingredients, olive oil, and water, and then switch to the dough hook to knead for the last 6 minutes. The sauce is so delicious, I eat it with a spoon right out of the pot. I usually make a double batch because we eat a lot of pizza and it freezes well.

  It sounds so obvious now, but the most important thing I have learned in my quest for better pizza is to use better quality ingredients. Pizza is a pretty basic food in that it is really only 3 ingredients – bread, sauce, and cheese. Just making my own sauce and switching to mozzarella that is not pre-shredded made such a huge difference. Making the sauce in double batches and using the food processor to shred the cheese keeps the workload more manageable.

  2/5 “Roasted” chicken & mashed cannellini beans

  Lately this has been my favorite way to cook a whole chicken. First I put a few balls of foil in the bottom of the slow cooker, put the whole chicken on top, throw in some onions, carrots, celery, salt, & pepper, and cook for 8 hours on low. When that is done, I transfer the whole chicken to a broiler pan (or a small cookie sheet) with a roasting rack and broil it for 4 or 5 minutes. It comes out nice and juicy from the slow cooker and nicely browned with a crispy skin from the broiler.

  

  Mashed cannellini beans have been a favorite side dish in our house for a while now. I think they are a bit more nutritious than mashed potatoes or rice, and more flavorful as well. I suspected for a long time that these would freeze very well; in fact, back when I was pregnant with baby #2 I planned to make some and freeze them for a quick side dish, but I ran out of freezer space before I got the chance. So I finally decided to experiment. I made a batch of the beans a few months ago and popped the leftovers in a quart-sized bag in the freezer. At dinner time, I defrosted them in a bowl of hot water, transferred them to a bowl, and microwaved them for about a minute. The flavor and consistency were just as good as the freshly made mashed beans! This is a great option for freezer cooking!

  Posted in Food Journal | 0 Comments | Tagged Dinner, freezer friendly, side dish, slow cooker

• Food Journal #1

  Posted at 8:10 pm by Rachel, on November 26, 2017

  Welcome to my new series, Food Journal! This is where I will write about different recipes I try, what was good, and what wasn’t. Let’s get started…

  11/20 Fast and Easy Pasta with Blistered Cherry Tomato Sauce:

  Fast, easy, pasta… this recipe is basically all of my favorite things 😛 It was really fast and really easy; like Kenji said in the video, the hardest part was slicing (and peeling) the garlic. The second hardest part was putting the tomatoes into the pan without getting burned by splattering oil. Note to self: dumping the tomatoes into the pan from a large bowl will probably work better than tossing them in by the handful. Next time I want to start on the sauce BEFORE I put the pasta in the pot. My pasta cooked and was done probably 10 minutes before my sauce. I guess I’m a slow cook. Anyway, this pasta was awesome and so were its leftovers.

   

  

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  11/21 Slow Cooker Balsamic Chicken:

  I had this recipe pinned for a while but never made it because it looked a bit more complicated than I care to take on for a weeknight (or any night). Well, I made it and it looked JUST like the pictures! I decided to modify the recipe a bit, partly to cut down on the day-of prep work and partly to take advantage of a good price on chicken. After searing the meat, I prepped the sauce, and threw them both into a gallon sized freezer bag. I let it all cool off completely and put it into the freezer until this morning when I took it out to defrost. Prep in the morning was easy – dump the pearl onions into the slow cooker, rinse the mushrooms and dump them into the slow cooker (I used pre-sliced so no chopping for me!), add pre-minced garlic, rosemary, and a bay leaf, then just dump out the contents of my defrosted freezer bag.

   

  

  

  

  The only things I wasn’t crazy about were having to use so many pans & dishes and deseeding the pomegranate.

   

  

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  A lot of slow cooker recipes end up tasting the same: they aren’t interesting or fresh. But this one is! I really loved the recipe, and am excited to eat it again in a few weeks. If you’re like me and tend to skip the fresh herb garnish, do yourself a favor and pick up the fresh parsley that the recipe calls for. It definitely added something extra and rounded out the flavors.

   

  11/22 We had leftovers for dinner (really a great idea for clearing out your fridge the day before Thanksgiving) but I still spent ALL DAY in the kitchen. I baked an apple pie, a pumpkin pie, and some dinner rolls, plus the normal endless snacks for my kids.

  The apple pie took the longest time of the three recipes. I recently gave up on trying to make pie dough in my food processor and decided to try out this pie dough recipe from The Smitten Kitchen. I used a large balloon whisk to cut the butter into the flour – somehow I still don’t have a pastry blender. The whisk worked just fine, but I think a pastry blender might do this job more quickly, or at least be more comfortable to hold. The first crust was either too warm or I did not use enough flour, because it stuck to the counter when I rolled it out. So I pushed it all back into a disc shape, refloured the counter, and rolled it out again. Somewhere in the world a pastry chef is cringing. Really the pie turned out fine despite over-handling the dough, although all the extra flour on that first crust made it hard to seal it to the second crust.

   

  

  

  

  The filling for the apple pie was made of a mixture of 3 pounds of Granny Smiths and 2 pounds of Pink Ladies. I don’t think I want to make another apple dessert until I have an apple peeler of some sort. I think I say this every I make apple pie. But really, peeling and coring the apples with my vegetable peeler and paring knife takes me FOREVER. Also, if you attempt this recipe, remember to use a POT of some kind with a lid and not a SKILLET. I tried using my large cast iron skillet and had to use a mixing bowl for a makeshift lid. It was also really hard to stir the apples because the skillet was too shallow for the amount of food in it. It still worked, but it was a pain.

  

  Once the apple pie was in the oven, I started the bread dough. These rolls were light and fluffy, and the whole process was fast and easy thanks to my bread machine. One thing I learned while making this recipe is that you do not need to melt butter before adding it to the bread machine! Just cut it into smaller pieces and the machine will take care of the rest. Shaping the rolls was trickier than I expected because the dough was STICKY. So I just made basic pan rolls instead of the cloverleaf rolls I had originally planned.

   

  

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  This is my third year making this pumpkin pie recipe. The streusel topping makes it more impressive than the recipe from the canned pumpkin label, but it is about the same amount of work. My only modifications to the original recipe are 1) I double the crust and 2) I use all butter instead of butter + oil. It is a deep dish pie, but I use a deep cake pan and it works just fine.

  

   

  11/23 My mom hosted Thanksgiving at her house, so I didn’t do any cooking that day. However, she asked me to find a recipe for sweet potatoes with brown sugar and cinnamon, and I found this super easy recipe for roasted sweet potatoes that everyone loved. Like, I don’t think there were even any leftovers. I usually make savory roasted sweet potatoes with just olive oil, salt, and pepper, but this was a nice change for the holiday and all of the spices made them feel more special. If you want “holiday” sweet potatoes without the heaviness of a sweet potato casserole, I recommend these!

  Posted in Food Journal | 0 Comments | Tagged dessert, Dinner, freezer friendly, pie, recipe review, side dish, slow cooker, thanksgiving

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