Posts

Today I made a marinade and put some chicken in the refrigerator to marinate overnight for piri-piri chicken.
 
Half the marinade is reserved to be served as a sauce after it is cooked.
 
Piri piri sauce is traditionally made with African birdseye peppers, but those are not readily found in supermarkets here, so I substituted red Fresno chili peppers.
 
1 pound red chili peppers  
one medium bundle cilantro or to taste  
one to one and a half ounces fresh basil leaves  
one bulb garlic (normally approximately twelve cloves)  
one quarter cup extra virgin olive oil  
juice of one lemon  
one teaspoon smoked paprika  
one teaspoon MSG  
one teaspoon black pepper or to taste  
one teaspoon salt or to taste
 
The above ingredients are for the sauce.
 
This is the garnish.
 
fresh chopped parsley for garnish  
crushed cayenne pepper flakes for garnish
 
This is the chicken.  
4-5 pounds chicken pieces, traditionally legs are used but other parts are also quite usable
 
Cut the stems off the peppers and put them in the food processor. Process them slowly into a pulp, slowly adding the olive oil bit by bit. Peel and trim the garlic and add it too a bit at a time, processing smooth again. Add the other sauce ingredients to the mixture and process until all is smooth and uniform. Use all the cilantro including the stems. This will result in about a pint or a little bit more of fresh piri-piri sauce.
 
Divide the sauce in half. Coat the chicken parts thoroughly and evenly with half of it as a marinade, and put them in a covered glass bowl in the refrigerator. Put the other half of the sauce The amount of time to marinate is up to you and really depends on your tolerance for spicy food, as well as the type of peppers used. You can get a good mild flavor with relatively mild peppers in half an hour, or you can get very piquant flavors with stronger peppers, like fresh cayenne or red cherry peppers, overnight, if you like it hot.
 
Put the coated chicken in foil lined pans. Pour the marinade over it so that it cooks coated with it. Bake at 350 F. for about 1 1/2 hours or until golden brown and cooked through. Remove from oven, arrange chicken on platter, and pour over the rest of the sauce. Garnish with parsley and red pepper flakes.
 
Serves several hungry people who like spicy chicken with hot chili pepper sauce.

I just got curious and tried canned key lime pie filling in a graham cracker crust. Filling the 9” crust took two 21oz cans. It’s very sweet and very rich, but not as tart as I expected. The label said it’s made with real fruit, but I was hoping for a stronger fruit flavor.

@yelling_into_the_void  
It’s weird, I know. I can’t prove it but I suspect they sell pre-made fruit pie filling in that packaging because it’s the perfect amount to put on top of a homemade cheesecake with no leftovers. My mother always made cheesecake that way.
 
Speaking of filling for fruit pies, always make cherry pie filling out of sour red cherries. Sweet cherries, especially dark or yellow cherries, are best eaten fresh. They lose a lot of flavor when cooked. Sour red cherries are perfect for cooking, though you might want to increase the sugar a bit from what you might normally use with other fruit.

@Background Pony #6285  
I think it’s 9 1/2.
 
Odd that one can of filling isn’t enough for a single pie.

@yelling_into_the_void  
Is it a 9” pie pan? Are you buying canned pie filling in 20 ounce cans? That’s why.
 
The rule of thumb for a 9” fruit pie is that you will need at least two 20 ounce cans, or at least two pounds of fruit to fill it, once the fruit has been washed, peeled, cored, pitted, and so on. Sugar or your favorite sweetener (I have had good luck this year with a stevia based mixture in fruit pies) to taste, maybe 1/2 cup to 1 cup.
 
A fruit pie also needs starches to thicken the material and hold it all together so that the fruit stays in the slice of pie and the slices don’t disintegrate. This can be 1/2 cup to 1 cup of cornstarch, all purpose flour, white cornmeal, or a combination thereof, either sprinkled over the fruit once you arrange it in the pie shell. Or for soft fruit, like blueberries, set aside about three quarters of a cup after washing them and put them in a blender or food processor. Then blend into it the sugar and the starches until the fruit mixture is uniform. Pour the fruit mixture into a bowl and dump in the rest of the fruit. Stir to coat. Then put everything into the pie shell and assemble the top cover onto it. Bake for 1 to 1 and a half hours at 350 to 375 degrees, or until the filling is fully cooked and the top crust is golden brown.

I made a Dutch apple pie. Turns out my pie pan is so deep it can hold two cans of pie filling.

@ᏰᎯᎠᎻᎬᎯᏒᎿ  
I don’t even know where to get gopher, let alone eat it.

@ᏰᎯᎠᎻᎬᎯᏒᎿ  
If you’re going to eat rodents, you don’t abide by a recipe, or any kind of plan. You just gopher it. I am so, so sorry.

I just made a pie with frozen mixed berries and stevia sweetener for the filling. For a 9” pie I normally add two tablespoons each cornstarch, all purpose flour, and white cornmeal to the filling as a thickener, and bake for about an hour and ten minutes at 375 (190 C.) I’ll see how it comes out after it cools off.
 
My crust recipe: one 6 2/3 ounce stick butter-flavored vegetable shortening (this is about one cup by volume, or 240cc, or about 190g) plus 2 2/3 cups (640cc by volume, or about 340g by weight) sifted all purpose flour, plus one teaspoon (10 cc) each salt, sugar, and apple cider vinegar. I sift together the dry ingredients and cut the shortening and the flour mixture together to form a crumbly mass, then add the vinegar, then just enough cold water to form a pliable dough that can be rolled easily. This makes enough for a top and bottom pie crust, or two individual crusts for 9” (22.5cm) pies.
 
I normally use about 20-24 ounces by weight of fresh fruit for a pie. This is 570-680g of fruit. Usually I add a little lemon juice and lemon zest, regardless of what kind of pie I am making, because I like the way the flavors combine. Previously I usually added one cup granulated sugar, or seven ounces, 240cc, or 200g, plus the starches. Today’s pie is an experiment with non-sugar sweetener.
 
Also with soft fruits like berries, I take between one fourth and one third of them and blend them smooth in a food processor, then slowly add to them the sugar and starches. I stir the rest of the fruit into this mixture and use this as filling.
 
I have a slice of the pie now. It’s not bad. It’s not as sweet as it would have been with one cup of sugar. The label on the stevia sweetener said it was equivalent volume for volume and it doesn’t really seem to be, though I also suppose the berries could have been more acidic than usual. I think it came out well. My doctor says I need to reduce the amount of processed sugar in my diet, and maybe this is a step in that direction.

@byte[]
 
A reply by Kikko Man:  

 
Whatever do you mean? It really does go great on everything!

@byte[]  
Imagine buying Kikkoman for soy sauce.
 
This post was sponsored by Habhal.

@KikkoMan  
Really now that’s false.

@KikkoMan  
I bet you were paid off by Big Soy Sauce to say that one, Kikkoman!

A message from Kikko Man:  

 
Soy sauce goes great on everything~

caught part of a Slice of Life Drama where the chick tries to get the Family to ‘eat heart healthy’
 
by servering them veggie burgers made from mung beans.
 
reminded me of some of the real ones ive tried.
 
yes, most of them tasted like crap, but there were some that were decent and at least one I found was really good.
 
Morning Star brand Grillers Prime. Tastes pretty much like the average fast food patty.

Today I made an apple pie of sorts, using canned applesauce as filling. To a 24 ounce can of applesauce I added two tablespoons sugar and one teaspoon cinammon. This was just the right amount of filling for a 9” pie shell. I am pleased with how it came out. My mother made pies with applesauce filling frequently when I was a child.

@pixel
 
@Background Pony #5045
 
It was very fragrant anyway…

@pixel  
It’s like the “That’s a lotta damage!” meme, but with vanilla.

@yelling_into_the_void  
oof

@yelling_into_the_void  

 
So… I tried doubling the vanilla, but I misread teaspoon as tablespoon…

stumbled across a recipe for Hardtack, remembered how … interesting the stuff was.
 
but then that’s the stuff made by a pro.. and with this sort of thing it comes down to the right equipment and experience.

@Background Pony #5045  
Maybe if I was making lasagna, but it was macaroni and cheese, so not really.

@yelling_into_the_void  
Was it accidentally delicious?

I accidentally used Italian sausage to make Hamburger Helper.