Help! Pumpkin Pie Question and Happy New Year

UPDATE: I should totally have mentioned -- this is my 100th post on Hungry Sam! More on that next time, of course.

SPEAKING of pies...

As it will be the year 5772 in just a few hours, I'll be celebrating with friends tomorrow evening at a Rosh Hashana potluck hosted by my friends Rebecca and Rachel. Yeah, so we're Jewish.

Anyways, though not a traditional RH dish (I don't know if they HAVE pumpkins in the Holy Land), I've got a wicked hankering for pumpkin pie -- so that's what I'm making. I'm torn, however, between my mom's recipe (which uses half &half) and two other techniques (one which uses cream cheese, the other sweetened condensed milk). Any advice, Hungry Sam readers?

Finally, I leave you with this picture of my adorable cousin and me making pumpkin pies a few years ago.

Shana tova, may you be inscribed in the book of life for a happy, healthy, and food-filled new year!

Millions of Peaches, Peaches for Free!

This peach pie has a peachy sort of shape cut into the crust (Jen's idea, not mine)!

Also, I put this peach pie picture up first because I know how many people are inclined to click on a picture of a pie, if presented with one. Now you're trapped and sliiiightly more likely to read this post! Hungry Sam blogging advice. Write it down, kids.

Back story!

Click to read more ...

Key Lime Pie: The Easiest Pie Ever

I even kind of made it look pretty.

Ok. Unless you're a masochist who enjoys spending several years squeezing tiny little Key limes, this pie is definitely the easiest pie, and perhaps the easiest dessert, evah. Which is how we like to say "ever" whenever we're excited the Red Sox decided NOT to spend July and August dropping to the bottom of the AL East! But I digress.

There are FOUR ingredients, and one of them comes with the dish for baking:

-Key Lime Juice (You can spend 14 hours squeezing 'em, or it comes in a bottle)

-Sweetened Condensed Milk (you can own a cow, or it comes in a 14 oz. can)

-Egg yolks (comes in an...egg)

-A graham crust (you can make it, or it comes in a pie tin)

Note my awesome super old hand mixer.

If you want to make it look pretty like I did, then you also need:

-One blackberry

-Half a lime

See? So easy.

Important detail: You can't just use regular lime juice. Key limes are significantly tarter and possess a greater depth of flavor -- they almost taste more like a wicked tart berry than a citrus. They're very, very small, about an inch in diameter, and you can sometimes find them in small sacks in the produce section. Each lime contains only a scant amount of juice; however, my Grammy turned me on to Kellie and Joe's Famous Key West Lime Juice and I haven't looked back since. I've seen it sold everywhere form a standard supermarket to the neighborhood bodega, so look around.

Actually making the pie is simple. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Using an electric beater (mine's from like 1976, if you can't tell) or a whisk, or a fork (but come on, spring for a whisk), beat together three egg yolks, the milk, and 1/2 cup of the juice. Then, pour it into the crust. BAM. That's it. If you don't know how to separate egg yolks from their whites, here's a helpful video explanation. 

 

Now if you want to be fancy (happy, Dawn and Rachel?), paint the exposed edges of the crust with the egg whites you've separated out -- it gives the crust a nice sheen and will help prevent it from breaking into crumbs when you try to cut the final product.

That's an el cheapo silicon brush, but fingers work too!

Throw the pie in for 15 minutes. Don't worry if it seems a tad loose when it comes out; it's set in about another ten minutes on the counter. Here's the pie BEFORE being topped with fruit:

Finally, if you're decorating, thinly slice a halved lime and arrange on the pie. I threw a blackberry into the center, because we had some and I like blackberries, which is the reasoning that guides many of my cooking decisions.

I think it's best to let it cool fully and to refrigerate the pie before serving, but that's your journey. The pie keeps reasonably well for maybe five or six days in the fridge.

Fruit Salad Haiku

A morning brunch bash

Means an awesome fruit salad.

Mango-melons-peach.

Planned Parenthood Birth Control Cookie

Does this really need any more explanation? Or does it raise a few questions? Like: Is it safe for me to eat this? Will I go to Hell?

I think we can agree, though, that if I eat this cookie, I will not get pregnant.

The View from my Phone: Darth Vader

Stay tuned for a lengthy look at one of Rochester, NY's greatest treasures: Custom Brewcrafters. Until then, I leave you with this photo I took on my phone:

This was such a whim, and so poorly thought out, and so much simply an urge to view Darth Vader in his natural (i.e. cookie) form, that I used the sugar cookie recipe on the back of the box (terrible) and we failed to decorate (unconscionable). Next time I will a) use my mom's cookie recipe (life-changing) and b) have black icing on hand.

Fresh Figs have Ruined Dried Figs for Me

Of all the dried fruits there are, dried figs are probably/obviously the best.

But Hungry Sam, you ask, how can you discount the wide world of other dried fruits?

Easily! I answer. I mean, raisins? Don't make me laugh. Apricots? Better than raisins, but never as intriguing as a plump, dried turkish or black mission fig. Carob? What am I, a dog? Blueberries, strawberries, apples, bananas? Weak, at best.

Ah, but FIGS! Figs are complex, they have real, fascinating, texture, sweet, nutty flavor, and they instantly transport me to the Levant and Near East; they make me think of the lunches of countless ages of nomads wandering the emptiness between city states and oases.

But you know what's INFINITELY BETTER? Of course you do, because you saw the title to this post!

Honeyed, melon-y, succulent, juicy, plump, fresh, off the tree black mission figs.

Oh my god. I had my first fresh fig only a year ago (Jen's neighbors have a tree), and have only had perhaps a dozen in my life, but they're memorable, each one. They have an otherworldly-looking interior, with weird-tentacly tendrils, and each one looks a little different inside. The flavor is sweet but not saccharine and presents irresistible honeydew tones. Because the sugars are still dissolved in the fruit's juices and not crystalized, fresh figs have a smoother texture and don't have the grittiness of the dried fruit. Each bite pierces through taut skin  and a thin, soft flesh, right into the aforementioned interior.

FEAST THINE EYES:

Run, don't walk, to a place where you can get fresh figs. Then eat them. Eat them allll.