Persuing Domestic Goddessness
Monday, September 29, 2003
Just another manic monday
After a mostly good weekend, today is sucky. My head hurts, class was painfully boring, nothing's working in lab, and I used bad time management ideas and now realize that I can't possibly do step 1 of a sequential digest and EtOH precipitate it before choir, so I have to come back after choir. Oy.
So the weekend- it was the Chilean Independence party! Andres and Fran made fantastic empanadas, so I'm having some of those for dinner tonight. :) Then there was half a pig roasting on a spit in Evan's backyard, and Christine from chamber choir was there, she's Davor's roommate. How random! Fran also made a yummy white wine/ canned peaches concoction that was had a deceptively high alcohol content. So basically we all ate adn then sat around the pit-turned-small bonfire while Susie worked her magic as marshmellow roasting expert.
Then Sunday was the Big E, and only Brandon and I ended up going, and we met my parents there and had a generally good time. It rained the entire day, and everyone ran out of cash (because of course they only take cash everywhere there, duuh), but good food was had, interesting animals were seen, and good times were enjoyed. No mistakes were made, lol.
I happened to make nummy nummy cupcakes on Saturday for the party, people really seemed to like them, so I'm posting the recipe here. It's from Williams-Sonoma.
Spiced Pumpkin Cupcakes
These moist pumpkin cupcakes can be tailored to your family’s preferences. For a more grown-up version, substitute chopped crystallized ginger and dried cranberries for the walnuts and raisins.
Unfrosted cupcakes will stay fresh in an airtight container for up to 2 days. Once frosted, cupcakes are best eaten within 1 day.
For the cupcakes:
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1 tsp. salt
2/3 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup raisins
1 can (15 oz.) solid-packed pumpkin (about
1 3/4 cups)
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1 cup canola oil
4 eggs
For the frosting:
14 oz. pure white chocolate, finely chopped
12 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature, cut
into tablespoon-size pieces
12 Tbs. (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room
temperature, cut into tablespoon-size pieces
Food coloring
Colored sugars and decorating pens
Position a rack in the center of an oven and preheat to 350°F. Line three 12-cup muffin tins with decorative cupcake papers.
To make the cupcakes, in a bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and salt. Toss the walnuts and raisins with the flour mixture. (This will help prevent them from sinking to the bottom of the muffin tins.)
In a large bowl, whisk together the pumpkin, granulated sugar, brown sugar and oil. Add the eggs one at a time, whisking after each addition.
Add the flour mixture in three additions, stirring with a large wooden spoon. Mix until just combined.
Fill the muffin tins about three-fourths full. Bake until the cupcakes are golden and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes. Transfer the tins to a wire rack and let cool for 10 minutes, then remove the cupcakes from the tins and let cool completely.
To make the frosting, in a double boiler, melt the white chocolate, stirring constantly, until smooth and creamy, 2 to 3 minutes. Let stand until just warm to the touch. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese and butter on medium-high speed until smooth and blended. Add the melted chocolate and beat again until smooth. Use the frosting immediately, coloring it as desired. Spread 1 to 2 Tbs. frosting over each cupcake and decorate with colored sugars and decorating pens. Makes 36 cupcakes.
Me again- cupcake comments: I used 1/2 cup of crystallized ginger (chopped into raisin-sized chunks) adn dried cranberries. I also don't like canola oil, so I used a stick of butter plus 1/2 cup of olive oil (I was too lazy to go digging through the cupboard for the canola oil, and the olive oil was in front). Then for hte frosting, at first I was like, white chocolate, who the hell has that? So I used one ofmy mom's cream cheese frosting recipes, which was 1 stickof butter (if you use unsalted, add 1/8 teaspoon of salt), 8oz of cream cheese, a little bit of vanilla (I never measure vanilla anymore, but I imagine it was around 1teaspoon) and powdered sugar.
Leave the cream cheese and butter out at room temp for 3+ hrs. It's very important not to melt either, because then you'll get sweet soupy goo, not frosting. So beat the room temp (RT) cream cheese and butter like hell, add the salt if you need it and the vanilla, mix some more,adnthen add teh powdered sugar 1 cup at a time. I think I ended up with about 6 cups of powdered sugar. Just stop when it gets to the consistency that you like. The recipe said 2 cups, and I think shemight have meant 2 lbs, which I think is 8 cups, but since my butter was onthe solid side I didn't need so much sugar.
Cooking is trial and error, hardly anything is constant when you're adding stuff. I guess baking more so than cooking. But temperature and humidity (of the air, I mean) have suchhuge impacts on baking. Like don't even bother making meringue on a hot August day in new england, it jsut won't work. And frosting is similar, the weather the day you're making it can change teh amounts of things you need to add. As a rule, it's usually just the sugar that you need to change amounts of, keep the butter or whatever fatty base you're using, the same. Some frostings call for water or milk, and that, like sugar, can be a trial and error addition process. With buttercream frosting, add a little milk, add a little sugar, just keep adding til you like the way it looks. It's fun, really! Pie crust canbe similar,since the amount of ice water you need to add depends on the temp and humidity of the air around you. But I guess I already talked about pie crust.
Ok well that concludes today's lesson. I actually have an assignment to hand in on Thursday, and our study group is meeting tomorrow to go over it, so I should read the paper adn think about the discussion questions....
:)
Friday, September 26, 2003
All by myself....
Greetings, adoring fans! I love you all! Well not really, there might be people reading this that i don't know. Like in "Why Girls are Weird", where she starts getting fan mail because her journal's so hilarious. No fan mail for me.... yet. I'm not going to open mine with a description of how I had fetish barbies, though, maybe I'm too tame.
Well anyhoo. I was going to go to bed now, so I can get up at the crack of dawn and hit the farmers market, but eh, I'm not tired yet.
My evening: I was in lab until after 9 (got a call from the Breather, which is always a great thing < ctrl 7 >, and breather, you know what ctrl 7 is, heh heh). All my lab buddies went to see a movie on campus but no of course they wouldn't invite me. Ah whateva. That's when the breather called.
So I came home and made pumpkin cupcakes to bring to teh Chilean Independence party tomorrow night (will frost and decorate them tomorrow), and damn those cupcakes are good, I shouldn't have eaten 3 already. Hmm. I also watched Inventing the Abbotts, which was ok. Jennifer Connolly's breasts were all over. If I was male I'd be all happy about that, but as it is, I feel rather inferior. Well anyway, gotta keep this rated PG13.
Omg I've been using my laptop so much that now that I'm on my desktop, I went for the little mouse button on the keyboard. lol!! I need to get an external mouse for school.
Shoot I had all this other cool stuff to say. To make you all jealous of the glorious life that I do lead.Let's see... cupcakes, movie, typing in more names (Philo- like the dough!, Hepsey, Halsey, Jemima, Roxanna- what a weird name! lol jk, Philinda and Mehitabel.) I've also realized that posting these more unusual and antique names can be helpful to those of you who would consider children sometime inthe future. I am proud to say that a friend of mine has decided that Talathycumy is teh perfect name for his first son.
I'd also like to sing Susie's praises, she lent me half a dozen good-looking books, and what perfect timing, because just last night I finished the last book I had that I wanted to read. I mean, yeah I could probably start on reading for class, but what fun is that?!?
Oh you know I remember my point. I stayed in this evening, and I'm proud to say this is one of the first evenings since I was like in middle school, that I've stayed in and been fine with that.Yay for being more secure with my social life! My Boston peeps are currently all at a toga party at MIT, and I wish them a wonderful time and hope sometime I can join them (not like I've never been to an MIT frat party, but still), but I'm content with my cupcakes and movie for tonight. Yeah it really doesn't take much to please me. If anyone ever wants to cheer me up or something, just write me a little check for $50. I'll be ecstatic. See how easy? ;)
Well, the farmer's market is tomororw, and I need fruit. I also need walnuts, cranberries adn butter. Always butter, and I don't even use butter for eating, really. Just on my toast in the morning. My grocery list is short now, I just spent a fortune at Shaw's on Tuesday.
Hopefully my website will get more pictures shortly, I hope to have a little scanning spree some time next week. In the meantime, I may post some of Susie's retreat and picnic pics on my site tomorrow while I'm waiting for stuff to happen in lab.
G'night!
Ps anyone know what colors the Chilean flag is? Should I dress in Chilean colors for the independence partytomorrow?
Thursday, September 25, 2003
What's in a name? that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet;
Names. I have some doozies.
So I'm doing this data entry thing for DAR, to make a big database of all these graveyard/family bible/etc records, to make for easier genealogical searches. The books I've been going through have people born anywhere from 1750 to 1900. I just wanted to let you all know some of the more, ah, unusual names.
Female:
Billina
Beriah
Honor
Bathsheba
Wealthy (and one Wealthy's maiden name was Rich. yep, Wealthy Rich.)
Theodotia
Amariah
Jerusha
Reliance
Statira
Electa
Temperance
Lovice
Orpha
Ezbell
Permelia
Weltha
Thankful
Thirza
Artemesia
Hermione
Parthena
Delight
Vienna
Silence
Kezia
Submit
Huldah
Male:
Zephaniah
Ahimaaz
Heman (lol He-man! I was looking for his sister She-ra)
Bellostee
Theodosius
Deadate
Peleg
Ayer
Lephania (I think that's a male)
Aloah
Jabin
Eleazar
Amursiah
Duthan
Pericles
Jehiel
Asenath
Erastus
Tapping
Eliphalet
Finett
Ebenzer
Hezekiah
Phinehas
Abijah
Amaziah
Ephraim
Penock
Boadiah
Noadiah
Jairus
Lodeme
Rodolphus
Zaccheus
Talathycumy
Gameliel
I'm actually not sure about Lodeme, but I think he was a dude.
Well that concludes today's portion of "Weird names of yore". Happy thursday! Hope to see some of you at 5 olde tonight!
Love, kisses and tequila,
Catherine
Tuesday, September 23, 2003
the truth about cat (but not dogs)
Dear Diary,
Today I met a boy. He looked at me and I wondered if he knew I liked him. Oh Diary, he was so cute, I think I'm in love.
Anyone know that song? it's on Britney Spears' first or second album, it's like the first song she wrote herself. Everytime I hear it (which isn't often, so ok it must be on the first album) I just laugh at the absurdity. Poor Britney.
So life lately is sucky, the rain has a big effect on my outlook on life. Well basically yesterday it was implied that my labmates are chatting behind my back, which bothers me. I'm trying really hard to not give them a reason to badmouth me, but honestly there's only so much hitting your head against the wall that can be done in a single day,and after I've had enough of that, I usually go home. Or else I take off during the day when I have 2 hours to just wait for an experiment, adn run errands. Because I'll be in lab til 10pm that day,so why not run the errands that need to be run when I have nothing better to do inthe middle of the day?
Damn the man, I refuse to comform to this inferior mortal world.
Well in other news, B and I trotted down to the all campus bbq, which was held inside due to massive rain (rain caused me to wear my new shirt with the halloween black glittery cat on it, new blue stripey socks (YES!!!! I have new stripey socks!!!) and bring my cute little halloween decoration thingy that I bought at cracker barrel in SC to put on my desk). This was enjoyable, the burgers were perfectly tasty, even though they were slightly greasey.
I have also moved desks, I'm inthe corner where Nicole used to be. I'm gettng more used to this space. It's weird, because before I was kind of out in the middle of that half of the room, so I could see everything while at my desk. Now I face the corner, and yes I have a window, but I have no idea what's going on around me unless I turn around.
I also have no buffers, arg. Not that I need them.... yet....but they just make the shelves above your bench look nicer. Right now they're basically empty, except for hte stuff Nicole left that I dont' know what to do with.
I went on a cleaning spree last night. So here's another lesson from Catherine the Domestic Goddess. Carelessly leaving recyclable tin cans next to the sink before throwing them inthe recycle bin will leave an ugly stain int he formica countertop. However, as I found last night, spraying some sort of lysol with bleach cleaning spray and letting it sit on the stain for just a couple minutes, will completely remove the stain. I used Lysol Mildew remover with bleach (my bathroom cleaner... can't rememebr why I took it out tot eh kitchen in the first place). This will also clean yellowed stainless steel (or whatever metal that is) sinks. Yay my kitchen and bathroom are sparkly clean now! Next: do something with the piles of dvds, books, papers and other assorted crap inthe living room.
I have new recipes for pumpkin bread, pumpkin gingerbread, and curried pumpkin soup. Might make the soup this week, I'll let you all know how that goes, and I'll post hte recipe if it's good.
Love and kisses!
Monday, September 22, 2003
These are days you'll remember
Theme of the weekend: stuff that happened a few years ago (how eloquently put).
Activity 1: CT state DAR meeting. We had the debutante presentation, and I'd like to mention how different it was from my DAR debutante presentation. We basically had a ball in our honor, very cool. Provided our own escorts,though. These girls (there were 8, twice as many as in 2000) were escorted into a room by Coast Guard Cadets (in uniform, mmm tasty) and introduced, "Brittany Welch Parker is the daughter of so and so Parker adn the granddaughter of so adn so Parker. Her ancestor is your mom (that's how old your momma is. lol sorry,couldn't resist)". When I debbed, we were paraded around the room by our escorts while our accomplishments were read aloud, as well as those of our escorts. Then we went to the frontof the room and curtseyed to the audience, adn then took our seats at our dinner table. When we were all introduced, they clapped, we had dinner, adn we all danced. These girls, as I said, were introduced by name and ancestry only, and then went to the front of the room and stood, adn then when they were all out there, they danced, and then went back to their tables. Slightly anticlimactic.
So that was Friday. Saturday was dun da dun.... the reunion! I got there at lunch time and found Elizabeth O, G-fab (who's now platinum blond), Anita F adn Jess M. Then more people came, and I sat a while with Gyllian, Monet, Nikki and Shak. Then we had our picture and we all oohed and aaahed over eachother, and got to see Jean W's enormous rock. Then i went to a pilates class with absolutely no one I knew but enjoyed it, and I went around campus, saw the old library/new language center, the KLG (how could I go on campus without going in the KLG? Ah such memories from that place, especially with the moving blackboard in one corner withall the music theory notes on it). Then bookstore,bought a t shirt, then after a little while was dinner at Dicokes' parents' house.They had a very nice home, all professionally decorated and everything. We had a nice low key dinner, and everyone chatted. Then we had a picture onthe stairs, four of our perilhettes sang (Gyllian, Elizabeth, Monet and Anita) and then Bess M and Alex R-M insisted that I go to the bar at the Mariott with them, so I did. That was another nice time, although it was weird doing shots with people that I hardly spoke to in high school, especially when they were purchased by a girl who practically went out of her way to avoid me (hard, we were in the same day stud room a year). But everyone was very nice, and DiCokes collected our email addys, adn I honestly wouldn't mind keeping in touch with some of these people. But everyone lives in Boston, NYC or DC, so I probalby havevery little chance of that. Why does everyone move to Boston right after I leave? wtf??
Then Sunday my parents and I washed, waxed and vacuumed my beautiful lovely little red car. :) It turns 75K this week, I should have a party.
More to say, will wait and put it in the next entry/post.
Love and kisses to all, etc etc.
PS will put pics of the weekend and of previous stuff on my website this week. Now that I have internet in lab, I just have to scan at home and I can do the rest in lab.Yay for convenience!
Thursday, September 18, 2003
So what happens if you plug up one of the holes in the bucket?
Well, the ion concentration outside is still the same....
No, we're talking about a bucket here.
;)
Retreat was fun. Unlike some people, I would rather not be at the bench than at retreat. Well, this goes for certain parts of retreat.
Let's have some highlights:
-hanging out in the pool
-losing to Brandon and Rich at tennis, and trying to intimidate Rich
-a certain prof peeing at the side of the road (which I did not see, adn I think I'm glad I merely heard about this one)
-gettin' down on the dance floor with two great guys (while my boyfriend slept the evening away! the old man) and laughing my head off and everyone's silly antics
-my abs of steel after dancing the night away
-watching Eileen dance with her PI
-free food
-calling up first years at 2am and telling them to get their asses down to room 269. Yay to the ones who actually showed and didn't hang up rudely on my drunken classmates!
The lectures and poster session were also very interesting and informative. I have to say, retreat sucked last year in comparison. I think it really helps to actually know enough background info to understand the talks and posters, adn also it's nice to have friends so it's that much less awkward.
And to make this an even better day, my car is back from the garage, drives like a dream, and cost about half as much as I thought it would. And I got new shoes. :)
Monday, September 15, 2003
My Ass
Hello, all you adoring fans out there! All, what, say 8 of you? I love you anyway.
So this post is going to be about my ass. Well not really, that could be interpreted as quite obscene. I'd just like to quote part of this book I'm reading. Here's the context- this girl has just been measured for a bridesmaid's dress fitting. She's surprised by her hip measurement, 46inches.
"If my hips were laid out flat, they would be almost four feet long....My hips were almost as tall as I was. How much ass is that?...My refridgerator, minus the freezer, was the size of my ass....My bathtub was the size of my ass."
--_Why Girls Are Weird_, by Pamela Ribon
*My* ass is not that big.
Moving on!
Actually, since we're on the subject, I just did laundry and can I say that I have a lot of underwear? Well, I do. Lord knows how I find the time to wear it all, but there it is, too much to fit in one drawer. That's kinda scary, if you think about it. What if it just went nuts one day, I'd have "attack of the cutesy underwear" on my hands.
Ok now really moving on. I don't want to scare anyone.
I'm in, as my grandmother would say, a funk. Although as I say that, I feel like it sounds a lot worse than what I'm in. Basically, I went to lab, wasted 8 hours so I looked good by being there, came home, scratched a lotto ticket and didn't win, and then just kinda sat. My place is a mess, but do you see me cleaning it? I'm just not motivated to do anything, which probably relates to the boredom from earlier. I ate some more of my plum pie, so damn good, but now blech I ate too much. Oh well, you burn calories folding laundry, right? All that underwear must take it's toll on the body's energy supply. Ok if you stretch it, that sounds dirty. So don't even go there.
We could discuss Ann's ass now, but I'm not sure she wants that discussed in such a forum. Well, Ann, cheer up, you have a fine ass. Yes it's white, but so's mine, and so are everyone else's that doesn't wear naught but a thong there (ewww bad image).
Ok truth be told, this is all because I was just so amused by the book, at the image of this poor woman going around, measuring her possessions to see what was as big as her ass. Let me try. Hold on.
Ok all I got was that my coffee table is as big as my ass. And my arm chair is as high as my ass, but man that thing's huge, I'm not comparing it to my derriere.
Now that I've frightened you all into never speaking to me again, I'd like to thank those of you who've said you read this. Which is.... 2 people. Yay! (I lied about the 8 before). But there may be more, so 8 might be accurate after all.
I have to go call home now so I can talk to my cat before he goes to bed (yes I'm serious, and do not start dissing cats now. My cats are better than the average aloof cat.)
See pictures- http://grapefruit12.tripod.com/home.htm
PS. Hilary Duff is starring in a made-for-Disney Channel movie. It premieres soon.
i'm bored!
Ok I'm so bored. I'm so bored that my stomach hurts. I'm so bored that I could just fall asleep here at the computer. And I know some of you would kill me for being so bored because you're so busy. So I'm sorry about that. The problem is that with the retreat on Wed, I don't have all that much to do. I have to do a miniprep, but Chris is using the bench and there's not enough room for me to do minipreps there. So I can't do that. And I tried reading, but god that's even more boring than staring at the wall. And Matt is using the computer with the scanner on it to print out the stuff for his poster presentation at hte retreat, so I can't do that. So I'm here in the library, trying to look busy, but mostly trying to pass the minutes until cookie time (3:40), when I can go get some food. Oh man I have over an hour til that!
So, that's about it. I don't really have anything to tell about since yesterday's posts, but, well, I'm bored.
Lesson 2 from Catherine, Domestic Goddess.
Katy brought up a good point about baking powder. It's very very very extremely important to not mix the batter/dough too much after adding the baking powder. For some reason, this makes your baked goods tough. So when adding the dry ingredients that contain baking powder, mix only til combined, then bake away. Another recommendation- before you add the dry stuff, as my mther says (and writes on recipe cards) beat like hell. This is good for butter/sugar mixture, any wet stuff with eggs, etc. If you beat like hell, you can be damn sure what you're making will be fluffy beyond belief.
I think I might start doing recipe of the week. Well, the plum pie is this week's. Do you think I could be on tv? I can also offer sewing lessons, we might get a sewing club up. If I ever unjam my sewing machine... All my mending is to be done by hand for the time being. Sigh.
Oh and apparently, blogger does not support comments on blog entries. So I have no idea how this other girl got that. She has blogger too! Damn. See, i wanted livejournal, but they're dumb and you either have to pay for that, or have a current member get you in. But tey only can get a certain number of people in. Same with deadjournal, and i found the white letters on black background somewhat taxing on the eyes.
All right, I might as well head back to lab.
Sunday, September 14, 2003
about the pie...
3tablespoons of cornstarch is enough for a pound of plums. i used over a pound (i bought 1.5lbs of plums total but then i ate 3 out of 8 big red ones, so i'm going to say i had 1.3lbs in the pie). i only put 3 heaping Ts of cornstarch, which wasn't enough.
also, curses to video stores that sell scratched dvds! my computer froze no less than 5 times while i was trying to watch tuck everlasting!! but i ended up skipping to the chapter ahead of the one where it froze and rewinding back, and i only ended up missing a minute.
ok, bed now.
Yay, this has been a good weekend.
Eileen’s friends came up, so we all went to the Norwich Inn to the pub, then to Benning St for more beer and pool, and then off to Eileen and Stacey’s new place, which is so nice and huge! But it’s in the middle of the woods, so I don’t think I could handle it.
Today’s had a few interesting things in it.
I went to the gas station, to get gas (duh) and also to cash in a winning lotto ticket (yeah $5!!), and I bought another ticket with part of the winnings. Now, since I cut my hair last week, I can’t part it in the middle and pull it back in a ponytail at the nape of my neck, it’s too short. But pigtails work. So, today I wore pigtails. And I got carded when I bought the lotto ticket! And that guy was prob younger than me. Damn. It was funny, though.
I was just looking through the Avon catologue (my aunt’s an avon lady) and they have some cute stuff marked way down. Like lip liner, eyeliner, bubble bath and… hmm, something else. Probably makeup. I realized last night as I was attempting to look more attractive and alluring than I normally do on a daily basis, that the only eyeliner I have is crappy and from CVS and that’s probably why I can never get it on right. So I tried to use eyeshadow as eyeliner, applying with the sponge applicator instead of the eyeshadow brush I prefer. So, I want to purchase some quality eyeliner. Preferably the liquid stuff, maybe I’d have an easier time with that.
I’m reading a book called “Why Girls Are Weird” (hey boys- don’t comment on that because then I’ll be forced to state my mantra. Er, one of them. And just for the record, that mantra is based on several years’ worth of boys and their actions, not on any certain one.), it’s pretty funny so far. So in this book, a girl decides to do an online journal thing, telling funny little stories based on her life (basically her life with some embellishments and changes to make her look no so stupid). But she gets fan mail! I don’t get fan mail for my online journal, wtf? Actually does anyone read this? If you do, say so in an email or when you see me. I’d just curious. But anyway, back to the book and this girl and her fan mail. I figure this book was probably written a few years ago, maybe even back in the 90s (wow, old!) before things like blogger and livejournal existed.
Hey, a note about blogger- does anyone know how to get it so people can comment on your entries? A girl I know has a link following each entry that you can click on and respond. I want that! I can’t figure out how to do it, though. And I can’t figure out how to stick some links over there on the right side--à
I should be able to.
Well, moving on.
I’ve been named “Catherine, Domestic Goddess” (thank you, Susie and Jenn G- or is it Jenn T? Did she change her name? Does she have this url? Dave, do you know?). So here’s a lesson:
Right now I’m baking a plum pie. This is one of my favorite kinds of pie, my mom first made it back when the farmers market first arrived in the West Hartford Center. She’s friendly and all that, so one day this guy had prune plums, and she bought some, and somehow found out that they’re good in pies. So, she cut them up and made a pie and I thought it was one of the most delicious things ever. This was back in high school, I think. So every September, she’d get Italian prune plums and make a plum pie. When I went away to college, she’d make a pie the day before coming to visit me or when I came home for a weekend. And now, the Coop has Italian prune plums, so guess what? Yep, that’s right. Time for pie!
The pie crust recipe can be found on http://www.marthastewart.com. Go to recipe finder and type in “pate brisee”. Pate sucree is another one, but that’s sweeter and generally used for tarts (no, not hussies and women of ill repute, but the little mini-pie looking things). Make it like she says.
Then for the filling, you really need the prune plums. I bought just over a pound of them and that wasn’t enough, so I used 5 red plums as well (your standard round plum). Round plums don’t bake as well, for whatever reason, but in a pinch they work. So fill up your pie dish with the cut up plums, and cut them into large chunks. Then I add 4 tablespoons of brown sugar, 3 heaping tablespoons of cornstarch (incidentally, did anyone used to make that fun glue stuff with cornstarch and water and food coloring? I used to think that was the coolest thing, even better than the vinegar/baking soda volcano). Then mix with your hands (watch out, you get slimy). Then get out that chilled pie crust, roll it out with plenty of flour on your working surface and a good floured rolling pin (I prefer French pastry pins to the standard rolling pin with handles) and roll the heck outta that crust, and put it on top of the dish with the plums, then pinch the edges so they look nice, poke several holes with a knife or fork in the top, and then you can do an egg white or egg yolk wash (ack, never a whole egg!), but I didn’t this time. Then you bake. Today I’m doing 15 min at 425degrees, then some more time at 350. I actually forgot to reset the timer after turning the temp down, so I’m just cooking it til it’s done. It’s probably about 30-45 min.
So I had issues with the pie crust. I made it a few weeks ago (you can freeze unused pie crust for up to a month), which is why Susie didn’t witness this pie making. But the damn thing just didn’t want to roll out. First it was too hard to roll, so I broke it up to let it warm up faster, and then I rolled it, but it just didn’t stay together. It tasted ok though. So in the end I just overlapped pieces of pie crust over the pie. It’s not going to be the prettiest pie ever, but it should taste good.
Well, that’s today’s lesson. I’m going to watch Tuck Everlasting, which I think is the movie I watched in 7th grade once, but either I was late to class or they just never said what movie it was, and we just watched a part in the middle one day, never the beginning and never the end and we never watched it again but it was really good!! Anyway, I think it might have been an earlier version of this movie (I’m watching the one with the girl from Gilmore Girls), so I’m all excited to watch.
This whole entry only took me 10 minutes to write. Huh. :)
