Pasties...or Pastys

Pasties. (or pastys)
a meat and vegetable hand held pie, associated with Cornwall England. Favorites of Miners.

They are a legend in my husband's family. (that and spaghetti), but I've been in this family for over 30 years and no one has EVER made them for me. 30 years and I've never seen a pastie. I've never eaten a pastie, I've never smelled a pastie. But my husband talks of old, favorite dishes that his mom made and how much he loved them...pasties were on the top of the list. His aunt makes them, his brother makes them. They all make them and get together and have pastie parties. And then write and talk about them and tease us.
We don't live close....a couple states away, so, no, we are not invited. And no one has ever made them while we were visiting.
The Stone/Belcher/Solaro/Brklacich Family Pasties are a legend....just like big foot. Do they exist or don't they?

So, I decided to make them. For my husband. I have never even laid eyes on them. I must say here, that YES, I am a cook, but I had trouble understanding this recipe without a picture.
The "advice" I got from my Mother in law, Aunt in law and Brother in law, was to "put" the meat, onions and potatoes on the crust.
They used phrases like "mound the meat and potato mixture in the middle of the dough."
I asked... "How much?" I needed to know this. Exactly.
They said..."just mound it in there."
I needed a specific. 1/2 cup, 2/3 cup? I couldn't get past "the mound" or "just put 'some' in there".
They would not share this with me. Not on purpose, mind you, they just are used to making them and it all comes easy to them, but this pastie conversation was all thru a series of e-mails....and the communication is more difficult.
I should have just called... but that would have been too easy. My mother in law sent me one recipe she found that said, put 1 cup in the dough, but I tried that and it was WAY TOO MUCH for mine. The dough split while it was cooking and they looked like open faced tarts. Maybe I should have spread the mixture around more and not left it in a "mound".
Oh well, practice makes perfect.

Since one cup of filling was too much, I used a rounded 1/2 cup, and it wasn't enough. It was mostly crust...the pastie was. Lots and lots of crust. and lots of crust. BUT, I made homemade chunky applesauce too, so if you took some applesauce (which tasted very similar to applepie filling) and a piece of crust, it was great!
I used pre-made pie dough. My husband, Rich was used to his mom's homemade dough. (HA--used to? It's been over 30 years!). but now they all say they use the pre-made pie crust dough as a convenience.
And the pasties tasted good. I just need to put more filling in next time. I also didn't know if I should make them "pretty" (which I didn't).
So.... when I make them again, I'll pretty them up.

So, first....my fall dinner, and then "advice" from my family in law.

My fall dinner
pasties with brown gravy to put over
chunky applesauce
simple shrimp salad
bread
brownies


The official pastie recipe calls for dough, cubes of meat, (sirloin tips), cubes of potatoes.
Things you can add.... almost anything you want to.
onions,
mushrooms
shredded carrots
etc.
(see advice/recipes below)

the stuff you need (by the way, I swiped the "hand written" recipe from my mother in law, the last time we were up there)

all together

my little mound of stuffing.....with butter. (it looks so sad and alone)

the pasties before going into the oven


And check out this picture! I asked my husband to take a picture of me brushing the tops with an egg wash. I said...take it close and just get exactly what I'm doing in the frame.
So...bless him...he took the picture and got EVERY SINGLE THING ON THE COUNTER AROUND ME in the frame. LOL
the cookbook, teaspoons, carton of cream, telephone, as well as the sheet of pasties. (sigh) , oh well. (It's very washed out too)

The pasties after coming out of the oven

My fall dinner

Pasties with gravy, shrimp salad, chunky applesauce and bread. (I need some darker colored plates---observant mothers and mother in laws will note this for the holiday season. LOL )


THE IN-LAW ADVICE (I love them!!)

My mother in law, Teresa:
Dear Debbie,
yes you can put raw meat , onion and potato, with a touch of butter on top of the crust and it will cook in about an hour. We now are using Pillsbury refrigerated pie crust that you get in the case by the biscuits. It's faster and works just fine. Let me know if you need any more information on these.
love you

My brother in law, Scott:
Debbie,
I tried to find the recipe that mom gave me but I must have lost it. Yes can really put raw beef in a pastry and cook it through without burning the pastry. I cube up the ingredients and season them. I place them in a bowl and cover them overnight. I use the rolled pie dough from the store, like Pillsbury. I unroll the pie dough and fill it with the ingredients, usually beef, potatoes, and mushrooms. I then place a small of butter on the tops and seal the dough. I cut vent holes in the dough to release the steam. I brush the pastry dough with beat egg to make it shine. I cook it for about an hour. Darleen says that I need lots more practice. She offered to sample each time I make it until I finally get it right.


Aunite Darleen:
Hi there..
I use Pillsbury pie crust (in the red box in cooler dept). Cut up round steak, onions, peel and dice potatoes. Lay out crust, put meat, onions, potatoes on crust. Add pat of butter (not CUBE OF BUTTER UNLESS YOU ARE PAULA DEEN!!! LOL). Season with salt and pepper. You may pre-season your meat in fridge with whatever seasonings you want and cover. I do this with salt and pepper and sometimes I put worchestershire sauce in it. Cover with saran wrap if you do this or use zip lock bag. Whatever works for you. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. After pasties are seasoned/butter, close pie crust and poke a couple of holes in the top of each pie. Sometimes I use a whole crust if I make HUGE pasties, or I cut them in half and make smaller pies.
Everyone here loves the biggies!! Place on baking sheets and check after 30 minutes. Usually it takes another 15 minutes for them to be done. If you cut the ingredients into bite size pieces, everything will be done at the same time.
I like mine with catsup but most everyone else likes brown gravy over theirs.
Now you are "officially" in the "family of pasty makers!!"
You can opt to put whatever you like in your pasties as they are meant to be "hand pies" and complete meals. I love them hot, I love them cold, I love them period. They are my very favorite food in the entire world. Need I say more??

Honestly

Honestly....

I don't know if I can eat/use this sourdough. It smells, kind of "sour".
Buying a loaf of sourdough bread from your favorite bakery or having some sourdough biscuits made by your grandma is one thing (well, two things actually, but try to follow me here), but I..... have a weird idiosyncrasy.
I cannot eat anything the "day of" or past a due date.
I cannot eat food that has been in my fridge for longer than a day or two...and even the 2nd day is stretching it.
I'm weird, I get it.
I so wanted to make a good sourdough and make these cinnamon rolls. But I just don't know if I can make bread from something that is sitting out and getting smelly on my counter.
It's not natural to leave food sitting out and letting things grow in them. Microorganisms, to be precise.
I will try tho. Wish me luck

I will end with what we picked/harvested from our backyard yesterday. We thought it time to not let the birds get them (the grapes). And I have one green tomato left, a few jalepenos, and a bunch of apples that I need to pick.

Maybe some applesauce on Sunday? I'll blog about it.
I'm off tomorrow with friends to go to the "Taste of Home" Cooking show in Elko.
We're excited. We're spending the night. Girl time!!

NOW I'm crazy

I thought this would take longer....It's been 18 hours. A day and a half.... and I have the beginnings of sour dough. It's bubbling away already. Can you tell from the pictures?

Here is what John Ross says:

Within 3 or 4 days (it can take longer, a week or more, and it can happen more quickly) you should start getting lots of bubbles throughout, and a pleasant sour or beery smell.

Okay, it has begun to have bubbles throughout, but it doesn't smell sour or beery yet.

I will give it another day.

Call me crazy

Sourdough?

Call me crazy. Yes...crazy. I have no idea why I decided to do this, but I have.
I am making a sourdough starter. Because I have this vision of great cinnamon rolls in my head. Made by a living organism, a thriving colony of microorganisms in fact, that live in my fridge....for years. (we'll see)

I took my cue/recipe/ideas from two sources.
1. John Ross ( Sourdough Baking, The basics)
2. My mother in law, Teresa Belcher (she gave me some recipes from her file)

I am going the "purist" route.....no potato water, no vinegar, but only flour and water. I'll let you know if it works.
And if it does, in a few weeks, I'll try out those cinnamon rolls.

My recipe
Blend 1 cup warm water with 1 cup flour.

THAT'S THE WHOLE RECIPE

Don't use metallic containers or utensils.
keep in a warm place--ideally, 70-80 degrees.
Cover with a lose fitting piece of plastic wrap.
Feed every 24 hours. (throw away half the starter and add 1 cup warm water and 1 cup flour)
Within 3-4 days (may take longer) you should start seeing lots of little bubbles, throughout and a pleasant "sour" smell.
When your starter develops a bubbly froth, it is done.
Then you can put it in your fridge and it only has to be fed every 7-10 days.

so says John Ross.

I'll let you know.

Tuesdays with Dorie, Creme Burlee

I'm going to go out on a limb here and make an "assumption"...and that is, that most of the TWD bakers are younger than I am.
In fact, most food bloggers are younger than I am. Not that I am "old" by any means, but I can just tell (usually) by the tone of the blog post and references to lifestyle, children, social activities, that I am on the older side of the food blogging world.
This is okay...BECAUSE.... this morning I have read two TWD blogs and both of you had trouble putting the butane in the torch. So want to know my solution to that problem? I handed it to my husband and said, "would you do this for me?"
To go back a bit further, I even handed him the box before going to the store and asked him to "figure out" what I needed, and then had him buy it.
Some independent, forward thinking woman, I am. Or perhaps, very clever. That's it! (lazy would be another description )

Now, let me get to the creme brulee!
My friend Barb, gave me this creme` brulee set two years ago for Christmas. I was so excited to be able to use it. And then after finding out how simple creme brulee is to make....I'll be using it all the time. (thanks Barb--did I ever even write a thank you note? Well....look here! for all the world to see too!! THANKS)

I love creme brulee, but always just assumed that it was a lot harder than it was: cooking, straining, whisking, baking....
but it was amazingly simple, and tastes "oh so good".

As always, I never vary the recipe, only because I'm usually making it at the last possible minute and it's safer to stay with the known recipe and not the variations.
I made it last night after we had dinner, put it in the fridge and caramelized the top this morning. I only had one little mishap... I spilled the vanilla in it. I have no idea how much vanilla went in. It's very vanilla-ee. And a little less firm that it should have been. But it was very good.

And now this morning...in 30 minutes (yes, it is 5:30 a.m. right now) my other Tuesday commitment will be showing up on my doorstep...to visit and have a cup of coffee. My friend Debbie. We've done Tuesdays for a few years now...at 6:00 a.m., in jammies, robes, coffee cup in hand. Today, I will be giving her a creme brulee treat to try!!
My Tuesdays are complete....with Debbie and Dorie. (it is only under threat of death that I post no picture of Debbie in jammies, robe and coffee cup in hand)

But let me tell ya....creme brulee after dinner is good, but in the morning with a hot cup of "good" coffee, shared with a friend. Yum! (a bit rich, really, but what was I gonna do? I had pictures to take. We shared)

I was a bit unsure of the ramekin size. I didn't have the correct one. The ones included in the "creme brulee" gift box, were so small, they could fit in the palm of my hand. The others the size of cereal bowls. As you can tell.....(picture cereal sized bowl on the left), the small ones, were...much too small. So we used the larger ones and I just put the 2/3 cup of creme in them.
Thanks to Mari at Mevrouw Cupcake http://www.mevrouwcupcake.com/ for her choice this week. One of my favorites so far!

Comfort food

A GOOD MISTAKE

It was a late Saturday afternoon. The fall sun was casting an orange glow thru the trees in the backyard. College football was on the TV. We missed our kids. We needed comfort food.

Now you understand why I would have never made it as novelist.... LOL

But we really did want something good to fill our tummies, so I thought of "Southern Plate's" steak and gravy. ( http://www.southernplate.com/2008/09/southern-steak-and-milk-gravy.html ) (you'll find the recipe at the bottom of this post )
 And...mmmmm..."Adventure of Kitchen Girl's" oven roasted brussel sprouts ( http://kitchengirljo.blogspot.com/2008/09/oven-roasted-brussles-sprouts.html ).
So I decided to make them.
Now... I must confess, that I put the brussel sprouts in the oven, started the steak and then got a phone call. It was the brussel sprouts who suffered. You might look at these and say "poor little cremated sprouts", but before you do...let me tell you, they were really good. crispy and a bit crunch and...well, really good. I must also confess that I didn't prepare as many as the recipe said...just my husband and I, so I was downsizing, but didn't downsize the cooking time.
My husband pulled off the outer layer and proclaimed them "really good" also.
But I didn't get a picture of those.
For a REALLY GOOD idea of what they look like please visit Jo's blog.
She is the Brussel Sprout master.

I'm thinking of having the same exact meal on Sunday!

The Steak....oh the steak and gravy. mmmmm.....good. So easy, so tasty, so....comforting. We really liked it. And I made enough so that we had leftover the very next night. (hard to cook for just two without leftovers, you know)
Christy, over at "Southern Plate" made this a couple of weeks ago, and I had to try it.... I have to tell ya...it was a HUGE HIT at my house.
Check our her blog w/recipes at... http://www.southernplate.com/

I'm not going to put the recipes here in my post, I'll let you check out the originals on the original blogs. But I do have to say that I love those two blogs, and if you ever need a good meal idea...seek them out.

and again...forgive the charred brussel sprouts, but they were actually good. Or, I'm weird. Could be. But check out Jo's, as they were great! :~) http://kitchengirljo.blogspot.com/

Looking good before going into the oven....and then for some reason I hid all the gravy "under" the steak.

Southern Steak and Milk Gravy

Ingredients

• 4 Pieces Cubed Steak
• Flour
• Salt
• Pepper
• Milk

Instructions

1. Place enough oil in a pan to just coat the bottom, put that on medium heat while you prepare your steak. In a bowl, place 1 C flour and add 1/4 tsp salt and 1/ 4 tsp pepper (more if you prefer). Stir that up. Dip each piece of steak into flour on both sides to get it coated well. Place each piece of steak in pan and cook until good and browned on both sides. Remove steak to a plate while you make your gravy.
2. Place about 1/4 C flour into skillet with meat drippings. Add a little more salt and pepper and stir this over medium heat until the flour is slightly browned (just a few minutes). Slowly pour in 1 1/2 Cups of milk, stirring constantly. Continue stirring, with a wire whisk to help with lumps, over low heat until thickened and there are no lumps. This will happen rather quickly. Add a little more milk if you prefer thinner gravy. Return steak to the pan and turn to coat with gravy on both sides.
3. Serve steak and gravy together in a bowl or serve gravy on the side to go with Mashed potatoes.

Tuesdays With Dorrie

Tuesdays with Dorrie....Dimply Plum Cake.

Not a big fan.

It was a simple cake to make, and it was "good"... better than I thought but at the same time, not so great. Go figure.

I, of course, didn't have cardamom, so I left out a spice. I was going to use cinnamon, but I forgot it. My plums were too big, I used lemon zest instead of orange zest.
It was good, I just wouldn't have ever made it. I guess that's what's good about the challenge.... expanding my horizons.

And...once again, I made it in under the gun.