Get your listen on; also, I put the 'tard' in custard pie

Been a busy couple days now that I'm back at work. Work / gym / read / pass out. Repeat.

On the wagon until February. I don't drink that much anyway, so it's not a huge challenge. 

I made a custard pie over the weekend and it was retarded (hence putting the 'tard in custard pie - get it? honk!). I took a picture but a bad picture of an ugly dessert isn't acceptable blog material. I decided.

Last time I made a custard pie the crust didn't turn out, but at least it looked okay (it stuck to the bottom of the pan). This time I didn't have the sticking issue, I had a debacle. The custard part was delicious but the crust leaked and buckled and the custard got all underneath and around it and that was all she wrote. Rumor is my mom is sending me a recipe for a better crust which, when combined with an improved technique, will prevent this type of issue in the future. We'll see. That process involves pie weights and cutting in cold butter and all sorts of shit. It's tough for me to build my own crust because I'm living in reduced circumstances and my cooking equipment is in boxes in the garage. Anyway, I already read through two cookbooks worth of pie crust explanation, so I know where I went awry. Upside: I don't really care about the crust anyway; it's the custard I crave. And it was divine.

In related news. I like to listen to music when I cook. Usually dance mixes, but occasionally something more moody. Depends. Anyway, latest jamz come courtesy Big Cheese, and they are awesome. And free. Guy is called Girl Talk, and the record is called All Day. Get it for your own, and rock the party: http://www.illegal-art.net/allday/.  

I recommend downloading the MP3s as separated tracks to simplify navigation. It's intended to be heard in order, but (just as an example) if you have an ipod and turn it off, then back on, you get reset to the beginning of the most recent song. That's a bust if you're 30 minutes into a 70 minute piece, so: separated tracks, people. Ya hearrrrd me!

Unzip them to wherever you keep music for itunes and then Add to library. And get your dance on.

Moar reading, but free

It's one of my favorite times of year: cooler weather means mostly comfortable motorcycle riding, I get a couple weeks off during the xmas holiday, and also it's cool enough outside that I can bake delicious desserts if I'm in the mood. I'm almost always in the mood for dessert, so I'll probably make a carrot cake or a custard pie this weekend. The carrot cake is a bit more work but it stores nicely. The custard pie is delicious but after The Episode* I haven't been able to have one of those in the house.

Thanksgiving highlight (aside from my friend making every effort to keep his happy holiday buzz from the previous evening rolling along throughout the day) was when Trevor attempted to identify the vaguely-turkey-shaped bread item on the table. I got the impression he wasn't really in the thanksgiving mood when his guesses were as follows: "Treble clef? Swannn??" Ahh, no and no. You had to be there but I promise it was funny. To be fair, it looked substantially more swannnn than it did turkey. Just sayin'.

Magazine articles for your reading pleasure: http://givemesomethingtoread.com/post/1660934095/give-me-something-to-read-best-of-2010

If you're ipad enabled you can read them on instapaper. I'm old school so I print them to a little thing I like to call 'actualpaper' and read them at my leisure. Then I give them to other readers. It's great!



* Can't remember if I blogged about The Episode, but what happened is I made a custard pie on a busy Friday night (I party) and proceeded to eat it that night and most of the next day. I worked through 2/3 of it before I had to throw it out because I was going to eat the entire thing. The kicker was I had just taken out the garbage so when I threw the remainder of the pie in the empty, clean trash bag I thought, "I could totally come back to this; the bag isn't even dirty or anything, it's just like a big ziploc." At which point I took the whole thing to the outside trash and did some soul searching in re: gluttony, desserts, and me. It was a Low Moment.

You gonna eat that?

This is how I picture Reese; she is medium-sized but fierce*

Long-time readers will remember that I like to bake and (more often) eat desserts. My fondness for custard led to The Episode, which is covered in a footnote in this post. If review is too much effort, here's a summary: I made a pie. I ate most of it, then threw it away to keep from eating all of it. It still looked edible in the trash, had to take it all the way to the outside garbage. 

Fast forward to Thanksgiving this year. The Girl and I made a 'low fat' pumpkin pie, courtesy a recipe from Cooking Light. It was pretty good. So I ate it. As in, the whole thing. Not in one sitting. But definitely in one 24 hour period. She didn't like the look of the first effort - unappetizing crust - so we made another one the next day. And I ate half of that one for dessert, just to maintain my 1 pie per 24-hour interval pace. Low fat, so I'm good, right?

Desafortunadamente, no. As it turns out this is maybe not such a hot idea from a nutritional / digestive / Type II diabetes standpoint. But I'm glad that I went ahead and gave it a try. I'm off pies in general, and pumpkin pies specifically, for a good long while. Restraint: I have it. 

Image has nothing to do with pie. It reminded me of Reese the dog.




* I mean this in the more traditional will-definitely-kill-you-if-she-has-to sense, not the formerly trendy hey-look-at-my-zany-makeup-and-leggings sense. Image courtesy Alligator Sunglasses and ze intertubez.

Flan is Yummy and Sort of Easy

Pictured: Hassle

I mentioned that I made some treats. Aside from pumpkin pie and apple pie and samoa cookies (twice) and brownies and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies I also made a flan. It turned out pretty good. I ate half of it and gave the rest to my peeps that I shared the samoas with. They live walking distance and they have small kids so they're often home and (importantly) they don't mind if I show up with desserts that I already ate a generous portion of, as with the flan. Best kind of peeps.

Getting the caramel right is the hardest part of making a flan. I made a mexican flan with the lechera sweetened condensed milk so the custard part was a breeze. Making the caramel was a bitch. Fortunately I had the advantage of having eaten hundreds and hundreds of examples of flan over the years so I had a pretty good idea what I was aiming for with the caramel.

Took a picture of the finished product but the coating was the real magic. That's the goods right there. Gaze upon it in wonder.