Category: Recipe

Hot water crust pockets

On By CarynIn Recipe

We recently had a pastry pocket party, with three different fillings in hot water pastry crust. I love the hot water crust because it is easy to work and stays strong. To differentiate the fillings, each one had a different pastry shape. Rectangular for the apple pie, round for the chicken with mozzarella and roasted peppers, and half circle for the beef and peas. I ended up making three batches of hot water crust, but wrapped each kind of filling in each batch. I would do it differently next time, only doing one filling per batch to go in the oven, and putting some kind of topping on each one, to liven up the crust.

Photo description: three different shapes of pastry pockets in the first batch, sitting in a cooling rack

Apple pie

On By CarynIn Recipe

The apple peeler/slicer/corer is one of my favorite kitchen tools. I absolutely love the concept and design, so elegant and sturdy.

Photo description: apple peeler/corer/slicer set up on a kitchen counter midway through processing a large Granny Smith apple

I attempted a fancy double crust apple pie. The recipe is one from the red and white Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book, but with The Spice House’s Apple Pie Spice. The crust is from The Gluten Free Gourmet Cooks Comfort Foods. I cut small maple leaves out of the top crust rather than try a lattice with the crumbly GF crust. Next time, I need to do an egg wash to keep the extra leaves stuck on. Next time I also want to lay the apples in neatly, rather than the lumpy bumpy higgelty piggelty way I did this time.

Photo description: double crust apple pie, first attempt

The pie tasted much better than it looked, and a slice also makes quite a nice breakfast.

Major Chord recipe

On By CarynIn Recipe

I have a new favorite alcoholic beverage. It came from experimentation with some cupboard favorites, and we couldn’t find an existing name for it, so my husband came up with a great name: Major Chord. The recipe has three ingredients and they go together very well.

Photo description: soft yellow liquid in a tall glass with ice sitting on a tatted coaster

Major chord:

  • 2 ounces Deep Eddy Peach Vodka
  • 1 ounce lemon juice
  • 1/2 can Goslings Diet Ginger beer
  • Ice

I stir the mixture with a bar spoon.

I could even take the analogy further and compare it to a barbershop quartet where the ginger beer is the bass, giving a depth of flavor; the peach vodka is the lead, giving the bright melody; the lemon juice is the baritone, giving it zing; and the ice is the tenor, floating on top and adding sparkle.

But only after I’ve had a couple.

Heritage Wheat Monkey Bread

On By CarynIn Recipe

My youngest wanted to try Monkey Bread. We can’t do biscuits in a can, because they use modern wheat, so we made biscuit dough with all-purpose heritage wheat from Sunrise Flour Mill and combined that with a different Monkey bread recipe. I like that this Monkey Bread is not super sticky, and doesn’t taste super sweet (but it still uses lots of sugar!)

Photo description: Monkey Bread formed in a bundt pan showing a nice brown color and sugar deposits in the areas between the pieces of cooked dough.
  • 4 cups (480g) all-purpose Heritage Wheat flour
  • 2 Tbsp baking powder
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 12 Tbsp cold unsalted butter
  • 1 1/2 cups whole milk
  • 1 cup granulated white sugar
  • 2 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 12 Tbsp melted butter
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar

Combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Cut in butter, then use fingers rub and flatten the butter pieces. Mix in milk until incorporated (not too much) and turn out onto a floured surface. Sprinkle with flour to make it easy to handle, and the gently flatten and fold gently in half 4-5 times. Shape by hand into a rectangle about 1” thick. Cut into 1 inch squares. In a gallon plastic bag add white sugar and cinnamon, shake to mix. Add squares of dough to the bag and shake to coat in the sugar mixture. Place the coated squares in a bundt pan greased with cooking spray. In a sauce pan melt butter and add brown sugar. Cook on medium high until bubbly and you can’t feel sugar crystals with a wooden spoon, the color should be consistent. Pour the mixture evenly over the pieces of dough in the bundt pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes or until internal temperature is about 204 degrees. Let cool for 10 minutes before turning out onto a plate. Tear and share!

Shredding chicken with what?

On By CarynIn Recipe

I stopped by my local Brahms to pick up some Frontier soup mix and the cashier asked if it was easy (it is) and shared with me her way of shredding chicken: with a stand mixer. What? I’ve been using forks and battling the steam of the Instapot and doing a middling job shredding chicken to this point in my life. My stand mixer lives on my counter, right next to where I set up the Instapot, so transferring the cooked chicken (I cook for 10 min, high pressure, with one cup of water) over to the mixer bowl and using a standard paddle on low for less than a minute was much easier and more throughout than using forks in the pot.

Hot cooked chicken in a stand mixer
Shredded chicken in a stand mixer

She did warn me not to run the mixer for too long, so I watched as it ran on low until the shredding met my satisfaction. Then I transferred the chicken back into the Instpot to finish the soup. Yes, I dirtied more dishes, but the soup felt thicker with the finely shredded chicken than it does with larger chicken chunks. And I didn’t have to hold my hands over a steaming pot, cursing hot sprays of chicken broth.