Chocolate Praline Pumpkin Pie

Can she bake a pumpkin pie Billy Boy, Billy Boy? She CAN bake a pumpkin pie, she's the apple of our eye, she's a young thing and cannot leave her mother!

This year Abigail made the pies for Thanksgiving --her first attempt. The crust was the obvious challenge and it was pretty challenging. Abby tried a new recipe for crust that was said to be "no-fail" but it did NOT live up to the name. The recipe called for oil instead of shortening and it was far too flaky to bend, which made fluting the edges impossible. But Abby pushed and poked and finally sort of made it work. The filling was delicious as always and Abby learned how to do marbling. The crust was really flaky and tasted okay. But I think she will be looking for a new recipe for crust.

Chocolate Praline Pumpkin Pie

1 can (16 oz.) pumpkin

3/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

3 eggs

1 can (5 oz.) evaporated milk

½ cup milk

½ cup semi-sweet chocolate pieces

1 9-inch deep dish pie shell with high fluted edge (do not prick)

Praline pieces

Whipped cream

Stir the pumpkin, sugar, and spice together in a large bowl. Add eggs and lightly beat into mixture. Stir in both milks and transfer ½ cup of mixture into a small saucepan. Pour the rest into the pie shell. Add the chocolate pieces into the saucepan and cook over low heat until they are melted. Carefully spoon the chocolate mixture over the filling in the shell and gently swirl with a narrow spatula to marble. Cover the edges with foil and bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes. Remove foil and continue to bake for 30 minutes longer or until knife inserted in center comes out clean. (BTW-the chocolate will sometimes stick a little to the knife, even though the pie is done. If it has been in for more than ten or so minutes longer and the top begins to seriously crack - the pie is done, even if the knife isn't completely clean.)

Praline Pieces:

In a small heavy skillet, combine ½ cup coarsely chopped pecans, 1/4 cup sugar and 1 tablespoon margarine. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly for 6 to 8 minutes until the sugar turns a rich brown color. Spread the mixture on a buttered baking sheet or foil and separate into clusters. Cool. Break clusters into smaller chunks. Garnish each piece of the pie with whipped cream and sprinkle the praline pieces over top.

Prickly Pear Raspberry Lemonade

This stuff was delicious. Before serving it I dropped frozen raspberries in each cup to serve as the ice cubes (and because it looked cool)

Ingredients:
1 qt. prickly pear juice
1 bag frozen raspberries
1/2 c. lemon juice
between 2-3 quarts water
lemon berry and/or raspberry lemonade drink mix (I used the single serving sized packets that you put in your water bottle) OR sugar (optional)

1. In blender, blend prickly pear juice and raspberries
2. Pour in 1 gal. pitcher and add lemon juice.
3. Fill the pitcher the rest of the way with water.
4. At this point you can be done, it all depends on how strong and/or sweet you want it. If you like the taste, stop. I liked it, but I wasn't sure if our guests would like the strong prickly pear after taste, so I added 1 packet each of lemon berry and raspberry lemonade to help with the flavor.

Flourless Crepes

Crepes Ingredients:
3 eggs
3 TBS milk, half and half, or heavy cream
3 tsp olive oil
1 tsp sugar (or 1/4 tsp sugar substitute)
1/2 tsp vanilla

Filling Ingredients:
2 oz cream cheese
1-2 tsp milk, half and half or heavy cream
1 tsp sugar (or 1/4 tsp sugar substitute)
1/4 tsp vanilla
Jam
(that's at least what we used...you can fill these with just about anything sweet or savory)

Directions
1. Make the filling first. Mix the cream cheese, milk, sugar and vanilla together until blended (I just used a fork).
2. In a bowl (I used a large pourable measuring cup), mix all crepes ingredients together and beat.
3. Heat a pan to medium, medium high heat and spray with non-stick cooking spray.
4. Pour a small amount (about 1/8 c.) of batter into the middle of the pan and tip/swirl the pan to spread the batter out evenly. You're supposed to get a circle...I got oblong shapes with holes...but it still worked fine.
5. Cook for about 30 sec. to 1 min. Flip and cook the other side until done (slightly browned).
6. Remove from pan, fill, and eat! These get cold fast, so if you want to eat them warm you'll have to eat them as they come off the pan. For these today I put a little dollop of the cream cheese filling and a little dollop of raspberry jam and spread it in the crepe before I rolled it up. Mmmmmm.

This will make 9-10 crepes. I know, it won't look like you've made that much batter when you mix it up. I was skeptical at first, but I think we got 9 decent sized crepes out of this.

Prickly Pear Raspberry Smoothie

2 years ago we posted Cameron's Prickly Pear Slush...but I wasn't a huge fan. It just had a funny aftertaste; he loved it though. Today I played around until I had a Prickly Pear Raspberry Smoothie that I LOVE. 

I just can't get over the color of the prickly pear fruit. It really is so vibrant and awesome.

Ingredients

• 1/2 c. frozen unsweetened raspberries
• 1/2 c. prickly pear fruit puree 
• 1 c. plain yogurt 
• About 2-3 TBS of water
• About 1-2 tsp. olive oil (I know...seems weird, but your body needs good oils in it and olive oil's not bad...if you have sunflower oil that works great too)
• Sweetener (sugar, truvia, jam, whatever you want to use)
• And then I added a tiny squirt of Berry Pomegranate MiO to help cancel out the prickly pear aftertaste (I love the initial prickly pear taste...it's the aftertaste that's a little odd)
• If you have prickly pear juice and not the puree, then omit the water in this recipe

Combine all ingredients in the blender and blend till smooth. I accidentally added too much water so I had to add a small handful more of frozen raspberries to give it the right consistency. 

Healthy Fruit Dip

So I've been wanting to eat more fruit...but I'm not one to just pick up an apple and munch away. So I read a few recipes online and made a healthy fruit dip to help entice me to eat more fruit. It's working like a charm. I love this stuff.

Ingredients:
8oz. fat free sugar free (or reduced...or regular) plain yogurt
8 oz. fat free cream cheese
Sugar (I used truvia instead). I didn't measure...I just added a little bit at the time until the taste was about right. I probably used about 2-3 teaspoons of truvia (which is sweeter than sugar, so you'd have to add more sugar than that)

Just mix them all together with a hand mixer until it's light and fluffy. Mine's almost looks like marshmallow creme.

Bitter Gourd, a Cautionary Tale....

Our neighbors have turned out to be pretty good at container gardening, which has been fun for us since they are from Sri Lanka and grow some things that we haven't seen before. Among them you will find bitter gourd. About the same size and roughly the same shape as a cucumber, except a little bit different. 

 They were kind enough to give us one or two specimens, so we googled how to cook them and gave it a try, although Gaji did warn us that we probably wouldn't like them as much as he does. We started by giving them a good washing, and then sliced them up. I'd read that you can remove some of the bitterness by heavily coating them in salt and leaving them to sit for a little while. So we did this, rinsing the salt off before we were ready to cook them.

 We didn't do anything else to prep these babies, just dropped them in a pot of hot oil and gave them a good fry until they were golden brown.

I think I salted them after we took them out of the oil, but I'm not sure really.
The texture was about what you'd expect of any fried food. Crispy and crunchy and perfect.
Then the taste hits.
The first thought that pops into your head is "wow, we WAY over-salted these puppies".
Very shortly after that you realize that maybe it's not just the salt you're tasting.
Then you think "ummm, this is kinda gross, but I guess I can finishing chewing and swallow it".
This progresses to "If I can't find somewhere to spit this thing I'm going to DIE!!!!!!!!!".
Next comes "OH MY GOSH! I already spit it out, why is the flavor still intensifying on the back of my mouth?"
All this is ended by spending the next couple of minutes frantically eating and drinking ANYTHING you can get your hands on, because at this point you'd probably eat poop if it would get that ever increasing foul taste out of your mouth.
Moral of the story, don't EVER eat bitter gourd unless you wish to die a slow and incredibly nasty death while the worst taste imaginable builds on your palate until it takes over and squeezes the life out of you.

Gaji was not surprised to find out we didn't much care for his favorite snack, but he's probably glad. There are now two less people in the world he has to compete with for a supply of bitter gourd.

Spicy Zucchini Pickles

We share a garden with our Landlady and we have had a ton of zucchini and squash...more that we could keep up with. Cameron hates to see things go to waste. One year he spent a few days making peach freezer jam from a deserted peach tree at work (he got permission to use the peaches) even though he really doesn't like peaches at all...he just hates to see free food go to waste. So he looked up recipes and found one for Refrigerator Spicy Zucchini Pickles. I'm not going to lie...I was kinda hesitant. It just didn't sound real great.  However...I had the first one today and it was phenomenal. I LOVED it. It was crunchy and tasty and zippy and so good. AND, it was a really easy recipe and process. No canning and they're ready within a few days.

 Thank you Cameron. 

He found the recipe at http://www.etsy.com/blog/en/2011/spicy-zucchini-pickles/.

Spicy Zucchini Pickles

1 pound zucchini (or any summer squash)
2 cups white vinegar
1 cup water
4 garlic cloves, light smashed
2 tablespoons sea salt
1 tablespoon dill seeds
2 teaspoons red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon mustard seeds

1. Trim the ends off zucchini and slice lengthwise into quarters.
2. Bring vinegar, water, salt and spices to a boil. Simmer for five minutes, then remove from heat.
3. Thoroughly sanitize and rinse the jar you’ll use and keep it filled with hot water until you’re ready to use it.
4. Pack the zucchini snugly in the jar. Tuck the garlic cloves in. Pour the hot brine over the squash. Let the jar sit, uncovered, until it has cooled, about an hour. Cover and refrigerate. They should keep for a couple of months, if not longer.

He made these on Monday (the 3rd of Sep.), but we didn't know how long we were supposed to let them sit before we tried them. I finally got curious (and hungry) and tried one today (the 8th of Sep.) and they were awesome.