Good Noms gets cheesy

It's my birthday this week, and I made myself a cake. It's a really simple recipe.
Cheesecake:
Crust-

• Graham crackers (one of the three individually wrapped packages in a box)
• Butter - 1/2 stick

Cake-

• Cream cheese - 3 packages
• Egg - 1
• Sweetened condensed milk - 1 can
• Vanilla

Blend the graham crackers in a blender or a food processor. Alternately, crush them in a plastic bag. Melt half the stick of butter and mix it with the graham crumbs. Press into the bottom of a round springform or pie pan.

Blend the softened cream cheese with the can of milk. Do this before you add the egg, otherwise the cream cheese will clump and become coated in the egg and you will have trouble blending a homogeneous mixture. Add the egg and a teaspoon of vanilla extract.
Bake at 375 degrees for about 45 minutes, checking after about 40. The cake will become firm, the center will be almost set. Let cool almost completely, then refrigerate for several hours, for best results overnight.

A simple dessert

This is my half-assed attempt at Sunday night dessert. Sweet, tart, lovely blackberries were on sale at our local grocery store this week, and while I know I shouldn't indulge in off-season produce, I couldn't resist. Let's begin!

Ingredients:

Some sort of plain dessert (un-iced cake, some ice cream, anything you feel like. Vanilla or lemon flavors are a plus. I went for angel food.)

4 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp brandy
Juice from half a lemon
1/2 tsp vanilla extract.
1 pint blackberries or other aggregate fruit-type berries. Raspberries or whatever. If you use a sweeter berry, you may want to cut back the sugar by half.

Give your berries a gentle rinse, place in a bowl, throw in the other ingredients, gently mix, and leave to macerate for an hour or two.


Come back and squish them up with a fork. If you don't care for the pulp or seeds, run the sauce through a sieve.
Spoon liberally onto your chosen dessert, and if it's cake, I recommend a little half-and-half for extra deliciousness.

A Tale of Two Pies, Part 2

We shall now continue our study of pies from last week. You may ask yourself "dangersecond, aren't you supposed to post on Wednesdays? Why do you always post early on Thursday morning?" There are two reasons for this, my friends. First of all, most of my friends live in the EST. I live in the PST. Also, I get off work at 8:00 PM and have a lot of things to do before I get to use the computer, such as nomming. So it ends up being late at night my time when I post. This is my explanation. Now here is an explanation of french apple pie.

If you recall, I left you last week with one completed pie and an extra pie crust. For this second pie, you will need the following ingredients:

• Five to seven apples (depending on their size)
  
• 1/4 Cup white sugar
• 1/4 Cup brown sugar
• 3/4 Cup flour
• 3/4 Teaspoon Cinnamon
• A dash of nutmeg
• 6 Tablespoons of butter

Preheat your oven to 400F.

Slice up the apples to be nice and small. I like to make them about the size of a thimble, like this:

Cut the butter into slices that are a couple of millimeters thick.

Put the apples in the pie crust in a nice, big mound (sorry, that's the only word I could think of). Then sprinkle them with the white sugar.

Mix all of the remaining ingredients together in a mixing bowl and stir them until the butter is all crumbled up.

Pour this on top of the apples.

Put your pie in the oven and bake it for 35 minutes.

The pie that will result will not have a standard "dough top", but instead a delicious crumb top similar to coffee cake. The only problem I ever have with this pie is that sometimes it becomes too juicy and I have burned myself with delicious, hot apple pie juices (man, this post is inadvertently sexual). So indulge with care.

A Tale of Two Pies, Part 1

Hi there, loyal fans! I recently had Thanksgiving, like many other people. One of the best parts of Thanksgiving is pie. I made two pies this year: pumpkin and apple, because I am very traditional. I shall now embark on the task of explaining to you how to make both of these pies from scratch.To begin with, you will make the crusts. This recipe will make the pastry for two (2) crusts. You will need the following:

• 2 Cups of flour
• 1 Teaspoon salt
• 2/3 Cup shortening
• About a cup of very cold water
• A rolling pin or alternative

A quick note on the the ingredients: I prefer to use wheat flour and organic vegetable

shortening, but you can use what you want.

A quick not on rolling pins: I don't have a rolling pin. I used a tubular, metal water bottle as one. You can also use a wine bottle, a sturdy high ball glass or any other rolling pin shaped object as such.

First, you must mix the flour and the salt in a large bowl. Then you add the shortening. The next is the first important part of this procedure.

You must use two case knives, one held in either hand, to chop the shortening into pieces about the size of peas. I was cooking this without a camera man (as the professional was visiting his grandparents at the moment) so I took a photo myself which does not look very good:

What you cannot really tell is that I am holding one knife in each hand and using them to chop the shortening up. I am about halfway done with my chopping.

After it has gotten to about pea size, you will need to put your hands into the bowl and knead the pastry until it begins to become a doughy texture. I find that uncooked pie crust feels a bit like playdough when you're doing it right. Once you start kneading it, you will also need to start adding the cold water, about a tablespoon at a time, to improve the texture. The whole operation will start out feeling a bit dry. Keep kneading away and dropping in water until it reaches playdough status.

At this point, you will split your crust into two balls and place one a

side while we begin to form the first from a dough into a proper crust:

You will notice from this photo that, like a rolling pin, I don't have any nice pie plates. If you are like me in this way, you can get these for a dollar each at your grocery store. Now, after lamenting your lack of fine pie plates, or complimenting yourself on them should you have them, you should take one ball of dough and start rolling it out. Throw some flour down on a clean surface and get your rolling pin or rolling pin like object and start rolling your dough until it is about the right pie crust thickness: a couple of millimeters. Not too thin that it will fall apart, not so thick that you don't have enough dough to make an entire pie crust. Don't worry if it isn't exactly the right shape. You can patch it later:

As you can see, I need a new camera for Christmas,

and this doesn't exactly look like a pie yet.

Take your oddly shaped crust and place it in your pie plate. Then begin the process of shaping it to actually look like a pie. Rip off the bits that overhang your pan and, using more of your cold water, attach them to places where you haven't enough dough and the pan shows through. Take your time with this and make sure everything is covered:

If you have enough dough left, you can make thumb prints around the edge of your plate for a more fancy look. Your crust should look something like this when you complete it:

You can make your second crust from the ball of dough the same way you did this one.

Next, we'll begin making the pumpkin pie. If you don't want to make both a pumpkin pie and an apple pie you can either make two of one or freeze the other crust for a later time. Then it becomes just like a store bought frozen pie crust.

Unfortunately, my pumpkin pie is a little fakey, simply because I don't have any way to puree my own pumpkin.

• The ingredients include the following:
• 1 Can of Organic Pureed Pumpkin
• 1 Cup of heavy cream
• 1/2 Teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 Teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 Teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 Eggs

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Pour your pumpkin into a bowl. When you open the can, if you are me, a smush-faced cat will appear and beg you for cat food, and you may have to sacrifice a bit of your cream to make it up to him:

Stir it up so its nice and liquidy. Then crack the eggs in a separate bowl and beat them nicely. Pour the eggs into the liquified pumpkin and stir it up. Then add the cream and stir again. Add the vanilla, which is my very important secret ingredient that makes this pie amazing, cinnamon and nutmeg and stir a final time.

Next, you will need to pour your very thinly textured liquid into the pie pan and carry it into the oven. This is not so hard if you have a real pie plate. If you, like myself, do not, BE VERY CAREFUL. Like, as careful as you have ever been, because if the foil pie plate bends, it will be all over. Your pie should look like this before it goes into the oven:

Allow it to bake for about a half an hour. You will need to check it frequently because I have found that baking times are never an exact science. Test your pie by poking a fork into it. If it does not appear to be pumpkin pie texture, it needs to cook longer. Although the ingredients for this pie are slightly different than a standard pumpkin pie, it should look and feel the same as a regular one, and this is important. It will taste a lot better than usual, too :D

Here is the finished pie:

If you would like to make a vegan pie, that is very easy. I can, first of all, tell you how NOT to do it. Some sites recommend using silken tofu blended in a blender or food processor in place of the dairy ingredients. DO NOT DO THIS. Instead, use almond milk (in my opinion, the superior false milk for baking) in an amount of one cup instead of the cream. You do not need to add anything to substitute the eggs. You can make this pie without eggs and it will still taste great, if you are allergic to eggs. The texture will not be exactly the same, but it will be tolerable. One year, I followed a vegan friend's advice and tried to make a tofu pumpkin pie. No one could eat it. In the end, we had to put it outside for the squirrels. They wouldn't eat it either, which had never happened before or since.

In the next post (which will happen tomorrow, because Blogger and I are not getting along. At all), I will show you how to make a Good Noms apple pie. I had to rewrite large parts of this post twice, and import each picture three times. C'est la vie. At least you can have pumpkin pie now!

Welcome to Good Noms

Hello, and Welcome to Good Noms!

For our first recipe, I'll walk you through my latest adventure in baking, an adapted version of Cakespy's Cranberry Bliss Bars.
My usual cooking style involves a lot of fooling around with substitutions, mangling recipes to my own tastes...and my fiance's pickiness. Therefore I present to you...

Good Noms' Cherry Bars!

Step 1: Gather up your ingredients.



Cake base
2 sticks (1 cup) butter, softened
1 1/4 cups dark brown sugar, firmly packed
3 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg (optional)
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 tablespoon brandy
1/2 teaspoon salt (omit if using salted butter)
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup dried cherries
1/2 cup white chocolate chips

Frosting
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
2 tablespoons butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
dash of salt (omit if using salted butter)

Garnish
1/3 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 cup dried cherries

Step 2: Preheat oven to 350º F. Lightly grease a 9" x 13" baking pan.

Step 3: Cream together the butter and sugar. It's really important to use softened butter, not melted butter, because the creamed butter and sugar add air to the batter, giving the end product a better texture.

Step 4: Add the vanilla, and the eggs, one at a time. Beat well after every addition. Now is the time to add the brandy as well, if you have it. I keep a well stocked liquor cabinet solely for cooking purposes. If you don't have any brandy, grand marnier, dark rum, or some other sweet liqueur will work just as well.

Step 5: Add in the dry ingredients. I have added some baking soda to the original recipe for a more tender, cakey bite. Because I love cake.



Step 6: Cherries and chocolate. You can use regular chocolate in place of white chocolate if you like, but inexplicably, I like white chocolate better in some recipes. DO NOT tell my mother this. White chocolate is one of several foods against which she has a vendetta.




Step 7: Bake for 30 mins, or until golden and a knife inserted in the center of the pan comes out clean (or mostly clean, depending on how many chocolate chips you run into). Cool completely before moving on to the frosting.


Frosting:

Step 1: Blend cream cheese, butter, and vanilla in a bowl slightly larger than you think you will need. The confectioner's sugar will make a bit of a mess if you let it.

Step 2: Add in the sugar a little bit at a time, until fully incorporated.

Step 3: Glob onto your cooled bars and top with cherries.



Step 4: Lick spoon.

Topping:

Step 1: In a double boiler, melt chocolate chips. If the chocolate seems to be too thick to drizzle, add a little shortening to thin it out. Don't worry, this won't change the flavor or texture of your chocolate once it's cooled.

A saucepan and Pyrex bowl make a good makeshift double boiler

Step 2: Drizzle chocolate over your bars. Cut the bars while the chocolate is still melty or it will crumble and your bars won't look as nice when cut. Cut in half lengthwise and into four wide. Cut each rectangle into two triangles.

Step 3: Enjoy!

Eat with a cup of French Roast for maximum enjoyment!