Post-Thanksgiving Dinner
Nov. 28th, 2020 12:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
plonqSince atara has been feeling a little under the weather in the latter part of this week, I decided to pick up a chicken when I was shopping on Thursday to roast for a post-US Thanksgiving dinner for her.
Part of the dinner process involved engaging in alchemy to turn this...
... into this.
In retrospect, I discovered that this pumpkin produced exactly enough pulp to make a pie, but I supplemented it with the last cup of smoked pumpkin I had in the freezer. In the end, this turned out to be a good thing because the frozen pumpkin was from the one that I over-smoked last year, and it benefited from being diluted by fresh pumpkin.
One of the lessons from this pie was that one is better not pre-baking the crust for a pumpkin pie. I did not notice until afterwards that the recipe specifically said to use an uncooked crust. Oh well. It tasted fine, but it the part that I baked in advance is very tough. It tastes great as butter crusts are wont to do, but it has the constancy of hardtack.
Also, I did some repairs to the crust before I poured in the custard. Even with pie weights, it shrunk and receded from the rim of the pie plate. I trimmed away enough of the browned edges on the crust to make it even all the way around, and then rolled out the remaining dough and cut it into strips. Using a bit of water, I moulded it to the top of the crust to make a proper lip around the edge of the pan which I decorated with the tines of a fork.
This accomplished two things: it made the pie look better, and it ensured that the exposed parts of the crust didn't brown any any further (i.e., burn) when I baked the pie.
I am going to try making my own crust again for the next pie, but I'll know not to bake it before I add the filling.
Some day I will have a crust turn out good.
atara has been feeling a little under the weather in the latter part of this week, I decided to pick up a chicken when I was shopping on Thursday to roast for a post-US Thanksgiving dinner for her.Part of the dinner process involved engaging in alchemy to turn this...
... into this.
In retrospect, I discovered that this pumpkin produced exactly enough pulp to make a pie, but I supplemented it with the last cup of smoked pumpkin I had in the freezer. In the end, this turned out to be a good thing because the frozen pumpkin was from the one that I over-smoked last year, and it benefited from being diluted by fresh pumpkin.
One of the lessons from this pie was that one is better not pre-baking the crust for a pumpkin pie. I did not notice until afterwards that the recipe specifically said to use an uncooked crust. Oh well. It tasted fine, but it the part that I baked in advance is very tough. It tastes great as butter crusts are wont to do, but it has the constancy of hardtack.
Also, I did some repairs to the crust before I poured in the custard. Even with pie weights, it shrunk and receded from the rim of the pie plate. I trimmed away enough of the browned edges on the crust to make it even all the way around, and then rolled out the remaining dough and cut it into strips. Using a bit of water, I moulded it to the top of the crust to make a proper lip around the edge of the pan which I decorated with the tines of a fork.
This accomplished two things: it made the pie look better, and it ensured that the exposed parts of the crust didn't brown any any further (i.e., burn) when I baked the pie.
I am going to try making my own crust again for the next pie, but I'll know not to bake it before I add the filling.
Some day I will have a crust turn out good.
