Natchitoches Meat Pies

I may live in the mountains, but I dream of the Deep South. I have family in New Orleans and I've spent a whole lotta time enjoying the downright crazy lifestyles of the folks who call Louisiana home.

So why would I bastaradize their time-honored tradition of the fried meat pie? I didn't! My aunt did.

For as long as I've known her, this life-long resident of Metairie, LA. has been trimming the fat off Louisiana cooking. (In this case, not much fat at all.)

Natchitoches Meat Pie
* The real Natchitoches meat pie is a hand-held, oil-fried masterpiece of flavors. Aunt Florence lightened this up with ground turkey vs. beef, baked vs. fried, pre-made puff pastry vs. homemade pie crust. So, I guess when you get right down to it, this thing tastes nothing at all like that famous pie. :)

• 1/2 pound ground turkey
• 1/2 pound ground pork
• 1/2 cup finely chopped yellow onion
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 cup finely chopped green onions
• 3 tablespoons minced garlic
• 1 large red bell pepper, diced
• 1-2 tablespoons flour
  
• Hot pepper sauce, to taste
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• Puff pastry sheets

Cook turkey, pork, yellow onions, with the garlic and olive oil in a heavy skillet. Half-way through this cooking process, toss in the peppers and green onions. Spice it up however you please. Stir in the flour.

Drain any excess liquid from skillet, allow mixture to cool. Spoon this delightful mess onto a puff pastry sheet, roll it up. (Or, use puff pastry squares to create individual pies.) Brush with a mixture of egg and water. Bake @ 375 (F) for approximately 35 minutes.

Until the real ones are available west of the Mississippi, this recipe will have to do.

Cool place to stay in Natchitoches.

High Altitude Yeast Bread

Behold the fruits of my labor. 7 hours of labor, to be exact. Rocket science is child's play compared to baking yeast bread at high altitude.

Everything encourages yeast breads to fail at high altitudes. Yup, everything: dry air, thin air, aggressive kneading, water softeners... your apron is probably causing trouble, too. Yeast breads are just that temperamental high in the mountains.

Tips

• The terms 'instant' and 'rapid rise' yeast are relevant to people who live at the bottom of the hill. High altitude baking requires patience. Let yeast percolate slowly in the 'frig for a few hours.
• Use bread flour vs. all purpose flour.
• Water softeners fiddle with yeast magic, try bottled water. (I use sparkling water since it's always in my 'frig.)
• Terra cotta planters or terra cotta saucers make great bread pans.

Artisan Bread Recipe
4 cups bread flour
2-1/4 teaspoons instant rapid rise yeast
3 teaspoons honey
10 ounces bottled, filtered, or sparkling water
3 teaspoons salt


Create a liquid yeast mixture: Combine 1/4th of the flour and ALL of the yeast, honey and water. Refrigerate for a few hours.

Now the fun begins...
Mix the rest of the dry ingredients with the liquid yeast mixture. Let rise for 30 minutes. Knead the dough for about 10 minutes. Knead it by hand. It's great exercise. (Just try it on a timer, if you don't believe me. 10 min. is a long time!)

Create a humid environment:
Fill your largest casserole dish with hot water, stick it in the oven.
Put bread dough on upper oven rack, let rise for about 2 hours.
Humidity + clay baking pan = 1 perfect loaf of bread!


Knead gently, let dough rest for 15 minutes. Repeat. Give terra cotta pot or saucer a non-stick spray. Let dough rise about 1 hour.

Brush with egg white and water.
Bake @ 400 (F) for about 1 hour.

Chop Chop Salad Recipe

I should have been born a man ~ my favorite meal is steak and fries.

So, I was pretty excited when we went to Ruth Chris Steakhouse last week.

If you've ever flown anywhere, you've probably spotted their ads in the flight magazines. Ruth Chris claims to serve the best steak you'll ever have the pleasure of eating.

They do! Though, it's a little anticlimactic.

They serve their steaks on a platter of sizzling butter. I mean... really... melted butter makes anything taste fabulous.

What truly impressed me was their signature Chop Salad. It was so delicious I begged and pleaded until the server literally threw up his hands, sat at our table and wrote out the recipe.

CHOP CHOP SALAD RECIPE
* The key to this yummy salad is to chop everything into tiny pieces. Refrigerate for about an hour after mixing with the dressing.
4 cups Romaine lettuce
1/2 cup fresh spinach
1/2 cup radicchio
1/4 cup red onions
* Chop these ingredients into thin slices.

1 cup mushrooms
2 hard-boiled eggs
1 small can hearts of palm
* Chop these ingredients into small pieces.

Crumble:
1/4 pound crisp-fried bacon
1/2 cup blue cheese

Add:
1/2 cup plain croutons
1/2 cup grape tomatoes, halved
Crispy fried onions

DRESSING:
1/2 cup light sour cream
1/2 cup light mayonnaise
1/8 cup fresh basil, finely chopped
2 tablespoons lemon juice

It is out of this world...

Red Wine Currant Sauce

Currants are colorful, fast-growing, perennial shrubs.
They'll thrive in most gardens (zone 3)

Hmmm... I thought to myself ~ As I nervously stirred a tiny pot of sauce for the New Year's Eve dinner...

It didn't need to be stirred but doing so kept me from making small talk with a couple of strangers. (It also prevented me from strangling their 2 year old bratty boy!)

I used to be pretty good at small talk. I give it a shot but if the other person has taken on the role of part-time fencepost, I immediately switch gears and entertain myself. (Which is what I did last night and I had a marvelous time.)

My aha! moment came while stirring this Red Wine Currant Sauce and pondering how good it could be if currants were more popular. It's hard to find them fresh, though dried currants still make a very tasty sauce.

Currants are gorgeous, fast-growing, USDA zone 3 shrubs. They put forth bright beautiful tart red berries that hang from their branches like clusters of grapes.

If you don't have it in ya to become the farm girl that harvests these luscious berries for jams and pies, fear not.

Every bird in the county will thank you for adding this ornamental shrub to your garden! (They'll thank me, too, 'cause that's exactly what I intend to do!)

Red Wine Currant Sauce
Serve it on duck, pheasant, beef and pretty much anything else under the sun.
* Or, just stir up a pot for the hell of it! It's a great diversion if you're trying to get along with a woman who refuses to converse!

Create a stock by simmering these goodies for at least 30 minutes:
2 cups low sodium beef broth
1/2 cup red wine
1/4 cup red currant jelly
1/4 cup dry red currants (in stores, near the raisins, if you're lucky.)
* salt to taste

Use this combo to thicken your sauce:
Melt 1/3 cup butter
Mix in 1/3 cup flour
Add to the stock

* Currants are very popular in Europe - the secret ingredient in all sorts of decadent goodies, like this fabulous French Chocolate Cake.

Russian Snowball Christmas Cookies

Moscow Basilica

Strange but true: I've worked full-time, for eight years, with a man I've never met or even spoken to. That's because he lives in Moscow and neither one of us feel like affording that long distance bill.

We freelance together. He's my designer/programmer. I email him junk, he emails me stuff, somehow we put it all together and make it look pretty. (Long live the internet.)

I've never met him, but I did meet one of his co-workers a few years back. Costya introduced us to the miracles of fine vodka. After a few hundred shots of that stuff, he taught us how to swear in Russian. Прокляните все это к черту!

Every year, I send Pasha a Christmas card. He never gets them but I keep sending them anyway. I figure, if Putin stays in office long enough he might figure out how to make his postal service work. Until then, I suppose the KGB is compiling a big secret file on my activities...

Russian Snowball Cookie Recipe - Makes 3 dozen
(Российский Рецепт Печенья Снежка)

• 1 cup butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 6 tablespoons powdered sugar
• 2 cups flour
• 1 cup chopped walnuts

How To:

1. Cream butter and vanilla until smooth.
2. Combine powdered sugar and flour; stir into the butter mixture.
3. Mix in the chopped walnuts.
4. Roll dough into 1 inch balls and place 2 inches apart on cookie sheet.
5. Bake for 12 minutes @ 350 degrees F.
6. When cool, roll in a second dusting of powdered sugar.

* Dough will appear very dry. The warmth of your hands, as you form the snowballs, softens the butter and moistens the cookie dough.

This is my 3rd most favorite cookie in the whole wide world. Whenever I make them, I think of my buddy, P. They melt in your mouth, light as air. If I could stop eating them long enough to put them in a box, I'd probably send him some.

С Рождеством Христовым, Пол. Я даже не знаю, любите ли Вы это печенье!

Classic Spritz Christmas Cookie Recipe

If you make 1 cookie this season,
make it a Spritz

I can't imagine Christmas without a tray of these tempting little treats. Though, I'll readily admit they're a lot more fun when someone else is baking them.

Spritz are made with a cookie press ~ if you're a perfectionist, that will give ya fits. It's not so bad for me because we generally eat all the dough before the oven is preheated.

*****

For years I suspected my oven hated me. It would bake too hot, or broil too cold. Everyone accused me of being childish and immature for blaming the appliance.

Last year, that #!%*! oven decided to quit baking on December 23rd ~ so, we had to broil our Spritz Christmas Cookies! They weren't very pretty but they still tasted great.

Who's cryin now?
Sure, I could have recycled it. But, deep down, I knew it was possessed. So, I happily hauled that mean-spirited oven away to a place where it will never (ever!) be able to foil another baker's plans.

Classic Spritz Cookies
If you can refrain from eating the cookie dough, this recipe makes 4 dozen.
1 cup butter
3 egg yolks
2.5 cups flour
2/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

How to:

1. Mix the butter, sugar, egg yolks and vanilla. Add the flour and mix by hand.
2. Spoon into cookie press and press onto cookie sheets.
3. Sprinkle with colored sugars. (Or, use red and green food coloring on smaller batches of the dough.)
4. Bake @ 400 degrees for 7-10 minutes.

* Cookies require no recipe adjustments, when baking at high altitude.

Crunchy Peppermint Cookie Recipe

Fire up the oven. Cookies require no tricky recipe adjustments when baking in high altitudes!

Crunchy Peppermint Christmas Cookies
* If you can refrain from eating the cookie dough, this recipe makes five dozen.

• 1.5 cups butter
• 2 eggs
• 1.5 tablespoons baking powder
• 6 cups flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup crushed peppermint candy

How to:

1. Cream butter and sugar.
2. Beat in eggs, one at a time.
3. Add dry ingredients to the batter in two batches, alternating with milk.
4. Stir in crushed candy.
5. Spoon onto cookie sheet.
6. Bake for 10-12 minutes @ 375 degrees.

This recipe is even better than that one!