Classic Pecan Pie

Posted on 01/03/2014 by Walter Blevins

I have always thought the New Year should be ushered in with a special dessert—Pecan Pie.  Now, I don’t know if that’s a Southern tradition or not but if it isn’t, it should be, kind of like the Southern tradition of black-eyed peas on New Years.

Arguably, pecan pie is my favorite pie even though pecans a kind of pricey.  But when it comes to pecans, I have my own personal “supplier”—my Mom.

Mom keeps me in pecans.  For 35 plus years she’s been one of the mainstays of the annual pecan sale at her Methodist church in Brandon, Florida.  Each year they make arrangements with a certain pecan orchard in south Georgia for pecans to fill orders they take from members of their church and from the community.  The net proceeds go to their outreach programs—particularly serving families with children. 

There’s 2 cool things about it.  One is that they make something like $15,000 on the one day sale that they put back into the community and the other is that the pecans are absolutely fresh.  The sale is on a Saturday and the pecans are harvested to order on Monday of the week of the sale, then processed and trucked to the church for the Saturday delivery.  When you bite into one of the pecans you taste the sweet meat of the nut with never a hint of the bitterness that you sometimes get from pecans that have been sitting around sometimes as long as a year. 

Classis Pecan Pie

So, I love to make pie with the pecans that my Mom sends me each year.  Mom is going to be 83 next month and to me she’s the Duchess of Pecans at Brandon United Methodist Church.  Continue reading →

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Rustic Pot Pies

Posted on 12/30/2013 by Walter Blevins

Within a month in November and December most of us usually cook a couple of family feasts.  Of course, as busy as restaurants are on Thanksgiving and Christmas, perhaps fewer of us are doing that.  That’s too bad because a lot of the fun of cooking these feasts is the leftovers they provide.

If I were really a new-age kind of guy, I guess I would be using the term “re-purpose” rather than “leftover” but applying the term re-purpose to food just somehow strikes me as wrong.  Anyway, I digress.

So I decided I wanted to do a classic, homemade, rustic and cheap dinner with leftover turkey a few weeks back.  The classic part is making pot pies—but not the frozen kind you can still get at the grocery store and zap in the microwave.  The homemade part is using homemade pie crust and gravy.  And the cheap part is I had some leftover pie crust in the freezer that I used.  (Actually the only money actually spent was a dollar on a bag of frozen vegetables).  Oh, and the rustic part is my inability to get “fluting” to look “purty”.

Rustic pot pie ready to eat Continue reading →

Posted in baking, Comfort Food, family meals, left overs, turkey & chicken, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Chicago-style Deep Dish Pizza

Posted on 12/15/2013 by Walter Blevins

The other day I suggested to Mrs. CB that it was pizza night and if she was willing I’d like to try another version—one that she’s only had one other time.  And she bit at the bait I dangled.  She’s always up for pizza, so I suggested Chicago-Style Deep Dish Pizza.

I’ve had this delicacy a few times—especially when I lived in the Midwest.  It’s decidedly “un-Italian” and it’s 100% Chicago where it was born and perfected.  The crust is thick, chewy and crusty.  There’s a bunch of meat and a bunch of cheese—arguably more than on a more traditional “pie”.  And, truth be told, it’s probably a bit easier for a home cook to make.  At least I think so.

Plus, it helps that I have a nice, big cast iron skillet that gets good and hot in the oven.

Chicago Deep Dish Pizza

Most recipes for this treat call for lots of meat and not much in the way of vegetables.  We really like fresh vegetables on our pizza so I went ahead and added them in the top layer.  That way we can be a bit smug and at least claim that Chicago-Style Deep Dish Pizza is healthy.  But who cares?  Make it a carnivores delight if you want.  Or make it a vegetarian fest without any meat at all.  It’s your pizza! Continue reading →

Posted in baking, family meals, Italian, pasta & pizza | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Holiday Fruitcake

Posted on 11/18/2013 by Walter Blevins

Fruitcake gets a bad rap.  There are all kinds of old jokes about it that circulate especially this time of year.  Stuff like how there’s only been one fruitcake ever made and it just keeps getting passed from person to person each holiday season getting harder and harder each year.

Then there’s the fruitcakes that we saw at Costco today.  Big, brawny fruitcakes that cost $15 each—which really isn’t bad in the world of fruitcake prices.  I saw a flyer recently wanting $32.99 for a small, round fruitcake.  And that’s the stuff that hasn’t been soaked in enough booze to make it illegal to drive after one slice.

And one of my favorite all time Jimmy Buffet songs is “Fruitcakes”.  Yes indeed folks, there is “a little bit of fruitcake in every one of us.”

holiday fruitcake done

I’ve been threatening to bake fruitcake for years.  So far the last 2 or 3 weeks, Mrs. CB and I have had fun with me trying to get a recipe that makes a good fruitcake, is sufficiently “dense” but not too “dense” and which can meet the “Cheap Bastid” test—except in the case of fruitcake it’s kind of relative.

According to Mrs. CB, “If it’s overly sweet, sits like a brick in your tummy, and it’s clumpy then you’ve done it right.” Continue reading →

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Shredded Beef Pizza

Posted on 11/12/2013 by Walter Blevins

Sometimes it’s just a simple little twist that comes up with something different.  And for Cheap Bastid that something different is usually a new flavor—OK a new, cheap flavor.

That’s what happened last night.  It was pizza night.  I didn’t have enough pepperoni for a pizza but last week I did a slow cooker “roast beast” and had some left over shredded bottom round.  So, Shredded Beef Pizza was a natural.

So, what if?  Yep, and it was good too.  A different flavor.  Rich and beefy topping a homemade pizza loaded with our favorite bell pepper, zucchini, onion and jalapeno.

shredded beef pizza

So what’s the purpose of this post?  Well, it’s not really a recipe so much as to pass on the idea that food and cooking is all about creating something you like, something that will do a dance on your tastebuds, fill you up, nourish you and make you glad you ate it.  That’s what this pizza did last night.

Cheap Bastid makes his pizza from “scratch”.  It might not be as good as an Italian pizzeria which has the right ovens at the right temperature but it’s certainly better than the frozen self rising crust variety that you pop in your oven and which cost twice as much as making your own.

Here’s my crust recipe:  http://www.cheap-bastid-cooks.com/homemade-pizza/

And yeah, it takes a bit of time—you have to make the dough, let it rise and then shape it.  (By the way I got over the frustration of trying to hand shape my pizza crust.  I just have at it with a rolling pin rather than tossing it, sticking my hand through it, and then trying to stretch it properly).

And by way of “previews of coming attractions”, here’s what Cheap Bastid is working on now.  I’ve got to make one adjustment to the recipe and try it again but look for it in about a week:

fruitcake

That’s the Cheap Bastid Way:  Eat Good. Eat Cheap. Be Grateful!

Posted in family meals, left overs, pasta & pizza | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments