Saturday, May 17, 2014

Baking on what is possibly the hottest day of the year…




For some reason… beyond explanation I am making pies today… a chicken pot pie… a strawberry pie… and a number of blood orange tarts…

I started with a 4 crusts… from scratch… in the process I discovered that Safeway no longer carries lard… aka manteca… a staple of Mexican food (refried beans made with lard are wonderful… those made with other fats are missing something… )

Of course our local market, Key Market had lard … “Snow Cap Mantica”… Downtown (here in San Mateo, my home town) both Dreigers and Kraggs (both expensive gourmet food markets) have suet… I suspect if I had checked they too would have that wonder, the rendered pig fat we call lard… I find it a bit bazaar that the expensive markets have rendered fat…  something that Safeway does not…  

With the lard, found at the local market, I made pie crusts… 4 pies worth of pie crusts… a top and bottom for a chicken pot pie… a bottom for a strawberry pie… and the rest for tarts… blood orange tarts… 

The Blood Orange tarts are an experiment… using recopies for Key Lime pie, but with blood orange juice instead of limes… Limes are currently in short supply… we have a blood orange tree in the front yard… so they are not in short supply…  Blood orange juice has less acid than limes so I am adjusting cooking times in my attempt to get the custard to set up properly…  I think I have a solution… and it tastes good… 

Beyond… there are pots of chili to be made soon…  Cooking is therapeutic…  Even the dirty dishes…

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