Chocolate Pie

How I have made it 31 years without making a Chocolate Pie, I am not sure.  I live for chocolate; chocolate chips, chocolate cake, chocolate bunnies, chocolate ice cream, hot chocolate; you name it, I love it.  I've decided that the reason I have not made a chocolate pie in my 31 years is not my fear of chocolate, it's my fear of pie making.  My aunt Betty is famous for her pies.  Me, not so much.  To me, pie making seems like a much too laborious process.  But in my investigations into traditional Kentucky foods, chocolate pies kept creeping up.  There are many recipes for Chocolate Pies out there but I decided to use "Aunt Elizabeth's Chocolate Pie" recipe; Aunt Elizabeth just happening to be Elizabeth Brewer, a great aunt of my grandfather, Bob Brewer.  Apparently, a mistake was made in the original recipe for this pie, making it more runny, but it was so delicious that the Brewer family members kept requesting it that way.

Aunt Elizabeth's Chocolate Pie

2 and 1/2 cups sugar
1 heaping tsp flour
3/4 cup milk
4 egg yolks, beaten
1Tbsp white corn syrup
1 bag semi sweet chocolate chips
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 stick butter
Ready Made Pie Crust (I used graham cracker) or Pastry Shell
Whipped cream

Using heavy saucepan or double boiler, mix all ingredients together.  Cook until brought to a boil for about 2 minutes while stirring constantly.  Pour into chilled pie crust.  Once chilled, top with whipped cream to serve.

Ruth's Nut Bread

On my mother's kitchen wall, there are four framed pieces of artwork, each depicting a Peanuts cartoon character and one of my grandmother's recipes.  On one of these pictures was a recipe for Nut Bread.  Now, if you've read through many older recipes, you have noticed that many of these recipes don't really go into much detail.  It was assumed during that time that the basics of baking and cooking were understood; were things that little girls learned from their mothers at an early age, and if not then, at least by the time they were married and would need to be cooking for their husbands.

Hence, recipes seemed to just state the basics.  This nut bread recipe, for example, didn't say what KIND of nut was recommended...just that you needed a cup of nuts.  Using common sense though, I'm going to suggest using either pecans or walnuts; stay away from peanuts, almonds or a can of Planter's mixed nuts:) This recipe also didn't go into particular detail in terms of how the ingredients should be mixed, just that they should.  I chose not to use any type of electric mixer here, just about a dozen turns of a spoon to blend the wet and dry ingredients.

In our world of  "quick" breads of every kind, yes, this bread may take just a few more steps.  But the end result is a homemade feeling bread, with a density, flavor and texture that quick breads just can't offer.



Ruth's Nut Bread

3 cups flour

3 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

2/3 cup sugar

1 cup nuts

1 egg

1 cup milk

4 tbsp butter

Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Sift flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar.  Add nuts.  Combine egg, milk and melted butter and then add mixture to dry ingredients.  Bake for 50 minutes.



Avocado and Grapefruit Salad

Last Thursday,as I'm driving home from a long day at work, my dad called me wondering what I was doing for dinner. At that moment I wanted nothing more than to go home, run over to the gym at my condo complex and then spend the rest of the night in my sweats.  So I invited he and my brother to come over and we would have dinner at our place in about an hour.  Sounds good, he said.  But as soon as I hung up, it hit me, what in the world was I going to serve everyone?  Seeing that after my gym visit I had about 15 minutes to throw something together, I ended up just putting out bowls of fresh ingredients and we had a "make-your-own salad" night; complete with red peppers, strawberries, red onion, feta cheese, dried cherries, walnuts and greens.  Oh, and some roasted chicken for protein.  It seemed too easy to taste that good but I've learned from both of my parents that the best food doesn't necessarily require fancy recipes; it just requires GOOD, NATURAL food. 

With this on my mind, I went in search of a Kentucky recipe that would meet these stipulations.  At the front of one of my recipe books, there are examples of menus from various horse farms around the state.  I found my answer within a Thanksgiving dinner menu at the horse farm, "Domino Stud", located just outside of Lexington.  The 365 acres of Domino Stud was recently purchased by the owner's of it's next door neighbor, Dixiana Farms.  As part of one of their Thanksgiving meals, they served "Avocado and Grapefruit on Bibb Lettuce with Dressing". 

There wasn't a recipe included, so I improvised; I didn't have Bibb, so I used spinach for my base and added goat cheese and poppyseed dressing.  If you are not particularly fond of either grapefruit or avocado, I would still recommend that you try this salad:)  I would not choose either of these foods on their own, but the creaminess of the avocado and the citrusy tang of the grapefruit, make both foods taste ten times better than they do on their own. 

Avocado and Grapefruit Salad
1 avocado
1 grapefruit
spinach
goat cheese crumbles
poppyseed dressing
slivered almonds (optional)

Combine all ingredients!

Bourbon Sweet Potatoes

When you are doing a Kentucky cooking blog, you naturally ask yourself the question, "What tastes good with bourbon?"  Various desserts are the obvious answers, and then you have meats covered with a bourbon glaze, but what about a side dish or vegetable?  Since bourbon marries well with all things sugar, it works best with vegetables that sweeten up as they cook...and what sweeter vegetable than sweet potatoes?  We all know how some people are "sweet" people and others are "salty", myself being the former and my mother being the latter.  My sweet tooth has always made me a great fan of sweet potatoes.  I have had many different versions of the dish, from simply baked with butter, to mashed and topped off with a pecan crumble (yummmm).

Most sweet potato recipies just suggest baking the potato.  I think that roasting vegetables always brings out the best flavor though, so I stuck these in the oven for about 20 minutes before baking them in the sauce. 
The sweet potato dish I have chosen here could, I believe, hold a candle to any sweet potato dish out there.  The bourbon sauce is so delicious that I could honestly just eat it with a spoon.  Ok, not very healthy.  But hey, since I'm soaking a vegetable with it, it becomes healthy right?  right? 

Bourbon Sweet Potatoes
5 medium sweet potatoes
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup bourbon (I used Maker's Mark)
1/2 cup butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup olive oil
salt and pepper
whipped cream (optional)

Peel and slice sweet potatoes and cut into cubes.  Spread on a baking sheet and douse with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake at 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes.  After finished baking, move sweet potatoes to a baking dish. In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, bourbon, butter and vanilla and heat to a boil. Once boiling, immediately pour sauce over sweet potatoes.  Put covered baking dish in the oven at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.  Remove lid and continue to cook for 10 minutes.  Serve with whipped cream (optional)

Buttery Biscuits

The word on the street is that my grandmother made homemade biscuits nearly ever day.  While I realize I am a fairly amateur chef, having just finished making biscuits from scratch, I have developed an entirely new appreciation for the generations of women that baked biscuits, breads, rolls, etc each and every day.

This is a labor of love folks.  But it's worth it in the sense that making biscuits is one of those natural processes that had to have contributed to the idea that a mother's love is often shown through her cooking; the patient kneading of the dough, the cutting out of each individual circle. And then there is hardly anything more comforting than indulging in a thick, buttery, flaky biscuit, fresh out of the oven.  Preferably topped off with a bit more butter and drizzled with honey....these rival Kentucky Fried Chicken's but with a lot more love:)

Buttery Biscuits

2 cups flour
1 tablespoon of baking powder
1.5 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick of butter, cold
3/4 cup buttermilk (I used Trauth Country Buttermilk)

Preheat over to 450 degrees. Mix dry ingredients. Cut up butter into pieces and then work into dry ingredients with hands or a pastry blender.  Add buttermilk and work into a wet dough.  Knead mixture in bowl for 2-3 minutes; dough should be fairly dry.  Cover countertop with flour and place ball of dough onto counter.  Knead dough with hands for 4-5 minutes, interspersing kneads with a rolling pin.  Roll out dough until it is 1/2 inch thick.  Cut out biscuits using a biscuit cutter or drinking glass.  Place close together on a greased baking sheet.  Bake for 15 minutes or until tops are browned.