Week in Review

[kate_nepveu]

It's football season! I stayed up much too late Thursday night watching the Patriots play the Raiders, because they had to go and make it interesting in the second half: a tipped extra point, a blocked punt, and it was a two-possession game with the Raiders deep inside Pats terrority with about four minutes left. The Raiders got the touchdown, but the two-point conversion failed on Randy Moss's offensive pass interference (!), and then the Pats got the first down and could run out the clock, and I could go to bed. Of course, I had to get up at 1 a.m. when the dog started yelping and whining, so I got even less sleep than football could account for.

Yesterday started out cranky and sleep-deprived, but a stroll to the library in the lovely fall sun, and then sitting in that same lovely fall sun with a book, helped quite a bit. Not a library book, a manuscript for which feedback was long overdue; the only thing I got at the library was the first volume of the Fullmetal Alchemist manga. I'd been vaguely planning to read the manga after I finished watching the anime, so as to get events in one order, but, well, it was there and it seemed a good thing to encourage the library to buy more, and I knew it didn't have anything I hadn't seen already. (The library also had a display of anime and manga action figures—I have no idea why, there weren't any labels or anything. It had the Ed and Al from this set, and this Hawkeye which I rather like, though I can resist it quite handily because it doesn't also have the dog.)

We also ended up watching Holes on TV Saturday night. Reviews of this made it sound incredibly complicated, but I didn't give it my full attention until fairly late in and didn't have too much trouble following it, and I enjoyed the last bit. A strange story, in that it is fantasy but doesn't feel like it, but it's well-acted and interestingly done. (IMDB's trivia page has an absolutely mind-boggling description of an earlier draft of the script; I guess I should just be impressed that the draft didn't get produced.)

Today I got the not-unexpected news that my iPod's hard drive was dying, all of 45 days after it came out of warranty. Grr. I disapprove of extended warranty plans on principle, but if I'm going to be the kind of klutz who drops a small hard drive at least twice in a couple of months, I might have to think about it. I also got the latest Young Wizards book, Wizards at War, which I'm partway through, and the new Discworld book, Thud.

I made Québec meat pie (what my recipe book calls "tourtiére") tonight, which came out well and was dead simple. The recipe follows:

Ingredients:

1.5 lbs lean ground pork
1 medium onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper (* I just ground a bunch over, and didn't bother measuring)
1 cup water
1 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
Pastry for a 2 crust pie

Directions:

Cover pork, onion, garlic, salt, and pepper with water and bring to a boil. Add allspice and nutmeg. Cook 30 minutes. All more allspice to taste if desired. Ladle hot meat and some liquid into piecrust and cover with top crust. Bake at 425 degrees for 10 minutes then lower heat to 350 degrees, bake 30 minutes longer. Serves 6.

(* I would've liked a little more direction on the "Cook" bit, being unsure at what level. I settled for a fairly high simmer, but ended up adding a little more water at the end, just so I'd have some liquid to ladle into the pie. Next time a little bit more liquid would be good, and also a little more allspice. Also, the premade piecrust suggested covering the edges with foil after 20 minutes to keep the edges from burning, which works well but is easier said than done.)

This worked really well. Next time I will try the recipe my mom has, which is more like Grand-Memère's because it has potatoes. It's sized for four pies, but I don't see any reason it couldn't be scaled down to the same proportions and times as the one I made tonight. Here's the recipe:

4 lbs. finely ground pork
1 lb. extra lean ground chuck
4 medium onions, finely chopped
1 t. salt
1 t. ground cloves
5 medium potatoes, cooked and mashed

Put meats, onions, salt, cloves in large dutch oven and mix together with large spoon. Cover with water and bring to a slow boil, stirring occasionally to break up meat. Simmer 3-4 hours. Drain well and add mashed potatoes. Mix well. Put in a pie crust and put top on. Bake at 425 degrees for 30 minutes or until browned.

What do you all think?

And now I am tired, and so my book log entries on Last Call and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell are going to have to wait yet another day (they are proving strangely difficult); I'm just using this icon because I like it.

(Yes, still ignoring news in order to function; have donated, scheduled donations for the next several months, and put "110 Stories" up outside my office for the week. And I hate feeling like I need to disclaim all this.)

Comments

[rilina.livejournal.com]

I have the first Hawkeye figure (standing on my tv beside Ed, Al, and Mustang), but now I really want the one with the dog. Must. Resist...

[kate_nepveu]

I have been trying to cut down on the desk toys, with some success. I agree that the dog is quite cute, but I prefer the pose in the first one.

[rilina.livejournal.com]

I've been sticking to the cheaper mini-figures for now.

The last time I was at the comic book store, I saw these two pillows (http://www.animecastle.com/catalog/merchandise/pillow/cat_fullmetal-alchemist-pillow.html), which made me giggle for a good five minutes. I've never come so close to buying something so unnecessary (what my sister calls "instant clutter") just because they made me laugh.

[kate_nepveu]

Those are so very silly. But! You could get very similar looking coin pouches at this site found by telophase, the contents of which absolutely cracked me up--Al tin set! Paper fan with the Saiyuki boys!

(Just thinking of them makes me smile, in fact, which is good because I was cranky this morning. Yay, silliness.)

[stinaleigh.livejournal.com]

With pies, I find it easier to cover the edges first then remove the foil for the last 20 min or so of baking time.

[kate_nepveu]

Yes, that would make sense, wouldn't it? Thank you.

[annewashere.livejournal.com]

The meat pie sounds delicious. But wouldn't it be too much filling for one pie?

I second Stina on the pie crust. I make chicken pot pie sometimes, and cook it for 30 minutes with foil, and the last five without.

[kate_nepveu]

No, it fits the 9" pie perfectly.

Oh, and I forgot to note that it can be made with veal too, according to the recipe book.

[schulman.livejournal.com]

The novel Holes, by Louis Sachar; is a hoot, and all the intergenerational complications are easier to keep straight on the page. I was surprised at how well Disney adapted it, particularly after the wretched job they did with The Princess Diaries (which is a good book, dammit). Sigourney Weaver is so very, very perfect, as is the kid who plays Zero.

[kate_nepveu]

The kid who plays Zero is great; I went to IMDB to look him up and see if he'd done anything else I might know, and that's how I found that trivia page.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I didn't know tourtiere was that easy. Cool.

Also, I bet you could make shortbread piecrust, it's really easy and it's really worth it. You need a magic pastry fork, which is D shaped and has blades, not wires. You can buy one in any good kitchen shop. The next time you walk past a kitchen shop go in and buy one. They're about $10.

You put 8 ounces of all purpose flour and 2 ounces of butter (or margerine) and 2 ounces of crisco in a bowl with a pinch of salt. You hold the magic pastry fork by the flat bit of the D and roll it through the flour and fat until it looks like breadcrumbs and you can't see any fat any more. (About five minutes.) You pour a little water in and stir with an ordinary knife until it looks like pie-crust. If it doesn't, add a little more. Then you shove it in the fridge for 2 hours, or until you need it. (If it's more than a couple of days, freeze it.) When you need it, you roll it out. The hardest part is cleaning up after rolling it, I make rysmiel do that.

Oh, and as for covering the crust to prevent burning, the best thing to do is to put the foil on the oven shelf above the pie, not touching it, but not too far above it. This sounds counter-intuitive, but it actually does work.

[kate_nepveu]

I will keep the shortbread piecrust in mind, and it does sound easy though I'm not so good with a rolling pin, but does it taste like regular flaky piecrust? And does it make one piecrust or two?

And I don't think I follow on the foil--just strips paralleling the edges arranged above it?

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I don't usually do it in strips, I just put a sheet of foil above whatever I don't want to burn. But yes, you could do it with strips if you were just worried about the edges. Or you could take a sheet of foil and cut a circle out of the middle and put that on.

As for the pastry, that's enough for one pie, bottom and lid. It's not flaky pastry, it's shortcrust, which is what they put on tourtieres they sell in the market here. Flaky pastry is much harder to make.

Easy rolling out -- cut your cold pastry in half with a knife and roll into a ball in your fingers. Put the ball down on top of a large pile of flour. Flatten it north-south with the rolling pin (so it looks like a big tongue), then turn it over and flatten it east-west (until it's even again). Keep doing this until it's just a bit bigger than you want it.

Oh, and then there's Zorinth's method -- you only do that with the top. The bottom, you squish into the pan with your fingers until it's roughly even. This does work, and I sometimes do it for something like quiche or clafouti that doesn't need a top, to avoid the cleaning worksurface issue altogether.

[kate_nepveu]

Hmm, I think Grand-Memère used flaky crust and so that's what my brain thinks it should be, but maybe I'll make something dessert-ish and see how it tastes then. Thanks for the tips.

[missysedai.livejournal.com]

We watched Holes on Saturday as well, at Alex's request. The book is great fun, easily finished in a day.

It was a nice distraction from the rest of the day.

[kate_nepveu]

*hugs*

[texas-tiger.livejournal.com]

Holes is weird. Good, but weird.

[kate_nepveu]

Yeah, that about sums it up.