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I’m thinking food. I’m thinking Christmas food, especially, ever since I called home two weeks ago and – after having a substandard version in a diner – requested lemon meringue pie for Christmas. It got a really reaction – lemon meringue does make appearances, but not every year, and I’ve never asked for it.

Then, last night when on the phone with Mom, I got asked for my meat vote and promptly said ham. Ham will almost certainly win.

It’ll be accompanied by either green bean casserole, scalloped corn, or asparagus casserole, cranberry salad and riced-and-mashed potatoes.  There will be my requested lemon pie, and pumpkin, and possible a blueberry torte or a mince meat. There will be scads of cookies and candy, and on Christmas morning we’ll have cranberry orange muffins out of a University of Illinois Extension “cookbook” printed on pink paper thirty years ago.

It’s all very Illinois, and home, but there is one piece that I’ve always been sort of curious about: the Christmas Eve toutierie.

Toutierie is, as any food blog will tell you, a French-Canadian meat pie made from ground meat, potatoes and onion served traditionally on either Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve. They’ll also tell you that it’s not just Canadian, but that it’s mainly served in the northeastern parts of the country that border French Canada.

Christmas is in Illinois, which isn’t quite smack-dab in the middle of the country, but it’s close. Yet we’ve made this every year for as long as I can remember, and I’m not sure why. It’s traditional, and tradition doesn’t necessary make sense.

Welcome to my brand new, shiny baking blog. It’s still under construction – I want a header eventually – but for now, all the baking posts I’ve been adding to my main blog at zonkered.net can be here. Over this weekend I’ll probably post my two most recent cakes, but for now: the Single Girl’s Thanksgiving Menu (for 2009, at any rate). No cake, but there is pie, and even the savory items are baked.

Okay, or roasted, if you insist.

The only thing I’ve done so far is apple pie, loosely based on Deb at Smitten Kitchen’s recipe, but also planned for the day are stuffed mushrooms and roasted acorn squash, loosely based (yes, again) on a couple of the Pioneer Woman’s recipes.

Deb’s apple pie is from America’s Test Kitchen; thus, my pie is from America’s Test Kitchen + my mother + me, when I changed stuff around. I haven’t tried it yet. It may very well be a horrible disaster.

I doubt it, but you never know.

Apple Pie

3 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and sliced

4 Gala apples, peeled cored and sliced

3/4 C sugar

2 T flour

1 T Penzey’s Apple Pie Spice

1 T lemon juice

2 prepared pie crusts

Preheat oven to 425F and fit one pie crust to your pie plate. Let the edges hang over for now, and attack the apples. This is going to take a while.

Fill a bowl with water and add the 1 T of lemon juice – this will keep your apple slices from turning brown, and since you’re using seven of them, this is a concern. Peel, core and slice, and then drain the apples when you’re done.

In a medium bowl, combine sugar, flour, and pie spice. Toss the apples until they’re coated. Get in their with your hands; using a spoon is just going to make you lose apple slices, and you won’t get them coated. You’re going to get goop all over your hands anyway.

Pile the apples in the crust – they should mound up pretty high – and then cover them up with the second pie crust. Trim the edges and seal. Use a fork if you’re fancy, use your fingers if, like me, you’re lucky that the pie crust didn’t completely fall to pieces. Cut holes in the top to vent, unless again, you’re like me and managed to rip three holes in the middle while stretching it over the pie.

Sometimes being something of a disaster is a good thing.

Slide the pie into the oven; bake for 10 minutes at 425F, and then lower to 350F for an additional 40-50 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool for at least four hours before eating. Serve with whipped cream or ice cream or anything else that sounds fantabulous.

The mushrooms and squash might show up later. I make no promises.

I have been thinking about making chicken pot pie for years now.

It began when my brother bought me the Marshall Field’s Cookbook shortly after (may it rest in peace) its untimely demise at the hands of Macy’s, something that Chicago will collectively never forgive Macy’s for. The cover recipe of the book is, of course, the dish that started it all: the Marshall Field’s chicken pot pie that was first served to two well-off Fields customers by an extremely accomadating saleswoman.

I’ve worked in retail, and hell would have frozen over before I gave any customer at Sears my lunch. But I digress.

Pot pie is somehow something I’ve never gotten around to. The Fields version involves fussy chicken preparation and individual ramekins and really, at heart, I’m lazy. Extremely lazy. As it is, pot pie is strictly a weekend meal, and my version isn’t even that difficult.

My version is cobbled together from various versions floating around the internet with some inspiration drawn from Nick Malgieri’s recipe in The Modern Baker. It has a biscuit top, loads of tender dark meat chicken, onion, mushrooms, carrots and peas. It’s time-consuming – probably 6 hours in total – but easy as (wait for it) pie.
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