Once upon a time I worked in this little burger/coffee/ice cream shop and a lady came in one winter and asked if we had a caramel apple drink and we were like ‘well we have cider’ and she was like ‘no I don’t remember what it’s called but this place made a drink that was chai tea, apple cider, and caramel’ and Breezy offered to try and make something for her but she changed her mind and left so Breezy and I were like ‘alright let’s try this’ because we had chai tea, instant cider mix, a shit ton of caramel, instant hot water from the espresso and too much free time.
And let me tell you it was delightful. It tastes like watching the leaves changing color and dancing in the wind. It tastes like picking out pumpkins and gourds and fresh apples at the farm up north. It tastes like witches and freedom.
I make it every year now and this year I walked in the house on the morning of October first with all the ingredients and shouted ‘FALL DRINK’ and my roommates were like ‘????’ so I made them Fall Drink and now every time they get home from work they’re like ‘Fall Drink pls?????’
Anyway I remember literally nothing else about that woman but I’m very grateful to her.
for anyone wondering about proportions/etc here’s op’s answer from the repiles:
For magic improvements on thing that is already perfect:
Use one spoon white sugar, and one spoon brown if you have it.
After microwave, before noms, add vanilla ice cream.
o/
salt is a flavour enhancer, add just a tiny dash, not enough to make it salty.
Because I love you all.
reblogging cause i need to save this
A note for those who have trouble measuring butter with a spoon as I do: one cup I am sixteen tablespoons. Butter/margarine bricks are usually a half a cup, so just cut one eighth of that amount
These are really good! And yes, for the love of god, if you have it use white sugar and brown sugar, add just a pinch of salt, and as many chocolate chips as you darn well please. Great with icecream, whipped cream on top, or a tall glass of milk (keep in mind you gotta eat it with a spoon, you can’t dip it in milk)
I have a culinary degree, and have worked as a professional cook, and have been a restaurateur. The “gastronomer” in my url is quite serious. I have Opinions about how people use the word chef (”chef” is a job title, it’s a French word that means “boss” and is a cognate of chief; only someone who actually runs a quality kitchen should be called a chef – you can’t be a “home chef”), about how “spaghetti bolognese” is used (it’s not just any spaghetti with meat sauce, Bolognese is a specific style that includes beef, pork and pancetta), about what a proper key lime pie is like (don’t even get me started).
Because of this, people expect me to be a food snob. I am NOT. You like what you like, and you should eat what you like, and anybody who looks down their nose at you for it isn’t a “foodie”, they’re a fucking asshole. You like Li’l Smokies in your box mac’n’cheese? Right on! You like Taco Bell? So do I! Let’s go get a crunchwrap and a gordita! You buy cheap pink box wine? Sure, I’ll have a glass with you, if you’re offering.
I have food I don’t like, and food I will offer what I find more enjoyable alternatives to (oil packed canned tuna has a very fine taste, while water pack tends to wash out the richer flavors), but hey, if you like the stuff I don’t, you eat that all you want!
I want to make fresh, delicious, high quality ingredients available to everyone, but don’t you dare take away my $1.99 “chocolate” covered waxy-tasting mini donuts! I will fight you!
Foodie-ism has stopped being about just enjoying food for yourself, and has, far too often, started being about sneering at the food other people like. It’s food hipsterism. And it’s bullshit. It’s often classicist and racist and ableist/healthist as well.
Don’t pull that shit around me. I will take you the fuck apart.
Okay, but what IS a proper key lime pie? And what isn’t? I presume it’s not just a lemon pie but with lime-flavored or lime-based filling instead of lemon?
Now you’ve got me curious.
You got me started.
OK, first of all, a key lime pie is NOT made with “regular” (Persian) limes. It is made with key limes, aka Mexican limes. They are smaller than Persian limes, about the size of a ping pong ball. They’re also not a deep green, but more of a yellow-green, and the juice is yellowish. They are considerably tarter than Persian limes, and have a distinctive flavor. They’re also kind of a pain to juice if they’re not fresh-picked, so personally I always buy bottled up here in Seattle. (I’m from Florida, where part of the year you can get good ones from groves or even off your own backyard tree.) Nellie and Joe’s Key West Lime Juice is the only brand I know and trust, and if your grocery store doesn’t have it, Amazon does.
A key lime pie is a custard pie made from key lime juice, egg yolks, and typically sweetened condensed milk, in a graham cracker crust (none of your bullshit butter cookie crusts, save that for some other, appropriate, kind of pie). Traditionally, you *can* put meringue on top, but only to use up the egg whites you separate from the yolks. It’s not fucking lemon meringue pie, there should not be a huge mound. Personally I don’t like wet French meringues (made with granulated sugar, as opposed to Italian meringues, which are made with syrup), I think they feel like sweetened snot in my mouth. You can also add a small amount of sweetened whipped cream when you plate it, but only a dollop.
A key lime pie should never, EVER be green. If it is, the baker doesn’t know what the fuck they’re doing, and you should skip it. Even a custard pie made with Persian limes shouldn’t be green, ffs.
A key lime pie SHOULD be both very sweet and very tart, as well and very smooth and creamy. My personal standard for the flavor is that when you take a bite, the first thing you taste should be the creamy and the sweet, and then the tart should hit you, but your mouth shouldn’t pucker until you take a sip of water and wash the sugar away.
A key lime pie filling should not contain flour, starch, gelatin, or other stabilizers. It should be as simple as possible. Key lime pie, historically, is poor people food from the Florida Keys, using the basic ingredients they had lying around: limes from the backyard, eggs from the chickens (they still run around loose on Key West), a can of sweetened condensed milk, some graham crackers, sugar and butter for the crust. You’d stir it up, pour it into the pie shell, pop it in the over with dinner, pull it out and stick it in the icebox (with literal ice) to cool, eat it the next night. (Unless you used a no-bake version, where the key lime juice itself denatured and “chemically cooked” the egg yolks. But it’s too easy to get salmonella that way these days, in the US.) They’re meant to be simple, dammit.
Key lime pie was the kind of thing they made in shotgun shacks. (Which frequently look a little different in the Keys than they do in those pics. The hallways often have rooms built off both sides of the hallway, and the roof’s peak sometimes runs perpendicular to the hallway, and then additional sections might get added to the back as the family grew, leading to rooflines like ^^^^.) Just a bit of history.
So then. Key Lime Pie Recipe Time! This is the recipe my family has always used, it’s the recipe I used in my restaurant, it always gets rave reviews, and it is thoroughly authentic. Because I hate meringue, it does not include meringue.
You will need:
Hardware:
one mixing bowl
one wooden spoon, stirring spatula, or spoonula
one liquid measuring cup
one small bowl for separating eggs into
one graham cracker pie crust, recipe to follow, or use a store-bought one, I don’t care
Ingredients: 1 – 12oz can sweetened condensed milk 3 egg yolks ½ cup key lime juice
Preheat the oven to 350F.
Mix those things together until smooth. Don’t beat them hard, you’ll incorporate air into the mix, that will mess up your texture and give you bubbles. When it is completely smooth, your oven should be hot, stick your filling in the fridge for a little while. Pre-bake your crust for 15 minutes, trust me, it is so much better if you do this. Do this even if it’s a store bought crust. If you don’t, your crust can get soggy. Pull it out, let it cool 10 minutes. Pour in the filling, bake 15 minutes. Pull it out. Let it cool for 30 minutes of a countertop, then stick it in the fridge for at least four hours, preferably overnight. Share and enjoy. (Or eat it all yourself.)
Graham cracker crust recipe:
You will need:
Hardware:
one mixing bowl one glass bowl to melt butter in one gallon ziplock OR a food processor a wooden spoon
Ingredients:
1/3 of a box of graham crackers 1 stick butter 1/2c sugar one 9″ pie plate one heavy glass with a smooth flat bottom
Dump the graham crackers into the gallon ziplock or work bowl of your food processor. If using a bag, crush them up real good, until you have a lot of fine meal and some small pieces. If you’re using the food processor, break them up roughly, then pulse until you get the same thing.
Put them in the mixing bowl. Add the sugar, and stir to combine. Melt your butter. Mix that in. It should reach the consistency of wet sand, like you’re making a sandcastle. If you pick some up in your hand and squeeze it in your fist, it should hold its shape until you poke it.
Press this firmly into the bottom and up the sides of your pie plate. Then use the bottom of your glass to press it in even more firmly. Really compact it. Then bake it as above.
Great all-purpose graham cracker crust recipe, good for cheesecake too.
If you lose track of this recipe, look on the bottle of Nellie and Joe’s, that’s where we got it!
If you want to get really ridiculous and over the top, make a triple batch of filling and put it in the same crust. That’s what we did at the restaurant. But you might want to find someone to share the slice with!
There. I told you, don’t get me started. It’s a whole fucking thing with me. In the restaurant, if somebody asked in the key lime pie was authentic, the servers would go, “Oh, the owner’s from Florida, she has a thing about key lime pie. I can go get her if you like, she’s got a whole rant. It’s really funny.” And they would go get me out of the office and I would do a whole little standup bit about key lime pie. Much shorter than this was. I just wrote like 1200 words on this. I could write more. I won’t. I’m done.Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk?
I have never liked key lime pie.
Apparently I’ve been eating bad key lime pie and need to home make some asap.
Thank you, random chef on the internet. You may have saved key lime pie in this household yet.
I would also like to say thank you to random internet chef for:
1. Defending the right of people to like what they fucking please, and smacking down classist bullshit.
2. Giving me a fantastic key lime recipe. My dad used to make it properly. He died some years ago, and I could never find a recipe for it. But this looks very, *very* similar to the spread I used to see in his kitchen when he was making it. I’m going to try it, and if it’s even remotely similar to his, I will sit there happily sobbing into my key lime pie. Thank you.
I answered this one somewhere else, too. First, if there’s a grocery store that has an American section, check there. I’m told they’re not uncommon in summer because they’re needed to make s’mores. Second, check Amazon or equivalent.
If you can’t get them, you can try the almond meal method, or you can resort to butter cookies, although I disapprove of this if graham crackers are available. Digestive biscuits are sometimes suggested as an equivalent, but they are not the same. You’re welcome to experiment, though. In any case, you’ll have to experiment a little.
Speaking as someone who has been lucky enough to have some of @madgastronomer‘s key lime pie, OH MY G-D I MISS IT. And I am saving this recipe so I can maybe make it myself one of these days.
I wanna try that but homegirl used like 80 ingredients
80 😭😭
I can see my momma making this 😂😂
Just because I want to make this, I transcribed the recipes as well as I could. If I’ve missed a step, or flubbed one, do let me know.
Berbere Braised Lamb
2 tbsp vegetable oil 2 lbs lamb shoulder salt black pepper 2 red onions, chopped ¼ c ghee 4 cloves garlic, minced 1 tbsp ginger, minced 1 tbsp paprika 1 tsp cayenne ½ tsp ground fenugreek ¼ tsp ground nutmeg ½ tsp ground cardamom ¼ tsp ground cloves ¼ tsp ground cinnamon ¼ tsp ground allspice 2 tbsp tomato paste 2 c beef broth
Brown the lamb in the vegetable oil and remove it from the pan. In the same pan place the red onions; cook (I assume over medium heat) until soft and browned. Add the ghee, garlic, ginger and spices and stir it all together. Add the tomato paste, stir well; add the beef broth and stir until everything is well mixed. Return the lamb to the pan and stir well; bring to a simmer and cover, and let simmer for an hour.
*****
Jeweled Vegetable Pilau
¼ c ghee 2 red onions, julienned ½ head green cabbage, shredded 2 c carrots, shredded 4 cloves garlic, minced 1 tbsp ginger, minced salt black pepper 1 tbsp cumin 1 tbsp curry powder 1 tsp cardamom 2 cups basmati rice 1 bay leaf 1 cinnamon stick 1 star anise
Melt the ghee in a pan and add the onions; cook until soft and browned. Add the cabbage, carrot, garlic, and ginger, stir (over what I assume is medium heat) until the vegetables are soft. Add salt, pepper, spices, and rice, and mix well. Add 3 cups of water and stir very well. Add bay leaf, cinnamon stick, and star anise. Cover and cook over low heat, 20-25 minutes. Remove the bay leaf, cinnamon stick, and star anise before serving.
Serve the lamb over the rice, sprinkled with chopped scallions, cashews, and pomegranate seeds.
So one of the most common things I see on my Mead posts is “I’d love to do that, but I don’t have the stuff”
We’ll sit down and buckle up. Because I’m about to show you how to make a $12.56 traditional mead.
Here’s the recipe:
1 gallon Deer Park/spring water. You don’t want distilled.
3 lb or 32 fluid ounces honey.
One package of yeast.
a party balloon.
The cost total is $13.49, but you only need one pack of yeast. So -$0.90.
Let’s begin:
Everything together on a clean work surface, you will need a clean glass. And while not entirely necessary, a measuring cup will be handy.
Pour a cup of water for yourself and drink it. Hydration is important. Also this will allow you headspace.
Remove about ehhhhh, a quart or so of water to drink later.
Trust me. You’re going to want it
Wash your drinking cup and mixing about a teaspoon of honey.
You have two options for yeast, that bread yeast we bought, or professional brewer’s yeast.
They’re both the same price. You can get brewers yeast off of Amazon.
I already have brewer’s yeast, so I’m using brewer’s yeast
Stick that in that honey water.
Stick your honey in some hot water.
Go outside. Breath the free air. Know what it is… To truely live.
Enough of that bitch. Honey’s hot. Put it in the water.
Put the water in the honey too.
Shake the sin out of it.
Put that stuff back in the big bitch.
Shake the sh*t outta it.
Hydrate yourself with the water you removed earlier.
Shank a balloon with a pin.
Add your yeasty honey water.
Balloon it.
Label it.
If your trad mead says anything racist, or anything positive about Hitler. Straighten that sh*t out.
And there you go. $12 (.56) traditional mead. Stick it somewhere dark and leave it alone for a while.
Shake the hell outta it once a day for the first four days. Then let it be until it’s clear.
Update:
Boozification has begun.
Lots of spices and herbs make for nice additions as well.
Good post.
My fiance is a pro brewer, but we do mead at home for fun. Like, this is literally all there is to it. We’ve got airlocks and stuff, instead of a balloon, but this is it, and it’s so damn good.
i'll apple your turnover 