PRODUCT REVIEW: WILTON’S MINI PIE MOLD

When we are traveling in southern Oklahoma my husband and I always make an effort to stop by the Fried Pie place there just off the highway near Davis, OK.  We are seriously hooked on these pies.  It is a good thing for our waistline that it is a 3-4 hour drive from home or we’d be eating them on a regular basis.

Thanks to a posting by my friend Anthea our waistlines are in jeopardy again.  She mentioned she had a couple of mini pie molds and posted some recipes for pocket pies.  UH OH!

Immediately my mind flew to all the possibilities not only for dessert pies like those little pies from McDonalds (only better) to homemade hot pockets of all types. 

After cruising utube to find tutorials on the use of the pie molds I decided they were definitely in our future.  I put one in my “to buy later” part of my ongoing amazon.com order and then waited until I needed some little something to put us up over the $35 limit to get free shipping.   I knew it wouldn’t take long to get to that spot because we shop amazon on a regular basis.  I was right.

I managed to hold off for a while after we received the Wilton Mini Pie Mold to actually use it.  This weekend was when I finally gave in and decided to give it a whirl.

Since we decided to make cherry pies instead of our weekend sweet rolls for breakfast I set ready made pie crust out the night before to come to room temperature.  This was my first mistake.  We found that slightly cool pie crust actually worked better as we tried our first run of the pies.  

While ready made are handy all three of us agreed my homemade pie crust would have been much better than the ones I had gotten for near free with a coupon and on sale. 

Whether you use the ready made or homemade is up to you.  Either way the crust needs to be about 1/8 inch thick.  Any thinner and you may have leakage problems on your pies.

Using the mold itself is easy.  You use the bottom of the mold to cut out your rectangle (the shape I was using) by placing that side down on your rolled out pie crust and pressing firmly on all edges.  Then you peel up the dough and place it in the opposite side of the mold.  

A few NOTES here:

1.     Work with your dough on a floured surface so that some of the flour clings to the dough or spray the mold with cooking spray because if you don’t the dough tends to cling to the mold.

2.     The cut out shape is just slightly too small for a good seal on the two halves of the dough if you don’t tease it up over the lip some.  One video I watched suggested instead of cutting using the bottom to make a slighter larger pattern of wax paper and cut the dough using that either way works.

3.     If you discover your piece is a little too small you can “patch” the edges of the dough with scraps of the dough. 

No matter your method you put the dough in the mold and in the bottom half you place approximately two tablespoons of your filling.  We were using homemade cherry pie filling  but the options are endless.  Jellies, jams, pie fillings, pudding, chocolate sauce, meats, veggies, cheeses etc. The main thing is to not put too much liquid in. 

I found that with my recipe for a nine inch pie’s worth of cherry pie filling I could make three 9” pie crusts worth of pocket pies using this mold.  I did so by cutting it out using the base twice and then re-rolling the scraps to form other sheets to cut from.  That made nine pocket pies with a few pie crust scraps left for cooking with a little cinnamon sugar on them as a treat.

Once you have your filling in the bottom half of the mold you brush the edges of both halves with an egg wash made of one beaten egg and a tablespoon of water. 

Next you close the mold and press.  Instant seal, and if your dough is not too thin it won’t leak when baking.  It does take a bit of practice to figure out the exact combo, but the final pies of our experiment were perfect.  

You can either then bake them or fry them.  We chose baking because of the possible leakage of the first few.  Plus the few calories it would save.

I brushed the top of each pie with the egg wash, sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and pierced each one with a fork about 3 times to let steam out as it baked.  400 degrees for about 16 minutes and they were wonderful.

So the only negative I have to say about the mold is the cutting out area could be just slightly bigger to make sealing more concise, but other than that we love the Wilton Mini Pie Mold and give it an A- for overall convenience and ease of use.  

Jan who is thinking hand held pot pies made from leftovers for lunches in OK

WEEK #4: BONELESS PORK LOIN

Of course it is a long way from the fourth week of the year, but I finally had time to sit down and pull out my menus for week #4.  The big bulk buy for the week was a vacuum packed boneless pork loin from Sam’s Club.

When I first started cutting up pork loins for my family I did so per the instructions given me by a meat cutter at Sam’s. He had explained to me that the cuts I will explain are basically all the same meat, just cut differently and sold at hugely different prices.  He also suggested to me a book that explains how to save money on other meats by doing similar cutting or substitution on all sorts of meats.  That book was Confessions of a Butcher: Eat Steak on a Hamburger Budget and Save $$$ by John Smith, you can read my review on the book here.   Now the slicing instructions are right on the pork loin wrapper on how to do it. 

However, if your store doesn’t supply the instructions here is how I cut one.

I buy the large, approximately 10# boneless pork loin that is in one of the vacuum packages. 

I first open one end and drain all the liquid that I can to help minimize the mess while I am cutting it up.

Generally these are larger than my cutting mat so I rest the part that doesn’t fit on the mat on a plate or platter until I can advance it to the cutting mat as I make progress with it. 

The tools of my trade are a very sharp large knife, a good pair of kitchen shears, and four plates.

As I cut I leave all fat on the meat to help prevent the meat being too dry when it is cooked. It can be trimmed off later if need be.

Starting on one end of the pork line I trim off the tapered end until I have a flat area that would be one side of a boneless pork chop.  The part I trim off I cut into small cubes to use in pork stir fry, chili, casseroles and similar dishes that would require diced pork.   OR I put them on a plate to be ground up for recipes that use ground pork or to make homemade sausage.  I use the kitchen shears to quickly cut the meat into the size cubes I want to work with. This is plate #1.

Plate #2 is for boneless pork chops/pork steaks.  These are simply slices of the loin in the desired thicknesses for these products.  I do a variety of thicknesses depending on the menu for the week.  Everything from Basic Fried Pork Chops to thicker ones to stuff or grill.

The middle of the loin I cut into the proper size for roasting or otherwise preparing a pork loin dinner.  Plate #3

Moving on down the loin I cut several thick slices, that I then use the kitchen shears to cut into strips.  These are either boneless pork ribs or pork fajita meat.  Plate #4.

The remaining bits are cut up and added to plate #1.

How much of what type of cut you create is up to you.  If you are planning on several meals in the future that would call for browned  pork cubes.  Then cut more of those up, brown now and then preserve in your preferred manner for speedy food preparation in the weeks to come.  You can either can or freeze them. The same goes for if your recipes call for browned ground pork.

I personally often cut two small pork loins from one large loin for two different ways of cooking it on different weeks.   Or I may choose to ground half the meat to have ground pork on hand, either browned and canned, or frozen raw for meatloaves in the future.

Once all of it is cut up I either vacuum pack it for freezing or can it per the Ball Blue Book canning instructions. I can a lot because I have limited freezer space, plus we tend to have several power outages in a year and I prefer to have my meat dollar better protected.  Unless I am cutting it up to use that day, of course.

So now on to the menus for the week.

BREAKFAST OPPORTUNITIES:

Greek Yogurt either with the fruit cooked in or topped with:

            Granola

            Grape-nuts or other cereals

            Fresh Fruit bits

            Dried Fruit

Granola/EnergyBars

Raisin Bread, toasted

Cold cereal choices

            Rice Krispies

            Corn Flakes

            Grape-nuts

Hot cereal choices

            Cream of Rice

            Farina

            Multi-grain cereal 

Beverages

            Orange Juice

            Grape Juice

            Milk

            Chai

            Water

Fruit

            Dried Mango

            Dried Blueberries

            Clementines

COMMENTS:

My son and I love Greek Yogurt to the extent it was starting to bust our grocery budget with the amount we were purchasing each week, even using coupons.  So I decided to try my hand at making my own yogurt. 

I may never purchase grocery store yogurt again!  I used my dehydrator to make it and it was so super easy.  Even more important it was delicious, coming out the perfect thickness we love! You can read the step by step instructions, complete with photos here.

The flavor opportunities are endless, unlike purchasing it at the grocery from their limited variety.  We did find we prefer using preserves or marmalade to using jam or jelly for that type of flavoring.

I do now make a lot of plain yogurt to use in so many, many recipes. 

LUNCH OPPORTUNITIES

Fish Tacos, after the fish sticks are served later in the week

Leftovers of any sort

Sandwich ingredients

            Fish Sandwiches a La Mickey Dee’s after the fish sticks are served

            Shaved turkey breast—see comments

            PB&J

            Toasted Cream Cheese Sandwiches on Raisin Bread

            Baby Spinach

            Sprouts

            Mayonnaise

            Mustard

            Chipotle Yogurt Dressing

COMMENTS;

We love fish sticks, so you will often see them popping up in my menus.  They are scheduled for dinner one night this week, but I will cook extra when I do so we can have fish tacos or fish sandwiches for lunches.  As long as you do it in short bursts 15-30 seconds you can re-heat fish sticks for these foods in a microwave and have a quick lunch.

I discovered years ago that purchasing a turkey breast or boneless ham and asking the meat cutter to shave it for me was far less expensive than purchasing lunch meats.  I also own a meat slicer so sometimes I will purchase large ones of these to use for the bulk item of the week.  This week I just purchased a small one for use in lunches and breakfast burritos.

The Cinnamon Raisin Bread Cream Cheese Sandwiches are your standard grill cheese sandwich made with those ingredients.  It is a very nice change of pace.

DINNER WEEK 4, DAY #1:

Spicy Pulled Pork

Cheesy Potatoes

Cole Slaw

Buttermilk Artisan Bread slices

Blonde Brownies

Water

Tea

COMMENTS:

The pulled pork recipe is an adaptation of a recipe I saw on Pioneer Woman.  We enjoy pork loin cooked this way as a main dish or on sandwiches, in wraps, or in burritos.

DINNER WEEK 4, DAY #2

Three Way Chili

Cheddar Biscuits

Jarred Salad

Chocolate Frozen Yogurt

Water

Tea

COMMENTS:

Canned or frozen leftover Moo Gurgle from the week before makes this a quick and easy meal to throw together on busy nights.

DINNER WEEK 4, DAY #3

Breakfast Burritos

Fruit Salad

Milk

Tea

Water

Leftover desserts

COMMENTS:

The burritos can be filled with any variety of leftover meats you have from this week and last.  We particularly like putting in the pulled pork from night #1 this week or the shaved turkey that I purchased for sandwiches.

You don’t have to follow a recipe for fruit salad, any mixture of fruit you like will be a refreshing lift from the burritos.  I personally eat extra fruit salad on this night rather than a sweet dessert.

DINNER WEEK 4, DAY #4:

Butter Fried Pork Chops

Fried Potatoes

Cole Slaw

Peas and Pine Nuts

Pineapple Upside Down cake

Tea

Water

COMMENTS:

Definitely a heavy on the calories meal, but oh so good.  These Butter Fried Pork Chops are different from the Basic Fried Chops, but just barely. Peas and Pine nuts is exactly what it says.  I use either fresh, frozen or canned peas and prepare them in my normal manner, only I toss in a handful of pine nuts that are either plain or toasted.  It’s simply a twist on peas and pearl onions, without the onions because my ds does not care for onions.

DINNER WEEK 4, DAY #5:

Chicken and Dumplings

Jarred Salad

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

Milk

Tea

Water

COMMENTS:

To make the chicken and dumplings I used home canned chicken from Week #2: Chicken Leg Quarters.  The salad and cake were of course leftovers from earlier in the week.

DINNER WEEK 4, DAY #6:

Corn and Cheese Chowder

Bread Bowls

Fruit Salad

RefrigeratorNut Cookies

Milk

Tea

Water

COMMENTS:

The original recipe I use for the chowder calls for bacon pieces in it, however, for the pork loin week I browned up small bits of the trimmed pork from plate #1 to season the soup.  I also used all pepper jack cheese to make it a spicer soup.

The refrigerator nut cookies were my dad’s favorite cookie.  He would have me make up a triple or quadruple batch of them the day I mixed them up and freeze additional rolls of them for future treats.

This is when I learned that I could do this with any cookie dough for fast slice and bake cookies on hand at all times.  Doing so saved me many a headache when my kids were in school and I was informed at a late time that the kids needed cookies to take to some meeting or another as they were growing up.

DINNER WEEK #4, DAY #7:

Fish Sticks

Macaroni and cheese

Peas and Pine Nuts

Leftover jarred salad or Cole Slaw

Refrigerator Cookies

COMMENTS:

Any leftover pulled pork can either be canned per the instructions for cooked meats in the Ball Blue Book canning cookbook, or frozen for future meals.

The other leftovers can be used for lunches for this week or next.  I believe you could freeze the leftover corn chowder, but I’ve never personally done it, because we consume the leftovers quickly for lunches.  

In fact most of the meals in this week would reappear in one of our lunches later in the week/next week because they all re-heat well and give us a large variety of lunch foods to stave off lunch boredom that could lead to visiting a fast food joint and wrecking your budget.

SNACK OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE WEEK:

Yogurt with any variety of toppings or plain

Clementines

Fruit salad

Blonde Brownies

Chocolate Frozen Yogurt

Refrigerator Nut Cookies

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

Popcorn

Granola Bars

So there you have it Week #4, using foods you have previously stored in conjunction with your purchase of a single large pork loin that you cook for this week’s meals and for future meals.

You now basically have a month’s worth of meals you could use each month for a year, or you can continue to come back as I slowly at 52 different meal plans over the future weeks/months.   I am making a serious effort to work on my blogs more, but life happens here on the Rock ‘n Tree Ranch and the New Life on the Ranch can be both fun and a lot of work.  Please be patient with me all 52 are coming, eventually.

Jan who is sorry the 52 weeks are so slow in coming in OK

 

 

 

 

IT’S ALL GREEK TO ME

When I was in public school I was fascinated by ancient history.  Mainly the Greeks and Romans.  The Seven Ancient Wonders of the World held great fascination to me.  The Greek gods of mythology  were some serious folks, fascinating to read about.

In high school I had a Greek pen pal, it was interesting to exchange letters with a person overseas and get a peek into his every day life.  Remember this was long before computers were  common place.  The internet did not exist then.

As time went on I became more interested in day to day life here in the USA, US history and cooking good foods of all types. My fascination for things Greek turned more to olives, and other Greek foods such as cabbage rolls, gyros and most recently Greek yogurt and thus the reason for today’s post. 

My son and I have fallen in love with Greek yogurt as a quick breakfast or snack, it might have something to do with all those episodes of “Burn Notice” we watch.  After all they are constantly grabbing a cup of yogurt out of the fridge to eat while discussing a plan.  Strange you never see them putting any yogurt into that refrigerator.  Is it actually a self filling yogurt machine?  Hmmmm, have to check on that more in the future.

But back to the subject at hand Greek yogurt making.  Now my husband is not a fan as yogurt as a snack, unless it’s the frozen type they serve at so many stores across this nation either in waffle cones or cups.  So while learning to make and use yogurt I better include how to make the frozen yogurt as well. 

So my adventure into yogurt making begins.  I am blessed to have a very nice Stx 600 dehydrator that came with the yogurt/bread proofing door/drawer for it.  This will enable me to control the heat and let the yogurt cook at a constant temperature.  I know you can do yogurt in the crockpot, in a yogurt maker, in the oven or even on a heating pad too.  There are lots of recipes on the web for doing that, however the problem with crockpot yogurt and some of the other methods, I’ve read, is the temperatures on these often vary greatly and in order to make good yogurt you need a very controlled heat. 

Since the Styx 600 has a thermostat and is actually set-up for yogurt making, complete with a yogurt setting, I decided that was the best way to go for me. 

After much research and discussion I went with the Basic Greek Yogurt Recipe for yogurt that calls for using whole milk and live active cultures from grocery purchased yogurt for the first batch.  Once I have a successful batch I will use my own yogurt for the culture for future batches.  

You will notice when you  link over to my Patterson Pantry Recipes Blog that I have included using powdered milk in the recipe notes if you prefer to go that route. 

For current usage I use the whole milk because after doing much research we discovered it was cheaper to purchase a gallon of whole milk than to purchase powdered milk and reconstitute it for cooking.  I do, however, keep powdered milk in my food storage for when I am out of milk, or want to add a little extra protein to a dish without adding excess liquid.

Now on to the yogurt making experiment.  I spent much of the first day doing research on the web, gleaning this bit of info and that recipe idea from hither and yon.  I learned a lot, some of which I will share with you here.

1.     It is better to start with your milk at room temperature so that you spend less time heating it.  It is also better to have your fresh yogurt culture starter at room temperature so that when you add it to the heated milk you don’t bring the milk temperature down too far.  It also blends in easier to the warm milk.

2.     When using gelatin in some of the recipes it should always be softened in water first.  This aids in getting it well mixed in.

3.     If you are adding powdered milk to liquid milk for added protein in your yogurt you should add it to the top of your milk and let it set for about 10 minutes before stirring it in so that it will rehydrate to some extent.

4.     If when you add powdered milk, or powdered yogurt cultures to your yogurt ingredients lumps form don’t panic, these will dissolve as you heat the yogurt mixture.

5.     If you adding jelly, jam or frozen or canned fruit to yogurt you can add it safely in with the milk as you are originally heating it.  However, fresh, and possibly dried fruit may contain enzymes that would cause the yogurt to curdle if you do it then.  So do not add those until after the yogurt is made.

6.     You can freeze leftover plain yogurt with live cultures to make future batches of yogurt in small containers and the cultures will go dormant.  Thaw slowly and naturally before making your next batch of yogurt. So invest in one small cup and then between it and the yogurt you make in the future you will always have live cultures.  Thus a $1 investment can save you a lot of money in the long run.  Sometimes, if your yogurt starts being too tart, you will need to invest in a new fresh starter.

7.     Fruit on the bottom and sundae style yogurt are basically the same animal, the only difference is you dump the fruit on the bottom yogurt out in a bowl so that the fruit is on the top and thus a sundae.

8.     Frozen yogurt is not just yogurt that has been frozen, there are a few extra steps in there, but not many.   Some recipes for this call using plain gelatin in the mixure while others merely add flavoring, sweeteners and the use of a freezing method.

9.     99% of the “how to’s” are for just plain yogurt, which can be a bit tart if your starting cultures are not very fresh.  Most of those will say you can add sweetener and flavorings at serving time.  Which you can do, but often this will cause the yogurt to thin out, which is less than desirable.  But with some research and combining my own cooking knowledge I have included recipes for flavored, fruit and yes even chocolate yogurt, and of course, chocolate frozen yogurt in my recipe blog.

10. For years I've heard mention of yogurt cheese, but never saw any in the stores.  Or so I thought.  Guess what Greek yogurt and yogurt cheese are basically the same thing.  They are made the exact same way.  The only difference in the two is you might strain the cheese longer.  I plan on experimenting with mixing herbs and such with the yogurt before straining it so the dried materials will rehydrate as it strains and flavor the cheese thoroughly.  I can't wait to have crackers and homemade yogurt cheese!

11.  I found a very good website/blog on yogurt and kefier making and using and now receive their newsletter.  If such a newsletter is of interest to you go to:  yogurtfromhome.com/   I am in no way affiliated with them.

12.  The drained whey from making Greek yogurt or yogurt cheese is good to feed to your barnyard critters.

So the next step was the "where did I put it? " step. You know the one where you put something up for safe keeping, and then can't remember where you put it?  Well that hit big time on Mother's Day when I had the goal in mind to make the first batch of yogurt on that day- -news flash it didn't happen that day.  I got too busy writing this blog on my "day off" from house work and such. 

As anyone who reads my Patterson's Princess Plan blog will tell you I am fed up with having trouble finding things so I'm slowly, oh so slowly marching through this house organizing, inventorying and other wise getting my "stuff" together.  Unfortunately the yogurt door for my dehydrator was not one of the items organized yet.  I looked on and off all day for it.  The bad thing is I actually found it where I thought I'd put it, but something had been placed on top of it and silly me didn't think to move those mylar bags to look in under them until the third trip to that storage cabinet.  Yes, that unit is now on the get organized and inventoried soon list. 

The following step was to dust off the dehydrator, sterilize the jars I'd be using and other get it together items before I started.  That is a habit I developed years ago.  When I'm preparing to cook, or preserve food,  I gather all the ingredients and tools needed to make it together first, just in case I don't have something on hand.  Luckily that was not the case this time. I had everything and got it all together on Mother's Day to start the process the next morning.

Monday morning I was moving slow, so it was nearly noon before I set the milk and yogurt starter out on the stove to come to room temperature as I went about my daily chores.  I finally got around to starting the making of the yogurt around 1:00 pm.

Just as my milk was about to get to the 185 degree mark I heard a strange knocking in the utility room.  Since I had the washer and dishwasher both running I thought it best to check it out. It took me about a split second to know what had happened.

The water company had said they would be replacing our new meter with an even newer one around the end of the month.  I guess they consider the 13th to be the end of the month.  With no warning, on a busy Monday they had shut my water off and yanked my meter.  It was nearly two hours before I had water back.  Thank goodness I'd done all my sterilizing of jars and such the day before.  I will admit I was still a bit miffed, and I let it be known, that they didn't even have the courtesy to knock on the door or honk from the safety of their truck if they are afraid of our geese and dogs (smart people are) to let me know their plans.  They just went straight to meter that is down behind our barn in the woods where I couldn't even see them and do it.

As soon as the milk was to the cool down stage I marched theough the woods to tell them they were inconsiderate louts.  They were, of course, defensive.  Claimed they didn't know which house the meter went to.  That didn't work since there is only the one house in this area, but enough on that.

Back at the house I started pre-heating the dehydrator.  This is when I actually realized that only 1/2 pint jars were going to work for yogurt in it using the supplied door.  Luckily that was what I had sterilized.  I was also thrilled to see it would hold exactly 20 of those 1/2 pint jars.  Turned out I had 19 1/2 pints worth of yogurt mixture made up.   Boy did I luck out on that!  Note to self, in the future check this information out BEFORE starting.

A dehydrator, like the Excalibur, that has a solid door on it would work for any size jar.

Next I prepped the jars while waiting for the milk to cool to the point where I could add the yogurt culture.

While I do cook with  yogurt I didn't want 19 half pints of plain yogurt with this first batch--maybe in the future.  So in nine of the jars I put about 2 teaspoons of either cherry preserves, strawberry jam, or orange marmalade (3 jars each) in the bottom.  Then I topped it off with the plain yogurt liquid.  If all goes well this should make fruit on the bottom regular yogurt.

Of the remaining ten I plan on making Greek Yogurt or yogurt cheese out of nine of them and keep the remaining half pint as plain, since I have nearly a quart of plain yogurt in the fridge already.  This last 1/2 pint will be used as starter for future batches.  Dh will have to wait for frozen yogurt later in the week, because I need six cups of plain yogurt strained to be three cups of Greek yogurt to make the frozen yogurt.

In the future if I should want to make a larger container, say a quart to make strictly plain Greek Yogurt out of I will simply use my flexible cutting board taped to the front of the dehydrator to seal the front when I take more than two trays out. 

I used my canning funnerl to fill the sterilized jars.  There was exactly 19 half pints.  How great is that? 

Once the jars were all filled I filled the shelf in the dehydrator, which had been pre-heating for an hour then set the timer.  One of the great things about this dehydrator is it will automatically shut off at the exact time you tell it to.  So I can go to bed tonight with it running and removed the "hopefully" completed cooled down yogurt first thing in the morning.  I'm thinking orange marmalade yogurt for breakfast!

It's the next morning now and I am proud to say this experiment was a HUGE success!  It set up perfectly, it's not too tart or too sweet and the orange marmalade is perfect in it for a light and wonderful fruit flavor.

Later today I'll start draining some of the plain to make it into yogurt cheese.  I'm thinking I'll flavor it with dill for a cracker spread. 

Jan who can't believe how simple the whole process was in OK