Mrs. Mary's Spicy Chocolate Buttermilk Pie

Having a 'fan' page on Facebook for an ongoing commentary on a slice of life in the Deep South has been an incredible blessing.  Folks (much preferred description than fans) come by to say "Hi" and mostly stick around.  A handful leave, the slice of life not always palatable.  It's okay.  I've left a few pages behind, myself.  The people at FB?  They're not fans:  they're friends.  They comment, share links, like photos of cakes, love Mama (a biggie in my book).  We're there for each other like long-lost kissing cousins.

They've become real friends too:  call-up-on-the-phone-and-talk-'til-the-battery-dies friends.  Mrs. Mary is one of those friends.  Weeks and weeks ago we were chatting on FB about favorite pies and the developing trend of fine chocolates with a heat source in them and she piped up with a comment about a chocolate buttermilk pie with a little pop to it;  then she came up with a recipe!

Despite having adhered to a very strict diet for going on four months,

this piece of pie broke extreme will-power as if it

had never existed.  I ate it.  And licked the plate.

It's a little different from the buttermilk pie usually made here.  This recipe has no flour but twice as many eggs.  It does have a smooth but coarse-custard texture (probably from the cocoa powder?) and is ever so bewitching that I'm having a difficult time not evening up the edges on it (a sure way to consume half of it at one sitting).  And the cayenne in it??? ohhhh wowzers.  It's not hot.  It's a warmth that develops on the tongue after the first few bites that makes the chocolate a deep richness that's indescribable.  Really!

Those are the ingredients in the photo but just in case they won't load for you here's a list:
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips, melted

3 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

6 eggs, beaten until lemony-yellow light

1 1/2 cup buttermilk

1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla (I know - the dry erase board has tablespoon)

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
TWO unbaked deep dish pie shells 

Melt chocolate chips in microwave, set aside (oops - use your imagination to see chocolate chips in the microwave please).

Combine all dry ingredients and stir thoroughly.  

See the vanilla in the medicine dispenser?  They're awesome

for being able to measure flavors in to prevent fumbling with

spoons at the last moment.

And don't forget the cocoa powder to stir in too!  Take extra care to make sure all lumps from the cocoa powder have been broken up and all the dry ingredients are well-mixed.

Most everybody knows dark chocolate is favored here at Mayree's.
This is Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa powder.
Use what you and your family loves.

Beat eggs until a light lemon-ish color and almost foamy.

Any time the hand mixer is out and being used, the mixing gets done

with the bowl down in the sink.  A bunch of wiping from splatters on

the kitchen walls and cabinets is saved by doing this.

Very slowly add dry ingredients until all are well-incorporated.

I ran out of hands to take a photo of the slow process.

It's smelling fine already!

Mix in the melted chocolate chips.

The intense flavor from the dark chocolate chips is called for in this recipe 

but if you really only like milk chocolate or

**shudder** white chocolate, by all means, go for it.

Add the buttermilk

And the vanilla, giving it one last mixing.

Pour into two unbaked deep dish pie shells.

Don't give me a hard time about not making my own crusts:

I don't have to do everything.

Bake at 350 Fahrenheit for approximately 40 minutes (my oven is a little cool so it may take less time) until the centers are set.  A knife will come out clean when they're done.

 These crusts are full.  Do yourself a favor and put them in
another pan to bake them in.  They didn't bake over,
but the possibility is definitely there.

I couldn't wait until they cooled until even warm.  I ate it hot!

 This piece of pie contains more refined sugars in one slice
than I've put in my body since the Fambly Reunion the
first weekend in June.  And it was worth ever
gram of it!

There you have it!

The top has a playful crunchy crust on it that belies the custard-y and densely-chocolate-y richness beneath.  There's the barely tale tell flavor of the traditional buttermilk pie but it's secondary to the chocolate.  And the cayenne and cinnamon?  I used Penzey's Ceylon Cinnamon but wish I had used their Vietnamese cinnamon to give a stronger presence.  The cayenne is just the right amount.  This small amount isn't hot at all, truly enriching the dark chocolate and leaving a warmth on the tongue that's absolutely exquisite.

This isn't a difficult pie to put together at and the recipe makes TWO (a bonus in my book).  Make your family one this evening.  Better yet, make yourself one this evening.   You'll be glad you did.

Y'all enjoy!

Mary

I Think the Dentist Etched My Skull

If there was a single fact you had to know about me it should be this one:  Going to the dentist causes major consternation.  I had to go today for the start of a root canal, the appointment having been scheduled a few weeks ago.  The visit kind of crept up on me.  Bekah had called to confirm the appointment Tuesday but that was two days ago with Wednesday in between.  Lots can happen in two days time to make a soul forget something like a root canal.

At noon-thirty the Danger Ranger was cranked and driven to Williams' Drive to sever an arm at the elbow to pay for the procedure and then be forced to endure infliction of pain from unseen devices try to enjoy the nitrous oxide while all manner of activity was going on in my oral orifice.

Nitrous Oxide, N2O, is what's used to coerce myself to go to the dentist.  Not only is it a mild anesthetic, it also incites this gray matter to see, hear, and think the funniest things.  A pen and pad should be carried to try to write down the silliness but it'd be moot point;  the scribblings probably couldn't be read.

Today was only slightly different from other days in the vertically and laterally challenged recliner o'fear dentist chair.  There was less drilling and more clamping and poking and bleaching going on.  I swear, at one point Dr. R  was recreating-by-etching Michelangelo's Last Judgement inside my skull.

Dr. R and his assistant have their own language, you know.  Some of it's in English, I'm sure.  Today I'm positive I heard the word probe.  It made me shudder.  And explorer.  Now wait a minute!  Isn't to probe also to explore?  Is one a lesser of the other?  Worse yet, is one greater than the other?  And if I were a betting person, I'd bet I'd heard Dr. R say crampon.  I wouldn't put it past him -- all the better to climb on in there with, although it caught my attention when he said piton.  Piton?  Seriously???  He's going mountain climbing in my mouth??

I desperately needed to carry on a telepathic conversation with his tummy but it's right after lunch and his tummy's asleep.  At one point Dr. R shaved a piece of rebar from the foundation of the building and shoved it between two teeth straight into an eye socket inserted a metal sheath of some sort within the tooth to support the structure and make it savable.  I don't know exactly what happened but  I heard metal and cyborg all in the same sentence.  Whatever he did made my ears pop and eyes water.  I made it a point thereafter to keep my eyes open and observing, just to make sure he was watching what he was doing.

I suppose he must've felt an intense stare coming up from the multi-positional chaise lounge o' torture treatment chair.  There weren't any more sudden and severe moments of pain after I started watching, difficult when the line of sight is hindered by the N2O line (but it's not going annnnnywhere).  Tools and materials are handled quickly and effectively as the work progresses.  I forgot to watch him watch what he was doing after a while, distracted by a single lacy cobweb over the door in the corner, it's size only large enough to show air movement.

After hearing a few more words like bleach, collar, crouton, and suction, a few x-rays were made, everything was taken out of my mouth and the nitrous oxide was switched to plain O2.

Much to my delight and surprise, all of the inside of my mouth is still there;  every tooth and tongue accounted for and in fine working order.

That piton must've worked wonders...

Blueberry Fig Jam

There's an abundance of figs in the Deep South of (almost) Coastal Mississippi this year.  Everybody that has a good-sized tree has shared and shared some more with Mama and me.  She makes fig preserves with most of hers, saving enough for a batch of strawberry figs.  I'm not particularly fond of fig preserves, having eaten enough for a lifetime before Hurricane Frederick came along and took out our tree that was large enough for an adult to climb in.

There's also been a profusion of blueberries the entire spring stretching into full-blown summer.  Hopefully the last picking of the rabbit's eye berries will be completed tomorrow just in time to start picking the older cultivar of smaller blacker blueberries with less seed and more flavor (a lemon blueberry jelly recipe is also slowly evolving, since there's no shortage of the small yummylicious berries).

Finding a recipe to combine the two tasty fruits into one jam occupied several hours on Google Wednesday evening.  No single recipe tingled the taste buds with imaginative delight though, so several were combined and refined to develop one.  I even left out a few ingredients like gingered honey at the last minute 'cause the resultant jam was already deliciously flavored and needed nothing more.

Easy to assemble with non-foreign ingredients i.e. ones not found at WalMart or Piggly Wiggly, relatively quick cooking, and the tastiest thing in a jelly jar since the vanilla bean pear jelly, here's a delightful recipe for

Blueberry Fig Jam

8 cups ripe figs, stemmed
3 cups blueberries, smashed a little
5 cups granulated sugar
1 box SureJel (optional)
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
Zest from one lemon

Place all ingredients in a non-reactive pan and let sit for several hours.  The process of drawing juice can be sped up somewhat if everything is gently stirred enough for the sugar to reach to the bottom.  Mama puts her figs in sugar late at night, letting them draw juice until the morning when she starts cooking them.  If the figs and blueberries are ripe, though, they'll get watery pretty quick.

Cook on low to medium heat, stirring often to prevent scorching (ewwwww - nasty) until figs have cooked clear and jam has reduced to desired consistency.

Ladle into sterile jars and seal.  Lots of folks water bath their jams and jellies.  Mama and I never have but that's just us.  The USDA recommends it to be safe.

Makes 5 1/2 pints.

The SureJel absolutely is optional.  Blueberries have a high amount of natural pectin so it's not  necessary.  I like to use it for the extra bit of jelling assurance, though.

Y'all enjoy!  It's yyyyyummy and just one more way to have figs (and blueberries) preserved in the pantry!

Sweet Pickle Sticks: Remembering Mr. Joe and Mrs. Ila Maude

Mr. Joe and Mrs. Ila Maude Carpenter lived up on the little hill above Aunt Selma and Uncle Sherman.  They were an ancient couple to a child, living well into their 80's (Mrs. Ila Maude lived into her 90's).   They were, reaching back through a youngster's memory, the little old couple that loved friends and family, loved to garden, and loved each other.  There was never a cross word uttered, each waiting on the other's needs with the sweetness of genuine affection that defies time.  They were slim, both wrinkled with care and age;  both stooped with years of work;  fixtures of the community as kind as the day is long, living long years in the little white house on the hill.

They used to buy whole milk and yard eggs from Mama.  Mama had her pet milk cow, Bossie, a black Angus of all breeds, that'd give two to three gallons of cream-rich sweet milk a day - more than enough for the bunch of us to eat everything with an abundance of real butter and clotted cream.   And yep - it's another story for another day.

Annnnyways...  More often than not, Mr. Joe'd come in the back door with a jar of something or another he and Mrs. Ila Maude had made:  strawberry figs, pickled okra, pickled banana peppers, or these sweet pickle sticks.

Tart, tangy, and sweet, loaded with flavor from the turmeric, mustard seed, and celery seed, I used to love them.  Lately I've had a hankering from them.  With a gift of over five gallons of cucumbers too large for pickles,  I decided to make them for the first time in roughly twenty-five years.  I had Mama dig out the Carpenter's recipe, not trusting memory enough to look for a similar one online.

This is roughly half of the cucumbers.  See how big they are?  

They're too large for 14 day sweet pickles and I didn't want

to make relish or mock spiced apple rings.

It's a good recipe to use those cucumbers that stayed on the vine three or four days beyond when they needed to be picked.

The pickles take two days to make and need to set (sit?) a week before opening and enjoying.  Y'all ready?

Wash, peel, deseed, and slice cucumbers into half inch strips.  I sliced a few of them thinner and wished I hadn't.  They were limp after the first night.

Don't forget to save the waste for the compost pile or your mama's chickens.  Or your chickens.

They'll cluck in delight you've afforded them this kindness.

Boil enough water to cover cucumber strips by an inch.

I didn't want to crank up the stove twice so I made sure there was

plenty of boiling water to cover them the first time.

Cover with boiling water, weighing cucumbers down, and let sit (set?) overnight or at least 8 to 10 hours.

Heavy porcelain on steel pot lids work great for pressing the

cucumbers under the boiling water and keeping them there.

I let mine set (sit?) overnight.  And most of the day, too, since Favorite Child is coming back in and a certain residence at Pine Level required cleaning.  Pour off water and let strips thoroughly drain.

**giggle** I almost forgot to get the pic, not that y'all need it to know

how to drain something.

Pack strips into clean, sterile jars.  Since these aren't going into the pressure canner I've used glass mayo jars.

Mama doesn't remember adding the turmeric directly into the jar.  I didn't tell her her memory was faulty, finding more and more hiatuses in my own lately than is comfortable.  I added a heaping teaspoon of turmeric to each quart jar - use 1/2 heaped teaspoon for a pint jar.

See?  I told you they were mayo jars.

In a non-reactive pot combine vinegar, sugar, salt, celery seed and mustard seed.  Bring to rolling boil, turn down a bit, and let cook for five minutes.

Pour over packed cucumber sticks, wipe rims, and seal jars.

See those socks in the corner of the pic?  I've repurposed stretched

hole-y socks into something beyond rags.  I'll show you!

Tadadaaaa!  The canner rack has been gone way long

time ago.  Old socks work GREAT for keeping the jars safe.

Water bath for thirty minutes.

Really.  I think the socks work better 'cause the jars are actually

cushioned and not bumping against the wire rack.

Tadadaaaaa!  Let them sit (set?) a week, open a jar and enjoy the complex flavor that these pickles are.

Sweet Pickle Strips Recipe (exactly as Mr. Joe wrote down for Mama)
Ten pounds cucumbers, peeled, deseeded, and cut into strips

Pour boiling water over and let stand overnight or 8 to 10 hours.

Pour off and drain.

Pack solid in jars.

In a porcelain pot, combine and boil for five minutes

3 1/4 cup vinegar

3 cups sugar

3 tablespoons salt

4 1/2 teaspoons turmeric

4 1/2 teaspoons celery seeds

4 1/2 teaspoons mustard seeds.

Pour over cucumbers in jars and seal.

Makes six pints

--------------

Since I had a lot more cucumbers than that I tripled everything but it's not rocket science by any means.  Double or triple as needed.   Y'all enjoy and have a Happy Fourth of July!

<3 Mary

Another Father's Day

I was having a difficult time concentrating in church Sunday evening.  Thomas has been leading us through the Westminster Confession of Faith, his Paulinian studies and understanding of grace enriching the wordy articles, bringing new meaning to a soul ever seeking to become better at seeing and living in The Big Picture (another story for another time).

It was Father's Day, always a distraction.  A child's memory saw the congregation from the family pew third from the back on the left side of the aisle facing the pulpit.  Daddy anchored the aisle, Mama sat at the opposite end, the five of us between them, scrubbed clean,  in starched and ironed clothes and spit shined shoes.

Baptism in the Presbyterian Church in America carries a charge to the congregation to raise a child in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.  We had many father-figures to look after us:  Matt Walley, Mr. Haddon, Sinkie McKay, Chris Graham, Pete Smith, Basil Basila, Evans Martin, H.E. McInnis, Ken McInnis, Sonny Rush, Uncle Sherman, George Cecil...  The charge isn't exclusive to Wednesdays and Sundays, it includes every moment of every day (and sleep if necessary).  I see their smiles, can hear them sing their favorite hymns, feel their encouragement, know the genuine love given to a child of their own in the scope of the universal family through Christ.

There's Daddy in the background.  I have no clue why he was toting 

a gun.  See the hat?  And the khakis?

The memory of our own daddy fills my heart;  the way his hat was always cocked to one side, bright flashing brown eyes, his small frame with the quick step constantly outfitted in khakis (probably why I despise ironing - he insisted on heavy starch), the smell of his shaving soap, the sound of him working down in the shop usually singing "I'm an old cowhand (from the Rio Grande)."

I miss him - especially as Father's Day winds down.  Did you have an excellent day with your daddy?  I'd like to think y'all have called them or fixed their favorite meals and desserts or gave them another tie or pair of houseshoes or Old Spice to let them know they were thought about and appreciated.  I pray that as you both get older you become more and more dear to each other.  And when the time comes to face Father's Day without them, I hope you've the fullness of memory to get through it like I've just done; wrapped in a hug from the past.

Star (Supposed to be Orzo) Pasta Salad: New Family Favorite

Last week the Pipkins' Family Reunion was held in this old house with it's high ceilings, ample seating space, and warm welcoming atmosphere.  The rain dampened nothing but the outside, spirited conversations (and a few spirits on the front porch the night before) and the catching up on a year's worth of news permeated every corner of every room of the house.  Two six-foot tables were filled with food from one end to the other -- and that's just food, sweet tea and desserts were on two other tables.  There wasn't a bad thing on the food tables at all but there was one favorite for me and The Fellows and Gurlfriends:  Claudia's orzo salad.

I know.  This isn't orzo.

 Amazing, right?  We could've fed another fifty people.

Desserts!

The orzo salad brought by Claudia, though... The flavors were unexpected:  heavy basil without being overpowering, crunch of pine nut and finely diced sweet onion, sweet bites of cranberry, and just enough olive oil to coat the pasta and help blend the flavors.  We were fairly fighting over the leftovers of it, which were all gone by Sunday night.  

I decided today I wanted to make it to carry to friends' house whose mom had passed.  I've known them my entire life, their children were in Mama's kindergarten, their grandchildren entrusted to my care as a home-based child care provider in a previous chapter of life a decade long.  The memorandum was made:  feta cheese, dried cranberries, and orzo.

Have I mentioned before that Leakesville has one grocery store?  Yep.  Piggly Wiggly.  The dollar stores and Fred's also have some groceries but the Pig is the main source for food in this town of 898 souls.  List in hand and cruising down the dairy aisle I was delighted to find crumbled feta cheese, the one item on the list I wasn't expecting to find.  I had already planned to substitute smoked gouda for it (and may yet).  Dried cranberries were in stock.  Only orzo was left to pick up.  Alas.  No orzo.  

I didn't think elbow or fusilli, bowtie or shell or rigatini or penne would work.  The pasta needed to be dense or compact to carry it's own starchiness and heft in the salad.  Or something of that nature.  Glancing around I spotted the star pasta from Mexico.  It'd have to work (and it did).

Coming home to cook the pasta and assemble the salad, I discovered there were no pine nuts.  I think I ate them a couple of weeks ago.  I get like that sometimes, purchasing a whole can of unsalted roasted cashews and consuming a few at a time every time they're walked by until they're gone... or a half pound of pine nuts taken out of the freezer in the course of cleaning it.

There are plenty of roasted chopped pecans, though.  And a lime to add back in flavor that's going to be missing from the pine nuts.  

I've guessed at the amounts of everything making Claudia's salad and it's so close to hers, I'll have to have her make it again just to check and see (which is an awesome way to get her back up here from the Coast).

Here's what you'll need:

One pound of orzo (or two 7 ounce packages star pasta)

Half-cup extra virgin olive oil

Zest from one lime

Juice of one lime

Half-cup diced fresh basil

Half-cup finely chopped sweet onion

Half-cup roasted chopped pecans (or half-cup pine nuts and forget the lime)

Four ounces of crumbled feta

One cup dried cranberries

 No Southern freezer is without pecans in it.  I keep roasted chopped

pecans in the freezer for cheesecake crusts, Italian cream cakes, and 

emergencies, just like today's.

Fresh basil from the little herb garden.  I only grow rosemary,

garlic, oregano, basil, dill, and taragon - my favorites!

Cook pasta, drain, and rinse well.  In bowl combine olive oil, lime zest, lime juice, chopped onion, and basil.  Add everything else but the pasta, making sure everything is well coated with oil.

Add pasta and mix until all ingredients are well distributed.

Only the pasta water was salted.  The feta's saltiness is adequate

for the entire salad.

I've put it in the very same pretty (disposable) bowl Claudia brought the salad in last week so the family won't have to return it.  It's also been garnished with basil blossoms.

It's quick and easy and delicious.  I had everything chopped and mixed together by the time the pasta was finished cooking.  With any recipe posted, y'all make it your own.  My friend Chris doesn't care for pine nuts and said she used almonds instead.  I'm so going to do that when I make this again.  Don't care for basil?  uhmmmm... it kind of IS the main flavor - you might want to try a different recipe.  Dried blueberries or white raisins instead of dried cranberries?  I think that'd be splendid!  Make it your family favorite today.

Y'all enjoy!

A New Sauce for the Fambly Reunion: Chipotle Blueberry Barbecue Sauce

A week from today the decendants of Robert Prine and Matilda Louise will be gathering in this home for the annual fambly reunion.  I love fambly, love having them here under the roof and in the yard of this 105 year old late Victorian home.  It's a potluck affair, but Cousin Ronny and I supply the meats:  ham, fried chicken, leftover ribs and sausages from Friday night's barbecue, and roasted/smoked pork loin.

Earlier in the week Mama and I picked blueberries from her rabbit's eye bushes.  A gallon of the large delicious fruit was harvested in no time and it was sent home with me.  I wanted to do something amazing with them and Mrs. Mary posted this recipe on Facebook for me.  It's just what was needed to go with the pork loin for the fambly reunion!

It is not my recipe and for the first making, I didn't tweak it in any way, sort, or fashion.  I wanted to share it with y'all 'cause it's so easy.   It's a little on the warm-ish side.  If you don't like heat used the adobo sauce from the chipotle peppers and don't put a a chipotle pepper in it!

Gather all the ingredients.

The brown sugar is peeking in the corner of the photo.

Put all ingredients in a non-reactive pot and cook until it's as thick as you like it.

This is actually a double batch in the pot.  And you really will want to use

a non-reactive pot.  The high acidity of the juice and berries can pull

a metal flavor out of an aluminum pot.

Tadadaaaaa!  I used the immersion blender to make the sauce a little smoother, it's a personal preference.  

And that's all there is to it.  I like it a lot, thinking this will be the go-to sauce, replacing Jezebel sauce, for roasted pork loin.  It definitely has some heat to it, but not so much you'll need a glass of milk to stop the burn.  Most of the fambly is going to love it.  We're hot and sweet that way...

Y'all enjoy!