Home rendered lard and homemade butter for chorizo and potato pie crust.
Today was a mix of this and that and maybe a bit more of this. Not sure why other than it was the last day of a 4-day weekend and neither of us was motivated for much. I worked most of the day on my dad’s new website and in between I worked in the kitchen.
Succumbing to peer pressure I decided to try my hand at making butter. I started it in the jar but when we hit the whip cream stage things seemed to stall out. After skimming it all out of my quart jar and into the mixer bowl we had butter about 3 minutes later. A quick wash, some kneading with a wooden spoon and voila, butter. It’s not as good as I imagine Nita’s to be, but way better than even good store bought sticks.
Then I worked some more while pondering bread for that butter. But up first was a trip to the garden for lettuce, the barn for potatoes, the hen house for eggs (8 today!) and the garage freezer for chorizo. Then back to the kitchen to start tonight’s chorizo and potato pie, courtesy of my secret lover Nigel.
I was cooking from my UK edition of Real Food, which requires either using the computer to convert grams to ounces and cups or just a click of the button on the kitchen scale. I chose the scale (which needs to be washed) – math’s too hard on a Sunday afternoon.
We enjoyed our pie with a side of steamed homegrown peas and green beans tossed with a bit of that homemade butter and some sea salt. We finished it off with a salad of homegrown lettuce, Washington pear, Idaho blue cheese and a quick vinaigrette.
The pie was really good, better than I imagined it to be. Next time though we’ll make the effort to season some of our ground pork into an herby sausage instead of using bulk chorizo – I think it would make a more savory dish as the chorizo’s spice was just a bit out of place.
Of course, here it is 9:25 pm and I insanely have bread rising in the oven and am only halfway done with the Dark Days recap. My apologies, but the recap likely won’t make it up until late tomorrow night.
*****
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Now that is my kind of crust!!!
Oh yeah, best savory pie crust EVER. I can’t wait to try it on chicken pot pie. I think the best part is that it’s brushed with an egg/milk mixture and a banty egg is the perfect size for the technique…
Two great photos for today, Laura. That pie crust is gorgeous.
Beautiful! Pie crust looks delicious, its something I haven’t been able to master. How did you keep the homegrown peas (frozen, canned, etc)?
That looks yummy!!! And now I just have to make butter
It looks great..and I am now inspired to make my own butter! How did the bread turn out?
I don’t know anything about cooking, as YOU well know!!
However!! Your photography is awesome. That camera of yours is something special!!
Love
Dad
Looks amazing. Did you do something fun with the buttermilk from the butter making experience?
That pie looks so…freaking…good. Yum.
Kimberly – thanks!
Mangochild – I blanched my peas and then vacuum packed them 1.5 cups at a time. They’ve held up pretty well. This year I’m hoping to do a lot more of them as we only had 5 or 6 bags this year.
Maureen – butter is so easy and so worth it. Go for it!
Late Bloomer – for the first time in a month of weekly bread it didn’t rise correctly. It’s not bad, just short and dense. I don’t think I used enough yeast – I’m using active yeast not instant and always have to compensate.
Dad – thanks, see you soon!
Einat – the buttermilk is still in the fridge. I’m hoping it can last another couple of days and we’ll make biscuits with it.
Genie – and it is! I’ve had it for lunch the last two days and it’s the best ever, I think.
Hooray! Making butter is as easy as pie… er, easier than pie! Looking at Nita’s – wow, it’s beautiful.
Happy New Year, Laura!