Chris Hennes

We're big fans of coleslaw here: I generally use an adaptation of a recipe from Cook's Illustrated that involves salting and draining the cabbage a bit beforehand, and uses a creamy sauce of buttermilk and sour cream. I'm also very particular about how the cabbage gets "shredded"—I take a few leaves at a time, flatten them out, and basically julienne it, about 2mm wide. I toss out the core, I think it stays a bit too firm for my tastes.

Let's get them posted here in this topic, and we can add an index to the topic's opening post once we have "critical mass."

I think that cream cheese crust is perfect for cherry pie in particular, and fruit pies in general. I actually use her ingredients, but the Cook's Illustrated technique (with the vodka and the splitting of the flour), so I don't need to use the plastic bag technique anymore.

It was truly a pleasure meeting everyone at the gathering, and I'm sorry to have missed those who couldn't attend this year: thanks especially to Aaron and Judy for arranging everything so well. I can't wait to see Ron's photos of this morning's brunch, which was also excellent, and certainly the best brunch I've ever had in my life. The Crums were incredibly gracious hosts, and it was wonderful to see the operation they've got growing there (I wish my tomatoes looked as good as theirs!).

The annual Heartland Gathering is this weekend in Kansas City: this is the place to post reports about the event, and read about it as it is ongoing. Many thanks to the Kansas City denizens who have been working feverishly to get ready for the onslaught, especially Aaron Deacon and moosnsqrl who have spearheaded the beast. The schedule of events for the 2009 event is: Thursday, July 23, Dinner: Lidia's Thursday, July 23, Cocktails: Manifesto Friday, July 24, Barbecue tour of KC Friday, July 24, Dinner: bluestem Saturday, July 25: The Main Event Sunday, July 26, Breakfast/Brunch: Crum Farm My knives are sharpened, and I'm hungry! ___________________________________________________________ Topic Recipe Index: Roasted Green Chile Risotto (chileheadmike) Pastrami-Brined Short Ribs (edsel) Thai Red Curry with Lychee and Pineapple (Kerry Beal)

Er, until they seemed well roasted . I know, that's no help at all. I didn't really time it, but when the exuded liquid was more "syrup" than liquid I stopped. It was probably a half hour or so.

I think my plan next time is to roast only half the cherries (for textural contrast), reserving all the juice while roasting, and then using a bit less than my standard 2.5 tbsp of corn starch for the filling.

That's the slice view: as you can see, it's completely cohesive, and I mean that in a bad way. The flavor was good, but I completely neglected to account for the loss of liquid in the roasting process and added way too much cornstarch (2.5 tbsp). So, here's your "diner-style" roasted cherry pie .

I do make lard crusts sometimes: I prefer the cream cheese for fruit pies, and the lard for custard. I'm not sure I have a solid reasoning for this, though.

I made a roasted cherry pie today: it's still cooling, but here's the shot right out of the oven... That's RLB's cream cheese crust ingredients, prepared in the Cook's Illustrated style. Having already eaten the scraps I can say that the crust is great, if a bit "rustic"-looking.

Scotch, neat. Even I can't screw that up.

I'm going to steal your roasting idea tomorrow, I think: it sounds really interesting, and I've still got a few pounds of Bings left. Any tricks to roasting them?

and Here's your trouble: "cohesive" pies, like a diner-style cherry pie, are by definition starchy, gloppy, and sugary. If you want to avoid that, you are going to have to live with a looser texture. It doesn't have to have standing liquid, but the cherries aren't going to stick themselves together. I happen to prefer this to "diner style," but if you're giving it as a gift to someone who likes (or just expects) the glued-together-ness of those cornstarch-and-sugar-goop pies, you have to take a different approach, probably starting by making a cherry pie filling separately. This is especially true if you are not using sour cherries: a Bing cherry pie is going to hold together less than a sour cherry pie, in my experience.

It should freeze quite well unbaked, I wouldn't worry about it. Bake directly from frozen, for about 10-15 minutes longer than the recipe calls for. You may need to cover the crust with a bit of foil to keep it from getting too dark towards the end.

Not in RLB's recipe, and I found that cutting down on the sugar was sufficient. Ranier cherries are much sweeter than Bing, however, so that's a good point: some acid would probably help.

I made a Bing cherry pie earlier this week: I used Rose Levy Beranbaum's Cream Cheese crust ingredients, with the Cook's Illustrated Vodka Crust technique since it is so easy to work with and results in a superior flakiness. I also used RLB's filling, but cut the sugar in half since they were Bing rather than sour. Ranier are going to be even sweeter, so you'll want to cut way back on the sugar. But you should still get a great pie.

You must be a lot less klutzy than I am! If the options are full protective gear or barefoot, I will absolutely choose protective gear. There are other dangers in even a home kitchen than the liquid nitrogen. Like, the heavy bowl full of that fresh ice cream that I just dropped on my foot. Doh!

There's no hint on their website about whether you can purchase the sauce, so trial-and-error replication is probably your best bet (unless you can talk a manager into selling you a jug ). How does it compare to the other bottle cajun sauces on grocery store shelves?

Both? I cut the pork into approx. 1" cubes, cooked in pork stock/spice/etc. until the stock was evaporated and the pork was frying in its own fat. I let it brown up nicely like that, then cooled and shredded. Reheated, filled, ate, and it was most excellent.

I've been playing around with blueberries recently: today I made a syrup/puree in the style of Katie Loeb's grenadine: Half reduced blueberry syrup and half fresh blueberries, blended and strained. My most sucessful cocktail so far with this concoction has been: 2 oz gin (I used Beefeater) ~1 oz Blueberry Stuff (adjusted to taste for the tartness of the berries and the amount of sugar in the "Stuff") 1/2 oz lemon juice Shake and strain into a cocktail glass: the color is striking. The lemon juice is there basically to accentuate the natural tartness of the berries, and the gin plays exceptionally well with the blueberry flavor. I've mixed up a few variations with different spirits, but the gin is the clear winner as far as I am concerned. Edited to clarify blueberry stuff.

Credit where credit is due: mgaretz gave me the idea in the first place .

To counter David, I'm an anti-traditionalist : I don't like flour as a thickener at all, even in apple. I made a blueberry pie last week thickened with tapioca flour and a Granny Smith apple (for the pectin): the texture was excellent, in my opinion. With any thickener I think it's important to get the amount right. I was comparing recipes for fruit pies and there are VASTLY varying amounts of thickener called for. I personally hate those gloppy cornstarch-laden diner-style pies, but that's not really an indictment of cornstarch, it's a recipe problem: they just call for too much of it.

Bing cherries are insanely cheap right now, so I've been told to give Calfoutis a shot. Anyone have a foolproof recipe I can try out?

I've got a bunch of fresh masa in the fridge right now, so last night I made enchiladas with homemade tortillas. I love the texture these give, being a bit thicker and more toothsome than machine-made tortillas. The filling is a basic carnitas, and the sauce is a few varieties of dried chiles, a half a white onion, and a bit of garlic, thinned with chicken stock.

I nominate nearly all variations on the word "Martini."