Post-Thanksgiving meals gave me the chance to practice my pot pie skills. I decided to home fry the potatoes first: cooked in microwave, coated with oil, baked in the cast iron skillet with a few turns. The resulting carmelized flavor came through and some of the texture survived the gravy as well.
Next, I made a roux and added the turkey stock I made with the bones.
Next came the turkey and some pre-cooked vegetables.
I topped the pie with some buttermilk biscuits from the freezer. The result of this few minutes of work was a savory pie with a great balance of turkey and vegetable flavors.
I made candied ginger a few years ago. It's not something I would do every day but I had a lot of fun doing it. I recently acquired a pressure cooker and it inspired an interesting idea to me: why not make candied ginger in the pressure cooker? It should be very soft and flavorful. Here is the result. I peeled two large ginger roots, cut them into small cubes, and put them in the pressure cooker with heavily sugared water. The traditional method first boils the ginger in plain water to soften it and then again in sugar water to candy it. The resulting candy was very tender but still with the characteristic ginger texture. It was also sweet without being overpowering. The traditional method leaves a lot of sugar crystallized around the ginger. The pressure cooker gives a much more subtle result. The ginger stays moist even after it cools but you can dry it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. That inspired me to dip it in chocolate. While I was in the b...




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