Save Me From Myself

Oh lordy, I caught a commercial yesterday which featured Paula Deen hawking Smithfield sausages. The commercial lured me in by showing me an image of a BLT dip, and then said head on over to the Smithfield website for Paula’s BLT dip recipe. So I, being highly suggestable and loving all things bacon, followed their directions to the letter and headed to the website. I immediately gained 3 pounds just looking at the recipes.

Paula Deen has put together a whole mess of recipes featuring Smithfield ingredients and they all look mouthwateringly good. And fattening. I have been despairing about this 10 pounds I’ve put on since I stopped nursing Avery last year, and a website full of Paula Deen bacon recipes is the last thing I need to think about when I’m laying in bed at night.

But Pandora’s box has been opened, and there are more than a few little tidbits that I plan to whip up from the Smithfield recipe files. Starting with of course, the lovely looking BLT dip. And then, Southern Bean Soup, Blue Cheese and Bacon Mashed Potatoes Au Gratin, Smoked Sausage and Garlic Bread Appetizer, and Mamma’s Fried Cream Corn.  

Those Smithfield Sausage people are no dummies, I’ll tell ya that. The Paula Deen commercial specifically featured the BLT dip, and thats why I clicked on the website. But, when you click on Paula’s recipes, there are 12 pages to click through. No option to see them all on one page. I thought for sure the dip would be featured on like page one or two, since they did create a commercial around it. Nope. Page 11. So I had to look through almost every other recipe, getting hungrier and hungrier, before I finally found the object of my search. Very, very crafty.

Something else that has been making me hungry late at night (and no, I’m not talking about Guy Fieri and his damn diners)  is Lolly WInston’s book “Good Grief.” I’ve been re-reading it lately and I had forgotten all about all the amazing food she describes. Savory cheesecakes with Brie and sesame cracker crust; pear pie with a cheddar cheese crust; lemon butter pound cake. Yum, yum and yum. In the discussion section at the end of the book, the author notes that she herself did not have a recipe for savory cheesecakes, she had read about someone who was making them. I am going to commence a search for said savory cheesecake recipe and try to bake one.

I’ve also been searching for a recipe for pear pie with a cheese crust, but haven’t quite found one that fits the bill yet. I did find this on AllRecipes:

Fresh Pear Pie

INGREDIENTS

• 1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest
• 5 cups peeled and sliced pears
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

DIRECTIONS

1. Combine sugar, flour, salt, cinnamon, and lemon rind in mixing bowl.
2. Arrange pears in layers in a 9 inch pastry lined pan, sprinkling sugar mixture over each layer. Dot with butter. Sprinkle with lemon juice. Roll out remaining dough; cut slits for escape of steam. Moisten rim of bottom crust. Place top crust over filling. Fold edge under bottom crust, pressing to seal. Flute edge.
3. Bake at 450 degrees F (230 degrees C) for 10 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C), and bake for an additional 35 to 40 minutes.

In the comments a couple of people mentioned that they omitted the lemon and grated Gruyere cheese on top of the crust before baking. That sounds promising. Or I could find a cheese crust recipe and alter a pear pie recipe to go in it. I’m just not very good at pie crusts. Even when I try very hard not to knead or pat them much, they still come out tough.

Side note: My Grandma Jane made wonderful pie crust. She baked pies for a restaurant in town and when I was young she would always save the extra strips of crust, sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on them and bake them into little pie crust snacks. They were lovely.

Anyway, I’m going to try out the pie and also look into the savory cheesecake thing. I’ll bake and report back. My thighs will report back also.