Thanksgiving Part 2: Turkey Pot Pies

Tags

baking, cat, cooking, easy pie crust, egg, family, gravy, Hairless cat, leftovers, Mowgli, pastry, pie crust, pie crust with egg and vinegar, Potpies, sphynx, Thanksgiving, Turkey, turkey stock, vegetables, vinegar

Hey everyone,

I’m back, and I have an amazing recipe for you! This recipe is great because you can use all that leftover turkey that no one really wants to eat because it doesn’t look beautiful. Also, if you have family lingering after the big thanksgiving dinner, and you’re panicking because everyone is tired of turkey sandwiches and you need something to whip up quick.

I had never tried this recipe before, but my friend Clare really wanted to make a blog with me. She came up with the great idea of making something to use up the last of that thanksgiving turkey. She also brought her camera over and that is why the pictures in this blog are uncharacteristically beautiful! Thanks Clare!!

So the first thing that I started out with was making the crust. The idea here is that you would use leftover piecrust from Thanksgiving, but the pie crust my mom and I made for the apple dumplings was horrible. LOL. So I started from scratch using a new recipe. I must say this was the easiest pie crust I have ever made. Granted it was only the second pie crust I have ever made, but 10/10 recommend using this recipe if you are going to make your own. Of course I do have to say that using puff pastry is always an option, but using this new recipe I am about to show you, I say why bother going to the store when you can have the perfect, no fail, homemade pie crust in 15 minutes. Just sayin’ . . .. Impress your relatives!

Ingredients:

Pastry:

4 c Flour

1 tbl sugar

1 ½ tsp salt

1 ¾ c vegetable shortening

1 tbl white vinegar

1 egg

½ c water

Filling:

3-4 c diced turkey

¼ c butter (1/2 stick)

1 ½ finely chopped yellow onion

4 c chicken or turkey stock

1 c small potatoes, cut in ¾ in dice

1 c carrots, peeled, cut in roughly ¾ in dice

½ c flour

1 ½ tsp salt

several grinds of freshly ground pepper

¼ c whole milk

1 c frozen peas

Glaze:

1 egg yolk

2 tsp whole milk

½ tsp paprika

Part I: The Crust

Alright, so first, you are going to make sure you have set out all of your ingredients. I suggest using a large bowl because the pie crust process can get a little messy and if you have a big bowl the mess stays mostly in the bowl instead of on your table.

 

Next, combine the flour, sugar and salt together in the large bowl I mentioned earlier.

Then, we come to the shortening. Take heart, this is the hardest part, after this it is smooth sailing. You are going to want to cut your shortening into chunks before you put them into the flour so you have less work to do. Plop them in and the fun begins!

Using a pastry cutter (I think that’s what they are called) begin cutting the chunks of shortening until they are about pea sized. There are two types of them, whatever their name is, one with wire blades and one with real blades. I used to have one with wires and now I have blades. The blade one works much better in my opinion; it is much more efficient.

Once the shortening is in about pea sized chunks begin preparing the wet ingredients. If the idea of making the shortening pea sized doesn’t make sense to you, also think about making sure there is no loose flour. The flour should be completely coating the fat.

 

To prepare the wet ingredients, just whisk the egg, the water and the vinegar together in a small bowl.

Once the wet ingredients are completely combined, add them to the dry ingredients, and using a fork begin combining them. I transitioned to using my hands after the egg was mostly absorbed into the dough. Continue mixing until all the dough is moist and can stick together in a large ball. Be careful not to over mix the dough; if you over work it something happens to the gluten and the crust gets tough.

After the dough is mixed, divide it into four balls; make small patties out of them. Cover the patties in plastic wrap and then store them in the fridge until you are ready to use them. The original recipe I used did not require refrigeration but I would recommend at least ½ hour.

I made the pastry dough up before Clare arrived because that is the less fun part of the meal, in my opinion. While we let the dough chill a little, Clare made a new friend: Mowgli! I knew you were all probably wondering when the dude would make an appearance. Well, here he is in all his glory, visiting for Thanksgiving! My sister, Kate, his legal owner, put him in his cute little tuxedo just for the occasion. LOL.

Part II: The Filling

After we were content with our Mowgli love, we started on the potpie filling.

So to start, we washed, peeled and chopped up our carrots, potatoes and onions.

Next we added the butter and the onions to a large saucepan on medium heat, cooking the onions about 10-15 minutes until they were translucent.

While the onions cooked, we brought the turkey stock just to a boil and dropped the carrots and potatoes in. Just a quick side note about the turkey stock, my dad made it from scratch from the refuse of our picked clean turkey. Just thought I would give him a quick shout out for that! Obviously, making your own turkey stock is NOT necessary, you can sub chicken stock too if turkey is hard to find. Cook the carrots and potatoes for about 5 minutes until they are slightly tender, and use a slotted spoon to remove them from the stock and into a small bowl.

Next add the flour to the onions and butter and make sure it is evenly coating all the onions with minimal clumping. Then, pour in the turkey stock, bring to a simmer and stir constantly until thick, about 1-2 minutes.

Finally, stir in the salt, pepper, turkey, carrots, onions, whole milk, and frozen peas. Leave on low heat while you roll out the pastry.

Roll the pastry out so it is about 1/8 inch thick. Then, cut it into circles that are about 1 – 1 ½ inches wider than the ramekins you chose. We did two sizes of ramekins, one set that are taller and narrower and one that is shorter and wider.

After you have the pastry cut out, spoon filling into the ramekin unil it is full but not over flowing.

Then place the circle of pastry right on top trying to line it up with the middle as much as possible. Press the pastry down lightly around the edges of the ramekin and then fold the edges under the back of the extra dough. Once you have that done you can experiment with making pretty patterns on the edges. If you have any crazed little cousins running around at this point this is a fun activity for them to do. Have them make their own and decorate it how they like! We mostly just used our fork to crimp the edges but get creative and have some fun with this part! DO NOT forget to poke holes in the top though or your potpies with explode in the oven!

After all the potpies have been covered. Whisk the ingredients for the glaze together in a small bowl, and brush the glaze lightly on top of the dough. This will make the finished potpies pretty and golden when you are finished.

Next, place them on a cookie sheet and pop them into the oven at 350 for about 30-35 minutes or until they are golden brown on top. Remember that everything on the inside is fully cooked so the pastry crust is all you need to worry about.

Once the crust is golden brown, pull them out and let them cool for about 3-5 minutes.

Place each potpie on a plate, serve and enjoy!

I hope you enjoy this recipe, thanks for reading,

<3,

Zoey, Mowgli and Clare!

P.S. My mom really messed up with the first crust, though in our defense there may have been an extra cup of flour. All’s well that ends well though, as I found a new, much improved no-fail crust recipe. Yay!!

 

Putting a Twist on Tradition: Zucchini-Noodle Lasagna

Tags

blogging 101, cat, comfort food, cooking, CSA, easy, family, grandma's, lasagna, sphinx

So I mostly made this recipe up, it is basically lasagna with filleted, grilled zucchini instead of lasagna noodles. It is a hybrid between something I briefly saw on the Food Network and the lasagna recipe that my grandma used to make for my mom back in the day. So, since I pulled this one out of nowhere, the ingredients list might be a little campy. I apologize for that, but if yours doesn’t turn out exactly like mine you can pass your version of the recipe down to your kids/grandkids as your family lasagna recipe. (LOL)

So here we go, I sure hope you can follow along 🙂

Ingredients:

5 medium Zucchini

24oz of cottage cheese

16oz bag of frozen spinach

25oz jar of spaghetti sauce

8oz shredded mozzarella cheese

1/3c grated parmesan

Part 1: Prepping the Zucchini

So I filleted the zucchinis and then I grilled them so they wouldn’t have to cook with the lasagna. One thing this does is that it takes some of the water out of the zucchini before you put it in the lasagna. If I were to use raw zucchini it would make the lasagna very wet; yuck. So grill/roast the zucchini before hand.

To fillet the zucchini, consult another website. I mean it. I got one or two nice pieces. Basically what it means is to cut the zucchini into ¼ inch pieces along the length of the zucchini. I failed, I am not going to pretend that I am some master chef and this is one of the moments my novice showed through. I maybe got one or two successful filets of zucchini. So I will not be displaying any pictures of me filleting, or give any advice. The only thing I will say is that I totally botched the zucchini but the lasagna still tasted great and looked pretty good! So don’t worry if you are in the same boat as me. (LOL)

Now to the grilling, this part I can do! So just take a brush and apply olive oil to both sides of the zucchini slices. If you want to add a little oomph you could add some garlic to the oil and brush that on.

I had to take the picture quick so I could grab Mowgli before he stuck his face in the oil. (LOL)

Next, throw them on the grill. My grill got to about 315. Then cook the zucchini for 5-7 minutes on both sides. You might need to shift them around as they cook. I know my grill has some spots that cook way better than others so I made sure each piece had its time in the sweet spot.

I did a few batches on the grill and then I placed them on a plate and covered them in foil to keep any bugs or stuff out.

Part 2: Assembling the Lasagna.

So right as I was about to begin these steps my phone died… oops. So I will take it upon myself to use vividly descriptive language to make sure your lasagna is every bit as delicious as mine.

So the first thing you have to do is take the spinach out of the freezer and de-frost it. After the spinach is not frozen anymore, use a scissors to cut the spinach into smaller pieces.

Then, combine the spinach and cottage cheese in a bowl. I am told that most people use ricotta cheese in their lasagna. There is some story about why we use cottage cheese. I think it has something to do with my uncle being super picky when he was a kid and my grandma accommodating that. Not really sure. I’m sure I will have a few family members commenting with the CORRECT story so check back if you are curious. (LOL)

Here is what was left over after I finished. Hopefully it will give you an idea of what the mixture should look like.

Next, take out your favorite lasagna pan (please use your favorite pan because one of the key ingredients in this recipe is love). Then start by layering the bottom of the pan with a layer of zucchini. My zucchini were very strange and crooked because I got them in our CSA box, so I had to fill in some holes with smaller pieces on the bottom. After that put a layer of the spinach-cottage cheese mixture over the zucchini. Then put a layer of sauce on top of that. My mom always uses Newman’s Own Sockarooni sauce because it has a little spice. If you want to get even fancier, you can put some fully cooked ground Italian sausage in with the sauce layer. I like it with spicy sausage, just a recommendation J. Cover the sauce layer with another zucchini layer and then repeat the spinach-cottage cheese layer and the sauce layer and the zucchini layer. You can repeat that as many times as you have space/ingretients for. I ran out of space after two repetitions. After you are at the top do another sauce layer and cover it with a generous helping of mozzarella cheese. Before you bake sprinkle the Parmesan cheese on top.

The masterpiece before baking

Bake the lasagna at 415 for 30-35 minutes, until the cheese is brown and bubbly.

There she is!!

After that, call everyone you love to the table and dig in. Since my mom and my sister are gone it was just my dad, Mowgli and me at the table. We let Mowgli sit in a chair but we did not share any of the food with him. (I have to add that so my mom won’t call me and yell at me for feeding Mowgli dairy (LOL)).

The lasagna didn’t look very pretty but it tasted darn good!!

I prepared the lasagna ahead of time, as usual. And while I waited for my dad to come home, I knit Mowgli a nice little sweater. I got too impatient and I didn’t make it long enough, but crop tops are in right now so… 🙂

Mowlgi was much happier about his sweater than his face might suggest 🙂

Thanks for reading my blog! I hope you enjoyed it!!

<3,

Zoey and Mowgli

P.S. the message from my mom will have to remain a link to her blog until she gets home. Check it out though, she’s awesome and is having a great time!

When Mom’s Away, a Girl Still Has to Eat: Spaghetti alla Carbonara

Tags

blogging 101, cat, cooking, easy, egg, Ireland, italian, parmesan, pasta, science, spaghetti, sphinx

Well, my mom left for Ireland a couple days ago. Funnily enough, with out me. Hmmm, I am not sure how I keep letting people run off to Ireland without me. Well, since my mom has been staying at home while she starts her new consulting firm; I have gotten a little too used to her making me food before I go to work. Today, however, she is in Ireland so I had to fend for myself. I remembered this amazing recipe that she used to make all the time for me called Spaghetti alla Carbonara, or in American, Spaghetti with egg and Parmesan.

Also, since my mom is gone I have no one to proof read my blog for me. So if there are any major problems don’t look at me; direct your gaze across the pond. (LOL)

This recipe is one of the best things to make any time. It is simple, easy and it always hits the spot!

Ingredients:

2 tbs olive oil

½ cup bacon, cut into matchsticks

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 lb spaghetti

3 eggs, at room temperature

¾ c grated parmesan cheese

salt and freshly ground pepper

Part 1:

First, bring a large pan of water with a pinch of salt in it to a boil.

While that is beginning to boil, sauté the bacon and the garlic in the olive oil in a medium sauce pan. Keep this over medium heat until the garlic starts to turn brown and the bacon begins to render its fat.

Once the pan of water is at a full boil add the spaghetti to the water and follow the cooking instructions on the pasta package.

While the pasta is cooking, mix the egg and Parmesan together in a large bowl. I used just used a fork to mix the eggs and Parmesan. You don’t need anything fancy.

Once the pasta is done cooking, drain the water off and immediately dump all of the drained noodles into the large bowl with the egg and cheese. Moving quickly, next pour the bacon, garlic and all the rendered fat on top of the pasta.

Then just mix it all together. Salt and pepper to taste and you have Spaghetti alla Carbonara. Serve immediately, I like to sprinkle a little extra parm on top but I am a cheese fiend so it’s up to you. (LOL)

The cool thing about this recipe, I think, is that the hot bacon fat and the hot pasta actually cook the eggs. So there is no raw egg in your final product just a thin eggy coating on your noodles. SCIENCE!!! J

If desired this recipe is also really good if you throw in some peas!

After I was done making the pasta, I plopped down on the couch with Mowgli to watch Aristocats haha I love that movie! I was thinking that I can show Mowgli how he can be a star too! We already watched Austin Powers and the Friends episode where Rachel gets a hairless cat “The one with the ball.” So I filled my stomach while I filled Mowgli with dreams of stardom. (LOL)

I hope you like this awesome recipe as much as I did!

Thanks for reading!

<3,

Zoey and Mowgli J

P.S. My mom wanted to let you all know that, while in Ireland, she will be writing a food and travel blog called “There and Brack.” If you like my blog at all, you will love hers because as usual, I learned everything I know from that woman! Also, I forgot to mention on my previous blogs that my sister has been blogging about her experiences in Ireland while on an anthropological dig! Her blog is called “Bone Girl in Prison” (I thought of the name, once you read the blog you will get it). Both those ladies are amazing writers and you might find their adventures even a little more exciting than mine and Mowgli’s, but don’t forget about us! (LOL)

Fourth Favorite: Fireworks Sriracha Slaw

Tags

asian slaw, cat, cole slaw, coleslaw, cooking, easy, Fourth of July, fun, Hairless cat, party food, seventeen, shpinx, sriracha

I would like to start out apologizing for not blogging last week. My plan was to blog once a week; unfortunately, we have been having some internet connection problems and I had another blog all written up for last week and I lost it all to the evil, slow Wi-Fi. I have decided to rally, and write my blog in Word before posting it to the Internet for safety reasons. Now I am camping out at my local coffee shop to do all my activities that require Internet. (LOL)

I have made this recipe countless times, and since yesterday was the Fourth of July it feels like it needs to make a comeback. There is nothing that screams summer more than really good coleslaw, or the Fourth of July.

I got this recipe from The Sriracha Cookbook, which I got for my dad a few years ago and has slowly become my go-to for all of my Sriracha needs. The recipe is a spicy Asian style slaw; I have made it a few times for parties and it has always been a huge hit! The biggest draw for a lot of my friends is that it has no mayo. Personally, I have never had an issue with mayo, but a large number of my friends seem to detest it.

Ingredients:

Dressing:

1/3 c chunky natural peanut butter

¼ c freshly squeezed lime juice

¼ c freshly squeezed orange juice (pineapple juice will work here too)

¼ c Sriracha

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 tbs fish sauce

1 tbs ginger paste

1 tbs sugar

Slaw:

1½ lbs Napa cabbage, shredded

½ lb red cabbage, shredded

2 carrots, peeled and grated

1 jalapeño, seeded and minced

6 green onions, white part only, thinly sliced on the diagonal

¼ c chopped fresh cilantro

¼ c chopped fresh mint

Salt and freshly ground pepper

Coarsely chopped fresh Thai basil, for garnish

Lime slices, for garnish

Warning: I will be making a double batch so my food in the pictures might look a little different than yours.

Part 1: Making the Dressing

The first thing I always do when making this recipe is to make the dressing. My reasoning is that the dressing will save, so I can make it a day or two in advance. Also letting the dressing sit in the fridge for a little while before use always helps the flavors mix better and overall creates a way better final product.

Here is the dressing before it is mixed.

So all you are going to do to make the dressing is basically just whisk the peanut butter, lime juice, orange juice, Sriracha, garlic, fish sauce, ginger paste and sugar together in a medium sized bowl. I, as usual, recommend using a bowl with a cover.

I totally spaced and forgot to get a pic of the final dressing product, so here is a picture of my favorite whisk instead. (LOL)

Part 2: Prepping the Veggies

I had to work on the fourth of July so I asked my dad and Mowgli to fill in and help cut the veggies up 🙂

The next thing you have to do is to prepare the veggies. There are a few ways to do this and I have tried two of them. The first way is you can use a knife and a cheese grater and cut/shred everything by hand. The second way is you can use a food processor. We have a few hundred attachments for our food processor so that option seems easy for me. What I would recommend, however, is the first way. I tried the second way thinking it would be super easy. It ended up making a huge mess and it cut the cabbage and other veggies way to thin for my liking. I like the cabbage to be a little thicker so it can hold the dressing. When the veggies get to thin, the coleslaw gets too soggy and you end up with lunchroom variety slop.

So cutting the veggies. First I always start with the cabbage, because it is kind of a chore and you begin looking forward to cutting just two dainty carrots (LOL).

To begin with the red cabbage, first rinse the cabbage as always and take off any outer layers that don’t look great. Then cut it into quarters. This will make it easier to slice thin. Be sure to remove the little hard stem part after you quarter the cabbage.

After the cabbage is prepped for the prepping, take a SHARP knife, and, laying the cabbage quarter on its side, begin slicing the cabbage as thin as you can. It will begin to fall apart perhaps, but don’t worry, use your best judgement and after you have completed slicing the quarter take a couple minutes to root out any giant pieces and cut them a little thinner. Repeat this step with the rest of the cabbage, placing your finished product in a large bowl.

In a similar manner, thinly slice the Napa cabbage as well, putting it in the large bowl with the red cabbage.

Next, seed the red bell pepper. I do this by cutting the pepper in half and ripping the seeds out with my hands. I have seen many other methods so just do whatever works best for you. Then, slice the pepper as thin as you can. Again, slicing things thin is way easier with a sharp knife but be careful to not let the knife slip because if a sharp knife slips it will find a way to cut you. A dull knife on the other had will slip all the time because it will have trouble cutting into the vegetable and can be equally or even more dangerous than a sharp knife. A dull knife will also not deliver the desired effect.

After you have placed the thinly sliced bell pepper in the bowl with the cabbage, use a large toothed cheese grater to grate the carrots. The original recipe calls for the carrots to be julienned; however, I am not a master chef and I cannot julienne anything, so I grate them. I do grate them diagonally along the length of the carrot though, so I can get longer strands of carrots. This method has worked quite well for me; however, if you are a master chef please teach me your julienning ways!!! Since my dad took over the vegetable cutting and he is a master veggie cutter; he julienned the carrots. Don’t worry if you can’t though. I’m in the same boat. (LOL)

Now remove the seeds from the Jalapeño and mince it (chop very fine). Put it in the large bowl. Finally, slice the white part only of the 6 green onions; slice them very thin and on a diagonal so the pieces are a bit longer.

Now chop the fresh cilantro and mint and throw them in with the other veggies as well.

I used a giant metal bowl to make tossing the ingredients together way easier!

Part 3: Mixing the Slaw

Now comes the easy part! Pour the dressing over the veggie mixture and toss it all together. I don’t usually use all the dressing because if you want more you can add it, but it is harder to take it off again.

I just poured the dressing on, and tossed it all together! Mission complete!

Now, season with salt and pepper to taste and garnish with Thai basil and lime slices and enjoy!

My one suggestion is that if you are making this for the Fourth, or any late night party, you can make the dressing in the morning and cut the veggies and toss it closer about an hour or so before serving. You can even just toss it right before you serve it, just don’t do it more than an hour ahead or it’s just not going to be as crispy as you want it to be.

I had a few friends come over right as I finished the slaw and they proceded to steal it from me and pretend they brought it to the party themselves. (LOL) My mom was very impressed!

That’s what I did. I made the dressing and then took a nice nap with Mowgli. My mom has made me take a nap every year on the Fourth of July because she is worried I won’t make it until fireworks. I mean to be honest, she used to force me to take a nap. Now I do it all by myself because being awake is hard!

Mowgli and I were exhausted after our hard work… and my mom snuck in and took a picture of us… MOOOOM!!!!

I hope you enjoyed my blog. Look for more to come!!

<3,

Zoey and Mowgli

P.S. from Mom: Funnily enough, getting Zoey to nap when she was younger was not so easy, and she tended to nap at all the wrong times, like, say, in the middle of eating dinner. In general, nowadays, she’s totally mastered the day nap and my task is to try to wake her up, usually to clean her room or get the table ready for dinner. Just wanted to clear that up.

Out of the Fire and into the Fryer: Fried Pickle Chips

Tags

cat, cooking, deep fried, easy, frying, fun, girls, Hairless cat, MN State Fair, oil, pickle chips, pickles, recipes, seventeen, shpinx, teen

Hi everyone,

Here we go on my very first ever blog post!!!

I decided to make fried pickle chips for my first recipe. This was my choice mostly because I had all the ingredients the day I spontaneously decided to start a blog, and because they are DELICIOUS!! I first tried pickle chips at the State Fair (it’s a huge deal in MN) and I fell in love. I tried to recreate them on the grill but … no. So when my parents recently bought me a FryDaddy as a fun gift I couldn’t wait to try them!

This recipe is really for a super great beer batter I found, so you can totally use it for fish or any other thing you want to put in your fryer. Here is the link for the original recipe I used http://allrecipes.com/recipe/beer-batter/

Ingredients for the batter

1 c all-purpose flour

1 egg, beaten

1 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

1 1/2 c beer (or a 12 oz bottle)

Ingredients for frying

Pickles

A few cups of flour (enough to lightly coat the pickles)

Enough oil to fill your fryer (read directions for your own fryer carefully!)

Part 1: Making the batter

It’s a good idea to set out all of your ingredients to make sure you aren’t missing anything

The recipe for the beer batter is pretty much a no brainer you just combine the flour, egg, garlic, and pepper. One tip to start off is that I used a bowl with a cover because I was not frying until later in the day and I wanted to store the batter easily. It worked quite well.

Add all the ingredients to the bowl

Next, stir in the beer. The first time I made this, I got a little flustered when the beer got all foamy because I couldn’t see what was going on in the bowl, and I was worried I would over mix the batter. My tip for you is to just give it a few light stirs with a whisk after pouring in the beer, and then just wait until the foam goes down. Seems simple saying it, but when the foam started going the first time I wasn’t sure what to do.

Stir in the beer

Once all of the foaming is done, just use a whisk and stir it gently to get rid of all of the clumps and make sure the batter is fully mixed.

Make sure the batter is well combined but try not to over mix

After that, I popped the lid on and spent 45 minutes finding a spot in the fridge big enough for the bowl, LOL. Once the batter was in the fridge, I spent the rest of the day making Mowgli a new sweater, while I waited for my friends to come over and help me fry!

Even though it is summer, Mowgli still loves to keep warm in his new 2 ply cashmere sweater!

Part 2: Frying your pickles!

Now we get to the fun part. I invited some friends over to help me with this step, and it ended up being a really fun party activity. Just a quick warning though, this is not a good activity for young kids. It can be a fun family venture but, maybe have your young ones sit this one out. The hot oil can be very dangerous if you are not careful. So, read the directions carefully on your fryer! Additionally, depending on your age, have a parent help with initial set up to avoid any unnecessary accidents. Overall, just be careful, and have fun, just don’t get rowdy around the hot oil or anything 🙂

I threw a little party on my rooftop patio and the pickle chips were a huge hit!

So now that I have given my public service announcement about safety, we can get to the good stuff!

OK, quick side note. I made a huge mistake by giving Mowgli some catnip directly before I started frying pickles. I thought it would be fun to see him high; unfortunately, he went insane, jumping everywhere and biting my feet. It was kind of cute; however, I couldn’t have him going crazy around the hot oil! So I had to close him in the bathroom 😦 poor thing I could hear his forlorn meowing from the kitchen.  Better than him getting a 3rd degree burn though.

Mowgli did not enjoy his exile into the bathroom

Now ACTUALLY to the frying part, LOL. You have been waiting long enough!

So the very first step when frying is to get everything set up in an orderly manner. You don’t want to have to be reaching over the hot oil or accidentally touching the side of the  fryer. You are going to need, set in this order, a bowl of pickle chips, a paper towel  (to dry the brine off the pickles), a shallow, wide bowl of flour, the bowl of fry  batter, the fryer (depending on how big yours is you may have to modify the fryer placement), and finally, a plate covered in paper towels to put your final product on! Also, don’t forget a slotted spoon to move the pickles in and out of the hot oil.

One more quick thing, after I took the batter out of the fridge, it had separated a bit. If this happens to you. Don’t fret, just use a spoon to stir it a bit until it has recombined and you are good to go.

I had to place my fryer back a little bit because the cord was very short

Now that everything is prepped, let’s get frying (for real this time!)

First step: using the paper towel, lightly dry the brine off of the pickles. This will help the batter stick better.

Lightly press the pickle against a paper towel to remove excess brine

Next, place the pickle in the bowl of flour, and get a light  coating of flour all around the pickle. I used a shallow, wide bowl because it minimizes waste, and because less flour touches the pickle and gets sticky.

flour both sides of the pickle

Third, dip the floured pickle in the batter. In the pictures I use a spoon for this step; however, as I went along, I found that just using your fingers to dip it in the batter works just as well if not better. It all depends on how messy you are willing to get 🙂

Dip the pickle in batter

After the pickle is battered, place it on your slotted spoon and gently ease it into the oil. DO NOT just drop it in!!!  If you just drop it, the oil will splash out and can get on you and burn you.

Gently ease the pickle into the oil to avoid splash back

You are almost there! Now, just keep stirring the pickles in the fryer. When they are golden brown, take them out and place them on the plate covered with a towel. The paper towel will help soak up  any excess grease so the chips are crispy and not soggy from sitting in their own oil.

When they are golden brown, remove the pickle chips

Finally, just keep doing it over and over until you are satisfied with the amount of pickle chips you have, or the batter runs out. One final tip, if you know you will not be using all of the batter, and only plan to make a small batch, just use a portion of the batter. Just pour some into a different bowl for the frying time and keep the rest covered in the fridge so you can do more frying later.

Make sure to let them cool a little before you dig in!

Like I said, I’m sure this batter would be great on fish, and I know for a fact it is great on cheese curds! 🙂

Thank you for reading my blog, and I hope you enjoyed it!

<3,

Zoey and Mowgli

Mowgli and I hope you enjoyed your pickle chips as much as we did!

P.S. My mom wanted me to add the Rod’s Cream Ale from Public House Brewing Company located in St. James, MO (that I used in the batter) is great to drink too!

Welcome!

Tags

baking, cooking, easy, fun, girls, Hairless cat, recipes, seventeen, teen

Hi all,

I am a seventeen year-old girl living and cooking in a downtown St. Paul condo. I was recently put in charge of my sister’s hairless cat, Mowgli, while she studies in Ireland so I thought I would have a little fun.

My blog will be full of fun, easy recipes that I create throughout the summer. I will also include some stories about living with a Sphinx cat; an idea that I am still a little skeptical about 🙂

I hope you enjoy my blog, but remember I’m just a teenager having fun in the kitchen so don’t hate.

Now I’m off to cook. Standby for my next post 🙂 

<3,

Zoey and Mowgli

P.S. My mom was very insistent that I make a note to the reader that Mowgli is a lot cuter in person and just not very photogenic (LOL)