Showing posts with label Blue Moon Treats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blue Moon Treats. Show all posts
I was pretty shaken up yesterday after my fall. I am always so careful and I really came down with a thud. I injured my left shoulder, which is the one which was injured in my car accident 20 plus years ago now.
I also hurt my left knee I can really feel it today! Anyways, my husband decided to treat me to a takeaway for supper. Five guys just opened up again for delivery so we had a Baby Cheeseburger and Fries delivered for each of us. It was a real treat!
(with just the cheese and caramelise onion)
Their servings of fries are HUGE. Ginormous even. Needless to say, we barely ate half of them, and I only managed 2/3 of my burger.
I hate waste however . . . especially when you are paying a premium price for things.
So I popped the leftover fries into a plastic bag and then into the refrigerator. I had a think about what to do with them.
I am quite fond of eating cold fries for breakfast and pizza too (try not to judge me.) I didn't want to hog these beauties all to myself however. That seemed kind of selfish and once again it was far more than one person should or could eat.
And so I did the next best thing. I recreated them, largely inspired by a recipe I found on Family Fresh Meals for Copycat In N Out Animal Fries.
Now I have nver been to In N Out. I am assuming it is a hamburger joint. I cannot compare these to the originals, but I can tell you this version I made was MIGHTY delicious!
And the absolutely best repurposing of leftover french fries. I love the Five Guys chips. They have the skin still on them and I love fries with skin still on them!
I don't do fake cheese. I used sliced strong cheddar cheese. All the cheddar over here is white unless you buy specifically dyed cheddar.
I try not to do dyed cheese either if I can help it. So strong cheddar, and a good one at that, was melted on top of the hot, reheated fries.
My caramelised onions turned out perfect. Know what my secret was? I forgot about them and they had just started to catch in a few places.
I swooped in with a bit of water and save the day and they ended up being the best caramelised onions I ever made!
So maybe that is the secret to great caramelised onions. Let them start to catch and then just before they burn, douse them with a bit of water.
It will evaporate right away and you will have beautifully coloured, beautifully flavoured, perfectly caramelised onions!
These were sprinkled over the melted cheese . . . yum . . . yum . . . yum!
The final touch was the fry sauce. I thought it was very much like the copycat sauce that you put on make at home Big Macs. Mayo, relish and ketchup, or . . . actually rather like a Thousand Island dressing.
In any case it was really good drizzled on top. The perfect combination of sweet and tart and spicy!
I can promise you I absolutely DID share them with mu husband! Would I lie to you?
Copycat Animal Fries
Yield: 2
I found myself with a rather lot of leftover french fries after having treated ourselves to takeaway from Five Guys. Not being one to waste anything. I created this with them the day afterwards. Talk about delicious!
Ingredients:
For the fries and caramelised onions:
- 1/2 pound of leftover cooked french fries
- 1 small onion, peeled and chopped
- 1 tsp butter
- pinch brown sugar
- pinch fine sea salt
- 1 TBS water, if needed
- 2 slices of sharp cheddar cheese
For the fry sauce:
- 1 TBS full fat mayonnaise
- 1/2 TBS tomato ketchup
- 1 tsp sweet pickle relish
- 1/8 tsp white vinegar
- 1/8 tsp sugar
Instructions:
- First make the caramelised onions. Melt the butter in the skillet over low heat. Once it has melted and has begun to foam slightly add the chopped onions. Sprinkle with the brown sugar and salt. Cook slowly, stirring occasionally until they are lightly caramelised. If they start to stick add the water. It will take between 10 and 15 minutes to achieve perfection. Keep warm.
- Heat your oven to 200*C/400*F/ gas mark 6. Put your leftover chips into a baking dish and bang them into the oven. Let them heat for about 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and top with the two slices of cheddar cheese. Return them to the oven to melt the cheese.
- While the cheese is melting whisk together all of the sauce ingredients until smooth.
- Remove the fries from the oven and scatter the caramelised onions over top. Drizzle with the fry sauce and serve immediaely. Delicious!
If you don't have any leftover french fries to use, just cook half a 4 serving sized bag of frozen french fries according to the package directions and then add the cheese, onions and sauce. You are sure to love these!
Thanks so much for visiting! Do come again!
I have always been a huge fan of salty and sweet combinations. Chocolate covered potato chips? Yes I do! Chocolate dipped Pretzels? Count me in! Sweet and salty anything and I am all over it. That combination is truly is a weakness of mine
I saw this recipe the other day on Pinterest. The recipe comes from Tastemade UK. I have adapted it to North American Ingredients so my North American friends and family can enjoy it as well.
It might well be one of the ugliest pies you have ever seen . . . if not THE ugliest!
Even a coat of icing sugar doesn't pretty it up . . .
There are not too many cakes and sweet bakes that don't look better with a dusting of icing sugar. This is the exception. It is still downright ugly.
But boy oh boy, what it lacks in looks it more than makes up for in taste!
The crust is a mix of crushed ritz crackers, dessicated coconut, melted butter and demerara sugar. I believe that is the same as Turbinado sugar in the US. Its like a granulated brown sugar, or granulated coffee sugar.
You press that into the bottom of a spring form pan . . . and then make the filling.
The filling is a rich caramel custard . . . you create it by melting butter together with heavy cream, two kinds of sugar, eggs and some dry milk powder. I am not sure what the purpose of the dry milk powder is . . .
You melt the butter, cream and sugars together and then temper the beaten eggs with some of that. That helps to prevent you from ending up with scrambled eggs.
By tempering I mean you whisk some of the hot mixture into the beaten egg, slowly, a bit at a time, which slowly brings up the temperature of the eggs without cooking them. That way you can add them into the whole mixture with no problems.
You still should strain the mixture as there are bound to be a few eggy bits that escape no matter what, and straining makes sure they don't end up in your pie.
You lay out another quantity of crackers in your pie. I overlapped them, but in hindsight I wouldn't do that again. I would lay them out in a single layer, even if it meant not using all of them.
The whole crackers are very difficult to cut through when you go to serve the pie and you know what? This is a pretty ugly pie anyways, so why not just crumble them into coarse crumbles. That would solve the whole cutting problem.
Todd enjoyed a slice of this still slightly warm with a dollop of clotted cream on top. He said it was very nice . . . but you know, I had to taste it myself just to be sure. And I would say it is more than very nice. Its dangerous.
Yield: makes 1 (9-inch) pie
Ritz Cracker Pie
If you are a fan of salty and sweet, you will quite simply love this pie. Its not very pretty but it more than makes up for that in taste!
ingredients:
For the crust:
- 125g ritz crackers (4 1/2 ounces)
- 75g melted butter (1/3 cup)
- 75g demerara sugar (6 1/2 TBS, turbinado)
- 50g dessicated coconut (2/3 cup)
For the filling:
- 150g butter (2/3 cup)
- 150ml double cream (2/3 cup)
- 150g soft light brown sugar (3/4 cup)
- 150g demerara sugar (3/4 cup turbinado)
- 2 TBS dry milk powder
- pinch of salt
- 3 large free range eggs
You will also need:
- a further 125g of ritz crackers, approximately (4 1/2 ounces)
instructions:
How to cook Ritz Cracker Pie
- Preheat the oven to 165*C/325*F/ gas mark 3. Butter and then baseline a 9 inch spring form pan. Butter the sides really well also. Set aside.
- Place the crackers for the crust in a food processor and blitz until fine. Add the melted butter, sugar and coconut. Blitz again to combine. Press into the bottom of the spring form pan.
- Place the butter, cream, sugars and milk powder into a saucepan. Cook, stirring, over moderate heat until the mixture comes to a boil and everything is well mixed together. Let cool slightly. Beat the eggs together and then temper them with a bit of the caramel mixture. Whisk this mixture back into the caramel, then pour the whole thing through a sieve, discarding any solids and set aside.
- Arrange the remaining crackers in the crust in a decorative manner. Pour the caramel custard over top and place the pan on a baking sheet. Bake in the preheated oven for 45 minutes until golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely before cutting. Yummo!
This is not for anyone who is on a diet, or trying to avoid sugar or fat. Its loaded with all of that and salt too from the crackers. That makes this a once in a blue moon, if not lifetime, treat!
Up Tomorrow: Perfect Pot Roast for Two
Tim Hortons is a bit of a Canadian Institution. It is a coffee/doughnut shop that feels like a second home to many Canadians. I worked there for a time prior to moving over here to the UK.
When I worked there, they would have a baker come in every night and he would work from 10:00 pm until about 6 in the morning baking cakes, frying doughnuts, baking pies, etc.
When you went into work in the morning there would be trays and trays of the freshly finished goodies sitting and waiting to go out onto the shelves.
I understand that they don't have in-store bakers these days, and that all the goods are brought in baked and frozen, ready to thaw out and pop onto the shelves.
Its called progress, but I understand that their goodies are not as nice as they used to be, or so I have been told.
I can't help but think that in losing the personal touch, in favour of more profits, they have lost something very special . . . it is a common complaint today.
One of my favourite doughnuts that they sold was the "Dutchie." It was a square, sultana filled, yeast-lifted and sugar glazed doughnut.
You could also get them as donut holes. I understand that they no longer make them, and mores the pity. They were a real favourite of many people.
My daughter and I were talking one day and I was telling her that one of the things I missed from Canada was the Dutchie Doughnut, and she informed me that they no longer make them.
Can we please have a minute of silence here to mourn their loss?
Well, you know how that goes . . . when you can't get something you love any longer . . . it increases your craving for it.
For months now I have been craving a Dutchie Doughnut! Craving, craving, craving . . .
Today I decided to scratch that itch and make some from scratch. They were very simple to make.
I searched online and found a recipe for them on the Chatelaine Magazine page (another Canadian Institution), the difference being they called them Duchesse Doughnuts . . .
Duchesse . . . Dutchies . . . a rose by any other name. Any Canadian worth his salt knows these are Dutchies. Their recipe made 12. There is no way on earth I wanted to be tempted by a dozen Dutchies . . .
So I cut the recipe in half, with great success and made us a lovely half dozen puffed and glazed, raisin studded delights!
I also added a half teaspoon of cinnamon to the dough because if my memory serves me well, they had just a hint of cinnamon flavour, but that could just be my rose coloured glasses . . .
Yield: 6
Canadian Dutchies
These sultana studded glazed Doughnuts are a bit of a Canadian Institution! Not as hard to make as you might think. You can easily double and make more.
Ingredients
- 75g of sultana raisins (1/2 cup)
- 120ml milk (1/2 cup)
- 4g of quick rise yeast (1 1/4 tsp)
- 2 TBS granulated sugar
- 30g butter, melted (2 TBS)
- 1 small free range egg, beaten (or 1/2 a large one)
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 175g of bread flour (1 1/4 cups)
- Canola oil for frying
For the glaze:
- 130g icing sugar, sifted
- 2 TBS water, or as needed to make a thin smooth glaze
Instructions
- Put the sultanas into a measuring cup and cover with 1/2 cup boiling water. Let stand for 10 minutes, then drain very well.
- Heat the milk in the microwave for 30 seconds, until warm. Pour into the bowl of a stand mixer. Add the yeast and stir. Let sit for 10 minutes. Beat in the well drained raisins, sugar, melted butter, egg and salt. Add the flour and beat on medum high with the dough hook on the stand mixer for 5 to 8 minutes, or until the dough forms a ball and pulls away cleanly from the sides and bottom of the bowl. (You may need to add a bit more flour. I did.)
- Scrap into a lightly oiled bowl. Oil the top and cover with a damp tea towel. Leave to rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1 hour.
- Line a large baking sheet with some buttered foil. Pat or roll the dough out into a rectangle which is roughly 1/2 inch thick. Cut into six equal sized pieces and place each on the prepare foil. Cover lightly with the damp tea towel again and leave in a warm place to rise until double, a further 45 minutes.
- Pour cooking oil into a large pot to the depth of one inch. Clip on a deep frying thermometer. Heat the oil over medium heat until the temperature reaches 180*C/ 350*F. Adjust the heat as required during cooking to maintain this temperature.
- Add the doughnuts to the hot oil, 2 at a time, flipping them over halfway through the cook time, until golden brown on both sides, about 3 to 4 minutes in total. Drain on paper towels.
- Place a wire rack over a piece of parchment paper or paper kitchen toweling. whisk together the icing sugar and water until smooth. Dip each doughnut one at a time, turning the to coat them on all sides, and allowing any excess to drip away. Place onto the wire rack and let stand until the glaze is firm. The last one of two you may need to use your fingers to make sure the glaze coats them completely. Not a problem if you don't mind sticky fingers, and I don't.
Oh boy am I ever glad I only made six of these! They are indeed very dangerous to have around. I think I am going to have to lock up the extra four! They were very easy to make and tasted every bit as good as my memory of them was! (Just make sure your oil is hot and you keep an eye on it so that it doesn't cool down too much when you add the doughnuts to it.) Today you can call me a very happy Canadian Ex-pat, with a lovely satisfied grin on my face. Nom Nom!
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