Thanksgiving: The Failures

Before I write about the Thanksgiving dishes that turned out well, I will give a little nod to my not-so-successful attempts. I was tasked with bringing side dishes and dessert for Thanksgiving, so I planned a couple things to try out. The first was so bad that I tossed it out immediately. We shall never speak of it again after this. UGH it was gross. The second dish was not terrible -- a gluten-free apple pie, adapted from my grandmother's recipe. I couldn't taste it beforehand (I could hardly serve a pie with a wedge already cut out, could I?) and I was dismayed by the taste and texture after it was served. Other people at the table said it was great, but I think they were being polite :) Then again, the original recipe is oh so good that anything would pale by comparison.

First was a roasted red pepper dipping sauce. L and I like to go to a tapas restaurant where they serve baked dates wrapped in bacon with this dipping sauce. We asked our waiter about the ingredients, and he said cream, red peppers, and Grand Marnier. Since we were already planning to make the dates (more on that later!), I decided to give the red pepper sauce a go.

I roasted some beautiful red bell peppers in the oven...

...added them to the blender, along with cream...

...and more cream...

...and Grand Marnier...

 

...and moved the whole mess into a saucepan on the stove over low heat, where I added tiny amounts of salt and pepper. L and I both thought it tasted under-seasoned, so we added cinnamon, nutmeg, and more salt and pepper. Then L added more salt. Then he asked me to add sugar, which I did. By this point it tasted vile. It was not salvageable. We poured it down the sink and swilled down milk to mask the disgusting aftertaste. 

Sigh.

At least I have a nice bottle of Grand Marnier. 

Next: apple pie. This is my maternal grandmother's recipe for both crust and filling. I'm not going to share them until I've mastered the transition to gluten free (because this was NOT mastery). I'm not supposed to eat cane sugar products within 6 hours of eating grains, so I removed the cane sugar (white and brown) from the filling and replaced it with maple sugar. The filling tasted good, but not as good as I'd like. I may have to cheat on that in the future. The crust was gritty and flavorless by comparison to the original. But I'll share some photos of the process, because that part is always fun :)

First of all, you have to understand that pie baking is like religion in the American side of my family. We take it very, very seriously. A few years ago my German father learned to bake pies and nearly caused a family war over Christmas because he proclaimed that he'd "improved" the recipe by deciding not to poke holes in the crust. Yes, the issue of poking holes in the crust is very contentious around these parts. My family falls firmly into two pie-categories: orthodox and reform. Although I am messing around with this recipe to make it gluten free, I am firmly in the orthodox camp. 

First I ground up flour based on Jeanne's Gluten Free Flour Mix, with flax/hot water subbed in for xantham gum. I mixed it with salt and sugar in the pie dish and set it aside.

  

Then I moved over to making the filling: granny smith apples, maple sugar, flour, and cinnamon. 

I mixed that up thoroughly and returned to the crust. Rather than using butter, this crust utilizes a mixture of vegetable oil and milk. You combine them with a fork....

... and pour the mixture over the dry ingredients. Gently stir with a fork -- I go around the dish pulling flour from the outside edges into the center, then switch to mixing with my hands. The key is not to overhandle the dough or it will become unuseable.

 

After rolling the dough into a ball, I separated out 1/3 and set it aside between two large pieces of waxed paper. The remaining 2/3 of dough were pressed into the pie pan to form a shell. Then I poured the apple filling into the shell. Finally, I rolled out the crust and removed the top piece of waxed paper...

 

...and flipped the crust onto the pie, before carefully peeling off the other layer of waxed papper. I tucked in the edges and pinched off extra dough and poked a few holes in the top for ventilation.

Voila.