Canning - Do you want to do a guest post?

Hello, folks.  Canning is the section after the (frightening) vegetables section in the cook book.  When I set out on this cooking adventure, I intended to give everything a try and to not try to pick the best or worst looking recipes.  That said, canning is a section I am not particularly interested in.  A great majority of the recipes in the section is for different kinds of pickles.  There are a few for jams or even soup too.  I don't particularly want to to make a large recipe of something we are unlikely to ever eat.  I'll eat a pile of carrot ring, but Nine Day Chunk Pickles would sit in our pantry for rather longer than nine years though.  We also don't have any canning materials, though it looks like some of the recipes don't require all of the canning paraphernalia.

So all that said, I would hate to skip the section completely.  If anybody would be interested in doing a guest post, I'd be happy to scan the whole section and let you pick a recipe to make and write up.  If you wanted to scale down a recipe, that would certainly be fine.  A few pictures and your thoughts would be great.  If you're interested, let me know.

Vegetables - Carrot Ring and Creamed Peas

Vegetables.  I like vegetables... mostly.  Cauliflower, rutabegas, and raddishes, I can do without.  But generally, vegetables are great.  One of my favorite things to do here in St. Paul is to go to the farmers' market in Lowertown on the weekends.  Toward the end of summer and early fall, tables are heaped with peppers, squash, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, greens, and so much more.  One of the things that make it so great too is that it seems like everybody is smiling.  How could one not be happy when surrounded by so much great produce and delicious food is on everybody's mind?  Oh farmers' market.  I will miss you through the winter months.

So I was looking forward to the vegetables section of the cook book.  After a run of mediocre to anxiety-producing dishes, we were due for something good.  How wrong I was.  I can say definitively that we hit a frightening new low this time around.  See the face below?  It is not one of joy and merriment, celebrating a culinary delight.

How could someone do that to such nice innocent vegetables?

Sarah looked at the Vegetables section before I did and was drawn to the first recipe.  Carrots, salt, pepper, onion, egg, milk.  We had all these things on hand and it was the first recipe.  Of course we would make a carrot ring.  Why not?  Unfortunately, I didn't look very closely at the recipe, but saw that the ring could be filled with creamed peas.  Luckily for us, there was a recipe for creamed peas right below the carrot ring.  Perfect!  I love creamed peas.  The devil is in the details though, and these weren't pleasant details.

Aaron and Sarah's 4th Annual Pie-Off!

A few years ago, Sarah and hit upon the best unimportant idea that has been thought up in Minnesota in at least twenty years.  We would make pie, invite friends to make pies, and then have a pie "contest" necessitating that we eat lots of pie.  We'd have silly categories that wouldn't remotely be like "best of show".  Essentially, the idea was sanctioned gluttony.  It went over well with perhaps eight pies the first year and all in attendance agreeing that we need to do it again.

So do it again we did, and we've continued doing it again for three more years.  This year's pie-off had sixteen pies and probably 25-ish people in attendance.  Our categories were:  "Baby it's cold outside," "What's in there?," "First date," and "Don't stop 'til you get enough."  The format is easy enough to understand.  Walk around, visit with friends while stuffing your face, and then voting on which pies best fit the categories.

Below are pictures of the pies that were brought to this year's Pie-Off.

My sister's pie.  Well done, Molly.

One of my two pies.  This is out of the cook book, and a recipe I reviewed earlier.

Sarah's pie.  I wasn't upset that there was a little left to bring home.

My second experimental pie.  Sarah came up with the idea for chai whipped cream.  Great idea!  Successful pie.

Jim's pie with probably the prettiest crust of the day.

The candy eyes on the top of this pie were a hit.  This was our friend Sean's son's pie.  Sadly, I don't remember what the filling was.

Anu's pie.  I was also happy to bring leftovers of this one home.  The chocolate layer on the crust made the pie.

Karin's sweet kids and her two nearly as sweet ice cream pies.

I feel like I may have missed a couple pie pictures.  I wish I could remember for sure.

And lastly, our winners.  They were:

Winner for "Baby, it's cold outside" was Melia's cheeseburger pie.  Sriracha was great with this.

Winner for "Whats in there?" was Sean's daughter Emmie's piecaken.  Yes, there's a pie inside that cake.

Winner for "Don't stop 'til you get enough" was Eliza's sweet potato pie.  Delicious!

Unfortunately, I must not have gotten a picture of Ed's boosey, and fantastic pecan pie.  He won in the "First date" category.  If anybody has a picture of his pie, feel free to send it to me 'cause I'd like to put it up here.

Should have taken more pictures.  Oh well.  Here are some of our not-quite-stuffed-yet friends.

I accidentally took a video instead of some pictures.  It's a little random, but why not let you see.

Lastly, what was probably the cutest moment of the afternoon was Thomas making a friend.

Awwwww

Ultimately the real winners were all of us 'cause we got the opportunity to eat so many wonderful pies.  A big thank you to everyone who attended, and we're looking forward to next year!