Bacon v. Pie

Cake is Tax-Free

baconvpie@gmail.com (Bacon v. Pie) — Thu, 09 May 2013 04:46:00 +0000

Another tax season done, and another pair of cakes to celebrate the occasion. I wanted to duplicate and elaborate over last year's delicious cakes offerings, and looked to increase the complexity of both taste and presentation.

Cake the First: Adding Machine
Devil's Food Stout Cake with Raspberry Italian Meringue Buttercream Filing

The underlying theme for both cakes this year was "cook with what you like to drink." For the first cake, I paired Ninkasi Oatis with a devil's food cake.

While researching Italian meringue recipes online, a common fix to any meringue-whipping troubles was to "just keep whipping" and the filing should straighten itself out. Lies. I eventually just gave up, mixed in a bunch of raspberries and smeared it all over the cake.

The YouTube "how-to" videos about draping fondant over an oblong cake did prove to be useful though, and my food pen brought my cake vision to life.

Will not do math

Cake the Second: Master Tax Guide
Ginger Rum Cake with Citrus Curd Filing and Candied Citrus Peel and Candied Habanero

The second cake was a bit more complicated as it included components that I hadn't ever attempted before.

I made the citrus curd filing a couple days ahead just in case I screwed it up, proceeded to eat most of it on waffles, then made a second batch so that I'd have enough.

A small part of me wanted to shape the rectangle into a tax guide just so I could snack on the scraps.

While I don't see Geordi LaForge selling this book to kids any time soon, tax accountants got a kick out of it.

Maybe it was just the fully functioning flask of rum that I brought to work...

I think the best compliment I got was when I showed the adding machine cake to a non-accountant, she thought I was weird for just randomly having a picture of an adding machine on my phone. It's not weird, it's scrumptious.

--Isaac.

Playing With Our Food

baconvpie@gmail.com (Bacon v. Pie) — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 06:23:00 +0000

Can't get enough bacon and/or pie? Us neither. Here is the next best thing to get your fix after you have cooked the last bacon strip and sliced the last piece of pie:

Bacon v. Pie: The Game!

Collect ingredients and create delectable bacon and pie dishes to persuade the town to cast their support for either bacon or pie!

Beta testing is currently underway, and bacon has been the big winner so far.

So far...

--Isaac.

Sometimes Cake Happens

baconvpie@gmail.com (Bacon v. Pie) — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 23:55:00 +0000

I don't always bake a cake, but when I do, it is probably Mary's birthday and it is absolutely a banana cake. And delicioso.

I could claim that I like baking pies better because I don't get frosting all over me up to my elbow trying to frost the damn cake. But that wouldn't hold much merit as I am usually covered in flour when I finally get that pie in the oven.

I wanted to do a little different tweak on the 2013 edition of the banana birthday cake. Since I had a ton of bananas laying around even after pulverizing enough for the recipe and for quality control, I thought about trying to incorporate the fresh fruit for decoration and to kick up the banana-ness of the baked good.

I first tried to brulee some banana slices with the idea of decoratively places them around the cake top. Not good. I just ended up cooking the banana with the blowtorch and the burnt sugar didn't want to stay on the slices.

Ok, new plan: caramelized banana compote to be used as a filing.

Winner. The layer of banana filling was a perfect accompaniment in between the two cake layers in place of the standard inside layer of cream cheese frosting.

The matching purple sprinkles and purple plate seal the deal.

--Isaac.

Smokin'

baconvpie@gmail.com (Bacon v. Pie) — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 06:20:00 +0000

The Traeger has been working overtime so far in 2013. I think some of the local livestock farmers are going to move their farms to the park down the block just to save on transportation costs from their pastures to my kitchen.

Out of all the awesomeness that has found its way onto the grill grates, the pork ribs on Super Bowl Sunday have been the clear winner so far.

Three hours in

I used the "3-2-1" method that all the BBQ professionals supposedly commonly use in competitions: Three hours on the grill at 180 degrees, two hours wrapped in foil at 225 degrees, then finished for one long final agonizing hour sauced straight back on the grill. I used a butter knife to cut up the ribs for serving when a dull, plastic spork would have likely been plenty. This is the way ribs were meant to be eaten.

I've tried pork shoulder a couple times to varying success, once for some carintas action and once for pulled pork. The recipe I am trying to follow is for a full bone-in pork shoulder, and I've been using small cuts of boneless shoulder, so I may just have to go all out one of these days.

Since the start of ~~fun times~~ tax season, I've haven't been able to get in much extended smoking time, and have just stuck with sub-60 minute meals.

Chicken and Veg

Brats and Onions

Delicious and Awesome.

--Isaac.

National Pie Day II

baconvpie@gmail.com (Bacon v. Pie) — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 07:13:00 +0000

I found myself in a familiar situation this year. The Niners in the NFC Championship, my pie in local pie contest on National Pie Day (observed). Last year, all teams lost, so I was hoping that at least one of us would bring home the gold this year.

A couple days before my self imposed Christmas break (cashing in a bunch of PTO before losing it), I saw that the second annual pie contest was a go. At the time, I was stuck in the middle of a fun tax accounting class at PDX and thus I spent the rest of the afternoon ~~listening intently to the speaker~~ sketching pie presentation ideas.

I was present for the judging over the summer, and I noticed that there is a lot of room in the pie contest world for grandiose, over the top presentations. Why should birthday and wedding cakes get all of the decoration fun anyways?

My day dreaming during class ultimately led to a fantastic pie-vision: a chocolate silk pie topped with seafoam meringue, inside of a rum-poached spiced pear pie, topped with a pirate ship battling a kraken: "The Pie-rate and The Octo-pie".

I'd been mulling the idea of doing a pie within a pie for a while, kind of like how you can get a pizza that is half pepperoni and half veggie split down the middle. I thought a circular pie sitting in the middle would be a little more impressive that just a pie divided in two. During some internet browsing for pie crust decoration ideas, I stumbled across some pictures of a pirate ship made out of pie crust, and knew that was a winner.

Since pirate ships cruised around the ocean, I wanted the center pie to play off of that imagery, and my first thought was chocolate filing with seafoam frosting. The pie surrounding my ocean-scape therefore needed to represent the land, so I considered a fruit filling and crumble topping to represent the land and sand. I settled on a spiced pear filling because I felt that it would pair (pun!) with the chocolate, and I could booze the pears up with some black spiced rum.

The plan was set, now I just needed to practice. I first made mini pear and chocolate silk pies separately just to test the recipes in a simple manner. They turned out nice, so I knew I was on to something good:

Next, I did a mock-up of the pie within a pie concept. Since the pear portion was going to be baked in the crust, I made the outer edge first, and used a ramekin in the middle to hold the void where there chocolate silk was going to be poured.

Then, the day before the contest, I made some pirate ship molds out of foil mini loaf pans and baked up pirate ships made from pie crust. I think every pie needs one now. I also made my kraken the night before out of marzipan.

I think the final product really represented my initial inspiration:

While the pie didn't win, it sure was a show-stopper when I walked into the pie shop on the day of the contest with a pie topped with a frickin' pirate ship battling a frickin' kraken. Oh, you made a nice lattice weave on your pie? That's nice. I made a pirate ship. Fighting a kraken. I'd like to think that I raised the bar for pie presentation. Y'all been served.

Oh. And Niners. Super Bowl. Let's get it!

--Isaac.

2012 Holiday Season Part 2: Christmas

baconvpie@gmail.com (Bacon v. Pie) — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 03:43:00 +0000

Much like our Thanksgivings, our Christmases turned into a marathon. I'm pretty sure I was 80% Christmas cookies by the end of it. The other 20% was likely rum. And while we didn't match Vince Vaughn's "Four Christmases" in quantity, we far surpassed him in quality (dude needs an "off" switch).

Christmas The First:

We started in St. Helen's with Mary's immediate family. I led off with a very solid apple pie with a pecan crumble topping:

The pie came in handy when I needed to drown out my sorrows of having to watch the Niners get embarrassed on national TV by the Seahawks. (Guess it has turned out alright now though as the Niners are in the Super Bowl!)

Christmas The Second:

The festive tour continued the next day with Mary's extended family. The proteins were covered by the hosts, so I roasted some Traeger vegetables. I think one of everything from the produce section is represented below:

And an excellent Emma Torte made an appearance. So that was nice.

Christmas The Third:

Day three of three was an extended stay at my family, first with the immediate peeps, and then with the extended. The salmon I smoked and took to my parents on Thanksgiving got invited back for Christmas. But since we inhaled it in record time and it ceased to be many weeks prior, I couldn't invite it back and so had to get bring a new smoked salmon. A younger, hotter smoked salmon.

I'm pretty sure we plowed through it before the extended family arrived.

Another successful three month holiday marathon. Having a house the entire time helped, as did a stellar showing by the magical Traeger. Mostly the Traeger.

--Isaac.

Traeger!

baconvpie@gmail.com (Bacon v. Pie) — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 08:28:00 +0000

We have a new addition to the house: one super fantastic Traeger smoker. Behold the majesty!

The above Traeger has had quite the journey to get to my backyard. My friend Levi, the actual owner, used this Traeger to cook a couple of the Accounting Thanksgiving turkeys in past years. He didn't have room for the smoker in his apartment, so it was left at the house of our friend Jason for safekeeping and regular use. Levi left for China to pursue fame and fortune as an English teacher, then golf instructor, then CFO of a multimillion dollar worldwide pearl jewelry distributor. The plan was for the Traeger to exchange hands once a year during Accounting Thanksgiving. After two years, that finally happened, and now I am just waiting for concerned neighbors to ask why there is always smoke billowing from my backyard.

Be sure to check out all the epic Traeger creations here and on Instagram/Twitter by following @baconvpie all throughout the upcoming new year!

--Isaac.

2012 Holiday Season Part 1: Thanksgivings

baconvpie@gmail.com (Bacon v. Pie) — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 22:53:00 +0000

I think my oven has gone on strike. After three Thanksgivings within an eight day span, it is ready to throw in the towel.

Thanksgiving One: Accounting Thanksgiving

In college, my audit class didn't want to "do anything" for our last class before the Thanksgiving break, so we convinced our professor to let us host an Accounting Thanksgiving during out class time. We've kept it going every year since then (Fall 2006 was the first year), and this year I got the opportunity to host.

Best looking hand turkey ever

The main event was the beer-brined turkey, smoked on the Traeger grill. Without a doubt, one of the best turkeys I've ever had. I had the oven working overtime all morning and afternoon between my pumpkin and apple pies, dinner rolls, and a friends green bean casserole and dressing. The natural gas company owes me a thank you card this year.

Apple pie

Pumpkin pie

We had ten total guests, nine on this continent, and one Skyping in from China. Our little event has gone global.

Thanksgiving Two: Thanksgiving Prime

Five days later, Mary and I went over to my parents for Thanksgiving proper. I'm pretty sure I was still recovering from the previous festivities. I smoked a chuck of salmon on the Traeger (more of that to come!) and almost ate the whole thing before we left the house.

I made another apple pie too, accented with a touch of cardamon this time. Unfortunately, I did not get a picture as I was too busy eating brains and trying not to get shotgunned.

Thanksgiving Three: Bonus Thanksgiving

We capped the week off by hosting Mary's immediate family at our house. After running the Traeger through the first test with the smoked salmon, I went for it all with a full 17 pound turkey.

I tried to brine the turkey overnight in a plastic oven bag and since I didn't have a bucket large enough, I used a giant camping cooler. When I went to check on the brine in the morning, I found the brine in the cooler and the oven bag doing a great job of making sure that the turkey stayed dry. Wonderful. I glared at the hole in the corner of the bag, and hoped that it at least drained slowly enough to do some good overnight. Fortunatley, four hours of smoking in the Traeger will fix anything.

And pie.

I did not Traeger the pumpkin pie, but I can only infer that it would have tasted very acceptable.

--Isaac.

Legal Halloween

baconvpie@gmail.com (Bacon v. Pie) — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 05:43:00 +0000

Last year, Mary and I were still legally attached to our apartment. Emotionally, we had already moved into our house even though we were still over two weeks away from receiving the keys. Our solution was to sit on the porch with a blanket, a bowl of candy, and a flask of whiskey, and hopefully not look too sketchy. This year, we were able to sit inside where it was considerable warmer, and still drink whiskey.

Festive pumpkins

We hosted a Halloween Par-tay the weekend before Halloween proper. I tied it in with Pork Month by grilling up some baby back ribs for the first time. I glazed the ribs in a tomatillo-green chile BBQ sauce instead of the more typical ketchup/vinegar based BBQ sauce:

Garnished with cilantro and pineapple tomatillos

The accompanying meat offering was teryaki chicken wings:

Featuring homemade teryaki sauce

Gnawing meat off the bone is good Halloween/zombie food.

I've also heard zombies are big fans of desserts, especially pumpkin pie...

...and pumpkin cupcakes with pumpkin cream cheese frosting:

The Oregon State-University of Washington football game was that night as well. Can you guess which team Luigi is rooting for?

Interception

--Isaac.

Slow Food

baconvpie@gmail.com (Bacon v. Pie) — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 06:37:00 +0000

It is a strange thing to say that the easiest dinners I've made can take up to eight hours to prepare. I've made really good friends with my slow-cooker during my October pork celebrations, and am a little surprised the butcher down the street doesn't just automatically bring out a seven pound pork shoulder every time I walk in between October 1 and October 31. He tried to sell me a 11.5 pound chuck o' meat recently... and I almost did buy it...

Carnitas is a must when you are going to take the time to slow cook a pork shoulder. I paired the meaty goodness with some hand-pressed corn tortillas, but in true Zoolander/Hansel walk-off style, I had to duplicate and elaborate by adding in a salsa made with tomatoes and jalapenos from my backyard and garlic from my dad's garden.

The slow cooker was back in action a week later for some BBQ pulled pork:

Lastly, the customary pinnacle of pork month is the Halloween chili. Started this pot of goodness at 6am:

I was able to smell it from the driveway seven hours later when I returned home to let the oven repair guy in the house to fix the convention fan. He didn't once comment about how awesome it smelled much to my dismay. He must not have been a fan of chili, or happiness. I'm a fan of both.

--Isaac.
Twitter: @baconvpie
Instagram/Tumblr: baconvpie

Summer Grilling Reflections

baconvpie@gmail.com (Bacon v. Pie) — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 05:26:00 +0000

Despite what the calendar says what season it is, summer isn't over until the iPhone says so...

Gross

...and the iPhone is telling me to pack it in.

It is hard to imagine that this was a thing not too long ago:

Labor Dabor at its finest

When I first got my grill a couple years ago, the very first bit of advice was, "When you are grilling, always have a beer in hand."

I try to abide by that advice to this day:

Grilled chicken, grilled sweet potatoes, not grilled Ninkasi Radiant Ale

The second piece of grilling advice I received was related to the first: "Make sure you don't get too drunk, then pass out and leave the propane tank on all night." Possibly a tad more important than the first.

Every grocery trip this summer included the purchase of multiple ears of corn, because there is nothing better than grilled corn. I think most of my grilling was just to figure out what to pair with the corn. Turns out grilling protein works out real nice.

T-rex sized steak and grilled corn

One of the last grilled meals was a warm grilled salmon salad with grilled romaine lettuce. I had never grilled lettuce previously, and I think it will have to happen again sooner rather than later.

Salmon with grilled romaine and grilled corn salad

Fall is up next, which means bring on the soups, stews, chilies, and pies!

--Isaac

Season Transitions

baconvpie@gmail.com (Bacon v. Pie) — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 02:43:00 +0000

I used to dread September because it meant the good Oregon summer weather would sooner be replaced by rain, new classes starting, and homework. While September does still mean all my summer berries are long gone, the weather is still good enough for grilling, peaches and other stonefruits are available and on sale, and some serious fall holiday cooking is on the horizon, closer than I'd care to acknowledge (wasn't it just New Years Eve a couple weeks ago?).

Back in August, I was able to send off the berry pie season with a serious hurrah by participating in my second ever pie baking contest. The contest was on a Saturday afternoon, and I only found out about it two days prior on Thursday. Get some.

I wanted to go with a raspberry pie and mix in some marionberries because Oregonians love them some marionberries. Two nearby berry stands yielded the same result: no raspberries or marionberries. Saturday morning rolled around, literally house before the pie contest, and I was still sans berries. My last chance was at the Beaverton Farmer's Market. I managed to scavenge up what likely was the last two pints of marionberries in the whole city, and then silently cheered when I found a stand with a whole table full of raspberries.

Mantra

I raced home to make the pie, and if I could have started rolling crust out in the car while driving, I would have. Since details were vague on this pie contest, I chose to go with a foil pie tin instead of my normal deep dish ceramic pan, plus I just didn't have the proper volume of berries to fill a deep dish apparatus.

The final product turned out real nice. At first I wasn't planning on doing a braided crust, but the pie just looked unfinished without it, and it definitely set the pie apart from the other fruit and berry pies on display. The "Get Some" brought out of few laughs too.

Arriving at the contest, I knew that I was going to be a little out of my element as I was greeted by teepees and people slinging hula-hoops in hot pants. Good ole East Portland, staying weird to the point of obnoxiousness. Not the place for accountants, or even people who wear normal pants in public. Fortunately, a friend (both an accountant and normal pant wearer himself) showed up to lend his support and eat some pie. It was also 100 degrees that day, the hottest day in August. I was sweating just standing still in the shade. Pies also sweat in the heat, more commonly known as just melting. Needless to say, everyone's pie was very, very room temperature.

I didn't win, both teams played hard though. I very much enjoyed the free pie once the judging was over as I missed that portion during the last contest back in January. My vote for People's Choice went to a spicy pear pie spiked with some habeneros, and it ended up winning Judge's Choice, so even if I can't bake a winning pie (yet), my taste buds can pick one out.

It's football season. Go Niners!

--Isaac
The Twitters: @baconvpie
Instagram/Tumblr: baconvpie

Summer Desserts

baconvpie@gmail.com (Bacon v. Pie) — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 02:43:00 +0000

You know you're doing it right right when you have members of both sexes offering to leave their respective significant others for you just to get more of your pie. Get some.

On Independence Day this year, we discovered that we are in the eye of the firework storm. All of the surrounding neighborhoods dropped some serious cash for some pretty fantastic fireworks and all Mary and I had to do was walk down to the park on the corner and enjoy the show. Our only concern was the neighbors who were launching the fireworks directly over the power lines. The cops patrolling the area didn't seem to have any concerns though.

As raspberries hit their peak awesomeness in July, there is a direct correlation in the increase of raspberry pies crafted in July as well. The month's first raspberry pie was a test of my lattice work. It is much easier just to through a crust lid on top and cut some vents with a knife, but the lattice makes it look so much more prettier:

A couple weeks later, Mary and I got an invite to a friends BBQ birthday shindig, with a special request that I provide the birthday pie. Well, you don't have to ask me twice to bake a birthday pie. To supplement the pie, I also crafted the summer's first Emma Torte and some Kraken Rum spiked ice cream. I went with a standad top shell for the birthday pie, but with a little personalized flair:

The pre-baked work in progress is a little easier to visualize without the pie-goo:

I heard that the next morning, the raspberry pie filling from the leftover pie paired really nicely with some toast for breakfast. Pie for breakfast always starts the day off right.

--Isaac.

Stromboli Sans Pants

baconvpie@gmail.com (Bacon v. Pie) — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 06:04:00 +0000

Just going to cut straight to the point on this one: I made stromboli without pants.

Back in June, Mary hosted her sister's bridal shower, which segued into Mary hosting her sister's bachelorette party later that night, which then segued into Mary herding everyone back home from downtown Portland earlier than planned as the OLCC frowns upon people falling asleep in da clubs. But that's another story.

The next day was a recovery day, aka adult beverage marathon while watching Food Network shows we had DVR'd. One show, "The Best Thing I Ever Made", a creatively named spin off of the original show "The Best Thing I Ever Ate", is a recent favorite of ours. Chef Scott Conant is featured pretty regularly on the show and he happens to be one of our favorites mainly due to his impressively man-scaped beard. His featured dish was a stromboli - salami, cheese, basil and garlic rolled up in a simple pizza-like dough.

Aside from the the allure of the sandwich, what solidified this dish as one we would have to make immediately was that Chef Conant introduced his segment from his kitchen without wearing pants. Unanticipated sophomoric humor at its best. We were sold.

Luckily, I had some friends coming over for a birthday celebration, so I channeled my best Scott Conant, dropped trou, and rolled some stromboli. As much as they were all fans of the show, they were even bigger fans of the munchies.

To top it off, I even got the Scott Conant Pantsless Stromboli Seal of Approval.

Well played indeed.

--Isaac.

Strawberry Pie Time! (Again!)

baconvpie@gmail.com (Bacon v. Pie) — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 04:46:00 +0000

Once again, June has ushered in the beginning of Pie Season. While Summer has been acting like a high schooler on a Saturday morning refusing wake up before noon, the Oregon strawberries have been very productive in turning themselves into pie.

In preparation of Mary's Once-A-Year-Pie, aka my birthday strawberry pie, I woke up early to make sure that the berry stands didn't run out before I got there. I drove to the first berry stand, and apparently was a little too zealous as there was nobody to accept my cash in exchange for delicious berries.

Fortunately my back-up stand was open for business. Unfortunately, there were no berries, as I had once again beaten the berry delivery to the stand. However I was reassured that the berries were on their way with an ETA of 10-15 minutes.

Almost an hour later........

Well worth the wait.

When I initially showed up, there was only one other person milling about also waiting for the strawberries. By the time the shipment arrived, the crowd had grown to about 20. During the wait, I eyed my competition just in case it came down to the last flat and I needed to throw some 'bos to get my ~~drugs~~ strawberries. I was definitely the youngest and likely quickest one there, but the guy running the stand knew everyone else by their first name, so this had a chance to get awkward very quickly. Good thing there were plenty of berries for everyone, and an incident was averted.

I smartly worked the system this year and managed to throw a birthday celebration on one night (utilizing Mary's birthday pie) and then have family over the next night (utilizing my mom's birthday pie). I think I'll go for three pies next year.

Yuuup. Still better than any cake.

--Isaac.

Food Travels Part 2: The Left Coast

baconvpie@gmail.com (Bacon v. Pie) — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 04:58:00 +0000

After returning from Vegas, Mary and I had about three weeks to recover before venturing down south again to Los Angeles for a wedding.

We thought a perfect primer for those warm Malibu beaches would be to head to Lincoln City on Cinco de Mayo to participate in their annual Fish Taco Cook-Off.

While we weren't "official" judges of the competition the participant that we both voted for won 1st Overall and People's Choice. We know our fish tacos.

Since we had numerous family wedding related events scheduled throughout our short stay in Los Angeles, we knew that we didn't have the leisure of grandiose culinary experiences like we had in Vegas.

Our first stop was the Grill Em All food truck, winner of the first season of the Food Network's Great Food Truck Race.

Thanks to the Power of Social Networking, we limped our way through the awful LA traffic and descended upon the truck with great hunger. Our burgers were well worth the two hours on a plane followed by an hour and a half in the car, and contrary to Mary's nay-saying aunt, a burger with peanut butter, strawberry jam, siracha, and bacon is FANtastic.

They next morning we were surprised to discover we were hungry again, and thirsty...

Bloody Marys satisfy both needs fortunately. When you're on vacation, and you're eating brunch outside in 75 degree weather, it is easy to forget that not everyone around you in also on vacation. To them it is just a typical Friday, a "workday" even, and I'm "that guy" drinking an extra spicy and extra boozy Bloody Mary at 10am. Clearly those were glares of jealousy.

We had gone the savory route, and so now it was on to the sweets.

One of the judges on Food Network's "Cupcake Wars" is the founder/owner of Sprinkles cupcakes. Our thought was that if you are a judge at a baking contest and bill yourself as founding the "World's First Cupcake Bakery", you best be making some damn fine cupcakes.

At Sprinkles, you can either get the full experience of waiting in line, wondering what the people in front of you are doing that is taking so long, and then changing your mind umpteen times when you finally get up to the display case.

Alternatively, you can skip the line and engage in the future of cupcake delivery: the Cupcake ATM.

You scroll through the cupcake options, select your treat, pay via card, and an intricate conveyor belt systems deposits your cupcake into your waiting hands. It also provides entertainment for the people standing in line as they watch a stretch limo pull up alongside the curb (a no-parking area), and a family with lots of children jumps out to try to get everyone an express cupcake. Only in LA I guess.

From top left going clockwise, we settled on salted caramel, dark chocolate, chai, and pumpkin. The cakes themselves were just about as close as you can get to a perfectly baked cupcake. Very phenomenal. The only criticism I would have (and Mary agreed with me) is that the volume of frosting on top of the cakes was a little much. And we feel that as people who eat and enjoy cupcakes, we are qualified to make this assessment.

In LA: eat burgers, eat cupcakes, don't buy flowers from the lady going table to table at restaurants selling roses. She is actually selling drugs out of her car.

--Isaac.

Food Travels Part 1: Vegas

baconvpie@gmail.com (Bacon v. Pie) — Wed, 30 May 2012 04:13:00 +0000

Mary and I don't travel much, but when we do, we usually end up in some sort of food coma due to our sampling of the local fare.

After tax season, we needed a much deserved break from not only work, but from the rainy Northwest in general. We figured that our best option was the geographical opposite of Portland.... Las Vegas and all its majesty.

A few observations about Sin City:

The laws of physics do not apply to the Vegas Strip. On many occasions, we could see the sign of the hotel/casino we wanted to go to, and after 30 minutes of walking, we still had apparently not gotten any closer.
You only make the mistake of buying a 18 inch frozen beverage for $14 once before realizing you can buy an Icee for $2 at the Walgreens and then enhance it with a half a water bottle full of key lime rum you had stowed away in your luggage.
90 degree weather in April is an awesome concept that I wouldn't mind having more of.

We somehow pulled ourselves away from the poolside bloody marys long enough to indulge in a serious medley of desserts, and visit the world's largest chocolate fountain, and test whether or not the some celebrity chef restaurants lived up to their hype (Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill was beyond epic, Mario Balati's Otto was nothing spectacular).

Our favorite was the dessert burger from the Burger Bar in Mandalay Bay:

Your eyes are not deceiving you, that is indeed a glazed doughnut for a the bun, a nutella-based "patty", a mango gel as the "cheese" and some kiwi and strawberries to get your fruit serving in for the day. I think one of these per years would be just about right.

We had heard from many seasoned pros of the Vegas scene that no trip was complete without a buffet experience. We took a run at a champagne brunch buffet, and immediately scouted out the dessert selection. Needless to say, "Let's try it all" won out that day:

Top right going clockwise: Cheesecake, Tiramisu, Pecan Pie, Brownie.

Again, top right going clockwise: Carrot Cake, Chocolate Eclair, Chocolate filled bon-bon-esque thing with a cookie-type bottom (look, it was chocolate dusted with cocoa and a raspberry, so should it really matter what they called it?)

Mary and I agreed that the cheesecake was stupid delicious and the clear winner. I enjoyed the pecan pie (duh) and the chocolate truffle/bon-bon sphere, Mary liked the eclair. We agreed to disagree on the success brownie: Mary likes nuts, I do not like nuts (insert middle school style snickering here). The carrot cake and tiramisu were food and eaten as such, moving on.

We were in Vegas for 4 days, which was just the right amount of time to construct a nice culinary prologue for all the further trips down the road.Plus I don't think our stomachs (or livers) could have lasted too much longer.

--Isaac.

More Cakes. Less Taxes.

baconvpie@gmail.com (Bacon v. Pie) — Tue, 01 May 2012 05:37:00 +0000

Another tax season is in the bag. Tax Day proper got started off right: with a waffle from Portland's finest food cart, the Gaufre Gourmet:

It was a very special, and very welcome, hand delivery, further solidifying their awesomeness. Accounting needs more waffles.

To celebrate the end of extended cubicle dwelling, I had an inspiration to create some tax-themed cakes. I wanted to re-create tax forms, but with cake, thereby making them more enjoyable than regular tax forms, so I bought some food-safe decorating felt tip pens and went to town:

The first cake was a 1099-MISC almond cake with a chocolate ganache filling:

The second was a Form 4868 cardamom apple cake with a pistachio cream filing:

The cakes were a hit with my equally delirious coworkers. The almond chocolate cake was devoured much more rapidly, which was okay by me as I got to take home the leftover cardamom apple, my favorite between the two.

Hopefully this will be a nice jumpstart as we move into "Baking Season" aka the months of May through December.

--Isaac.

St. Patrick's Day

baconvpie@gmail.com (Bacon v. Pie) — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 07:00:00 +0000

Probably just the one post this month due to my tax season being filled with an extra dose of spite and malice, but it is a solid one, so get comfortable...

After high school, Mary thought it would be fun to leave the Left Coast (and me) and move to Rochester, NY (upstate New York) for college. A long distance relationship was difficult, but probably more so for our parents when they received the first few cell phone bills.

After five semesters of abusing unlimited night and weekend minutes, we hatched a brilliant lil' scheme to go study abroad together in Ireland. Mary's school had a program based in Dublin, mine did not, but with ~~a little~~ a lot of very creative persuasion, I convinced my study abroad office allow me to use Mary's Dublin program (suckaaas....).

Smart.

A lot happened in Dublin from a culinary standpoint. Mary and I were essentially forced into cooking for ourselves each night. We only had a hot plate, two electric burners, a microwave, and a mini fridge to share with three other people at our disposal, so we didn't/couldn't get too creative, but still had fun. Also, very importantly, we discovered the wonders of Spanish chorizo and sweet potatoes (and Haggis while visiting Scotland), so I owe Dublin a big high-five for that.

One culinary breakthrough that blew out collective minds was related to our notion of what breakfast consisted of. We have both been longtime fans of breakfast (really any meal that can weave bacon into it is good). After one fateful trip to London, no future breakfast is complete without beans. You might think we are crazy, as surely as we thought the Brits had lost it, but the plain can o' beans adds a sweet and saucy element to breakfast that fits in so well.

The full traditional Irish/English breakfast includes a combination of eggs, toast/other breakfast breads, beans, sauteed tomatoes and mushrooms, and rashers (cross between bacon and ham) or black/white pudding (blood sausage). We brought this breakfast feast back with us and make it on weekend mornings very regularly.

While everyone naturally associates Guinness with Ireland, the "local secret" we brought back was Smithwicks, a fantastic alternative to Guinness that is only available around St. Patrick's Day, and goes great with Rugby at 7am. Just be sure not to pronounce the "h" or the "w" as that is a giveaway that you aren't part of the Smithwicks "in" crowd.

On the non-food and drink front, we were introduced to one of the greatest sporting events ever: the 6 Nations Rugby Championship. Each team only plays five games over six weeks, so each game is important and the level of national pride is incredible. We spent over six hours watching a full days worth of games on several occasions, and six years later, still don't know what is going on half the time.

After returning to the States, we found a local Irish bar that plays the live feeds for the tournament each year. Due to my tax season work schedule, and the fact that the game start around 6:30am on a Saturday morning, we are only able to catch one day's worth of games each year. Fortunately, we found out this year that that BBC America was showing one game each weekend, with the St. Patrick's Day game being Ireland v. England.

As a final note, I'm just going to put this out there: St. Patrick's Day in Dublin sucks. It is terrible. The city gets flooded with tourists, every store jacks up their prices, there is a nice parade, but all the "traditional" Irish activities are also available to experience every other weekend out of the year too, with less dumb drunk people. In talking with many locals, since it is an extended holiday weekend, most people take the time to travel outside of Ireland and escape from the crazy. The highlight though, while walking to class along the Grand Canal, Mary and I passed an Irishman who stopped us with this conversation:

Man, gesturing at the canal: "Hey, is that water green?

Us, confused and looking closer at the water: "Um, yeah, it looks kind of green."

Man, chuckling and walking away: "Paddy's Day....."

So how does all this relate to anything? Glad you asked...

Hybrid Irish/English breakfast, on St. Patrick's Day, drinking Smithwicks, watching Ireland v. England play their annual 6 Nations match, sans the green water.

Also know as a perfect Saturday.

--Isaac.

BvP Challenge II

baconvpie@gmail.com (Bacon v. Pie) — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 07:45:00 +0000

Last summer, we presented my dad with the first BvP Challenge: a Food Network Chopped inspired basket of four mystery ingredients. Overall, he fared pretty well.

For Christmas, he passed the basket back to us with four mystery ingredients to test our own culinary prowess:

BvP Challenge: Round Two consisted of... animal crackers, Vienna sausages, hearts of palm and bacon and cheddar flavored cheese spread in an aerosol can.

A couple immediate observations:
1) Does the city of Vienna know that their good name is being sullied with this can of meat flavored food byproduct?
2) How can Libby's do something so awesome like canned pumpkin (which directly leads to awesome pumpkin pie) and at the same time do something so foul

Mary was up to bat first with a cheese souffle, utilizing the canned bacon-cheese, and toast points topped with a mousse made from a pureed blend of Vienna sausage, hearts of palm and animal crackers.

The souffle turned out real nice, but the Vienna sausage mousse was a little off-pudding.

For my attempt, I tried to mask the flavor of the Vienna sausage as much as possible by adding in a bunch of dried herbs and forming them into meatballs. I cooked the hearts of palm with some garlic and lemon juice, and turned the canned baconcheese into a spicy fondue/dipping sauce.

After tasting both courses, Mary and I agreed that she put the canned cheese to better use, while my hearts of palm tasted actually pretty good. While no one wins with Vienna sausage, I claimed the slight edge there by drowning them in tastier herbs and giving them a light pan fry.

For the next round, it looks like some addendums are in order:
1) No canned "meats"
2) At least two of the four ingredients must by non-processed items.

Otherwise, we are going to need to include a bottle of Tums Extra-Super Strength with every basket. The bulk-buy size bottle.

Bring on the next round!

--Isaac.

Zombiefest

baconvpie@gmail.com (Bacon v. Pie) — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 06:04:00 +0000

When the zombie apocalypse eventually descends upon us, what I may lack in the zombie-slaying-broomstick department, I will be able to make up in the culinary-zombie-themed-grub department.

The Walking Dead, season two, part two, picked up right where it left off a couple months ago: amidst a pile of zombie leftovers. Mary and I have some friends that fall into one or more of the following categories:

1) Had not seen the new house
2) Think zombies are fantastic
3) Enjoy food

The solution here, obvious even for your average shambling zombie, was to host a zombie-food themed party to watch the newest Walking Dead episode. Nailed it.

While I wasn't going to venture down the route of classic, stereotypical zombie food (brains or other glandular options), I was inspired by the large packet of short ribs I had in my freezer from last fall when Mary and I bought an eighth of a cow. The connection from zombie food to ribs seemed pretty solid.

The first cooking technique that came to mind during the planning stages was braising the ribs low and slow. The recipe I used let me utilize both my awesome blue dutch oven and almost a whole bottle of red wine, which meant I could have braised a shoe for three hours and it would have been delicious.

I thought the flavor of the short ribs turned out really nice. However, since I have no prior short rib experience to use as a comparison, I can't say for sure that they turned out how a perfectly cooked short rub should turn out.

My side dishes for the short ribs consisted of some BBQ chicken wings (going further with the theme of gnawing meat off of a bone) and mashed sweet potatoes with poblano peppers and orange (because zombies need a starch with their meal?). Now those, I can say, were done well.

Mary's contributions consisted of some very artsy deviled egg eyeballs...

...and a hummus/veggie tray which could have benefited from a brain mold had I been thinking ahead far enough.

The guests offerings included some very appropriate maggot empanadas (filled with bacon naturally)...

...and some "It Came From Beyond the Grave" spinach and artichoke dip made with a fantastic amount of the "People's Cheese" as it was described.

The entertainment during intermission included some thought provoking dialogue about overcoming obstacles, then it was on to dessert (the best part).

As I remarked recently to Mary, I would like an opportunity to bake some cupcakes with various flavor profiles, but all be damned if devil's food chocolate cupcakes with seafoam frosting aren't just the most delicious cake item out there, so why bet against a sure thing? Sure there would be a near 100% success rate with other cupcake flavors, but devils food is at least a 103% guaranteed successful transaction.

To zombify these cupcakes, I added a filling in the middle of the cupcakes made from strawberry and marionberry jams, with the idea that it would ooze out when bitten, and topped them with some semisweet chocolate skulls made from a Halloween mold I had stashed away.

I'm pretty sure zombies would have even given up human flesh for this spread.

--Isaac.

National Pie Day

baconvpie@gmail.com (Bacon v. Pie) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 06:41:00 +0000

January 23 was National Pie Day. Hopefully you celebrated accordingly.

I caught wind of a pie baking contest being hosted by a local pie shop the day before Pie Day proper (as a Sunday afternoon is much better suited for a pie contest over a Monday afternoon). I thought this was a perfect opportunity to test my pies abilities at the next level.

There were two judging categories, sweet and savory, so clearly having 800% more experience baking sweet pies, I wisely decided that going sweet was my best option. I elected to go with an apple pie because I knew I could make an apple pie blindfolded, with one arm tied behind my back, hungover, and in a blizzard.

Some assembly still required.

To make my apple pie a bit sexier though, I ground up some slivered almonds into flour to add into the crust and incorporated sliced almonds in my crumble topping.

It truly turned out exactly as I envisioned:

It is a winner in my book.

The pie contest was scheduled at the same time as the NFC Championship in which my 49ers were trying to get to the Super Bowl for the first time in 17 years, so I wasn't present for the judging or the announcing of the results. When I didn't get a congratulatory phone call by 6pm that night (4 hours after judging), I deduced that I did not win.

And then the Niners lost. Lame.

Mary and I drove back to the pie shop to pick up my pie dish and eat some of their sausage rolls and other various meat-cheese-herb stuffed savory pies. I was very pleasantly surprised to see that some of my pie survived the judging process:

Just need a fork now.

I gave a chunk of my pie to one of the workers at the pie shop who didn't get to sample any of the pies previously during judging, and almost asked for a fork so I could eat my pie on the car ride home to hopefully ease the pain of a pie contest loss and a championship game loss in the same day.

While I did not place in the pie contest, I did win a raffle of sorts by commenting on the pie-centric blog maintained by one of the judges (www.makemesomepie.com). The pie shop used a nifty product called "Pie Contest in a Box" to run the contest, and afterwards, a second copy was raffled off to those who submitted comments on the judge's results roundup blog entry. So now I should be all set to host my own pie contest! Booyah.

I've got to think that I would be the early favorite to win this next pie contest if I am the one hosting it...

-Isaac.

New Year, New Pie

baconvpie@gmail.com (Bacon v. Pie) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 06:53:00 +0000

2012 has arrived, new adventures await, and unfortunately the End Of The World too if you believe the Mayans or John Cusack.

It has been a New Year's Eve tradition the past couple years for Mary to whip up some tasty paella while we wait for the East Coast ball to drop and watch Anderson Cooper look awkward while he forces small talk with Kathy Griffith at Times Square. Mary then falls asleep, I occupy myself for three hours, and wake her back up to celebrate midnight on the Left Coast.

The highlight of the night is always the paella. Due to the limitation of our previous apartment kitchen, Mary had just used the dutch oven, but this year the Christmas elves left a spankin' new f'real paella pan. Time to get serious.

As the pictures shows, clams were used, and also making a return this year was chorizo. However, the lobster Mary has used in previous years got cut and replaced by cod and tilapia. Maybe not as traditional or sexy, but most cost-effective at least.

Overall, New Years Eve was pretty low key for us considering we were coming off of two large holiday hosting events. I don't know if we were just still a little looney from the festivities of the holidays, but we felt the need to host more visitors.

Most of my extended side of the family still had not seen the finished house product, so I suggested to Mary that we host yet another dinner. Then we reached the end of the schnapps, slept off the hangover, took some Advil and water and realized that just doing dessert will be easier.

I decided to make some devils food cake cupcakes with seafoam frosting, and apple-pecan-cranberry turnovers:

My inspiration for these two choices were actually very rational. I wanted to make something with seafoam frosting, because.... I finally could with my new hand mixer. Mary thinks it is really funny that I got a hand mixer for Christmas from her parents and she got a circular saw, but we'll see which one creates better desserts. I tried to make seafoam frosting with an immersion blender in the past and I can definitively tell you that will not work at all. Not even a little.

The turnover was a result of having two spare Granny Smith apples illin' in the fruit bowl, a half eaten bag of dried cranberries in the pantry, and some leftover pecans that came from a pecan pie I made mid-December. I also cooked the filling in some rum and brandy to soften up the nuts and apples and re-hydrate the cranberries.

The Mayans do not believe in John Cusack, but I think they would accept paella and baked goods.

-Isaac.

Home for the Holidays

baconvpie@gmail.com (Bacon v. Pie) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 04:34:00 +0000

No matter how many hours you spend unpacking and storing things away, moving into a new place never seems to end. Eventually you just give up and stash everything in the spare bedroom, or under the stairs, or in the garage, or all three in our case.

One of the top items we were looking forward too the most about the new house is finally being able to host family gatherings. Our first test was Thanksgiving. We got the keys on Nov 15, and thus had a short amount of time to get enough kitchen/dining/seating supplies moved from the apartment. All the important stuff made it over in time, if you don't consider seating important. So not only did we have the pressure of cooking a turkey and various side dishes, but everyone was essentially huddled around the kitchen watching us prep as we only had a folding table, some folding chairs, and four bar chairs that arrived just a couple days earlier.

So even with the extra pressure of everyone watching us cook, and the fact that we really hadn't used any of the appliances prior to Thanksgiving, everything turned out very well. The turkey turned out nice (it never hurts when you stuff butter and herbs under the turkey skin before cooking), Mary made some excellent vegan cornbread that we turned into dressing, and there was pie...

And frozen pumpkin mousse torte...

And pumpkin creme brulee...

With that trial by fire out of the way, we were ready to up the ante with Christmas. Mary's family had plans to gather on Christmas Eve, with a total head-count of 19, including 6 kids under the age of 11. Not only was this going to test our hosting abilities, but also the house durability as there always seems to be an inverse relationship between the size of the child and the mess they can create.

With this size of event, we went the potluck/buffet food service arrangement. In previous years, Mary's family Christmas Eve meals have learned towards and Italian theme, but since Mary is lactose-adverse and her Mom is allergic to garlic, we felt a menu theme change wouldn't hurt. We ended up going with a Latin American/Caribbean themed meal, mostly because we new some great rum and guacamole pairings.

Mary created some cranberry mojitos, Christmas sangria, and chicken tortilla soup, and I tackled carnitas and chorizo tamales, tomatillo salsa, spicy habenero salsa, and a mole sauce. I had never done tamales before and didn't have a steamer basket, so I had to MacGyver one with a foil pie tin that I punched holes in with a screwdriver. I thought dealing with the corn husks would be my undoing, but it all went really smoothly and were a big hit.

On the sweet front, Mary provided some of her delicious Creme Catalan (a Spanish creme brulee made with lemon zest), and I tried my hand with a sweet potato pie and a dulce-de-leche apple pie. Mary recalled the disaster that was my sweet potato pie last year, but this year I was confident I could redeem myself. Turns out that all I needed to do was omit all the suck and fail, and triple the amount of awesome.

The dulce-de-leche apple pie turned out phenomenal. It is just unfortunate that it will never happen again as dulce-de-leche is easily the most time consuming dessert item ever and it took a quart of whole milk to produce a little under a cup of caramel.

There was also a pecan pie halfway between Thanksgiving and Christmas to help bridge the gap between overindulgence holidays. There is still noting wrong with sugar baked with pecans in a pie:

Time to wrap this up, Mary's got the New Year's Eve paella ready to consume!

Happy New Year!

--Isaac.

Halloween Chili

baconvpie@gmail.com (Bacon v. Pie) — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 01:28:00 +0000

There have been some big behind-the-scene changes to the conglomeration known as Bacon v. Pie. We moved out of our apartment of four years, and into an awesome house. This move is a result of an arduous 18-month process, but well worth it as our kitchen situation has vastly improved (much higher pie-making efficiency).

So we are backtracking a bit to a time before mortgage loans, moving trucks and 11 days without any internet access...

There are two key ingredients to make a successful Halloween: candy and chili. The peril of buying Halloween candy too early is that you end up eating said candy and have to buy more. I guess that is a good problem to have though.

Chili on Halloween has been a long-standing family tradition. It is one of those things we always do each year, but no one knows when it started or why, and questioning the reason of chili is just illogical. You shouldn't need a reason for chili.

This year, the chili included more pork shoulder (pork month!) and turned out so thick that not only could I stand a spoon up in it, but I was also able to use the chili as foundation for a high-rise commercial office building. Meaty goodness. Naturally, where there was chili, there was also chili dogs:

There is a sausage under there somewhere.

On Halloween proper, we were still a little over two weeks away from getting the keys to the house, so Mary's idea was to take some blankets, candy and Fireball, and sit on the front porch to pass out candy. We were successful in meeting some of the neighbors, but were dismayed by the lack of effort put forth in the majority of the costumes. So to you middle/high schoolers thinking you can get some free candy: putting on jeans and a hooded sweatshirt along with your school backpack does not count as a costume. It is both weak and lame and we will award you no further candy.

--Isaac.