Cherry and Beer Poptarts

July 21, 2016 Brett

When I was 7, I got my first pair of glasses. My brother cried because he said I didn’t look the same. We haven’t spoken in three years.

When I was 17, I moved out. Went to college, rode the train. When I was 17, I had my first boyfriend; the string of inconsistencies that have allowed me to know who I am through a process of elimination. When I was 17, I got lost in downtown Pittsburgh, throwing up in alleyways and walking back to campus. The next day, I got my lip pierced. I think to show others I could be tough, even if I couldn’t grow facial hair or hold my liquor.

At 18, I stayed in Italy. I worked at a gas station to pay for my ticket. My mom kept the apron for when she cleans the house. I didn’t keep in touch with those I lived with abroad. I didn’t see a point. They saw me as a child who shaved his head and smoked short cigarettes. I think I spent that time convincing myself I didn’t need anyone. I moved back to Pennsylvania December 16th. I started dating my boyfriend on January 1.

In May, he went to China and I got my first tattoo. I didn’t need him for anything. A small act of rebellion, small needles and antiseptic smell mixed with the blood-rust under the cottonball.

I tanned before moving to California, still wore a lot of black, still smoked a lot of cigarettes. I drank juice and coffee; I ate candy during law school finals.

Got more tattoos, lost a job.

Moved to Texas, put to roses on my arm.

Moved back to California, fell in and out of love. Fell in and out of a understanding of what I wanted, but I know I wanted out.

This time I got the word “eleven” tattooed on my arm for my dad. It was his baseball number. They retired it when he graduated from South Ripley County, Indiana.

And last week I got a nose ring. I’m 24 and still changing things. Still speaking through layers of performance, latent cues and failed attempts at seeming aloof. That’s the beauty of being so young still—I have grown accustomed to being someone else and somehow all the iterations of that person are all still me.

And today I was someone who created photo backgrounds, who propped the board up with an old coffee mug from my week in Belgium. I was someone who made poptarts, handpies, whatever you want to call it—like I used to when I was six and the world was blurry and my skin unblemished.

Cherry and Beer Poptarts

Ingredients for the crust:

8 TB unsalted butter, very cold
6 TB shortening, very cold
2 cup AP flour
1 cup almond meal
¼ cup white sugar
1 TB pure vanilla extract
¼ to ½ cup ice water

Ingredients for the filling:

2 cups cherries, pitted and halved
½ cup brown sugar, dark
¼ cup beer, any variety (can sub red wine if you’d like)
1 teaspoon salt
2 TB lemon or orange zest
Juice from half a lemon or ¼ of an orange
A slurry of cornstarch (1 TB cornstarch whisked in 1 TB water) – do not make until cherries are reduced by hal

Directions for crust:

In a food processor, pulse together butter, shortening, flour, almond meal, and white sugar until fats are pea-sized
Add vanilla extract and pulse once or twice
With motor running, pour ¼ cup of water into feeding tube in a gradual stream until a dough forms. You may need an additional couple teaspoons of ice water until dough clumps and begins to pull away from edges of the bowl
Turn out onto a floured work surface and divide into two discs
Wrap both discs in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes to res

Directions for filling:

In a medium sauce pan, combine cherries, sugar, beer, salt, and lemon, stir with a spoon to ensure liquid is covering everything
On medium heat, allow for cherries to release their juices and for sugar to dissolve
Continue heating until juices simmer and reduce by half (during this time, whisk together your slurry)
Reduce heat to low and vigorously whisk in the slurry
Mixture will begin to thicken and continue thickening as it cool

Assembly:

Preheat your oven to 400*F
Prepare two baking sheets with parchment paper
Take one disc of dough out of the fridge and roll out onto a heavily-floured work surface into a rough rectangle that is about 12” by 10” (this will vary slightly, so don’t stress it too much)
Using a sharp knife, cut your dough into rectangles. For a guide, I actually used a 3”x4” index card, but you can measure with a ruler if you so choose
With each rectangle, carefully place onto your prepared baking sheets. You should have 9 rectangles total (if using the very scientific Index Card Method)
Now, re-flour your board and roll out your second disc of dough
Measure and cut your rectangles out again, but do not immediately place on your sheets
At this point, you will have to do three things in succession: make an egg wash to brush edges of the dough, spoon in some of your cherry filling onto each rectangle (I’d say about 2 TB per pie, but this is based on preference mostly), and place second top dough layer on top
Do this for each pie
Crimp the edges of each pie with a fork, pressing slightly to seal
Brush tops of pies with remaining egg wash and sprinkle with a little sugar
Using a paring knife, cut a couple small nicks in the top crust to vent dough
Bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown on the edges and tops
Allow to cool completely before adding your topping (my glaze was ½ cup confectioner’s sugar, 4 TB half and half, and 1 TB vanilla extract, then topped with almond slices and sprinkles)
Can be kept for up to 3 days in an airtight container, but I like them served warm.

Happy Valentine's Day! Molten Nutella Handpies with Bob's Red Mill

February 12, 2016 Brett

We used to decorate brown lunch bags and hang them from our desk. Write our names in felt-tipped pens. We passed around stickered love notes, miniature candy bars. We all left feeling loved in those winter school days. It made us feel good to get a card from the pretty girls, even if they were obligatory. A week later, they’d all be in the trash. A month later, my mother would buy the remaining Valentine’s Day candy in the clearance aisle and we’d have it in our baskets by Easter. Love like that was budgeted. Obligatory, too.

I was 18 when I first celebrated a Valentine’s Day. I bought him gloves at a Macy’s in downtown so his hands weren’t so cold when he held mine. He bought my dinner—a Big Mac—and I thought it was the most romantic thing in the world. A week later, he proposed to me at a park where three rivers intersected. A month later we never talked again and I was relieved the day he told me he wanted to leave me. We were in a pizza place down the road from my dorm. I think he’s a waiter now somewhere out West. I don’t think of him much. Not at all, actually. But for a month I was sure I’d marry him. If for no other reason than because I was bored.

I lived for years thinking love was an obligation, a chore others had to do that I was too lazy or too unwilling to do myself. I spend even more years thinking it was an all-or-nothing bargain. I spent weekends in November thinking of how to end my relationships; I spent hours in February wrapping presents instead. Love for me came in waves, crashing and then disappearing for complete lunar cycles. Love for me came in soft like crickets and then fast like an EKG. Cicadas when it was good, loud and cacophonous in the summertime, then it’d die back down into molted skins—dry, brittle, blurred shapes of what it used to hold for us.

From Indian fast food where we shared our plates to an underground lake in Cancun where we fought about sex, from a weekday we forgot to go out to a five minute phone call, I have shared Valentine’s with boys who felt obligated to care for me. I was so desperate for anything they could give. I know now that I wasn’t the heart or the hand glove. Not the paper bag or the cavities. I was desperate and lonely, but I was young, too. This year I’m spending Valentine’s Day alone for the first time in six years. I’ll wake up like it’s any other day, but take time for myself. Drink coffee, stay in bed until I have to wash my face and start my day. Eat a bowl of cereal and a couple of these hand pies. I have years of celebrating ahead of me, but it’s good to be alone this year.

Molten Nutella Handpies

With Bob’s Red Mill’s coconut flour and a spoonful of Nutella to come spilling out of these bad boys, you can share these with that special someone or have them all for yourself. Makes 24 4-inch handpies (go crazy)

Ingredients:

2 cup AP flour
1 cup coconut flour
½ cocoa powder
2 teaspoons instant espresso
1 ½ cup white sugar
8 tablespoons butter, cold
½ cup shortening, cold
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
8-9 tablespoon ice water
2 jars Nutella hazelnut spread (if you want them really molten and gooey)
1/3 cup of flaked sea salt (a pinch per handpie)
1 egg, mixed with a little water for an egg was

Directions:

1. Sift flours, cocoa powder, espresso, and sugar into the bowl of your food processor. Pulse twice to incorporate

2. Pulse in your fats, running motor until flour-fat mixture is the size of peas

3. With the motor running, add vanilla and then ice water, a tablespoon at a time

4. When dough begins to clump, turn motor off and turn onto a heavily floured work surface

5. Knead only a couple times to form into a disc and cut dough in half. Shape both halves into discs and refrigerate for an hour

6. While dough is resting, prep your station. You will need your Nutella, a couple spoons or a mini ice cream scoop, extra flour (this dough can handle it), your egg wash, a pastry brush, and 2 parchment-lined baking sheets

7. Take dough out of fridge when finished resting and you can preheat oven to 350*F now (assembling the handpies can take a bit of time, if you’re doing the whole 24)

8. Roll one disc out to be about a quarter inch thick and using either a floured 4-inch cookie cutter or even a glass and begin cutting out your rounds. One half your yield 24 rounds

9. Evenly space your rounds onto the parchment lined baking sheets and spoon some Nutella into each one, add a pinch of salt

10. Roll out second disc of dough and repeat steps of cutting out your rounds

11. For each round out of this disc, you will be placing on top of the prepared rounds that have Nutella on them

12. Lightly dip your pastry brush into your egg wash and go around the rim of the prepared Nutella-topped round. Place second round on top. Crimp with a fork to seal. Cut a small X on each one with a paring knife to vent the handpies while baking.

13. Repeat steps 11 and 12 for remaining 23 handpies

14. Brush each with an additional little egg wash for a nice crust while baking

15. Bake at 350* for 33-36 minutes. Enjoy immediately as the hazelnut spread oozes out like a molten chocolate cake

16. Enjoy and kiss someone cute for me!

Note: I am fortunate enough to be a Bob's Red Mill brand ambassador this year and will be partnering with them more and more throughout the year. While Bob's Red Mill supplied the ingredient, coconut flour, for this post, all opinions are my own. Check out their website for more information on all the amazing products they have to offer!

The Leftovers: Mashed Potato Handpies

November 25, 2015 Brett

I’m giving thanks tomorrow, a gesture I have to remind myself to do daily. It’s not in my nature to be kind, to be considerate. It’s something I have to strive for. To hold my hands together to say prayers takes effort. It isn’t something that’s natural to me, how traits like how arrogance and greed are. They aren’t inborn in me like self-preservation. I’m looking forward to this exercise, this ritual, this practice in gratitude again.

Last year I hosted Thanksgiving and this year I will not be. I will be a guest, a stranger in a strange house. Maybe I’ll sleep on an air mattress or a couch, maybe I will fall asleep drunk each night with friends. Maybe I’ll get a tattoo on Saturday and maybe the turkey will burn; but one thing that is so soulfully constant, so unapologetically American is that we will cook too much food and get sick of it. We will make the leftovers into sandwiches by Saturday. Last year, I scrambled mashed potatoes in with eggs. One year, my mother made vegetable soup with the sweet potato casserole and poured it all down the drain when she tried it. And try as I might to continue on with tradition as an expat on the West Coast, I appreciate the constants. I appreciate a full table and the reinventions of meals to trick our exhausted stomachs. I appreciate the gathering. I appreciate the effort I put into saying, “Thank you.”

I’ll appreciate this desert holiday, how the world will stay silent. Where the highways crops up on sand dunes and Waffle Houses. How we can roll the windows down and scream what’s playing on the radio. How the world looks so giant in the rearview mirror, but the table is always a little too small for all of the extra food.

Mashed Potato Handpies

These handpies are borne from getting sick of the same old leftovers each year. I made mine with mashed potatoes, as a play on my beloved pierogies, but feel free to fill these with turkey, stuffing, or even go a sweet route with cranberry sauce and some creme fraiche. The crust is made with cheddar, rosemary, and sourcream; so you really can't go wrong with whatever ends up in it.

Ingredients:

3-4 cups AP flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon rosemary
1/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese
8 tablespoons butter, cold and cubed
1/3 cup + 2 tablespoons shortening, very cold
1/3 cup fatty sour cream, very cold (drain in a paper towel or cheese cloth if excessively watered)
3-5 tablespoons ice water
4 cups mashed potatoes
1 egg, beaten with a little water

Directions:

In the bowl of a food processor, add 3 cups flour, salt, rosemary, and cheese. Pulse 4 times to blend fully.
Add butter and shortening to dry ingredients and pulse 4-5 times or until the fats are pea-sized
With motor running, pour sour cream in. Wait a second or two and then begin adding ice water.
Do three tablespoons and see how the dough is. If sticky, add more flour. If dry, add a little more water
Turn out onto a floured work surface and knead just once or twice to cover a bit with more flour and shape into a disc
Divide in half and wrap both halves in plastic wrap and refrigerate for thirty minutes
While refrigerating, preheat the oven to 350*F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Beat an egg with water and use as a sealant and wash.
When dough is done resting, roll one disc out to about 1/4 inch thickness and cut into rounds with either a biscuit cutter or the edge of a glass (about 3-4 inches in diameter). Place round onto parchment paper and spoon mashed potato filling into the center. Dab a pastry brush into the egg wash and run along the circumference of the round. Cut another round out and place on top, pressing sides and crimp with a fork. Cut a small cross on top of the handpie for ventilation.
Repeat step 8 for remaining dough.
Space on baking sheets and brush each egg with remaining egg wash and sprinkle with a little salt.
Bake for 30-35 minutes or until golden brown
Allow to cool slightly before eating, as the potatoes will be hot
Maybe dip in gravy and enjoy!