Apathetic Thursday

In the spirit of xkcd and something that may have been said in the lunch hall…

As promised, here are the photos of today’s pie.

For this pie I decided to go Apple-Rhubarb. I had to use frozen rhubarb because it’s the wrong time of year here for fresh.

I started out by making the filling, slicing up several large apples and dumping them with my rhubarb. To this mix I added one and a quarter cup of sugar and three tablespoons of cornstarch.

For the crust, two cups of flower, three-quarter cup of crisco and one teaspoon salt.

After mixing these together I added several (5-8) tablespoons of cold water, and then folded it all together with a fork.

Next, roll out the pie crust, place in pie plate.

My trademark logo is the greek letter Pi which I use for my steam vent. Besides, it’s Pi Day, so it was a necessity.

I bake my pies for 15 minutes in the microwave to cook the filling, and then finish the pie with another 15-20 minutes in the oven at 350, to brown the crust.

I let it cool until after supper, when the whole family had a piece. Tasted wonderful, especially with a little bit of ice cream. Another Pi Day is a complete success.

Did anyone else celebrate?

I am a math guy, and I enjoy doing math. So I like Pi, I think it’s a very interesting and amazing number, however, I also really like pie. For me, Pi Day is about celebrating the Greek Letter Pi, but also about baking pie.

Check back later today for today’s pie baking adventure.

Wow, Pi Day is approaching quickly! I was reminded of this earlier today when I noticed a sales spike of “i 8 Sum Pi” Shirts. For those of you wanting to join in the fun, we offer two different version of the shirt, as pictured below:

“i 8 Pi” Shirt (Black and White Colors)

“i 8 Sum Pi” Shirt (Black and White)

“i 8 Sum Pi” Shirt (White and Other Colors (No Black))

( << “i 8 Pi” Shirt / “i 8 Sum Pi” Shirt >>)

Don’t forget to celebrate Pi Day!

Heinz Ketchup recently sponsored an event where people could create their own ketchup commercial and submit it to win a prize. I submitted this commercial created by me and my cousins: via YouTube

I didn’t make the top 15 finalists, which was somewhat disappointing because I felt that my work was better then some of the finalists, but a few of the finalists were amazingly done.

Today, my Dad came down stairs with a package for me from Heinz Ketchup. I figured it had to be from the commercial thing, I don’t have any other affiliation to this company that I know of.

The package contained a small little ketchup container with the phrase “Philip Topped This” on the label. Along with a note explaining that there is a second challenge taking place and as I submitted a commercial last time, they would like me to submit another one this time.

It looks like I’ll have a tasty commercial coming up in the next few weeks. Stay tuned!

I wanted to make apple pie tonight, but I soon found out I did not have enough for apples. So I decided I would add some rhubarb to make an apple rhubarb pie instead. I used basically the same recipe as apple pie, but added more sugar to counter act the sour rhubarb and didn’t add any cinnamon. Basically, my recipe was as follows:

3 Cups Sliced Apples
3 Cups Sliced Rhubarb
1 Cup Sugar
3 Tablespoons Cornstarch

Mix this together, and set it aside. You may want to add more sugar if your apples are really tart. Next comes the crust. The crust is as follows:

2 Cups Flour
1 Teaspoon Salt
3/4 Cup Butter Crisco

Mix these ingredients together thoroughly, so that it has a consistency like cornmeal.

Now add 6-8 Tablespoons of ice water.

Start with 6, then add more as needed. Use a fork to fluff the dough together. DO NOT over work the dough as you add water. This is the KEY to a flaky crust.

Now that you have your dough, take half of it and roll it out for your bottom crust. Place in a 9 inch pie plate. Then you can add the fruit mixture. Next roll out the rest of the dough, and use that as your top crust. Pinch the top and bottom crust together in the manner of your choice, some people use fingers, others use forks. Put some designs on top with your knife. I like to make a pi symbol, but a line and some pokes work fine.

Put the pie in the microwave for 15 minutes while you preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. When your pie is done in the microwave, bake it in the oven for 15-20 minutes, or until the crust is a nice brown color.

And with that, you are done! I would recommend letting the pie cool a bit before you attempt to eat it, but I wouldn’t let it get cold. Vanilla ice cream goes very well with the pie.

Enjoy! I know I will!

For those of you who don’t know me. I love pie. While in Canada last month I had the opportunity to have a Maple Pie in a neat little cafe called Terrasse La Nouvelle. I was very impressed by this pie because it had a texture similar to a pumpkin pie, yet was sweet like a pecan pie. It didn’t taste like pumpkin, and neither was the maple flavor very strong. If I remember correctly, it was also a light-ish grey in color.

I knew that I had to try to duplicate this pie over the summer, and I knew that my mom would love to help me. So tonight we decided to try to tackle our Maple Pie. The first thing my mom did was surf the net to try to find a recipe, but instead she found several recipes stemming from two different methods, one being a pumpkin base, the other being a gelatin base. We decided to try the pumpkin base for starters, and we ended up going with a fairly standard pumpkin pie but without the seasonings.

We started with making a crust. A good crust makes a pie twice as good, and a store bought crust is not good. We needed a single crust, so just double this recipe for a single crust pie:

1 cups of flour
1/2 tsp salt
6 tbsp butter Crisco
Mix together well consistency should be like cornmeal, add
4-6 tbl ice water, mix in gently a few spoonfuls at a time KEY to flaky crust, don’t over work the dough once you put the water on it. Use a fork to FLUFF it once the water is added.
roll out in a circle

We rolled the crust out, and then placed it in our 9 inch pie pan. With the crust taken care of, we set to creating the pie filling. In our case, we used:

1 1/2 cups canned pumpkin
1/4 cups maple syrup
1 1/2 cup heavy cream
4 eggs
2 tbsp flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp maple flavoring

We mixed all of the ingredients together, and had our oven preheated to 350 degrees. We put the pie in the oven, and baked it for about 45 minutes, turning the temp down to 325 after the first 10 minutes to provide a more even baking of the pie.

When the pie was sufficiently cooked we took it out and let it cool. Then we were able to try our creation. This is my favorite part. Our final result was not like the pie I had at the little cafe in Quebec. But it is a very unique pie, and I am pleased with how it turned out. To me, the pie tastes almost like a pancake, because the maple syrup is a strong flavor, yet I can still taste a hint of pumpkin in the pie. The crust is excellent, it is very flaky and very good.

Once this pie is gone, we will have to make another attempt at our Maple Pie, probably trying from the gelatin standpoint. I’ll let you know how it turns out. In the mean time, I have pie to eat!

I need my M&Ms… I haven’t had M&Ms… in what, a week now? Has it been longer then a week? I have this craving for chocolate. The thing is, I don’t have time or energy or money to go and actually buy M&Ms.

See, I have a plan. All I have to do is wait until after Easter, and all the Easter M&Ms go on sale. I can get a truckload of M&Ms at discounted price. It’s an amazing strategy, but it requires me to wait a week. I highly doubt there are going to be any “Mounday Thursday” or “Good Friday” M&M sales.

I tried a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich, it didn’t work. I tried a Green Tea, it didn’t help either. I need my M&Ms man! I need my M&Ms!

There’s nothing worse then moldy coffee… Okay, so there are several things that are worse then moldy coffee.

A few days ago as I was falling asleep I had a thought, and the thought was this: Did I clean my coffee maker out last time I made coffee?

It’s funny I should ask myself that, because I haven’t made coffee for over a month. I forgot to even look, that is, until today. It was chilly today and I could use a kick of caffine to get some homework done. My first thought was: Coffee!

I pull out my coffee maker, and realize that I didn’t clean it out last time I used it.

I had moldy coffee and modly coffee grinds. This presented a problem. A problem I didn’t want to deal with. I took my coffee maker into the hall and sprayed some bleach spray on it. I left it out there for a few hours, until after supper. I then took the coffee maker and put it in two plastic bags and put it back where I had it.

The problem’s not solved, and there’s still a mess, but it’s not something I want to deal with. I figure I can just take it home with me a few days and clean it up there, if it’s still worth salvaging. I think it just may go straight to the dumpster. (Although the coffee pot itself is still good.)

This is my Apathy, not caring about cleaning up my coffee maker. Good choice? Bad Choice? Does it really matter at this moment?

I have come to the conculsion, and not very lightly mind you, that I have a problem. This problem is namely an M&M addiction. While alcholoics can’t wait to get home from work to have a drink, I can’t wait to get to my dorm room for a handful of M&Ms. It usually doesn’t stop at one handful either. I usually haev two or three. Sometimes, I even have as many as four or five. Today I have been particularly… …hungry… and am getting down to the last few handfuls of M&Ms. At my current rate of consumption, they will probably not live past Tuesday.

The problem is now becoming, “where can I get more M&Ms?” I would suppose that the store is a good place to start, but I’m not at a store right now, so this causes the problem. Going to the store, to buy M&Ms, is also a problem, because I don’t have time and I don’t have money to go and buy M&Ms.

I hate to think about it, but I may have to go cold turkey to pull myself out of this one. It could be a harsh week. Fortunately, I have 24 bottles of Lipton Green Tea with Citrus that I can use to help nurse me off my M&Ms. Now, I will need to get some more M&Ms eventually, because when my Green Tea runs out, I’ll be pretty addicted to that, so I’ll need something to help me get over my Green Tea Addiction.

I’ll let you know how it turns out.