{"id":1017,"date":"2021-12-07T10:03:21","date_gmt":"2021-12-07T16:03:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/?p=1017"},"modified":"2021-12-23T21:10:06","modified_gmt":"2021-12-24T03:10:06","slug":"recoveries-and-second-feasts-and-80-acres-mystery-fungus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/2021\/12\/07\/recoveries-and-second-feasts-and-80-acres-mystery-fungus\/","title":{"rendered":"Recoveries and Second Feasts and 80 Acres Mystery Fungus"},"content":{"rendered":"

R- recovered enough from his version of my disease by this past weekend for me to redo the feast of the weekend before.\u00a0 Success, we enjoyed it, our guest enjoyed it, and in the process I invented a post-invention-obvious pie.\u00a0 Having been less than thrilled with the commercial pie I’d ordered to satisfy a yearning for dark chocolate, gooeyness, and pecans in a pie (the perfect combination is in Lamme’s Candies dark chocolate Longhorns, IMO), I created a chocolate pecan pie that actually satisfied my imagination of how good it could be.<\/p>\n

I’ve made brownie pies for years, because a brownie pie (brownie mix batter in a pie shell) is the easiest “fancy looking” pie you can make, most people like brownies, and it’s easy and quick if you have unexpected (or expected) company.\u00a0 If you put chopped nuts in brownies, they go fine in the brownie pie.\u00a0 But a pecan pie is a different animal, and the commercial pie did not come close to satisfying either the brownie pie or the pecan pie half of the desired tastes.\u00a0 I went online and looked at multiple (lots!) of recipes for something like that, read them, imagined how they’d taste, looked at the pictures, and decided (as I so often do) to wing it.\u00a0 The ones that wanted to make a traditional pecan pie base (Karo syrup based) made me remember what was wrong with the commercial pie (the pecan pie layer didn’t taste strongly enough of pecan pie.\u00a0 And the chocolate part didn’t taste strongly enough of chocolate.\u00a0 SIGH.)<\/p>\n

Hence the Brownie Caramel Pecan Pie, for which you really do need GOOD pecan meats; they should taste good, not bitter or dried out.\u00a0 (If you don’t like pecans…well…use something else.\u00a0 I feel sorry for you.)<\/p>\n

1 box of Hill Country brownie mix from HEB.\u00a0\u00a0 Yes, you can use any brownie mix you like but the flavors will be slightly different.<\/p>\n

1 container of Smucker’s Caramel Sundae Syrup (ice cream topping).\u00a0\u00a0 Yes, you can use a different kind of caramel topping or even make your own caramel.\u00a0 Flavors will vary slightly. Liquidity of the caramel sauce at fridge temperature will vary.\u00a0 Have fun.<\/p>\n

~1 cup (I may have added more pecans) of pecan pieces, fresh or frozen while fresh.\u00a0 Still tasty raw.)\u00a0 Not finely chopped…coarse pieces that can hold the pecan oil with its flavor.<\/p>\n

1 unbaked 9 inch pie shell.\u00a0 I used commercial refrigerated pastry in my mother’s old china pie dish.\u00a0 It’s not a deep-dish pie dish; if you use a deep-dish pie shell you might get more of the brownie mix into it.<\/p>\n

Follow box directions for making the brownie batter. \u00a0 Put a cup (at least) of coarse chopped pecan pieces into the pie shell.\u00a0\u00a0 Pour a quarter to a third of a cup of caramel sauce over the pecan pieces, and if you left some pecans out, drizzle more caramel over them\u00a0 so that all or almost all the pecans are wet on top with caramel.\u00a0\u00a0 I started with 1\/4 cup, and then drizzled on more so all the pecans had some caramel on them.\u00a0 You don’t want them swimming in the stuff, but wading maybe waist deep in it.\u00a0 Pour the brownie batter on top, to the right level for your pie plate.\u00a0 Bake in 350F oven until the brownie layer is almost done (if you stick your test object all the way to the caramel layer, that remains gooey.\u00a0 I left the center not quite done near the caramel layer.\u00a0 Cool completely, refrigerate to firm it a bit more, and serve with either whipped cream or ice cream for maximum luxury, though I ate my last piece last night with nothing on it and it was still…wowza.<\/p>\n

If all the brownie mix won’t fit in your pie plate (it didn’t in mine) just bake the remainder in a different oven-safe container.\u00a0 If you have one of those mini-muffin tins you can make ‘brownie bites’ (I don’t, but sounds good to me.)<\/p>\n

The caramel keeps the pecans down low, and the caramel and brownie batter communicate with each other, turning the caramel layer mostly dark chocolate in color and flavored to varying extent with chocolate, while the bottom half of the brownie layer is flavored with pecans and caramel.\u00a0 The texture at the interface is more custard than either brownie or caramel, interrupted by the chewy chunks of pecan.\u00a0\u00a0 This thing has an intense chocolate flavor and near the bottom picks up a more and more distinct caramel, and recalls (without matching it) the flavor of pecan pie.\u00a0 It’s messy to cut, because of the caramel sauce, which doesn’t firm up much at all when refrigerator-cold, but not that messy to eat with a fork; the brownie mix has thickened the caramel somewhat.<\/p>\n

There could be, of course, many variations.\u00a0 My first variation (for Christmas?) will be using more pecans, to see if that makes it better or too much of a muchness.\u00a0 I hit a very happy spot on the flavor mix in the first pie, so won’t be filling the whole pie plate with nuts for the second!\u00a0\u00a0 I think a modest increase might work.\u00a0 Also thought of various ways to include crushed\/broken peppermint candies.\u00a0 Adding ginger to the brownie mix.\u00a0 Etc.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, R- and I were walking on the N fenceline of the dry woods when we spotted a fungus we’d never seen before .\u00a0 Several of them, erupting from the ground.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It was cloudy, windy, and cold.\u00a0 All the fungi we saw were in this area.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Chorioactis geaster<\/em>\u00a0 (name added later)\"\"<\/p>\n

Notice the “nose” of another one coming up near the first we saw.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Second pic appears to be one rising from a different “silo” and just splitting open.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Not sure whether this last one was coming out or retreating back in.\u00a0\u00a0 This is the same area of trail where large Cyperus sp. sedges showed a month or so ago.<\/p>\n

If anyone know what these are, please let me know.\u00a0 (“Is there a mycologist in the house?”)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

R- recovered enough from his version of my disease by this past weekend for me to redo the feast of the weekend before.\u00a0 Success, we enjoyed it, our guest enjoyed it, and in the process I invented a post-invention-obvious pie.\u00a0 Having been less than thrilled with the commercial pie I’d ordered to satisfy a yearning Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-1017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-beyond-writing","tag-life-beyond-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1017"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1054,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017\/revisions\/1054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}