Saturday, January 2, 2010

Day 3 ~ (photo taken December 31, 2009)
Well, looks like I missed a few days...



French Canadian Tourtiere
Today I dug out my Mom's recipe for her authentic meat pie (click on this link...  Nanny's Meat Pie).
Memories of my Mom, the best home cook ever, was making sure the filling was just so perfect, and my Dad, the Engineer, ensuring the measurements were just so, that each and every year the  ingredients and total outcomes were documented.  (after Mom passed away, I found his notebooks in her recipe book case, years of documentation going back for as long as I can remember!  
This year I made my own adjustments, added my touch...
I had a bit more than 1LB of freshly ground pork so I plunked that into my heavy enamel covered cast iron (translation HEAVY) dutch oven, along with a finely chopped onion, 2 small peeled potatoes, 1/2 cup or so or water, the spices and fresh crushed garlic. 
Bringing  that to a boil infused my kitchen with the smells of my childhood, I then lowered the heat and let it simmer, uncovered until the potatoes were tender.  I let the mixture sit and cool down a bit while i did other things, and when ready, I took my hand blender and pulsed the potatoes right in the meat mixture until they were mashed.  This all went into an uncooked deep dish pie shell, the edge then brushed with cream, a top crust placed on it, brushed cream on it again and popped it into a hot oven until the crust was a lovely crispy flaky golden. 
This is by far the best meat pie you will ever ever taste.  Soft, meaty, hearty, not too heavy on the savory spices, not too salty. My favorite way to eat this is with my homemade creamy apple and cabbage coleslaw, and slathered with a mixture of tomato ketchup and whole berry cranberry sauce. 
I eat this for breakfast, lunch or dinner. 
Thanks Mom and Dad, for creating these memories for me.  :)


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