Gizmos

Gizmos

I’ve never made a meat pie before but some little ear worm crawled in and got me  thinking - “What a great way to use up some of that ground moose meat in the freezer!” So, even though I truly do not enjoy making pie crust, and because I’m too stubborn to buy pre-made, I embarked on a new cooking adventure. First was the filling recipe. I delved into the net and found one for tourtiere, a French Canadian style meat pie using ground meat and some interesting spices. I substituted ground moose for ground beef and more or less followed the recipe. Knowing I’d stored some aluminum pie plates in the granary I searched them out and discovered that in my deep forgotten past I must have had this idea before. Nested in the usual pie plates were some small ones, perfect for individual pies. So when our son and family came home at Christmas time we had individual meat pies for supper. I was pretty tickled with myself. They could have been a little spicier and the pork proportion should have been about 65% because moose meat has so little fat, but not bad for a first try.

One brilliant idea spawns another so I decided I should make hot meat pockets to freeze for lunches. Bought a gizmo called an empanada press and not only made tourtiere meat pockets but started making apple turnovers too. These were not as successful because the dough to filling ratio was off balance. If I put in as much filling as I wanted the pockets split. I think I need a puffier tastier pastry dough too - back to the drawing board.

Then I got to thinking about tortillas. Wheat flour tortillas are getting more and more expensive, and corn flour tortillas are hard to find. I like making Indian curry and roti/chapati (similar to tortillas) go great with curry. I also prefer corn tortillas for tacos. So, I got myself another gizmo, a tortilla press, and a bag of corn flour which I surprisingly found in our local discount grocery store. The gizmo, once assembled, works fine and eliminates the rolling pin. Gonna try making some enchiladas one of these days too. I really do like Mexican food.

So the adventure continues. Over 50 years of making meals can stagnate your creativity but there’s nothing like a couple of new gizmos to stimulate a new cooking adventure.