Ben Starr – The Ultimate Food Geek

Tag: pie

  • Hatch Green Chile Peach Pie

    It’s that time of year again!  Grocery stores all over Texas have the unmistakable spicy-smoky aroma of roasting Hatch chiles out front, and the big chile roasters are rolling almost nonstop during open hours.  It’s my favorite culinary time of year. While most recipes for Hatch chiles are savory, I decided to post a sweet…

  • Laughably-Easy Lard (or Bacon Fat) Pastry Crust

    The perfect pastry crust eludes most of us…seemingly thousands of infinitely-thin layers that are tender, but shatter in your mouth while still remaining moist and succulent.  It usually involves massive amounts of butter cut into the flour at just the right temperature to just the right texture…then a chill in the fridge…then the addition of…

  • Rhubarb Pie

    In Texas, where the climate is too hot to grow rhubarb, it’s not an ingredient most folks here are familiar with.  When it does appear on market shelves in the spring, it can cost upwards of $6 a pound…pricey for a vegetable.  But occasionally I’ll run across it on sale, or we’ll splurge on it…

  • “Ambassador Hotel” Black Bottom Pie

    The “black bottom pie” is an ancient staple of Southern home cooking…most often found at church potlucks, family reunions, and Sunday suppers.  It’s not common in home kitchens these days, but a unique institution in Los Angeles, of all places, gave this regional favorite a solid spot on the national dessert roster.  The Ambassador hotel…

  • MasterChef 4 recap: Glee and Meringue (S4E10)

    (PLEASE NOTE: This blog is not affiliated with Fox or MasterChef.  Contained below are the maniacal ravings of a season 2 survivor who has no inside knowledge of how this season was produced.  Well…not much, anyway.) When I posted my blog about the first of this week’s episodes (which happened to be a bit depressing…

  • “Perfect” Pecan Pie (with NO CORN SYRUP option!)

    For those of you who don’t want the BETTER option of my Pumpkin Bourbon Pecan Pie recipe, here is a purist’s recipe for Pecan Pie, perfected: CRUST Feel free to make your family butter pastry recipe, but this is how I do it: 1 1/3 cups all purpose flour (I use unbleached flour) 1 tsp…