Jack O’Lantern Cheeseburger Pie

I’m not sure why I’m blogging about cheeseburger pie when I really should be doing the massive amount of work I have to do for school, but it’s probably got something to do with the fact that I just don’t want to do school work.

My apartment complex gives us a cute little newsletter every month with fun facts about the holidays in that month, community info and news, and a random recipe. This month’s was jack o’lantern cheeseburger pie. Of course I had to make that one.

It was helpful that hubby and I were invited over to my brother and SIL’s place on Halloween. It would have felt weird to make this for just us. They have a kid. Granted, she’s only a toddler and had no idea what was going on, but it seemed to make more sense to do something so whimsical if there’s a kid involved.

I started off with some chopped onion, minced garlic, sat, and pepper.

And ground beef.

Just kept stirring it to let it all cook.

When it was almost done, I measured out some ketchup.

And after draining the beef, I added the ketchup to it.

All mixed it, it looked almost exactly like it had before. I really didn’t think this was enough ketchup, but after a little taste, I decided to leave it alone.

Set the beef aside to let it cool.

Next step: prepare the pie shell! I cheated and used store-bough pie crust, though I was better about letting it warm up at room temperature before trying to unroll it.

Then I took some mustard…

And smeared it around the bottom of the pie crust. I told you this was weird!

Take a massive, ridiculous, crazy amount of Monterey jack cheese and put it in the pan with the beef.

As I mixed it in, I had second thoughts about the quantity of cheese and picked some back out. That’s not necessary

Once it’s all combined, press the mixture into the pie shell.

Then unroll the other pie crust so you can play with it!

Basically, I put it on a cutting board and cut out a silly jack o’lantern face with a knife.

The smile was lopsided, but ah well. It still looked cute, right?

I picked the whole thing up (carefully!) and placed it on top of the pie. Then I rolled the edges and used the cutout dough to make a little stem.

Just before cooking, I brushed the pie with a mixture of egg, water, and red and yellow food coloring. I also painted the stem green! Then I giggled at how silly it looked and announced that I would be very sorry if this turned out to be a complete flop.

After baking it for about 20 minutes, I took it back out to baste again. At this point, I filled in the holes with a bit of leftover Monterey jack cheese. I thought about making a foil shield to protect my crust from getting burned, but then I decided that I didn’t care.

The recipe said to bake another 10 minutes, but I think I gave it closer to 5. And then it was done!

I liked that there was a bowl of apples on their table. It make it look more festive.

Luckily, it was really easy to serve. I had greased the pie plate, which helped, and the food stuck together better than I expected. Thanks, cheese! I served it with some potato salad and that was that.

Verdict: Yes, it was reminiscent of a cheeseburger. The ketchup and mustard were both there, but subdued. I’m not a mustard fan, so I appreciated this. I noticed the cheese less from the flavor and more from the texture, which was actually pretty creamy. It was a heavy meal, so one piece was pretty much okay for one person, but it was pleasing enough that some went back for more. The leftovers were just as good, I thought.

Definitely a fun, easy meal. Easily modified for different holidays (or no holiday at all, I suppose, but where’s the fun in that?). Maybe a new family favorite!

Pumpkin Cheesecake Muffins

It’s October.

I need pumpkin-themed food.

Need.

So I made these. I’ve been making them for the past few years, every fall. In the past, I’ve taken them to work and had very positive reactions. I’ve also had positive reactions from hubby, even though he isn’t a fan of too much pumpkin. They’re just so GOOD!

The extent of my pan prep is right here: 18 cupcake liners. Mine are foil, but paper works just as well.

There are four mixtures that you need to make before you can assemble the muffins. The first one is the sweetened cream cheese filling. This time around, I used light cream cheese. I accidentally bought it because an elderly couple was camped out in front of the cream cheese display and oblivious to the fact that they were blocking everyone who wanted some. I just reached an arm in and this is what came out. I figured that even though light isn’t as good when it’s just smeared on a bagel, we probably wouldn’t notice the difference in baked goods (I was right).

Put it in a bowl with an egg, some vanilla extract, and some brown sugar.

All mixed up, this is what it looked like.

Set that aside for a bit and start on the second mixture: the streusel topping. Here’s some flour and sugar. The recipe says white sugar, but I always substitute brown sugar for some of it. There’s also some cinnamon here but you can’t see it because I accidentally covered it up. And cold butter. I could have added pecans but I didn’t have any. I still haven’t recovered from dumping half my pantry this summer when we moved.

Anyway, mix it up with a pastry blender.

And set that aside, as well.

Okay, the third mixture is simply the dry ingredients in your regular muffins. This is all-purpose flour, sugar, baking powder, ground cinnamon, and salt. I made a well in the middle in preparation for the wet ingredients.

And here’s the fourth mixture: wet ingredients. Egg, vanilla, pumpkin, and olive oil in an ugly yellow bowl.

All mixed up!

Pour the wet ingredients in the well of the dry ingredients.

And gently mix it up.

Scoop the mixture into your 18 cupcake liners. I used an ice cream scooper to minimize the mess.

Top with the cream cheese mixture, which of course is the best part.

And then add the streusel topping.

And then bake them! They sure look and smell good.

After a few minutes, I scooped them out with a spoon and let them finish cooling on wire racks.

I had no idea until now that this was my only picture of them being cut open and eaten. It is dark and blurry. I blame the deliciousness and the sugar from keeping me from being able think clearly or to take a decent photograph. Please, use your imagination.

Or even better, make your own so that you can see first hand!

Oh, and if you were wondering, using light cream cheese didn’t seem to have an effect on taste. So good!

 

 

P.S. Stay tuned for a guest post from my good friend Jacki! She will be writing about white chicken chili and pumpkin donuts. Can’t wait to see

Cheddar-Broccoli Soup

A few days ago, I posted about making bread bowls. I promised a follow-up post about the soup that I made to put in it. Here it is!

I hadn’t made this soup before. I found the recipe on the Food Network website and figured it looked as good as any other broccoli-cheese soup, which is what I was aiming for. Well, first I wanted to make Wisconsin Beer soup (you find these things when you use google just right), but after reading reviews that revealed that which beer you choose makes a HUGE difference, and that it can be hard to accomplish without curdling the milk, I decided that I honestly wasn’t ready to devote that much mental energy and planning. Broccoli-cheese soup was my next best option.

First, I washed the broccoli. Lots and lots of broccoli.

Next, I chopped it into florets. I made them fairly small.

Next, take a sweet onion.

And dice it.

With my prep complete, I started my base by melting a stick of butter in the big soup pot that is still scorched from my jambalaya last spring. That has nothing to do with this, but I felt like explaining why the pot looks so dirty. You should have seen it when I first tried to clean out the scorched rice. It was black with rice-shaped marks!

I digress. Here’s the butter.

When the butter was melted, I added all that chopped onion and cooked it until it was translucent and tender.

We have onion-butter soup so far!

Next, I added some flour to thicken it up. Sweet action shot, eh?

Once it’s mixed in and thickened up, I added whole milk and half-and-half. I never said this was healthy! Just decadent. Mmm.

I also added nutmeg. Here is everything swirling around the pot after a vigorous mix with my wooden spoon.

Finally, I added my broccoli. Lots and lots of it. Basically just filled the entire pot with it until there wasn’t room for more, and then I seasoned with salt and pepper.

At that point, the directions said to turn to low, cover, and simmer. The milk and cream hadn’t even heated up yet, really, so instead I turned the heat up for a while. I didn’t turn it down until it was bubbling, and then I let it simmer quietly for a while.

This last step was done just a few minutes before serving. I added a whole bunch of grated mild cheddar cheese!

Once the cheese got all melty and mixed in, I took a potato masher to the soup to break up the broccoli a bit. The recipe suggested putting it in the blender, but I wanted it to be chunky so I declined.

And that’s about it! I put my bread bowl on a plate…

Cut off the top…

Squished down the insides with my fingers, and ladled in my soup. Topped it with a pinch of grated cheddar, and we were good to go!

I’m going to be adding this to my repertoire. It was creamy, cheesy, broccoli-y, and yummy. It filled us up and left us satisfied. In fact, we couldn’t finish our soups AND the bowls, so we were a little wasteful with our bread bowl crusts, but that’s okay. We ate the insides, and it complemented the soup very well.

Honestly, it wasn’t hard at all. I encourage you to make some!