Dig It

This is a blog post full of exciting news. Although, as usual, the news is always far more exciting for me than anyone reading this!

For instance, Thatboy and I are catching up on our DVR'd shows, and I'm loving all the midseason returns that have started the past few weeks. (I'm even more excited about some of the upcoming ones!) I was pleasantly surprised (understatement of the year) to see that Quest is performing on America's Best Dance Crew. Mostly because I'm still in love with Dominic from SYTYCD. I mean, yeah yeah, Hok and Ryan are amazing, but Dominic owns my heart. I honestly love this show to watch all the amazing dancers who were rejected from SYTYCD. AND to see Shane Sparks.

The second piece of exciting news is the award I was given by Giz and Psychgrad from Equal Opportunity Kitchen, the Lemonade Award! The Lemonade Award is given to blogs that have a refreshing outlook, style, vibe, etc. These blogs offer recipes & cooking/baking techniques that are unique, interesting and of course, refreshing. It's no surprise Giz and Psychgrad were awarded this award (gosh that's awkward...) the recipes are interesting, and ther personality of these bloggers shine through. And I'm sure there's going to be even more personality and shining with the planning of Psychgrad's wedding which will be later this year!


Here are the rules for this award...

- Add the logo in your blog.
- Add a link to the person who gave you the award.
- Nominate other (refreshing…like lemonade) blogs of your choice.
- Don’t forget to add links to those blogs in yours.
- Also leave a message for your nominees in their blogs, informing them about the award.

And so my nominees are:

Melissa of Made by Melissa
Robin of Made with Love
Kelly of My Sweet Life
BAKE-EN
Chelle of Brown Eyed Baker


And without further ado, on to the recipe! I really loved this recipe, mostly because it uses Mushroom Duxelles, which I already had on hand from when I made the mushroom tarts. Pretty handy huh? Almost like FF knew I was going to make both recipes when she placed them side by side in the book. And I highly recommend this as a way to use up YOUR mushroom duxelles, because I know after reading about them yesterday you all mixed up a huge batch of them.

This was my first experience making what are generally termed "hand pies" - pies that are small enough to be held in your hand. Although FF doesn't call these hand pies, she refers to them as risolettes. Alexandre Dumas in his culinary dictionary described rissolettes as "all kinds of minced meat cooked menu, with a little fat beef or veal, bacon, salt, pepper, parsley, spring onions, shallots, three egg yolks, make this farce on small toast bread, and serve hot hors d'oeuvres." While this description sounds appetizing, and I was beyond shocked to see that Monsieur Dumas had written a culinary dictionary (which is now on my must read list), this does not even come close to FF's recipe. Does anyone else think she might have picked a fancy Frenchy sounding word to entitle her recipe? Sneaky sneaky Fannie.

What FF's rissolettes are, are little pies of mushrooms. Plain and simple. Easier to make than to say. Almost as easy to make as eat. Why are they so easy? Because they combine 2 recipes we've already made! Whheeeeeee. It's like taking Biology for the second time and getting 100% on every test!

Rissolettes (From The Fannie Farmer Cookbook)

• Pie Crust Pastry
• 1/2 cup Mushroom Duxelles

1. Preheat oven to 450. Roll out pastry 1/4 thick and cut into 3 inch rounds.
2. Place 1 tsp of filling in the center of half of the pieces.
3. Wet the edges, cover with the remaining pieces, and crimp the edges together with the tines of a fork.
4. Set on a cookie sheet, prick the tops and bake about 6 minutes until pale brown.