Rio Grande Mud Pie

Growing up, my family Christmas eve tradition was going out for fajitas.  My mom reasoned that we would spend Christmas day cooking up a big meal, so she didn't want to spend Christmas eve in the kitchen as well.  To keep with the family tradition, I invited some friends over for a fajita dinner on Christmas eve and made this pie for dessert.  It's a fantastically decadent pie that combines chocolate, chiles, nuts, and dulce de leche.

Christmas Eve Rio Grande Mud Pie

Ingredients

pie crust

2 cups pecans

4 tablespoons brown sugar

1 Tbs. New Mexico Chile powder
2 teaspoons melted butter

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 tablespoon water

pie filling

1 cup butter

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

2 eggs

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 tablespoon Ancho chile purée

1 teaspoon cinnamon

pie topping

caramel/dulce de leche/cajeta (delicious when homemade, but a big time saver and also quite good out of a can)

For the flour in the pie filling, I used sweet rice flour to keep the pie gluten free.

Directions

Preheat the over to 325° F.

Place pecans, brown sugar, and chile powder in a bowl or food processor.

Add melted butter, vanilla and water. With the food processor or a hand blender, grind the nuts until the mixture becomes a fine texture (though I left some bigger pieces of nuts for added texture).

Press into a pie pan.

Bake at 325° F for 20 minutes.

Make the Ancho chile purée  by removing the seeds and stem from one ancho chile pepper. Tear it up into small pieces and place is a small bowl or mug.

Just barely cover the Ancho chile pieces with boiling hot water, and then let it soak the until the chile becomes tender.  Purée in a food processor or with hand blender.

Melt the butter and chocolate chips.  You can do this in a double boiler, but I took the short cut of melting it in my microwave for about 2 minutes.

Beat in the eggs.

Add sugars and flour.

Stir the Ancho chile purée and cinnamon.

Pour filling into pie crust.  After adding the cinnamon, some of the butter because to separate a bit, but I just poured it all in the pie crust.

Bake at 325° for 60 minutes.  I placed a cookie sheet underneath to catch the bit of dripping butter that separated…

Once the pie cools, spread caramel/dulce de leche/cajeta on top.

The pie was a big hit! And the pie went well with a bit of eggnog ice cream.

Let go of that which is most precious...

As most of you probably already know, last week I lost what was most precious to me in all of Alaska-- my best friend and canine companion Oban. 

Saying that he was an awesome dog is a grave understatement.  We had so many fun adventure together.

 

Sled-joring on the trail out of Tolovana Hot Springs

At the top of Donnelly Dome

What we originally thought was epilepsy turned out to be something much more serious, and his rapid and severe decline has left me blindsided. 

So, in surrendering to the reality that I really don't have control over things that I wish I did and in honor and memory of Oban, I've decided to let go of the one recipe that I've always kept secret-- Fudgie Wudgies.

Fudgie Wudgies on the Fudgie Wudgie plate I made 

specific to serve them on (with alternating oat and fudge

motifs around the rim)

I've always held this recipe secret so I can bake them as a birthday present or thank you gift for friends or use them as a trade.  And for certain friends, I've always felt like I've been hold the recipe back from them for their own good so they don't overdose on them.

I got this recipe during summer of 2000 when I was working at Toolik Lake a remote research camp on the North Slope.  I started my master's degree of thinking I wanted to be a plant community ecologist and spent the summer, as my sister described, watching the grass grow and quantifying it (though to be accurate, one of the main species we were monitoring Eriophorum angustifolim-- aka cottongrass-- is actually a sedge and not a grass).

As it turned out, what I'm really more interested in is ecosystem services-- so in fall of 2000, after spending 3 months at Toolik, I refocused my research to look at birch sap harvest. This has shaped much of my life since then.  Switching my research to birch was in line with one of my favorite quotes:

Nothing is more practical than finding God, than falling in Love in a quite 

absolute, final way.  What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, 

will affect everything.  It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, 

what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, 

whom you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy 

and gratitude.  Fall in Love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.

--Fr. Pedro Arrupe, SJ

I had the opportunity to go back to Toolik last summer, 11 years later, to bring a group of high school student from the Rural Alaska Honors Institute on a field course.  It was neat to see how Toolik had changed and what was still the same.

When making this recipe, it's easy to switch out the flour for gluten-free flour (such as the Bob's Red Mill GF flour).  I always use real butter and not margarine, and often I use walnuts instead of pecans.

Wine, Cheese, and Chocolate

This year I welcomed a new sister-in-law into my family-- my brother and Janejai were married in NYC in October!

For Christmas, they sent me a lovely crate of cheeses-- way more than I could eat by myself!

So a wine & cheese night was definitely seemed in order... and chocolate is the perfect accompaniment for that! 

I invited a few friends over one dark, cold winter night to indulge themselves in fancy cheeses and other delectables including pate, olives, fruit, and a flourless chocolate cake.

I set out a smorgasbord of gluten-free crackers to go with the cheeses... 

and we had fun creating our own descriptions of the cheese... which we thought we better than the descriptions that came with them.  Who wouldn't want to eat a cheese that makes you feel like you're rolling around naked in mousse (Delice des Cremiers), mud oozing between your toes (Chabichou), diving into mashed potatoes wearing a yellow polka dot bikini (Basqu d'Argental), or walking into a cow barn with fresh milk running down your body (Blue d'Auvergne)...

To add a little sweetness to the evening, I whipped up my standby flourless chocolate cake to serve with the spread.  I love this recipe since it's only 5 ingredients that are easy to keep on hand, quick to make, and always a crowd-pleaser.  And gluten-free.

Flourless Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:

4 ounces fine-quality chocolate (not unsweetened)-- I usually us 2/3 cups of Ghirardelli chocolate chips

1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter

3/4 cups sugar

3 large eggs

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

In a double boiler on the stove, melt the butter and chocolate.

Remove from the heat and add the sugar, eggs, and cocoa powder.  Pour and spread evenly into a an 8-inch round pan lined with parchment paper (this makes it easy to remove after it comes out of the oven; alternatively, you can grease the pan and dust with cocoa power, but really-- the parchment paper is the way to go...).

 

Bake at 375°F for 25 minutes (I always test to see if a toothpick comes out clean).

 

It's an easy cake to decorate by sprinkling some powdered sugar over it, but I like to use a bit of butter cream frosting to doodle on top... 

But there's also all sorts of fun ways to decorate this cake for any occasion...