The Magic Of Complements.

Pumpkin Shaped Dinner Rolls

“On Halloween night, the Great Pumpkin rises from his pumpkin patch and flies through the air with his bag of toys to [give to] all the children.” - Linus, It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

Happy Halloween everyone! I’ve been a huge fan of Charlie Brown for as long as I can remember. Every year, my family watches the specials on TV and I must have read each volume in my grandmother’s massive collection at least three times.

So, when I saw this tumblr post late last year, I knew exactly what I wanted to make for Halloween this year… but with a twist! After some trial and error, I’ve found a way to add cinnamon/pumpkin spice sugar to these rolls while avoiding a massive pocket of it.

So, grab your fall-themed drink of choice and check out below for how to make a batch of these delicious pull-apart dinner rolls for yourself! The great pumpkin may just pay you a visit for your troubles…

(Based on the post by Chef John from All Recipes and the tumblr post linked above.)

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i accept payment by cash or card, quality street

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To all restaurants: you need an online presence OTHER THAN Facebook. Like, something people can access without any account or login at all.

Also, that online presence should just show your menu. Not a PDF download, simply your menu, directly, no need to start an online ordering process.

I remain amazed how many ways, in 2022, places can fuck this up.

Happy Holidays, Everyone!

I was looking through my holiday stuff and realized I never shared this picture from last year’s Heroes’ Feast Gingerbread Showcase!

This style of cookie picture, with the dusting of powdered sugar in the background, has always been a personal favourite of mine. I’m so happy that I got to try it out for myself and that it turned out so well!

the most important thing to remember when making a grilled cheese is that you can season the cheese and no one can stop you

Bruschetta Grilled Cheese

You're welcome.

Welcome to the only recipe for grilled cheese ever. 

Don’t like tomatoes? Doesn’t matter. Get lost in the sauce of basil, garlic, balsamic vinegar, and cheese.

I don’t remember who thought of this first, me or my housemate, so I'm giving us shared credit for this invention. All I know is that we were hungry, had bruschetta mix left over from the night before, and are both apparently geniuses.

Now, enough talking, onto the recipe.

Prep time: 15 mins         Cook time: 15 mins*         Overall: 30 mins

* Can be longer based on if you want to marinate the mix or how many you want to make.

Ingredients:

1 dry pint (312 g) grape or cherry tomatoes, diced

4-5 fresh basil leaves, chopped

4-5 large cloves garlic, finely chopped

4 tbsp. (60 ml) balsamic vinegar*

Salt and pepper, to taste

Sourdough bread, sliced into sandwich slices**

Butter

Mozzarella or Swiss cheese slices

* Can vary based on how much dipping sauce you need.

** I used Vienna style sourdough bread for aesthetics but any style works for this as long as it's the thickness of a sandwich slice.

Add the diced tomato, basil, and garlic to a medium-sized mixing bowl (top-left).

Then, add the balsamic vinegar and salt and pepper to taste (top-right). 

NOTE: You’ll want to add more balsamic vinegar depending on how many sandwiches you’re making so that everyone has dipping sauce!

Mix everything together until all of the tomatoes have been coated in balsamic vinegar.

NOTE: You can totally eat this mix right away, but leaving it to marinate overnight gives extra depth to the flavour!

Heat a large, non-stick pan over medium heat. While it heats, butter two slices of the sourdough bread on one side.

Place one of the sourdough slices butter-side down in the pan once you can start to feel the heat radiating from the pan. Immediately add the cheese slices (top-left).

Add some of the bruschetta mixture on top of the cheese once you hear the butter start to sizzle (top-right). Make sure to leave as much liquid in the brushetta bowl as possible so it doesn’t make the bread too soggy!

NOTE: Definitely add the cheese before the mix. I’ve tried making this and adding the mix before the cheese and it just makes the bread soggy while you’re waiting for it to toast in the pan.

Add the top slice of bread butter-side out once you’ve added the bruschetta mix (top-left) and carefully flip the sandwich.

The structural integrity of these bad boys isn’t so great at this stage, so you’ll want to hold onto the top slice of bread until the last moment while you flip.

Repeat the flipping process until both sides are a nice golden brown (top-right).

TIP: To add some extra flavour to the bread, lightly drizzle both slices with some of the liquid from the bruschetta mix as they toast. Only do this once they’ve toasted for a bit on each side though or it’ll just make the bread soggy!

Now you’re ready to enjoy the best grilled cheese ever! Don’t forget the sauce!

As a side, I’ve found that carrots are a nice veggie snack to go with these since their sweetness compliments the sweetness from the tomatoes.

NOTE: I’ve found the bruschetta mix can be kept up to three days in a tupperware in the fridge before the flavour becomes just a little too overpowering.

Hand Pies

(Includes small, snackable pies!)

“The variety [of hand pies] presented below, made famous at Cuttle’s Meat Pies located in Waterdeep’s Trades Ward, is flavored with bacon and leeks and is extremely popular across the Heartlands, the Dales, and even the Savage Coast of Faerun, where hungry adventurers simply can’t get enough of them.” - Heroes’ Feast, p. 21

I think we can all agree that pie is one of the best foods ever (take that cake lovers). But, why should its awesomeness only extend to fruit, pudding, or whatever olden times had going on?

The Hand Pies in Heroes’ Feast are a great, filling meal to close to a long day. Packed with awesome carbs, proteins, and spices, they’re hard to resist! 

I was really interested to see if there was a way to turn the traditional, larger pies into snackable finger foods that could be brought to school or made for a party. After a little bit of testing, I found that they could! Since my main goal for this post was to create the snackable ones, I will be incorporating my process into the main body of my review instead of just keeping it to the notes after each step.

Although not the fastest meal to make, there are several ways to speed up the process and give yourself less work!

See below for my notes on the results and for some helpful tips and tricks when making this yourself! Get Heroes’ Feast here: https://dnd.wizards.com/heroes-feast

Prep Time: 20 mins               Cook Time: 2h 40 mins                  Overall: 3 h

* See results section for how to cut down vegetable prep time

** Prep time will increase if you’re making your own pie crust

For the ingredients:

6 slices thick-cut bacon*

1 large (about 8 ounces) Yukon gold potato, peeled and cut into ½-inch pieces

2 leeks, white and light green parts, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced

1 tbsp. (3 g) finely chopped fresh thyme

Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

4 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 pound (500 g) ground beef**

2 tbsp. (16 g) all-purpose flour

⅔ cup (160 ml) low-sodium chicken broth

¼ cup (60 ml) chopped fresh parsley

Pastry for 2 double-crust pies (about 1 ½ pounds), thawed if frozen

1 egg

Ketchup, grainy mustard, or steak sauce to serve (optional)

* I couldn’t find any thick-cut bacon at my grocery store, so I used double the amount of regular cut bacon instead.

** I used medium ground beef.

Preparing the Filling:

I cooked the regular cut bacon in batches in order to avoid crowding the pan. Because I was using thinner bacon, I had to cook the bacon all the way until crispy instead of just slightly browned.

I didn’t have enough rendered fat after cooking for the 2 ½ tbps. required in the next steps. To make up for it, I supplemented the missing amount with a neutral-tasting oil (like vegetable, canola, safflower, and grapeseed).

For the vegetable mixture, I first cooked the potatoes in 1 ½ tbps. of the reserved fat over medium-high heat. This took about 7 minutes, stirring frequently (above-left image).

Next, I added 1 tbsp. reserved fat, leeks, thyme, and ½ tsp. salt to the potatoes and cooked them for about 4 minutes. Then, I added the garlic and stirred it in until fragrant - about 1 minute.

Finally, I transferred it to a bowl, wiped out the pan, and returned it to medium-high heat.

For the beef mixture, I cooked the ground beef until it started to lose its pink colour (4-5 mins). You want to make sure you’re breaking up any large clumps as it cooks.

Next, I turned down the heat to medium and added the flour, stirring constantly for 1-2 minutes. After, I added the broth and ¾ tsp. salt, scraping the skillet to dissolve anything that got stuck to the bottom. The above-right image is what the beef mixture looked like after cooking it for 2 minutes. It shouldn’t be super liquidy.

Above is what the hand pie mixture looked like when I combined the vegetable and meat mixtures. After combining, I allowed the mixture to cool for about 20 minutes (barely warm).

When the mixture cooled, I incorporated the crumbled bacon and parsley. Finally, I covered it with cling wrap and put it in the fridge.

NOTE: To adjust the seasoning at this point, I would recommend only using pepper. I found the mixture was plenty salty.

Constructing the Pies:

First, I preheated the oven to 375℉ and lined two baking sheets with parchment paper. You could also use nonstick silicone liners.

Since I was using a homemade pie crust, I divided my dough into quarters then rolled them out on a lightly floured work surface until I could see the surface through the dough. I lightly floured the top of the dough and my rolling pin to keep the dough from sticking to it. Follow the same method if using store-bought dough.

To prevent the dough from breaking while chilled: start by rolling it out a little in one direction, rotate 90°, roll it out a little, and repeat. This way, you’re not just stretching the dough in one direction.

As you work with the dough, try not to let it get too warm! The chilled butter is what gives the pie crust a flaky texture. If you feel the dough start to warm up too much as you work with it, cover it with a clean, damp kitchen or damp paper towel and place it in the fridge for a few minutes before continuing.

If you notice any tears appear while you roll out the dough, overlap a bit of the dough in that area and roll over it using the rolling pin. If the tear is too large to do this, patch it up with some dough scraps and roll over it to seal it.

To create envelopes for the filling, I used a stencil to create 10 by 8-inch ovals for the large ones and used a ~3 ¾-inch diameter circular cookie cutter.

From my dough, I was able to get two large pies and 15 smaller ones (not using all the dough scraps will net you about 12).

NOTE: A bench scraper and/or a thin metal spatula is your friend while working with the dough. To make the pies easier to fold and transfer, make sure to go around and lift up all of the dough from the work surface.

For the large pies, I placed one cup of filling on the bottom third of the dough and left ~1 ½ inches for the border (above-left).

For the small pies, there are a few changes I would make with how I constructed them (above-right). Although using only a ½ tbsp. of filling made them easier to handle, you should absolutely use between ¾-1 tbs. instead. You may not get as clean of a seam, but it will help the pies stay juicy and have a better dough-to-filling ratio.

Also, I would consider using a slightly larger cookie cutter (4-inch diameter) and shaping the dough to be more like an oval. I think this would help with the difficulties when using more filling.

Finally, be mindful of how much filling you’re making/using. The amount of filling called for in the recipe is great when making four large pies but significantly less is needed when constructing the smaller ones. Out of the 15 made, adjusting for the recommended increase in filling would mean just barely 1 ½ cups is needed!

To ensure minimal food waste when only making the mini-pies, either make 2.5 times the amount of dough or make ¾ the amount of filling.

Put the filling for the little ones on the bottom half of the circle/oval leaving room for sealing and crimping.

To seal the pies, I started by dipping my finger in water and going around the seam to moisten it. Next, using my bench scraper, I folded the dough over the meat filling. Finally, I used a fork to crimp the edges closed.

If you notice any breaks in the dough while you’re folding/crimping, don’t worry! Use any spare scraps of dough to cover the tears. If a tear appears when crimping the edges, cover it with scrap dough and crimp it down.

Each regular-sized hand pie took about 8 mins to assemble from rolling it out to sealing it. So, it will take you around half an hour to do all four (at least the first time).

The snack-sized pies took about 8 minutes for 4 of them. Therefore, it will take you just under half an hour to make 12 of them. When I put together all of my dough scraps for the little ones, I was able to make 3 extra snack pies - 15 in total.

Always use your bench scraper or flat metal spatula when working with or picking up the pies.

TIP: Because each pie takes time to construct and because we want the pie crust to stay cool, place each fully constructed pie in the fridge after sealing it. For the smaller ones, place each batch of 4 in the fridge as you finish them.

TIP: If you’re running out of space in your fridge for the baking sheets, use a cooling rack to place one tray on top of the other.

TIP: Wait until the pies have chilled in the fridge to score the X. It’s much easier to cut into the firm dough than the softer one.

Above is what the pies looked like before and after baking in the oven for about 40-45 mins. Be generous with the egg wash to give each pie a nice golden brown colour.

Above is what the pies looked like as they cooled - about 5 to 10 mins. Be mindful when transferring the large ones to the wire rack. They are very easy to break.

Overall, I would give this recipe a 4.5/5. Both the regular and the snack sized hand pies were delicious. Although, I would recommend eating the larger pies with a fork. They were a bit too flimsy to be eaten by hand. However, the filling to pie crust ratio was perfect.

As mentioned in the filling step, the only changes I would make to make the snack pies better would be to use a slightly larger cookie cutter and use more filling. Other than that, they were amazing. Everyone in my house agreed that they would make for great appetizers or finger foods for a party because “you can eat them and just feel like you’re snacking”. You can even turn the assembly into a fun activity (or pass off the work to guests who like to arrive early)!

I would highly recommend not making this a one-day event. As the longest hands-on recipe so far, I would split up the work as follows: 

Make the filling the day before

Make the pie crust and construct the pies the day of

Not only will this division of work make the recipe less daunting but it will allow the filling to chill completely - making it much easier to handle.

TIP: Although the prep time seems a little daunting, you can save time by completing certain parts of it while cooking. For example:

Cut up the potatoes and leeks while the bacon cooks

Chop up the thyme while the potato chunks cook

@.critical_role: We are pleased to announce EXQUISITE EXANDRIA: THE OFFICIAL COOKBOOK OF CRITICAL ROLE!

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BONUS: In the spirit of this special season and his generosity, a first taste of what's to come is yours with the official recipe for Lord Ariks Eshteross' Maple Ginger Cookies with Turmeric! 🍪

Try it at criticalrolebooks.com/cookies and share your creations with the tag #ExquisiteExandria!