CRAFT's Interview with Amy Sedaris

Yesterday, CRAFT blog posted an interview Amy Sedaris, author of I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence. I received this book for Christmas and I read the entire book on my plane ride back home. While many of you may be attracted the to book from a cooking perspective because she has some good recipes, this interview focuses on the crafty side of things. Amy's hysterical in a strange way. I love her stories about her rabbits.

So far I have made three recipes from this book: Tula's Country-Style Greek Salad, Crosscut Stump Stew, and Tiddlywinks Toadstool Pie. Do any of you have this book? Has anyone tried any of her recipes?

Tiddlywinks Toadstool Pie

I'll admit it. I made Amy Sedaris' Tiddlywinks Toadstool Pie because of the name. That and because it has lots of mushrooms. This recipe is SUPER easy. Just pop a pie crust in the oven, saute some mushrooms and make a cream sauce. Then mix it all together and put it in the oven.

When I read the recipe in I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence, I assumed it would turn out more like a quiche. Actually, it is like a very thick cream of mushoom soup pie. What can be better?

note* I couldn't figure out the Weight Watchers points for this recipe because there is no serving size designated. And come on, look at all that butter! Stay away from this if you are on a diet.

Tiddlywinks Toadstool Pie 1 baked piecrust Cream Sauce: 3 Tbsp. of butter 3 Tbsp. of flour 1 cup of light cream Salt and Pepper Mushroom Filling: 1 lb. fresh mushrooms, sliced 2 Tbsp of butter 2 small garlic cloves, crushed 3 shallots, minced 2 egg yolks mixed with 1 Tbsp. of light cream Salt and Pepper 2 Tbsp. of white wine Topping: 1/2 cup of grated Swiss cheese

Instructions
Melt the butter in a saucepan. Stir in flour and cook until smooth. Add cream and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Saute mushrooms in butter with garlic and shallots. Drain off any liquid. Add the mushrooms to the cream sauce and the egg mixture. Blend salt, pepper, and wine. Pour into pie shell. Top with cheese. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes, until cheese in melted and crust is brown.

crosscut stump stew

So, now that I have my own food blog, I can participate in tons of online food blogging events. Shaun of Winter Skies Kitchen Aglow is hosting this week's Weekend Cookbook Challenge. He has chosen STEW as the theme. Sara of I Like to Cook is the creater of this challenge and designates a different food blogger each week to host the event and select the theme.

As soon as i read the that the theme would be stews, I knew exactly what i wanted to cook. There is an interesting recipe for Crosscut Stump Stew in I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence by Amy Sedaris. Actually, the stew looks like any other good and hearty beef stew. What drew me to it however was how she wrote about it in her book. Amy is a comedian and she separated the chapters of her book in a quite unique way. Since the book is about entertaining, each chapter is for a target audience of people you would have a party for. This stew is featured in her lumberjack section. Yes, you read correctly. There is a chapter in the book dedicated to having a party for lumberjacks. In addition to recipes, she suggests party favors and decoration ideas. Her featured stain removal tip in the lumberjack chapter is for mud:

Make sure that the mud stain on the rug has dried. Vacuum the dirt off. Take some laundry soap and work it into the stain. This should work. If not just turn the rug over and deny it ever happened.

The stew recipe is pretty basic. As I prepared my shopping list, I realised I have never made a simple stew before. I have not made that many stews before period. But the ones I have prepared have been made something with gourmet-type ingredients. Also, I have only made stews in my slower cooker and never made one stove-top or in the oven. I was excited to try this one and get a good basic stew under my belt.

I'm not sure if I like Amy's recipe style. She is not very exact. I am one who prefers to follow recipes exactly and I want to know the minimum amount of each ingredient to add to the dish. If a recipe adds a "to taste" I am fine, but i don't like how her recipe just calls for "sugar" with no specific amount. I had never cooked a stew like this before and was unsure of how sugar will effect the taste. However, I can go with the flow and just figured it out. I suppose this is why many chefs suggest you taste at each step.

Amy suggests serving the stew with a stack of white bread and oatmeal raisin cookies.

Crosscut Stump Stew (serves one lumberjack or six people) 2 pounds of stewing beef (cut into 2-inch cubes) 3 Tbsp. olive oil 1 medium onion, chopped 2 garlic cloves, crushed 1 cup tomato puree 1/2 cup of red wine 2 Tbsp. of wine vinegar 1 bay leaf 1 3-inch cinnamon stick 4 whole cloves Sugar Salt and pepper 1 1/2 pounds of small pearl onions

Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Brown your cubed beef on all sides in a pan of hot oil and then transfer to a casserole dish. Add onion and garlic to the pan. Add more oil or butter if you need to, fry until the onion is soft. Add tomato puree, wine, and vinegar and stir. Pour this over the meat cubes in the casserole dish, and add the bay leaf, cinnamon, cloves, sugar and salt and pepper.

Cover and cook in over for 1 hour, or cook on stove, slowly. While beef is cooking, boil a pan of water. Remove roots and tops of pearl onions. Crosscut (score) the root end and place in a bowl. Cover in boiling water for 2 minutes, then drain off water. The skins will slip off easily. Add the onions to stew and continue to simmer on low until the meat and onions are tender and the sauce is thick. (About 1 1/2 hours longer).

tula's country-style greek salad

i made tula's country-style greek salad from i like you: hospitality under the influence by amy sedaris. when i received two joy of cooking cookbooks for christmas, i exchanged one for this "unique" cookbook. i read most of it on the plane ride home from chicago. she is a comedian, but the book itself is just strange (more on that later). i think because it's so random. the recipes look great though. amy sedaris mentions that she knows greek cooking very well so i was attracted to a few of her greek recipes. i love cucumbers, tomatoes and feta cheese so this salad seemed like a great place to start.

And it was . . . this salad is super refreshing. the kalmata and feta give it some substance and the salad by itself is quite filling. it is very simple to just chop up some veggies and whisk together a quick dressing. i like it with lots of fresh ground sea salt sprinkled on top. And to my surprise, the salad lasted. i actually made it last night but forgot to add the olives and pine nuts. it is a very large salad so i barely finished half of it. i just left it in the bowl and covered it with tinfoil. there was some extra juice tonight, probably due to the tomatoes, but nothing got soggy. the feta is firm enough not to soak everything up. so i just added in the olives and pine nuts and was good to go. there was so much left that i ate it as the majority of my meal with a little bit of leftover soup.

Tula's Country Style Greek Salad 3 medium tomatoes 1 large cucumber 1 small red onion 5 oz crumbled feta a handful of kalamata olives a handful of pine nuts salt, fresh ground pepper and oregano to taste 1/4 cup olive oil 3 Tbsp red wine vinegar (i used balsamic)

Instructions (serves 6)
slice tomatoes and onion. peel and slice cucumber. arrange tomato, cucumber and onions in bowl. top with feta and olives and sprinkle with salt, pepper and oregano to taste. toss in pine nuts.

mix olive oil and red wine vinegar. add salt and pepper to taste. beat olive oil and vinegar mixture and pour over vegetables.

note* if you make this with fat-free feta it will only be 4 weight watchers points.