Skyrim Food: Apple Dumplings

Alright gamer stoners, this one is for you.  The boys finally got me to play Skyrim, and I'm pretty hooked.  We came to the conclusion that someone should figure out how to make some of the food from the game, so we of course will be going through a few things but here's the first!

Apple Dumplings

While these certainly look tasty, they look much less like a Cheezit and more like a dessert in real life.

  All of those pastries in Skyrim?  Don't lie, you've sat there and thought to yourself "Damn, I want to eat that."  Well now you can.

And here's the real deal!  The sides could be closed more, but not a bad imitation.

Prep Time: 20-25 minutes
Cook Time: 12-15 minutes

Ingredients:

3 large apples
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 Tbsp cinnamon
1/4 Tsp nutmeg
Chopped walnuts, about 1/2 cup
1 box frozen filo dough
Butter, melted
Honey

Supplies:

2 basting brushes
Clean, dry surface
Cookie sheet
Bowl
Measuring cups and spoons

Dirrections

Do your preheat the oven bullshit, if you must.  350° F.  Rack in the center to low.  Or you could be a rebel and wait until those suckers are ready to go in.  Whatever.

Peel your apples and cut them into half inch chunks and throw them in a mixing bowl.  Toss in your sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg, stirring well until ingredients are combined evenly.  At this point in the process you should probably give your apples a taste to make sure they taste just how you want them.  Feel free to adjust your sugar and spices as you see fit.

Defrost your filo dough and unroll it on a clean, dry surface.  Take your melted butter and a basting brush and lightly coat a cookie sheet, then set it aside.  On some wax paper, lay out one layer of filo dough, then lightly brush over it with your butter.  It shouldn't be sopping wet, but you want it to be coated enough to stick to the next piece.  Carefully add the next layer and then again brush on a butter coating.  You'll need about ten layers for an apple dumpling, but don't butter the tenth layer!

With a sharp knife, section your filo dough into six squares.  Be gentle because it can be tricky to cut the dough without tearing it and making a huge mess.

Take your second basting brush and evenly coat the top of each square with honey.  Sprinkle a few of your walnuts in the center of a square, then drop a spoonful or two of apples on top.  You want enough on there for a good tasting dumpling, but not so many that you can't get the top to close.  When it's all loaded up, fold in the corners of the square and pinch them together.  Add a bit more honey and butter to the seams if you're having trouble getting them to stick.  For an extra touch, sprinkle a few more walnuts on top.

Repeat the filling process for the rest of your squares, then assemble a second ten layers of filo dough and repeat the process for the remaining apples.  Or just eat the remaining apples.  That's what we did!

Place your squares a few inches apart on a cookie sheet and bake at 350º F for 12-15 minutes or until dough starts to brown.

Serve with vanilla ice cream, a drizzle of honey, and a sprinkle of sugar on top!

Ghost says: Don't worry if they come apart a little in the oven, they're still just as good!
The guys say:  The great thing about these is that they can be made with so much butter!  Consider using a butter substitute too!

Doughnut Breakfast Sandwiches

Zippy was supposed to write this one up, but getting him and Skul to write their blog articles is like trying to perform dental surgery from inside the mouth of an unanesthetized killer whale, so here we are!  It's been a while since we've posted anything - busy times inventing food (and eating it of course!)  This is something Zippy came up with one night around two in the morning when we all decided we were starving and couldn't decide what we wanted at the most glorious institution that is the all night grocery store in the next town over.

Doughnut Breakfast Sandwiches
Prep Time: 5-10 minutes
Cook Time: 10-20 minutes (depending on your multitask cooking skills and how many of these you're actually making)

Ingredients:
(This will make one sandwich, but this is definitely something you need to share if you make it, so make two or three!)
-Plain iced doughnut of the not cake variety.  I'd imagine you could also use a cruller.
-1 large egg
-3 strips of bacon
-cheese, at least two slices; we actually buy bricks of cheese and grate it up - these were great with sharp cheddar
-Maple syrup to top (optional)

 Directions

Set out everything you're going to need ahead of time, as this one comes together pretty quickly.  First, take your doughnut and cut it in half so that you have something like a bun (see the picture!)

In a medium frying pan, cook your egg.  We had these done over easy, but if you prefer scrambled or sunny side up then you go for it pal.  I could launch into a long discussion here regarding egg flipping methods, but who knows how long I could go on about that?  My tried and true method involves letting it cook for a while on one side then picking up the pan and doing a sort of wiggle slide move with the spatula under most of the white, then flipping that sucker without even a prayer.  Maybe I'll put up a video, I don't know.  Hell, even HRH Gordon Ramsay doesn't have any tips for perfectly flipping an egg.  It just can't be done.  Unless you have one of those special tiny pans that's just egg sized and often has an amusing characterized egg face chicken foot creature on it that harkens back to that egg with the feet that was on the Garfield cartoon.  Look, see now, you made me rant.

Your egg is probably cooked by now, so toss that sucker on a plate and drop your bacon in the pan.  Fry it over medium heat to your desired crispiness, or lack thereof.   It wouldn't be The Stoner Food Blog without gratuitous bacon imagery around mid-post... so here you are loves:

Believe it or not, I didn't have any extra bacon porn... so here, have a cat?  Not really the same.  Plus, he wants to eat you and your bacon.

Now that we've had a brief hiatus for bacon porn that turned out to actually be a slightly annoyed cat, we can get back to cooking.  When you're finished frying up your bacon, leave a little of the grease in the pan and grab your doughnut halves.  You want to fry them up on the non-frosted side until they're toasty, between golden and just the slightest bit burnt.

Remove your doughnuts from the pan when they're done and assemble your sandwich with the fried parts of the doughnuts facing out so that you don't get sticky trying to eat your epic sandwich of doom and heart failure.  No one wants to get sticky.  Ours went together like so: doughnut, bacon, egg, cheese, maple syrup, doughnut.  But feel free to be a rebel and skip the syrup, or put the cheese on the bottom, or what have you. I'm pretty sure mine had hot sauce on it too, but everything I consume has hot sauce.  It's your sandwich damn it, be creative!

Now go eat that shit. 

Disclaimer:  The Stoner Food Blog is not responsible for the heart attack you have after you eat this.

Cheesy Bacon Biscuits

Warm buttery biscuits, packed full of cheese and bacon goodness – these might be the ideal stoner snack.  When I found the recipe for these I was a little intimidated by the prep time, since I’d never actually made biscuits from scratch before, but I figured what the hell and decided to give it a shot.  Do it, it’s worth it.  I actually had to make these twice to get a blog entry completed - the first time they disappeared before I could take pictures of the finished product!  I suspect the guys ate them...

Cheesy Bacon Biscuits

Prep time: 30 minutes

Cook time: 20 minutes

What you’ll need:

·         2 cups all-purpose flour

·         1 teaspoon baking powder

·         ¾ teaspoon salt

·         4-5 tablespoons butter, cubed and chilled

·         10 tablespoons milk

·         4 tablespoons vegetable oil

·         1 egg

·         10 slices thick-cut bacon (Use pepper bacon.  You're welcome.)

·         1 ¼ cup shredded cheese (whatever your favorite is, I used sharp cheddar)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375° F.  Honestly, I wouldn't turn the oven on until after you've fried your bacon, but you do what feels good.  Grease a standard muffin pan and set it aside.  Usually I use butter to grease stuff, but with a muffin tin your only option is pretty much a spray on.  Pam is your friend, otherwise these little suckers will be hanging out in that pan until kingdom come.  Put the muffin pan aside, we’ll deal with it later.

Fry the bacon in a skillet until it has reached its desired crispiness.  A long time ago I was under the impression that there was some magical trick to frying bacon.  There isn’t, just put it in the damn pan.  You don’t even need the Pam, it makes its own non-stick grease.  Cool on paper towel to absorb some of that delicious grease then chop up and set aside.

Combine your dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt) in a bowl and mix them up until they’re fully assimilated. 

This is the tricky part, but I promise it’s the only tricky part.  Get out your butter – it should be cut into little cubes and straight out of the fridge.  Don’t melt your butter.  Do not melt your butter.  Seriously, don’t.  Don’t even heat it up.  Anyhow.  For this you’ll need to find your handy dandy pastry cutter.  It looks like this:

Actually I don't own one of these either.  Maybe Skul will get me one for Christmas.

 Don’t have a pastry cutter?  That’s ok neither do I; just grab a couple of clean knives.  Or your fingers really.  When you do this you’re not mixing or mashing the butter into the dry stuff, and it won’t combine completely.  There will be chunks.  Basically you want to cut up your little cubes of butter into smaller bits of butter that are all intermixed with your dry ingredients.  Think of the butter as the 1% and your flour mix as the 99%.  They're there together in the same big mixing bowl, and they interact when they have to, but they're still pretty much in the category of  separate but not really that equal.  There is a class struggle of butter and flour happening in your bowl.  When it’s in there enough you’ll have a semi-chunky, crumbly mixture of little hunks of butter and dry ingredients.  It won’t look perfect, but you really don’t want it to anyhow!

In a separate bowl, whisk together the milk, oil, and egg.  Please tell me you own a whisk.  We're cooking big kid stoner food now, not ramen noodles.  Buy a whisk.  If nothing else it’s fun to play with when you’re out of your mind.

Using a rubber spatula, stir your wet ingredients in with your flour-butter mix.  Your dry ingredients should all moisten but there will still be chunks!  Let the chunks stay, you want them.  Then add in your bacon and cheese, folding gently until all has been incorporated.  Don’t be nervous about sticking your hands in there!

When you're done mixing, the end result will look something like this, and feel sticky to the touch like canned biscuits.

At last, grab that muffin tin!  Spoon your batter evenly into the pre-greased pan and pop in the oven for 20-22 minutes, or until your biscuits are a lovely golden brown on top.  You should have enough batter for 12 biscuits.  I usually set a timer for about 18 minutes to check on everything.  Actually set two timers.  In case you get distracted.  Don’t lie, you know you do.

Pre-baked biscuit goodness...

...and post-baked biscuit goodness.  Yum!

Skul says:  These were awesome!  Try adding some garlic or some onions in too.

Ghost says:  I’m pretty happy with how they turned out.  Serve them hot with butter!  I might try adding some ranch spices sprinkled on top the next time I make these.

Recipe adapted from The Brown Eyed Baker - http://www.browneyedbaker.com/2010/09/08/bacon-onion-cheddar-biscuits/

Bacon Crumble Apple Pie

Oh I know, "What!  What is this wonderful thing I've stumbled across?  A blog full of easy to make stoner food that will class up my table and keep my munchies in check at the same time?  Holy potatoes Batman."  I know it.  You've stumbled across a blog to keep you fed and well filled with your daily helpings of bacon, cheese, ranch dressing, and chocolate, we promise.

For our first creation of insanity we really wanted to go all out, class, bacon, cheese, we needed it all.  So without further adieu, we bring you Bacon Crumble Apple Pie.

 

Bacon Crumble Apple Pie

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Bake Time: 55 minutes

What you need:

• 1/2 lb bacon - we recommend sugar cured for this one as it's a little sweeter
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/3 cup dark brown sugar (or light if you don't have dark)
• 3 tbsps unsalted butter, chilled and cut into cubes
• 1/2 cup sharp or extra sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
• 3 golden delicious apples, peeled and sliced
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp lemon peel, grated
• 1 store bought pie shell (unless you're super brave and really want to make your own)

Directions:


Preheat the oven to 400° F.  Don't get me started on this preheating crap.  Personally I heat it when I've got everything mixed but that's just what I do.  Every oven-involved recipe ever written starts with "preheat the oven" so here we are.

In a large skillet, cook your bacon over medium heat until crisp.  I actually didn't cook it until it was super crispy, mostly because we'll be putting this in the oven for about an hour and it's going to cook up nice and crisp anyhow.  Drain and dry on a paper towel before chopping;  we're not trying to drown the pie in grease. 

Gratuitous photos of bacon which will make you want to cook and consume bacon.

The crumble:

In a mixing bowl, combine the flour and brown sugar until they are well incorporated.

Next get your butter cubes out of the fridge.  They should look like this:

Shut up, your butter cubes are far from perfect.  Don't even get me started on your butter cubes.

Now, if you don't have a pastry knife, which I'm assuming you don't since I don't (who really needs one?), throw your butter in the bowl with the flour and brown sugar and smoosh it around with your fingers in the dry materials.  Eventually it will get crumbly. 

When you smoosh in the butter, you'll end up with a crumbly mixture that has all different sizes and shapes of butter chunks in it.  It won't be flawlessly uniform, and you really don't want it to be anyhow.

Once  you have a dry crumbly mixture, stir in your bacon and your cheese until everything is well mixed together (and still crumbly).  Stick it in the fridge for later.

The pie filling:

Slice up your apples because I know you haven't done it yet, and put them in another mixing bowl.  Add your granulated sugar and mix until all apples are well coated.  Now mix in your lemon peel, again until it is well mixed.  I thought about skipping the lemon but thought what the heck, since we actually happened to have a random lemon living in the fridge.  Trust me here - don't skip the lemon.  Usually you can, but not in this case. 

Put your pie crust into a 9" pie pan and use your fingers to squeeze and scrunch up the edges until it gets that pie crust look to it.  You may now unceremoniously dump your apple-sugar-lemon mixture into the pie crust.  Now lick the bowl.  Go ahead you know you want to, and this is one of the only times I'll let you - there's no egg, so no nasty bacteria.  Yay!

Take your crumble mixture out of the fridge and sprinkle it on top.  Or dump it on top, your choice, just make sure you're using all of it.  It's ok to sneak a few little hunks of bacon. 

Your oven should be heated by now.  If you didn't turn it on before, turn it on, heat it up.  Cover a cookie sheet with foil and place your unbaked pie on it.  Put all of this in the oven and cook for 15 minutes. Set multiple alarms, this is important.  After 15 minutes, cover your pie loosely with foil and put back in the oven for an additional 40-45 minutes or until pie begins to get golden brown.  Don't skip the foil, you'll burn your pie!!!

Enjoy warm.  We haven't tried this with ice cream yet, but I'd have to imagine it would be pretty good.

Ghost says: I was so worried about this tasting good, but wow it's actually really great!  Next time I make it I'm going to go for a little more class and use pears and some sort of white French cheese.  It'll be delicious!

Skul says: Mmmm... bacon.... yeah.... pie....