Happy Holidays!

Hello everybody!
In light of the holidays, I've been doing a lot of something I almost never do: bake. Usually, when someone tells me to bake something, I either tell them, "Well, I'm not a baker, maybe someone else should." Ever since I was little, I've tried time and time again to make a good cake, brownie, pie by scratch and constantly feeling like it stinks. The only thing I've successfully and consistently baked by scratch were sugar cookies; no other cookie, just sugar ones. I've always needed my mom or someone else to help guide my baking.  In the last couple years, I'd lost complete faith that I've ever be able to make a good baked dessert; in fact, I was sure the only way ever could make a good one was by using some mix bought from the market. This year, I decided to give it yet another shot.
Three days ago, I decided to bake three pies that my family could eat around Christmas. I've only baked pies specifically a few times in my life, and always apple or pumpkin. This time, I asked my grandpa for his favorite pies, and through that I decided I wanted to try to make apple pie, lemon meringue pie, and chocolate pie. With so many  pies on my mind, I opted to use store bought dough. Last time I made dough, it took 4 hours and I nearly cried; that would be a feat for another day.
First up was the apple pies, which was almost easy. I used a recipe from an actual pie pan that used to belong to my grandma; apples, sugar, cinnamon, butter, and a little lemon juice. We had the finished product at Christmas Eve dinner, and the pie looked live it came out of a magazine. I was so proud!
Next, I did a lemon meringue. This proved to be trickier. This lemon filling was simple enough; sugar, lemon, cornstarch. It was very interesting to watch thicken, but I'd done it wrong: The meringue should have been whipped before the filling made! This was because the filling needed to go straight into the crust, topped with meringue, and directly into the oven, to retain it's heat and further develop integrity. I covered the filling and frantically went to whip a meringue.
That took a couple of tries. I've attempted meringue before and my problems had been lack of an electric mixer and adding the sugar too quickly. This time, I had an electric hand-mixer and I resolved to add the sugar spoonful by spoonful. Can you believe this time I did it too slow and set my mixer too high? The meringue fell and turned into this thick, sweet foamy thing that was starting to separate. I could have sworn I read you could fix this by cracking a single egg white into a bowl and slowly adding the broken meringue, but that didn't work at all; it only wasted an egg. Turns out, I was thinking of fat based sauces and the emulsifying stage. My final attempt at meringue (which used up the very last of my eggs) proved fruitful! I created a meringue, added the filling to the pie crust, the meringue to the top, and baked.
Finally, I made a chocolate pie. After the meringue, I was tired and really not wanting to mess up, but for some reason I felt like experimenting. The recipe I chose required no actual baking, besides baking the crust before adding the filling; the filling would be cooked on a stove top. This filling was similar to the lemon one in that it was mainly sugar, cornstarch, and flavor (in this case, cocoa powder). I decided to throw in a bunch of coconut shavings too, because I had a bag of the stuff and really like chocolate and coconut. Once it's all in the pot, you're supposed to stir until it thickens; I thought it never would! I stood at the stove stirring and stirring and stirring for 10 minutes, barely thickening at all. I was about to pull it, worried I'd ruined it with the coconut, when it suddenly became hard to stir. I must have cooked the filling for at least 15 minutes, it did most of it's thickening in the last 3 minutes.
The three pies were eaten in the last three days, and everybody said they were good, but I could taste the flaws; the apple and lemon meringue were both runny. Originally, after cutting the apples I set them in a lemonade bath so the wouldn't brown while I prepped the rest of my ingredients, but I think the apples became too moist. Next time, I'll properly drain and pat dry the apples before creating the filling. As for the lemon, maybe I needed to cook it longer? The actual flavor was good, it was just less like a gel and more like soup.
Also, my meringue kind of deflated overnight. I think in the future I'll get better at making a meringue with practice; it'll probably take time before I can identify on my own when my meringue is at the perfect consistency.
Finally came the chocolate pie, which tasted really good and actually came out like a pie slice. The only problem was the texture, which is probably due to the fact that I literally just threw a handful of coconut into the filling. I think next time, I'll try to make a coconut whipped cream using some coconut milk and top it with toasted coconut shaving, so I can keep the smooth texture of chocolate while also having a coconut flavor.
Overall, it turned out to be a very fun day. My pies were far from perfect and need a lot of work, but I think now I'll be more open to baking by scratch; maybe my days of chemically-created "add water and bake" cakes, brownies, and baked goods are finally behind me.
Here is the lemon meringue pie recipe I used.
Here is the chocolate cream pie recipe I used.

Spinach-Cranberry Salad with Apple Cider Vinaigrette

When trying to think of a salad for my dinner party, I immediately looked at the various salads served at my place of mentorship, The Avocado House. There, we have a delicious spinach salad with raspberry vinaigrette, dressed with decadent ingredients such as bacon, feta, and candied pecans. I made some changes to the salad based off of what I had at my disposal and what I wanted to incorporate, so here is my version of a wonderful fall salad:

Vinaigrette
I've never made a vinaigrette before, so I looked at multiple recipes for both basic vinaigrette and specific apple cider ones. My biggest influence can be found here or on page 180 of the Michael Ruhlman book Ratio.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup Apple cider vinegar
• 3 tbs. Dijon mustard
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1/2 cup Extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 Canola oil
• 1 minced shallot
• 1 cinnamon stick

Procedure:

Whisk together apple cider vinegar, Dijon mustard, and honey in mixing bowl. Very slowly (almost drop by drop), add both oils to mixture to emulsify; I don't like to use a blender because it's easier to accidentally over mix with one of those. Make sure your whisking is continuous and to add only little by little. Your product should appear creamy.

Pour emulsified mixture into a container, maybe mason jar or dressing glass, and add shallots and cinnamon stick. Shake well and refrigerate for at least one hour.

Here is a (blurry) photo of the finished product. I was so busy
entertaining/being entertained by guests that it was the only
photo I took of the dish.

Salad

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs. Spinach
• 1/2 cup cubed apples
• 1/4 cup dried cranberries
• 1/4 cup bacon bits
• 1/4 cup blue cheese

Place spinach in bowl. Add apples, cranberries, bacon, and cheese. Toss well and drizzle with apple cider vinaigrette.

I actually had several very picky guests (including my 8 year old little brother) who voiced a disapproval for multiple ingredients. To appease the youngest of my guests, I opted for more of a salad bar service, in which I served a large bowl of spinach surrounded by various small bowls of the other toppings. Most of my guests ate the salad as intended, but this way they all got various amounts! One took a lot of bacon while another girl had more apple than spinach! It made the experience more unique to the guest.

Stuffed Mushroom Recipe

Three years ago, my cousin made stuffed mushrooms during Thanksgiving and damn, they were great! My mom and I loved them so much, we've made our own various versions of them ever since. We always mix it up; yes spinach, no spinach, add nuts, change the cheese. It's how we keep life interesting! This is the recipe for what I made the night of my dinner party:

Ingredients*

• 16 Crimini mushrooms
• 2 tbs. butter (or olive oil. To each his own.)
• 3 tbs. thinly diced onion
• salt and pepper
• 1/3 cup bread crumbs
• 2 cloves garlic
• Generous handful of spinach
• 1/4 cup crumbled blue cheese
• Extra virgin olive oil

Procedure
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with oil and lightly drizzle with olive oil.

Remove stems from mushrooms and thinly dice. Set mushroom caps on foil lined baking sheet.

Put about 2 tbs. of butter in a small saucepan on medium heat. Add onion and saute about one minute. Add bread crumbs and continue to cook until onion is translucent, about 5 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste. Add garlic, diced mushrooms, and then spinach. Once spinach is completely shriveled, remove from heat and add as much blue cheese as you would like. I think I used less than 1/4 cup, to be honest.

Immediately** stuff mushrooms, 1-2 tablespoons, with mixture. Bake for about 25 minutes and serve!

*Measurements may be off!! I always eyeball it, and rarely use actual measuring devices, but I think I'm fairly accuarate. If anything, you might need a teensy bit more bread crumbs, but the rest is more for flavor so you can add or take away where you see fit.

**If you want to prepare in advanced and cook later, go ahead and cook the mixture as instructed. Then, allow to cool for about 10 minutes, stuff the mushrooms, and wrap in plastic. Then all you have to so is pop them in the oven just before serving!