Caramel Lover's Dream

Vlad joined Abby Gail, Stone and I for the evening and as always we had a wonderful time.  This was Abby Gail's first time to meet Vlad, whom she found to be enchanting.   Recently, Vlad had taught me how to cook a Romanian meal, which I did during the week of Thanksgiving for my daughter-in-law, her parents and the rest of the family.  The meal, by the way, was a success and I was eager to have Vlad over to reminisce.   

Our sweet treat to end our meal was this golden, irresistible, yummy Caramel Pie. I covered it with whipping cream, not the store bought kind in a tub or can but the kind you whip up yourself!  Then I  added chocolate curls, or should I just call it grated chocolate.  I wasn't able to get it to curl very well.  That I need to practice on.

Caramel Pie

Serving 8-10

Ingredients:

1 single crust pie

Two (14 ounce) cans sweetened condensed milk

1 pint heavy whipping cream

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/3 cup confectioners sugar

1 Tablespoon jello instant vanilla pudding mix, dry

Optional: chocolate curls

Directions:

Bake pie crust and set aside to cool.

Preheat the oven to 350'.  Scoop the condensed milk into a 9"X13" glass baking dish.  Cover the container with foil and place it in a roasting pan.  Add enough hot water to the pan to reach one-third of the way up the side of the baking dish.  Bake, lifting the foil to stir 2-3 times, until the condensed milk is golden and thickened, about 2  hours; add more water to the roasting pan as necessary.  The consistency of the caramel should be like delve de leche.  Don't worry if it is lumpy; it will smooth our as it chills.

Scrape the caramel filling in a bowl.  Spray a sheet of plastic wrap with vegetable oil spray and cover the pie.  Refrigerate until the filling is chilled, at least 4 hours.

About 3 hours prior to serving carefully spoon and spread caramel into cooled pie crust.  It will be very thick, just do this slow and it will smooth out. 

With a mixer beat heavy whipping cream, vanilla extract, confectioners sugar and jello instant vanilla pudding mix until light and fluffy.  Spread onto of caramel.  Keep refrigerated.  Optional: chocolate curls.

My Table Awaits

How To Cook Romanian

Let me start by saying what tonight was all about.  My soon to be daughter-in-law, Delia, is Romanian.  When Delia's parents are here for the wedding, I wanted to make a dinner from their country.  Vlad, our friend from Romania, who lives here in Tennessee was just the person to teach me.  He was as excited as I was.  It's rare that I cook with anyone other than my children when they are home.  Tonight was, as Vlad stated, "super fun."  Vlad gave me a to do list prior to his arrival.  There was a large amount of prep work including boiling and chopping. I just cranked up the radio and was happy chopping away.  I started the night before by cooking the beef shanks.  The next day I began with the parsnips, boiling them until sufficiently firm followed by chopping..  Well, maybe I didn't boil them quit enough and maybe chopped just a little to small.  Ooops.  Below is a small vision of the pre work that was done.  

The potatoes needed to be boiled, cooled and chopped into about 1/2" pieces.  I didn't have these cubed small enough, but it didn't take long to size them down.

The carrots where to be boiled and chopped like the parsnips.  These also I didn't boil long enough and chopped to small.

The baby english peas I boiled in sugar water.  These I got perfect.

Ahhh, this dish was f-a-n-t-a-s-t-i-c!!!  What is in here?  White Kidney beans and olive oil,
topped with some caramelized onions.  Oh yeah, this stuff was yumo!!!

Note to self, do not slice into onion rings.  We where not making fried onions rings!   Needs to be chopped into large chunks prior to caramelizing.

This is Vlad, my Romanian cooking instructor for the evening.  Scientist by day, cook by night.

Vlad was a first-rate instructor.  I learned alot this evening.  Americans do things the simple way. We tend to be lazy, always looking for short cuts.   Do not buy pre-chopped pickles.  Buy the whole dill pickles and chop them yourself, that way you have larger chunks and more flavor.  Ok, that makes sense.  You could really tell a difference.  Also, when the instructions say Dijon Originale Mustard, that means Dijon Originale Mustard, not the Dijon with white wine.  Hey, I didn't know there was much difference, but there is.  The Originale is stronger, therefore better in this salad when mixed with mayo but not just any mayo.  Like any truly southern woman, Vlad agrees only Hellman's will do.

Vlad, chopping the celery, that I forgot altogether.  In my defense, in the instructions he called them twigs.  I thought he was talking about the carrots.

Look at that.  You know you want some.  It was so good, I can't wait to make it for the family.

One of the reasons Vlad and I get along so well is that we are both very particular.  I totally get that.  Hey, there is nothing wrong with that.  We get it right.

I look forward to many more evenings cooking with Vlad.  Hmmm, something he's not good at, he says, is baking.  Maybe I can teach him a thing or two about that in the kitchen next time.

No matter where in the world you are from, two things remain the same, friendship and food.  You gotta have it.

Something else I learned this evening.  My stovetop is very small.   I need a larger one.  "Stoooone," I yelled, we need to go to the appliance store, now!

Our candlelit Romanian dinner

Stone's job for the evening was acting as a sommelier which he did quite well.  Oh yes, and going to the grocery.  Remember the thing about the pickles, well he had to get a jar of whole pickles.   Also I had purchased a tube of dill paste thinking this was great. I had never used dill paste before and I thought wow, so easy, no chopping.  Remember that comment about lazy Americans.  OMG, you should had seen Vlad's face when I pulled that from the refrigerator.  I thought he was going to have congestive heart failure. You have to use fresh dill, and lots of it. I phoned Stone immediately while he was still at the store and said, "get fresh dill, and lots of it!"