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Thursday, December 2, 2010

Looking in the Fridge

So of course after thanksgiving the fridge slowly begins to empty of all the yummy thanksgiving leftovers. All the prep and beauty just disappears day by day. (6 large onions people! 2 lbs of mushrooms! All the celery!!)

So now I can see all of the neglected items I bought before thanksgiving- the fresh leeks that were thick and hearty at the farmers market, the baby rainbow carrots that were just so cute, the bright happy little radishes and the still crisp scallions. But one thing that thanksgiving does give me an appetite for is sweets. I fill up on savory my taste of choice and so begin my rare and few but oh so intense sugar cravings. Needless to say, none of those yummy veggies made it out of the fridge the other day. I bypassed them straight away for the still full Nutella and half full mascarpone sitting in my fridge.

Okay, so what I am about to say is going to sound like blasphemy. But please bear with me! I have had these two items in my fridge for FOREVER!! I didn't even know Nutella wasn't supposed to be refrigerated until I took it out of the fridge. Here's why: I don't like it! I bought it on the recommendation of a friend and scooped it out to make some banana dish (classic right? ri-ight??) and hated it. I thought it was way too sweet. I'm more of a dark chocolate girl and I am iffy when it comes to hazelnut. So why did I buy it?? Right? Well I happen to find a good sale (2/$5) really hard to resist and at that price why not give it a try, right? So it was sitting in my fridge looking forlorn next to the mascarpone that I also had in my fridge because I hadn't found the taste of mascarpone to be that awesome either to be honest.

But dear reader don't despair! I was ready to give them another go! So I searched and searched for a Nutella/Mascarpone recipe. Took me forever to find on that sounded good enough to adapt without me having to run out to the store (budgeting, hello?) I happened upon a mascarpone Nutella mousse, and as I had some leftover pecans from thanksgiving along with a few walnuts and almonds hanging out in a cupboard decided to make a nut pie crust. Healthier right? Eh, not so much what with the melted butter. It was a combination of these two recipes I found on allrecipes.com: Pecan Nut Crust and Walnut Pie Crust.

I had about two cups of nuts once I pulsed it in the food processor, so I modified accordingly, using four tbsp of butter, and also adding 1/3 cup of flour. I kept the ground cinnamon from the pecan version and it added such a holiday feel to this pie. I refrigerated it for 2 hours then took it out and added a thin layer of Nutella to the top of the crust before baking it. While it baked I made my whipped mousse and refrigerated it, to keep it cool while waiting for my crust to come out and cool. Then i just spooned it onto the top and smoothed it down. I wish it had one more layer to fill the deep dish pie pan, but man oh man was it good!
It may not look like much but this little humble pie totally sold me on Nutella and Mascarpone.

Score!

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