Our new "regular" pecan pie.

Blueberry-pecan pie with fresh whipped cream and blueberries. © Ryan Schierling

This year marks a season of pie milestones for me. I'm finally feeling confident and consistent with the quality of my pie dough. I baked my first pumpkin pie completely from scratch in early November when our CSA delivered a perfect little sugar pumpkin to our door. I followed that up with what turned out to be an amazingly smooth and delicious little pie using buttercup (not butternut) squash instead of roasted pumpkin at Thanksgiving.

Then, over Christmas, I was launched into pecan pie territory.

When Ryan requested pecan pie (holy crap, he requested a dessert...!), I jumped at the chance to make one from scratch. After the holiday, I had enough pastry dough to make a second version and in the spirit of bourbon pecan pies I experimented a bit with a boozy-orange flavor complete with orange zest. I was quite fond of the extra depth and complexity the orange brought to the pie and it started me thinking about other flavors that complement pecans. It occurred to me that the intensely rich caramel custard of this pie would be wonderful flavored with blueberry. I mean, blueberries and pecans are a natural together. Why not as a pie? And so was born a new family recipe.

Pie-making has not exactly been my personal forte up to this point in life. But as it turns out, pecan pie is probably one of the simplest. It's been many, many years since I made a pecan pie, and when I did I'm pretty sure it was back when I was assumed it was standard operating procedure to use the regular recipe (you know... the one on the Karo bottle). This one, however, is straight-up sugar out of your pantry – the way it was meant to be – with eggs, butter, and pecans. Mix and pour into the pastry shell.

Huevos ahogados mas fácil? Nope.

Huevos ahogados with crispy masa nest. © Ryan Schierling

Historically, on New Year's Day, we make a big deal out of eggs. Anyone can scramble, fry and boil. If you're adventurous, you can sous vide or smoke, or just straight up Rocky Balboa it, and swallow them raw. 

For the last decade, we've prepared Scotch eggs on the first of January, which are hard-boiled eggs, peeled and wrapped in heavily-spiced breakfast sausage, breaded, and deep-fried. They are ridiculously satisfying, delicious dragged through tangy HP sauce, but so intense and heavy we could only justify eating them once a year. So we've been thinking about this since... last New Year's eggs.

Maybe it was time for a change?

For 2015, we adapted a Mexican poached egg dish, huevos ahogados – drowned eggs – with a pair of sauces and a fried masa nest. It was so simple when we concepted it months ago. It ended up absolutely ridiculous when we were trying to figure out the nest. It was silly, and better than it had any right to be once we figured it out, prepared, brought everything together and ate it. 

2014: The Year of Chips, Dips and Dorks v2.0.

(L) Hot meat dip. (R) Hot meat. © Ryan Schierling

2014... whew. You were a challenging year. We slowed down a bit, opting to spend some much needed time with close family and putting a renewed focus on home, but we still managed to get a few things done.

We defended our 2013 East Austin Salsa Shootout win at Tamale House East and were unfortunately defeated. Sigh. You can’t win them all. But we did have a great time and put a few more faces to names that we'd only read on the pages of food blogs and restaurant "About" pages. Matt Taylor of Swift’s Attic took home the hot sauce crown, and hats off to the man, the mettle, the restaurant, the recipe.

“Ryan and Julie of Foie Gras Hot Dog, in a giant fuck you to convention, returned to defend their title with a new recipe. Eschewing last year’s formula took some serious guts and we salute them.”  - RL Reeves, Jr. 

We were truly surprised and delighted when the Austin Chronicle named us one of the top ten local food blogs of the year. I can’t remember the last time we blushed this much... so many gracious things said, and they called us young!

“This charming, iconoclastic blog presents the foodways and recipes of Julie and Ryan, a young Austin pair with a laudable amount of style and confidence, not to mention excellent taste.” - Kate Thornberry