what's prepped

As of right now, a bit after midnight on Thursday morning, there's very little left for me to prep. The sous-vide alarm for the steaks just rang: three hours at 55ºC (131ºF), so those filets ought to be perfectly done. I'm going to refrigerate them, now, and in the morning, I'll let them warm up for an hour, then sear them right before I go to work to meet my ex-coworkers. I'll also be boiling my peas and carrots (they're currently in the freezer, waiting to be deployed) and reheating my mashed potatoes (which have been sitting in the fridge). Tonight, along with the sous vide-ing of the steaks, I prepped two more steak sauces and made my pie. Here are the pics of that prep.

not exactly a true pan sauce, but pretty damn close (albeit chunky)

same sauce, now in a glass container to cool down

chimichurri, looking a little stodgy because it's been in the fridge all night

the butter/garlic/parsley sauce solidified in the fridge pretty quickly

the potatoes grumbled when I took them out of the fridge to photograph them

What follows is a loving sequence of photos depicting the major steps of the pie prep. Remember, this pie is special because it's apple pie enhanced with pineapple. Call it Charles's Hawaiian Apple Pie since it was inspired by Charles's Mago Sour Ale, with its top note of apples and cinnamon. And I must say, it's ducking felicious. Oh, and mirabile dictu: my cake pan proved to be just the right size for the amount of pie filling I had.

I've seen the suggestion to place pats of butter atop the filling, so I decided to try that.

cover on, vents cut out (notches in the vents = I twisted the scissors)

Right before fridging the pie for 30 minutes, I egged and sugared the top.

Pie, baked but not cooled, so it might collapse a bit by morning.

In terms of baking, this may be the best pie I've ever baked. I was extra-mindful about burning the top, so I reduced the top-burner temps to keep the pie from broiling, and I checked the pie every few minutes to see what kind of tan it was getting. I also rotated the pie once because I know my oven's hot spot is toward the back. All in all, I think the pie came out really well. We'll see how it tastes later today. (More accurately, we'll taste how it tastes later today.)

If I remember to do so, I'll try to snap some shots of the peas/carrots and the seared steaks before I tote everything with me to the office. If I forget to do that, I'll try to take some pics while we're all eating lunch. Here goes nothing!