A&E Recipe Page
There are many commonalities that we share, not the least of which is cooking. Luckily we have a two butt kitchen so this is an activity we are often able to do together.
Alan has been a good cook from the start, and he has a knack for being able to throw together a gourmet meal off the top of his head from whatever happens to be leftover in the fridge. Eric has often kidded " if you like Alan's meal you better have a second helping now because it's doubtful we'll ever have it exactly the same way a second time", and this is often the case. Of course, put a recipe in front of him and it will look just like the picture in the recipe book, only it will probably taste better. His specialty is main courses and he's very creative with veggies, but he makes one of the most awesome Peach Cobblers you will ever have. He seldom does use a cookbook, but he has some hand written recipes hand written in a now yellowed and aging notepad that have been in the family for quite some time.
Eric sort of stumbled into the cooking scene after we met. Our son likes to chide him about how he couldn't even boil water without burning the pan, and sometimes follows that comment up with the story about Eric cooking hard boiled eggs one day. It seems that for whatever reason Eric had it in his mind that soft boiled eggs were 3 minute eggs (which is pretty much correct), and therefore logically (well, logical to him anyway) hard boiled had to be 5 minute eggs. Well, our son peeled one, properly salted it the way he likes to do, and bit into it only to find an extremely runny yolk. One day, we were out and about and happened to go into a record store. We browsed the CD's and used the listening stations to make some selections. On the way home, Eric popped one that he had selected into the radio for a listen. The first song was pretty good, the next track was a bit more "country" sounding, and then the third track was very country. As we listened to the third track, the artist was singing about being at her sister's on Sunday, and on Monday she was "Makin' Pies...makin' pies...makin' pies". Eric looked over and asked, "did she just sing something about makin pies?" and we both just started crackin' up. Well, that became a regular joke to poke some fun at Eric with, and even our friends joined in on that one. That Christmas, and as a joke, Alan purchased a pie making cookbook and a couple pie pans and wrapped them up for Eric, knowing he would get the joke the instant he opened the package. Of course he did as did the rest of the family, and then after the laughter died down he said "ok, make fun but I decided I'm gonna become the best damn pie maker there ever was and now I have the tools to get me started!" Well, long story short in the ensuing months and years he actually HAS become a pretty damn good pie maker, and everyone's personal favorite is his lemon meringue pie. I could be said that's his "signature" pie, but he does pretty good on em' all, and we have the belly's to prove it.
Here's an assortment of our favorite's. Feel free to give some a try. Clicking on the page number will take you to a printable version of the recipe....Bon Appetite!
