The One With Vic’s Lucky Day

Skippy saw me pulling these pictures out of iPhoto, and asked me, “Did you put these on your blog?” I said, “No, not yet. But I’m going to…” “No!” He said. “People will never look at your blog again. That is gross.” Okay, so maybe I have to give up my dreams of being a hand model, but it is not that gross, is it? So the story is, a couple of mornings ago, I burned myself. I took these shortly after it happened, to send to my daughter-in-law the RN. I couldn’t take pictures of my right hand, which was also burned, because I couldn’t figure out how to work the camera with no hands.

Why was it my lucky day, you ask? Well, when my skin came in very brief contact with the 350-degree molten sugar, my reaction was to scream, and to hit the pan so hard that I partially dismantled my stovetop, and the sugar splashed in a stream all the way up the front of me to within an inch or so of my chest, neck and face. It didn’t burn my face. It didn’t go in my eye. Lucky, lucky, lucky. The burns look a bit nastier today than they did in the pictures, but they will heal just fine. I spent most of Wednesday soaking in cold water, and the swelling is not too bad.

Nevertheless, I am all bandaged up and thought I would take it easy today. Carolyn requested something kid-friendly. I, myself, am happy to stay arms-length from the stove today, and so the answer to both is: Hobo Pies. DK makes me these for breakfast pretty often, as he did today. I am not posting a downloadable recipe, because you can see how easy this is going to be. DK insists these are ever-so-much healthier than a Hostess pie or a Kellogg’s pop-tart, because he makes them with my homemade whole wheat bread and just a light brushing of butter. Use any canned pie filling, or your own homemade fruit and jam... PBJ or whatever you like. And then a dusting of powdered sugar at the end. Oooh! And imagine the savory possibilities... maybe sloppy joe meat and cheese, or ham and swiss with a little mustard?


I think I won this particular pie-maker in a chili-cookoff (remind me to post my steakhouse chili recipe sometime), but here is a whole page of them for sale at Amazon. These are great fun on a camping trip, but DK uses them right over the stove practically every morning. If you are using homemade bread, slice rather thinly. Otherwise, use the cheapest white bread you can find, so it condenses well in the pie maker. Cut the crusts off your bread, and trim to approximate the shape and size of your pie maker...we have round and square ones. Lightly butter the outsides of your bread (less than a teaspoon for both slices), and fill with a couple tablespoons of your favorite filling.



I had cherry pie filling, and Skippy had fresh sliced strawberries. Put the second buttered bread slice on, and close your pie maker. (DK uses a different technique--he places the whole slices of bread in and closes the pie maker, then trims them to fit).



Toast over a campfire... or a kitchen fire... for about 90 seconds on each side. The first pie might take 30 seconds longer, because the cast iron needs to heat up.


Turn out your yummy pie onto a plate and sprinkle with a little powdered sugar.



Come on… you know you want to try this…