Flowers from the Farmer’s Market

The lilacs smell wonderful, and pP=ink peonies arrived this week!

Rhubarb Pie

 

So exciting, rhubarb just arrived at the farmer’s market. I was so excited the guy selling me the rhubarb was a bit taken aback. Poor thing. And if you’re not into pie, here’s a great recipe for rhubarb and strawberries that’s super easy.

This uses the same crust recipe as the Tarte Tatin (pate brisee which you can do in a food processor, for that recipe, click here) in an earlier post, and you can bake in anything you’ve got – springform cake pan, pie pan, etc… Pictured here is in a tarte pan.

Put in a medium bowl: 2 1/2 c flour (about 11 ounces if you’re weighing)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
2 sticks of very cold unsalted butter cut up into pretty thin slices (as many as you have patience for)

It helps if you’re in a room that’s cool to cold (ie. NOT hot) and your hands are also not hot… what you do is mix up the flour with the butter, and start pinching the butter between your thumb and forefinger and middle finger. The idea is to be quick about it, so you’re only mixing the butter, not melting it. You do this until the mixture is crumbly and further pinching just starts to stick together big clumps of already mixed butter and flour (like this).

I added chopped pecans to this dough which is a nice addition to any fruit filling… about half a cup unchopped… add this after you finish pinching, and before you add water so you can mix more easily throughout the dough.

Then have 5 tablespoons of iced water handy… sprinkle that on this mixture. Dump it out onto a long (2 ft) sheet of plastic wrap – and mold quickly into a ball or as close as you can get to one.

Mash it down with a rolling pin until it starts to resemble a thick pancake. Put in the fridge for at least 1 hour, more if you have a bar fridge like me. This gives the dough a chance to rest, otherwise it will shrink a lot during baking – and no one dies but your tarte is not as pretty. 

 

Meanwhile, chop rhubarb into 1/2 inch thick or 3/4 inch slices until you have 4 cups worth. Add to a bowl with 3T flour, 1 cup raw sugar, 1 egg and a pinch of salt. Mix until the rhubarb is coated. 

Now that your crust dough has had time to shrink/ rest in the fridge. Take it back out and start rolling out. If you either turn your dough or the rolling pin slightly to the left after each time, you’ll get a more even crust. Once your dough is rolled out, I put the pan on top just to make sure I have enough dough for the edges.

Pictured here on the left is nearly done, I rolled a bit more just to be sure. Then take away the cling film from one side and carefully flip the dough into the pan.

You want to position the dough so it’s evenly on top of the pan, with enough for the sides, before you start pushing down the dough into the corners of the pan (where the bottom meets the sides). At this point, you can put back in the fridge to let it settle for another 20-30 mins. 

 

Once back out, you can push back the edges so they hang over the edge of the pan. Then, run the rolling pin across the top of the pan – which gives you a nice even edge. Pre-heat the oven at this point to 350F.

If you collect the excess dough, you generally will have enough to make thin lattices across the top of the pie – just ball up, put between two sheets of cling film and roll out again (if you have time, refrigerate for 20 mins, it’ll make the dough easier to handle). Cut the small piece of flat dough you have, peel off each strip, and lay on top of the pie. That’s your lattice.

If you don’t feel like making a lattice or don’t like how it looks/ tastes, you can also make a crumble topping with oatmeal: melt 1/3 cup of butter. Then mix with: 1/2 cup of flour, pinch of salt, 1/2 cup of oatmeal and 1/2 cup of raw or brown sugar. Sprinkle this on top of the pie.

Dot the pie with 2 Tablespoons of butter (cut up into little pieces). I forgot to dot before the lattice, so rather than taking it off and making a mess, I just dotted in the open spaces.

Bake for 40 mins… if the lattice or crumble is not brown enough, you can broil for 2 or 2 1/2 minutes until you get the desired browness. Serve warm or cold… with ice cream or as is. 

Enjoy!

Rockin Key Lime Pie

This is a really easy recipe, what’s a pain are getting the juice out of a lot of fairly small key limes and crushing the graham crackers… if you have something amusing to do while you’re getting those done (or can get someone else to help you), then this recipe is a breeze.

It doesn’t taste nearly as good with regular limes (or god forbid some kind of plastic bottled substitute). Personally, I’d either make ‘em with key limes or buy it from the store. (if they’re about lemon sized, they’re regular limes – see pic). 

Wash and grate the key limes first. Harder to grate after juicing. I usually grate 5-6, so get a pile going (the stronger you want the key lime taste, the more zest – if you just want a bit, save for tossing on top of the whipped cream upon serving). If mixing in, chop a bit. If garnish only, no need. If mixing, toss zest into the bottom of a medium sized mixing bowl.

Next is the juicing. If you put a sieve or colander inside a bigger bowl, and just juice directly into that, it’ll catch the seeds for easy disposal. To juice, I use a canvas stretcher which I happened to have laying around. If you have an easier way, lemme know. I found the hand-held wooden ones, manual juicers are too big for key limes.

 The canvas stretcher is like pliers, except with rectangular pieces at the end, which is actually the perfect shape and size for relative

ly easy juicing. I get a whole bag of about 20, and juice em all.

Pre-heat oven to 350F.

Okay, so now you’ve got the zest, juice. Add 4 whole eggs instead of separating out yolks and whites (so far no one has complained).

Then open a can of sweetened condensed milk, add and mix. Take 12-16 double sheets of regular graham crackers and pulverize. Pictured here is my erstwhile assistant Patricia with a meat tenderizing hammer being multi-purposed.

 It’s easier to make the crust with finer crumbs.

Melt half a stick of unsalted butter in a loosely covered microwave safe dish (big dish so the butter doesn’t overflow… I’d do it minute by minute). When completely liquid, add the butter to the graham cracker crumbs along with 3 Tablespoons of brown sugar or raw sugar.

Mix and pour into your baking container (if you don’t have a special pie tin, you can use a sprinform cake tin, it’s easier to get the pie out). Press down and out towards the sides. For this pan, it’s important to get the crust up to about 2 inches so the custard won’t overflow… press down into the space between the pan bottom and side so the crust doesn’t get too thick there.

Pour the custard into the pie crust and bake for 15 minutes. The custard will have set, and will wiggle if shaken lightly. Cool at room temperature, and then remove the side if it’s a spring form before refrigerating for at least a couple of hours until chilled through. (if you forget, it’s just harder to get the side of the pan off).

Serve as is, with whipped cream… traditional recipes call for sour cream which I’ve never been tempted to try.

 

 

Union Square Farmer’s Market

Oak Grove Plantation and Oak Grove Mills are a great supplier of locally grown and ground flours (oat, buckwheat, rye, whole wheat, unbleached white plus oat bran and wheat bran). To order by mail 908-782-9618 – they’re in Pittstown NJ which I don’t actually know where that is… easier to go to the Union Square market .

Ramps season has officially begun (saw one vendor last week and multiple ones this week – $2.50 per bunch was the best price I noticed). They’re only grown in this region and make a nice addition to omelettes, soup, anything stir-fried… kind of a cross between onion and garlic and leek, pretty mild cooked.

Free For All Salad

Great by itself or with a frittata, whatever you feel like. Starts with baby greens, organic if possible, though the designer baby greens are horrendously expensive. Then put in some color: yellow bell peppers are never local where I live but fun.

Then add handful of feta/ your choice of cheese, dried cranberries (or other dried fruit), roasted/ unsalted soybeans or pecans (or your nut of choice), tomato, anything else you like: cucumbers, other veg.

Dressing is one part soy sauce (low sodium), one part sesame oil, one part rice wine vinegar (or red wine vinegar if you like a more tart taste) and freshly squeezed orange juice if you have one hanging around.

Throw in, toss, serve .

Redneck Corn Muffins

This is in honor of my buddy Christy who is not only a fellow redneck (I was born in Huntsville, Alabama – I get honorary) – btw she’s a fabulous graphic designer as well . Mix:
1 cup stone ground cornmeal
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 tablespoons honey
1/2 cup ground flaxseed
2/8 cup soy milk
1/8 cup lemon juice (this juicer is great, easy to use and clean and takes up less space)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 15.25 oz can of plain corn (drained)
2-3 finely diced fresh jalapenos (you can sub out canned or jarred)
dried red pepper or tabasco if you want it hotter
1 egg
8 oz shredded cheddar or any other cheese you like

I used the large muffin tins for this so baked at 350F for 20 minutes then broiled for 5 mins… smaller muffins will be faster, loaves about 30 mins. For that, I used grapeseed oil spray and the muffins didn’t come out as easily.. so would recommend paper… You can also save a bit of cheese to pile on top for a crunchier/ browner top. Pictured up top is the loaf alternative.

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Fast & Light Soup

After Muay Thai class during the week day, I don’t usually have time or energy to get fancy with dinner – this is a great fast and easy soup that is healthy and filling.

The key ingredient is miso. The process is pretty easy:
- boil water which is slightly less than the final volume of soup you want to consume (ie. if you’re intending to fill a bowl, put in equivalent of 3/4’s of that bowl in volume)
- throw in protein source (i like it cut up in small pieces): tofu, wheat gluten or seitan, or other sources (table 2 gives you vegetarian protein equivalents).
- then I like to have some veg: which during the summer I get either fresh from the Farmer’s Market at Union Square, or from the CSA - and in winter, I just get frozen vegetables (365 brand from Whole foods).
- then after that boils, turn off heat, take the pot off the stove and add miso. Start with a tablespoon and add to taste until you know how much to get to your preferred concentration. I use , South River Miso which has brown rice, barley, azuki bean, chickpea and a bunch of other mixed ingredient misos.

It takes about 20 minutes from walking in the door to sitting down and eating.

Chockabloc Cookies

This is a basic cookie recipe, you can add in other ingredients – just make sure to add more egg so it sticks together when forming cookies. Depending on how big you like your cookies: this recipe can give you about 4 dozen small ones, 3 dozen larger ones – so halve if too much (photo of cookie on a standard post-it note for reference).

Take 2 sticks of butter out of the fridge, put them in a 4 qt bowl or larger (medium sized) and let the butter get soft at room temp.

Once the butter softens, preheat oven to 350. Then add 1 c brown sugar (loose for less sweet) and mash up with a fork so it blends.

Then add:
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1.5 c flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
big pinch of salt

Mix then add:
a small bag of chocolate chips
2 c old-fashioned oatmeal
1 cup dried fruit in small bits (if it doesn’t come small like raisins or cranberries, then you’ll have to cut it up first like with apricots or figs)
1/2 c oat bran or wheat germ

Drop by rounded teaspoon, this tends to make a dough that doesn’t spread much – so you can put them pretty close together to shorten baking time. Bake for 10-12 min or til edges get brown – chewier cookies means less brown.

Swap outs:
- The butter adds a lot to the taste, so I’ve put in 1 stick butter with 1 c flaxseed and still tastes decent – if all flaxseed the dough doesn’t stick together and cookie gets crumbly
- I’ve tried swapping out eggs for mashed fruit and the cookie gets more cake-like and softer
- flour I usually use a mix of rye, oat, whole wheat with no white anymore… bit heavier cookie – and I got them at the local farmer’s market so it’s local
- for fruit, feel free to experiment – I’ve also added lemon or orange zest before which is nice
- you can add chopped nuts (any kind you like) and just know the more dry stuff you add, you have to add something wet to help the dough and eventual cookie stick together
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Tarte Tatin

Okay, this is not really a healthy recipe and any swapping out significantly impacts the taste of tarte tartin or traditional French “upside down apple pie”. But feel free to innovate . What you must have is a pan that goes from stove top to oven AND has a lid that fits, as long as your pan has metal handles – that’ll work, or cast iron (I’ve used an 8 dollar pan found while in another city hence forgot to pack a pan and that worked fine). I use a 13 inch paella pan. The dough, pate brisee (which just means a plain dough and not a sugared one).

Put in a medium bowl:
2 1/2 c flour (about 11 ounces if you’re weighing)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
2 sticks of very cold unsalted butter cut up into pretty thin slices (as many as you have patience for)

It helps if you’re in a room that’s cool to cold (ie. NOT hot) and your hands are also not hot… what you do is mix up the flour with the butter, and start pinching the butter between your thumb and forefinger and middle finger. The idea is to be quick about it, so you’re only mixing the butter, not melting it. You do this until the mixture is crumbly and further pinching just starts to stick together big clumps of already mixed butter and flour (like this).

Then have 5 tablespoons of iced water handy… sprinkle that on this mixture. Dump it out onto a long (2 ft) sheet of plastic wrap – and mold quickly into a ball or as close as you can get to one. Mash it down with your hands or rolling pin until it starts to resemble a thick pancake.

Put in the fridge for at least 1 hour, more if you have a bar fridge like me. This gives the dough a chance to rest, otherwise it will shrink a lot during baking – and no one dies but your tarte is not as pretty.

Now the apples… Granny smiths hold together well and provide a nice balance to the sweetness, but any kind of baking apple works – and I even like Fuji’s although that’s a slightly costlier option and may be too sweet for some.

Set your pan on stove top at medium heat with 1 c brown sugar and 1/4 c water and let it boil down until it carmelizes, you’ll know it’s carmelized when it starts to get sticky and thick.

Meanwhile, amuse yourself by talking on the phone or talking to yourself while you peel, halve and core 8-10 apples (how many depends on how big your pan is). I use 10 or 11, depending on apple size. Juice and zest a lemon and throw that into the bowl or bag you have the cored apple halves in.

Once syrup caramelizes, take it off the heat and add half a stick of butter – mix and melt. Then stack the apple halves tightly into the pan, round side down. Overlap them so it covers all of the pan bottom, and I like to squeeze them.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cover and cook for 15 minutes (this cooks the apples through). Then take off the cover and boill off most of the liquid (usually another 15-20 mins).

Pop into oven at 350 degrees F for 20 mins. Take out, cool for about 5 mins and flip over onto serving platter.

Flipping means having something to protect both hands, grip both sides of the pan firmly with the serving platter “clenched” to the pan… and just flip over so the serving platter is on the bottom and pan on top. Make sure you feel the tarte on the serving platter. Just in case, flip over a sink or easily washable floor and don’t wear clothes that need to be dry-cleaned when flipping for the first time.

Ta da! You’re ready to serve – add whipped cream, ice cream… whatever you like or just serve plain.
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MashUp Muffins

This is a really easy and flexible recipe, it can be modified depending on what you happen to find in your cupboards, and can be swapped out to be more vegan or include different flavors (notes at end).

Choose local ingredients to make more local, organic to make more organic. This makes about 3 dozen muffins, so if too much – halve the recipe.

Preheat oven to 350 F

In small bowl pour 2.5 c buttermilk with 2 c Bob’s Red Mill 10 Grain Cereal (this needs to sit about 10 mins or until the liquid has been soaked up by the cereal). You can replace with oatmeal which does not need pre-soaking, and steel cut makes for a much denser/ chewier muffin (and needs presoaking).

Then in a different 8-qt or larger bowl combine
- 2 c flour (oat, rye, whole wheat, etc…)
- 2/3 c ground flax seed- 1/2 c oat bran or wheat bran
- 1 c brown sugar (more tightly packed = sweeter taste)
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
- 2 teaspoon baking soda

Add to the bigger bowl 2 eggs, more buttermilk or soymilk so that the batter has the consistency of very thick soup (ie. if it keeps it shape when dropped, it’s too thick and you’ll get bumpy topped muffins).

Add cereal mix. You can add a tablespoon of either vanilla extract or cinnamon extract (both of which you can make yourself by soaking vanilla pods OR cinnamon sticks in alchohol for about 6 months – homemade really does taste better in this case but you have to bake a lot or be really bored for this option). I’ve used orange essence here to (1 teaspoon) or almond essence with a nice final combined taste, so feel free to experiment.

 At this point you can also add other fun stuff: 
- dried fruit (pictured here are with cranberries)
- coasely chopped up nuts (here is pecans)
- dark or milk chocolate chips
- orange or lemon zest (the peel, which if you don’t have a peeler, you can just take off with a paring knife – try not to get to much of the white part which is more bitter)
- dessicated coconut, best if no sugar added
- whatever you like the taste of or have laying around and think it would be a good match for what’s already in the bowl

I actually taste the batter at this point to see if it’s sweet enough or if it needs more of something.

I use any paper cups cos it’s more efficient baking, and cupcake sized tray. Fill each cup so that you have about 1/2 inch from the top. Pop in and bake at 350 for 15 mins, if you like them more brown on the top – broil for a few minutes (no more than 3-4 mins).

For other swap outs:
- I’ve also used cooked quinoa before which makes for a smoother/ less textured muffin
- too much buckwheat flour tends makes the muffin a bit too heavy and dense for me, and you may love it so feel free to experiment. I usually don’t use more than 25% of total flour volume for buckwheat unless that’s the only flour I have left, then I experiment.
- instead of eggs, I use either a cup of mashed bananas or applesauce without high fructose corn syrup. Check other egg substitutes here.
- instead of buttermilk, you can do the juice of half a lemon (or a whole one if you like the tart taste or fresh squeezed orange juice if you don’t like lemon then use orange zest instead) to soy milk for same volume of buttermilk – both help make the muffin fluffier and lighter
- instead of sugar you can use honey or stevia (maple syrup is less sweet for the same volume). I’ve also thrown in equal measures of jam or preserves here if you have a jar you want to use up.

That’s it!