Lemon Creme Fraiche Cake

So ever since I was a kid, I've known what creme fraiche really tastes like and I know that I never see it for under 10000 dollars at the grocery.

Maybe I am exaggerating.

So I just made this Lemon Creme Fraiche Cake with Stonyfield Oikos Greek Yoghurt. Not bad. I put orange zest in the lemon icing. There is not really a nice way to put that glaze on. Pour it on and smooth it with a knife. It's not going to look fancy. It has a moist golden center, gooey baklava like crust, and isn't too too sweet. Easy to eat for breakfast.

Chinese Mongolian Eggplant

This was an impromptu Chinese dinner just for myself: drunk garlic chicken boiled in ginger, chicken stock, salt and sauced with a tamari and garlic sauce; Chinese eggplant, bok choy and brown rice. Grandma King used to boil chicken when I was a kid and put garlic and scallions straight on it. So comforting. The recipe on-line called for you to bring the parts to a boil and then turn the water off, cover, and leave the chicken for an hour. Half way through the hour, I got nervous and re-boiled it for about ten minutes, but that's just me. Mom's reaction to this boiled chicken nostalgia was: That dish is so much work. Work! You boil the chicken. The end! So when I went to China in 2002, I took a plane to Inner Mongolia and somehow by pointing to lines in a Lonely Planet, was taken to a touristic yurt camp way out in the middle of nowhere. Keep in mind that this was about a 45 minute drive away from a tiny village, Hohuhoatua (trainwreck spelling) of a million people. So many bikes! We were taken into tents for lunch and there were many dishes lined up, including a very gristly and grey selection of lamb's meat. The three young men working the lunch hour laughed at my reaction to all the food. This is the dish I loved and wanted to repeat as it really answers the question: what do I do with all these tomatoes from my garden? I think it was the first time I fully enjoyed eggplant. They really did use basil, that's not my idea. One regular or Chinese eggplant 2-3 tomatoes or one beefsteak tomato, diced 2 eggs well beaten, fried in sesame oil, made into an omelet, sliced into strips or pieces 1 T tamari 2t cornstarch 1/2 cup water fresh basil leaves 2-3 cloves garlic crushed and minced sesame oil peanut or olive oil hot sauce Eggplants can be bitter if you don't take the time to do this step: Peel it, slice it into panels as if it went through a giant hard-boiled egg slicer. Get a plate and starting with the biggest panels of eggplant, reconstruct the two halves of the eggplant, salting like crazy between with regular table salt. Put the smaller pieces on top. Cover with a plate and weigh it down with a can of something or a pan. I guess leaving the peel on is more authentic, but it get shiny and slimy and I just don't want it in the food. You decide. Make a slurry of the water and cornstarch. Mix until very well blended, no lumps. Add the tamari and a little sesame oil. Set aside. Someone once said to me he hated Chinese cooking because it's like hours of chopping and five minutes of frying. This dish proves this statement a little bit. Roll up the handful of fresh basil and cut it into ribbons. Set aside. Press the brown bitter liquid out of the eggplant and let it slide off the plate or pan. Rinse if you like, but definitely pat the pieces dry with a clean towel. Dice the eggplant. Set aside. Get a pan really hot before you add anything to it. Really hot. Coat the bottom of the pan in a thin layer of oil and quickly add the eggplant. Let it cook, stirring often, for 5-8 minutes. Add a pinch of salt and a few dashes of tamari. When you get towards the end of the eggplant cooking, add half of the garlic and let it get fragrant for about 45 seconds. Then add the tomatoes, the egg, and the cornstarch slurry all at once. Let this cook together gently for 5 minutes or so until it bubbles and the sauce gets thick and a little glossy, but is still pretty runny. At the end of this, add half the basil ribbons and the rest of the garlic. Let cook until the second influx of garlic is fragrant, a minute or so. Put it on a little bed of basmati brown rice and put a pinch of basil ribbons on top. Add hot sauce if you like, I'd say garlic chili paste might be a great thing here.

Best in the World Gluten Free Peach Pie

I just taught for 12 hours and now I want this pie real bad. I'll make it tomorrow.

8-9 little perfectly ripe Jersey peaches peeled and cut into thin slices
2 T better batter flour
2 t lemon juice
1.5 T brown sugar
dash of nutmeg

Mix all the above in a bowl.

One Better Batter pie crust according to this recipe, minus ice cubes: just stick the liquids +yolk in the freezer while you do the other stuff. Also, I substituted butter for the shortening and I can't say there's any reason to buy shortening. It is horrible for you. Period.

Put the bottom half of the crust into a 9 inch pie plate, Pyrex!, for about 8 minutes at 350. Take it out.

Put the peaches carefully on top of the hot but not baked crust. Put the other raw crust over the top and cut some slits into it.

Bake at 425 for 10 minutes, then cover edges with foil and bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes. Ooooooo.

That crust is really beyond compare with any other gluten free item. Durnit. I wanna pie. Now.

Cauliflower Rice

In Louisville, there's a Middle Eastern restaurant called The Grape Leaf. I've eaten there off and on since about 1993. I've basically been playing around with many lentil rice pilaf recipes since I ate their cauliflower rice which is pretty divine and needs nothing besides some feta cheese. Then I remembered that the local paper, the Courier-Journal, often will hound a restaurant chef for the recipe of a dish that's very popular. I once even saw in that column the recipe for Baptist Hospital East's Meatloaf: soon after, I was standing in line in that very cafeteria and the person in front of me turned around and said, "Is the meatloaf good?" and I said, "The recipe was in the Courier."

Anyway. It just occurred to me tonight: look up "cauliflower rice courier-journal." Well I'll be.

The Grape Leaf's Cauliflower Rice

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 small onion, peeled and diced
Pinch saffron
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1 cup cauliflower florets, separated
1 cup basmati rice
3 cups water
1/4 cup almonds
1/4 cup raisins

In a pot, heat the oil until shimmery, and add the onion. Cook until onion softens, about 5 minutes. Add the saffron, turmeric, cauliflower and rice. Stir to coat well. Add the water, bring to a boil, partially cover and simmer until rice is done and cauliflower is tender, 17 to 20 minutes. Check at 10 minutes or so, and add more water if too dry. Garnish with the almonds and raisins. Serves 4.

***

I predict: few raisins and feta to boot. Make sure you use basmati rice or this will be kind of a bust.

Stuffed Baby Portobellos

from Vegan Piggy -- these were a big hit on the Fourth of July at my house and I want to make sure I have the recipe stashed somewhere.

1 1/2 lb. Baby Portobellos the bigger the better (or button mushrooms)
1 1/2 c. Fresh Whole Wheat Bread Crumbs
3 T. Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 Medium Red Onion chopped
1 Garlic Clove pressed
3/4 t. Sea Salt
2 T. Fresh Parsley chopped
1/2 t. Basil

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Process about 2 slices of whole wheat bread in a food processor. You can use prepared bread crumbs, but whenever possible, I'd use fresh for sure. This makes about 1 1/2 cups of bread crumbs. It's also a great way to use up the butts of your loaf bread. Set aside. Remove stems from mushrooms and chop them right up. Brush one of the tablespoons of oil around in a 13 X 9 pan. Heat the rest of the oil in a pan over medium high heat. Add garlic and onions and sauté for 7 minutes. Stir in salt, and then bread crumbs, basil, and parsley. Evenly distribute mixture to mushroom caps. Bake for 30-45 minutes, depending on the size of your mushroom caps. Keep an eye out that they don't get too brown. Serve with a fresh salad, and enjoy!

Poet's Potstickers

A poet gave me his potsticker recipe after I heard him tell Arthur Sze that Neil's recipe is often called, "better than my grandmother's" by his various friends. And after I told him how much I love potstickers. I had not gotten the recipe from my dad for his own potstickers which he made once. We all sat at the round white breakfast table on Meadow Road and he floured the wrappers. I'm pretty sure his filling was chives, Chinese spinach, pork, egg, garlic and soy sauce. But that is something we can never have again. The recipe below, though, is really really good.

Into a food processor with a regular blade put:

1 pound ground pork (we used 1/2 pound fatty ground pork plus two lean chops because we were in the Real Asian Grocery where ground pork is half fat, so don't feel obliged about the pork being lean).
2t garlic powder
1/4 cup plain flour
an egg+ one yolk (save the white for the assembly of the potstickers)
1/4 pound stir fried shrimp*
1 T soy sauce (less if you fear salt)
2 t sesame oil
1 t ketchup
1 t rooster sauce
1 t Better than Bouillon Organic Chicken Base (or powdered cube is fine)
small bundle of fresh chives
quarter cup of water, more if it looks like it needs it
generous crackings of white and black pepper: (We happened to have a grinder of Frontier organic smoked peppercorn blend)
dash of anise powder (optional)
one 16 oz. pack dumpling skins (Wonton Specialist, 317-325 Ten Eyck Street, Brooklyn NY 11206, (718) 418-2911).

*the shrimp are supposed to be pan fried in sesame and peanut oil, garlic chili paste (Lan Chi brand Garlic Chili Paste is what Dad used) and a little ketchup but this didn't happen, so I put the condiments in separately for taste and it was good. I used rooster sauce, which was tasty, but there's a very particular Chinese garlic chili paste you should use).

Blend all this until the dumpling mix is fluffy.

Watch a youtube about how to make potstickers. Use the egg white mixed hard with chopsticks and a teaspoon of water.



Get a non-stick pan or cast iron pot with a tight fitting lid very hot with a generous amount of oil.

Fry dumplings on both sides. Add 1/2 to a cup water and keeping the heat high clamp on lid and let them steam until most of the water is gone. I personally want to pan fry future batches them put them in a bamboo steamer to get the wrappers soft.



Serve with dipping sauce of: soy, vinegar, sesame oil, some chopped chive. (Juliette's roommates had made a more Southeast Asian dipping sauce of lime juice and fish sauce which was also good: then she dumped it in with the Chinese sauce and that DID work).



Juliette made Korean pancakes too and watched an Ozu movie while I watched half of it and dozed. Then we talked until 2:15AM while the rabbits ran under the bed and the cats asked for pats. Girls with some fat luck.

This whole thing makes me think back on my dad eating fermented tofu out of a jar. If a meal was kind of bland or involved a lot of rice (especially a bed of rice with sardines on it), my dad would say, "Get me the bean curd" which he pronounced kind of like "been kirk". It is basically the worst thing I ever ate. I might be more okay with it now that my taste buds have matured, but then again, do an image google of "fermented tofu": on the first page there are three photos of people (two asians, one white guy) looking like they are going to hurl. Ah. You should try it.

Gluten Free Tiramisu Ice Cream Cake

Basically I made this cake but with many tweaks. This is a record of the tweaks in case this turns out okay and I want to make it again.

1. ICE CREAM SUBSTITUTION FOR BUDGETARY REASONS

Instead of 4 pints of ice cream ($14) I used a 1.5 quart box of Breyers Coffee and one pint Hagen Daz Five Coffee flavor ($6.50 total). You might like to have the two flavors, coffee and espresso suggested in the original recipe.

2. Don't use 9 by 9 PAN: USE 10" SPRINGFORM PAN INSTEAD COS IT WON'T FIT (hm, won't drip though in the 9 by 9 pan).

Make a vanilla sponge cake in a 10" springform pan, substituting buckwheat flour when the recipe calls for regular flour. Be careful not to burn. Let cool for ten minutes. Pop open spring-form pan, peel off bottom of pan and parchment paper. Cut round cake in half horizontally so you have two layers. (i.e. don't use a 9 by 9 by 2 pan, it's too small and hard to slice the cake if it's in there).

3. COFFEE SYRUP

Martha Stewart loves it when I correct her.

While the cake is baking, make the coffee syrup. I read in the comments for the original recipe that the syrup didn't quite work, so I made it a little differently:

1 C sugar
2/3 cup water

Get this to a rolling boil for a good ten minutes until it reduces slightly and pours thickly from the spoon, gets a little golden colored.

Brew one cup of unbelievably strong coffee. I used about 3 heaping tablespoons of French Roast grounds. You can buy a little sleeve for 99 cents. I know, you have buckets of coffee grounds, but I don't drink coffee and this was pretty economical.

Put this in with the syrup and let it simmer another 3-4 minutes.

Let cool and add a 50 mL bottle of Kahlua (the tiny airplane size). Stir.


4. ASSEMBLING THE CAKE

Wash spring-form pan. Snap the ring back to the bottom round part. Line it with plastic wrap, two pieces that are big enough to go up the sides (don't put the plastic down before you snap the sides back on -- won't help).

Put the bottom layer of cake back in the pan, fluffy cut side up.

Get a teaspoon and pour little spoonfuls of the coffee syrup evenly on the cake to soak it in until about half the syrup is gone.

Sprinkle 2 T grounds over the first layer.


5. SOFTEN THE ICE CREAM IN A BOWL WITH A BIG SPOON

Put half the soft ice cream on top of the syrup soaked layer. Repeat, adding the next layer of cake, rest of syrup drizzled over it, then coffee grounds, then the rest of the coffee ice cream.

Let this puppy freeze until hard or overnight. Let it thaw a little before you serve it, obv.

Kahlua, the www tells me, is gluten free.

Enjoy!