Coming soon

Key lime pie... au naturel!


Use free range eggs. I'm not going to go on a preachy hippy rant about this. They taste good, the yolks are a deep golden yellow, and you'll get a better pie.

The filling needs time to thicken at room temperature so I prepare it before the crust. I also tried an amped up version of the standard graham wafer crust the original recipe called for. I found the latter a bit flimsy and that could have something to do with the fact that I guessed the equivalent of 9 wafers worth of crumbs.

For the filling you'll need:

4 tsp grated zest



I'm in the middle of moving... The rest will be up soon!

Breakfast Biscuits: The good and the bad

The bad news: there's miscellaneous bits of grain-like substance stuck to my kitchen wall

the good: I invented a wheat-free, veg-friendly scone-like breakfast thing and totally screwed up the first batch.
I know this sounds like a bad thing but it gives me an excuse to try it again soon and make it better. It really wasn't that bad to begin with but I've learned an important lesson about baking soda proportioning... your morning scone should not brush your teeth for you, no matter how appealing the extra light and fluffy appearance is.Before I get started some more good news; I am no longer unemployed. Not giving away any details but lets just say when asked what my greatest concern was I replied "Freaking out from a caffeine high?" Cheers, and good eating. I hope you enjoy these treats some time.

Earthy ginger blast breakfastish bites
born of Will brush your teeth for you breakfast scones (or The human equivalent of a Milk-Bone (TM))



2 tablespoons ground sesame seeds 25g
2 tablespoons tapioca flour 20g
1/4 + 1 Tbsp ground hemp seed 30g
1/2 teaspoon baking soda 5g
1/2 cup rice flour 80g
1/4 tsp xanthan gum
1/4 tsp salt
1 tablespoons sugar

3 Tbsp Coconut oil 50g

2 tablespoons flax seed, ground 20g
100 mL Rice milk
2 Tbsp chopped candied ginger
50/50 volumetric mix of rice flour and confectioner's sugar

I was running low on general stuff in the fridge: eggs, yogurt, my favorite baking ingredients, so I decided to experiment with things I already had. I highly recommend having a spare coffee grinder on hand for things like seeds and toasted spices. Flax seed meal (which can be used as an egg substitute) is better made on the spot from whole flax seeds because the oils inside the shell can turn rancid quickly once it's exposed to air.

Xanthan gum is a total essential ingredient in a wheat free kitchen. Names starting with X don't generally indicate something out of natural sources but I can assure you this one is. Most of the time. It's from bacteria. A secretion or something. I looked online but quickly lost interest but there's wikipedia if you want more info. Its purpose in baking is to change the texture from crummy to crumbly. See how important that b is? Tried xanthan gum? Then you know...

Also, it seems expensive but it lasts forever since it's never used in large quantities.

Heat the oven to 375F. Whisk together the dry stuff minus the flax - sesame, flour, everything in the first part. Grind up the flax and mix with half the milk (50mL). Let it sit for a few minutes. Cut the coconut oil into the dry ingredients (since it should be solid at room temperature). Add the rest of the milk to the milk-flax mix, give it a stir and then combine it with the dry ingredients. Combine and stir in the ginger chunks. Knead on a surface coated in the 50/50 flour/sugar mix, divide in 8 parts, throw it on a cookie sheet and bake for 12-15 minutes, until just golden brown on the edges and on the bottom.

The milkbone (TM) biscuits looked like this:



Same recipe with double the soda, 2 Tbsp honey (no sugar) and cooked in larger portions for longer. The only reason it was edible was all the honey I poured on top. That's a giant chunk of honey comb up there; local honey is great for helping with seasonal allergy symptoms, or so I've heard.

And there you have it.


coming up:

Breakfasts
popstarts
bird's nest

Dinner
eggplant tikka masala

Lemon tart!

There I was, on a fishing vessel on the Bering Sea...

now if you watch TV, especially the discovery channel, you might be thinking: Oh wow! How exciting! And it can be... under the right circumstances. But on a trawler in bad weather with long ol' steams between the fishing grounds and land it can get pretty slow... slow enough that one starts to search for all forms of entertainment. I'd boarded this vessel with one piece of intel from a prior fish biologist: they have an amazing cookbook. It's all white. If you find it, get me the name of it.

Well JD, if you're out there, it's America's Test Kitchen's epic book of recipes. That's not the exact title but a google search will get you there.

It made for some great reading. It had all sorts of science and pictures and insight; all sorts of things to geek out on, essentially. So here's my adaptation of their lemon tart to get things going.


Disclaimer: This tart is a pretty involved process. The crust has to be formed, cooled, rolled out and put in the tart pan, frozen and then baked. To add to the process the crust has to be warm when the lemon curd is poured into it or it wont cook properly. Timing is pretty important. It's a great project to take on when you're around the house doing laundry or killing time while unemployed. It's not such a great project when you have places to go or are especially distracted.

Alright, with that out of the way, it's fun. And your first bite will validate the whole process.

Zest and juice the lemons before putting the filling together... it's just easier that way.
New toys in the kitchen so everything (I remember to weigh) is going to have a mass equivalent.

Crust

1 cup rice flour (generous) or 135g
1/4 cup cornstarch 35g
1/4 cup tapioca flour 30g
2/3 cup confectioners sugar 100g
1/4 tsp salt 3g
8 Tbsp cold unsalted butter cut into chunks

1 egg yolk
1 Tbsp heavy cream
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Whisk the dry stuff together and cut in the butter with a pastry cutter. If you don't have a pastry cutter get one. They're cheap and they make a mean pastry. A food processor, especially one with the bowl and blade chilled in the freezer first, would also make a good pastry but half the fun of baking is getting your hands in it. Most electrical appliances are overkill and extra dishes.
Pastry recipes generally call for cutting the butter in until you get to a consistency of something between coarse cornmeal and pea-sized chunks. I could get into a whole deal about gluten being like building blocks that form long chains and get gluey during preparation, but I'll do that somewhere else. The flours in this recipe are lighter and prone to forming wet dough in quantities equal to wheat flour, so the consistency you're shooting for in this case is like lumpy flour.

Beat the egg yolk, cream, and vanilla together, add to the mix, and combine with a fork, big wooden spoon, your hands, what ever works best, until you have a uniformly soft and workable dough. If using your hands be quick so you don't melt all the butter and wind up with wet and sloppy mush. Form the dough into a six inch disk, wrap in wax paper and chill in the refrigerator for at least an hour.

Once the dough is chilled roll it out on a floured surface (I like using a 50:50 mix of rice flour and confectioners sugar for this part) and work it into a 9 to 9 1/2 inch tart pan. Stick it in the freezer for 45 minutes. This is a good time to get started on zesting and juicing lemons unless you're a pro and can do this at lightning speed. Cutting yourself on the grater is a bad idea. Lemon juice sucks in cuts.

Heat the oven to 375 degrees. When the crust is fishished in the freezer fit a piece of aluminum foil or parchment paper over it and cover in a layer of pie weights (beans, rice, ceramic balls designed for this purpose, and bake for 30 minutes. Start on the filling.
Rotate once half way through. Remove the foil/parchment and bake for another 5-8 minutes until it's golden brown. Turn the oven down to 350 when the crust comes out at the end.

My crust sort of sank the first time I made this recipe because I was a bit light on the flour. I used a spoon to push it back up the sides; it's really soft before it goes back in the oven for that last 5-8 minutes.

Filling

7 large egg yolks, plus 2 large eggs
1 cup + 2 Tbsp granulated sugar
2/3 cup juice and 1/4 cup finely grated zest from 4 or 5 medium lemons

4 Tbsp unsalted butter cut in chunks

3 Tbsp heavy cream

Whisk the yolks and whole eggs together in a non-reactive (e.g. glass) bowl. Whisk in sugar until combined, add juice and zest and whisk some more then transfer to a non-reactive sauce pan. Add butter. Use a wooden spoon to stir constantly while heating to 170F over med-low heat. This takes a while but when the change in consistency happens, it happens quickly. It will curdle if you ignore it. Push through a strainer into a clean non-reactive bowl, stir in the cream and then pour it into the warm crust. Throw the works back in the oven (now turned down to 350F) for 10 to 15 minutes, until it's shiny and the center 3 inches are jiggly. Cool for 45 minutes then remove from tart pan.

That's it folks. Enjoy!