Peachy

Posted on August 27, 2015 by Tasha

It’s been a crazy few weeks around here. Bryan has been finishing up a HUGE project for an art exhibition opening shortly—huge in physical scale, and in time invested, etc. It took over his life, and then started to encroach on mine too. Many things I’d been planning to work on got put to the back burner, until finally near the install date I was doing nothing besides helping get ready, unless the other thing had an already-agreed-upon-in-writing due date, and even then not too much was happening.

I’ve been cooking a lot though. It’s the kind of situation where logically it would make sense to just make a big pot of soup and eat it for the whole week. But, it’s my absolute favorite time of year for eating. All the ingredients for ratatouille are sitting there, fresh and glowing, at the growers’ market, and it would be make me feel much more deprived not to cook them and eat them. And it turns out, not surprisingly, when I’m not spending my creative energy on other projects, I end up experimenting more with food and making up recipes. And, when Bryan is burning lots of extra calories working on huge sculptures all day, he’s more excited about having dessert, and any time I’m stressed I definitely want dessert. Any two weeks in which we ate two of these pies can’t be that bad.

Although things evolve and change, and I’ve been excited to have so much fiber stuff to share lately, I wouldn’t want recipes to disappear entirely from this space, so here you go. I’ll be back soon with a little more about the sculpture project & the exhibition (which is really pretty cool) and maybe even one more recipe. But for now:

Weekday Peach Pie with Nut Crust

(adapted from various bits of the Joy of Cooking)

This isn’t a humongous Southern-Sunday-dinner peach pie, but instead one you can make if you just grab a few extra peaches at the market. Pecans are my favorite for this crust, which is the same one I use for pumpkin pie in the fall, and just happens to be gluten free. You can use other nuts that grow near you and/or you like, and it should work fine.

Preheat the oven to 375° F

Peach filling—put all this in a bowl:

1 1/2 lbs peaches (weighed whole), cut into 1/4″ thick slices. (Freestone peaches are much easier to slice.)

1/4 cup sugar if your peaches are ripe and juicy, maybe a tablespoon or two more if they are firm and tart.

1 1/2 Tablespoons quick-cooking tapioca or cornstarch for thickening. I ground the tapioca in a spice grinder to get finer grains, which I think I read about in an Alice Waters cookbook.

1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice.

1/4 teaspoon almond extract (optional but I like it).

A small pinch of salt.

Stir up the filling and let it sit while you make the crust:

You can either put all these ingredients in the bowl of a food processor and pulse together, or grind the nuts first and then mix everything by hand. Either way, don’t chop the nuts super fine, or the crust won’t have a lot of structure, a texture like coarse crumbs is good.

2 cups pecans (or walnuts, almonds etc.) chopped, see note above.

4 Tablespoons butter (especially if you’re making it in the food processor, it’s important to soften the butter first, otherwise you’ll end up with chunks of unmixed butter).

3 Tablespoons sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

Butter a pie pan well, and pour in the mixed crust in it. Use your fingers to press the crust over the bottom and up the sides of the pan, getting it reasonably even if you can.

Prebake the crust in the preheated oven for 10 to 15 minutes, until it starts to brown. The edges of this crust are apt to burn, so cover them with a pie shield or strips of aluminum foil first. If the sides of the crust start to sag or the bottom gets too puffy, you can push them back in place with the back of a spoon.

While the crust bakes, beat 1 egg (the smallest egg you can find) with just a tiny bit of water, until well beaten.

When the crust is warm and starting to brown, take it out of the oven and glaze it with the beaten egg. This is the key to putting a moist filling in the nut crust without getting a soggy crust! Use a pastry brush to apply a thin layer of egg wash all over the inside surface of the crust, up over the sides, etc. The egg will want to slide down, but just keep brushing it up, until the warm crust starts to absorb it and hold it in place.

Put the egg-washed crust back in the oven for just a couple of minutes, until the egg is cooked and shiny.

Then pour in the peach filling. Cover the edges of the crust again, and put the whole pie back into the oven until the juices of the filling are thick and bubbly, about 45 minutes. No matter what you do, the edges of the crust will probably get a “bold” baked color (as the bread makers say). If it goes all the way to burnt, just scrape off the very top. This crust is really simple and delicious, so it’s totally worth it.

Here’s to a weekday-peach-pie kind of week …

Recipe Sketch: Vietnamese Noodle Salad with Pan-Marinated Tofu

Posted on June 16, 2012 by Tasha

Last summer when we were at the Cherry Creek Arts Festival, I fell in love with this salad. Instantly it was the only thing I wanted to eat on a hot day – it’s cool, it’s nutritious, the lovely clean flavors of the sauce and herbs on top make it so refreshing. I’m pretty sure I got it (from a local restaurant’s stand at the festival) all three days we were there, and I’ve been seeking it in other cities ever since. This week, I was sitting on the couch, thinking about all the other things I have to do and wondering what on earth to make for dinner, flipping through my recipe book, when I remembered this salad – being home in warm weather was the perfect time to try making it myself!

Vietnamese Noodle Salad

Noodles: I used very thin rice stick noodles. I’ve also seen this served with slightly thicker clear or white noodles. Whatever kind you can find, check the package directions, boil just until tender (usually only a few minutes), then rinse under cold water.

Veggies; any or all of the following: shredded carrots, thin sliced bell pepper, cucumber, zucchini . . . almost all of the versions I’ve had include bean sprouts and shredded lettuce. Tip: rinse bean sprouts in a generous spray of very cold water to get them at their tastiest and crispiest. For my version, I sauteed the bell pepper and zucchini strips briefly over high heat, just to get little caramelized edges, then let them cool. If it’s really hot out, you could just leave all the veggies raw and avoid turning on the stove!

Pan-marinated tofu: this seems like a good time to include this technique, which I use pretty much every time I make tofu. Start with extra-firm tofu. Cut it into slices, rectangles, triangles, whatever you like. In a large skillet, heat a generous splash of peanut oil (sorry about the no-measuring for this part, I just don’t!) over medium heat. When it’s getting hot, add in a splash of soy sauce, a splash of rice vinegar or lime juice, and a small spoon of brown sugar. Stir around until the sugar dissolves, then add the tofu. Stir the tofu around, then shake the pan occasionally while the liquid evaporates. Keeping the heat on med-low, and stirring when you first put the tofu in will help keep it from sticking to the pan. Once the liquid is gone, a nice caramelized crust will form on the tofu – yummy! I haven’t found a better way than to flip each piece over once the bottom is brown and crispy. If there are patches of sauce left, steer the flipped pieces onto those. You can also add a little more of the marinating ingredients if necessary. When both sides have a lovely golden crust, you’re done! Flip the tofu out onto a plate to cool. I did this one day as an experiment, and I have done it every time since, when I make tofu for Pad Thai, curry, etc. Side story: once I was hanging out with my brother while he was grilling brats. He said it’s the juice dripping down from the meat and being shot back up by the fire that makes it taste good. Sometimes I think of this technique as giving the tofu some tasty juice of its own. Ok, back to the noodle salad.

Herbs and peanuts: whatever veggies and other ingredients you choose, this and the sauce are key to the flavor of this dish! Coarsely chop a generous handful of fresh mint, basil, and cilantro. Finely chop some raw or roasted unsalted peanuts.

Sauce: start with equal parts maple syrup, soy sauce, lime (or lemon) juice, and water. For one person’s lunch-size bowl, use about a tablespoon of each. Taste and adjust. You can also add a clove of minced garlic and/or a little hot sauce if you wish. What I love about this is the clean clear flavors, but some friends liked it better with a LOT of hot sauce. Hat tip to theKitchn for what to put in this sauce!

Assembly: put the bean spouts and cooled noodles in the bottom of a bowl. A wide shallow bowl would be ideal, since the sauce tends to sink to the bottom (otherwise, stir it up). Top with veggies, herbs, tofu and peanuts, and pour sauce over the whole thing. Enjoy!

Variations: I made it the next day with an fried egg on top, also super tasty but not quite as cooling. Of course you could add stir-fried meat as well, or practically anything else you like. Pickled vegetables? It can easily be vegan, gluten free, or not, really the sky’s the limit here!

Enjoy! I can’t go without mentioning the dessert I made for this meal, roasted strawberry coconut milk popsicles from The Year in Food. Dude. These were incredible! I’ve been dying to make them and I was so happy I finally could. My only note would be to lightly crush or grind the cardamom. I love it when a recipe opens up whole new ideas, I never would have thought to roast a strawberry. My whole house was filled with an explosion of strawberry jam smell so wonderful that I couldn’t stand to spoil it by cooking anything else at the same time. They look cool too, I couldn’t resist taking my own picture! Anyways. Get out there and eat some summer!

DIY Fruit and Nut Bars

Posted on May 2, 2012 by Tasha

We’re headed to our next art show today (Brookside in Kansas City, MO) and along with my usual motley assortment of library books (shhh) and projects in progress, I’m packing two versions of these bars!

We eat a lot of Clif bars, Odwalla bars, Larabars, regular old granola bars, etc. for breakfast when we’re in the truck. By the end of the summer if I never saw another one it wouldn’t bother me, with the possible exception of the Larabar type. There’s nothing in those besides dates, nuts and spices, and of course they are also the most expensive kind, I usually don’t buy them unless they’re on sale.

This winter on our trip to Oregon I was sitting with our friend Becca when she came up with a brilliant idea – why not make them? She was eating a bar made at the lodge where we were, which was mostly chunks of dried fruit and nuts held together with honey. This seemed like such a good idea, and of course so obvious once she said it, it lodged in my brain and fortunately stayed there until I tried it out.

The first version had more dates, and fewer almonds, with none reserved for coating the outside. It was good, but sticky, and even a little too sweet, despite the fact that there’s not any added sugar. Here’s version 2:

Date and Almond Bars

Add 8 oz dried, pitted dates to a saucepan in which they barely fit in a single layer. Grate on top: zest of one orange. Pour in enough water to make about 1/8″ in the bottom of the pan, just enough so that all the dates have some to soak up. Bring the water to simmer, then turn off the heat, cover the pan, and leave it for about half an hour, until the dates have soaked up the water and become soft and plump.

Grind 1 cup raw or toasted almonds to a coarse flour with some chunks remaining. Grind a further 1/4 cup to flour without chunks.

Put the soaked dates in the food processor, and chop/grind until you have a thick puree. I added a splash of Amaretto to the processor, totally optional, but adds a nice extra flavor.

Scoop out the date puree into a bowl or back into the pan, add the coarsely ground almonds, and mix together into a thick paste. On a cutting board or parchment paper, sprinkle out about half of the almond four. Scoop the date/almond paste on top of the flour, sprinkle more almond flour on top of it, and roll out like you would cookie dough to your desired thickness, using the almond flour to keep the bars from sticking to the surface or the rolling pin.

Cut into bars, use the extra almond flour that falls off to coat the edges, let dry for a few hours, and you’re done!

Seeing as how I was making my own fruit and nut bars, I also bought some figs, and made:

Fig and Pistachio Bars

Using basically the same procedure as the date and almond ones. I needed to cut the stems off the figs, and they weren’t quite as juicy or sweet as the dates.

Add 12 oz dried figs (I used black mission), a little orange zest, about 1/3 of the orange (lemon would also be nice here), 1 Tablespoon of honey, and just a little water as before to the saucepan.

After soaking, there was still a little liquid left, so I brought the pan to a simmer again and boiled it off just for a minute or two, stirring, until it was more like a thin syrup that stuck to the figs.

When I was writing this up yesterday I forgot that I had used slightly fewer pistachios than I did almonds in the date bars, about 3/4 cup in the fig bars, but still 1/4 cup ground to dust the outsides. This seemed to make sense because the figs were a little drier, and also because I ran out of pistachios! Of course you can vary the amounts to your own taste and see what you like.

From this point process the figs and grind the pistachios just like the above recipe.

Maybe my favorite thing about this idea is that if I get tired of one kind, I can just add another variation, some spice or a different nut for a new flavor! I’d love to know your thoughts, what flavor combos would be good? If you try your own, how did they come out?