Category Archives: food and cooking

Pear Pie of the Year?

November 14, 2009food and cooking, pieginger, pearsGretchenJoanna

“Pie of the Week” was the inspiring category of postings at Gigi’s Firefly Cottage blog…

I wish I could bake a pie once a week. I also wish I could have a whole day of prayer and contemplation every week, and a day of gardening, and a loaf of bread baked every seven days or so. But at the rate I’m going, I should set my sights lower– perhaps one pie every six months or so? (If wishes were horses, beggars would ride, and eat more pie.)

My latest pie is Pear. It’s the first pear pie I’ve ever eaten or baked. The thought of eating this subtle fruit any way besides fresh or dried never appealed, until I read a recipe on one of my favorite blogs recently, a recipe that made me think pear pie would be worth a try. I was prepared in mind, then, for the display of pale green Bartletts at a fruit stand where I stopped for a snack on Monday.

The price was right, but you had to buy a big bag of them, more than Mr. Glad and I could possibly eat. I thought, “This is my chance to bake a pear pie,” and I brought them home, and there was my deadline in front of me: within two days they would be pale yellow, and the pie would have to be baked.

Here is my new white pie dish waiting for its pears. The hearts on the cloth that is under the clear vinyl were my solution to shoe polish stains about 15 year ago.

But where was the recipe? Nowhere to be found. Had I imagined it, or just lost it? The pie had to be baked, so I researched ideas on Epicurious.com for quite a while, settling on a this recipe that featured lemon, maple, and ginger to add complexity.

I made a couple of changes: doubled the ginger and forgot to put in the sugar. I’m so glad about that last omission, because the maple syrup made the pie just sweet enough for my taste. All the various flavors blended nicely and nothing overpowered the pears. I found it to be quite lovely. It was hard to know just what the added flavors were.

This pie was thickened with instant tapioca granules. I discovered I didn’t have instant, so I ground some small pearls in the blender and then sifted out the bigger pieces. The finished product was a bit soupy, maybe only because it was still warm.

But my husband often doesn’t like new taste sensations, especially the first time. After having a slice of this one, he said it had nothing that made him want to keep eating it. I should have that feeling; after eating more than necessary, I quickly wrapped the rest of the pie, dish and all, in heavy foil and stuck it in the freezer.

Maybe my pear pie will be the Pie of the Century!

Indian Rice Pudding

November 12, 2009food and cookingpudding, riceGretchenJoanna

With the temperature in the 30’s there in the North Country, it wasn’t surprising that we desired comfort food. Rice pudding came to one daughter’s mind, and passed from there to mine, where the idea germinated into a Google search, and from there sprouted plans to use ingredients on hand.

Judging from the variety of methods and ingredients, I think you could have success with many different combinations. I didn’t write down what I came up with, but I think I can remember…
While the 1/2 cup of jasmine rice was soaking in warm water,
I chopped 1/3 cup almonds.

One recipe called for “dried fruit” and suggested almonds, pistachios, and raisins. I found some currants to go with the almonds. The cardamom was for later on.

The yellow stuff is ghee, which I had brought along on the previous trip and forgotten to take home. Lucky me, because I wanted it for sautéeing the almonds and about 1/3 cup currants. If there is any better smell in the culinary world than this, I haven’t met it. I cooked the almonds and currants until the almonds were toasty brown.

In the meantime the rice had soaked for half an hour and after draining I added it to a quart of milk. (Some recipes used half coconut milk, and I have made many puddings without dairy, using primarily coconut milk, during church fasts.)

This pot needed frequent stirring over medium-low heat so that the pudding wouldn’t stick and burn. After perhaps 15 minutes it had thickened a bit and the rice was tender. That was the signal to add 3 tablespoons of sugar and 1/2 teaspoon of cardamom, along with the ghee mixture.

After a few more minutes of cooking, the pudding was even thicker, and ready to eat. But we waited a while until it had cooled to warm.

It had a good flavor, but we had been looking forward to a more runny pudding.
If I make this sort of thing again I think I’ll try using 50% more milk.

(Young) Mutton Pie

November 4, 2009food and cooking, poetrylamb, Morocco, stewGretchenJoanna

Mutton is the meat I love.

On the dresser, see it lie;

Oh, the charming white and red;

Finer meat ne’er met the eye.

Roasting lamb is one of those aromas that reminds me of my grandmother. Combine it with Moroccan spices, and it makes for one of my favorite dishes:

Moroccan Lamb and Sweet Potato Pie

2 tsp. ground cinnamon

4 tsp. ground cumin

3 tsp. ground coriander

2 T. freshly grated ginger

1 T. all-purpose flour (or arrowroot)

1 ½ tsp. salt, plus more to taste

¼ tsp. freshly ground pepper, plus more to taste

2 # lean leg of lamb, cut into 1-inch cubes

3 T. olive oil

4 T. unsalted butter

2 large onions, thinly sliced

1 T. sugar

3 large cloves garlic, peeled and minced (about 1 ½ T.)

3 c. beef stock

1 28-oz. can whole Italian plum tomatoes

2 pieces star anise

2 cinnamon sticks, about 3 inches long

2 medium carrots, peeled and cut into ½-inch rounds

2 # sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed

12 oz. fresh spinach (optional) washed

½ c. dried tart cherries

½ c. dried pitted prunes, cut in half

freshly grated nutmeg, for sprinkling

1. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the ground cinnamon, 2 tsp. cumin, 1 tsp. coriander, flour, ½ tsp. salt, and ¼ tsp. pepper. Toss the lamb pieces with the spice mixture to coat.

2. In a Dutch oven or a large saucepan, heat 2 T. olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the lamb in two to three batches, in a single layer, and sear until dark brown on all sides, about six minutes per batch. Add the remaining T. olive oil during searing if pan becomes dry. Remove the lamb pieces and set aside.

3. Reduce heat to medium; add I T. butter. Add onions and sugar; cook 10 minutes, stirring frequently, scraping up brown bits on bottom of pan while stirring the onion.

4. Reduce heat to medium low, add the minced garlic, and cook until brown and well caramelized, about 15 minutes.

5. Stir in the stock, tomatoes, star anise, cinnamon sticks, carrots, remaining 2 tsp. cumin, 2 tsp. coriander, the fresh ginger, remaining 1 tsp. salt, and reserved lamb. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium, and simmer, stirring occasionally, uncovered, for about 1 hour, until lamb is tender and sauce is thick.

6. Meanwhile, place sweet potatoes in a large saucepan; cover with cold water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium, and simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes, until very tender when pierced with a fork. Drain potatoes, and return to saucepan. Dry potatoes, over medium heat, for 1 minutes. Pass potatoes through a food mill into a medium bowl. Stir in remaining 3 T. butter; add salt to taste. Set aside, loosely covered.

7. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. If using spinach, place in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Season to taste with salt and pepper, cover, and cook until wilted, about 1 ½ minutes. Drain, and rinse under cold water to stop the cooking. Set aside.

8. Remove the star anise and cinnamon sticks from the stew. Stir in the cherries and prunes. Transfer mixture to a deep 2-qt. Casserole, and place a layer of spinach, if using, over the stew. Spoon the sweet potato mixture onto the stew. Place on a baking sheet, and bake for 30 minutes. Sprinkle with freshly grated nutmeg.

Notes: I have always used a whole leg of lamb for this recipe, which usually is about 5#, not 2#, so I end up with more than 2 times the quantity. You can see I have two pots of the stew simmering.

This gives me plenty to put in the freezer for another day, which brings me to the question of how to prepare the yams. If I purée all the yams, they end up getting mushed up into the stew by the time I have reheated it, especially if it spends time in the freezer.

The stew tastes especially nice if the flavors have blended overnight, so I try to cook it a day ahead. Also this time I baked ahead of time the sort of monster yams, not very sweet, that are in the discount supermarket around Thanksgiving, not knowing yet how I would arrange everything the next day. Sometimes I have baked smaller sweet potatoes and served them to the side of the stew…

…but on this occasion, I ended up slicing them on top, brushed with butter and sprinkled with parsley and cinnamon, to take to a potluck. Sorry, the photo shows the dish before it had its final heating in the oven, and the butter is still solidifying on the cold yams. That evening the yam slices were gone before the stew itself.

Powerful Flavors and Memories

November 4, 2009family, food and cooking, historyAsian markets, shopping, spices, Thai foodGretchenJoanna

This afternoon Mr. Glad and I shopped for a pewter cup for our newest grandchild. My in-laws gave each of our children one when they were babies, and we’ve carried on the tradition with our grandchildren. After we made our choice of cup style and engraved letters, we wandered around the fancy stationery/gift store browsing expensive Christmas ornaments, multiple versions of Carl Larsson calendars, and ball-point pens.

Then back to the parking garage, through balmy evening air, so odd and dreamy. We were reluctant to go home to our wintry house, and briefly considered buying food downtown. Passing an outdoor cafe, my husband said, “Nice dog,” and I looked at the greyhound sitting there by a table and smiled behind me at him while I kept walking. Then, “Gretchen?” I heard, from the dining area, and I saw a woman getting up and coming toward me. I had already recognized her voice, though I hadn’t heard it for almost 20 years. E. is mother to two children who were among my day-care clients way back, my children’s friends, decorators of my walls and place-holders in my heart.

I have often wanted to get together to talk about those old times, and find out how the now-grown-up children are, and send them my love. Just this week I was thinking of one time when the mom needed to talk privately to me. We had to take chairs to a back bedroom and sit there in the middle of what looked like a hurricane disaster zone. Probably all the children were outdoors at the time finding polliwogs or on some other neighborhood adventure such as you can see in this photo. Her two children are among the ones pictured.

It turns out she has moved to another state, and is only visiting here briefly. Thank you, Lord, for arranging this meeting! We exchanged our info, so I hope we can talk later.

As we drove toward home and came near this market, we agreed to stop in. I took the picture in the daylight once, but tonight in the dark I could see it was still open. We went in and were greeted by a pervading fish sauce smell. I like it well in my Thai dishes, but filling the store–not much. I was trying to just pick up one item and get out of there, get home to cook, but it is another place that keeps you looking at all the many fascinating things you don’t end up buying.

I saw the bags of MSG, giant rice papers, rice crackers and twenty types of noodles in cellophane packages. But I snatched up my tapioca flour and we skipped over the other inviting aisles to the produce section. There are usually some very nice vegetable offerings, and we carried a couple of them up front and waited meekly behind the person checking out.

“If you drink Red Bull, you have got to know this is the original stuff!” A tall man with long pale kinky hair had come up behind and was waving some brown bottles. “Whenever I can, I come in here and buy this–it’s way better than Red Bull! Much more powerful, and cheaper, too!” He smiled broadly in his excitement to share his discovery with us, revealing black holes where teeth must once have been.

So thrilled, he didn’t notice our laden arms, and stepped forward to put his brown tonic bottles on the counter and pay. It didn’t take long before he was striding out. As the cashier tallied our purchases I said, “I don’t think he needs any Red Bull, Asian or otherwise.”

Today I went through my back stock of spices and herbs, sorting and consolidating and putting many little bottles and bags aside for my daughters. Another thing of my past, after the day care business, was the food co-op business, and in the years when I had hundreds of pounds of rice, flour, yogurt and teabags piled in my garage every month or two, I found that I could buy a pound of spice for the same cost as 2 2-oz bottles.

Most of the time these flavorings came in foil bags that preserve the freshness very well. Often four or eight of us would split a pound. If, as the experts would tell me, the potency was diminished over time, why, I could just throw in a bit more of the oregano or whatever. Today, though, I threw quite a bit out, into the garden. I don’t make 20-quart pots of soup anymore, and some of the herbs, especially, had lost all their savor.