Au Currant(s)

Wondering how to eat the berry of the season? The berry all the celebrities are raving about*? Over the weekend, I used a quart of red currants for three different dishes.



First, currants served as a garnish for Mark Bittman's fluffy pancakes from How to Cook Everything. Though they are too tart for some to enjoy raw, I think the sweetness of the syrup cut their tartness just enough that even currant newbies could enjoy them this way. Dan added lemon zest to the pancake batter, which complimented them nicely.



I also made a rhubarb and red currant tart using a recipe from The Paris Kitchen. I used this alarmingly simple (just watch the screamingly hot bowl) French tart dough recipe method recounted by David Lebovitz. I doubled the sugar in the tart recipe when I realized that it was described as "savory." I wanted something sweet and tangy, not savory. That was a good move. It was still very tart, which I like. I also found that it needed only 40-45 minutes to bake, which worked out well because any longer would have burned the tart crust.

You know how there are a zillion recipes online for strawberry-rhubarb pie? I love rhubarb, but I've always railed against pairing it with the traditional strawberry. I just don't think that baking it with strawberry adds much in terms of flavor or texture. Currant, on the other hand, gives the sour fruit more dimension (says I) and it only becomes a bit softer with baking, so there's still something in the pie or tart on which to chew. Rhubarb is also good with sour cherries, and I've always wanted to try baking rhubarb with cranberry, but don't forget that it's swell on its own.

I have now officially typed the word "tart" too many times. Where's my thesaurus?



Finally, after sharing a few raw handfuls with my 15-month-old, who apparently is as big a fan of currants as I, the remaining berries went into Ina Garten's fruit salad with limoncello recipe. I also used this week's CSA strawberries and blueberries, as well as a few bananas. Without the time (or multiple lemons) to make my own lemon curd (though I've done it in the past and recommend it), I mixed the yogurt topping with a spoonful of lingonberry preserves. This is an excellent summer dessert, side, or breakfast (I tested it three times, of course).

Currants! They're so now! They're so trending! They're so sassy! They're so you.

*Celebrity raves and currant trends may be fictional. I've loved currants since finding them growing on a bush near my childhood home in Dubuque, Iowa. A previous resident must have planted them, and I loved the novelty of being able to eat something right off a plant in my backyard, as well as their sharp, fruity, almost bitter flavor. I think I may also have enjoyed that they look a bit like they'd be poisonous.

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Other stuff I ate last year:

Grey Dog cookies are huge!  Big cookies have to be soft for me to like them, and this chocolate peanut butter one worked for me. Several times.





Molly and David gave me pie!



Ian gave me pie!



I made a plum cake!

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This is how much a pie should cost.

Now, look.  I live in New York City, but I'm a midwesterner by heritage (and a west-coaster by birth!).  When it comes to my taste buds, I like to imagine I'm eating through life with an eye toward both down-to-earth sanity and aspirational luxury.  I don't need everything I eat to be beautiful, trendy, or perfect.  Still, I can appreciate good food, I have enough income to pay a fair-to-inflated price for dishes made by others every so often, and I know how much work it can be to create an amazing mouthful.

This established, I am horrified at the price of whole pies around here.  Pie-men (I mean this as a genderless term) in NYC ask a lot for their creations, and I think it's gotten out of control.  For example, I have a lot of affection for a Brooklyn establishment known as Pies 'n' Thighs.  I treasure their "chicken box" dinner close to my heart.  But their whole pies cost $30.  Yeek, I say.  Yeek!  That's expensive. 

I've bought, eaten, and made a lot of pie in my lifetime.  I'm willing to pay a fair price for a good one, too, but frequently the $30 pies of the world (and I'm not talking about pies from Pies 'n' Thighs specifically because I can't afford them) do not measure up to the down-home simplicity and pleasing flavors of, say, an Amish creation retailing for $4.25 (as advertised in the photo at the top of this post).

I took the picture up top at The Green Dragon to remind all of us that a delicious pie need not break the bank.   I mean, I'd pay more than $5 -- I don't want to rip off any pie-bakers -- but I doubt the Amish women selling these pies were doing so at a loss.  I know people selling homemade pies will have to charge more than that per pie if they don't grow their own fruit, but there's a lot of room for fair pricing between $5 and $30.

I'm taking a daring, political stance: Accessible pie prices for every man, woman, child, and person who does not identify as male or female!

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Put a Jenny in the Slot

Our knitting circle added another Jenny (actually a Jen)* and a Kara, and both of them brought food! Kara's individual turkey meat pies were terrific, as was Jen's apple crumble tart.

I forgot to get a picture of our host Melissa's chocolate chip banana bread tonight. I hope you can forgive me.

Oh, knitting circle friends, I love you.


*we are now Jen/Jenny (Jennette)/Jenny (Jennifer)/Jenni, Melissa, and Kara. It is strange and lovely to have so many Jennies. 'Twas a popular name in the late 70s and early 80s, wasn't it folks?!

Was this the same day I polished off 1/3 of a package of Oreos?

I don't recall. But, either way, thumbs-up to the Whole Foods mini pie!

Mindy Lu, I sure am sweet on you.

What was my biggest regret on my trip to Dallas?




That I bought only one of the Mindy Lu Pies being sold at the register of the BBQ joint where we ate lunch the first day.




Banana, Strawberry Cheesecake, Chocolate, etc...I'm sorry to have missed out on what might have been.

These packaged pies beat the pants off of those shellacked, sugary packaged handpies made by Hostess. With Mindy Lu, you get something that actually tastes like sweet fruit in a real, flaky crust.

Oh, Mindy Lu. If only I'd known.

What's that? You say you ship anywhere in the US? Do you mean it? Don't lie to me, Mindy Lu. I couldn't stand it.

Poetry Tuesday: What I Ate in Texas

The BBQ of Texas
(to be sung to the tune of The Yellow Rose of Texas)

There's a yellow rose in Texas, but all I find is meat,
Few vegetables or salad, unless they're fried or sweet.
There's BBQ a-plenty, with sauces as high art,
But eating yellow roses might be better for my heart.



(Chorus)
I'd the biggest shrimps with bacon this chow-hound ever knew,
Their bellies stuffed with cream cheese, and jalapeño, too.
You may talk about your San Antone, and sing of Kansas Cee,
But the Mexican of Dallas beat the belly out of me.



Where the chicken gravy's flowing, and the okra fried delight,
I walked with my umbrella* to huge dinners every night;**
I think that I remember, when I left upon the plane,
I promis'd to not eat for days, so I'd feel me again.

(Chorus)

Oh! now I'm going to veg out, for my stomach's full of woe,
And also full of casserole, and things fried long ago;
I'll eat my greens so happily, and I'll sing a song of fruits,
And the BBQ of Texas I will leave for Texan brutes.***

(Chorus)



*It did rain the entire weekend we were in Dallas.
**And lunches every day
***It was really good! But overwhelming. I can't eat like that every day.

Giant Movie Night: Thrills and Chills

Last week's film was a comedy, so I felt we needed something different this time around. We cranked up the fans and settled down with some chilled treats and a chilling flick.

GMN Week three
Film: Shallow Grave, one of my most-watched movies. I've probably seen it 6 or 7 times and it does not disappoint.
Snack: Vegan cranberry pomegranate gelatin, chocolate peanut butter pudding pie, frozen grapes, prosecco.
Guests: Dan, Rachel, Hero.
Outcome: The film's from 1994 and hardly seems dated at all. The pie recipe's my mom's, and it never gets old.

Adventures in CSA: Week 8, Part 1

Last Sunday, I put in a couple of hours volunteering at the CSA pickup site. Things might not look so busy in the photo above, but there was a definite rush at the beginning of my shift, and I had plenty to do. Later, during a lull in the distribution, I sorted out my own share of:

1.5 lb. green tomatoes
1/2 lb. green beans
1 lb. cucumbers
1 lb. squash
2 medium garlic
1 Napa cabbage
1 lb assorted greens (I chose: 1/2 lb collard greens, 1/4 lb. ruby chard, and 1/4 lb. kale)

Once again, there was a little extra fruit to be had! It seems that the (pouring) rain kept away a few of the fruit shareholders (as well as many of the veggies-only participants, incidentally), so I was invited to take home a few peaches and plums.

So, what's been cooking?



1. Cold Green Bean Salad with Soy-Glazed Almonds. We were invited over to Ingrid, Ari, and Desmond's house for an impromptu potluck supper with friends. I was interested in making a cold green bean salad after reading two or three recipes online, so I chose one of them. I made just a few adjustments.

I prepared the salad a few hours ahead of time, then socked it away into the fridge to marinate. At Ingrid's house, I threw in the sticky, soy-glazed nuts.

I was thrilled with this mixture. I could have eaten twice as much salad as I did, and the nuts were the perfect topping. I would make the nuts on their own, too, to top other salads and dishes.

For my version, you'd need:

1/2 lb green beans, trimmed and cut into bite-sized pieces (1 lb would have been even better)
1 c. whole almonds
1 tsp. peanut oil (the recipe calls for any kind of oil except olive oil)
1/4 c. soy sauce
1-1/2 T. sugar
2-inch piece of ginger root, peeled and minced
2-3 large garlic cloves, peeled and minced
2 T. corn or canola oil
2 T. white wine vinegar + 2 tablespoons rice wine (or use rice wine vinegar, which was what I was trying to create a substitute for)
2 tsp. soy sauce
one small bunch scallions, finely sliced
(I omitted 1/2 cup chopped cilantro, but would happily use it if I had some around)

First, boil the beans for about 2 minutes (longer if tough or very big). Drain them and shock them in cold water. Drain again.

Toast almonds in dry pan on stove for 5 minutes. Don't let them burn. Remove almonds and put peanut oil, 1/4 c. soy sauce, and sugar in the same pan. Let everything boil and bubble while you stir and the mixture reduces. When it is syrupy, put the almonds back in and stir until they are coated with the sticky mixture. Put the almonds to cool on a cutting board.

Make the dressing for the salad with the rest of the ingredients. Whisk it all together in a bowl and pour it over the green beans. Add cilantro, if you choose. Stir everything together. Chill salad for several hours (if possible).

Separately, chop your glazed almonds roughly, but keep them separate until you're ready to serve, then throw them on top. If you add the almonds too early, the glaze will soak off as the salad marinates.





2. Green Tomato Mincemeat Pie. I gathered a number of green tomato recipes this week, but ultimately decided a pie was calling my name. Then, in my home library, I found the Moosewood Restaurant Book of Desserts, which contains a recipe for green tomato pie made with chopped apples, nuts, and lots of spices.

Unfortunately, I erred when making the recipe and sliced my apples, so the texture never really approached a true mincemeat chop. I also did not have pecans in the house. I think they would have tasted more appropriate to the experience than my last-minute mixture of walnuts and almonds.

My favorite part of the recipe was actually the pie crust, which was simple but tender. I will certainly be using it again, along with the method of bringing the edges of the crust up over the pie filling to create a rough-hewn, artisinal-looking almost-pocket of dough around the pie (rather than a classic top and bottom crust).

However, it was never a bad pie. We ate it with vanilla ice cream as part of our first Giant Movie Night event. The flavors melded together more and improved greatly overnight, so we had more the next evening with friends...and the next day as breakfast...and after lunch at work...




(photo and smoothie by Dan)

3. Cherry-Peach Smoothies. The peaches were surprisingly bland this week, and I'm not sure why, but blended with cherries and ice cream and milk they were excellent smoothie ingredients.





4. Raw Cucumbers and Squash with Hummus. I've been cooking most of the vegetables we've received, but there's nothing like a raw, farm-fresh cucumber or summer squash. One lazy evening, we simply sliced up the beauties and ate them with salt, pepper, and hummus. Simple! Mighty fine.


5. Plums (not pictured). The plums were amazing raw, too -- small, sweet-tart, and juicy. It took only a couple of days to eat both the superior red plums and the still-delicious, though slightly less awesome yellow variety. I'm sure they would have been yummy in a fruit salad or plum pie, but they were simply eaten and enjoyed as given by nature.

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Oops! Due to a couple of special events, weather, and general laziness, I fell behind this week. I cooked little, and ate just a bit more. In fact, I still haven't used the cabbage, garlic (but that will keep), or any of the greens! I plan to sort through the vegetable bin today, add what's salvageable to week nine's assortment (and some beautiful tomatoes from Tom at work), and report back to you soon.

A very good idea

This week, I held my inaugural Giant Movie Night, in which I watch movies projected on the wall while eating food. If someone wants to stop by, that's cool. Y'know. Whatever.

GMN Week one
Film: Woody Allen's Love and Death
Snack: Green Tomato Mincemeat Pie (with green tomatoes from my CSA share)
Guests: Dan
Outcome: Awesome!

There's always time for pie.

On Sunday, Shannon made a key lime pie. There were also strawberries. On Sunday night, I did what I do best -- I put everything on a plate (with extra graham cracker crust) and ate it all.

Will work for pie

You don't have to give me a cute-and-small-and-delicious cherry pie as a thank you for babysitting your child if she (or he) is this adorable (and cute and small and delicious):



But I'm also not inclined to turn down a gift from The Blue Stove.

So if you do happen to have an extra mini pie from said establishment lying around and you happen to want to give it to the babysitter (who happens to be me), you probably won't have to insist.

Chicken Pie, oh my.

(photo by Dan)

At some point I wrote down a simple recipe for Deep-Dish Chicken Pie. Today I took it for a test-drive. Here's a photo that looks like it was taken in a cave (that we ate it after dark was not the fault of the photographer).


(photo by Dan)

To Do
Have: dough for 1 pie crust (top crust only)
Cook and dice: 3 carrots
Cook and cut into bite-sized chunks: 2 1/2 - 3 c. chicken breast
Melt: 1/3 c. unsalted butter
Add: 1/3 c. chopped onion and cook until soft.
Stir in: 1/3 c. all-purpose flour, 1/2 tsp. salt, and 1/4 tsp. black pepper
Add: 1 1/2 c. chicken broth
Then add: 2/3 c. half-and-half while stirring until mixture is thickened and bubbly.
Remove pan from heat and add: chicken breast chunks, carrots, 1 c. thawed frozen peas, and 1 (drained) 6-oz. jar sliced mushrooms
Butter: 9-inch pie plate (deep)
Transfer filling to pie plate. Top with pie crust. Cut slits in the top of the pie with a paring knife.
Bake 30-40 minutes at 425 degrees F, until crust is golden brown. Allow to settle 5 minutes before cutting and serving.


I thought I could improve upon the recipe as given. First of all, I knew I'd make my own crust rather than buy one. It's not hard and it's much cheaper. Also, I never eat jarred or canned mushrooms. If I can't afford fresh (or dried, in recipes that call for it), I'll go without. The canned and jarred varieties always seem slimy, rubbery, or both. So for my pie I cooked up sliced baby portobello mushrooms (same price as regular white mushrooms) with the onion.

To improve the experience of putting together my dinner, I also decided to watch Martin Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, starring Ellen Burstyn, while I made the whole thing. These were all good decisions. [By the way, I stopped getting much pleasure out of watching The Academy Awards in 2000 when Burstyn didn't win for Requiem For A Dream (I don't know that I loved the movie, but she was a force to be reckoned with and no one should have beaten her that year).]

Ahem.

My best, recipe-improving decision of all? I cooked the chicken using my all-time favorite method, which I'd like to share with you. It's adapted from Nigel Slater's lovely and inspiring Kitchen Diaries, which can be read like a food-heavy-but-plot-light novel. He roasts whole chickens this way, but since I'm member of a small household I use it with individual chicken breasts (for this recipe, I used three). Bone in. Skin on.

To wit: Choose an oven- and stovetop-safe pan that will just fit the amount of chicken you're making. You don't want it to be too large. Don't give your chicken room to breathe. Massage olive oil, sea salt, and pepper into your chicken breasts or pieces (or whole chicken). Place the chicken in your pan - a whole chicken breast-side down (personally, with only the breasts to work with, I chose skin-side down). Whack this into a 400 degree F oven for just over an hour (could be less time for less than a whole chicken). For the last 20 minutes of cooking, flip your chicken over. Check your internal temp (if you have a meat thermometer) and make sure the juices run clear from the thickest part of your meat to know when it's done.

I threw some rosemary sprigs in the pot to add flavor for this chicken pie, but normally I don't add herbs. Here's something I do add to the chicken every time I make it (this is also Slater's suggestion): Right after you put the pot with the chicken into the oven, break apart but do not peel a whole head of garlic. Drop the unpeeled cloves into a small pot of boiling water. Boil 5 minutes. Drain the water and chuck the unpeeled cloves into your chicken pan in the oven.

When the chicken's cooked, remove it from the pan to let it rest somewhere warm. Mine had to cool so I could cut it into chunks for the pie. Meanwhile, squeeze the roasted garlic out of its papery shells into the bottom of the (unwashed) pot you just used by crushing them with the back of a spoon.

Then put the pot on a burner, add about 2 cups of white wine or vermouth or whatever -- I used some leftover sake, crazy as that seems -- and stir or whisk until you get a lovely gravy. Cook for several minutes, sieve to rid yourself of garlic paper and lumps, and serve over chicken. It's charming on rice, too. For this pie, I used the gravy in place of some of the chicken broth required in the recipe.


Oh, yum, you guys. Seriously do this.

Peanut Butter and Parrot

We picked up some treats from Pittsburgh's Allegro Hearth Bakery -"Crusty European Breads" - at 2034 Murray Avenue in Squirrel Hill.

I felt right at home - the woman behind the counter even used to live in my neck of Brooklyn. Then again, I never have found myself feeling out of place as long as I'm surrounded by baked goods.

Above, Roscoe looks on as we prepare to sample our haul: a lemon bar, a pumpkin pie bar, 2 peanut butter and chocolate cupcake-shaped items (I've forgotten the official name), and one chocolate "petite four" (which also had a longer name).



My personal favorite - and the treat that started our avalanche of purchases - was the petite four, which had ribbons of thick chocolate frosting on top of alternating moist chocolate cake and whipped cream layers. It was like a homemade Zinger. Brilliant!

The cupcake-shaped items had the consistency of dense brownies or thick but soft peanut butter cookies. They weren't cakey or light like cupcakes at all, but the peanut butter flavor ruled and they were not too sugary. The pumpkin pie bar was a good concept, executed tastily and well-spiced while still being subtle, and a sweet-tart lemon bar is always classic.

Desserts aside, they also sliced and sold us a swell loaf of sourdough bread, perhaps my favorite sort of bread. Another winner, the sourdough has an open, lacy crumb and zingy flavor.

Apples equal pie.

(Photo credit: DanF)

The orchard we visited had at least one apple for every child visiting that day, who numbered roughly a bazillion. We only brought one child, who was too tiny to pick apples but found the day tiring, nonetheless.



What the orchard lacked was signs announcing which apples were which variety. I think I may have come away with mostly Galas. Delicious.

Anyway, I have already mentioned the trip (where we were and so on), so I'll skip ahead. Pie is what matters now.


(Photo credit: DanF)

That's an in-progress shot of what became two (one for home; one for work) apple pies with a cheddar cheese top crust (no bottom crust). The recipe can be found on Epicurious.com.

I do love cheese, but somehow I've never been interested in eating apple pie with a slice of cheese on top. When I read this recipe calling for cheese to be baked into the crust I was more intrigued. And the results were excellent, despite how fiddly and fragile the crust was (it took two people and a pastry cloth to flip each crust onto its pie plate).

Slices got good reviews from friends, family, and coworkers. An autumnal success!

Here's grape in your pie!

Ah, the Concord grape. Grape of my childhood. Grape of my dreams. No grape is more pleasingly grapey or forgiveably seeded. It must be early fall, for I found the most beautimous Concord grapes at the McCarren Park farmers' market this past weekend. And I must have been hungry, for no sooner had I spotted them than I found they had been bought (by me) and were coming home in a bag.

After eating them out of that bag much of the afternoon on Saturday, and arranging them artfully in a newly purchased (six dollars) lavender vintage Pyrex divided dish (sold without lid) on Sunday morning, inspiration struck. Didn't I like pie? Why, yes, I did. Hadn't I heard of grapes being used in pie? Why, yes, I had! And did I have the right sort of grapes (by type and by weight) to make such a pie?

You guessed it. I found I had just enough (a little under 2 pounds) of the grapes left to make myself a pie Sunday evening [whilst watching yet another version of Little Women (1949, with June Allyson, Elizabeth Taylor, and Janet Leigh this time) on DVD].



I used Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Pie and Pastry Bible, which is the trickiest cookbook I own in terms of level of difficulty (it varying between "just a bit" to "wildly" over my existing baking skills and comfort zone) and persnickety-ness of instruction. This is the cookbook that allowed me to create the following Flame Plum tart, but nearly drove me mad in the process of following its scads of instructions as I crafted the thing.



Enough about tarts of the past. Back to pies of the present. It took me an entire evening to make the transition from picking out ingredients at the grocery store (at about 6pm) in Union Square to pulling a fully-baked pie from the oven at midnight to being asleep when it was finally a fully-cooled-and-ready-to-eat pie at 2am (2 hours of cooling? After over 5 hours of making a pie? That's just craziness, Ms. Beranbaum!).



Ah, but such a luxurious craziness. I'm talking Concord Grape pie (p.127) with Basic Flaky Pie Crust (2-crust version; optional baking powder included; p.23), topped with homemade peanut butter ice cream (p. 246). Whew.

And what about the eating of the pie? Worth the fuss and muss and freezer time? At least this once, yes. When removed from the oven, the crust was golden brown and the filling smelled like fresh, rich grape juice. The surface of the pie undulated with heat and purple-red droplets of juice jumped and popped beneath the grape-shape holes in the flaky top crust (this "bunch of grapes" decoration was suggested by the cookbook's author and only partly successful when executed by me).



And the homemade ice cream? I think I let the custard curdle, but that affects texture more than flavor. Starring in this ice cream, in perhaps the role it was born to play, was the Cream-Nut Peanut Butter left over from my graham crackers and peanut butter sandwich taste test.



The pie alone? rich and delicious. With the peanut butter ice cream? It was like the most deluxe peanut butter and jelly sandwich evah. Evah evah. Jelly like I've never had. Peanut butter ice cream beyond compare. Extra-great flaky and buttery pastry. Oh, my. Pie.

So, yeah. Pretty great. I can't wait to have another slice for breakfast.


p.s. This was my 150th post! Wheee!