4 posts from 2009

OK, could anything be cuter than these?
,
Wait let me amend that, as I have the world's most beautiful baby staring me in the face as I type this. Could any food be cuter than these?

Last night we had the pleasure of meeting baby Eli, the 4 and-a-half month-old son of Jon's cousin Rachel, who is pretty darn cute himself. His grandparents invited us over for dinner & baby cuddling, and a meal at Alan and Idy's could only mean one thing: a metric ton of BBQ would be served. You may recall from a previous story that Alan is an expert meat-smoker and he did not disappoint. Despite the fact that there were only 6 adults in attendance, there were 15 pounds of chicken wings with 3 different kinds of barbecue sauce, and a whole mess of ribs (in 2 flavors) as well. Not to mention the baked beans (Archie's favorite!) and coleslaw and cucumber salad. 

I knew I wanted to bring a dessert to complement this feast, and the blueberries are still going strong at our little neighborhood farmers' market so my thoughts of course went to pie. And then they went to the last time I tried to bring blueberry pie to a party, and I was running late so I didn't cook the filling long enough and it turned out all runny and made a terrific mess on the drive across town. Maybe individual-sized tart-like blueberry pies would be a little more transportable. (Plus, you know, a fully thickened filling might help.)

So I adapted my blueberry pie recipe - the main adaptations are to make twice as much dough and half as much blueberry filling as you would for a normal pie (although leftover filling makes a divine topping for vanilla ice cream), and bake the mini-pie crusts in a muffin tin. Oh, and start early enough that you have time to finish cooking and cooling everything before assembling the pies. Also, I have decided that while Rose Levy Berenbaum is a pastry goddess, my heart belongs to Russ Parsons and all-butter crusts when it comes to pie-making.

Mini Blueberry Pies
adapted from Amanda Hesser's "Cooking for Mr. Latte" and Russ Parsons "How to Read a French Fry."
Ingredients:
Pie Crust:
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for rolling
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
2 sticks butter, well chilled or frozen
4-6 Tablespoons ice water

For cream cheese filling
4 oz cream cheese, at room temperature
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

For blueberry filling:
6 Tablespoons sugar
2 Tablespoons cornstarch
a pinch of salt
2 Tablespoons water
1 pint of fresh blueberries
1/2 Tablespoon fresh squeezed lemon juice
1/2 Tablespoon butter

Instructions:
Prepare the pie crusts: Cut each stick of butter into 8 tablespoon-sized pieces. 

Combine the flour, salt and baking powder in a food processor and pulse 3 times to mix.  Add the butter cubes and process, pulsing about 8 times at 1-second intervals until the pieces of flour and butter are no bigger than peanuts.  Add 4 tablespoons of ice water and pulse until butter is the size of small peas. 

You can do the next step in the food processor, but I prefer to switch to a large bowl and mix it the rest of the way by hand.  If after a few minutes of stirring it still appears dry and crumbly, add up to 2 more tablespoons of water, a teaspoon at a time, and stir until the dough holds together easily.

Scrape the dough onto a lightly floured surface and divide it into two equal pieces.  Form each piece into a 6-inch disk.  Wrap each in plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm, at least 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 450F.  Roll out each piece of dough between 2 pieces of lightly floured parchment paper to form a circle about 1/4 inch thick.  Cut into 6" circlces and line the cups of a muffin tin with the pie dough.  Fold under the  overhang of each mini pie and crimp the edges.  Prick the base of the dough with a fork.  Line the pie dough with foil and pour in pie weights.  (You can also use dried beans or loose change.)  Bake for 10 minutes, then turn down the heat to 350F and bake for 10 minutes more.  Remove the foil and pie weights and let cool completely before filling.

Prepare the cream cheese filling: With a hand mixer or whisk, blend the cream cheese, sugar, vanilla and heavy cream until light and smooth.

Prepare the blueberry filling: Put the sugar, cornstarch and salt in a medium pan.  Add the water and 1 cup of the blueberries.  Cook over medium heat, stirring often.  This is the most exciting part of the recipe to watch.  The liquid will turn lavender, then magenta, and then it will seize up and thicken, and after a minute or two, turn to a deep translucent blackish purple.  Take it off the heat and stir in the lemon juice and butter.  Pour in the remaining blueberries and stir until coated.  Transfer to a bowl and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Assemble the pies: Drop 1 tablespoon of cream cheese filling into each pie shell and spread evenly over the bottom of the cooled pie dough.  Dollop the blueberry mixture over the cream cheese in large spoonfuls, trying not to mush the cream cheese layer.  There should be two distinct layers.  Chill in the refrigerator for half an hour to set.  Let it come to room temperature before serving.

Makes 12 mini pies

Despite the impression you may get from reading this blog, I actually don't have that much of a sweet tooth.  A few squares of dark chocolate after dinner or the occasional scoop of Chunky Monkey and I'm good.  Even when I was pregnant, I didn't go too overboard with sweets.  People asked me all the time if I was having any cravings (OK they asked me that pretty often - but not as often as the big 3 questions: 1. When are you due? 2. Do you know if it's a boy or a girl? 3. Do you have a name picked out?  I got asked these questions so much, from everyone from my boss to the checkers at Jewel, that I thought about having a t-shirt printed with "August 9. Boy. Yes but we're not telling.")  Anyway, back to the cravings - I had a hard time noticing if I had any pregnancy cravings because I am such a weird eater to begin with.  A secret penchant for pickled herring and drooling over the idea of kimchee and cream cheese on a Wasa cracker is part of my normal, non-gestational life, so any cravings I had would have had to be pretty out there to attribute it to the pregnancy.  However, a Dinkel's cake with fresh strawberry filling whipped cream frosting served at a co-worker's birthday party in my 2nd trimester haunted my dreams for weeks. 

And then there was the lemon cake.  The meyerless lemon cake I wrote about on this very blog almost 2 and half years ago.  The tart, fragrant, lemon cake that I started longing for when we were in the midst of packing to move in mid-February.  Not a great time for extensive kitchen usage.  By April we were settled in enough in our new digs that I was able to bake a cake.  But now that cake, with it's tangy, sweet glaze and candied lemon slices seemed practically austere in comparison to the fluffy white Dinkel's cake.  So I decided to whip up some creamy frosting and convert the recipe to cupcakes (easier for transporting to Deerfield where we shared them over dinner with my college roommate Heidi, who was also expecting, and her family). 

When I spotted a cute little bag of meyer lemons in the Jewel last week - and let me just digress for a second to say, how weird is it that they have something as esoteric as meyer lemons yet they don't have any cupcake liners except for ones with Disney princesses on them??  Oh Jewel, you fickle bitch.  Anyhow, when I saw the lemons I decided to ressurect the cupcake recipe for my weekend's social activities - a meet up with some other Chicago area moms & babies, and brunch at my friend Juliet's with her family.  I'm happy to say that not only do pregnant ladies love these cupcakes, they are also popular with mothers, fathers, and most children. 

Meyer Lemon Cupcakes with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting
Adapted from Domino and Bon Apetit
Ingredients:
14 Tablespoons (1 3/4 sticks) unsalted butter
4 large eggs, separated
1¼ cups sugar
2/3 cup buttermilk
6 meyer lemons
2 cups cake flour or all purpose flour
1¼ teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups confectioners' sugar
1 8-ounce package of cream cheese
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions:
Set out 6 Tablespoons of butter and the package of cream cheese to come to room temperature.

Preheat the oven to 325° F.

Melt the remaining 8 Tablespoons (1 stick) of butter in saucepan. Set aside and let cool.

Using a microplane zester, zest 5 of the lemons.  Set aside 1 teaspoon of zest for the frosting.  Squeeze the juice from the zested lemons to yield about 1/2 cup of juice.  Set aside.

Line 2 cupcake pans with paper liners.  (Or if you only have 1 pan, you can just bake them in 2 batches, just make sure to let the pan cool to room temperature before pouring in the 2nd batch of batter.)

In a mixing bowl, using an electric mixer, beat egg yolks with 1 cup of the sugar until thick and light in color, about 2 to 3 minutes. Beat in buttermilk, lemon juice, and zest.

Sift together cake flour, baking powder and salt.

In a separate bowl, beat egg whites with an electric mixer until they hold soft peaks. Then add ¼ cup of sugar and continue beating until stiff peaks form.

Fold half the flour mixture into egg-yolk mixture, followed by half the egg white mixture—so you don't deflate the batter. Repeat with remaining flour and egg white mixtures.

Take about 1 cup of the batter and stir it into melted butter. Gently fold butter mixture into the rest of the cake batter.

Spoon batter into cupcake liners in pan, up to about 1/2 an inch from the top.  Bake for about 25-30 minutes, until toothpick stuck in center comes out dry.  Allow cupcakes to cool in pan for 15 minutes, then remove to a cooling rack.

While the cupcakes are baking, make the frosting and garnishes.  Using electric mixer, beat cream cheese and butter in large bowl until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in powdered sugar. Beat in reserved 1 teaspoon of lemon zest and vanilla.

Use a canelle to carve long strips around the remaining lemon and then use your fingers to twist the strips into tight coils.  Set aside curls. 

Squeeze the juice from the lemon and fold it into the frosting, then cover and refrigerate until firm enough to spread, at least 30 minutes.

When the cupcakes are fully cooled, use a cake decorating tip spiral peaks of frosting onto cupcakes, or simply spread frosting on with a knife.  Garnish with lemon peel curls.

makes about 20 cupcakes

This was posted by Shawnee Barton, an artist who keeps a blog on other people’s blogs. If you have a little nook of cyberspace and are open to welcoming a guest poster, please email her at shawneebarton@gmail.com. She will be grateful. To see where she is headed next, check out shawneebarton.com

The Great Fried Egg Sandwich

A lot of people find moments of clarity while watching sunsets or taking a long bath.  Those things do it for me sometimes too, but there is one thing that always makes everything feel right in my world.   It’s watching the yolk from a fried egg sandwich fill my plate on a lazy Sunday morning.  Ask any fifth grader and they’ll tell you that a sandwich cut in half just has more love in it than one that isn’t, and the confidence that comes from perfectly cooking an egg is enough to ready you for the week ahead.

 

Timing is everything when you make a fried egg sandwich.   You want all the pieces to be hot and toasty when you put it together.  It’s a juggling act that takes some practice.

 

First, you want to fry your bacon (two or three pieces for each person) in a large skillet over medium heat.   It’s imperative that you use good bacon—thick hormone-free slices that don’t smell of fake maple flavoring.  I like Trader Joe’s uncured apple smoked bacon.

 

While the bacon is going, you want to slice up your accoutrements.  I personally like tomato, fresh spinach or a romain, and sometimes a little red onion.   You want to pull the mayo jar out of the fridge, so that it’s ready to go, place a couple of paper towels on a plate for the bacon, and put your bread in the toaster, but don’t start it just yet.  

 

I like a wheat bread, but one that isn’t to loaded with whole grains.  That kind is too dense, but a slice of white bread just doesn’t lay the kind of foundation we’re looking for, so you want something in between.  If you hate wheat, I’d try a sourdough or Texas toast maybe. 

 

When the bacon looks about two-thirds done, you want to lower the heat a bit, flip the bacon and push it over to one side of the skillet.  Then, you crack two extra-large free-range eggs in the part of the pan with the most bacon grease.  

 

I start my toast now, but you’ll need to tweak the timing of toasting based on your toaster’s personality.  This is important, because no one likes cold toast. 

 

Then, sprinkle the eggs with pepper and try to flick some bacon grease over the yolk.  This will give the yolk a protective covering and make it more likely that you’ll be in control of when it breaks.  There are few things worse than a prematurely broken yolk. 

One of those things is an over-cooked yolk.  The way I make sure I don’t over cook mine is to pull it out of the pan just as the white is opaque.  If your yolk breaks or if it’s hard, rather than runny, you have to start another egg.  Broken or hard yolks just won’t do for fried egg sandwiches.       

 

Once the toast is ready, add the egg, mayo, and bacon crisped to your liking, and top with lettuce and tomato.   When all is right, pour a glass of cold orange juice, take a deep breath, and slice into that bad boy.

 

Other variations: 

 

If you’d like a Southwestern style sandwich, add fresh salsa (to use something like pace would be a crime), avocado, and sour cream instead of mayo.

 

If you've got a few summertime minutes to spare, try a fried green tomato version.  Before I start the regular routine above, I make enough of a half cornmeal and half wheat flour mixture to coat the tomato slices I’m frying.  Then I add garlic powder, salt, pepper, chili powder, and a little bit of sugar to the cormeal/flour mixture to taste.  I dredge the tomatoes in an egg and milk bath and coat with flour mixture before setting it aside.

 

Everything else is pretty much the same, except I pan fry the tomatoes in the bacon grease along with the eggs. If you have a really big skillet, you can put the tomatoes in a couple minutes before the eggs and cook all three together.   If not, remove the bacon when it’s crisp and keep it in a warm in the oven until sandwich building time. Then you can cook the tomatoes and add the eggs just before it’s time to turn the tomatoes over.  This version's also great with avocado, and be sure to stack the egg on top of the fried green tomato if you want the pleasure of breaking the yolk yourself.