Banana Toffee Pie

Yes, I DO sometimes make dessert. Like when I'm having company, for example, I try to remember to offer something sweet. It's almost always an afterthought, much to my poor chocolate-loving daughter's endless dismay. I'd just rather snuggle up with a bowl of plain Lay's or buttered popcorn than a handful of cookies or bowl of ice cream.

The local liquor store consortium publishes a monthly magazine, and it's glossy and beautiful and full of ads of new and delicious alcohols, and recipes. I can often find something interesting in it, and this month this recipe positively leaped out at me.

LCBO Food & Drink

And who can blame me?! Just look at that! No dealing with some blah bland pie crust, and a velvety smooth sweet toffee custard... mmmm. So heck yeah, I made this. I decided to make two changes, because I got it in my head that I wanted it to be a teensy bit like Southern Banana Pudding; I used Nilla Wafers instead of Ginger Snaps for the crust, and I made a meringue topping instead of using whipped cream. I had a TON of egg whites left over from various other projects, and I freaking adore meringue, so it was an easy choice.

Everything went pretty well; however, the recipe calls for doing something a little weird with the egg yolks, and adding them at the END of cooking. I don't think this did what it needed to do. Either that, or the time under the broiler to toast the meringue was my downfall, not sure, but it just didn't set properly. I cut into it, and boy, did I have goo all over the place.

I didn't get any exciting pics of the prep, I was in a hurry because I was ALSO making all the Banh Mi stuff. But trust me, it got eaten. It turned out I was super sad that I'd send home half of the leftovers with my parents. I obviously likewise didn't get any pics of us eating it, because that would've meant putting my fork down for a few seconds, and that wasn't going to happen.

Next time I make it I'm going to follow the original recipe as-is but add the eggs earlier, and maybe more cornstarch. And I'm not going to share it with anyone, I'm going to EAT THE WHOLE DAMN THING MYSELF. No really, it's that good, you should make it for someone special, it's super impressive. I almost made it again the next day, but I thought that would be a little excessive. If you haven't seen the LCBO Food and Drink before, they post digital copies, you should check it out. I actually considered squeezing some alcohol in this somewhere (I mean, my rum ball recipe is basically melted butter, sugar, Nilla Wafers, pecans, and rum, so I was almost there with this crust).  Maybe I'll save that for the 3rd iteration.

Me, Banh Mi?

I've already mentioned that I love, LOVE most Asian food, but Thai is probably my favorite. Yes, I know there are different regions in Thailand and that's a very broad, sweeping generalization, but I feel pretty good about saying I like quite the assortment of 'standard' Thai dishes. I like the Tom family of soups, I make a pretty decent Drunken Noodle (mmmm Thai basil), sticky rice is my spirit animal (I cook it by steaming it in cheesecloth in a bamboo basket over a Thai pot, I am HARDCORE with my sticky rice), and... what was I talking about? Yeah. So. I also like Chinese, and sushi, and some limited other Japanese dishes, and dim sum, and a teensy bit of Vietnamese, like pho. The Banh Mi sandwich is also on the 'approved' list. 

I can't even remember when I first had one, but it might have been downtown Raleigh near the Capital buildings, which isn't exactly what comes to mind when one thinks 'traditional Vietnamese food', but trust me, Raleigh has a lot of good eats. Or maybe it was in Boston; again, not the night market hot spot you'd imagine, but still, there's more than chowdah there.  Wherever I had it, I fell in love; the marinated meat with the perfect amount of sweet/salt and char; the pickle; the boundless cilantro; the sauces. It's been years since my last one, but I never forgot it, and since the nearest place to get one is at least 1-2 hours from me, it was time for a recreation.

Now, in case you hadn't already figured it out, if I am going to do something, I'm not going to half-ass it. Most often I'm going to overly complicate something unnecessarily just because. So if I was going to do this, I was going to have to make everything I couldn't buy, which included not just the meat and the bread, but the condiments also. I decided store-bought pate was ok, pate is a project for the holidays.

I started everything the day before I was planning to serve, since I knew I wanted the meat to marinate overnight. I ran a Facebook poll to see if my friends and family thought I should do pork or chicken, and the overwhelming response was, 'Is there anything else but pork?!'. So pork it was. I've made lemongrass chicken thighs before, cooked the same and served with a satay dip, and they were really good, so feel free to do whatever. I'm pretty sure this is the recipe I used, I need to get better at either remembering or notating stuff like this; https://www.vietworldkitchen.com/blog/2009/04/vietnamese-restaurantstyle-grilled-lemongrass-pork-thit-heo-nuong-xa.html. 

I stuck the rubbed meat in the fridge and then about an hour before I was ready to grill I assembled everything on these totally epic lemongrass skewers that I made. RIGHT?! I was pretty pleased with the flavor of the meat, but I overcooked it like I always do (damnit, pork), yet managed to not get the nice char I wanted. So I have some work to do there. I think there might be some secret to brushing on a glaze at the last minute, I'll check on that.

The next thing I had to do was the special roll. My local store has an awesome bakery, but their usual stuff just wouldn't do. I didn't want to wuss out and settle for a baguette or ordinary bun. A Banh Mi roll should be light, fluffy on the inside but lightly crispy chewy on the outside. So that's why I had to be in the kitchen at 8:30a on a Saturday; there were going to be four separate dough risings coming my way. I'd gone ahead and ordered a French Bread pan, because it sounded like that was really the way to go, plus I've made French Bread a couple times before and plan to again, so I figured I was allowed. The special pan is important because it has tons of little wee tiny holes throughout, in addition to the special shape. This allows the all-important steam to get to the bread while cooking, which combined with a very high quick heat results in that fluff and crunch. Oh, and you also have to spritz them like a billion times while cooking them.

The bread turned out okayyyyyyyy but not perfect, so I need to play with the steam and the spritz and the temp some more. I think I also am going to try the Vitamin C trick next time (it apparently acts as a yeast 'enhancer', who knew? Something about ascorbic acid and gluten making friends). But hey, I bought/used the right yeast this time! So anyhow, I'm not sharing a recipe for that quite yet. I am also DESPERATE for a lame, a French Bread knife (pronounced 'lahm', according to the internets). The knife I used to score these babies wasn't sharp enough. Also, I should have separated the dough into six baby loaves instead of four, they were a little big. My dad sure loved it; he took a leftover piece home and had it with some jam and was super happy about it, so now I have to make him some baguettes I guess.

In between punching dough (hee hee) and threading pork (HEE HEE), I made the special mayo. Now, let's get something straight right now; I do NOT like mayo. I find it cloying and heavy and oily and just no fun to be around. I don't put it on ANYTHING. I grudgingly include it in potato salad and stuff like that, but use way less than I should. So I only made the mayo to learn something. Growing up my mum made homemade mayo, and I guess it was delicious and whatever, so I knew it wasn't hard to do. The special mayo I was making just had some really weird ingredients, some of them secret, some of them difficult to pronounce or find in a small Northern Ontario town, some of them potentially - deadly? Just kidding with that last thing.  Unlike regular gross mayo, the Kewpie mayo I was attempting to duplicate relies on the most bizarre mix of vinegar, but it's a secret as to whether it's rice vinegar, malt, or apple cider, and in what quantities. I mostly followed this recipe, https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2013/10/sauced-japanese-style-kewpie-mayonnaise-recipe.html, except I didn't have dashi or Japanese mustard, and MSG gives me migraines. I did have an odd little packet of disgusting dried fish unami (which I guess is close to dashi? I need to study more), so I used a pinch of that. It tasted ok, better than regular store bought mayo at least. My mum said it was delicious and she's basically put it on everything since the lunch date, so someone appreciated it.

Oh! And I forgot to tell you about the pickle! Arguably the most important part of the sandwich, because it's the part I liked the most, the traditional carrot and daikon radish pickle ('do chua') was also made the day prior to the festivities, for max fermentation time. I decided that this chick seemed to know what she was doing, so followed her recipe, and it turned out GREAT; I followed it EXACTLY for once. See, that's it, there in the big jar next to the grody off-white spread. I miss it already.
https://www.vietworldkitchen.com/blog/2009/05/daikon-and-carrot-pickle-recipe-do-chua.html

Finally it was time to build the Banh Mi. I'd invited my parents and brother to lunch, since I was going to all this work and would have a ton of food. They declared it 'restaurant quality', which is basically the highest compliment I can get in my books, and they wanted to take home leftovers, which is the true test of whether someone actually liked something, or if they were just trying to spare your little girl feelings.
Side note, I had leftover fixins' but no leftover special bread, and I was NOT going to substitute something else like a savage. So I made a 'Banh Mi Bowl' with everything (except the pate, I felt I could live without that), and topped it with a little Thai chili sauce, and it was GREAT. So if you're one of those crazy people who hisses when they see bread - do that. Don't ask me how many carbs the other stuff has. None, it has none, just eat it.

Would I make this again?

Surprisingly, yes, but only if I had a spare 18 hours laying around. It definitely made me want to play with that bread pan more. The kid has been recovering from a tonsillectomy so wasn't able to eat any of this and was ready to stab me, so next weekend when she is better there will likely be a bread day. Just remember, if you like to keep your house icy cold and drafty like I do, those are NOT prime bread making conditions - my trick it to turn my oven to Warm and then shut it off like 5 seconds later (or forget, and overheat it, and accidentally partially bake your dough); my mom always put her bread to rise in the oven since it was a nice large non-drafty non-fridge location.  And I'm all about hurrying that shit along however I can.

'Not as Terrible as I Thought They'd Be' Eclairs

Chocolate eclairs, like macarons, are one of those things that you see behind a polished well-lit glass case in a posh bakery and think, 'Oh yeahhhhhhhh'. Done properly, the pastry is light but sturdy, the cream sweet but not nauseating, the chocolate suggestive. Done poorly, the pastry is soggy, the cream tastes like artificial vanilla or, worse yet, nothing at all, and the chocolate is chocolate-flavored 'topping', drenching the entire thing in a sticky plastic wrap.

Here's what I did - https://www.gretchensbakery.com/chocolate-eclairs-recipe/

I'd long heard the horror stories of making a respectable pate a choux, a cooked dough that must be the exact right consistency for piping, yet rise to be airy and hollow. And guess what - the dough was the freaking easiest part. No joke, I followed the instructions exactly for once, determined that a final fourth egg was NOT needed (this is the only tricky part), and voila!
I've made a lot of dough, so I could tell by look and touch that this dough was perfect. Another egg would've potentially made it too sticky. I didn't want sticky.

Piping is one of those 'practice makes better' things, and something else I usually try to avoid. Since I'm impatient and tend to rush or be tired when I get to this stage I don't do it well, but I can definitely tell that the more I am forced to do it, the better I get.

I'm not sure what I was expecting, because even in the recipe picture the eclairs look pretty small, but in my head these things were going to rise and expand and be the same size as the ones in local donut shops. They did NOT do that. They rose a little, and passed all the tests with knocking them about and sounding hollow and the like, but they stayed very small. This pissed me off at first (who wants a tiny eclair?!), but then I ate one and realized if it was any bigger I'd die, so this size was great. I can't remember the piping tip size I used, but it was, uh, the size of these things.

Pastry cream is another thing that I'd been all worked up about making, but it turns out it's just basically a pudding or custard, and I've made a ton of that, so again, no big deal. I got super bougie and even used an actual real vanilla bean pod, can you EVEN?! One of my biggest pet beeves about cream puffs and napoleons is the quality of the cream; some places cheap out and just use whipping cream (non-dairy 'product'), or use substandard ingredients, and you can just TASTE the cheap.
Just remember with boiled milk recipes to stir, stir, stir. You don't want to scorch it. That's really as hard as it gets here. Oh, and the tempering. Tempering means 'introducing the hot stuff to the cold stuff instead of the other way around so that you don't end up with scrambled eggs'.

You will be able to tell by the consistency when this is ready. It was super easy for me; mine pretty much thickened up as soon as I

added the eggs back in, it was like, 'BAM'! Oh, and I didn't do any of those fussy things the recipe said to do like straining. I don't mind some little flecks or whatever, and as long as you're careful and don't have chunks, you should be fine.

I am going to pause here to push one of my favorite members of my salt collection, my vanilla salt. Please ignore the 'Best Before' date; I treat many dates such as this as recommendations rather than rules, and as long as they pass the sniff/taste test, I tend to be a little flexible with expired products. Especially ones that I can only get online, and now that I'm back in Canada are a massive pain/expense to get shipped to me. Vanilla salt is a wonderful thing for desserts; one of the worst mistakes you can make is leave it out (even a fleck or two helps!), because not only does the salt enhance the sweet, it keeps things like pastry cream from being totally bland. No one wants bland. Unless it's blancmange, which I've never actually eaten, but in my head whenever I see it in a book I think, 'ugh, bland'.

So while my pastry shells were baking and cooling, I made the pastry cream, and then set that to cooling while I laboriously poked holes in the shells. Filling these things was a PAIN. I did two separate pans, one with an egg glaze and one without, and I can't remember which one was worse to fill but I think it was the egg glazed batch. It was like the wash became a protective barrier and made it super hard to not only hack into them, but to also get a non-tipped pastry bag in there. Because most of the time I just totally skip the pastry tips and connectors and all that stuff, it's just something else for me to wash and lose and have to buy over and over. The majority of them I filled as per the instructions; I cut a couple little 'X's'. If I couldn't do this, I split them down the middle horizontally. It's not like I was putting these in a display case to sell, so who cares. If you're wondering how I got the tops all smooth, YES I LICK MY FINGERS CONSTANTLY. Don't tell my friend Shannon, she's a germaphobe and she'd freak out. I'm pretty sure all my family members, who make up most of my test subjects, are aware of my terrible habits and just assume I'm doing all kinds of questionable things. I mean, they've SEEN my kitchen.

LOOK HOW GORGEOUS!!! I'm still bad with ganache so I did some weird things to get it the thickness I wanted. They tasted JUST FINE.

I don't normally reach for sweets, but I reached for some of these. More than once.

"Taco" "Pizza"

I love 'quick and easy' recipes like this one that are basically exactly as quick and easy as their counterparts, but someone really wants you to make this thing instead. This time someone had the genius idea to combine tacos and pizza, although the end result is nowhere near as good as either of those things. However, pre-teens will eat pretty much anything, and since I'm tired of spending money on crappy Domino's every time my kid has her pals over, I decided I'd give it a shot. Hey, it has 'pizza' in the name, and actually has vegetables on it.

https://livingwellmom.com/taco-pizza-recipe/

The recipe that I used called for a cream cheese base to be spread over the cooked dough, but I think

cream cheese is tragically overused and the kid hates it, so we unanimously decided to scrap it. But then I was worried about picking up a slice and all the toppings sliding straight off, and I didn't want to use 523 lbs of shredded cheddar, so I slyly used refried beans. I say slyly because most children hate them on their own, but in dips and stuff they can't often detect them. I usually make my own from pintos, but I've also got a really good local canned variety that doesn't have all kinds of weird crap in it, so I just used that. I made sure to warm them up first so they were nice and spreadable (I used a frosting spatula, it worked GREAT).

The recipe also called for this dish to be served cold. I don't know about you, but I'm not a huge fan of cold taco meat. I mean, I get it, and yes, it was a hot day and everything, but I just couldn't. So I cooked the dough, heated the beans, re-heated the meat when I was ready to assemble, and then after I sprinkled on the cheese I crammed it under the broiler also. You can't have 'pizza' without melty cheese, c'mon.

I knew that not all of them would like sour cream, but I was in a piping mood and they have this secret club (Sho) and they're all into this Warrior Cats thing, so I thought it would be fun to jazz it up a little. It totally worked, there were cute little gasps all around when they saw it. For grownups I'd pipe the sour cream all pretty around the edges, or in some obnoxious design in the middle. But I'd never server this to grownups.
Mmmm, black olives.


It wasn't terrible, but as my dad said, 'The crust is thick and weird' (because it's gross canned crescent rolls, of course it is). And it's REALLY filling. I accidentally told the kid I'd used beans after she ate two pieces and then she refused to eat any more, so I threw a lot away. That should answer your question as to whether I'd make it again.

Mush, Mush!

It's Friday. Yay, Friday! But that means I'm wiped out, and don't feel like cooking an 18-course meal. I looked in the freezer and everything looked too time-consuming (there is a pork roast in there that was tempting, but it's roughly the size of my leg), and there are only so many times you can feed your family cold cereal or sandwiches. So it's breakfast for dinner night! My daughter loves breakfast for dinner night. It cracks me up that it's the easiest meal but one of the favorites. Just like how my mom used to make fried mush when she needed something cheap and warm and filling, we had no idea that it was mush night because we were out of other groceries; we just knew we got to slosh maple syrup on something yummy and have sausages.

As much as I love doing things last minute, you CANNOT do this last-minute. If you try to fry fresh mush it will just spatter and spit and spread out in the pan and basically just totally disappear and you'll be really, really disappointed. Because OF COURSE I did that. But it's really easy - make a pot of mush, let it chill, slice it up and fry it. But start it the day before.

I used this recipe, from https://www.tastesoflizzyt.com/fried-mush/. You can use either cold water or milk mixed with the cornmeal to make a slurry (mmm slurry) to pour into the boiling water, which is how I like to do it, or just dump the dry ingredients into the boiling water. Either way, make sure you're stirring, because no one likes lumpy mush.

Ingredients

• 3 cups water
• 1 cup yellow cornmeal
• 1 cup cold water or milk
• Salt to taste
• Butter or oil/grease (for frying)

Instructions

1. In a large saucepan, bring the water to a boil.
2. In a small bowl, mix together the cornmeal, cold water or milk and salt.
3. Slowly pour the cornmeal/milk mixture into the boiling water, stirring constantly.
4. Bring it to a boil again, then reduce heat and stir almost constantly for about 15 minutes or until the mixture is thickened to the consistency you like. (I find this too long - I usually cook it for like 5 minutes)
5. Pour this mixture into a lightly greased 9x5 loaf pan and allow it to cool to room temperature. (if using a non-stick pan, no need to grease, it will pop right out when
   

   

   cold - see?)
6. Once the cornmeal has cooled, cover it with plastic wrap and place the pan in the refrigerator overnight or until the mixture has become firm.
7. Remove the cornmeal loaf from the pan and slice it into 1/2" to 1" slices.
8. Heat the butter in a skillet over medium heat.
9. Once the pan is hot, add the slices and fry for 3-4 minutes on each side until they are golden brown and heated through. Watch them closely so they don't burn.
   Serve immediately with maple syrup.

I usually just slice the pieces like a regular loaf, but this recipe suggested these lovely smaller chunkers, which worked wayyyyy better; my slices pretty much always fell apart. And I only refrigerated this batch about 5 hours, it was just fine.
The other thing I did differently this time was to use my griddle, which I’m constantly forgetting about. Omg it worked GREAT, I didn’t really need any butter or oil or anything to fry them. But I may have nudged a little tiny bit of sausage grease their way.

And that’s it! I usually cook a couple eggs, maybe some breakfast potatoes to make this a full dinner meal. If you’re having a plate of fried, just make sure to take the dog for a walk or go for a swim or do something healthy after, so that you don’t feel guilty. I mean, so that you get in some healthy activity. And my dad would probably say to take a vitamin C. If your arteries clog after this meal please don’t sue me.

In my defense, I shared quite a bit of this with my dog. Not the onions though.

You Spin Me Right Round, Chicken, Right Round

I've moved recently (last year), and I'm still finding fun and interesting things in boxes in my basement. By 'fun', I mean, 'things I have no idea what to do with or where to store', and by 'interesting', I mean, 'why the hell did I buy this in the first place?!'. I did, however, find the kit and all the accessories for my gas barbecue rotisserie attachment. How awesome! I shouted, to my dog, scaring him a little. I shall make a delicious, better-than-Costco rotisserie chicken!

Hey, guess what, we all know that Costco and those places sell those stupid birds so cheap to get people to come into their stores and spend $150 on green olives and box wine. And I figured, mine will be FRESH, it won't have been sitting under a heat lamp, and I can use whatever seasonings I want, and it will be AMAZING! I was super wrong.

First of all, the stupid #$^@!*& plain chicken cost me $12, and I think the local Costco here sells them for $7. This is Canadian dollars, so add an atrocious amount of tax probably, too, if you're not already horrified. Chicken here is EXPENSIVE. It doesn't give the average 4-year old boobs from excessive hormones, which is nice, but it's still a shock every time I go to the grocery. So in addition to doing all this extra work AND CLEAN UP (man, I HATE to do dishes), it was costing me more.

Mistake #1: I did not brine my bird (hee hee). I didn't even think about doing this. I didn't even realize I SHOULD have done it until I went back to look for the link I referred to, and the dude's blog came up with his nerdy bad self, and there was a post about it and it said BRINE. I just watched his video when I made mine (lazy, see?). And now I can't even find the video I watched, gah!

https://www.dadcooksdinner.com/rotisserie-chicken/


Mistake #2 - Even though all the instructional videos said to make sure to measure where the bird was going to end up (on the grill, space-wise), I forgot to do that and just threw it on there. No big deal though, I just had to adjust it a little.

Mistake #3 - Not measuring the drip pan before starting the cooking process. I had this great little edged drip pan, and the bird was too close to it, and I didn't want to take the grates off because I'd already pre-heated the BBQ. Note, I used a cookie sheet (an old one) and it was just fine. Better, maybe, because I ended up cooking these little beauties in the drippings, and they were the best part of the meal. Better than the stupid chicken. For the potatoes I did the trick where you pre-cook them a teensy bit in a microwave for about 7-8 minutes with a little olive oil and salt (covered in wrap). You can do this while you're prepping your bird. Ohhhhhhh THERE'S the Dad Cooks Dinner video, it was for duck. But I did his potatoes. I had picked up some nice cute little spuds from the Farmer's Market, and they were just begging for this treatment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LqCQlEFPGM

The other side dish I served was another Farmer's Market find, these beautiful pale carrots. I steamed them for something like 8-10 minutes (if you're still using that old-timey metal circular steamer, I highly recommend tossing it in favor of Oxo's silicone steamer or something similar), then tossed them in a pan with some butter and marmalade and thyme. The kid gave them a solid thumbs down, but I thought they were tasty, and the hint of sweet paired nicely with the potatoes and chicken.


And at last, there it was. It took 1.5 hours in total, in a preheated 350 degree barbecue. I did remember to rub it and season it while it was already on the spit, that was definitely a good tip. I decided to go with some 'Rotisserie Seasoning' I had tucked away in my pantry. Because hey, it was a rotisserie chicken, that made sense, right? And sure, the skin (the part I never eat because, ew gross, blubber) was tasty - but what's the point of that? The meat itself was cooked appropriately and was moist enough, but bland as hell. DAMN YOU, COSTCO, AND YOUR DELICIOUS CHEAP CHICKEN. You won this round.

Would I make it again? Maybe, if I did the brine. I'd like to do a salt-roasted pork loin I think. I'd love to do a turkey, but I would definitely have to take the grates off to get it to fit, and even then I'd like for someone to remind me to take some measurements before I start that whole process instead of halfway through it. All in all, it's more trouble than it's worth for what I got, and for what I can get at the store. Hey, I only burned myself once though, and it wasn't even from touching the hot spit! (I admittedly stuck my finger directly into the scalding drippings to see what they tasted like)
Question, could you make a gravy from this? I think so - but I didn't use a really salty rub or brine. So if you were in more of a mashed potato mood, I think you could get away with it. That would be the only other reason to do this yourself. But the dripping potatoes were so great, I'd always fight for those.

Pesto Pasta

I introduced pesto to my daughter before she was walking. She loved it then (in her hair, mostly), and still loves it to this day. We eat a LOT of garlic in this house; I'm a firm believer in garlic keeping illness and vampires at bay, and pretty much all my favorite things to make involve garlic on some level. I've even dabbled in black garlic, but it's really not an every day kind of thing.

When I was younger and more energetic I made my own pesto, but since finding a variety in the grocery that we both really like, screw that. I've done things with marinating chicken in it, or using it in tapas, but we always come back to a simple cream sauce that is fabulous with gnocchi or pasta. I'll post on gnocchi the next time we make it (the kid knows how to do it herself now!), but you will probably never see me post about homemade pasta; that's something else I already tried when I was young and energetic. Since I don't really like pasta (rice and potatoes, remember), I really don't care about homemade pasta. The fresh stuff you can buy in the cooler/deli section is great, when you feel fancy, or I've got an amazing local shop that cuts it for you right there in front of you. It's a LOT of work to make it, even with a Kitchen Aid attachment.

So if you want tasty but REALLY quick and easy, get some fresh pasta. The kid likes penne, spaghettini, and fettuccine noodles; I like mini lasagna and cavatappi, but those are way too heavy for this; they’re great in homemade Macaroni & Cheese. You need something light for this light sauce. Gnocchi is good because the little ridges like to hold onto the pesto bits, and if it's homemade gnocchi it's soft and pillowy. We had a little fresh (frozen) pasta left from our last visit to our pasta shop, so we used that.
The sauce is two ingredients; jarred pesto (we like Classico's Basil Pesto), and milk or cream. Heat half a jar of pesto in a saute pan; add a cup or so of dairy; stir til heated through. Cook noodles according to package (or just a scarce minute or two if fresh); add to sauce. Swirl to combine. Done.

Ideally you'd serve this with a chiffonade of basil and a hearty grating of parm-reg cheese. Chiffonade is a great word - it just means to stack up the fresh basil leaves, roll them up, and cut them. Ta-da, you are fancy! If you feel like you need more protein, add some cooked chicken, I don't care. That’s what the kid did this time, since we still had some leftover totally bland rotisserie chicken. We also make it with shrimp, just the plain ol' tail-on uncooked frozen kind, and it's freaking delicious. If you do that, saute some minced garlic and parsley in butter first; add the clean/shelled shrimp and cook til pink, then add the pesto etc. Sometimes if I have a fresh local tomato lying around I'll dice that, salt & pepper the chunks, and toss those on top. Get a little crazy. Got some canned artichoke hearts? Toss those in, too. You are the boss of your kitchen. Serve it with a nice warm Italian crusty bread and a side salad. Just kidding, you're a normal person, not someone on a cooking show; just serve it as-is and hope for the best, or if you're me, reach for those trusty frozen peas again. Ok, now I'm actually making the effort to try and think of a reasonable side dish since I am, in fact, trying to be helpful, and I'm having a hard time deciding what WOULD go well with these flavors other than bread/salad. Everything I can think of sounds awful, other than just a simple tomato salad. Anyhow, if your family actually enjoys it and will eat leftovers, just add a little extra milk before re-heating it the next day so it doesn't go all gluey and gross.

Other recipes you're going to see will tell you to start with butter and heavy cream, but you really don't need them, and trust me - I LOVE adding extra calories. The pesto already has oil in it, so it's going to want to heat up nicely for you, and there's so much flavor you don't really miss the additional fat. And if you only ever make it my way, you won't feel like you're missing out, so do the right thing. Fresh cracked pepper on top and serve.

Moving to the Country

It's almost the end of peach season, and while I've made some nice peach desserts, and the kid has taken a bunch to camp and school in her lunch, I just didn't feel like we'd had our fill yet. So last Saturday one of the things I picked up from the Farmer's Market was a basket of peaches.

One of the obnoxious things about the Farmer's Market is that produce varies greatly vendor to vendor, and that the same vendors aren't always there every week, and some of the vendors are liars and cheaters who drive to Toronto to purchase produce and then try to pass it off as their own (this last thing is a HUGE controversy that has divided my entire town, it's been very exciting this summer, a bunch of the vendors who complained about it were KICKED OUT and started their own market, and I don't have time for two markets!). So yeah, as if on top of everything else I've got going on, I'm supposed to somehow start a spreadsheet and test/track who has the best corn, or whose tomatoes stay fresher longer, or who has MEALY PEACHES?!! If you couldn't tell, I made a poor choice and ended up with mealy peaches and I'm not happy about it. All the other peaches were from a different vendor and they were amazing. But, I guess if this is going to be the mediocre batch, at least they'll get doused in sugar and baked. Because darling daughter asked for a pie.

I don't like pie. I feel like it's a waste of my dessert time. There are a lot of pies that shouldn't even COUNT as dessert, like pumpkin and sweet potato and apple. Those are breakfast entrees, or side dishes. Strawberry Rhubarb with tons of ice cream is passable, and maybe blueberry or bumbleberry served the same way. But I can give or take cherry, or chess, or custard. Now, cream pies are basically pudding, so I'll eat those and leave the crust. Mmmmm lemon meringue. Because crust is bread, and you know how I feel about bread. To try to help with this I tend to add weird stuff to my pie dough, be it sweet or savory. If I'm making a quiche, for example, I'll add herbs and grated cheese. If it's a peach pie, I'll add cinnamon and sugar and vanilla and peach vodka. Oooh, or apricot vodka, I just picked up a mini bottle of that in Kentucky last week. That significantly helps. And why should a dessert crust be flavorless and boring anyhow? Who made that rule? It's like, here's this awesome delicious filling, and here, let me serve it to you on a particle board plank that you're expected to chew on. I also get mad every single time because I pin all these gorgeous photos and tips for decorative crusts, and then I never try them because after getting everything assembled I've lost interest and I just don't care anymore. So they taste ok, but they look terrible. I apparently have pie issues.

I let the kid choose whether she wanted a double crust, or a no-bake single crust version. She chose double crust, of course, because in her mind pie crust is love. Her grandfather would definitely approve. I ended up going with vanilla bean powder (nice when you don't want a liquid addition but want vanilla flavor), peach vodka, and I thought I might try something new - I had let the sliced peaches sit in about 3/4 cup of sugar to pull off some of the juice, and I mixed that in.

IIn the end I only added probably 1-2 Tbsp of water. Now, I know you can make pie crust easily in

the food processor, and usually I'm all for that, but the important thing about pie crust, the way that you get it nice and flaky, is to keep the liquid to a minimum. It's why I like to add vodka, because it cooks out. And we all want a nice flaky crust, right? I won't be able to tell by looking in a food processor whether my dough is still too dry, or too sticky - I need to be able to feel it. So I'm admittedly a little old school; I cut in a mix of butter and lard with two knives (not even a pastry blender! Damn I hate cleaning that thing!), and then use my hands to mix in everything else until I can feel it's pulling together. I don’t often use shortening unless I’m feeling cheap or doing a ton of baking, like at Christmas.

A lot of people fear baking because they've been told it's an exact science, that you have to do everything right and measure everything perfectly. I do not. I don't level off my measuring cup, I don't cut my butter or shortening into pea-sized pieces (look at the visible chunks in this! They're the size of Hot Wheels!). When you're starting off, it's probably good to start with the 'exact' methods, but then as you get more comfortable and understand how everything reacts (too much flour, falls apart; too much shortening, soggy), you can more easily eyeball stuff and have a good sense of what you need to do. And that's when it gets really fun, because that's when you can start changing stuff up, without ruining everything and again crying or screaming the F-word and scaring your dog.

I actually let the dough chill for a couple hours because I've done some testing with dough

temperature and everyone is right, cold dough is happy dough. I've gone so far as to ice my hands, ice my marble cutting board and rolling pin, whisk things from freezer to oven in mere seconds. All those things didn't make a huge impact, but you should chill the dough. Oh, and another seriously imperfect thing I do? Since a lot of my cooking projects are last-minute, I keep a lot of supplies like extra butter in the freezer, and then when I go to make something I want it thawed and ready NOW, not in a few hours. So I've totally been known to hack off frozen solid butter and pop it in the microwave on a Defrost setting for a scarce amount of time to speed things up. Hey, nobody has died, except I might have accidentally given my sister's boyfriend food poisoning one Christmas.

Oh, you’re going to love this; so I did my usual slack-ass job on the crust, and cut some slits, and decided to do an egg wash because it looks nice and then the sugar sprinkle sticks better, and then I was all, “Hey, it looks nice, maybe I should actually do that thing where you put foil on the crust” and it went TERRIBLY, HORRIBLY WRONG, and the stupi foil stuck to the crust, and when I went to pull it off I PULLED OFF CRUST. So that was disheartening. Serves me right for trying to follow instructions.

Let's see, what else can I tell you about pie... mini pies are fun, cooked in muffin tins, but man, are they ever fiddly and fussy. Some people here make a French-Canadian meat pie called Tourtiere, it's heaven, I'll do a blog about that in the winter. Mmmm with maple dumplings for dessert.

This did, in fact, turn out mostly lovely, hosed crust and all, and sure tasted ok. The kid was too stuffed with Beef ‘n Broccoli to eat more than one bite, but she says she’s looking forward to more tomorrow. It’s a little, ahh, ‘juicy’, but I’ll take that over dry pie any day.

Definitely Not Authentic Beef & Broccoli

I like to cook a wide range of things, from traditional meatloaf to Greek to Mexican, but probably my favorite is anything Asian. I adore Thai noodles and soups, dim sum, sushi, really good fried rice with BBQ pork, pho, pretty much everything other than real ramen. I've learned I hate ramen. You know, the kind with super dark soy sauce and big gloopy fatty things floating in it, and eggs where they don't belong. It makes me gaggy to think about. I also really don't like Lebanese food. And I can do without most Italian dishes, but that's another story for another day.

Asian food, yes, and I like both authentic dishes as well as what we'd call American-Chinese food; sweet and sour chicken balls come to mind as the most offensive yet delicious. In Canada they serve a Honey Garlic spare rib that is like candy, and if you know Asian candy, that's just not right. Beef with Broccoli is one of those things that if cooked properly, is a terrific marriage of slightly tender-crisp bright green broccoli, melt-in-your-mouth salty beef, warm savory brown sauce, and of course it's all served over soft soak-up-sauce rice. When done poorly the meat is grey and chewy, the broccoli is grey and limp, and the sauce is flavorless. And probably grey.

I've struggled with stir fries for a long time. I tend to add liquids too soon, effectively steaming or boiling the ingredients instead of flash cooking them. I can never get the balance of ginger right, so lately I've just had to leave it out, otherwise that's all I taste. And there's some mystery mix of salt/sweet in Chinese takeout that strikes a perfect balance that is beyond my reach.

I decided to tackle this recipe, https://www.recipetineats.com/chinese-beef-and-broccoli-extra-saucy-take-out-style/, because it clearly said 'take-out style', and I definitely wanted my dinner to taste like it was poisoning me with MSG. It also had a very interesting step that, upon further research, a few other cooks seemed to know about THAT NO ONE EVER TOLD ME - to let your sliced meat marinate in a little baking soda.

I've been having a total love affair with flank steak for about the past year - it was a revelation to use it for fajitas (I'll now use no other cut of beef), and it makes an awesome bulgogi. It wasn't a big leap to go from there to this. If you don't already know the two things that a flank steak loves, it's this; always slice it across the grain, and always use some sort of marinade or rub that's going to help break down the proteins and soften it up for you. Oh, and if it's fully thawed, pop it back in the freezer for a bit to make slicing it easier. What I did was take it out of the freezer before starting work, and then on my lunch break I did some prep, and it was the perfect slicing temperature. Look how gorgeous that big hunk of juicy red meat is! This is obviously not one of the requested vegetarian recipes. Maybe pretend it's red tofu?

The notes warned me that the meat would go some weird bright red color, but I didn't notice a change. Maybe I did it wrong? Maybe I didn't use enough, or let it sit long enough? All I know is, it was super gross washing my meat. And that sounds REALLY dirty.
The rest of the prep was easy enough; cut up the broccoli into bite-sized pieces, make the sauce, start some rice.

I mentioned I like rice, right? My everyday rice is a basmati that I buy from my local Asian market in something like 10-lb sacks. My preferred method of cooking, after giving away my rice cooker and eating nasty microwave-cooked rice, is to bring it to a boil (2-1 ration water to rice, with a pinch of salt), and then turn off the heat, leaving it sitting on the burner for 15 minutes as it cools to finish cooking the rice. Note, this would not work the same with a gas stovetop! The residual heat is needed for a nice low slow finish.
I also have jasmine rice, which is what I made to serve with this, and brown jasmine, which my youngest sister introduced me to, and wild rice WHICH I KNOW ISN'T RICE, and black rice, and orzo which is the only pasta I like because it's basically rice, and risotto, and sushi rice, and sweet rice for Thai sticky rice. Mmmm sticky rice and fresh mango. Oh, and I have some regular brown, and I think some blend that I apparently never use. I have a theory that for me, rice, like potatoes, converts immediately to sugar and gives me a little kick, and that if I were smart I'd stop eating them and would lose like 50 lbs overnight. I already mentioned I'm not that smart.

Long story short, I thought the Five Spice gave it a slightly weird smell despite the fact I used even less than called for, if possible. I would go even more bland, and bump up the garlic and dark soy sauce to make up for it. I doubled the sauce, which was smart, because I had a ton of meat and green. The kid shockingly gave it two enthusiastic thumbs up and is taking leftovers to school tomorrow. AND asked me to make it again! So, there you go.

I’d definitely make it again with the above changes. And I’d let the broccoli cook a little longer.

OH! I almost forgot! The meat thing TOTALLY worked! I for real could not believe the difference. The kid even noticed. Like, melt in your mouth. Fascinating.

Braided Almond Pastry

I don't very often think about making dessert, or sweet things, because that just isn't my jam, Making jam is, actually, my jam; perfecting a gorgeous batch of garlic frites is even more my jam. I'm just not drawn to sweet things, I'm a salt all the way. I do still like to try new things, or make old favorites, but I really have to make an effort to find tempting sugar delicacies. One of the things the kid and I can both agree on is anything with almond flavoring; we both adore the taste and pretty much everything it's in. I made some sort of cherry dessert recently for my mom that had almond extract, and the kid raved on and on about it, but it was solely because of the almond.


I've had this Almond Braid pinned to make for some time now. I am a coward about phyllo dough and puff pastry, and they're such great shortcut tools that I really need to get better about handling them. I love baklava and have made that successfully a few times, and I made from-scratch croissants this summer that just about killed me, so at least I was planning to cheat and buy store-bought dough. Now, the croissants were three different kinds; butter (plain), chocolate (pain au chocolat), and almond. The almond... omg the almond. The center is basically marzipan, a homemade almond paste that is just to die for (unless of course you hate marzipan, in which case - GO READ SOMETHING ELSE). My daughter of course loved the chocolate and wants me to make those every weekend (and suggested I make the almond braid but with chocolate immediately).

My braiding technique definitely would've had me kicked off a competitive cooking show, mostly because in looking at it I don't think I even cut it the right way. I've left-handed, and often have issues with 99% of visual instructions because that is the life of a lefty. And I had made a ton of almond paste and didn't want it to go to waste, so instead of adding the other stuff I just used that, but it was a mistake; it was wayyyyyyyyyyyyy too much almond paste. Do you see those little bits of leftover dough, rolled up with butter and cinnamon and sugar? That was my favorite part.


The color here is weird because the 'enhance' feature apparently sucked the life out of it, and I'm not rich and famous like The Pioneer Woman or Bakerella so I don't have a nice camera and a light box and studio hands and whatever magic they use to make their food photos look so enticing and not-made-in-a-dirty-kitchen. Which is not to say it didn't TASTE good - it was just kind of so-so. I totally took it out of the oven too soon because the almonds were getting frighteningly brown, and I will absolutely err on the side of under cooked rather than overcooked with baking, whereas with cooking (for example, poultry), I'm going to overcook that noise until it's basically a powdered version of itself. Because salmonella.

My daughter's friend group (three other girls her age who live in the neighborhood) have been my test kitchen lately; they raved about this, but I think just because it was SO. SWEET. When warm it was, ahh, really really gooey.



When cold, it was better, but still should have cooked longer. I went back and forth between this recipe http://willowbirdbaking.com/2015/01/26/buttery-almond-pastry-braid-managed-crazy-cheap-wedding-1000/  and this one https://thenovicechefblog.com/2016/01/sweet-almond-pastry/. I need to work things out a little better (and try a chocolate version), so look forward to a future update.

  

Meatless Monday - Faux Gumbo

I'm posting this one for Meatless Monday, but I actually made it over the weekend because, in the kid's words,  'Let's just go ahead and get it out of the way'. The 10-year old loves her meat, and is forever sad when faced with veggies and couscous and farro and casseroles.

I've been making this non-gumbo for years, and the only reason I call it gumbo is because there are some of the same ingredients (file powder, okra, corn, tomatoes). It doesn't use a traditional roux because I'm not allowed to make roux anymore; the first time I made it I made the unbelievably stupid mistake of sticking my finger in it to taste it, scorched my finger horribly, then stuck my on-fire finger in MY MOUTH to cool it off, searing my tongue and lips in the process. Plus I'm not really sure I actually even like real gumbo.

I do like okra, and I love fresh corn, and I ADORE rice almost as much as I love salt, so this is a no-brainer. I found something in my pantry labeled 'Cajun' spice, which I think is a new addition since the last time I made it 10+ years go, so I used that for seasoning.

I also used half chicken broth, and half shrimp broth, to add a little authenticity. I love weird bouillons. Normally I stick strictly to 'Better than Bouillon' because it's freaking awesome, but I've also got cube-style Shrimp, Mushroom (great in everything Italian), Pork, Cilantro, and another one that I can't think of right now.

The recipe is SUPER easy- chop stuff up, saute, boil, serve.
I go back and forth between adding the tomatoes with the other stuff before cooking, and adding them at the end. I feel like you shouldn't cook field-fresh tomatoes, but they also tend to be a little distracting if they're cold, and they don't pick up/add to the flavor. I also need to revise the recipe because that's way too much corn, it's overpowering. And I'm not crazy about celery, so in reality I only use two ribs. For the seasonings I used probably 1 tsp of the Cajun, and 1/2 tsp of the File. The File I had to buy online; I've never seen it in a store. I think maybe next time I'm going to try adding a little Old Bay also, that seems to be my spice of choice this summer.

Can you SMELL this?! Can you believe that the kid took one look, and politely said, "No thank you, I'd rather go to bed without dinner". Sigh, children.

I'm kind of happy I wrote this post, because I never really knew what file powder was; hey, it's dried sassafras, who knew?! If interested, here's some info on The Great Gumbo Debate - https://www.southernfoodways.org/interview/a-short-history-of-gumbo/.