Margarita Pear Tart

My friend Maria (who makes lovely earrings!) boasted of a pear tart in her oven today, and I wished I were  at her house!  Suddenly, I remembered the bag of too-long-forgotten pears in the fridge.  Well, they were pretty soggy pears, I realized as I examined them.  What to do?  I cut off the bad parts, and looked at her recipe. I then despaired, having no buttermilk for the crust...

Heh...but started to think...

OK, I cheated on the crust.  I had some prepared pie crust in the fridge, and it was fine, and not at all soggy.  I look around at a few different recipes for tarts, considered the ingredients on hand, and thought about what spices might taste fine with pears.  Then I saw the word "roasted" and moved ahead!

Basically, I cored and sliced up the pears thinly, and placed them on a broiler pan, and added about 1/4 teaspoon of ground cloves, 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon, and grated fresh ginger over the lot.  I put them under the broiler until the edges of the pears were browning, and threatening to turn black.

Meanwhile, I took 2 tablespoons loosely packed brown sugar, a shot of tequila, and the juice of a lime and heated it to dissolve the sugar.  I grated more ginger into the mixture (the kitchen smelled amazing at this point--I thought someone was burning a seasonal candle!), and added a bit of flour for thickening, so I could use the mixture to coat the roasted pears.  And that's what I did next.  All the pears went into the pot, and I stirred it about gently (the pears were pretty delicate by now).  I sprinkled a bit of flour on the crust, and poured in the whole mixture, which was juicy, but not runny.  I turned the edges of the crust over the pears at the edges, leaving the tart mostly open.  Baked at 375 til the edges turn brown--you know--like crust...35 minutes?  More or less?

Pear tart!

Ingredients:

4-5 overripe pears with the bruised and bad bits removed, peeled and cored, sliced thinly
1/4 tsp ground clove
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp grated fresh ginger
1 slightly short shot of tequila
juice of one lime
2 tbs brown sugar
a tsp of flour+a bit for dusting the crust before adding the pear mixture
more ginger, more clove...maybe a pinch of salt
some kind of crust in some kind of pie tin or tart plate

Yummm.

Ma'am, I'm Going to Have to See Your Apples

So, T was driving when we arrived in California.  Up ahead of us we saw a road block...immigration check, we wonder?  No.  It's the food police.  Seriously.  The California Dept. of Ag. was stopping every car coming in on I40 and asking if there are fruit or vegetables in the car.

"Where are you coming from today?" the Ag. officer asked.
"New York," I replied cheerfully.  I did not feel cheerful.  I thought he was going to ask for all our I.D.s to make sure we were citizens.  Or something.

"That's a long haul," he said with all the bureaucratic charm he could muster.

"Yes!"

"Ma'am, this is an agricultural stop.  Do you have any fruits or vegetables in your vehicle?"

I stared wide-eyed.  They stopped me for this?  "Um...I have some apples in the cooler."

"Ma'am, I'm Going to Have to See Your Apples."

Could my bleary, sleep-deprived eyes grown any wider, they would have.  I hopped, or, rather, stiffly lurched, out of the car, opened the back, and took a half-empty bag of golden delicious apples out of the cooler.  One fell out of the bag and rolled away.  The nice Ag guy watched as the apple rolled towards him, and looked up at me.  I felt as though I had just dropped a bit of contraband.  In fact, I have never felt so guilty about apples.

"Those appear to be Washington State apples, Ma'am.  Those are fine."

I was so relieved as he confirmed his guess by looking at the label on the bag.  Yes.  I had returned the apples 3000 miles to the west coast.  He continued.  Really.

"Ma'am, just for future information, we want you to know that we encourage you to eat fruits and vegetables."  More relief.

"Just so you know, you cannot bring certain fruits into the state of California.  Those fruits include blueberries and strawberries."  I gave him a funny glance. "I mean, blueberries and cherries, not strawberries.  Strawberries are fine."

My normally scientific brain, having rigorously read the road for nearly 3000 miles, turned completely off as he freely offered an explanation.  All I heard next was "Blah blah fruit flies blah blah inspection blah blah."

"OK," I said, "that's good to know."

"And Ma'am," Would this never end?  "If you bring apples into California again, just slice them.  We will not require inspection if you have cut them up into small slices and put them in a zip-lock bag."

I blinked like an idiot.  Several times.

"OK," I said again.  Gosh, what else could I have said?  I mean, here the guy was telling me that I could have avoided all this trouble had I only pre-processed my fruit?  Really?  And next time, if stopped, I could claim my apples were sliced, and drive right on through?  Could this be real, or was it all an odd dream devised by my sleep-deprived brain?  No.  L and T confirmed that it actually occurred.  In fact, L said it was all she could do to keep herself from laughing at the way I stared at the Ag guy.

"Ma'am, may I assume you don't want the dropped apple?"

"Yeah, no."  I left the apple.  He set it on the table next to the pile of potential paperwork he had set up for unsuspecting blueberry smugglers.  I got back in the car, and T pulled carefully away from the Dept. of Ag. stop.

********************

Want more apple stories?  Try some Apple Books, just for fun (Amazon affiliate link; no slicing necessary).

Outside the Window

A balanced diet.

Thanks to T for calling me to the window. We saw the baby first, blending in, perfectly still. Then the parent came by with a bright red berry. Yum.

Taste Test: Civet Cat Coffee

Slàinte mhòr, and St. John!

A took a turn at shoveling

T gets power for the electric shovel. Note Jayne Cobb hat.

The lights come on in our village.

In the bleak midwinter...or, not so bleak. It was pretty, but we all needed to work to get the snow out of the way. We got well over a foot, though the drifts are deceptive. It was not too heavy, but it was not too light, either. Poor snow for a snowball fight, yet it stayed put when shoveled. And the young ones reminded me last night to put the car nearer to the street than to the garage, for to minimize the clearing of the driveway.

They got the job done, and T drove the car into the street. He had never driven in snow before that moment, and getting the car back into the driveway proved too much, so Don took care of it, demonstrating his greatest skill--driving uphill in reverse. T's Jayne Cobb hat, made by his mother (who rarely knits) kept the cold off the head wound T acquired at school (which is quite nicely healed). More on T soon. Big changes to his plans are in the works.

Meanwhile, I was inside fixing a beef stew for the shovelers' dinner. And since today is St. John's I opened a bottle of wine--a glass for the stew, and a glass for the cook. Tonight we drink slàinte mhòr and St. John!

Last night, a friend came over from his house, three blocks in the direction in the photo, during the snowfall. Somewhere between there and here, he dropped his iPhone. We have yet to find it. St. Anthony?

So, Christmas is lovely here in NY, just outside the City, and all the kids are home, at least for now.

Cutting the Jerusalem Artichokes: Simple Science!

The lowly Jerusalem artichoke, neither an artichoke, nor from Jerusalem, is a great native plant to grow in the northeast. It is actually

The cut flowers last longer in a solution of water and baking soda.

a cousin of the sunflower, and often grows just as tall, but with several small flowers on each stalk. That might be the beauty of the JA, but the real value of growing them lies underground. Beneath the tall flowering stems lie the tubers, uglier than potatoes, but delicious, with a hint of the flavor of artichokes (thus, the name). Best of all, for those with diabetes, they may be used in lieu of potatoes as the starch breaks down into fructose rather than glucose.

Recipes and more info are here: http://www.specialtyproduce.com/index.php?item=2023

I look forward to harvesting these tasty tubers after the first frost. Right now, I am cutting off their little flower heads. Unfortuantely, they make a poor cut flower, killing themselves off by acidifying thier own water very quickly. Annika, having studied biology and begining chemistry, suggested that we find a way to neutralize the acid. We tried baking soda in the water, and it workd rather well; the flowers kept for several days. This is an easy demonstration for the kids to try--one vase (use a clear bottle or vase for best viewing) with baking soda, and one without. The water without the baking soda turns a nasty, acidic brown very quickly. The one with baking soda remains clear. If you do not stir the water after adding the baking soda, the acid forms a brown layer over the clear water. Make sure the stems are in the clear part for longest lasting blooms. The acidic water, after a few days, begins to small like a marsh--lots of decay going on in there!

Headless JAs produce fat tubers.

We cut the flowers off so that the energy produced by the plant is stored in tubers rather than spent on flower production. We discard most of the flowers, but thanks to Annika's good idea, we now decorate the house with these lovely Jerusalem artichoke flowers!

Sweet Paan

We often buy milk from the local Sikh grocer, since the price of a gallon is a dollar cheaper than the supermarket's price. And out of curiosity, we sometimes buy something unusual or unfamiliar as well. The grocer carries a well-stocked supply of British dry goods, and T is known for picking up a favorite brand of salt and vinegar crisps when he runs in. But P has been considering those small packets wrapped in foil and labeled "sweet paan" for a while. Yesterday, he bought one. When he got into the car, we immediately smelled the pungent aroma of Indian spices. He opened the little packet, but was not sure if it was edible. Inside was a leaf, and inside the leaf was coconut, fennel, and lots of pretty-but-unrecognizable little bits of things. Don was brave and took a bite. I suggested that perhaps it was simply meant as an air freshener, and was toxic. But no. It turns out that sweet paan (the regular kind usually includes tobacco and a nut that is a known carcinogen) is an edible treat often given as a party favor.

Turnip Soup

Adjust to taste. I just faked it, but here's a basic outline:

6 small turnips (bigger than a golf ball, smaller than a tennis ball)
4 cups chicken stock (more or less...)
1 small onion
1 teaspoon Pampered Chef's Cinnamon Plus (cin, nutmeg, allspice, cloves, ginger, orange peel)
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 cup vermouth or white wine
1/2 cup light cream or half and half
1 medium potato, diced and cooked (I do this separately, but I guess you could do it with the turnips)
1 cup diced chicken (optional)
salt and pepper to taste

Peel and cut turnips, and boil in water until tender. Add chicken stock and cinnamon mixture. Simmer until stock just covers turnips. Meanwhile, chop and cook onion (saute in butter). Add to turnips/stock when they are reduced. Add potato. Add cream and vermouth, and salt (if broth is salty; taste first). Cook another few minutes, and remove from heat. Let cool a bit, and use a blender to puree the soup. Add chicken if you like (we like!), and garnish with a bit of cinnamon and cracked pepper. Serve hot. About 4 servings.

Please feel free to add any adjustments in the comments. I hope this is an accurate recollection of the procedure! Good luck.

MacBeth and Julia

...or, "no one ever had to know what goes on in the kitchen."

So, I'm making baguettes, and I have a brick in the oven hot and ready for that all important burst of steam that makes a baguette have the best crust on the planet (including the planet), when I open the oven while holding my bowl of cold water ready to receive the brick, and spill it masterfully on the oven door...making a marvelous puff of steam. I closed the oven quickly to preserve the steam.

Perfect baguettes.

It Was Really Cheap

So, I bought the big gallon vat of cheapo ice cream at the supermarket. I had Paul read the ingredients. Ew--er--I mean--how interesting. We looked up "xanthan gum" on Wiki and came up with this as part of the entry:

In the oil industry, xanthan gum is used in large quantities, usually to thicken drilling mud. These fluids serve to carry the solids cut by the drilling bit back to the surface. Xanthan gum provides great "low end" rheology. When the circulation stops, the solids still remain suspended in the drilling fluid. The widespread use of horizontal drilling and the demand for good control of drilled solids has led to the expanded use of xanthan gum. Xanthan gum has also been added to concrete poured underwater, in order to increase its viscosity and prevent washout.

So, we ate it.

On the other hand, I am no longer buying bread, and by baking so many things from scratch these days, what with my new range and all, I have drastically reduced my shopping costs, and I am certain we have upped our nutritional food intake. So if we ingest a viscous pentasaccaride from time to time, I think we are excused.

Amazing Lamb Recipes

From the Carnegie Mellon University. Scroll through to the Wakayama Lamb recipie, and follow the instructions carefully. That's what's for dinner at our house.

Happy Easter from the Derhams!

Lamb or Ham?

Food shopping for Easter dinner turned into a bit of a hunt. There were hams galore, but no lamb to be found. Finally I checked in the imported and exotic meat section and found a nice leg of lamb...from Australia. There were only a few there, but I found what I needed. Maybe I just haven't noticed the dearth of lamb before, or maybe it's a Long Island thing, but we have always had lamb for Easter. When did ham come onto the scene? I mean, doesn't lamb tie in with the Easter theme?

Hey, our Polish friends will bring their kielbasa and perogies (sp?) to church to be blessed soon. No lamb there, either.

Love Pizza?

ETA: Here's the very simple dough recipe.

Time to Tap the Trees

Cold nights and warmer days mean the sap is flowing, so we took our tools to the sugar bush and tapped the maples, and a black walnut for comparison. The kids made their own spiles from sumac, I helped them drill the tap holes, and it's like magic--the sap runs! Here are a few photos of the day:

We cut the sumac into spile-sized segments, and hollowed out the spongy pith.

Using our trusty pocket knives, we trimmed the spiles to fit the tap holes.

I give a quick talk on 45 degree angles, and drill the tap hole.

I hang a jug under the tap to collect our precious sap.

Click to zoom in and see the watery sap dripping off the end of the spile:

On an interesting note, the sap of the walnut was thicker, darker and sweeter. When we boil it down, I'll let you know how it compares with the traditional maple syrup. Also, the bamboo in the photos did not hold up well in the spile-making process--it was too brittle in the cold (and it was cold!!). The traditional sumac, smooth or staghorn, works best.

One more photo so you can see the beautiful bayside setting for our sugaring, and note that the kids had some time to play in the deep, deep snow:


Special thanks to our friend Mary's mother-in-law for letting us tap her trees.

Coffee Catch-22

This morning I poured ground coffee into the water reservoir in the coffee maker, proving once again that I should not make a pot of coffee before I have had a cup of coffee.

Resolution: Figure out how to use the built in timer; wake to the smell of hot coffee.

Pancake Pudding

Inspired by Mrs. T., and stuck with leftover pancakes, I decided to try using the flat quick breads as a base for a pudding...it worked out quite nicely, though I just added egg, cream, sugar and cinnamon (what, no syrup? noooo. I forgot we had a gallon of the stuff to use--typical me).

But here's the problem: We have the leftover pancakes because someone gave up pancakes for Lent. Can that someone eat the modified pancakes and still maintain the Lenten discipline? Hmm?

Happy Birthday Grannie Annie!

My mum (standing, far right) is having a significant birthday today--I won't tell you how significant, but it's a big one!

Sourdough...or, Not So Sour

After consulting my friend Chris, who sent me this lovely recipe and article from the NY Times, I decided to try my hand at making sourdough. She did not send me a sourdough recipe, but she encouraged me when I told her my greatest fear: Something toxic might grow in the starter. "You know too much," she chided. And I put my thoughts of menacing mycelium out of my mind and made a sourdough starter. It's in a jar labeled Patak, an Indian ready-made sauce company, but since Pa Tak is also a Klingon swear-word, I have kept the name, and that's what I call my starter. If you ever want a sample of my starter, just ask for PaTak.

Yes, well, last night, when I decided to use the starter and make bread, I was thrilled that I could smell what I thought was a truly sourdoughesque smell. It turned out to be Paul's socks. Ugh. The starter itself did not have a very strong sour smell at all, but, after rising overnight, the bread does have that distinctive odor. I can't wait to sample it.

Oh, the recipe that Chris sent is for a slow-rise no-knead artisan bread. I'll try it soon. There was a neat link in the article to another recipe: Pomegranate Horseradish Margarita. Sounds like just the thing...

The Kitchen in Action

Trip tries his hand at eggs, and does well, which just goes to prove that children who are cooking-deprived as children can develop the skills required to excel in the kitchen as late as teen-hood.

Cleaning, however, has a very narrow learning window...oh well.

Sea Kittens? Yum!

What's a sea kitten? It's part of PETA's new anti-fishing campaign aimed at children. Change the language to reflect a more cuddly attitude towards fish, and you'll stop the slaughter. Or something like that. Hey, maybe we ought to call unborn babies "womb-kittens." (H/T TEH Resistance [not a blog for children]) Yeah.

Frankly, a sea kitten sounds like what one might call a young catfish.

I interned at a wildlife refuge right after college. Most of the people I worked with were very nice, but a few were PETA-nutty. One introduced me to her cat "PETA." I told her that I had a dog named "PITA." She told me that her cat's name stood for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. I told her that my dog's name stood for Pain in the A... Erm. Yes.

Another refuge worker would only eat eggs if they were laid by her own personal chicken, which ran wild around the property. Fine. Then a rooster was dropped off at the refuge, and she stopped eating the eggs her chicken laid just in case...[wait for it]... they were fertile. And it was not because she was squeamish about the tiny cell cluster on the yolk, but because of a pro-animal life ideal. Seriously.

Then there was the woman who explained to me that she was a vegetarian but her pets were not, so ethically, she had to feed them meat. So it's OK to kill animals if you are going to feed them to other animals, but not if you are going to feed them to humans. Oh, and it's OK to keep animals as pets.

And then there was the rescued fox kit, who was taught to hunt by exposure to (no doubt) terrified store-bought hamsters and gerbils. Purchasing animals for food could be expensive, though, so to keep the refuge going, many food items, especially those big bags of frozen white mice, were donated by research laboratories.

I could go on...in my month-long internship I heard many anecdotes and opinions that would make great stories, though the people who actually ran the place, and most of my fellow interns, were pretty reasonable. But all this talk of sea kittens is making me hungry. And PETA, if you are out there (and you are out there, aren't you?), please know that my kids have asked for "sea kitten and chips" for dinner. Yum. Pass the malt vinegar.

ETA: Another strange version of this story.



Create Your Own Sea Kitten at peta.org!