Kat of All Trades

I think we pretty safely established last year that I love rhubarb. Given that, it should be no surprise that I was completely on board when my friend Lauren suggested that we bake rhubarb upside-down cake before our recent Sunday evening date to see Bridesmaids.

That Saturday – the day of The Rapture That Was Not, we met at the farmer’s market to purchase the goods. We decided to go all out even though the world might not exist for us to bake the next day, heading directly to my favorite stand and purchasing that tart, wonderful fruit. We thought we were done, as we had the main ingredient for the cake.

And then…we came to the strawberries. You know my weakness for strawberries. The strawberries whispered to me, tempting me with their sweet summery scent, and Lauren mentioned that she’d never really had one of my pies. Before I knew it, I had berries in my bag and a little less money in my pocket. I love feeding people pie.

Thankfully, the world still existed on Sunday, so we gathered around noon and began to chop fruit (her) and make dough (me). We  made a smaller version of last year’s victory pie (recipe via that link) – this time, with a gluten-free crust – and I still think it’s my favorite strawberry-rhubarb pie ever. If Lauren‘s longing gaze is any indication, she agrees.

But this isn’t about the pie.

Once the pie was in the oven, we tackled The Cake. We broke out the hand mixer to get the right consistency. We zested. We macerated the rhubarb. We heated butter and brown sugar for the perfect topping. We subbed a gluten-free all-purpose flour blend from Bob’s Red Mill for the flour in the cake. We were ready.

Then: a small error in judgment. We decided that my 9-inch regular cake pan would work fine, and we put my 10-inch springform pan back in the cabinet. At the time, this seemed to make sense – until we put the toppings in the pan, followed by the batter, and it looked…really full. Of course, we had no choice but to move forward at this point. The clock was ticking, we had a date for Bridesmaids, and obviously, we couldn’t waste all of the perfectly delicious cake elements. We forged ahead, placing a cookie sheet underneath the cake pan when the cake went into the oven.

That, dear friends, was a wise choice.

An even better decision, however, was when we pulled that whole mess out of the oven to test the cake, and realized that:

a) the overflow batter was basically done baking, and
b) we could eat that with pie filling on top.

That was just what we needed to tide us over until the rhubarb upside-down cake, in all its glory, was ready. Ten minutes before we needed to leave, we removed The Cake from the oven, danced around my kitchen, and took this photo for you to see its beauty.

Lessons learned:

• Lauren and I bake well together.
• You’d never guess that this cake was gluten-free; that flour substitution worked beautifully.
• It’s probably smarter to use the springform pan like the recipe suggests.
• This cake makes an excellent movie snack!

I think it’s time that I declared this to the world: I love foods made with cornmeal. Cornbread? Fantastic. Corn muffins? Delicious – especially with some fresh fruit mixed in. Grits? Be still, my heart. And then…there’s polenta.

A few years ago, I was making polenta on a regular basis. It was a staple in my diet thanks to its affordability and versatility. A cup of cornmeal, once cooked, makes four to six hearty servings, and it can be served as breakfast, lunch, or dinner depending on the topping. So why did I stop making it? Good question. Thankfully, I remedied this last week as I work to stick to a tighter grocery/dining out budget.

My system has been to make a batch of polenta at the beginning of the week, and then throughout the week as I’m cooking dinners, I’ll have a variety of sauces and other toppings to bring with the polenta for lunches. In the past week and a half, I’ve topped my lunches with eggs over-easy and arugula; sausage, olives, and goat cheese; tomato sauce with ground beef; and, my current favorite, sauteed asparagus and mushrooms with lemon juice, butter, and thyme.

That last one is the perfect meal for spring, and I can’t resist eating it.

Polenta

2 c water
1 c unsweetened almond milk (or milk of your choice)
1 c polenta (corn grits)
2 tbsp salted butter
black or white pepper

Combine water and almond milk in a medium-sized pot, and bring to a boil over high heat. When liquid reaches a rolling boil, turn heat down to low and stir in polenta. When polenta and liquid are combined, add butter and stir. Continue to simmer, stirring regularly, until polenta reaches a thick oatmeal consistency. (Note: The instructions I’ve read say that polenta will take 20-30 minutes to cook. Mine usually reaches the thick consistency within 10 minutes. Cooking time may vary for you.)

When polenta has thickened, add pepper to taste and stir. Turn off heat and serve.

You can also pour the polenta into a rectangular baking dish – mine is 1-1/2 quarts – and refrigerate, covered overnight. After that, you can slice pieces, reheat, and serve!

Lemon Butter Asparagus and Mushrooms

3 c sliced crimini mushrooms
2 c asparagus, chopped into one inch segments
2-1/2 tbsp salted butter
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp dried thyme
pepper to taste

In a non-stick pan, heat 2 tbsp olive oil and 2-1/2 tbsp salted butter. When butter has melted, add asparagus and mushrooms. Saute until asparagus is tender, about 7-10 minutes. Add lemon juice, thyme, and pepper. Serve over polenta or as a side dish.

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine mentioned these brownies, and I knew I had to adapt them to be gluten-free. I’m a sucker for Cadbury Creme Eggs; they’re one of the seasonal treats that I look forward to most every year. I also love baking brownies, as they’re quick, a perfect chocolate fix, and easily made sans wheat flour.

As I looked over the original recipe, I knew how I’d easily adapt the flour mixture; my go-to is to swap in 2/3 white rice flour and 1/3 tapioca flour, and I figured that would work perfectly here. I knew I only had sweetened cocoa powder on hand, so I decided to cut back the amount of sugar by 1/2 cup – something I’d probably do even with unsweetened cocoa powder. These babies are sweet, and they don’t really need the extra sugar. Mine came out with my favorite fudge-y brownie texture, and held together quite nicely once you scooped them out of the pan.

And remember: Easter is only a few days away, so discounted candy will be up for grabs soon! I may have to stock up on the caramel eggs for my next batch…

Gluten-Free Cadbury Creme Egg Brownies (adapted from Gingerbread Bagels)

5 Cadbury Creme Eggs, halved (9 halves for the brownies, 1 for your mouth)
1/2 c white rice flour
1/4 c tapioca flour (tapioca starch)
1/2 c sweetened cocoa powder
1/4 tsp finely-ground sea salt
1/2 c brown sugar
1/2 c sugar
1/2 c (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1 tbsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
1/2 c bittersweet chocolate chips (I used Ghirardelli 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Chips)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and lightly grease a 9×9 inch baking pan. Slice Cadbury Creme Eggs in half using a paring knife. Set nine halves aside; eat one.

Blend flours, cocoa powder, and sea salt thoroughly in a small bowl. Set aside.

Combine sugars, melted butter, and vanilla extract in a medium bowl. Stir thoroughly with a spatula until well-mixed. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each.

Add half the dry ingredients to the wet, stirring until just combined, then add the other half. When dry mixture is integrated, add chocolate chips, folding them into the batter.

Pour batter into baking pan, spreading it with a spatula to cover the bottom of the pan evenly. Bake for 20 minutes, remove pan from oven, and neatly press the Cadbury Creme Egg halves into the brownies. Bake for 5 more minutes, or until a toothpick/knife inserted into the center comes out clean.

Cool the brownies before cutting.

I buy nearly all of the food that I cook at home from my local farmer’s market, so winter is a fun (read: challenging) time, as many of you are aware. I’ve also cut dairy (except butter) and wheat out of my diet, so I feel like I’ve been re-learning to cook and bake for myself in a lot of ways.

When my friend Emilie visited recently, we wanted to stay out of the cold (read: hang out on my awesome couch with Arrested Development and knitting), so I threw together a butternut squash and apple soup from our trip to the market the day before. I hadn’t yet stocked my pantry for a lot of wheat-free baking, so then what for dessert?

I’d overestimated the number of apples that I needed for the soup, so we settled on baked apples. Below is more of a guideline than a recipe, but it’s delicious and a great way to use pantry items – or, if you’re like me, some of the many bags of fruit occupying your freezer. Everything I used except the sugar, salt, cinnamon, and cashews came from the farmer’s market.

Also, baked apples make a tasty breakfast the next day!

Baked Apples

as many apples as you would like to eat, cored
handful of brown sugar
handful of frozen sour cherries, halved (or any type of berry)
handful of frozen raspberries, halved
handful of cashews, roughly chopped (or any other nuts)
sprinkle of finely ground sea salt
cinnamon to taste
1/2 tbsp salted butter per apple
1/2 cup apple cider
1/4 cup maple syrup (grade b)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Place cored apples in baking dish of appropriate size. Combine brown sugar, cinnamon, salt, cherries, raspberries, and cashews. Fill apples with the mixture, and top each apple with 1/2 tbsp of salted butter.

Stir together apple cider and maple syrup, and pour into baking dish on top of apples.

Bake  for 30-35 minutes, basting apples with cider/syrup mixture every 7 minutes.

Save remaining juices to eat over ice cream, if your apartment is as absurdly hot as mine.

After not making time to post for two weeks – it’s my busy season at work! – I’ve got so many photographs, recipes, and stories to share. Since pie seems to be everyone’s favorite topic, I figured I’d start with a post about that!

For those of you who don’t know, I’ve been involved with Gotham Girls Roller Derby since 2007, first as a skater for the Bronx Gridlock, and now as their manager. When you’ve been working together for a while – practice  three or four nights a week, plus other events – you start to develop team traditions, superstitions, and inside jokes. The more you bond off the track, the better your connection will be when you’re skating together as a team. You trust each other.

Throughout those three and a half seasons, one of the traditions we’ve developed is sharing a victory pie for each bout that we win. That’s 13 pies so far: we play four bouts per season including the championship, and have only lost one in that time frame. One of my other teammates usually bakes; however, after our last bout, she was hosting our team barbecue, so we decided that I would take a turn. I have, after all, made a few pies in my time.

I still had plenty of rhubarb left from rhubarb fest, and at that point, strawberries were still plentiful at the greenmarket, so I’d picked up quite a few. The perfect early summer victory pie? Strawberry-rhubarb. One of my teammates doesn’t eat sugar, so I looked up some information about baking with agave nectar and went for it. If nothing else, I knew it smelled amazing when it came out of the oven, and it looked stunning in the yellow pie dish my teammates gave me as a manager’s gift at the end of last season.

I’d be exaggerating if I said that people dove at me when I arrived at the barbecue; however, I mean it when I say that the 12-inch, deep-dish pie plate was empty in under ten minutes! I’m pretty sure there isn’t a better way to spend a summer evening than celebrating victory, conversing, and sharing pie with friends.

Part of why I’m telling you this particular story is that I believe that pie is an amazing food that carries on a long tradition of friendship, community, and sharing food. My friend Lauren is in the last days of her Pie in the Park Kickstarter project, and she needs your help to make it a success. She’s planning to publish a Pie in the Park cookbook, which will include stories of baking, recipes, and pie tips. Proceeds from book sales will go to Clinton Hill CSA to help fund their low-income shares. The money raised from her Kickstarter project will help cover printing costs, as well as paying the book’s designer and illustrator a fair rate.

If you love pie as much as I do – and I’m pretty sure you do – consider donating!

Either way, you can still enjoy this recipe.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie, sans Sugar
Makes one 12-inch pie.

1 unbaked double crust
5 c rhubarb (1 lb)
4 c hulled and halved strawberries
1/3 c cornstarch
3/4 c raw agave nectar
1/4 c spring wildflower honey
1/2 tsp cinnamon
3/8 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit, and coat the bottom and sides of  12-inch pie plate with butter.

Roll out half of the dough for the bottom crust. Put in pie dish and crimp the edges of the crust.

Combine the rest of the ingredients in a large bowl, making sure that the fruit is thoroughly coated with the cornstarch, sweeteners, and seasonings.

Roll out the other half of the dough for the top crust. If you prefer to do a lattice crust, cut the dough into long strips.

Pour the fruit mixture into the bottom crust. Top with the rolled out dough or the lattice.

Bake for 15 minutes, then add a foil ring around the edge of the pie plate to prevent the crust from burning. Bake for 25 more minutes, and allow to cool before slicing and serving.

I grew up baking bread with my mom, aunt, and cousin every Easter (and my grandparents when they were still alive). When I say baking bread, I mean a full day adventure of mixing, kneading, shaping, and baking, culminating in many loaves.

When I was young, my participation consisted of punching down the dough after it rose. As I grew older, I was able to help out with almost all of the aspects, and my cousin and I became masters of twisting and shaping the dough. It’s the perfect bread, made from a family recipe handed down through generations. Part of the treat, of course, is that you only have it once a year. It’s hard to set aside an entire day for bread baking on a regular basis.

With all my recent jamming, though, I wanted good bread. Needed it, even. The crustiness. The doughy insides. The smell of it baking. Also, there are few combinations so perfectly matched as homemade jam and freshly baked bread.

I’d been reading about no-knead breads for a while, and then my mom sent me a copy of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day sometime last year. While living with roommates, I never had enough refrigerator space to store the dough. That’s no longer a problem, though!

I like their recipe because it really is minimal commitment for prep – important when I’m busy spending time canning, gardening, and figuring out what to do with my CSA produce (more on that soon!) – and the bread is pretty freaking tasty. I mix up the dough, let it rise for two hours, and then put it in fridge until I’m ready to bake it.

I’d been getting used to the basic boule recipe provided in the book, and then all that white flour had me feeling a little doughy, which was not the goal I had in mind. I decided to give the light whole wheat recipe a try, though I double the amount of wheat flour because, well, why not? I think next time I’ll up the balance to half white, half wheat. I feel healthier that way, which is all that really matters.

The mixture didn’t seem to rise quite as enthusiastically as the pure white flour boule dough; however, it baked up to be a good loaf of bread, which I may have considered eating in a single sitting. My coworkers and knitting group seemed to be pleased as well, so I think I can call it a bread-baking success!

It’ll never take the place of Easter Bread, but it can fill the rest of the year. I’m also curious to try their gluten-free baking book!

(If you’re looking for bake-off details, scroll to the bottom! I think you should read about pie first, though.)

I’ve been experimenting with some pie recipes recently, taking seasonal favorites rhubarb and strawberry and playing around with flavors to see what I like best. They’re not quite ready for recipe sharing, but they are pretty enough for a peek!

I brought this pie to the Eagle Street Rooftop Farm pie potluck a few weeks ago (where I had the pleasure of seeing Brooklyn Homesteader and meeting Pie in the Park!). I’d been pondering what type of pie to bring, and then I remembered that I’d purchased 25 pounds of rhubarb the day before. I recalled baking a rhubarb custard pie last year, so I went back through my pie notes and decided to change up that recipe a bit.

In addition to the eggs for the light custard, I added some vanilla, cardamom, and orange zest. I think it needs a bit more work to balance things, but overall, people seemed to enjoy it, and I was pretty happy with the flavors. I think I’d like to try it without the custard, or with more time for the custard to chill; the day of the potluck, the pie came out of the oven and went directly to Greenpoint.

This beauty is a strawberry pie that I baked when I went to visit my cousins in Pennsylvania. Black pepper and balsamic vinegar both amp up the flavor of strawberries, so I tried them in tandem. It was good, but a little too much, or perhaps not quite the right amounts of each. More experimenting will be necessary!

In other pie-related news, I’ll be competing in a pie bake-off this Saturday, June 12! The bake-off, which Jimmy’s No. 43 is hosting, is a fundraiser for the awesome bk farmyards, a Brooklyn-based decentralized farming network. Tickets are $20 at the door, and doors open at 1:00 p.m. There will be so many amazing people bringing pies, and I’m super excited to be part of the competition. I’ll be bringing my balsamic pie – this time with strawberries – and I promise you won’t want to miss it. You can get all of the details here. Come early and bring friends! (And after the bake-off, come to Hunter College, where I’ll be managing the Bronx Gridlock to victory over the Manhattan Mayhem! Tickets are available here; that will sell out before Saturday.)

That’s a previous iteration of the balsamic pie. It’s as delicious as it looks.

A partial loaf of bread decided to hide in the back of our fridge for a few weeks. While perfectly edible, it left something to be desired in terms of using it for sandwiches. No better way to make it new again than to drench it in milk, eggs, and spices, right?

I also wanted to try out baking with my canned rhubarb, as I’d like to use this method to preserve more while I can still get it. This seemed like a good first attempt, as I could then use the sugar syrup to sweeten the pudding.

I’ll call this sweet success, though next time, I’ll add a full cup of tangy, wonderful rhubarb.

Rhubarb Bread Pudding (adapted from Diana Shaw’s The Essential Vegetarian Cookbook)

4-1/2 c loosely packed stale bread cubes (about 6 slices)
1/2 c canned rhubarb
2 large eggs
2 large egg whites
1 c milk (I used 2%)
1/4 c rhubarb sugar syrup
3 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cardamom

Grease a 1-1/2 quart baking dish, and place the bread cubes in it. Add the rhubarb

Whisk together the eggs, egg whites, milk, syrup, brown sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, and cardamom until well combined. Pour the mixture evenly over the bread and rhubarb. Mix together to make sure all bread is coated. Cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 30-40 minutes.

Twenty minutes before you are ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Bake until golden brown and firm to the touch, about 50 minutes.

A friend/coworker of mine made these Earl Grey shortbread cookies a few months ago, and I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about them. I want to make a scone version, so I decided to make the original recipe first and then play off that. All in all, these are a pretty quick venture, especially if you have a food processor and can follow the recipe to the letter. I don’t have a full-size food processor – I have a little three-cup one – so it took a little longer, though I doubt by much. I’d like to try these with other tea flavors, too!

Earl Grey Shortbread Cookies (from Claire Robinson/Food Network)
My additions are in italics.

2 c all-purpose flour
2 tbsp loose Earl Grey tea leaves (or substitute tea leaves of another variety)
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 confectioners’ sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract (I bet almond or lemon would be good with other teas!)
1 c (2 sticks/8 oz) unsalted butter, room temperature

In a food processor, pulse together the flour, tea, and salt, until the tea is just spotted throughout the flour. If you have a three-cup food processor, pulse together the tea, salt, and three tablespoons of flour, then whisk that mixture into the rest of the flour. If you don’t have a food processor, finely chop the tea leaves, and whisk together with flour and salt.

Add the confectioners’ sugar, vanilla, and butter. Pulse together just until a dough is formed. If you do not have a food processor, whisk in confectioners’ sugar and vanilla, then cut in butter using a pastry blender or your hands. Combine ingredients until dough is able to be formed into a log.

Place dough on a sheet of plastic wrap, and roll into a log, about 2 1/2-inches in diameter. Tightly twist each end of wrap, and chill in refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Slice the log into 1/3-inch thick disks. Place on parchment or silpat lined baking sheets, 2 inches apart (One inch apart worked fine for me; these don’t really spread.). Bake until the edges are just brown, about 12 minutes 15-20 minutes. Let cool on sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks and cool to room temperature.

I learned a very important lesson on Saturday: do not go weed in the backyard alone! It is entirely too depressing. I got out there and tackled the garden bed and its surrounding area first, and that was awesome. The dill, rhubarb, and cucumbers are starting to strut their stuff, which pleased me greatly. I can’t wait to see what they look like after these few days of rain!

After weeding the bed and taking some photos, I made the unfortunate mistake of looking at the rest of the yard. D’oh! Yes, it still looks a million times better before it did when we started; however, all of the areas that we’ve weeded have the same evil weed still going strong.

I hate this guy. I call it the red asparagus tree. We’re still not entirely certain what type of weed it is – I initially thought it was a type of spurge, but now that the leaves are growing, I’m not so sure – but it. is. EVIL. It’s got an extensive, woody root system, so when you pull it, even if you go deep, you’re not getting out all of the roots. It oozes some milky sap, and then a week or two later, you start seeing more of the pink/red, asparagus-esque shoots. I’ve seen a few woody stems with six or eight tiny red sprouts popping up, taunting my inability to conquer, ready to take over the yard.

Suffice to say, seeing more and more of it pop up was kind of a downer. I shuffled back to the apartment, seeking comfort in the form of chocolate.

Enter what you’ve been waiting to see: something to use up those rapidly browning bananas and satisfying your chocolate comfort needs. I cut back on the sugar from the original recipe to balance the sweet bananas and the fact that I used sweetened cocoa. I also added some wheat flour so I can more easily pretend it’s a breakfast food and not entirely unhealthy. Eat up!

Chocoholic Banana Bread (adapted from Nigella Lawson’s How to Be a Domestic Goddess)

1/2 c white flour
1/2 c whole wheat flour
2 tbsp sweetened cocoa (I used Ghirardelli Sweet Ground Chocolate and Cocoa)
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c unsalted butter, melted
1/3 c sugar
2 large eggs
2 large, ripe bananas, mashed
3/4 c chocolate chips
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Butter and flour a 9×5-inch loaf pan, or line it with parchment paper.

Combine flours, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium-sized bowl; set aside. In a large bowl, beat the melted butter and sugar until blended. Add the eggs one at a time, then the mashed bananas. Stir in chocolate chips and vanilla extract. Finally, add the flour mixture, a third at a time, stirring well after each addition.

Pour batter into loaf pan and bake in the middle of the oven for about an hour, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.