a little sweet before we sweat

we are cleaning out perishables to prepare for our trip--that means tonight's salad had tomatoes and apricots and carrots; it also means i made some delicious treats to use up the eggs, a lemon, crème fraîche, and butter.

last night i made a simple raspberry crème fraîche tart (i sprinkled ours with nutmeg!) to help us decide where we want to go (so many choices!), and this evening, to help fuel the book editing marathon that's happening in my living room, i made a GF lemon almond cake.

i'm very much looking forward to sharing some (more) of my favourite chinese foods upon our return!

happy new year! we'll take a cake o' kindness yet, for auld lang syne.

for new year's, the mister and i headed over to the warm home of our friends for dinner and revelry. the mister made GF french onion soup, his own recipe that he's been making for years, and i made a layered GF chocolate cake to share. after spending the christmas holiday at my in-laws house, and watching my mother-in-law make two yule logs, i decided i needed to make a light and fluffy sponge cake. with booze. and chocolate. and brown butter.

egg yolks and sugar 

6 eggs were separated, 120 g of dark chocolate was melted (i used callier's baking chocolate), and the oven was warmed to 175C.

with the trusty kitchen aid, i paddled the egg yolk and 1/4 cup sugar until thick and ribbony. i added a drop of almond extract, and then the melted and cooled chocolate.

i took a baking sheet, olive oiled it, then put down a layer of parchment paper and olive oiled and GF floured it.

the yokes were transported to a new bowl and then i worked on the egg whites. they were beat until foamy, and then i added a pinch of salt. i continued to beat until i got soft peaks, then added sugar, and beat some more.


so fluffy.

the whites were gently folded into the chocolate, and then i poured the batter into the prepared pan. i dropped it on the counter to pop the air bubbles.

folding in whites

6 large eggs, separated
200 grams chocolate (divided--120g and 80g)
1 pinch of salt
1/4 cup + 1 generous spoonful of sugar
almond extract


for good measure, i sprinkled the batter with edible glitter.

i knew i would be making a ganache, but i was hoping the glitter might peek through now and again. these days i am resisting the urge to sprinkle edible glitter on everything. want to make that pasta dish seem more festive? GLITTER! oh, is that a plain bowl of oatmeal? GLITTER. im glad the mister loves me no matter what.

the cake baked for roughly 15 minutes. i covered it with a damp towel to keep it moist. then i made some cream for the filling.

i whipped some heavy cream until just so, and then added some cointreau. and then a little more cointreau.

and you know what goes with chocolate and orange? cinnamon. for the ganache, i made browned butter and combined it with the remaining chocolate. i added just a pinch of cinnamon. the ganache was stashed in the fridge to cool, and then i layered the cake with the cream and frosted it when the time came.

and yum.

Ode on a Kitchen Aid (with apologies to keats)
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
For ever baking, and for ever young;

here's to george. he didn't die. (a nearly vegetarian gluten free thanksgiving with a swiss fella and an australian couple)

grandpa

fall is always about family. starting in september, we have family birthdays all the way to november. and then there's thanksgiving.

home sweet home

it might not sound too terribly unlike anyone else's family. after all, thanksgiving is a time of reflection and celebration. but in my family, it's also a time to be thankful that george didn't die.

george was a teacher who came over on the mayflower. tracing the menfolk, my line goes thusly: George, George, William, George, Benjamin, Ebenezer, Stephen, Justus, Melville, Earle, John. john was my mom's dad.

when i was little, i thought it was the Coolest Thing Ever. as i got older, and learned about genocide (and other fun atrocities), i realised just how distorted the story was. it's not like the pilgrims showed up and everyone got together with the natives and they held hands and were BFFs. That's the vision we're taught in kindergarten. at least that's how my generation was taught. pre-Howard Zinn. (to be fair, my parents were always honest with me; we were not strangers to Indian Grinding Rock State Historic Park, and my mother introduced me to Ishi at a fairly young age). from a very early age, indeed as far back as i can remember, ive been a part of this history. history is real. history gave me life.

my, arent we hot stuff? 

and this is why i love thanksgiving.

well, that and it's a chance to make glorious food. after all, the origins of thanksgiving stem from a 3 day fête of merrymaking and feasting.

no matter where in the world i'm living, i make sure i have a thanksgiving.

in my family, just like in most USAian families, there are certain staples that are Just Necessary. we are a green bean casserole free household, but we always have dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry, and pumpkin pie. oh, and turkey.

thanksgiving in China, 2008 

i have very fond memories of my chinese thanksgivings wherein i made stuffing and mashed potatoes to share with my students. one year the chef from the teacher's cafeteria wanted to make us a turkey and pie. i have no idea where he found a turkey, and they had to split it in half for it to fit in the oven, but he was quite pleased with himself. the pie wasnt half bad either. a student translated our family recipe and he took some creative license with it.


but all the USAians appreciated the pie. a can of cranberry was shipped to china and we shared a special moment with just us and the red glop.

this year, the mister and i shared thanksgiving with two aussies. nicola made the pumpkin pie and mashed potatoes (and a roast chicken for them), and i took on the rest.



we nearly had a cranberry crisis. apparently, and much to the surprise of the shopkeeps who were not understanding why people with a crazed look in their eye kept surfacing and asking for the berry, the cranberries were sold out and the latest shipment had not arrived. but cranberries were eventually found, quite at the last moment, and there was much rejoicing. and kisses. lots of thank you kisses were given. to the mister. not the berries.

this year i used alton brown's recipe as my muse. i altered it thusly:
1/2ish cup freshly squeezed orange juice
3/4ish cup honey
4ish cups cranberries

i also made a roasted mushroom stock for our gravy and for the dressing.


 this year the dressing was altered once again. i do keep the basic frame of the treasured family recipe, but i am a trouble-maker. because nicola is a celiac, and i dont make it a habit to poison my friends, i decided to use half GF bread, and half cornbread. i made the cornbread much differently than my usual because i wanted it to be more corny.

1 1/2 cup cornmeal
1/4 cup GF all purpose flour
2 teaspoons GF baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
2 cups milk
1 tablespoon honey
2 tbsp olive oil

then, because i cant just change one thing, i steamed and peeled chestnuts, browned some butter with fresh sage, and added celery.


then i stuffed it into onion shells.

that's what im talkin about right there.

i roasted some butternut squash and made an apple compote with dried cranberries and fennel to glop on top.



dried cranberries
1 apple
1 fennel bulb
1 cup apple juice
splash of Calvados
throw all ingredients into a pot and cook until it seems right.



i then prepped the salmon dish.

i made a glaze with balsamic vinegar and rosemary honey, and dredged some carrots and fennel in that. i cut a pocket into the salmon and stuffed it full of sauteed leeks and garlic, and some chopped pear.

by that time, my sweet potaters were cooked through, so i smashed 'em, threw in some pecan chunks, and squeezed in some orange juice and zest.  once we got to nicola's house, we covered the potatoes with greek yogurt and goat cheese.  we also had a cranberry cocktail (gin cosmo!).  and bananananana cake.

almost ready! missing the sweet potatos (still in oven!) and chicken 

and then! things were shoved in the oven, potatoes were mashed with garlic and sour cream, gravy was made with cornstarch, and we laughed a lot.

we had wine.  we ate. we had more wine.  we ate.  we had some wine.  we ate.

and then.
aaaaaaand then.
aaaaaaaaaaaand theeeeeen.

there was pie.

nicola did a gorgeous job.

plus we got to take some home. pie for breakfast? damn right. the mister says this is a tradition he can embrace. he also asked if we could have pumpkin pie for breakfast every day.

the teaches of peaches: GF tart for nicola

gluten does not get along well with my friend nicola... gluten insists on wrecking havoc on her body, should it get the chance, and that's just not nice. i wanted to make nicola a tart because she's kind and generous, and has been doubly so with our wedding, as has her husband, and, well, i like her. there are dessert shops that cater to folks with celiac disease here, and even an italian restaurant that has GF pasta, but homemade desserts are homemade desserts, am i right? ive made her dessert before, but i was really into the idea of making a special rosemary crusted tart. i would have followed the exact same recipe, save the crust, but i also wanted to try the custard with yogurt, and these peaches just fell into my basket while i was at the market, see, and there we are.

first, i preheated the oven to 350°/175°

ground almonds

next, i made almond flour by grinding up almonds--the trick is to get the flour fluffy and ground before it turns to almond butter. i used a 200g bag of almonds and produced 1⅓ cup flour.

i chopchopchopped a few sprigs of rosemary and combined the rosemary with the almond flour.



then i mixed the almond flour mixture with
3 tablespoons sugar
a pinch of salt
1/3 cup cold butter, cubed (75 g)
1 tablespoon water

these peaches didnt come in a can put there by a man in a factory downtown

i should not have used that much water. i greased a tart tin and started pressing the crust. the consistency was like wet sand and i really enjoyed myself. i was a dirt and sand connoisseur as a young child, and the texture was just right for mudpies, but a little too wet for tarts.

i baked the crust for about 15 minutes and let it cool, then added sliced peaches in a pretty design.





for the custard, i adapted the Apple Honey Custard Pie recipe from the Moosewood Cookbook (Mollie Katzen).

4 eggs
1 cup greek honey yogurt
1/4 tsp salt
1.5 tbsp honey
1 tsp-ish cardamon

i baked the tart for about 45 minutes at 375°/190°

and our whole place smelled like heaven. the edges were a bit caramelized, but if this tart tastes anything how it smelled? bliss.

ETA: what nicola thought of the tart