Paleo Pancakes

It may have been two years since I posted...
but I still check back on my blog for recipes.


Here's one I'm sick of scrolling through 12 months of photos on Instagram for.
PALEO PANCAKES!!
A.K.A Lembas Bread (but taster)

I also forgot to add "1 c of bananas" to the written recipe in the picture below.

I cooked Pistachio Cardamom Sea Salt Brownies.

Last year, when Matt, Malachi, Keiko and I made a trip to Portland for Stumptown, I was 7 months pregnant and in need ofsomething with protein, something with chocolate, and something that would be commemorative of that particular need in that particular place on the particular trip.

And that is how I managed to sniff out some arbitrary (however highly pretentious and forgettable) coffee shop that sold the illustrious pistachio cardamom sea salt brownies.
It seems only right that on the anniversary of this discovery last year, I endeavor to recreate the awesomeness that is the pistachio cardamom sea salt brownie.

Now, having made and enjoyed the entirety of a single batch in one night, I do have some added notes:

1) I'd cut the salt in half or at most 3/4 of what is called for IF you intend to sprinkle salt on top.

2) Sprinkle SOME pistachios on top before baking and some AFTER if you want the pretty green color in your final product

I cooked rainbow pancakes!

This morning I somehow awoke 30 minutes before Petra. Since I've been playing on Pinterest with much of my free time, I decided to put my new found inspiration to work over breakfast! I wanted to make a rainbow cake, but rainbows seems more like a breakfast treat!

'Twas a pretty simply concept to execute, all I did was added food coloring (about four drops) to 3/4 cups of pancake batter and víola! Instant breakfast party!

I cooked some dang good pizza too late for Pi Day.

(Photo courtesy of The Petit Chef - who included figs in their pizza!)

I missed Pi Day (3/14) – what a shame! – so I am backdating this entry commemoratively. Every year since I first discovered π Day I manage to miss it in favor of my enthusiasm for the Ides of March (3/15). Oh the conflicts of multiple nerdy interests. Come hell or high water, though, I am NOT missing the epic, once-a-century Pi Day of 2015 (3/14/15)!!!

In any event, I accidentally celebrated with a pie - a Spinach Procuitto Pizza Pie!

Apparently, you can get a mean trio of imported cured hams from Trader Joe's (I used this one). I use about half a package per pizza. Matt and I are suckers for these kinds of meats, particularly as it pairs so well with our vice for expensive cheeses.

And speaking of - don't skimp on the prosciutto or the parmesan reggiano! It's well worth the extra coupla bucks for the fancy stuff.

Enjoy this salty pizza with a glass of tart red wine (I picked Liberté Cabernet Sauvignon) and chocolate dessert!

I cooked eggnog (the cooking is, apparently, optional).

Re-appropriated glass milk bottles from my two favorite dairies!

At last week's Pasadena Farmers' Market I bought a pallet of eggs from a local guy (not as good as my mother-in-law's friends' eggs, but definitely tastier than any store bought eggs I've tried!). This week, I had not baked enough pies or cookies calling for so many eggs to consume them before our trip out of town to the folks. Another food-oriented dilemma we had was an abundance of milk and half & half in the fridge only days before the journey.

Oh what to do?

MAKE EGGNOG, OBVIOUSLY!

Creative cooking is something we call "Christenson-ing" in our circle of comrades, after our ingeniously creative beer-brewing, recipe-discovering, you-tubing gourmet friends. Instead of planning on discarding our invevibly expiring dairy products, I intended to Christenson some eggnog to take with us on our journey.

I started with this recipe, deemed the "Amazingly Good Eggnog Recipe" which called for cooking the eggs sightly instead of the traditional raw egg yolk ingredient. I made some adjustments having learned a few tricks recently regarding dairy (i.e. light cream can be replaced with half & half and good old fashioned vanilla ice cream can be used for heavy cream) and used mostly half & half instead of milk and cream. Having sampled the awesomeness of this eggnog, I can definitely say that the half & half replacement was successful - particularly for those who add milk to their thick 'n heavy store bought nog like myself - but I can see why the milk is parted into cream portions and milk portions; that is that the two seem to deal with the spices and eggs flavors differently, the milk giving you the smooth start and the cream giving you the lingering sweetness. In any event, here is how I made the recipe which turned out GLORIOUS and absolutely perfect to my taste buds!
(also, I tend to like a little more spice, so you can reduce all the spices by 1/2 a tsp)

(imagine that the palett on the left is FULL of eggs from the Pasadena Farmer's market ;) )

ingredients:
.5 g. of half & half
(or 1 qt milk & 1 qt light
cream)
1.2 c. or sugar
5 whole
cloves
1 tsp of nutmeg
1.5 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp of
vanilla
12 egg COLD
yolks
(*optional: rum)



quick instructions:
1) whisk together the yolks and sugar
2) combine 1 tsp of vanilla, nutmeg, &
half the half&half (or milk) over heat until it boils
3) reduce heat to medium and add the egg yolk mixture slowly
4) stir vigorously for 3 minutes, remove from heat and let cool for 1 hour
5) Finally, add remaining unused ingredients, stir, and refrigerate overnight



extended instructions:
1) Begin by separating the yolks from the egg whites. This is most easily done when the eggs are cold as room temp eggs may have more delicate yolks (you can use the egg whites for whipped topping or meringues later - just
make sure they stay away from ANY moisture).
2) On the lowest setting in a large sauce pan or broad stock pot, combine half of the half & half (or 1 qt of milk) on the stove with the cloves, 1 tsp of vanilla, and the cinnamon for several minutes (5-10 min).
3) Slowly bring to a boil over the course of another 5-10 minutes and let it boil for 5 min. BE VERY CAREFUL NOT TO SCALD!
4) While you are GRADUALLY heating the milk, combine the egg yolks and sugar and whisk thoroughly.
5) Reduce the boiling milk to medium heat and the yolk mixture gradually. Continue to stir it for 3 minutes, keeping it from thickening.
6) Remove from heat and let stand for an hour.
*7) Add the nutmeg, remaining vanilla, the rest of the half & half (or the light cream) stir together.
8) Bottle and let sit overnight. (It can be chilled in freezer and served an hour later, but if you let it sit for at least 6 hours in the fridge, it gets so much more creamy and flavorful!)
9) Serve directly from the refrdigerator!


*1-2 shots of Sailor Jerry's per 12 oz can be added after the chilling stage (1 shot = rummy overtones, 2 shots = grandpa's favorite eggnog) OR
you can add 1-2.5 c of a light rum in the 7th step. I don't like the rum to overwhelm the flavor of the eggnog (which is delicious without it) so I recommend only 1 cup for the whole recipe.

Dairy- & Gluten-free Pine Nut Pie

Unbaked pie - bakes into a pretty, marbly surface!
I know that last week I wrote on my Pine Nut Pie recipe and that this week - if anyone was paying attention to the Pie of the Week widget off to the right - I was supposed to write on a made-up recipe for Banana Nutella, but to be honest, my Banana Nutella Pie did not turn out as well as I had hoped whilst my Pine Nut Pie seems to be improving!

This last week I made it for the birthday celebration of Paul Hoppe and then again for the in-laws, some of who cannot eat wheat and/or dairy. I learned some things and made improvements to my recipe, including a version that would not offend the stomachs of my loved ones!

Original ingredients:

(click here for the original recipe)

What I learned the second and third time around:

• Istead of dark brown sugar, light brown sugar! This lends itself to a more fluffy filling and doesn't get quite as dense.
• The flour is only necessary if you want to use dark brown sugar which mixes into a syrup that is thicker than the light brown sugar.
• Earth Balance Natural Buttery Spread bakes very well with pies! I hardly noticed the difference between it and regular butter.
• On a similar note, this spread has a higher viscosity than butter when melted and is similar to the heavy cream - 1 Tbsp of this for the missing consistency of 3 Tbsp of heavy cream
• The best alternatives for gluten-free pie crusts are not potato flour ones, but cornmeal and nut based! This is Almond Tart Dough is vegan and wheat-free.
• Trader Joe's new press-in pie crusts are AWESOME. (Not Vegan/Vegetarian/Gluten-free)

Chocolate Chip Pine Nut Pie AND How to Build a Pie (I)

I have been hesitant to try this pie... I know what pinenuts (pignoli s) taste like - and I know I like them - but once again I find myself asking, in a pie? I'd never heard of it except as one of the recipes listed in my Pie book. But this book has since gone over-due and was returned to the library this week, leaving me recipe-less. I did make a copy of the recipe... but heck if I can find it.

So here's the thing, I think I'm pretty clever, this is my 6th pie, I decided to take a gamble and make up the recipe using the experience I've gained, so far. It turned out SO well, I made it twice!

I started by picking out my filling and measuring out the basic ingredients to get an idea of much would make the desired amount of filling. I then went on to experiment with to iterations of the pine nut pie! Below is what I learned based on a little research and experience - but please feel free to contribute or correct me if I'm wrong.

MAIN INGREDIENT:

With pies utilizing squash and fruit as the primary filling, it seemed between 1 1/2 - 2 cups of the primary ingredient is needed, then pureed or mixed with other things. I had to determine whether or not to blend the pignolis/pinenuts with something else or treat them like the "fruit" - since pine nuts are so soft, even when toasted, despite their strong flavor, I decided they were fine as the main ingredient rather than the main flavor within some other base (i.e. ginger flavor in the custard pie). I had an 8 oz bag of pinenuts which measured closely to 1 1/2 cups. I toasted them on a cookie sheet in the broiler on low for about 6 minutes and then watched to they reached the right "brown-ness".

To turn the nuts into a cream filling, I then considered which dry and wet ingredients to use.

WET INGREDIENTS:

I have basically only used two kinds of liquid in most of my pies: cream and eggs. I love cream, I will use it whenever I can. I am also a proponent for using it and whole milk rather than "low fat" alternatives and a quarter cup of heavy or light cream can go a long way to create thick, but fluid wet ingredient base. Egg thickens when cooked and mixes well at room temperature; but whole eggs can get quite dense, so consider using just egg whites or a mixture of the two (I used whites in the first iteration of the pie and just whole eggs in the second - it was too dense with the 2 yolks).

Other wet ingredients to consider: For many fruits, the addition of lemon is warranted; for many squash/winter pies, the addition of honey or molasses; and for yet many other kinds of pies and their saucy garnishes, corn syrup (but I'll let you in on a hint, most of the time you don't need it, BUT if you don't use it you will need to replace it with something of similar viscosity - like honey or an amount of water with boiled sugar).

DRY INGREDIENTS:

Most of my favorite pies use between 1/2 to 1 1/2 cups of brown sugar to enhance the fruit; in the case of the cream-based pies, similar amounts of white sugar are used BUT often times if you've got good hardy filling (like several cups of a fruit or squash) you really don't need more than 1/2 a cup of sugar. You can also replace it with things like honey or chocolate chips - instead of an extra half a cup of sugar in the pine nut pie, I added chocolate chips!

Two tablespoons of flour goes a long way with giving your pie some density, but if you are trying to create a filling that is not so fruity and not so custardy - like a peanut butter filling - you are going to need closer to a cup of flour. You will also want to consider how you would lighten a dense, flour-based filling. I often use a teaspoon or two of cream of tartar (NOT to be confused with tartar sauce... which I once sent my husband to the store to get in a last minute pie baking frenzy...) - it has a similar effect as baking soda, especially in addition to egg whites.

BUTTER:

I don't know if this belongs with wet or dry because it ought always to be added at room temperature which makes it sweat a bit. Generally you need 1/4 - 1/2 a cup in any given recipe (not including the crust) unless you venture away from the fruity/squashy/savory fillings, which call for more, and lean toward the sugary/custardy/creamy/sweet fillings, which call for less.

SPICES:

My favorites in pie: nutmeg, ginger, and, lately, cardamom! You usually don't need more than a teaspoon of any given spice, but I tend to like my baked goods robust so I generally add an extra dash or two. These are some other good pastry spices I selected from descriptions at realsimple.com:

Cinnamon, ground. Use this warm, aromatic spice for holiday baking, as well as stews and curries.

Cloves, ground. A staple in holiday baking, especially gingersnaps.

Ginger, ground. Ground ginger has a more intense and astringent taste than fresh and is often more convenient. Ginger’s popularity has increased in the U.S. because of its supposed benefits to the digestive system.

Nutmeg, whole. Nutmeg's sweet, spicy flavor is great in savory and sweet dishes alike.

Allspice, whole. Tasting like a combination of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves, this aromatic spice will complement both sweet and savory meals (particularly jerk dishes).

Chinese five-spice powder. Comprised of cinnamon, cloves, fennel, star anise, and Szechuan pepper, this powder is a staple in Chinese fare.

Star anise. A Chinese spice, star anise resembles a star shape. Ground, it’s the main ingredient in Chinese five-spice powder.

Vanilla beans. Beans should be dark, smooth (not dry), and plump. Store in an airtight container in the freezer for up to a year and a half.

Cardamom, ground. Use in Indian dishes and some baked goods. It should look dark gray.

Caraway seeds. Give breads and cakes an earthy, nutty flavor.

Ginger Custard Pie (with Mocha Sauce)

This was my first custard pie. If you've never made custard or pondered the ingredients, custard is essentially all kinds of cream heated (perhaps with the addition of sugar) and then allowed to cool into a pudding - it just might be humankind's greatest invention.

But in a pie? Well... I have to admit that while everyone agreed this pie was super tasty, it just didn't do it for me last night. I mean, the ginger is a wonderful flavor! It's feels so very autumnal and has the wonderful properties spicy-ness and a hint of the savory umami quality - it can be sweetened and soured and add subtly to a traditionally not-so-spicy dish like my butternut squash apple soup. But all by its lonesome, I'm not so sure I like it. (Although everyone else really loved that their lesser experiences with ginger were swayed by the creamy toning down of the flavor they often found overwhelming!)

Ultimately, I have decided that my disappointment in this pie really comes down to my expectations in texture being failed. The last three pies I've made have been dense and filled with with the fruit of trees or squash. This one was so light and fluffy, after all, it only had a handful of ingredients and most of them were milk products. But I also didn't refrigerate it overnight as is often done with custards.

I think I also may have simply been in the mood for more spices - not just ginger (although this is my favorite spice of all!).

All in all, the pie turned out splendidly, and if you are in the mood for something light and fluffy and less appropriate for dessert AND THEN the next four meals (which is what happens in this household when we don't have friends around to help taste test our pie!)

The best part by far, however, was the absolutely sinful mocha drizzle - cocoa and ginger are the combination of all time! And I suppose it did help that the mocha glaze was essentially espresso grounds in butter/heavy-cream/chocolate chips in this ratio 1:4:4. I just can't keep my fingers out of it!!!! I gave half to our neighbors eat or burn to just make sure we all keep our arteries in tact at the Sheean house.

Honey Pumpkin Date with 'Mallow Topping

In a nutshell: 1) Thoroughly blend all the ingredients together, taking care that the dates are cut to bite-sized bits. 2) Pour into your prebaked graham cracker pie crust, distributing date pieces evenly 3) Bake at 350 F for 20 min, rotate pie, bake for 25 more min at 450 F 4) Remove, let cool, place in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours just before serving, 5) cover chilled pie with mini-marshmallows and place in the broiler for 2-3 minutes - MAKE SURE YOU WATCH THE MARSHMALLOWS AS THEY BROWN!! If you take your eyes off for even a few seconds, you'll end up with an ugly burnt mess.

Pumpkin, dates, eggs, heavy whipping cream, full-fat sour cream, honey, molasses, cinnemon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves!

One thing I am learning about pies is that for all their variety in flavor, filling, crust and occasion, they are pretty darn straight forward to make.

However, one thing I underestimated is the value of some TLC. This pie, relatively simple and easy in writing, required a significantly greater amount of time to prepare (and practice). And I am a lazy person - if I had planned a little better, I might have been a little less frustrated, but perhaps you can benefit from my strife and discovery:

Stuff I learned this time around:

1) Let ingredients (like eggs) reach room temperature
2) Your own squash puree is easy! But not instantaneous...
3) Cool a pre-baked pie shell in the fridge OR unthaw a frozen one in the fridge before using
4) If the recipe says the pie should cool -

MAKE SURE YOU HAVE TIME TO LET THE PIE COOL!

A little about each:

1) Letting the ingredients, like eggs & butter & even milk, really does help mix and bake the filling to the proper consistency!

Room temperature ingredients allow for the emulsion of fat and liquid which cannot otherwise mix. If you add cold ingredients, like eggs from the fridge, to a room temperature filling, you may end up with not-so-yummy descriptions of your mixture like curdled, chunky or grainy. This is particularly annoying if you are mixing or whisking by hand.
Also, your mixture will likely not hold its form as well - a good looking pie is even across the surface and not cracked or sunken. Sinking is a particularly disheartening result of chilled ingredients.
(PS I know the FDA says this isn't true, but you can leave eggs out of the refrigerator for up to two weeks, depending on how fresh they are. It's true! That's how they do it in EVERY OTHER COUNTRY except America. Ask you European or African friends (I did). There isn't an in-between for a good egg and a rotten one and so long as you aren't storing your eggs in the top cabinet with the California winter-heat beating on them, they'll do just for for a while.)

2) You can cook any squash like this:
Cut in half, de-seed, put in the oven in a half an inch of water (any way you like) with some loose foil over for about 35-40 minutes at 350 F. That's it. Pumpkin, Delicata, Spaghetti, they can ALL be cooked this way. If you want to forgo the canned pureed squash you stick the results (without skin!) in a blender. VIOLA!

3) Once again, don't be lazy like me. Prebaked pie shells are the bomb! And easy. So just do it, you don't need to always buy pie shells... but you do need to cool them and not use them straight from the oven. If you do, you might make a mess of your pie in one or several of theses ways: cooking the outside filling faster on the hot crust, crust can absorb the filling and get mushy, the taste might change, the exposed edges will likely cook more & dry out than the covered ones and ultimately, the crust (depending on the kind) can really lose its shape - refrigerating it keeps it firm.

4) This is probably the singularly most important experience I had during the baking of this pie.
The filling for this pie used a lot of liquids and had a very low viscosity (rather runny); in addition to this new factor in pie-making, the recipe called for this pie to be baked at two different temperatures in the first half and last half of its time in the oven. I did my best to follow the recipe to the "T" (after not doing so and creating delays as I ran into the aforementioned discoveries) and baked as instructed. But at the end of the 45 mins, the pie still seamed to be quite liquid. I baked for an extra 20 minutes, just to be sure, but the consistency did not change much. I didn't want to risk over-cooking, so I removed the pie and let it cool to room temperature.

This pie is best served chilled with freshly warmed marshmallows. Prepare this pie the night before or very early in the day to alot time for cooling...
Allow the pie to cool thoroughly; then place the pie in the refrigerator for 3 hours or over night.

Despite the hold-ups and a little bit of cheating on the instructions - the pie was incredible. So delicious and so vacant of any processed foods (san marshmallows!). The ingredients DID NOT include sugar except what was in the dates and honey! Another successful Pie of the Week.

The party we attended was pretty fantastic, too! The treats were especially fun:

Potato Brains!	Mummy Dogs!	Baby Burrito!

A Pie You Set on Fire

Apparently the Northend cousins have an affinity for the same nautical themed spirits - namely Sailor Jerry's (and NOT Captain Morgan's - blegh). Matt and I discovered Sailor Jerry's in the midwest (far away from any bodies of water) when we accidentally missed some obscure "blue law" window for alcohol purchases at the grocery store. We were looking for Bicardi Black - a spiced rum with a high enough proof to light on fire - for a surprise dessert for my mom and dad who were on vicarage there in Kansas. We managed to find a liquor store willing to sell some of their stock just before closing but no Black was to be found! What ended up going home with was better tasting than anything I've ever lit on fire before.

This pie was a serendipitous combination of last-minute Pie-of-the-Week cooking and last year's nectarine harvest. Mamma Sheean had sent us home from our visit last weekend with a big box of vegetables and huge vacuum sealed bag of frozen nectarines. I was determined to use them in a pie, but my Pie book doesn't have any nectarine recipes. In keeping with my unique-pie pursuit, I tried Googling different nectarine recipes and came up with a "Cajun Nectarine Pie" - but the only spice every iteration of the recipe called for was cinnamon. Yum! But boooooorrrrriiinng. With the nectarines almost completely defrosted on the counter top, I was running out of time to make a decision.

And that's when the bottle of Sailor Jerry's toppled from the cabinet onto my head. INSPIRATION STRUCK! Well... that would have been the ideally dramatic way of inspiration striking - but truth be told there was simply a very large bag dark brown sugar sitting next to the sink BELOW the open cabinet with Sailor Jerry's inside NEXT to the melting nectarines which had somehow ended up next to lighter. True story.

With "cajun" still in my mind, I found myself wondering if Bananas Foster had ever been Nectarine Foster... and then, of course, if anyone had ever put it in a pie... and VIOLA!

Danica's Nectarine Rum Pie.

(If this gets famous, I'm makin sure my name is in the title!)

ingredients:
4 lbs of frozen nectarines (the juices will cook off and diminish the weight)
1 c of firmly packed dark brown sugar
1/2 c, 2 Tbsp of butter
4-5 shots of Sailor Jerry's (or spiced rum of 90 proof + 1 tsp of vanilla + tsp of nutmeg + 1 tsp of ground cardamom)
1 partially baked bottom pie crust shell
1 unbaked top pie crust
*2 Tbsp lemmon
*2 Tbsp of flour

In a nutshell:

I started by draining off all the water from the frozen nectarines. I didn't squeeze the juices off, but drained them pretty throughly and saved about 1 cup for later.

I browned a 1/2 cup of butter in a large 12" sauce pan and added the brown sugar and the nectarines, sautéing as best I could and adding juice as I saw fit to keep things moist and create a syrup, over about 5 minutes.

I continued adding juices as I needed to as well as an extra 2 Tbsp of butter, and stirred the mixture while things started to caramelize.

(NEXT TIME I made this pie I will sautee the nectarines without the brown sugar.)

When the consistency was such that I could scrape the nectarines and juices with a spatula and reveal the clean bottom of the pan for a few seconds I removed the pan from heat and spread the nectarines evenly over the surface. Then I added about 2.5 shots of Sailor Jerry's over the entire surface and lit it on fire! When the fire died out (after about 3 minutes), I stirred the mixture and repeated with another 2 shots.

Then I added 3 tsp of cinnamon and 1.5 tsp of ginger while I let the mixture cool, just a bit, before putting it into a partially baked pie crust.

I botched placing my top crust & added sprinkled brown sugar which ended up looking burnt =/

I also didn't rotate the pie half-way and burnt it a smidgeon.

I topped the pie with new, uncooked crust, poked some holes and stuck it in the oven for 20 minutes at 400 degrees and broiled on high for an extra 3 minutes to brown the top crust.

I highly recommend Sailor Jerry's over any other spiced rum!! It has hints of vanilla and cloves that compliment the simply spices added by hand so very wonderfully.

It tasted PHENOMENAL.

*Next time, I want to add 2 Tbsp of flour to the caramelized mixture just to give it a tiny bit more body, although.... the nectarines were super juicy and soft because of their previously frozen state. I imagine fresh ones will require that flour. I would also recommend adding 2 Tbsp of lemon juice in this stage - I didn't have any, but I imagine that it would really bring out a wonderful gingery pucker with the incredibly sweet nectarines.