Easy as Pie Test Kitchen

Why I am not a famous food writer

I had a beautiful idea I'm sure many of you can relate to. I was going to start a weekly post with a recipe using fresh ingredients from the farmer's market for the week. Not only that, but, inspired by reading some old MFK Fisher food essays that involved a lot of walking around French markets, I was planning to walk to the farmers market to gather my food every week. It's been three weeks, and I've walked there once. I made a tomato pie that looked beautiful and tasted awful. And I left some decent vegetables in the fridge almost long enough to rot.

So much for that idea. It did spawn a different idea, though, when I looked into my refrigerator and thought, "Whatever will I do with all of these aging vegetables??" The answer? A really big pot of chicken and vegetable curry. Big, because there were just that many almost-rotten vegetables in the fridge. Hence, my new thread of posts, "What to make with last week's farmers market finds." The curry was excellent, with plenty left over for more than one lunch, so I will share:

Cauliflower, Chicken, & Yam Curry (with lots of other vegetables thrown in)
2 tablespoons oil, butter, or margarine
1 1/2 onions, chopped
1 tablespoon minced garlic
6 leaves basil
1-2 tablespoons curry powder
2 boneless skinless chicken breast halves, cubed
2 yams, peeled and cubed
1 head cauliflower
1 small yellow squash
4 cups chicken broth

Heat oil in a large soup pot. Saute onions and garlic 2-3 minutes, then add 1 tablespoon of the curry and 3 of the basil leaves. Cook, stirring, 1 more minute. Add the chicken and yams. Cook until chicken is at least starting to brown. Add the cauliflower, squash, and chicken broth. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to medium. Simmer for 15-20 minutes until yams are tender. Add remaining 1 tablespoon of curry powder if desired and the rest of the basil.

Easy as Pie video suggestions?

After some botched attempts, I am reconsidering making more Easy As Pie videos. What kinds of videos would you be interested in seeing? How-to cooking videos? Are there any particular kinds of recipes you want to know how to make?

 If you haven't watched my video for the Intuit contest yet, check it out.

Almond butter the right way--not for the weak of thumb

Since I'm on this anti-candida yeast diet, I pretty much eat meat, veggies, some nuts, and a few grains. No sugar (which rules out normal peanut butter) and even then peanuts are "not recommended" because they often contain mold. I eat almond butter on rice cakes a lot for breakfast. Filling, rich, and portable, but expensive! If you go through almond butter like I do, $7 for an 8-ounce jar adds up. So you can imagine that when I saw a 3-pound bag of almonds at Costco for $10, I thought, "Gee, I have a pretty good food processor. Almond butter can't be that hard to make." I read around online, and there are 3 basic steps to making almond butter:

1. Roasting the almonds
2. Grinding the almonds
3. Adding oil and salt

Most of the instructions I read said that almond butter is SOOOO much better if you blanch the almonds first, so of course I had to try it. Blanching almonds involves covering them with boiling water to loosen the skins, then peeling the skins off by hand, nut by nut. One recipe I found said it takes 5 minutes to peel 10-15 ounces of almonds. HAHAHAHAHA! It took me an hour and a half to peel the 10 ounces or so you see here. Maybe there's some magic trick to getting the skins loose enough so they just slip off, but I don't know what it is. If you actually do want to try this at home, find a good movie to watch first, or bribe your kids to peel the almonds for you.

I then roasted the naked almonds by putting them in the oven at 350 for 8 minutes on a baking sheet covered with foil. I also roasted some with the peel on just for a taste comparison. I put the blanched almonds in the food processor for about 7 minutes. I did not need to add oil to those--the butter was pretty creamy without it. I did add about 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt. I did the same to the almonds with skin, although I did need to add about 2 tablespoons of sesame oil to get that butter to be more creamy plus a little stevia extract. As always, a little stevia goes a long way, so taste as you add it.

The result? Lots of almond butter for about $5. You can compare the $7 jar size to the amount I made on the left. I'm guessing I made about three times as much butter for 2/3 the cost. Oh, and the almond butter from the blanched almonds is SIGNIFICANTLY tastier than the stuff with skins. The skins are kind of bitter. I'm pretty sure the store-bought stuff has skins in it, too. I bet if I tried to buy almond butter made from blanched almonds, it would be $15 for 10 ounces. It's labour-intensive, like that coffee processed by cats. So, really, I saved myself $15 or so. Hm. I'm still trying to explain the benefits to my blistered thumb.

Introducing Easy as Pie's Perfect 10!

This is the first in a series of meal recipes that cost less than $10 and take less than 10 minutes of active time to make, with 10 or fewer ingredients. If you're busy like me (and who isn't these days?), these are the perfect dinner solutions!

This week, Tuscan Pork & Beans with Steamed Carrots for $9.55

This recipe does require thinking ahead a little, but still doesn't actually take much time over the stove to prepare. There are a couple of options with the pork and beans. I'm calling the dish "Tuscan" because it has Italian seasoning in it. I went to a Mexican restaurant for lunch the very day I made this for dinner and realized their Olla Bean Soup with Carnitas was almost identical, with slightly different spices. So, you could use Mexican or Fajita seasoning and substitute cilantro for the parsley and voila: South of the border flair.

I recommend using dried beans. First of all, it's cheaper. Then there's the dirty little secret about beans--they don't make you nearly as gassy if you use dried beans and soak them overnight instead of using canned beans. I'm not a scientist, so I'm not sure why it works, but you can read some theories here and here. All I know is it works for me. If you're dealing with food intolerances like I am, you'll jump at the chance to, um, degassify your food as much as possible.

Tuscan Pork & Beans--$8.05
1 pound dried navy beans ($1.50) or 3 cans prepared beans ($5.25!)
1 pound boneless pork loin ($5)
2 tablespoons Italian seasoning ($.25)
2 bay leaves ($.20)
2 teaspoons salt
3 green onions, sliced ($.50)
1 tomato, chopped ($.50)
1 sprig parsley, chopped ($.10)

Soak the beans overnight covered in cold water. Drain them. Cover them with fresh water in a pot, and let them simmer for 30-40 minutes. Lay the pork at the bottom of a slow cooker pot. Pour the beans over it, along with the water you cooked them in. Add the Italian seasoning, salt, and bay leaves and stir. Cook on low heat 8-10 hours. Serve topped with tomatoes, green onions, and parsley.

Steamed Baby Carrots ($1.50)
1 pound bag baby carrots ($1.50)
butter or margarine

I like to use steamer bags to steam my veggies in the microwave. Just follow the directions on the bag (usually 5-6 minutes for a decent amount of carrots). Or you can use a steamer basket in a pan on the stove. Steaming keeps more of the nutrients in the vegetables than other cooking methods. Top the carrots with butter or margarine as you like, and enjoy!

The beginning of a life-long love

When I was in college, I spent a summer in the Loire Valley of France. I used most of my money getting there, so I couldn't go running to all corners of Europe each weekend like some of the other students. Fortunately for me, the valley had a chateau and a winery around every bend in the road. I had some Wal Mart hiking boots and an aching desire to see the chateaux on my own instead of in the massive tour groups that roamed the countryside. My host mother thought I was kind of strange, hiking every which way in my cheap boots when I could just take a bus. She was even more taken aback by my appetite, always muttering in amazement to herself over how much walking I did and how much I ate. I definitely cost her more than the average exchange student, being home for so many meals and eating so much at each one.

I convinced a fellow student to take a weekend hiking trip to some nearby chateaux, and we decided to visit a goat farm en route that she had heard of. The enterprising farmer had dubbed it an "etape gourmande", a place for tourists with discriminating palates to stop and eat. We found it a few hours later in the day than we expected to, arriving dusty, sweaty, probably smelly, and extremely hungry. Maybe my ravenous hunger enhanced the taste, but we ate what I remember as one of the best meals I've ever had. In any case, it sparked what has become a life-long love of goat cheese.

One of the dishes I had there was some sort of grilled goat cheese with pineapple. How they grilled the soft cheese, I do not know. It even had grill marks on it, but I still had to eat it with a spoon. Maybe the grill marks were painted on. Maybe I was hallucinating from the sun and heat. Whatever the case, I have not been able to successfully replicate the grilled dish. I have crafted this dish, however, in homage to my formative experience at the farm. I would never have thought of goat cheese as a dessert ingredient if it hadn't been for that meal. The honey really cuts the sharper flavor characteristic of the cheese and brings out the sweet and creamy undertones.

Pineapple & Goat Cheese Dessert
1 pineapple, peeled, cored, and sliced
1 8-ounce log of soft white goat cheese (usually
       labeled chevre)
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons almond milk, soy milk, or water
1 tablespoon flaxseed meal (optional)
2 tablespoons pistachio bits (optional)

Blend the cheese, honey, and milk in a food processor until the mixture is fluffy. (The flaxseed makes it a little fluffier and adds a bit of nutty flavor, but it is not essential to the recipe. If you do use it, blend it in the food processor with the other ingredients listed above.) Divide the pineapple slices between four plates. Put a dollop of cheese mixture on top of each serving and sprinkle it with pistachios.

Craving something breaded and fried?

  Photo by Photo Nouveau (her daughter loved these)

I was going to entitle this post "finger-poppin' good"--some kind of combination of popping things in your mouth with "finger-lickin' good," I suppose... But no, I did not, and hopefully my restraint is one of the reasons you are still reading this post.

I've de-allergified vegetarian cooking guru Deborah Madison's simple recipe for fried olives to make it safe for those of us who can't eat wheat or eggs. This is one of my favorite things to make when I'm expecting guests, and then finish eating them myself before they actually arrive. Hint: make sure you have twice as many olives as you think you'll need.

Fried Olives

1 tbsp flax, ground
3 tbsp water, warm
1/2 c. rice flour
1/2 c. oil
15-20 green olives (or black. or an assortment.)

Mix flax and water in a bowl. Have a separate bowl with the flour in it. Heat oil in a skillet. Dip each olive in flax mixture then flour, then drop into pan. Cook until flour just starts to brown on all sides. As olives are cooked, remove them from pan to a plate with a paper towel on it to cool a bit. Eat warm.

Easy as Pie needs a new logo

The logo my web designer threw together, which I LOVE, is too much like the one at myrecipes.com. I must say that I even like the Easy as Pie logo better than the one on myrecipes.com. But, myrecipes.com was there first, not to mention they're owned by a major national publication, so I'm hunting for a new logo. I hired a company to design one for me, and you can check out what they have put together here. I'm not crazy about any of them, and I particularly dislike the grandma logo. Fortunately, I can have the designer revise these many, many times. What do you all think? Any suggestions?

Cookies for me!

My copy of Cookies for Everyone arrived today. It claims to have 150 cookie recipes that are free of wheat, dairy, peanuts, tree nuts, egg and soy. Hopefully there are a couple with no sugar in them. I don't know, cause I haven't had a chance to look yet. Of course, I'm about to get on the plane to go to Ohio for the weekend, so I won't be able to try any recipes out just yet. I'll just taunt my rumbling stomach by reading them on the plane as they pass out snacks I can't eat...

Here's a chicken!

This chicken dish had a cameo appearance in my contest entry video in the Intuit small business grant contest. (No, it is not the same chicken. Ew. And no, I do not know whether I won. Winners will be announced June 4. Until then, just assume that my video was the most awesome.)

With only 5 ingredients and very little prep time, this impressive-looking meal is deceptively simple. Trussing a chicken and learning how to eat an artichoke can be a little intimidating if it's your first time doing either. (I've included instructional links for both below.) By the second or third time, though, you'll be an old pro and want to invite your friends over so you can demonstrate, along with your new magic tricks or maybe your trick knee. Plus, you'll probably become as addicted to artichokes as my husband and I have since we first ate some. Pop the chicken in the oven, throw the artichokes in the steamer, and have a little wine with your guests while you enjoy the smell of the chicken roasting. (I suggest "forgetting" to turn on the oven for half an hour and plying everyone with more wine when your realize your "mistake", but maybe then they won't be able to savor this lovely dish quite as well. Ah well, more for you.)

Roast Chicken with Artichokes & Mustard
1 2-3 pound whole chicken
1/3 cup dijon mustard
1/2 cup mayonnaise, or substitute
3 sprigs fresh rosemary
2 large or 4 small artichokes

Preheat the oven to 450°F. Rinse the chicken, then dry it very well with paper towels, inside and out. Truss the chicken. (Click here for my instructional video on trussing a chicken.) Put the chicken in a casserole dish or roasting pan. Roast until it is done 50-60 minutes or until a meat thermometer inserted in meatiest part reads at least 185. There is no need to baste the chicken or do anything else with it while it is roasting.

While chicken is roasting, chop the rosemary. Mix mayonnaise, mustard, and 1/3 of the rosemary. 30 minutes before the chicken is done, put the artichoke(s) in a steamer to cook for 25-45 minutes. (Instructions for how to cook and eat an artichoke can be found here.)

Remove chicken from oven and add remaining rosemary to juices at bottom of pan. Spoon the juices over the top of the chicken and allow to sit for 15 minutes, continuing to spoon juices over it every so often.

When serving, use the mustard sauce to spread on the chicken and as a dip for the artichokes.

If you are like me and you can't eat store-bought mustard or mayonnaise, try this quick substitution:

Mustard Sauce
7 ounces silken tofu
1-2 tablespoons ground mustard
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon curry powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon onion powder

Blend all ingredients in a food processor until smooth.