Heal My Life

Yes - We Have Some Bananas!

I got virtually no work-work done today, which is sort of a shame since I have so much of it to do, but I did work - on BAKING!   I made a banana butterscotch pudding and a blueberry cherry pie.  YUM!  Seriously, I wish I didn't have to work, I'd bake all day.  And knit, I'd bake and knit all day.  And read, well anyway, you get the idea.

Yesterday we picked a handful of sour cherries from a tree gone wild at the side of our road.  I don't know what I was thinking except that I wanted to make cherry crisp, which I've made a couple of times from cherries from the farmer's market so I preheated the oven to 350.  Clearly though, I would need more than the handful I had.  And they were little tiny cherries to boot. Trader Joe's to the rescue!  I had a bag of frozen wild blueberries, which I added to the tiny pile of cherries in the pot.  There, now I had enough berries for a pie.  I added sugar, a teaspoon of cinnamon and a splash of Cointreau and cooked it up.  When it was bubbling, a added about a tablespoon of cornstarch dissolved in cold water.  Voila - cherry-blueberry, or to be more precise - blueberry-cherry pie filling! 

I pulled a pie shell out of the freezer, ( I HATE to make pie crust.  I can, and it's pretty good, but I intensely dislike the entire process - hence the frozen shell) prebaked it a bit and glazed the inside with egg white.  Then I turned the oven to 400 and made some crumbs:

1 cup flour
1 stick room temp butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup brown sugar 
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans if you like them, (I left them out because I was too lazy to go into the fridge again)

Blend the dry ingredients, cut the butter into the flour mix until incorporated and roughly crumbly.

Crumble and pinch the crumbs in largish pieces over the top of the pie.*

Pop it in the oven and bake until nicely browned, about 35 minutes in my oven.**

* If you want your crumbs to really keep their form, crumble/press them into the size pieces you want, then pop them into the freezer to chill for about ten minutes.  They'll hold they're shape nicely.  I was just too lazy and wanted to get downstairs and paint the guest room.

** The pie filling is already cooked, and the shell is also partially baked, so you really only need to brown it up,.  Hence the short baking time.

Now for the Banana Butterscotch Pudding.  Again, it's all about Trader Joe's for this one. 

3-4 very ripe bananas
1 tub of Ultimate Vanilla wafers from Trader Joe's. (You can use Nilla Wafers if you don't have a Trader Joe's near you, but trust me - it's worth a drive to get them)
1 recipe David Lebovits' butterscotch pudding*

Make the pudding * but DO NOT bring it to a rapid boil as his recipe tells you to - if you do - you'll curdle the eggs.  Make it like you do all pudding, Simmer it slowly and gently, stirring almost constantly until thickened.  Still in the pot, put it aside.

Line a two quart casserole with vanilla wafers, add a layer of sliced bananas, pour on half the pudding, repeat the layers ending with pudding.  Decorate the top with cookies if you wish, cool and refrigerate till firm.

Old fashion yum! and pretty darn easy to boot!  
  

   

Sometimes it works...

and sometimes it doesn't.  My first attempt at a Blitz Torte looked like something destroyed in a, well, in a blitzkreig.  It looked nothing like it's photo in Pie in the Sky, or the one Nigella made that was shown on the NPR site.  I was going to take a photo of it when it was assembled to show that it really did look presentable if a bit lumpy, well, a LOT lumpy.  But it didn't last that long - it tasted AMAZING.

Nigella's

Mine:

I know what happened, and will do it again, but from Nigella's .

And see Fran - I screw up ALL the time!

Torrone Torrment

So I got this brilliant idea: I would make Torrone for my daughter's visit.  Torrone, for those of you who are not Italian or who have not been to Italy, is a yummy, white, Italian Honey Nougat chock full of toasted almonds.  We've bought it many times made by many different companies and both Chan and I can't get enough of it really like it. 

So I thought - hey, why the heck not - I'll make some for her visit. The December issue of Gourmet magazine had a recipe and I've made pretty much every kind of candy there is, so how hard could this be.  A cinch.  This is what happened: first, I burned the sugar/honey mix trying to get it to 310 degrees at 7000 feet. then I dropped the thermometer in the boiling syrup.

It was all downhill from there.

Finally, I refused to put two cups of pistachios into a "caramel" torrone that I was sure no-one was going to eat. Chan took a pistachio, dipped it into the caramel nougat in the pan and said "Hey, this isn't half bad".  So we poured the nuts on top.  And she was right - it was pretty good.

Even though my nicely cut oblongs oozed into patties, and they were an interesting shade of beige, everyone ate them anyway.

   

Buche de Noel

This is the other thing I baked for Christmas.  I've not always had positive experiences with sponge cake, so needless to say - I was just a tad leery of undertaking this project at altitude regardless of whether I had THE cookbook or not.  My fears were completely unfounded however, and the spongecake worked out perfectly; it was tender, and springy enough to result in NO CRACKS!  It was also delicious!

The filling is whipped cream with a tablespoon of Frangelico, vanilla and half a cup of  crushed toasted hazelnut praline (which I made and also used for the "sawdust" on the plate).  the frosting was a chocolate buttercream, which I wasn't crazy about (ever so slightly grainy and too sweet) though it was easy and took about three minutes.  I opted for that since I was too tired from this darn cold which I can't seem to shake, to deal with the chilling and beating and blah blah blah of ganache.  Fortunately the guests didn't seem to notice.

I did, however, have issues with the meringue mushrooms.  Those babies erupted in the oven giving my caps a vaguely volcanic appearance.  Sheesh.  I should have realized that our dry air would dry the outsides faster than the insides could  expand.  Next time: lower heat, shorter bake, and overnight dry.  I pasted the tops and stems together with a little melted chocolate (white and semi-sweet mixed)

So the book? Pie in the Sky, absolutely a must if, like me, you're baking at over 2500 feet.  I won't reprint the recipe for the cake since every altitude is different.  I did follow the cake recipe to the letter.  Well, practically, except that I added extra salt, extra vanilla and a teaspoon of chocolate extract to pump up the flavor.  It's really hard to follow the instructions to the letter - you know?

PS. and the cocoa did wash right out of the tea towel!

So What's New?

I know I've been a bad blogger, it's been weeks since my last post.  Here's what I've been doing: 

Yesterday, in preparation for a Thanksgiving feast for, which I'll be making desserts, at my friend Scout's house, I baked pate a choux or cream puff shells.  And lo and behold, not only did they RISE, but they rose HIGHER than they ever did for me at sea level.  YAY!!!  I didn't even have to alter the recipe.  How awesome is that.  I'd have taken pictures but Anthony and I ate them, which is sort of too bad because they really were pretty.  They ended up getting filled first with tuna for lunch, and then some leftover chocolate custard and almond creme anglaise for dessert.  YUM!  The shells really are very easy to make; don't be intimidated by the French.  There is a fab recipe and step by step instructions complete with photos here.

This past weekend, A and I drove to Farmington, NM, which is in the four corners, for a Fiber Fest to vend Heal My Hands.  No one came.  I'm not kidding - really - no one came.  They missed a year and didn't advertise in the right places, and so no one came.  We made did okay with Heal My Hands, all of the fifty or so people who showed up and most of the vendors bought from us, but I felt terrible for the other vendors - and there were some great people with wonderful yarn and roving (which I did NOT buy because my spinning wheel is STILL not here)!   

I did buy some of the most gorgeous yarn I've ever touched from Elsa Wool Company.  It's cormo from her own flock and it's as soft as a cloud.  I bought both worsted and woolen spun,natural colors in sport and worsted weights.  I wound one skein into a ball last night for socks.  I can't wait to get it on the needles!

Saturday night, after a yummy seafood salad at Red Lobster and a movie in bed at the hotel, my tooth started to hurt.  It got worse through the night and by Sunday morning I was pretty much in agony.  We went to the show but only ended up staying for a couple of hours.  The four hour ride home via Rt 505 took us through some beautiful scenery.  If I hadn't been rocking in pain - I'd have taken more photos, but here's one so you get the idea.  Anthony found a dentist in Santa Fe, Dr. Cho, who met us in his office and started a root canal for me at 7 pm on a Sunday night.  Who say's there are no such things as Angels? 

So my tooth is better now.  The chickens have been doing okay, and we only had a couple of mild scares.  One Feather and one of our red girls have what seems like a head cold.  We're giving them medication and hopefully they'll be better soon.  One of the male peacocks seems to think that perhaps our girls would make fine mates, so he has been preening and shaking his big tail at them whenever he thinks of it.  They seem less than impressed and just appear worried that maybe he'll take their food.

On the knitting front, I have not had much time to knit lately, but I'm almost finished with the veldt shawl. I ran out of Louisa Harding Sari Silk in #20 halfway though a row last night so I have to order more before I can move on.  I also did two baby socks from Cat Bordhi's New Pathways for Sock Knitters: Book One, link is in my sidebar, and believe me that book is AWESOME!  If you knit socks you NEED to have this book.  It'll change the way you think about knitting socks forever. 

The little sock on the left, is a Coreolis, which is an amazing way of increasing around the sock starting at the outer instep and curving up and around the foot and ankle.  There are NO gussetts!  It is truly amazing and you just have to se it and the other sock architectures for yourself to understand just how brilliant Cat is.   

And last, but by far not least, my daughter just sent me pictures of the cake she made for her company's Holiday Cake contest!  The winner gets a day off WITH PAY!!!!  he's won two years in a row - I'm keeping ALL my fingers crossed for her this year.  The cake inside the sled is a Martha Stewart Coconut cake recipe which she said is delicious.  The sides are gingerbread, and the gifts are dark chocolate fudge, dipped in tinted white chocolate with a fondant bag and bows.  And she did this with three kids, three cats a dog and no help!  She's so good!

So I'm off to the post office (which is another hideously painful and frankly unbelievable story that I'll save for another time) to ship orders.  And I promise to be a better poster.  Really.

      

Plum Almond Upside Down Cornmeal Cake

May I have a drum roll please.  TA DA!!! I'd like to announce a new category - Baking at Altitude - 7000 Feet!  I can't say I was looking forward to this new challenge to my baking skills.  Okay, so I was terrified.  I'd read all the horror stories of tried and true recipes that flopped spectacularly at altitude and rendered the bakers tearful at least and hysterical at worst.  I'd also heard that some bakers had thrown up their hands and given up the craft completely, preferring, in our local case, to buy their baked goods at the Cloud Cliff Bakery.

So it was not without a few jangly nerves that I picked up the whisk, flour and eggs; which by the way we bought at the Santa Fe farmers market, free range, and ungraded from a local farmer and his Aracauna hens and they were BLUE AND GREEN! And I made three first attempts. 

First was a recipe I found on the Web for High Altitude Blueberry Cream Scones.  I was very nervous about adjusting my own recipes and thought I'd play it safe by using one someone else had fiddled with.  I should have known better.  They were OK, but the texture was more muffin-like than scone-like, a bit airy and not to my taste. 

My second attempt was at Joe Froggers.  For anyone who isn't from New England, and Marblehead, Massachusetts more specifically, Black Joe's Joe Froggers are enormous molasses spice cookies with a good dose of rum and a generous spoonful of salt.  They're wonderful  and I used to love to have them for dessert at the Bear Mountain Inn in New York back when my kids were small and we lived in Bear Mountain State Park.  I don't know what made me think of them after all these years, but I suddenly got a yen for that spicy, mollassasy flavor  and I wanted to try them at altitude. 

They came out wonderfully - I adjusted a recipe I got from the Cooks Country website and whipped up a batch.  I still have some dough and will bake more and take photos hopefully tomorrow so I can post the recipe for you all (I used a different recipe than the one in the article).  That brings me to yesterday's attempt: The Plum Almond Upside Down Cornmeal Cake.

This recipe is a riff on one I found on the Food Network for Skillet Pineapple Upside-down Cake.  I had bought some beautiful plums at the Farmer's Market and wanted to use them for a frangiapane tart - but you know how that goes; I've had cornmeal on the brain since I got here and so the plums picked up on my little mind game and decided they wanted to be on cornmeal.  Besides, I'd always wanted to bake a cake in an iron skillet and had just become the proud owner of a two pan Lodge Set courtesy of Costco Albuquerque.  How could I say no?  So here's what I did.  I took the original recipe:

Pineapple Upside-Down Cornmeal Cake 
Recipe courtesy Alton Brown, 2004
Show:  Good Eats
Episode:  True Grits
Altitude: Sea Level

Ingredients

3/4 cup whole milk
1 cup coarse ground cornmeal
4 ounces unsalted butter
8 ounces dark brown sugar, approximately 1 cup
6 slices canned pineapple in heavy syrup
6 maraschino cherries
1/3 cup chopped pecans, toasted
3 tablespoons juice from canned pineapple
3 whole eggs
4 3/4 ounces all-purpose flour, approximately 1 cup
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 3/4 ounces sugar, approximately 3/4 cup
1/2 cup canola oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a microwave-proof dish, bring the milk to a boil. Remove the milk from the microwave and add the cornmeal. Stir and let soak at room temperature for 30 minutes. Set aside.

Melt the butter in a 10-inch cast iron skillet over medium heat. Once the butter has melted, add the brown sugar and stir until the sugar dissolves, about 5 minutes.

Remove the skillet from the heat and carefully place 1 slice of pineapple in the center of the pan. Place the other 5 slices around the center slice in a circle. Place the cherries in the centers of the pineapple slices and sprinkle the nuts evenly over the fruit. Drizzle pineapple juice over top.

Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a medium mixing bowl and whisk to combine.

In a separate mixing bowl, whisk the eggs. Add the sugar to the eggs and whisk to combine. Add the canola oil and whisk. Add the cornmeal and milk mixture to the egg mixture and whisk to combine. Add this to the flour and stir just until combined. Pour the batter over the fruit in the skillet and bake for 40 to 45 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool for 30 minutes in the skillet. Set a platter on top of the skillet and carefully invert the cake. Serve.

And modified for 7000 feet, and my choice of fruit of course:

Plum Almond Upside Down Cornmeal Cake 
Adapted from recipe courtesy Alton Brown, 2004
Altitude: 7000 Feet

Ingredients

3/4 cup +3 tablespoons whole milk
1 cup coarse cornmeal
4 ounces salted butter
1 cup - 2 tablespoons light brown sugar
12 - 18 small red or black plums, sliced in half lengthwise, pits removed
1/2 cup slivered almonds, toasted
3 tablespoons apple juice
3 whole eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 cup + 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup - 2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup canola oil

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

In a medium saucepan, bring the milk to a boil. Remove the milk from the microwave and add the cornmeal and the apple juice. Stir and let soak at room temperature for 30 minutes. Set aside.

Melt the butter in a 10-inch cast iron skillet over medium heat. Place enough plums, cut side down, to fill the skillet.  Turn heat to low and simmer gently until the tops flatten and they begin to give off pink foam.  Remove the plums gently from the pan with the tines of a fork and place them on a plate.  Set Aside.  Add the brown sugar to the pan and stir until the sugar dissolves, about 5 minutes. Remove the skillet from the heat and carefully replace the plums, this time top side down in a circular pattern. 

Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a medium mixing bowl and whisk to combine.

In a separate mixing bowl, whisk the eggs. Add the sugar to the eggs and whisk to combine. Add the canola oil, vanilla and almond extract and whisk. Add the cornmeal and milk mixture to the egg mixture and whisk to combine. Add this to the flour and stir just until combined.

Place a sheet of aluminum foil on the bottom rack of the oven as the butter from the pan will drip over the sides.  It will save you a clean-up later. Pour the batter evenly over the fruit in the skillet and bake for 35 to 40 minutes. The melted butter will ooze up around the batter - don't fret about it - it all works out.

Remove from oven and let cool for 30 minutes in the skillet. Set a platter on top of the skillet and carefully invert the cake.  Sprinkle with toasted almonds.  This cake was wonderful with a good vanilla ice cream.  It would also be fabulous with a vanilla sauce - but I was too lazy and the cake smelled to good to take another minute to make it.         

And it came out beautifully!  The interesting thing about it all, was that the cake rose a good two inches above the edges of the pan (hence the butter drips).  I was a tad worried, but it sank back down very nicely as it cooled a bit.  Also, the cast iron pan kept a much more even temp around the edges of the cake and so there was virtually no peak in the center and no need for cake strips or trimming.  And the plums drifted a bit, which made for a slightly lopsided look (not sure why, perhaps the amount of butter allowed them to float around a bit under there). Nice. 

And for those of you at altitude who think that baking thing may just be possible, I'll tell you how I did it: I used this chart.  And it worked so well, that I bought the author, Susan G. Purdy's Book, Pie in the Sky. Oh, and by the way - the cake is delicious!