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Archive for August, 2012

A Tale of Two Pies

I ate the best beef of my life last week at 131 Main in Cornelius (NC) – another bon voyage whoopdedo for Dora the Explorer. I ordered the Thai Style Steak Salad and expected the usual chewy beef bites that bite back. But these were like butter — tender, sweet and with a distinctive flavor. I found out later from the manager that the beef  with the Asian noodles, cabbage, mint, fresh avocado and mango was trimmed from filets mignon. Beef bites, in other words, that relate to the usual as Dame Maggie Smith,  to Britney Spears.

Of course, what I photographed was the mile-high peanut butter pie that I shared with Stoic the Vast. Even though he wasn’t crazy for the cinnamon in it, I was, and I also loved the crunchy nuts in the crumb crust. What a meal, what a meal!

Peanut butter pie drizzled with chocolate and buried beneath an avalanche of real whipped cream at 131 Main.

We heard from Dora in Tanzania this morning, saying that she was on her way to another island near Zanzibar this afternoon, getting to know her 17 classmates. And she’s supposed to be home Dec. 15, the day “The Hobbit” opens.

I saw the first aster blossom yesterday; we have fewer hummingbirds and the goldfinches are stocking up for winter among the sunflowers. Fall will come, and we’ll drink cocoa and use blankets at night.

The gang’s all here for lunch, including Pearl the puppy and Ariel the black cat. That’s a harlequin glorybower shrub next to them.

Last week we  had another bon voyage party with old friends from the newsroom, Dora and her friend, who’s just back from a year in Russia. We had tomato pie, Molly Katzen’s Szechuan green beans, green peppers stuffed with scalloped sweet corn (a Mayo Clinic heart-healthy recipe), the Silver Palate’s zucchini bread, ice cream sandwiches with fresh raspberries and lots o’ wine, including a bubbly toast to these two adventuresome young citizens of the world.

I couldn’t find my Presbyterian cookbook when I was ready to make the tomato pie so I used the Episcopalian one. Mistake. For once, the Episcopalians held back more than the Frozen Chosen (I can use that expression because I am one.) The Presbyterian recipe has more basil and tomatoes and even though I’m showing you a picture of one I made, the other is better. I promise.

The Presbyterian pie, like so much in our church, depends on your ability to wait. Give it 15 to 30 minutes to “set” after you remove it from the oven, and it will be firm and cheesy, not tomato-juicy.

Edie Holland contributed this Fresh Tomato and Vidalia Tart to our church’s 250th anniversary cookbook, “Fourth Creek Meeting House Encore (2003). And it’s worth it, by the way, to look for  a Vidalia onion — they’re almost always significantly sweeter than other yellow onions.

Fresh tomato and vidalia tart

1 refrigerated pie shell

8 ounces cheese, shredded (I used Cheddar — a touch of blue would be good, too, or Swiss or Havarti)

2 tablespoons fresh basil, cut into thin strips with scissors

4 medium-size ripe tomatoes, peeled, seeded, sliced and drained for 15 minutes

1 large onion sliced

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1/4 cup good-quality olive oil

Heat oven to 400.° Fit pie shell into tart pan. Sprinkle cheese over crust and top with basil shreds. Arrange tomato and onion slices over cheese. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil. Bake 30 to 40 minutes. Serves 8.

Our daughter’s friend says even the Episcopalian version of the southern tomato pie is “insanely delicious.”

Category:

healthy cooking, Pie, Seasonal food, Tomatoes

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Stoic the Vast and Dora the Explorer; Tomato-cornbread salad

Here’s the thing: A whole lot of stuff does not matter once you get past, say, the quarter-century mark. My husband, Stoic the Vast, thinks that applies to everything (that it doesn’t matter), but he’s wrong. Some things do matter, just not the way people behaved in your high school class 50 years ago.

My classmates Mary and Barb and Mary’s 94-year-old mum, Elizabeth.

As Stoic likes to remind me, our brains aren’t fully formed until we’re in our mid-20s so when we were 16, 17 and 18, we were pretty much idiots. Actually, it seems like I must have been rather a rude idiot because there were more than a few women who looked at me sideways with no love at all. I obviously dismissed them as not important and must still because I don’t remember any of their names after spending 4 days with them last week. A whole lot of my classmates are a whole lot nicer than I am and, consequently, seem to have a whole lot more fun. Hmmmmm.

The woman on the back of whose neck I wrote  with ballpoint pen is still friendly, who knows why? Which is good because I liked her then and enjoy her mordant wit now.

My entire reunion experience was a lot like Liz Lemon’s on “30 Rock” according to our youngest, Dora the Explorer. Most of my classmates thought Stoic was in our class and liked him a lot, and I found out I, too, was not especially nice unless it suited me. Hmmmm.

I think now, after those 4 days and driving about 1200 miles, that my family and the times were more to blame for my unhappiness than my classmates. As Stoic told me every time we went anywhere in a bunch, “These are some really nice people.”

We had just over 100 in our Class of ’62. Twelve have died, and yet 69 came back so that was most of us.  Stoic is very fond of the food in central Pennsylvania, and we ate a lot of it.

Thursday dinner through Sunday brunch I managed my eating. Once we got in the truck Sunday midday, though, all bets were off. I ate too much on the road and then again Monday but pulled myself back up onto the wagon on Tuesday with no great damage done. When I overeat, I not only don’t lose weight, I feel lousy, too. Slowly, slowly, it is dawning on me that I do myself no favors over-eating and under-sleeping.

I walked in Pennsylvania and have walked since at home. I’m getting ready to go yank weeds for an hour. I’ve entered my calorie and water intake on livestrong.com. The reunion was not the end of my taking care of myself but, I hope, a lengthy beginning.

And with Dora about to leave for four months in East Africa, my world feels like a friendlier place.

We came home to wheelbarrows-ful of tomatoes and there’s nothing better you can do with them than this allrecipes.com salad. Recipe says it makes 10 servings, but that would be 10 servings for mice only, not hungry persons. The avocado and the cornbread combined make something celestial.

Tomato-cornbread salad with avocado and cilantro

5 cups 1/2-inch cornbread cubes

1-1/2 pounds tomatoes, stemmed, skinned, seeded and cut into medium dice

Salt to taste

2 garlic cloves, minced

1/2 red onion, cut into small dice

1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

2 avocados, cut into medium dice

1/4 cup olive oil

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

Ground black pepper to taste

Heat oven to 250°. Place cornbread cubes on rimmed cookie sheet; bake until bread dries out, about 30 minutes, then set aside to cool. Salt tomatoes, stir in garlic and let stand until juicy, about 30 minutes. Drain off liquid. Toss onion, cilantro, avocado, olive oil and vinegar with tomatoes. Add pepper and adjust salting. Add bread; toss. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

And to think I’ve never liked cilantro before this summer!

 

Category:

Aging, Handling anxiety without food, Maintaining weight loss, Salad, Summer salads, Warrior Run High School Class of '62

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Off to see the wizard, bacon-herb cupcakes

Well, it’s here — reunion time. Can I hang onto myself, my grownup self, in the midst of all this nostalgic whoop-de-do?

I don’t remember a half century ago through a scrim of fondness. Life at home was such that I remember thinking, I wish I could feel something, anything! (It was much safer not to. We held our collective breaths, waiting for my father’s next explosion.)

This instant I’m a perfect blend of anxiety and anticipation, sort of a snapshot of my entire life. “Why don’t you ever expect things to turn out well?” asked my friend Cathy C., millenia ago in the Charlotte newsroom. Why indeed? Odds are usually at least even that they might.

Like Huckleberry Hound, with whom I share this house, I find it difficult, if not impossible, to just imagine having fun.

But I was taught, carefully taught, that doom is in the unknown, lurking in the corners with the dust bunnies. Color outside the lines, and catastrophe pounces. And now I’m trying to unteach what can only be called an old, tired and gloomy dog. In the mornings, with the days in front of her, she’s more receptive and less likely to succumb to the voices urging her to eat and feel “happier.”  Which means less strife-torn.

In the mornings I feel as though I can handle what’s on my list. By late afternoon, things have generally skidded beyond my control, and I’m playing computer solitaire to numb the anxiety. It’s less fattening than muffins but every bit as much a drug.

But  I’m going to see if I can will myself to look forward to the unknown. The puppy’s at the spa (mid-size suite with privacy walls), I’ve picked out my clothes and picked up my new glasses. Tomorrow I just have to grab the blueberry muffins and bacon cupcakes from the freezer and put them in a cooler for Friday morning’s coffee. The bacon cupcakes are best right out of the oven — maybe next time I make them I won’t be 500 miles away from where we’re eating them. (This is a Southern Living recipe, by the by, guaranteed good and not diet food.)

Bacon-herb cupcakes

1-1/2 cups sour cream

1/2 cup cooked, finely crumbled bacon

1/2 cup (1 stick) melted butter

1/4 cup finely chopped assorted fresh herbs (I used thyme, chives, oregano, sage and Texas tarragon)

2 green onions, chopped

1/2 teaspoon pepper

2 cups self-rising flour

6 ounces cream cheese, softened

Heat oven to 375°. Stir together sour cream, bacon, butter, herbs, onions, pepper. Stir in flour, only until blended. Spoon batter into lightly greased miniature muffin pans, filling

Verbena bonariensis, re-seeds and pops up everywhere.

Spangled fritillary on verbena. It’s irresistible to butterflies.

cups completely full.

Bake for 26 to 28 minutes or until golden brown. Remove cupcakes from pans to wire rack and cool. Spread or pipe tops of cupcakes with cream cheese. Garnish with additional minced herbs and crumbled bacon if desired. Makes 32 mini-muffins.

Category:

Baking, Breakfast-brunch, Food addiction, Handling anxiety without food

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Upside-down cake starts the weekend off right

Some of our sunflowers have as many as 20 flowers on a stalk.

The days dwindle down but not the garden. More and more and more tomatoes and peppers find their way into huge piles — like highway department de-icer in the winter — on the dining room table.

I made a thick, sweet pasta sauce today (7 pounds tomatoes in 4 servings sauce) that tastes of tomatoes, a few fresh herbs and the echo of garlic only. I made 2 quarts of applesauce last night, and that’s using only a fraction of the  hard little apples out there on the tree, hard little apples that have a big taste when simmered with cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla and a pinch of salt. I also made a Deborah Madison summer squash soup with curry spices today, and it, too, has a big, sweet flavor, exotic and round without tasting anything like commercial curry powder.

But Friday was baking with summer fruit day. I made a peach-raisin-almond crisp and froze it for when the youngest is here in a week or so, and I also made a nectarine-plum upside-down cake from a King Arthur flour recipe. My husband Livermush would like one every week, please, from now on. He loves cake and this has a sweet, moist cake holding up a layer of soft, carmelized fruit in stained-glass colors.

King Arthur Flour fruit upside-down cake

Topping

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter

1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed

1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

As much sliced stone fruit as it takes to cover an 8-inch-square baking pan (24 to 28 ounces)

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

Cake

1-1/3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (I use, you guessed it, KAF)

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1-3/4 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons butter

1/2 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 large egg.

Topping: Melt butter and mix with brown sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon. Spoon mixture into ungreased 8-inch-square baking pan. Heat over to 375.°

Cake: Slice nectarines 1/4-inch thick. Lay slices in prepared pan and sprinkle with lemon juice. Set aside.

In large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar, then beat in milk, egg and vanilla. Mix together flour, baking powder and salt, then stir into egg mixture. Gently pour batter over fruit in pan.

Bake cake for 45 minutes or until cake begins to pull away from side of pan and springs back from touch. Remove from oven and cool for 5 minutes in pan on rack. Invert pan onto serving platter and let it sit 1 minute more before removing pan. If any fruit sticks to pan, carefully scrape it off and replace it on cake. Serve warm with whipped cream or ice cream. Making 6 to 8 servings.

A simple buttery cake is the base for caramelized summer fruit slices.

Category:

Cake, Desserts, Fruit, vegetables

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