Gingered Lemon Pie for Pi Day

Shadow Puppet Pie Theatre!

Welcome to the Pi Day Post! Working with engineers and following Gesine's blog made me very excited about the possibilities for this day which honors... an irrational number.

Happily, Pi Day this year coincided with a Green-themed Potluck at work, so I wasn't forced to eat the whole pie myself. (Wouldn't that have been awful?)

What's so green about a lemon pie, you ask? Well, lemons are in season in winter, and ginger is easily frozen, making both of these organic choices great ones for this March (even though this winter has hardly earned its stripes). Add in the fact that I was using crushed Ikea ginger cookie leftovers and the final sweetened condensed milk can from a Costco raid a couple years ago, and it becomes also a thrifty and economical use of my pantry ingredients! Ah, happiness found. :-)

I was excited to use such a great recipe from Leah at So How's It Taste?, whom I met through the Food Bloggers' Cookie Swap last Christmas. She has crafted a pie with many layers of both lemon and ginger flavor, for a fantastic result! Her recipe follows, with my adaptive tweaks.

Gingered Lemon Icebox Pie
makes 8 servings 12 modest slices

Ingredients:

Crust
1 1/2 cups Trader Joe’s Triple Ikea ginger cookie crumbs (or gingersnap cookie crumbs)
1 tbsp. crystallized ginger
3 tbsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
6 tbsp. melted butter (could've done with 5 tbsp, I think)
Filling
1/2 cup 1/3 cup was fine fresh lemon juice (from 2 lemons, mailed from the backyard tree at home in California!)
2-inch piece fresh ginger, minced
3 egg yolks
1 (14 oz.) can sweetened condensed milk
zest from 1 lemon

1. For the crust, preheat oven to 350°F. Blend the cookie crumbs and the crystallized ginger in a food processor until well blended and no unappetizing chunks of the ginger remain. Transfer crumb mixture to a medium bowl and add the sugar and ground ginger; mix well. Add the melted butter and combine. Press into the bottom and up sides of a 9-inch pie pan. Bake 10 minutes. Let cool.

Down to the bottom after baking, cooling

Up the sides before baking...

2. For the filling, in a small saucepan add the lemon juice and minced ginger. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Remove from heat and let steep for 10 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, add the egg yolks to a medium bowl and whisk. Add the sweetened condensed milk and the lemon zest. Strain the ginger lemon juice mixture over the same bowl, pressing on the ginger to release its flavor (save to flavor tea). Whisk all ingredients until well combined.
4. Pour lemon mixture into baked pie crust. Bake at 325°F for 30-35 minutes, until filling is set. Cool at room temperature for 1 hour. Place pie in refrigerator and let set for at least 3 hours (I made mine 2 days in advance and it wasn't adversely affected). Serve chilled with a dollop of whipped cream, if desired.

The behind the scenes shots show my battle array:

From window to wall...

From wall to window!

And from this you can understand why each and every baking effort of mine results in a sinkful of dishes! From Left to Right: egg yolks being whisked, sink starting to fill, open can of sweetened, condensed milk, ginger-lemon juice mixture steeping on a burner, pie crust awaiting filling, zesting accomplished. Phew!

Lots of steps and utensils, but sooo worth it!

Did you make a pie for Pi Day??
Do you have advice about how to stop a cookie-crumb-crust from sliding down while baking?
Are you laughing at the size of my kitchen?

Let me know in the comments so I can laugh along. :-)

And make this pie. You won't be sorry.

where she admits Spring is here

What a disappointing winter...

The height of DC's snow: Shaw Recreation Center on Feb. 12th

I repeatedly humored the so-called winter weather, preferring to think that all the mild December and January temperatures presaged a violent dumping of snow to occur in mid-March or *gasp* end-of-April (birthday). But the climate appears not to have heard me. I think I can finally declare to myself that Spring (and temps in the 80s) are here to stay. Cue groaning about DC humidity here...

Unfortunately this gives me a good excuse to gripe about my running schedule as well. Progress in training this week has been irregular, and I am comparing myself to the early-peaking cherry blossoms in reproach. It's not ME! It's the CLIMATE!

That's okay, though. If I've learned one thing from my mature years, it is that one dip does not mean the end of the streak. No, we shall just go bumping along, like many other fearless creatives who are risking it all for their happiness.

Well, folks, it's been a tough week, with the runs falling a bit short, and having to face several goals that are not being met (pages written, healing accomplished, enlightenment achieved). One morning, I woke up decidedly against running. Daylight savings had it completely dark outside during my usual run time, and I was tired from the time change. I didn't want to run, so I decided...

To Bake.

That makes perfect sense, doesn't it? Maybe not. Well, it's like this: my body didn't feel like running, but my mind craved the satisfaction, the sense of accomplishment, that come from putting in the effort toward a worthy goal. So I made these cookies, from the blog, Coconut & Lime. They were pretty good. And I got to conduct a science experiment.

Ingredients:
6 oz semisweet chips

3/4 cup dark brown sugar
3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup old fashioned rolled oats
4 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoon five spice powder
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg, at room temperature*

Preheat oven to 350. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Add the egg, beat until fluffy. Add the flour, baking powder, salt, the spices and oatmeal. Mix until well combined. Fold in chips. Place tablespoon-sized blobs of dough on the lined cookie sheet about 1/2 inch apart and bake for 12-14 minutes or until they look "set" and the bottoms are just golden. Carefully remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

The experiment was this: you know how some cooks recommend you squash down the tops of drop cookies before baking? What's that about? Instead of Googling it, I did half spheres and half smooshed spheres of cookie dough and observed their behavior in their natural habitat.

Squished on the left, Round on the right

The smooshed spheres of cookie dough burned on the bottom faster than the regular spheres, which even got an extra minute in the oven. After combing the Googels extensively for 20 minutes, I found this article that stresses the amount of baking soda as key in how much a drop cookie will spread when baking (more soda, more spread). However, I'm having difficulty finding the cause of the tradition of flattening the drops of dough. Does anyone out there in Blog Land have an idea? Please let us know in the comments- your help would be much appreciated!

The cookies were gobbled up to general satisfaction, but it will be good to get back to running.

The First Tea Klatsch

I.e. 'you need to crack a few eggs... to make oefs en cocotte'

The undertaking of a new action brings new strength.

Euenus

How exciting it is to start out fresh!

This Tea Klatsch is another first, following on the heels of the Literary Tea, and I am totally jazzed about these initial successes!

Since I usually document the cooking and baking process with photos but can't do the same for the event-planning process, I will weave in the event steps here, alongside the I'm-sure-tantalizing food photos.

Who doesn't need maple-oat scones?

1) Identify the need

Having kept my ear to the ground during discussions with friends, I noticed that many of us were going through transitions, and were feeling the need to talk about it, get advice about it, vent about it, and/or hear about others' experience. So, how 'bout a party?

2) Come up with Idea to Pitch to Serve the Need

Since people are busy, and people going through transitions usually more so, I needed to come up with an idea for a gathering that would be fun and inviting, not just a happy hour or brunch in DC. Being me, I like themes, and this one was easy to see: transitions!

3) Organize and Invite

I chose to twist the traditional coffee klatsch idea to my purposes, creating a 'Tea Klatsch," and promising to bake some goodies. This turned into brunch as I let my imagination run away with me (usually a good thing). I used Google calendar for the email invitation again, even though it created some non-gmail address problems last time...

4) Prepare!

I combed my spreadsheet of waiting-list recipes the night before, honing in on the tab for breakfast, and easily landed on the Maple-Oat Scones from Smitten Kitchen. I followed her recipe almost exactly, except that I substituted an extra 1/4 cup of whole wheat flour for all-purpose, and didn't have space to roll out dough, nor a cutter to cut (plus I'm not good at this), so used the (patent-pending) ball-and-squash method for shaping.

Next I found a couple great resources online for how to plan a brunch, one at Smitten Kitchen itself, and a similarly witty one at A Dinner Party, a favorite blog. From the former I took the idea for latkes, but neglected to take her suggestion to make them ahead, since I was struggling with a cold and hoping it would go away. Oops. 

From the latter I struck on eggs for a balance of protein-- baked eggs seemed the least fussy. Found that recipe (also called 'oefs en cocotte' for those who like to get fancy) here. Didn't change anything except the cooking time, which was foiled by two late arrivals, hence 'shirred eggs' became basically hard-boiled. Ah well. Also, for those who have crappy baking pans like me: I couldn't make a bain-marie of 1 1/4 inches, so I set the timer for every 3 minutes to check if I needed to refill the water in the shallow pan so it didn't go dry. That worked out well.

The Latkes: Having gotten the idea for these from Smitten Kitchen, I was immediately drawn to making them because:

1) I never got my annual fix of latke fever last Hannukah and was still craving it

2) I had a sack of premium Dutch yellow potatoes rarin' to go (thanks, Trader Joe's)

3) they were not bread and not protein, so seemed to offer some balance to the brunch spread (if pressed, I would include them in the vegetables group)

My one hang-up? When I Googled the how-to's for latkes, starchier potatoes were recommended for crispiest results. Where the heck were Dutch yellows on the scale of starchiness? More Googling ensued. It turns out the company which produced the potatoes, Melissa's, had a recipe for latkes on their site. Bingo! I went back to following SK's approximate recipe, approximately doubling the ingredients. My ingredients included:

1.5 lbs dutch yellow potatoes, rinsed and grated (held in water-and-lemon-juice while preparing the rest)
1 large yellow onion, chopped finely
2 small fall apples, peeled and grated
the beaten egg from the scones plus another medium egg, + flour

salt and pepper

The teas chosen were again from Capital Teas, a purveyor now available in Dupont Circle: Caramel Toffee Pu-Erh, Love Affair (a rooibos), South Pacific (a flavored black tea), and Lemon Basil Oolong. No complaints, except that I need more tea strainers for this kind of thing!

The results?

 I think they speak for themselves.

Or at least the smiling faces might.

Going forward, I would:
1) do the latkes ahead of time as suggested and reheat in a medium oven
2) ditch the individual baked eggs and go for one big cheese souffle

In terms of non-food results, some of them remain to be seen, but it was oh-so-energizing to get such positive vibes and unconditional support from other gals facing their own tough decisions.
I look forward to checking in with them about the steps they are taking to reach their goals, and expect them to be checking in on me with mine as well!

Friends are best paired with food and dance

To celebrate our friend who was leaving the U.S. for 2 years to work in Beijing, we ate.

The venue was Smoke n Barrel, and it turned out to be a good bet, even as a dark horse candidate.

While there was this meat-stravaganza below to go into raptures over (as Jess did, with her high-powered camera flash), what got me was the dessert (duh): Bacon. Maple. Creme Brulee.

No photo evidence exists of this marvel because it was scarfed down so rapidly, but it was divine- salty + sweet, but also a mild creaminess contributing from both sides. Happy marriage, indeed.

A few days later, still celebrating the creme brulee, we blew the roof off of Saint-Ex, a great place for tasty cocktails, mediocre service, and a pretty good mix of tunes.

We found out that Whitney Houston had just died, but the DJ made no move of having heard the news. We danced on, unfazed. This was the last night, it had better be good!

My cast made its final appearance- here! photo evidence!- as we danced our tootsies off. Funnily enough, I came across a guy who had a mini-version of my cast on his wrist. We cast-bumped. Actually I just hope I didn't clock anybody accidentally.

We shimmied as fast as we could through the falling snow to this place, the amazing gas-station-cum-late-night-diner that Jess recommended, and boy, was she right. Fast Gourmet is its name, and way-above-average late night (read: bad for you) snack food is its game. I had the beer-battered eggplant. Yes, really. Check out the Chivito; word on the street is it rocks.

All in all, an amazing evening with great peeps.

Happy trails, Girl!

Creative Endeavor Year

 What a delicious last couple of days.

Beet greens rescued from limpness, crisped up with bacon goodness

With New Year's Eve on a Saturday and New Year's Day on a Sunday this year, some may have groused about losing days off work, but I made the most of the celebrations not being smooshed into a few tired late-night hours, only to be confronted with the office coffeemaker the next morning. Ha!

I successfully kick-started my Creative Endeavor Year! I've stated lately what I'm interested in, and how differently I want to orient myself, so you maybe have an idea what I'm talking about. No? Ok, then I'll go first with activities from the last few days, and then would you please chime in?

Lists. Yes, I made lists, in different places, on different-sized scraps of paper, and with overlapping topics. Maybe a little overzealous, but now I get to synthesize! Places I want to travel, places I might want to move, key areas of focus for my new work, my annual review, and goals. Totally exciting, right? Well it is for an introverted organizer.

Slowly Scrambled Eggs (you're allowed to zone out while scrambling!)

Writing. Yep- as the new tagline indicates, I'm going to let writing take up a lot more space in my life this year. The focus will be on this blog, as I navigate the transition, and on the novel, which will give me a product and some experience in creative process (little out of practice).

Outdoors. A long run, several moderate-length walks in the cool air- clearing the clutter that tends to clump onto my brain if I spend too much time inside. You know what I mean: meant-to-do's, errands, shoulda-coulda-woulda's. Unless these get out and on a list, they just hover over my shoulder and make me unproductive or regretful. For me, moving at some speed outdoors tends to banish these thoughts. I return refreshed, like my brain had been through a permanent press and spin-cycle!

Apple, cinnamon-sugar, and perhaps a little butter was involved

Back-to-Basics. Return-to-Roots. (I like alliteration, OK?) On NYE, I made my first loaf of bread in the bread machine I received for Christmas, and have been finding ways to appreciate the simple white slice since then. Today, I tried out my first batch of plain yogurt in the new yogurt-maker, and await the results tomorrow morning. While there are a lot of blogging cooks out there who know how to combine many beautiful exotic ingredients for amazing dishes, I like to take the more minimalist approach. Because really, life is what you make of it. So if you don't have pimenton de vera or spelt flour or fresh cilantro when the urge to create in the kitchen strikes, don't fret. Take what you've got, and figure out how to honor that. In fact, I think that'll be the philosophy for this Creative Endeavor Year.

Stale croissant, melted chocolate = uncomplicated souffle

I've been cooking pretty simply in the past month, both because of the desire for wintry comfort food and the need for something simply being enough. Call it an overworked metaphor if you like, but here are a few photos to inspire you to take a stab at this philosophy. Whatever you've got, honor that.

You may see several of the items listed in my Favorites List, which is no accident. What's on your List?

Let the New Year begin!

Happy New Year, faithful readers (and chance-encounter-ers, too)!

Are you excited about 2012? Are you weary already? Are you feeling guilty about not yet goal-making and resolution-listing? Or on this January 1, are you feeling bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and ready for anything?

All of the Above is, of course, an appropriate answer.

I've been on a bit of a buzz from recent changes, one obvious one to any observant folks out there being the blog's New Look. It's only a slight physical change, but behind it is a lot of thought about priorities, commitment, direction, ... you know, all that serious Life Stuff. I am hoping to rededicate myself to efforts I've defined or started, including:

the novel

the cooking and baking

the running and yoga

purposeful travel experiences

Plus, two new areas where I'm branching out in 2012:
educating myself on the business of NOT working for The Man (e.g. freelancing- two blogs which I've been keying onto in the past couple weeks for this are The Clear-Minded Creative and PuttyLike)
volunteering my skills for good causes (reinforced by Rose's sage advice!)

If you've got ideas you've thought about, or thoughts on how we bloggers set goals, feel free to leave them in the comments. I'm inspired by others' passionate efforts, and you just might get a buzz from sharing your positive intentions!

Best wishes for all of 2012.

This Week Recap(tured)

Hey All!

So I've had some downs in the past few weeks, feeling those ol' blues again. And they had a different feeling, a kind of 'I know this isn't based on anything specific, so I have to just try to wait it out" feeling, which doesn't do much when you are feeling powerless in general. I also started binge-eating, a new and not-good symptom. (Since when do I buy Hershey bars? That chocolate is half plastic!) Symptom of what? I'm trying to figure it out.
The icky feelings have mostly receded this week though (O Happy Day), thanks to a sick day on Friday.
Here was my attempt at getting out of the hole I'd dug on Wednesday evening:

It was a super simple recipe, which I'd settled on by searching lemon + pasta on supercook, a good website for inspiration, if not for the exact recipe you use. You plug in ingredients and it gives you possible recipes you can make from a number of cooking sites it searches for you- perfect! Just buyer, beware, it doesn't quality-test some of the search results...
I took this MS recipe (I don't like giving her name any more currency) as a base, and did what I wanted with it: no whole wheat spaghetti, but semolina linguine should work; parsley on the windowsill (first cut!) but not 1/4 c- oh well. It was kind of exciting to use parsley cuttings from the windowsill kit I got from Mom. :-) The parsley and chives seem to be acclimating, but sadly not the basil. It might be a little cold around here, even in a plastic greenhouse.

Fast forward to Saturday morning: I'd had the Friday to myself, I'd gotten a haircut (a real one!), and I was feeling better, more committed to getting back on track. I had Pink Lady apples wrinkling in the crisper, so I decided to make a fruit compote for breakfast, throwing in some chopped prunes (a la francaise), brown sugar, butter, 5-spice powder, cinnamon, and fennel seeds (My own improvisation, no recipe). You may deduce from the fact there is no picture that it went fast. But don't worry, it was enjoyed thoughtfully in two servings.

Next adventure: biscuits yesterday. I amassed a few potential recipes for something to bring to Book Club on Sunday, but reading through found that one of my frontrunners, Irish-American Sodabread Scones, should be made day-of because they get very dense and rock-ish after that. But I wanted to BAKE Saturday morning. So I made these Buttermilk Cheddar Jack Biscuits from the DC blog Cherry Tea Cakes.

Buttermilk Parmesan Biscuits

There they are, resting on our Book for February (we were a little late getting together on a date to meet), Arthur and George. Pretty good. I am looking forward to the discussion.
As always, I adapted: substituted 1/3 whole wheat flour, exchanged cheddar jack for parmesan (apparently the only cheese that does not go bad, and therefore I have 4 varieties of it still on my fridge shelf). I had one and a half of these before a dance class in the afternoon (which was great fun and had a great instructor), which is why for dinner you see one and a half below. Not a mouse. Just me.

The biscuits were joined on the plate by various leftovers cleverly (if I do say so myself) combined with others: spaghetti squash and beans (from the cinnamon-spiced red-and-black beans from the party, and I hope leftovers that last like that don't gross anyone out, ahem, Eileen) and the last lettuce leaves of a greenleaf head mixed with some bagged herb salad from TJs, tossed with homemade vinaigrette. It felt like the perfect proportions for what I needed.
Here's to recapturing more of what I need in the weeks ahead!

Check-in

WOW, a lot has been going on in my life. Sorry if anyone has been checking back hopefully only to be disappointed for MONTHS (sorry, Ginny). So here's a new post, about an exciting new addition to my kitchen!

Handcrafted Spice Rack, Made In USA

 For Christmas, my now-Certified-Contractor brother-in-law and my dad whipped up a spice rack to fit the specs for my little kitchen! It's great! And parts of it are cedar, so it's got a nice rosy hue. Best of all, it didn't even need Ikea-style directions. I just figured it out! I mean, one back, 3 shelf bases, and 2 sides, but still! So here's the "Before" situation:

My Creative interim solution

 And here's the area with a whole lot more counter space available for prep work!

With new spice rack

So there you have it, folks. My special new addition. When it takes so little to make me happy, why doesn't it happen more often, eh? Good question.
Next on the Agenda of Interesting Things today is a peek at my leftovers-filing/recipe-remembering system. As someone who does not want to waste food, I got into the habit of saving the half-cans of canned tomatoes or pureed pumpkin or sweetened condensed milk that I couldn't use all at once. Importantly, I labeled them so I would know what it was when I came upon it again (you'd be surprised how easy it is to lose something in a refrigerator and find it again-- hey! don't I know you?), and when it was made- my sniffer-test is not very well-developed.
For those of you who know of my similar limerence with paper products, you will not be surprised to learn that this is a great way for me to use scratch paper! I cut up a half-page of used copy paper into little slips, stick them on my fridge behind fun magnets, and when I need to label something, I've already got the cup of pens and the slip of paper in the kitchen, so I just need to get my Scotch tape from the bedroom and presto! Even little things like having 2 out of 3 materials on hand can make a difference in whether a habit takes hold or not, let me tell you.

These are some samples of my 'work.' :-)

 

The tags above were the ones saved as I peeled them off dishes to be washed because I thought them worth mentioning (but hadn't gotten around to it). Here they are, with brief commentary:

• Celeriac-Parsnip-Garlic-Shallot Stoup (11-28-10)
• I remember it wasn't quite there in the taste or texture departments, but it made good use of some clamoring-for-use vegetables in the fridge, and it was great for getting those servings of vegetables in! Don't remember where I found the inspiration...
• Indian-Spiced Cauliflower (12-6-10) from A Single Gal's Guide
• Yum. I didn't use potatoes because I don't eat them much anymore, but wow, yum!

• Chunky Borscht (12-7-10) from Cooking.com
• I didn't blend part of it, so it was a little too chunky, but was nice and warming and hearty for the cold.

• Black Beans (1-2-11) from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone
• This was yet another attempt to get beans right. I so want to like beans! Cheap! Plan-ahead! Healthy! An empty canvas! For this round, I threw in a cinnamon stick for the last stage of cooking low, and boy did it flavor the pot! I was also out for longer than expected, so it cooked for longer than expected. Texture: win. (Not crispy like they were for Samit!)
• Boiled & fried potato with 21-Seasoning Salute (from Trader Joe's) (1-6-11)
• Yes, I did just say I don't eat potatoes much anymore, but I'd gotten this one potato and it was languishing without a purpose, so it got prepared in advance (boiled) then pan-sauteed in spices. It was scrumptious AND delicious at work, when popped into a quesadilla platform to make a version of the Spanish Omelette (below). 

• Brussels sprouts, bacon, date, balsamic, and macaroni from Mark Bittman, aka The Minimalist (1-8-11)
• OMG- yum! I don't like figs, but found out that I loved dates done right (pun: haha!) at my favorite eatery in DC, so I switched them out- both Mediterranean, right? This was delicious!

I'll try to get back to regularly scheduled programming and catch up on the highlight recipes and gatherings from the holidays. So do come back soon! :-)

BBQ TRIP!

The emblematic picture of the day:

This trip was going to be a much bigger affair, with an overnight stay, a music venue, and trodding into North Carolina territory, but. The Snow piled up, and piled up, and didn't go away. So we figured it would be safer to stay closer to home. My friends Jess, Liz and I aimed to make it still quite the stuff-yourself-silly affair, however.

At Buzz and Ned's- the premiere destination of the trip, in Richmond- the sign says: "ATTENTION: This is not fast food. It takes time to create a masterpiece. So cool your jets, little piggies. We're moving at the speed of real BBQ."

OMG, it was soooo good- 2 of us had the BBQ pork, and one had BBQ chicken, I believe. Poor girl. The sweet potato fries were excellent, and the hush puppies were flat-out amazing.

Isn't eating FUN?

The other nameless place we went to in Richmond, where the hush puppies were terrible. I include this shot because Jess and Liz both went ape over this particular brand of hot sauce. Go figure. From my recent experience with the Hot Pot, I stayed away. Oh, and you are also seeing our primary means of navigating- via one of the two smartphones with us on the trip. Good thing I was responsible for driving.

Snacking on the road, in style.

Goolrick's Drugs- still-operating soda fountain from back in the Day, where we tried to go, but it was closed on Sundays. Damn! Instead, we found Riverby Books (this is in Fredericksburg, VA) and were completey delighted with that. None of my photos does it justice, but it is cozy, inviting, with plenty of different types of seating, plenty of different types of books, bright displays, friendly people... it felt like home in the way only a good used bookstore can.
After enough of a break to respectably be able to say that we had room in our bellies for ice cream, we went here for our fix. Recommended by the bookstore guys, and obviously popular as entertainment for the townspeople...
We finished our BBQ adventure in Annandale, VA, home of Korean BBQ. Yum. Featured in foreground is my first bibimbap- a rustic rice dish with savory beef toppings- gorgeous.
Final stop minus one = Sheela Bakery for a bubble tea and some chocolate (it was Valentine's Day after all). Final Stop? No incriminating pictures here, but it was at karaoke- very fun. :-) My girls rock.