Crust: I used my 2nd attempt at the Chez Pim rubbed & folded “one crust to rule them all, (I screwed it up my first try) but it’s a good recipe. Not necessarily better than my standard crust, which is 2 sticks (1 cup) of butter + 2 TBLS vegetable shortening to 3 cups of flour, with 2 TBLS sugar added for a savory pie like this, or 3 TBLS for a sweet pie. And a pinch of salt, or use salted butter. About 5 – 8 TBLS cold water, just enough to get the dough to clump, depending on the humidity and temperature on the day you make the crust.

Filling:

• 1 1/2 cups leek confit, made with olive oil instead of butter
• 1/2 cup grated Gruyere cheese
• 1 cup of half & half
• 1 large egg
• 1 yolk, also from a large egg

Assembly: Roll out the crust of your choice and fit it into a 10-inch loose-bottom tart tin, or a flan ring on parchment, arranged on a baking tray. Line the crust with more parchment or foil, and weight it with rice or dried beans or pie weights. Bake at 375 degrees for 10 minutes, then remove the foil and weights and bake for 10 more minutes, poking any bubbles and uprisings with a fork. Remove the shell from the oven, and spread in the leek confit. Sprinkle the cheese on top. Beat the half & half, egg, and egg yolk together, and pour over. Return to the oven, and bake for 25 – 35 minutes, until set and browned. Eat warm or at room temperature with a green salad.

Posted from my iPhone (and obliterated twice) and partly from the Orlando airport, with the faux airport news eulogizing Steve Jobs

posted from my iPhone

Our plane to London, waiting on the wet tarmac in Detroit

I have a brunch on Sunday, so I wanted to get some prep and shopping done for that – they’re having spinach crêpe gateau, rosemary roasted potatoes, cherry muffins and cinnamon scones, salad with reduced cider dressing, and fruit.

To celebrate my furlough day, I did a few things I have not done in awhile. I went to the Y, and because I wasn’t at a good time to swim, I did 30 minutes on one of the skier machines. The machine said I only burned 80 calories, but it felt like more than that.

While I was on the machine, the carpet & tile place called, and the tile for my renter’s bathroom at School Woods was in – so I went to get that.  Then I went to Costco and bought a couple of tubs of the organic lettuce that come from god knows where (actually, I am sure it’s CA, from one of the big farms, like Earthbound Farm, that produces vast quantities of greens and is following the new scorched earth around the fields policy that was decreed after the 2006 E. coli outbreak, that seems so totally anathema to organic), a tub of strawberries, ditto on origins, and a lifetime supply of boxes of Kleenex. And a big bag of Kirkland – Costco house brand – munch mix, with nuts and rice crackers and Wasabi peas, that’s really tasty – tho it probably won’t seem so by the time we’ve eaten to the bottom of the giant bag.

I mixed up crêpe batter and let it sit, while I went to drop off the tile, and stop by the co-op to get more frozen spinach, muffin papers, OJ, and a swell new stainless steel ladle that cost a mere $5 for dipping out the crêpe batter.

Then home to indulge in another thing I haven’t done in forever – make mass quantities of crêpes. I set myself up with 2 pans and my new ladle, and played the Incredible String Band. It seems somehow oddly appropriate – since I was doing something I had not done since the days of vinyl – that it took exactly one Incredible String Band record – albeit played from the mp3 version on my iPod – for me to make a 30-egg batch of crêpes. Back in my restaurant days, I think it was usually 36 eggs, but 30 eggs yielded 58 crêpes, a.k.a. almost 5 dozen, which should be just enough for 4 robust 9-inch crêpe gateaux.

Crêpe Batter:

• 6 eggs
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. healthy grate, of nutmeg
• 1/2 cup unbleached white flour
• 1/3 cup ww flour
• 2 TBLS veg. oil
• 1 cup water

Beat the eggs with the salt, and grate in the nutmeg. Whisk in the flour, then pour in the veg. oil and water, and whisk some more – there may still be flour lumps. Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour – the flour has to soak up the liquid and swell, and you’ll be able to beat out those last lumps before you cook it.

Meatball in soup

Meatball cut

Turkey meatballs on a plate

Here’s the recipe:

• approx. 2/3 cup matzoh meal
• 1/2 pound ground turkey
• 1 egg
• 2 TBLS – 1/4 cup half & half or milk (I used soy half & half, because that’s what I had)
• salt, pepper, and a few grates of nutmeg
• 1 TBLS chopped parsley
• 2 tsp. – 1 TBLS veg. oil for frying

Pour the matzoh meal into the bowl of a stand mixer. Add the egg and mix with a fork. Add the half & half, seasonings and parsley. Mix with the paddle beater until all is well combined. If you don’t have a stand mixer, or don’t want to use yours for this small of a batch, I am sure you could mix everything with the fork and your fingers. Roll into walnut sized balls and place on a plate. Heat the oil in a skillet and brown the meatballs in it – I only browned two sides because I knew I was going to cook them in soup. If you’re going to eat them as meatballs, brown two sides, then add a little water or broth to the skillet, cover tightly and steam for about 10 minutes.

Getting tired is sort of the theme of this post – I was going to make a double batch of the chili mac, but as it got later in the night, my ambition waned. So, instead, I upset the carefully calculated hamburger meat to macaroni ratio given in the recipe – 1 1/2 pounds of meat to only 1/2 pound mac. I used about 3/4 pound of the noodles, and put some cheese right into the mix, instead of only on top as the recipe directs. I stashed the extra 1 1/2 pounds of hamburger in the freezer for later. Just a minor revolution against the prescriptiveness of the recipe, which is from Cover & Bake, a Cook’s Illustrated book, that I got on a deal to us subscribers, in which every recipe is preceeded by lengthy explanations of how the recipe was tested.

The moussaka recipe is  entirely different, since it’s from Tassajara Cooking, a cook book that I’ve always loved, for giving guidelines for cooks to improvise on. I’ll have to take a picture of the cover of my ancient and splattered copy. I remember making this recipe my first fall semester at Beloit College, when I was 19, and I rediscovered the dinner party. During most of high school, I risked my Dad’s wrath by declining to join my family at the dinner table. I still remember the look on his face when I told him how fun those dinners were, lingering, eating, talking, drinking a little wine … fortunately I grew up enough to enjoy dinner with my Dad a lot more times before he died when I was 43.

My cats were so trying to get the hamburger meat – I had to keep putting things out of their reach.

Chili Mac cooling on shelf above the oven

I made fried rice for dinner – looks like I posted my recipe a little over a year ago.

Fried rice at the kitchen counter, Nov. 2008

I made it pretty much the same tonight but with tofu instead of chicken – I bought a package of some kind of Asian seasoned tofu because I thought it’d be nice & chewy. Instead it was soft and cooked liver-like in texture. Don’t think I’ll buy that kind again – it was WestSoy – the company doesn’t even list it on their web site.

Instead of eating my fried rice seated at the kitchen counter with a beer, while reading the New Yorker, I sat on the couch and watched Johnny Depp in Public Enemies. I still enjoyed the beer – a Hopalicious, local microbrew, that I usually find a little bitter, but it was good with the rice. My cats were just as desparate as always to get a taste of the rice, too.

posted from my iPhone

• 1 stick of butter, melted
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon baking power
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 3/4 cups flour
• 1 cup sour cream, or part sour cream and part whole milk yogurt
• 1/2 cup raspberry jam or filling
• about 1 1/2 cups streusel, your favorite, or here’s a recipe
• small handful chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350°. Grease a 9-inch square baking pan or spray it with cooking spray. Melt the butter in a microwave safe mixing bowl and stir in the sugar, then the egg. Add the baking power, soda, salt and vanilla – mix lightly. add the flour and sour cream, and mix well. Spread the small half of the batter in the preprared pan, and dollop on the raspberry filling. Spread out the filling, then sprinkle on the streusel and chocolate chips. Top with the rest of the batter, and remaining streusel. Bake for 45 minutes – 1 hour, until puffed and firm. Eat warm.