Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Easy Peach Tart

Summer peaches are one of my favorite things, and I had a few to use up so I tried Food52's Peach Tart.  It really was easy if you have a little patience to smoosh out the crust with your fingers.  And it was really scrumptious. The peaches were glazed with a sugar mixture and the crust smelled so good because it uses almond flavoring, my favorite. 

Here's what I used:
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour, plus 2 TB flour
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup sugar, plus 1 tsp sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil or canola oil
1/4 cup olive oil
2 TB whole milk
1/2 tsp almond flavoring (I actually added 3/4 tsp because I LOVE almond flavoring)
2 TB cold, unsalted butter
3-5 ripe peaches, sliced into 1/2 in slices as shown below.  The recipe called for a 11" tart pan, but mine was a 9", so three large peaches was plenty.  If your tart pan is bigger, so may need 4 peaches.  I'm not sure how you squeeze 5 peaches on there, but I'm sure it can be done.

Preheat the oven to 425 and set out two bowls and get your measuring cup out.
Into bowl #1, put 1 1/2 cup flour.  Into bowl #2, put 2 TB flour. Into bowl #1 goes 1/2 tsp salt and 1 tsp sugar.  Into bowl #2 goes 1/4 tsp salt and 3/4 cup sugar. (I do it this way to minimize how many things you have to clean! You'll see.) Stir the ingredients in both bowls so that they are incorporated.  This will also help "sift" your flour. Add the 2 TB butter to bowl #2 and set aside.

In the measuring cup, now measure out both of the oils, and add the milk and almond extract.  Pour all of the wet ingredients into bowl #1.  Mix with a fork until it is just mixed together and is a crumbly dough. Then put the dough in the tart pan and begin to press around the edges of the pan and over the bottom of the pan. Here is my work in progress:

And my finished product:

Then, layer the peaches neatly in circles around the tart pan.  Load as many peaches as you can into your pan.  I probably could have fit another peach, and wished I hadn't eaten a few slices...
Then, turn back to bowl #2.  Using a pastry cutter or just your hands, crumble the butter into the mixture until it starts to form little crumbles.  The mixture should almost resemble sand once the butter is incorporated.  Dump the contents of bowl #2 over top of the peaches.
Bake at 425 for 35 minutes.  It should come out bubbly and delicious looking and all the sugar / butter mixture should be melted on top.  If not, keep it in for a few more minutes.  I took a video when it came out of the oven because it looked SO delicious.  We were not disappointed!
Serve with a little creme fraiche or spoonful of vanilla ice cream. Enjoy!

Monday, September 12, 2011

Quinoa and Kale Crustless Quiche

I was left feeling a little guilty about all the sausage pasta I ate last week, including getting to the leftovers before hubby. :) So I decided to make a healthy choice from a new food community I just found, Food52.  Well, it's clearly not new, but it's new to me.  The community seems to have more than an affection for kale, so I decided if all these foodies are into it, maybe its not just for people in Williamsburg (jk jk - I heart Brooklyn.)
I decided to try the kale and quinoa quiche, figuring it was the healthiest sounding quiche I'd ever heard of and since it was a quiche, maybe it would still taste rather delicious.
Well, I was right! Healthy and delicious, and while not on the same level as the sausage and mushroom cheesy baked pasta, it hit the spot for our warm Sept day.
Here's what I used:
1/2 cup quinoa (I got mine from Trader Joe's awhile ago)
1 bunch of kale
1 vadalia onion (definitely use a Vadalia. The sweetness was great.)
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 cup of sharp white cheddar, shredded
3 oz of cream cheese - might add a little more next time
4 eggs

First, preheat your oven to 350 and spray cooking spray on a pie plate.  Then get the quinoa going with 1 cup of water or so.  You want the quinoa to absorb all the water and not drain out, so don't add too much.  I think I used a little more than a cup, but not much more.

Then get chopping. I chopped the vidalia onion in slices, not a dice. Get a sauce pan going with some olive oil, and when hot (not smoking... mine was smoking because I was talking on the phone...) add your onions and let them sit there and get a good caramel color. Stir only enough to keep them from burning.

Then, while the onions were cooking, I chopped the kale up.  The recipe said "ribbons" but I would probably chop it pretty fine next time so that there are not such large portions of kale leaf in the quiche. Make sure to remove the stems, as those do not look tasty. Mince your garlic, grate your cheese, and dice your cream cheese so that it can be mixed more easily.
 Once the onions are done, remove them from the pan into a large mixing bowl and add the kale to the same saucepan. Don't fret if all the kale does not fit right at first... it will cook quickly and shrink down, and then you can add the rest. Let it cook for 2 min or so until it is softened, bright green, and fits in the pan!
Make sure there is no water in the pan (if so, strain first) and add to the onions.  Then add the cooked quinoa, garlic, and cheeses and stir together. It should all be pretty incorporated, though I had a tough time with those big kale pieces and the cream cheese not really being melty enough. I would try to work with hot kale next time - I let mine cool in a strainer (but no water strained out!)

Then whisk together 4 eggs and add to the mixture. Stir until incorporated and add salt and pepper.
Pour the mixture into your pie plate and pop it in the oven for 45 minutes.
The quiche will pull away from the sides and be a little browned on top when it's done. It smelled and tasted great and the sweet onions were delicious.  I found the cream cheese to be a little lumpy and not that flavorful.  I bet this would be delicious with feta. That's what I would try next time.
Best part - I only had to buy the kale and cheeses (I had a vadalia, quinoa, and eggs.) That means dinner was only about $8! That and there is one piece leftover :)
I served with the last of the summer corn on the cob and a loaf of pretzel bread with mustard for a spread. Yum!

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Cheesy Baked Mushroom Rigatoni (with peas)

Today's weather was absolutely gross in New York City.  After such a wonderful Labor Day holiday, it was tough enough to be back in the office without having to trek home in the pouring rain!! The only comfort was I knew I was going to make something warm, cheesy, and delicious to make it all better. I turned to my favorite, Epicurious, and adapted another recipe for a cheesy baked rigatoni with mushrooms to make it all better.
This one took some time, so I opened a bottle of red and enjoyed the sound of the rain while I cooked. Here's what I used:
1 red onion
1 package of sweet Italian sausage (4 links)
1 oz dried porcini mushrooms (get the dried if you can so that you can use the water that you reconstitute them in. I bought them in the pasta sauce aisle of Whole Foods.)
10 Shiitake mushrooms, though the recipe called for 1 lb white button mushrooms, aka, my worst nightmare. I almost bought cremini but freaked out that they looked very similar to white button mushroom and therefore might taste the same. The shiitakes did okay, but did get a little slimy because they cook for quite awhile. If you are a mushroom expert, you may know a better one to substitute. I used about 10 big shiitakes.
1 TB chopped rosemary
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 can of beef broth (7 oz)
1 cup shredded pecorino romano and I added some shredded Monterrey Jack as well because I had it in the fridge and thought it would be a little melty-er and gooy-er than the pecorino (it was!)
One swirl around the pot of half and half (about 1/4 a cup?)
1 cup frozen green peas
1 lb box of rigatoni

The first thing I did was start a big pot of salted water for the rigatoni and pre-heat the oven to 375.  Then I rinsed the dried porcinis in a small bowl, drained, and added hot water until they were just covered. Let those sit for 20 minutes to reconstitute. You will need this water! Do NOT pour it down the drain when you take the porcinis out! This is where all the delicious flavor comes from.
Then I took the casings off the sausage and chopped to bite size pieces, as well as diced the onion, rosemary, and shiitakes.
Then I heated some olive oil and got the onion going in a heavy pot/dutch oven that can go straight in the oven. I used a red onion, but it will cook for so long that I don't think it matters which type you use.
Once the onion is translucent, add the sausage and cook until it is not pink in the center.  Try to break up the sausage pieces as well as you can.  I had to use a heavy- duty spatula (ok, I actually enlisted hubby to do this while I trekked to the roof in the rain to grab some rosemary.)  It took me about 10 minutes to cook the sausage. While the sausage is cooking, take the porcinis out of the water and give them a rough chop. SAVE the water.  Look how dark it is in the photo below! That is a lot of flavor!

Then I added my fresh mushrooms and cooked a minute or two to soften them.  To that, I added the chopped porcinis, white wine, and rosemary and let it cook down 3-4 minutes until most of the liquid was gone.  Next add the porcini water (I had about 1 cup) without adding whatever grit settled to the bottom of the bowl. Stir that in and add the beef broth. This will now cook down for about 15 minutes, which means it is the perfect time to add your pasta to the boiling water. My rigatoni box said it should cook for 14 minutes.
Not much to look at here, but it was starting to smell DELICIOUS.
Stir occasionally to make sure nothing is sticking to the bottom but otherwise it's a good time to shred the cheese, if it's not already shredded.   I got about halfway through this process and I started feeling guilty that this dish was going to be almost all brown and tan (meaning not enough veggies for us!) so I added a half a bag of frozen peas that I had on hand. Problem solved! And they made a delicious addition.
Once the pasta is done, strain it and set it aside just for a minute.
When the sauce has reduced until there is still liquid, but it looks more like syrup than liquid, you are good to go (again, it took about 15 minutes to do so.)  Add the swirl of half and half to make it a little creamy and stir together. Add the pasta directly to the pot and take it off the heat. Stir really well to cover the pasta in the sauce and then gradually fold in the cheese. Yum. Bake covered (or covered with foil) at 375 for 25 minutes.
This was so rich and delicious. The porcinis added such a wonderful flavor and there was just the right amount of creaminess without it being overkill or too rich.  Hubby reluctantly gave out a 10 - he said he is worried to say it was a 10 lest I give up cooking at having reached my goal.  Not to fear, sweetie; I'm just getting started. Enjoy!