Key Lime Pie

Summer is here, specifically the Fourth of July, and that means it is time for backyard barbecues and fireworks! That, or staying inside to watch the weather channel. Either way, have yourself a piece of pie.

Key lime pie, specifically. Did you know there was a 25-year long period of my life when I wouldn't touch a piece of pie? It's true. No chocolate, custardy pie. No pumpkin at Thanksgiving. Nothing fruit-based. Actually, I still don't really like very many pies at all. But then one day, last summer, for a reason that I still cannot explain, I made a key lime pie from scratch. And it was delicious. Seriously, this pie is out of this world and would make a wonderful accompaniment to whatever Americana-esque gathering you are going to this weekend.

I upped the crust to filling ratio on this recipe because I really cannot get enough of the graham cracker crust. Please, please take the time to squeeze your own key limes. I concede that it is a gigantic pain to squeeze 85 key limes to get 1 cup of juice. But I promise you it is worth in and will taste one thousand times better than anything that comes in a bottle that resembles a baby's booger sucker (I went there).

Shout out to my bud Leslie, who has myriad pie experience. I think we are due a summer pie week, no?

Key Lime Pie

Adapted from Gourmet (RIP)

Ingredients

For Crust

9 (5x2.5 inch) graham crackers, broken into small pieces

1 cup slivered almonds

1/3 cup sugar

3/4 stick unsalted butter, melted

For Filling

1 (14 oz) cans sweetened, condensed milk (NOT evaporated milk)

Grated zest of 2 key limes

1 cup fresh key lime juice, from about 2 lbs fresh key limes

4 large egg yolks

Directions

Make crust:
Preheat oven to 350°F with rack in middle. Butter a 9-inch pie plate. Pulse together graham crackers, almonds, and sugar in a food processor until finely ground. Transfer to a bowl and stir in butter until the crust is moldable. Press crumb mixture evenly onto bottom and up side of pie plate. Bake until lightly browned, 8 to 10 minutes. Cool completely. (Leave oven on.)

Make filling and bake pie:
Gently whisk together filling ingredients in a medium bowl until smooth and pour into crust. Bake until just set in center, 15 to 20 minutes. Cool completely (filling will set as it cools). Chill pie, loosely covered, at least 8 hours.

Toasted Granola with Dried Fruit

I normally travel for my job about once a month, but this April has been my busiest travel month ever. I have been gone every week for at least one night, and, on top of that, we have taken two trips on the weekends to visit family and friends. So, needless to say, there hasn't been a lot of cooking happening in my kitchen. A lot of sandwich-making and handful-of-chips-grabbing, but no cooking. So, when I got home on Tuesday night after being gone (again), all I wanted to do was taste something homemade.

Enter this granola. Perfect for a busy week, this is something that, even if you don't have time to make elaborate dinners, you can feel good about eating at least something that you made at home. I made this at 9:00 at night and it was done in time to go to bed by 10:30 (as in, fully cooled and in the tupperware). And all of you, "I don't like to cook for one" people, this stuff will last at least two weeks, so no excuses.

Toasted Granola with Dried Fruit

Adapted from Cooking Light

Ingredients

1/4 cup unsalted pumpkin seeds

1/4 cup unsalted sunflower seeds

1/4 cup chopped walnuts

1/3 cup maple syrup (I used pure maple syrup, but I am sure the corn syrup stuff would also work)

2 tablespoons brown sugar

2 tablespoons canola oil

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 cups rolled oats

1/4 cup wheat germ

2 tablespoons ground flax seed

1/3 cup dried cranberries

1/3 cup dried apricots

Directions

Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees.

Place pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, and walnuts on a baking sheet. Bake at 325 degrees for 5 minutes. Cool seeds in the pan on a wire cooling rack.

Combine maple syrup and next 5 ingredients (through salt) in a medium bowl. Stir in toasted nuts and seeds, barley, wheat germ, and flax seed.

Spread mixture in a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake at 325 degrees for 25 minutes or until lightly browned, stirring twice during baking.

Remove from oven and cool granola in the pan on a wire rack. Stir in dried, chopped fruits. Store in an airtight container and serve with plain or vanilla-flavored yogurt.

Gluten-Free Banana Bread

This post is for my friend Jennifer, who is in denial about her gluten allergy. To be honest, I love baked goods and bread. Love the stuff. And, if I thought I had a gluten allergy, I would probably try and endure the discomfort also, just to be able to continue to enjoy my favorite things. But, hopefully my friends that love me would try and get me to come to my senses and do what is right for my body. (Ahem ahem.)

The gluten allergy has always been really fascinating to me because it is so prevalent, and there are probably folks that have the allergy that aren't even aware of it. A friend of mine at work thought that she had a "weak stomach" until she was in her 40s before she discovered this allergy. Changing her diet literally changed her life.

I am not allergic, but I am a nerd. So, I was intrigued at the grocery store with Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose Flour, and thought I would give it a whirl. This gluten-free flour substitute is made from garbanzo beans, as many flour substitutes are, which is just cool.

I had some bananas on hand, so I thought I would try out the banana bread recipe on the back of the flour bag, with a few modifications. The result was delicious! This banana bread is really, really good, and I honestly would not have thought that it was anything less than the "real thing", whatever that means.

I also used coconut oil in this bread, which is a newfound love of mine. Coconut oil is incredibly good for you and can be used as a butter and/or oil substitute in many cooking and baking applications. On top of that, if you run out of conditioner or lotion, you can just melt some coconut oil and lather up!

Anyone out there deal with this and have any favorite gluten-free recipes they want to share?

Jennifer - your friends, we care about you, and we don't want you to live life in misery and upset stomach-ness. I made this bread for you. And I tried really, really hard to save you some. I promise, I did. But it just tasted so good, you see. Which should be encouraging to you. I really have done you a favor here by showing you how good the other side can be. You are welcome.

Gluten-Free Banana Bread

Adapted from Bob's Red Mill Natural Foods

Ingredients

1/3 cup coconut oil

2/3 cup light brown sugar, packed

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 3/4 cups gluten free flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspooon salt

1 1/2 cups mashed bananas

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Grease a 9x5 inch pan. Cream together oil, sugar, eggs, and vanilla in a large bowl with an electric mixer. Mix flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt in a medium bowl and add to oil mixture, alternating with mashed bananas. Blend until just smooth. Transfer to pan and bake for 1 hour.

Community Supported Agriculture

I don't know about you, but I am one of those people that really, really wants to eat healthy, local, fresh, organic food. This sounds amazing, and I support it for both health and ethical reasons. But there are these things called Digiorno Rising Crust frozen pizzas that are so delicious, so cheap, and so easy to make, that it can thwart any "eat health, local, fresh, and organic" plan in its path.

My point is that sometimes major lifestyle changes seem so difficult, and so overwhelming, that it prevents you from making any changes at all. But, a little over a year ago, we visited our friends Jeremy and Michelle in beautiful Palo Alto, California, and we were introduced to Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs). CSAs provide everyday folks like you and me with the opportunity to get healthy, local, fresh, and organic produce every week, with very minimal time or effort.

The concept is like this: you buy a membership to a local farm. In exchange for your membership fee, you receive a box of the farm's yield every week. It sounds simple, but this concept is literally changing the face of agriculture in our country and making local, sustainable produce possible.

We recently renewed our CSA with Johnson's Backyard Garden, an organic farm in East Austin. For $30 per week, we receive enough produce to feed a family of four for an entire week. Since there are two of us, we share with another couple and split the cost. And, the pick up location is actually closer than the grocery store where I shop. (Most CSAs recruit members to use their homes as distribution points to ensure that there are convenient pick-up spots throughout the city.)

I cannot tell you how excited we are to get to participate in something like this. We are blessed to live in a city where enough people care about organic produce that we have access to it. For more information on JBG and the state of agriculture in Texas, see this article from Sunday's Austin American Statesman.

To give you a little taste of the magic, I thought I would give you a tour of our CSA box from this week.


Lots of treasures to be found inside.


First up, collard greens. Not going to lie here, I thought it was bok choy. I was wrong.

Green onions.

Fresh spinach. Used this method at Simply Recipes to make this, and it was incredible.


Ummmmm. What the what? I think, I think that these are a different variety of collard greens. Jury is still out on this one.

This is where my mind was blown. This strange little guy is called a kolhrabi, and the flavor is similar to broccoli stems. Simply Recipes has an entire page dedicated to kolhrabi recipes here.

Lettuce.


Fresh broccoli. Still haven't made it, but am excited to.

Ok, this just got awesome.


To top it off, oranges, grapefruit, and avocado. These are actually not grown in the area, but JBG partners with other farms to be able to offer more variety.

I hope this inspires you to find a CSA near you.

Easy Apple Crisp

We went to a fantastic new restaurant (Perla's on South Congress) recently on the basis of having a gift card. We normally wouldn't gravitate toward a seafood restaurant, but really enjoyed what we ate. Travis courageously ordered a baked whole fish, and I got an amazing white fish (I think it was halibut) in a tomato-based broth. We started with tuna tartare in the spirit of ordering things at a restaurant that we don't know how to cook at home(or, not cook, I guess).

Anyway, at the end of the meal, the waiter brought the dessert menu. Looking at a dessert menu normally involves finding the option that has the most synonyms for "chocolate" in the title. Travis like all kinds of desserts, but I typically abide by a strict chocolate-only policy. But, this time, for a reason that I still cannot explain, the thing that looked best to me was a blueberry tart. Travis, still skeptical, decided to go along with my temporary chocolate lapse and order the thing. I think it was what he wanted anyway.

This thing was incredible. I seriously could eat it every day of my life. It was a blueberry tart a la mode with perfect crust, topped with slivered almonds and powdered sugar. In that moment, I became determined to make it at home.

Which resulted in this.


Not quite what I was going for.

This easy (emphasis on easy) apple crisp was my solution to reassembling the shattered pieces of my cooking self esteem from the blueberry tart incident. It is easy, delicious, and crowd pleasing, and I actually like it! I kid you not, this is the first apple dessert I have ever liked. I think that blueberry tart (the Perla's version) changed me for good.


And speaking of being a changed person, go ahead and try the Pioneer Woman's easy caramel sauce as a topping. Homegirl knows what she is doing when it comes to things that involve half and half and sugar.



Easy Apple Crisp
Adapted from Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook, 14th Edition

I served with this caramel sauce from The Pioneer Woman Cooks. And I had to use all of my self control to not drink the sauce by itself.

Ingredients
5 cups sliced apples (approximately 5 medium apples)
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter

Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Peel and slice apples and coat with granulated sugar. Place apples in a layer no more than two or three deep in a baking dish. (I split mine into two smaller dishes, but a larger 9x13 inch dish would also work.)

To make the topping, combine the oats, brown sugar, flour, and spices in a medium bowl. Cut in butter with a pastry cutter (or your fingers) until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle topping evenly over the apples.

Bake for 35 minutes or until fruit is tender and topping is golden. Serve with caramel sauce, whipped cream, or ice cream.

Mishaps

I realize that I haven't posted here in a while. Do forgive me. Between working on stuff for Get Trained at the Austin Stone and going on a diet for about eight days, my cooking has been quite boring. On the diet, it was salads, rice, beans, and more salads. Off the diet, let's just say we have been eating a lot of turkey sandwiches and frozen pizza at my house. I'm a flip flopper.

In the meantime, I have been absolutely dying to try and share some recipes and techniques from this little guy that Travis got me for Christmas:


I finally got the time and the energy to make some potatoes au gratin this weekend, and so I whipped out my favorite Le Creuset ceramic baking dish and my mandoline slicer and was having at it.

And then.

And then.

Julia told me to put my baking dish on the stove before putting it in the oven. But she didn't tell me that you aren't supposed to put ceramic baking dishes over direct heat or they snap in half. And mine definitely did. I couldn't bring myself to take a picture because it was so sad, but my favorite baking dish literally snapped and there was milk and cheese running all over my stove. It was a ghastly scene.

Julia, aren't you supposed to warn us idiot American housewives about these things? Isn't that why you are who you are, because you save us from our own ignorance? How can I trust you again?

Ok, over reaction. But I really liked that dish.

Luckily my birthday was Wednesday, and Travis not only replaced my baking dish but got me two others of smaller sizes. And I fully intend to use them this weekend for the good of this blog. It may be savory, it may be sweet, but it definitely won't be on the diet. Stay tuned.

Chicken Cacciatore

In looking over my posts, I am embarrassed to notice that almost every dang one of them includes a trying-to-be-artistic photo of a tin can. Maybe it's part of my recovery. Maybe it's that I'm cheap. You never can tell. To all of the real foodies out there: cut me some slack! Don't stop reading! Please?

Begging and pleading aside, I do actually have a recipe to share here. (It does include canned tomatoes. Oops.) From time to time, I travel for work. One of the hardest things for me about being away from my husband is knowing that he will not so much as set foot in the kitchen while I am gone. He won't make coffee. He won't grab a piece of fruit or yogurt. Don't even think for a second that he will put a frozen pizza in the oven. My husband, who devours everything I cook like he has never eaten before, just can't be bothered to eat food when I am gone. My only hope is to make food ahead of time that he might consider warming up in the microwave.


Enter this Chicken Cacciatore. Fancy Italian for chicken "hunter's stew", it basically is chicken braised in a tomato sauce with vegetables and white wine. What I love about this is that it really keeps its flavor and texture if eaten the next day. Or the next. And even the next one. I have been known to eat some very questionable leftovers, folks. This characteristic makes it a good option to take to a family with a new baby, take to work for lunch, or leave with your spouse while you are away. They may even eat it.


Chicken Cacciatore
Adapted from Ellie Krieger, Healthy Appetite with Ellie Krieger
Yields 4 Servings

A couple of notes: If you can make yourself go there, please try this with the skin ON the chicken breasts. The skin creates more flavor, and I promise you don't actually have to eat the skin. Also, if you prefer to avoid wine in your cooking, you can substitute chicken stock. However, white wine reduces the need for salt, so you may have to adjust for seasoning at the end.

Ingredients
4 chicken breast halves on the bone, about 2 pounds
Kosher salt
Fresh ground black pepper
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
1/2 pound white mushrooms, thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 (15 ounce) can whole tomatoes in juice, chopped and juice reserved
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/4 cup italian parsley, chopped

Directions
Rinse the chicken and pat dry with paper towels. Season the chicken on both sides with 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt (evenly divided among all 4 breasts)and black pepper.

Heat the oil in a saute pan over medium-high heat. Brown the chicken on both sides, about 8 minutes. Remove the chicken.

Reduce the heat to medium. Add the onion and pepper, season with 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables begin to soften, about 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms and cook, uncovered and stirring occasionally, until the mushrooms begin to brown, about another 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, for 30 seconds. Add the wine and cook until reduced by half. Add the tomatoes and juice, oregano, red pepper flakes and 1/4 teaspoon of salt and simmer the mixture covered for 10 minutes.

Return the chicken breasts to the pan and simmer, covered, until the chicken is fully cooked, about 25 minutes longer. Top with chopped parsley and serve.