Miso and citrus dressing

Something to do to use that miso that's sitting in my fridge.

Update: I think this has potential. The proportions need to be tweaked to get them right. The one I made was way heavy on the lemon juice. I think it could have also benefited from some secondary flavors. Soy sauce? Sesame oil? Hmmmm....

Harper in the window seat

One of the big selling points of this house when we bought it two years ago was the window seat. We tried to justify it by saying that it would be extra seating for parties, that it would be nice for me to read in, blah blah blah. The truth was that we knew Harper would love it. It faces due east and gets full sun in the mornings. We've recently added some sheers that trap juuust a little bit of morning heat, so it's like a nice sauna in there for her, and because it faces the street, she can keep an eye on all the comings and goings and alert us if any ne'er do wells (like her arch nemesis the UPS guy) come up to the house. When the curtains are closed, it's impossible to tell if she's in there, so that's the first place I look when I can't find her. It's nice to know that she appreciates the house we bought for her.

This is what happens when social scientists work from home during the summer

Apparently, Harper came up with #2. Chris is unsure about her reasoning, but didn't want to hurt her feelings so he put it up there anyway.

Raspberry Rhurbab Lattice Pie

From Martha. Again. There's a whole section of rhubarb recipes on her site. 

Ingredients 

• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
• 1 1/2 pounds rhubarb, trimmed and cut into 1/2-inch pieces (4 cups)
• 2 cups raspberries
•  1 1/4 cups sugar, or more to taste
• Freshly squeezed juice of 1/2 lemon
• 1 tablespoon cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• 2 tablespoons heavy cream

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
   On a lightly floured surface, roll out one half of dough for bottom crust. Fit into an 11-inch pie plate. Trim pastry using scissors or a sharp paring knife, and chill. Keep remaining half of dough, which will be used to make the lattice, refrigerated and wrapped in plastic.
2. Combine rhubarb and raspberries in a large bowl. Sprinkle with sugar, flour, and lemon juice. Toss gently so as not to break raspberries. Spoon into pie shell, and dot with butter. Refrigerate while preparing lattice top.
3. In a small bowl, combine egg and heavy cream, whisking lightly; set aside. On a lightly floured surface, roll out remaining piece of dough for lattice, and cut it into 1-inch strips. Weave strips together over filling, and place an extra strip or two along the edge, where the bottom crust joins the lattice top; press this strip with tines of a fork to seal well. Brush lattice and all pastry edges with egg glaze, sprinkle top with sugar, and place pie on a parchment paper's lined baking sheet.
4. Bake until pastry is golden brown and juices in center of pie are bubbling, 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours. Transfer to a wire rack to cool before serving.

RESULTS:
Tiff, this is for you! I made this for a backyard bbq that was tons of fun, even when torrential rain drove us inside. last I heard it was 4 inches in 2 hours! Chris and I saw Noah and his ark on the way home on Clairemont, he was stopping to assist the passengers of a car that stalled out. Anyway, back to the food. I sort of followed this recipe. I used the full Pate Braise recipe for the pie crust. I think the filling is variable, I used it mostly as a guide to sugar amounts, cooking time and temp, and "total fruit volume." I only had about 1 cup of raspberries, so I made the rest up with more rhubarb. Briefly considered using some of the farmer's market strawberries I brought home that morning, but decided that would be a waste of amazing strawberries. I also wondered what blueberries would taste like in there. Anyway, after consulting my Flavor Bible, I discovered that rhubarb also loves vanilla and ground ginger, so I put a splash and a pinch of both in, respectively. Next time I might make it two splashes and two pinches. I completely forgot about doing the cream and egg wash, as I usually do. Despite that, the pie turned out great, especially with some friends' homemade buttermilk lemon sorbet. 

Celery

I'm intrigued...let me know if you make any of these before I do...

Banana Ice Cream

This is amazing. Basically, you just freeze banana slices for a couple hours and then grind them up, and you get banana ice cream. I tried it with the blender first, which didn't work because there wasn't any liquid to keep the solids moving down to the blade, and then I tried my mini-food processor, which worked but the bananas made their way up under the blade into the shaft, and I'd be worried about it sticking up the motor. Next time, I'll try either the full sized food processor or maybe even my immersion blender. Let me know if you try it with the immersion blender before I get to it!

Mini Rhubarb and Raspberry Galettes

From Martha

Yield Makes 8

Ingredients

• Pate Brisee, do not divide into 2 disks
• All-purpose flour, for dusting
• 1 1/2 pounds trimmed rhubarb, cut into 1/4-inch pieces (about 5 cups)
• 8 ounces (about 1 1/2 cups) fresh raspberries
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• Coarse sanding sugar, for sprinkling

Directions

1. Divide dough evenly into 8 pieces. On a lightly floured surface, roll out each piece to a 7-inch round, 1/8 inch thick. Transfer rounds to 2 large parchment-lined rimmed baking sheets (don't use silicon!), arranging several inches apart. (If rounds become too soft to handle, refrigerate until firm, about 20 minutes.)
2. In a large bowl, toss to combine rhubarb, raspberries, cornstarch, and granulated sugar.
3. Cover each round of dough with a heaping 1/2 cup rhubarb mixture, leaving a 1-inch border. Fold edges over rhubarb filling, leaving an opening in center; gently brush water between folds, and press gently so that folds adhere. Refrigerate or freeze until firm, about 30 minutes.
4. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Brush edges of dough with water, and sprinkle with sanding sugar. Bake until crusts are golden brown, about 30 minutes. Reduce heat to 375 degrees, and bake until juices bubble and start to run out from center of each galette, 15 minutes more. Transfer to a wire rack, and let cool completely before serving.

Results:
I got to work on Friday and saw about 10 pounds of free rhubarb to be given away, so I grabbed a bunch and thought I'd make a pie. The problem is, although we COULD eat a whole pie, we probably shouldn't. So then I was trolling the internet this morning to find a recipe for mini-pies, either in a small cast iron skillet or muffin pans or something. I wasn't quite sure. Then I stumbled across this recipe for galettes, which was so perfect because you don't need to risk having the wrong sized pan and risk having to fiddle with cooking time and temperature. Also, it's easy to halve the recipe, and then you only have to share the equivalent of a half a pie between two people.

The flavors of this tart are right on. Really good and sour, but also sweet. Excellent. But here are some "do as I say, not as I do" tips. After forming the tarts and refrigerating (end of step 3), I left them in the fridge for a few hours instead of 30 minutes. This was bad because it gave the fruit more time to masticate in the sugar and juice was already running from them by the time I got around to cooking.  Maybe freezing would keep them longer if you're not ready for baking? I'm not sure. Either way, make sure you either use a rimmed baking sheet or engineer some sort of tin foil juice catcher under your baking sheet because they'll probably leak a lot of juice which will then burn on the bottom of your oven and smell really bad.

After they were done baking, I had trouble picking them up with even a really big spatula to move to the baking sheet (possibly because the bottom crust was soaked through with juice, or possibly because I rolled the crusts too thin). I'm hoping the crust will harden up as they cool and won't stick too much to the parchment paper. Also, if you just can't wait for them to cool, and you happen to break part of a tart off as you move it to the cooling racks, remember before you gobble it up that hot sugary filling is REALLY HOT, even if the crust is already cool. Also, be sure to wash any and all cooking implements that come into contact with the hot sugary filling IMMEDIATELY before the sugar cools, or you're going to have issues. And the sugar cools fast.