Decadence

Usually, I try to be sensible. Well, if your definition of sensible involves pie crusts with 1:1 ratios of butter to flour.
Sometimes, however, life calls for moments of absolute decadence. Even by my standards. It calls for:

Pastry crusts made entirely of chocolate;

the moment of delicious contrast when a whisk cuts sharply and thinly through the soft slurshing and whispering of bubbling caramel;

showers of liquor, and the resulting steam which fills the kitchen - warm, soft, exotic;

the slosh of generous servings of pure cream, all silky and white;

the tawny gloss of caramel waterfalls;

sprinklings of dark chocolate;

the shimmer of melted chocolate;

it calls for a complete lack of restraint;

it calls for Chocolate Caramel Tart.

Chocolate Caramel Tart

Chocolate Crust

1 1⁄2 cups flour
1⁄4 cup plus 1 tbsp. Dutch-process unsweetened
cocoa powder
1⁄4 tsp. salt
10 tbsp. unsalted butter, cubed and softened
1⁄2 cup plus sugar
2 egg yolks
1⁄2 tsp. almond extract

½ tsp. orange extract

1. Mix the dry ingredients together in a small bowl.
2. Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy and light colored.
3. Add the egg yolks and beat thoroughly.
4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix well. I used an electric beater to make sure everything was really fluffy and well combined.
5. Add the extracts. I think most people would have gone with vanilla. We ran out of vanilla and thus was born a wonderful new combination of flavors. Also, I’m a sucker for orange and chocolate anything. I also thought some almond flavor in the crust would help bolster the almond topping.
6. Line your pie tin (or tins) with a 1/5 a centimeter of the dough all around.
7. Put the pies in the freezer for 15 minutes (or fridge for 30) to rest for a bit.
8. Preheat oven to 350 F and bake for 20 minutes. Or until the edges of crust are just starting to crisp up. Basically this is a cookie crust so follow the same rules as for cookies
   
   

Caramel

1 cup sugar

¼ cup water

1 large teaspoon lemon juice

¼ teaspoon salt

1 cup heavy cream

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

2-3 tablespoon bourbon

1. In a heavy bottomed pan, mix first four ingredients and allow mixture to boil using a medium high heat. While waiting, be sure to stir occasionally and make sure it doesn’t burn. You may also want to brush down the sides of the pan with a brush dipped in water. The mixture sometimes splashes up onto the sides of the pan and the resulting burnt sugar crystals have a peculiar smell.
2. Continue boiling for 5-7 minutes or until the resulting syrup is a light amber color. Once it begins to brown, it will darken very quickly so make sure to take it off before it gets very dark or you will burn it.
3. Add the heavy cream. Be careful not to burn yourself as the syrup will bubble up furiously with the new addition. Stir well.
4. Add the butter and continue stirring until it has melted.
5. Add the bourbon to taste (or rather to smell since the syrup is far too hot to taste at this point)
6. Let cool for about five minutes before pouring into the pie crust.

Chocolate Ganache

½ cup heavy cream

6 oz bittersweet chocolate

1. Melt cream and chocolate together over a double boiler
2. Allow to cool
3. Pour over the caramel

Toasted Almonds

¼ cup almond slices

1. Preheat oven to 375 F
2. Lay almond slices on a cookie sheet
3. Toast in oven for about ten minutes or until they become light brown
4. Sprinkle over the tarts
5. Put tarts in freezer for a half hour or until they have set

Reasons Cooking Makes My Life So Sweet

The past 24 hours of my life have involved:

Huge chunks of chocolate

Which melted to become a pool of fragrant, liquid, silk

Which got poured into cake batter And became a fluffy, layered espresso chiffon cake with chocolate buttercream frosting. Also, ludicrously sized coop cookware:
The cake recipe called for 1/3 cup canola. We had a 5 gallon jug. Stephen helped me measure it out.

Katie using the world's biggest wok.Enthusiastic reactions to cake!

And finally, arriving at a meeting and realizing that instead of textbooks, my backpack contained cake ingredients, a spare plate, a frosting spreader and an electric egg beater.
For those interested in the cake recipe, I based it off a recipe from Smitten Kitchen (http://www.smittenkitchen.com/). Look for Espresso Chiffon Cake with Chocolate Fudge Frosting.

For the Fajitas, think oodles of portobello mushrooms, green peppers and onion. Saute the mix and season it all with cumin, red pepper, chopped fresh cilantro, crushed garlic and a dash of vinegar.

Tough Tomatoes - Dealing with Grumpy Veggies

Sometimes the cooking gods smile on my kitchen. Fresh veggies spill from all corners, my herbs and spices have all decided to stay in one sensible area (instead of slipping away to the far reaches of dark cupboards or in my backpack, or a friend’s house, or the food coop…) and the only thing in greater supply than my endless cookbooks are the self-created recipes popping up in my head. So many options and possibilities I can’t even stand it! Except that I love it.

This, of course, doesn’t always happen. Sometimes, ingredients are in short supply, spices mysteriously go missing, and inspiring ideas few and far between.

On one of the last summer afternoons in August, I invited a few friends over for our last dinner together before we headed back to school. As often happens, I grandly declared I would make dinner. But when I opened the fridge door a few hours before said dinner-date, I found its contents utterly disappointing. To be fair, the random assortment of forlorn and thoroughly limp and discouraged vegetables huddled together in the back of the fridge didn’t exactly try to be inspiring. They seemed to stare back at me in a quiet resentment that acknowledged that as the last survivors in my onslaught on the farmer’s market veggies, they were the least attractive ones of the bunch. All week long, I had pushed these aside in favor of their brighter, fresher or somehow tastier-looking companions.

And as for seasonings? Garlic, my most staple of all ingredients, had gone completely MIA! I have the bad habit of using garlic as a sort of security blanket. I have no idea how to cook without it. What to do?

Well, we all have to get pushed out of our comfort zone occasionally. And, hint, in case you want to stop reading because you think this story is going to end in a big disappointing mess, it has a really happy ending!

Basically, this recipe is a lesson in plumping, brightening, encouraging and otherwise bringing to life those occasionally tasteless ingredients we cooks encounter. It’s also about stretching the little taste those ingredients do have as far as it will possibly go.

In this case, I created a freeform tomato tart. You will notice that tarts/quiches/pies are my common response to uninspiring ingredients. Buttery, flakey crust will go a long way towards making people happy. I can’t imagine how anybody eating such a beautiful thing as a crispy, golden pie crust could even think of complaining about the rest of the meal. But maybe that’s just me J I brought out the taste of the tomatoes using a quick marinade composed of shallot and fresh herbs simmered in olive oil. Throw everything together and yum!

Judging by speed with which the pie was eaten, I think I got the best of those grumpy ol’ tomatoes. The evening was spent in a glorious, end of summer haze of friendship, warm weather and food.

Free-Form Tomato Tart

- 4/5 medium sized tomatoes

- 1 large shallot

- 1/4 cup olive oil (minced)

- Herbs of all sorts (If you really want specifics, think a pinch each of rosemary, thyme, oregano, basil)

- 2 medium sized eggs

- 2 tbs milk

- Dash nutmeg

- 4 tablespoons feta crumbles

- 1 large tbs lemon juice

- salt and pepper

- 1 pie crust

Directions

1. Sprinkle the feta crumbles evenly over the pie crust.

2. Beat the eggs with the milk and pour over the feta. You're aiming for a thin layer of egg that will form a custard in the oven but you don't want to drown the crust so use your judgement. You should probably stop pouring the egg mixture once the whole bottom of the pie has a thin layer of egg mixture.

3. Sprinkle the tiny dash of ground nutmeg over the egg mixture. Nutmeg helps boost up and give texture and personality to the egg.

4. Slice tomatoes into eigths and arrange the slices prettily so that they fill up the crust.

5. Saute the shallot and rosemary in 2 tbs of the olive oil on medium high heat for about 2 minutes.

6. Add the rest of the olive oil and herbs. The choice of herbs is quite arbitrary. Different mixtures will have different tastes but as long as you stick with your basic Italian/French garden herbs, you're home safe!

7. Let everything simmer on very low heat for about 5 minutes. The point of this is to infuse the olive oil with the flavor of the various herbs. You're really stretching out what few ingrediants you have.

8. Drizzle the fragrant olive oil over the pie.

9. Salt and pepper to taste

10. Bake at 400 for about 30 minutes and then keep checking at 5 minute intervals until the crust is golden and the custard looks like it has set.