Category Archives: recipe

Deep Mushroom Pie

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This pie is so comforting it’s almost Dickensian, but it’s not stodgy at all. If you think of it as mushroom paté in a flaky crust, it’s actually quite elegant. It’s fun to make, doesn’t take too long, and is special enough to be a vegetarian holiday meal. I use a hot water crust on the bottom, and a paté brisée crust on the top, but you could use one or the other for both. I like to put a layer of chard or spinach, sauteed, finely chopped, because I think it adds a nice contrast of flavor and texture, but you can go full-mushroom if you like.

Here’s Ella Fitzgerald, with Louis Jordan singing the delicious Petootie Pie

You’re such a tasty, lump of pastry.
Gotta light the oven –
Gonna cook a dish of lovin’

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Hot water crust pastry – vegetarian style

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In which Claire cements her reputation as a pastry geek and gets all Mrs. Beeton on you.

I’m fascinated by hot water crust pastry! (Also called raised pastry.) I’d thought of pastry as a chilly, hands-off affair, with everything ice cold, touched only by fingertips, and laid out on a cold marble slab. Well, hot water crust pastry is made with boiling water and melted fat, you get your hands right in there and knead it, and then you mold it as if it was play-doh! It really can put some childish fun in making pies. It’s also a bit of a challenge, and it took me a while to find the right proportions. The idea behind this dough is that it makes a pastry so strong that you can pour gravy inside and it won’t leak out. So strong that you can put it in your pocket, and it won’t crumble. So strong that Rogue Riderhood can make it into plates…

Remarkably, it’s very tasty, too. And though I’ve just made it sound like it might crack your teeth, it has a lovely texture. Typically, it’s a crust for a meat pie, and it’s made with lard. I’ve read that you can substitute vegetable shortening, but I just don’t like the idea of vegetable shortening. Flavorless, colorless fat does not appeal to me. So I use a mixture of butter and olive oil. I’ve had good results – it might not be exactly like the original, but it’s very tasty and sturdy enough for anything I’ve ever made. The idea is to mold it by hand, or to mold it around a large jar, and then tie parchment paper around it, or let it cook free-standing and expect the middle to bulge out a bit. I’ve molded it around cups to make small pies, but for anything larger I cheat and cook it inside something with a tall straight edge, and then turn it out impressively at the end.

If you want to make a vegan version, use margarine instead of butter.

I’ve used this pie crust for many pies! It works well with Deep Mushroom Pie, and Vegetarian Pie, Mash & Liquor.

UPDATE! *I’ve changed the proportions a little bit in the recipe. It never made enough, for one thing, and it was more difficult to work with than it needed to be. The recipe now should make a delightfully moldable dough, but still hold its shape when you want it to.*

I’ve got a couple of songs about pork pie hats, because this crust is known for its pork-pie-usage.

Here’s Charles Mingus – Goodbye Pork Pie Hat

and here’s Pork Pie Hat by Lauren Aitken
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Black bean & butternut squash enchiladas

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Enchiladas

What makes these Halloween-y? They’re black and orange, of course! They’re also a welcome warm and spicy meal on a cold autumn night. The earthiness of the black beans and the spinach contrasts nicely with the sweetness of the squash. Chipotle puree and red pepper flakes add some zing, and fennel and cilantro brighten it all up. The sauce is a spicy tomato-almond sauce, and it’s delicious! These enchiladas are not drowned in sauce or cheese, they’re lighter and dryer, and the tortillas become nice and crispy on the edge.

Here’s Enchilada by the Scamps. Enchilaaaaaaaada….enchilaaaaaaaaaaada! The maniacal laughter makes it a good halloween song, too!
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Rosemary bread

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rosemary bread

I bought a huge bunch of fresh rosemary, and I dried most of it in the oven, but I wanted to do something with a small amount while it was fresh. Cold and miserable weather (snow in October!) always inspires me to make something that takes a lot of time, but not a lot of attention–bread! I decided to make a brioche-type of dough, playing on the secret sweetness of rosemary. And I added green peppercorns and a bit of lemon zest, two other flavors that seem to span the salty/sweet divide. The result is a rich, finely-crumbed bread with a very subtle flavor. Nice the first day with soup, and very good toasted with salted butter the next day. It would probably make a good grilled cheese sandwich with some mild and salty cheese, but there’s none left to try it out on!

Here’s some wise advice from Justin Hinds…Save a Bread to listen to while you wait for your dough to rise.

more…
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Parsnip, pumpkin, & ginger soup

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This soup is like autumn in a bowl! A little bit sweet, a little bit spicy – smooth and comforting on a cold dreary day. I made a broth first, and let it sit on the stove most of the afternoon, warming the kitchen and making everybody hungry!

Here’s MF Doom’s Ginger to listen to while you cook.

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CAKE

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I love making cakes. Not fancy, special-occasion cakes, but every-day cakes, to have with coffee in the morning, or tea in the afternoon, or a glass of wine after dinner. I have a very simple recipe I use, that is a good starting point for any kind of variation you can think of. It’s a vanilla cake, but you can add any kind of flavoring you like. You can add chocolate chips, or nuts, or coconuts, or fruit. You can slice it in half and spread jam or nutella (or both!) in between and stick it back together again. You can add lemon zest or orange zest or cinnamon or ginger. You can make a chocolate cake by adding cocoa powder or melted chocolate. You can make a crumb topping with brown sugar, oatmeal, flour, butter and cinnamon. You can frost it, or put powdered sugar on it, or coat it with ganache, or make it into an angler fish for your son’s birthday. The possibilities are endless!

To show you how easy it is, I’ve made two at once! A pumpkin chocolate chip cake, and a coconut-almond cake with cherry filling.

Here’s some instrumental hip hop to warm up this dreary day.
RZA’s Cakes, and Pete Rock’s The Cake.
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Chickpea & spinach dumplings (with a black sesame seed crust)

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chickpea & spinach dumplings

These aren’t the kind of dumplings you float in a stew! Rather, this is how I imagine the dumplings that Kung Fu Panda fights over. They have a light crust, studded with black sesame seeds, black mustard seeds and black pepper. (I love this combination just because they’re so pretty in the pan together!) And a simple filling of spinach, chickpeas, cilantro and a bit of cheese. They’re fun to make and fun to eat! I have to admit that I completely messed up this crust at first, but, proving that crust is forgiving, I added a few ingredients, gave myself a day to get over the frustration, and it worked perfectly.

Here’s Ken Parker singing Sugar Dumpling.
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Malcolm’s supreme spicy croquettes

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My Malcolm is a temperamental boy, and I’m not always the most patient mother. When we try to work together on a school project, it doesn’t always end well. But when we cook together, we make quite a team. Over the summer, Malcolm invented a sauce with roasted red peppers, roasted beets and roasted tomatoes. He smelled every spice in the cabinet, choosing the perfect mix for his sauce. It turned out delicious! Smoky, spicy, slightly sweet. He named it “Malcolm’s supreme spicy sauce.” This weekend, he had the idea of turning the sauce into cookies. I suggested we make croquettes, using his signature spice mix, and we added some pureed moong dal. The result was something between a croquette and a cookie, like nothing I’ve ever tasted. But it was a wonderfully tasty dinner! We dipped it in a tart-sweet tamarind sauce, and ate it alongside cauliflower puree and spinach sauteed with garlic and mixed with goat cheese, tomatoes and pesto. And a salad of course! Malcolm ate 4 croquettes, and Isaac tried it, and ran crying from the table, saying, “I tried it and I liked it, but I want something I knew I liked, like pasta or rice!” Ah, yoots.

Spinach, pesto, & goat cheese

Here’s one of Malcolm’s favorite songs, K’naan’s Bang Bang, which gets extra points for using the phrase

Hotter than a pepper-crusted Samosa.

I want a pepper-crusted samosa!!

Recipe coming up…
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What are we going to do with all this vegetarian paella?

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I’m calling this a paella because it has a rich, saffron-infused broth. If you’re a paella purist, however, you can call it fennel-artichoke heart-white bean stew. Either way, it’s a warm and flavorful meal for a chilly fall evening. I serve it with basmati rice, because that’s my favorite, and some nice crusty bread.

Here’s La Paella by Conjunto Yumuri. Don’t know much about it, but I love it!


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Chard, pistachio & golden raisin tart

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When I was in Spain quite a few years ago, I stopped at a place with only one vegetarian thing on the menu – spinach, raisins, and pine nuts. It was such a simple dish, and I had such a heaping mound of spinach on my plate, but somehow it was one of the most memorable and delicious meals I have ever eaten. The filling for this pie is loosely based on that memory. I used chard instead of spinach, because of the added depth of earthy flavor, and because it seems more substantial. And I added pistachios, quite frankly, because I had them! You could just as easily use spinach and pine nuts. The flavor would be different but equally delicious. I added lemon zest to this light yeasted crust, because I think the brightness of lemon zest contrasts nicely with the earthiness of the chard.

Here’s Swiss Chard, by Ed’s Redeeming Qualities, a band we used to listen to when we lived in Boston. I hadn’t thought about them in a while. Thank you, swiss chard, for reminding me!!

Recipe after the jump…
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