Irene is History

Hurricane Irene is now, finally history, as far as I'm concerned.  We lost power around 1AM Sunday morning.  Since we are on a well, this also means we lost water.  

I can handle no power pretty well.  

No water.  That's another matter altogether.

65+ hours later, we finally have power restored.  Awesome.

Soon, I will be posting about "A Study in Scarlet - Graphic Novel", "The Inheritance", "A Letter of Mary", and Gluten-Free Hurricane Hamburgers!  

Who said a hurricane isn't the perfect reason to get some reading done?

Stay tuned!

Gluten-Free Peach Pie

Easy as Pie?

Who ever came up with this saying obviously has never made a gluten-free pie.

Pie is something that can undeniably fail. Cookies can burn. Cakes can fall. 

Pies fail. 

The bottom crust is soggy. The filling didn't set up properly. The top crust is burned. The crust is tasteless. The filling is too tart. The crust isn't flakey.

Did I mention that the crust can be a problem?

The crust is the most crucial part of a pie.  And the most difficult.

When I was eating gluten, I baked a few pies. And they were good. And not difficult. Pies have never been my favorite, but I made some now and then and they all turned out fine. Nothing glorious. Nothing divine.  But also none of them failed.

Then I went gluten-free. And then I tried gluten-free pies. Particularly, gluten-free pecan pie.

My first gluten-free pecan pie failed.  My second gluten-free pecan pie failed.

Clearly, it is time to re-evalutate what I am doing with my gluten-free pecan pie.

I've volunteered, actually I'm eager, to cook a full gluten-free Thanksgiving dinner.  With the works.  All gluten-free.  We did it last year, and it was fabulous!

But I want a successful gluten-free pecan pie this time! So...

I'm going to practice!

Practice making pies. It is now August and I have all of September and October and most of November to make pies and figure out how to get that gluten-free pecan pie to behave!  I want to practice making gluten-free fruit pies, gluten-free lemon meringue pies, gluten-free key lime pies, gluten-free apple pies, gluten-free pecan pies.

When I announced this to my family, no one looked worried.  My daughter started grinning from ear to ear.  They liked the sound of making practice pies.  How bad could they be? Even if the practice pies failed, the filling would still be good enough to eat, right?

Well, let's hope so.

Since it is still August, I would like to practice fruit pies first and take advantage of the late summer fruit. At the farmer's market, I looked over the available fruit and decided I would like to get the peaches for pie practice.

That's what this is. It's not soccer practice or trombone practice. It is not even baking practice. This is pie practice.

And this time it will be peach pie practice. But the peaches were still too firm. I needed to wait. I put them in a brown paper bag to help the ripening. That was Saturday. Sunday came along and they were still firm. Then Monday arrived and I headed off to work.

When I got home from work Monday evening, my husband informed me that I need to make that peach pie right away, since the peaches had gotten soft.

He was right. I needed to make peach pie on Monday night.

Mondays are not good for making pie. Or for pie practice. Mondays are Mondays.

But the peaches won. It was time to practice.

Gluten-Free Peach Pie

I wanted to try making a gluten-free double crust pie, and now was as good a time as any.

I started with the crust.  First the dry ingredients:

1/2 cup brown rice flour
1/2 cup garfava flour (mixture of garbanzo and fava bean flours)
1/3 cup potato flour
2 Tbsp + 2 tsp tapioca starch
3 Tbsp sweet rice flour
2 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt

I used a whisk to mix them completely.

Cutting in the margarine was next.  I used 8 tablespoons of margarine and 1 tablespoon of butter, since that is what I had on hand.  I have since come to the conclusion that pie crust should only be made with butter.  More on that in a bit.  I cut the margarine in with a pastry blender until I had coarse crumbs.

Then the wet ingredients:

1 large egg + 2 Tbsp egg white
1.5 Tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice

You might be able to get away with substituting a bottled version of lemon juice, but when it comes to lemon zest, there is not substitute. None. And if you have a lemon to zest, you might as well juice it.

I gently stirred all the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients using a fork. I don't know why I chose a fork. I guess I just figured it was going to be sticky. And it was. I covered the bowl of dough with a towel and put it in the refrigerator while I prepared the peaches.

These are the soft peaches.

It turned out that some of them were so soft because they had bruised spots. There's no avoiding that.  Bruises must be dealt with harshly. Show no mercy. By cutting them out.

I peeled and coarsely sliced the peaches.  In retrospect, they could have been sliced thinner, but those suckers are slippery once they are peeled!

No more bruises.

Into the peeled, sliced peaches, I added:

1/2 cup brown sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1.5 Tbsp cornstarch

I stirred it all together and let it sit while I rolled out the crusts.

Chilling the gluten-free crust dough is helpful, since the dough is so incredibly sticky.  And it firms up the margarine a bit, keeping it from incorporating completely with the flours.  This all works better with butter.  Butter is what makes pastries flakey.  Margarine?  Not so much.  It melts at a much lower temperature, so just working with it a little bit will melt it.  Getting a flakey crust means small bits of butter need to be intact.  This time, we had mostly margarine.

Rolling out gluten-free dough of any kind is different than gluten dough. Remember that stickiness I mentioned? Well, it is so sticky, you can't get it to come off the rolling pin. Gluten-free doughs need a trick or two. Parchment paper for one, and sometimes either oil or more gluten-free flour for two.

I've made several gluten-free pizzas and have had very good luck with oiling one side of each of two pieces of parchment paper.  The gluten-free pizza dough goes between the oiled sides of the papers and rolling commences.  It's a breeze. The dough isn't stiff. The dough doesn't stick. That pizza dough is rolled out in no time flat.  No pun intended.

But it was apropos.

For the bottom of my gluten-free peach pie crust, I started the same way as for my gluten-free pizza dough.  Oiled parchment paper.  And I rolled out half of the gluten-free crust dough.  And then I tried to peel off one of the pieces of paper.

Not happening.  Stuck.  Stuck like peanut butter on the roof of your mouth.

I ever so patiently and gently and painfully pulled the paper as I kept pushing the dough back in place. This took me about ten slow and deliberate minutes. Painful!

Finally, with the first piece of paper off, I flipped the dough (still on one piece of paper) over into the buttered pie plate.  I adjusted a bit and then began the excruciating task of ever so gently pulling off the second piece of paper.

That was obviously not the way to work with this crust.  Next up:  the top crust and this time I was going to try flouring the paper with rice flour.

The rice flour readily stuck to the oiled parchment paper and I even added a bit more rice flour for good measure.  I definitely didn't want a repeat of that first crust.

I put the second half of the crust dough between the floured paper and rolled it out. The top paper came off easily. This was going to be far better than the bottom crust.

Why did I forget to take pictures of the crusts? Ah, maybe I was so flustered with that sticky bottom crust that I forgot.  Yeah, that's it.

I put the sugared peaches in the bottom crust and smoothed them out, making sure the large pieces were right up against the edge so the top crust wouldn't sag.  Then I sprinkled the zest across the top of the peaches.

Then it was time to flip the top crust onto the filled bottom crust.  My husband grabbed the other edges of the parchment paper, we aimed carefully... and then flipped!

Just the crust, people.  Just the crust.

The second paper came off effortlessly and I smoothed the top crust out, pinching the edges.  Since fruit pies like to bubble, fruit pies need holes in the top crust to release steam.  If you don't give the pie places to release the steam, they will explode. Be kind to your oven and don't let your pie explode. This is also your opportunity to create edible art. Who said playing with food isn't allowed?

But this is pie practice. This requires fine, surgical skill.

Or not. At first, I was going to stop with just the four cuts in the center of the pie.  But then I thought that it needed more room to breathe, so I added more holes.

After preheating the oven to 400 degrees, I slid the pie onto the bottom rack and baked it for 15 minutes. Then I lowered the temperature to 350 degrees and moved the pie up to the middle rack.  I baked it there for an additional 25 minutes.

It's a good thing I added those extra holes.

This pie needed to breathe. Can you see all that pale, cooked peach juice that bubbled out of those outside holes?

By the time the pie came out of the oven, we were all ready to eat it.  But we couldn't, since it was too hot. I couldn't even wait for it to cool to take a picture. We needed to serve this pie. It was Monday night after all. And getting late.

So, we served it.  It was more than just warm.  It was a bit too warm.  Look how it sagged on the plate.

That didn't deter us one pit.  We dug in.

But this didn't turn out to be a great pie.  It was okay.  It was good.  It was edible.

It was not a failure.

It was not a huge success either.  No one in the family was over the moon for this pie.  I've got work to do.

Oh, darn.

The filling turned out to be a bit tart.  I don't like overly sweet pies, but this one could have used a bit more sweetening. Maybe it was the lemon zest. Maybe there wasn't enough sugar. Maybe it was the peaches. I'm not sure.

The crust was done on the bottom and the top and was browned nicely. That was good. But the crusts were rather tasteless. And not flakey.  This is where the issue of the butter comes in.

From now on, I'm using butter exclusively in my gluten-free pie crusts.

And practice makes perfect.  Or so they say.

Just remember, whether you eat gluten or not...

... butter is butter is butter.

Nobody said eating gluten-free is low fat.

I'll have to wait a bit before I resume practicing....

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Book Review

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson.

This book is part of a crime novel triology.  The books have gotten a lot of press over the past few years, partly because they have been made into movies and that the third book was just published in the United States in 2010.

I need to start by saying that I loved this book!  I didn't love everything in the book or everything about the book, but this book ranks very high on my list of favorites.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

This book is deeply embedded in Sweden.  The references to names and places and cities were everywhere through the book.  It was impossible for me to get any sense of these locations or names or places, since I am not familiar with Sweden or anything Swedish.  If I had a map of Sweden, I may have at least felt introduced to the setting. All I can think of is cold weather and blond hair. Luckily, the author does, at times, mention peculiarities of Swedish law.  This helped me understand things a bit better, especially when Swedish laws are different than the laws of the United States.

This book is filled with many references to many unsavory adult themes.  This is nothing less than an "R"-rated book, at best.  I don't have an inherent problem with R-rated as such, but I find these particular themes extremely unpleasant.  That said, each reference is brief.  The author does not drag these out or give overly extensive graphic details.  Thankfully!  Nonetheless, these references and themes are rather plentiful throughout the book.  The subplots depend on them.  They provide motivation and depth to the story. Unpleasant, yes.  Brief, yes.  Plentiful, yes.  Necessary?  Maybe.

I was overwhelmingly impressed with the thick, complex, multilayered plot and subplots.  This is a well-crafted and beautifully executed story.  Maybe that seems at odds with the previous paragraph, but there is no denying that only a skillful and talented writer can construct and populate such a detailed and complicated tale.  I am in awe.  And everything moves along.  Just as things seem to slow a bit, something new happens.

We are given a number of characters, two of which are co-protagonists.  We are given quite the background on both of these characters, which gives them body and generates interest.  Each of the main characters is portrayed in a unsurprising way.  They aren't boring, but they aren't surprising or overly unique either.  Early in the book, these characters are presented somewhat separately.  It isn't immediately obvious how they will be brought together. When they do all come together, they create an intricate and complex web. This, again, is impressive.

The subplots are numerous and include journalistic responsibilities, corporate fraud, family businesses, a family saga, and all those adult themes interspersed throughout.  Each of these adds depth to the story and they drew me in.  Of course this adds to the length of the book.  The normal-sized print book is 600 pages.  As you can see from my picture, I read the large print version, which has 800 pages.  This book was long, but I never felt like I wanted to read less of it.  Much to the contrary.  I couldn't wait to read more each day!

If you don't mind and can handle the adult themes, this is an outstanding book.  Set aside some time for this one, and you won't be disappointed.  I can't wait to read the next in the trilogy!

Trader Joe's Brown Rice Pasta

Brown Rice Pasta

I was asked recently what kind of gluten-free pasta is good.  There are lots of horrible tasting ones out there.  I know.  I've tried quite a few.

This is from Trader Joe's and is not advertised as gluten-free.  It does have a label indicating that no gluten ingredients are used.

I have found that most of Trader Joe's products are made without much cross-contamination.  Not enough for me to notice.  That does not mean cross-contamination is not possible.  It just means that I must not be sensitive to that level of potential cross-contamination.  I do have cross-contamination problems with other products.

Gluten-free labeling is no guarantee of safety.  Each of us needs to evaluate what level of exposure to potential gluten cross-contamination is safe for us and act accordingly.  Please be safe.

I have had good luck with many of Trader Joe's "no gluten ingredients" products.

This is one of them.

We eat this pasta almost exclusively in our house now.  I used the fusilli in my Gluten-Free Greek Pasta Salad. Only rarely do we make gluten pasta, but sometimes we do make other non-glutenated pastas.  Some of those are more ethnic pastas and noodles.  But almost always they are gluten-free.

I have found that cooking gluten-free pasta takes a bit more attention than gluten pasta.  This brown rice pasta needs to be stirred more during the boiling, since it seems to release more starch into the water during the cooking.  Without more frequent stirring, it glues itself together.  Once I drain this pasta, I'm also sure to immediately rinse the pasta with cold running water.  This stops the cooking process and washes off the loose starch, so that the pieces don't stick together.

My family vetoed several different gluten-free pastas before we settled on this one.  This one tastes almost as good as gluten pasta and it is a close enough stand in that nobody minds having it.  It's texture is a bit different, but not significantly different.  The taste is closer to a whole wheat pasta than a white, durum wheat pasta.  We were happy when we found that both the taste and texture were acceptable to everyone in our household.

Once this is cooked, drained and rinsed, it can be used just as you would use any cooked gluten pasta.

Cook some up and add some homemade pesto for a delicious dinner!  Enjoy!

The Invention of Hugo Cabret

Book Review

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick.

We were at the library and my son was busy playing computer games instead of finding books to borrow. From time to time he resists getting more books, yet when he finds something he likes, there's no stopping him from reading.

But he doesn't like having to look for new books.

I finally decided that if I find him playing games at the library and he hasn't picked out any books, he has to accept two of the books I find for him.  Yes, he started to object, but then he realized that the pressure of finding new books was lifted a bit, since I was essentially pushing some suggestions on him.  He just had to select two.

Enter Hugo Cabret.

I was browsing through the children's section at the library while the boy played games, and I spotted Hugo on the cart near the librarian's desk.  It had a Caldecott Winner sticker on the front.  That's usually an enticement for me, but this was already different than most Caldecott winners.  This "picture book" was thick.

Three inches thick.

Something clicked.  Did we just see a movie preview in the theater about an upcoming movie involving an invention and a kid?

I liked the cover (yes, I just said that) and it included the word "invention", so I picked it up and added it to The Boy's pile of books.

Then my daughter arrived.

She took one look at The Invention of Hugo Cabret and said, "That's a good book!"

Well, that was good enough for me to encourage the boy to get it.

And then I asked her, "Did we see a movie preview about something like this when we were at the theater?"

"Yes, this is the book.  They are making a movie about it."

Good.  The preview had looked interesting.  From what I could recall.

I still didn't really know anything about it or the book.

After getting home, I noticed that The Boy was flipping through Hugo.  I could see some of the pictures from a distance.  Clearly, my son was interested.

He read it in no time flat.

Sometime the next day, I heard The Boy say, "Yeah, that is a good book."

Now, I was truly intrigued.  I had to find out about this book.  I had to read it.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret

This is an outstanding children's book.  It is unique and engaging.  It is so different from anything I've ever read before.

This is a novel told in both words and pictures.  It is not quite a "picture book", and yet it is.  The pictures are vital to telling a large part of the story.  All of the pictures are done in pencil.  This "black, white, and shades of gray" view of the story is quite appropriate to the plot.

The plot tells of a boy's struggle to survive, in spite of difficult circumstances. The setting is unique and is firmly set in the specific time period. While this is a book written for children, there is more to the plot than what appears at first glance.  There are a few complexities and unexpected twists.  This is especially nice for the older children and adults reading.  Nothing gets too complicated, but it certainly held my interest throughout.

The characters are painted a bit thinly, but this isn't really surprising.  The plot and the pictures drive this story along.  The setting is prominent in both the telling and showing of the story.  The black and white drawings add to the sense of age, some time in the past.  Color would have detracted from the feeling of looking back in time.

The author has done a good job of presenting actual events and movies of the time.  This made me wonder about the authenticity of some of the things in the book while I was reading it.  The afterword explains that these parts were true and that our supporting character was in fact a real person.  The rest of the story is fiction.  I found this blend of fact and fiction intriguing. I liked it. I liked the way they were melded together and it left me wondering about it.

This is so much more than a children's book.  This is so much more than a picture book.  This is a fascinating book that everyone should read, children and adults alike.  I really enjoyed it, and both of my children did too!  Check it out!

Gluten-Free Raspberry-Apple Cobbler

Un/Happy Accident

This was the result of a happy accident.

Well, actually, it was unhappy. But it was certainly unexpected.

I was happy to be asked to pick up the weekly allotment of a colleague's share of their CSA delivery.  Community Supported Agriculture.  This is locally-grown, farm-fresh produce.  I was being given the vegetables due to a sudden, unhappy change in schedule.

But I was happy to accept them.

And then I forgot to get the vegetables.  Luckily, I got a call reminding me to pick them up.  I grabbed the nearest bag I had with me and headed out.

My bag wasn't nearly big enough!

I was picking up eggplant, yellow squash, tomatoes, onions, butter lettuce, bell peppers, garlic, corn, cantaloupe, and raspberries.  And since I ended up being the last person to show up for the pick up, I helped clean out the leftover vegetables.  More tomatoes, more onions, more bell peppers, more raspberries.

I was thrilled to be getting all this produce!

But I had been warned that the raspberries had seen better days.  It was true.  The farm folks had let them sit a bit too long.

The raspberries on top looked good enough to me, so I took lots.  They wouldn't go to waste.

Gluten-Free Raspberry-Apple Cobbler

After getting home with my spoils, it was clear that the raspberries had to be dealt with immediately.  I had been thinking about making a raspberry pie, but in reality, these berries were well past their prime and a pie is best when the fruit is at their peak.

These were past peak.

These needed to be cooked.  And soon.

Given that we had little other fruit at that moment to use with the raspberries and seeing how late in the evening it was getting, we settled on a gluten-free cobbler.  Quick, easy, and painless.  We had apples on hand, so we used those to fill it out.

We worked quickly to get the cobbler together so that we would have dessert ready to eat after dinner.  My husband gently picked through and cleaned the raspberries.  They were readily falling apart.

My daughter wanted to do the gluten-free cobbler biscuit dough.  We used sorghum flour, white rice flour, brown rice flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, xanthan gum, cold margarine, and milk with a bit of vinegar (since we didn't have any buttermilk on hand).  She measured everything out, cut the margarine into the dry ingredients with a pastry blender, and then mixed in the combined milk and vinegar.  Then she set aside the dough until we were ready for it.

I chopped the apples and prepared the fruit, adding some sugar and a bit of lemon juice and corn starch, and mixing with the raspberries very gently.

I put the fruit mixture in the oven and baked it for about 20 minutes.  The apples needed enough time to soften and the mixture needed to get hot and bubbly.  Then I took it out and added the dough to the top.  I struggled a bit to get biscuit-sized spoonfuls dropped onto the fruit.  I made sure not to cover the fruit with a complete layer of dough, so that the fruit and juices could bubble up between the dough balls. Then I put it back in the oven for another 25 minutes or so.

I can't quite call these biscuits, but they were quite tasty with the fruit.  I have a gluten-free recipe for biscuits that make better biscuits than what you see above.  All that hurrying to drop the dough onto the top of the hot fruit left these "biscuits" rather spiky-looking.  But they browned nicely and they tasted just fine for this purpose.

Look at that red!  And oh, the flavor!  The raspberries were so strong in flavor!  Delicious!  The raspberries and apples cooked together very nicely and the topping was browned just right.

This turned out to be a quick and perfect use for all those overripe raspberries!  So fruity and summery!