Vanilla-cinnamon goats' milk panna cotta with caramel sauce

So, Cinco de Mayo was a few days ago. I am at home with my family for about 10 days, until I return to Pittsburgh to see Sam graduate and to start my summer. I have been cooking for my family almost every night, which I enjoy. It is a pleasure to work in my parents' large, well-equipped kitchen, and I love having a dishwasher that is not me. My parents don't get too excited about cooking, so they are more than happy to give up the title of head cook. Also, if I cook, I am able to control exactly what is put in front of me, and so am able to both avoid allergens and include the foods I love.

For the holiday, I soaked some diced chicken breasts in a lime-garam masala-brown sugar marinade for about 24 hours, then roasted them to roll up in corn tortillas for enchiladas in a mole-ish sauce. I also made my favorite black bean salad, with red onion, tomatoes, garlic, cilantro, and lime juice.

For dessert I wanted to make flan or creme caramel, since this is a fun Mexican-themed dessert. However, most of these recipes contain eggs. I decided that panna cotta was close enough, since this Italian pudding is naturally egg-free. I flavored it with some cinnamon and vanilla, and topped it with a rich, buttery caramel sauce. Yum yum.



Vanilla-cinnamon goats' milk panna cotta (adapted from David Lebovitz)

4 cups whole goats' milk
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cinnanon
4 1/2 teaspoons unflavored gelatin
4 tablespoons cold water

Put the cold water in a bowl large enough to accommodate all ingredients. Add the gelatin and let stand for five to ten minutes, until softened.

While the gelatin is softening, put the milk and sugar in a medium-sized saucepan and heat on low until the sugar is dissolved. This step can also be done in the microwave. Remove from heat. You do not want to boil the milk or reduce it, just dissolve the sugar. Stir in the cinnamon and vanilla until well-combined.

Take eight custard cups and oil the insides with an neutral oil. If you don't have eight cups of equal size, improvise!

Add the very warm milk mixture to the gelatin and mix until all clumps of gelatin are dissolved.

Divide the mixture out into the oiled cups and cover each cup tightly with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least two hours, or until firm.

When you are ready to eat, unmold the panna cotta by sliding a thin sharp knife around the edge of each cup, then invert the cup onto a serving plate. Top with caramel sauce, if desired (recipe below).

Caramel sauce (adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

1/2 cup white sugar
3 tbsp salted butter or margarine
1/4 cup whole goats' milk

Heat the sugar over medium heat in a saucepan bigger than you think you'll need. Stir constantly at first, making sure the sugar melts evenly. Continue cooking the liquefied sugar until it has taken on a beautiful, coppery color, stirring frequently to ensure it does not burn. Do not taste it! Hot sugar is burny and will instantly cool on your teeth, giving you some (literally) sweet grillz.
When the sugar is the right color, add the butter, and stir in to combine. Turn off the heat, and stir in the milk. It will foam up a lot.
If not using right away, store tightly covered in the refrigerator.

Winter Squash Soup

Yes, I know. It's April! This is no time for winter squash soup! I know, I know. But, the school year is almost over (just a week of class and then finals to go) and I am trying to simultaneously clean out my fridge and avoid buying anymore food. I had a butternut squash and an acorn squash tucked up in my pantry, bought in January, and when I split them open for this soup, they were weirdly perfect. They did not suffer at all from their long confinement.

We are also having a chilly, rainy weekend and so I thought some thick warm soup would hit the spot. It did.

Winter Squash Soup (adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

The original recipe calls for gruyere croutons made from slices of bread. I used what I had on hand, and it turned out great: I had these crispbreads and a little tub of crumbled soft goat cheese. It turned out yum, but you can totally substitute whatever you enjoy/have/can eat.

4 tablespoons butter or margarine
1 large onion, finely chopped
4 large garlic cloves, chopped
3 14 1/2-ounce cans low-salt chicken broth
1 medium-sized butternut squash
1 medium-sized acorn squash
1 1/4 teaspoons minced fresh thyme
1 1/4 teaspoons minced fresh sage
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 cup whole goats' milk (optional)

For each toast:

1 cracker or thin slice of bread

2 tablespoons crumbled soft goat cheese

1 pinch dried thyme

1 pinch dried sage

Salt and pepper to taste.

Preheat the oven to 425. With a large, sturdy knife, halve the squashes and seed them. Place them on a baking sheet and roast until soft. Remove from oven and set aside. When it is cool enough so you don't burn yourself, scoop the flesh of the squashes out of the skins and set aside in a bowl.

Plop the butter in a large pot and melt over medium heat. Add the garlic and onion and saute until soft, which takes about 10 minutes. Be very careful not to burn the garlic! If it starts to get a little too brown, turn down the heat. Add the squash, the broth, and the herbs and bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer, cover, and let cook until the squash is very soft, which should take about 15 minutes.

Puree the soup in a blender (you will probably have to work in batches) or using an immersion blender. Return the soup to the pot, bring back up to a simmer, and add the goats' milk, if you're using it. Season with salt and pepper. At this point you can chill the soup, covered, in the refrigerator if you want to serve it later.

Take the crackers or bread slices and spread with the goat cheese, then sprinkle with the thyme, sage, and salt and pepper. Toast in a toaster oven or under the broiler in your oven until the cheese melts. Don't let it burn! Serve each bowl of soup with a toast.

Injera

When I arrived at college almost four years ago, I had never tried Ethiopian food. In fact, it was not until almost two years later that I finally went to a little restaurant in Pittsburgh called Abay and had a big plate of injera and wat. I was instantly in love. I have always been a spice fiend, and the complex flavors of the dishes blew me away. I was addicted, and I still crave those spices.

However, I have also always been a bread fiend, and injera, the spongy, tangy bread made from teff, is a big part of the Ethiopian eating experience. Rice is just not the same. The two Ethiopian restaurants in Pittsburgh use gluten-containing flours in their injera, so I have been on a mission to make a gluten-free version. I have been served flawless gluten-free injera in Washington, DC, so I know it is possible. Traditional injera is made from only teff flour, and rather than having leaveners added, the slurry of teff and water is fermented to develop the flavor and create air bubbles.

However, the web is sadly bereft of recipes that are both authentic and functional. We have, for example, monstrosities from Paula Deen that have no teff at all, and substitute baking powder for the fermentation step.

I picked out this recipe and gave it a whirl, fermenting the teff-water slurry for 3 days and cooking according to the instructions. It. was. awful. I am sad and I don't know where to go from here. The not-injera had none of the tangy sourdough taste, and refused to cook up like I remembered. I am wondering if the same cooking technique that I use for Indian dosa could be employed here: pour the batter into a cold skillet and heat it up from there.

As an unrelated aside, injera batter looks like chocolate milk:

Homesick

Missing this:

And this:

This:

Oh, and most definitely these:


Hanoi, why did we have to part?

Gluten-free soy-free egg-free dairy-free chocolate tart

Ah, Christmas.

This was my first Christmas with food allergies, but I found it a lot less stressful than Thanksgiving. First, I had some experience in making a food-centric holiday work for me and my family, and second, the menu for Christmas is not as rigid as for Thanksgiving. I don't understand when people basically have Thanksgiving dinner again on Christmas day: you had turkey and stuffing and pumpkin pie month ago, why do you want it again?

I had some mixed success with short ribs bourguinon. I think the short ribs I used were too fatty - there didn't seem to be much meat on a lot of them. The meal was a stupendous amount of work for an average result, leaving me exhausted and a little dissatisfied.

Dessert, however, included this intense chocolate tart. My stepdad always requests a chocolate pie for holidays, and my mum usually obliges with the Jello pudding + Keebler crust deal. I wanted to prove that I could remake this classic dessert with better ingredients that also just happen to be safe for me to consume. The great thing about remaking this tart egg and dairy-free is that the chocolate provides a lot of the structure, so you don't have to worry so much about what you lose when you swap out ingredients.

It's just a big pile of chocolate. Its hard to mess up.

Gluten-free soy-free egg-free dairy-free Chocolate Tart (adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

This recipe will make enough for a 9-inch tart pan

Sweet tart dough (Pate Sucree):

3 tablespoons unsalted margarine or butter, softened but not melted

3 tablespoons trans-fat free vegetable shortening such as Spectrum Organic, at room temperature

1/2 cup powdered sugar (confectioners sugar), sifted

3 tablespoons almond meal or ground blanched almonds

Pinch of salt (omit if your margarine/butter is salted)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 eggs or equivalent amount of egg replacer

1/3 cup + 3 tablespoons sorghum flour

1/3 cup tapioca starch

1/3 cup potato starch

1 teaspoon xanthan gum

You can use either a stand mixer or a food processor to make this dough, and I'm sure you can do it by hand as well. I used the stand mixer, so here are the directions for that method:

In a medium-sized bowl, combine the sorghum flour, tapioca and potato starches, and xanthan gum. Set aside.

Using the paddle attachment, beat the butter and shortening together until smooth. Add the confectioners sugar and beat until well combined, stopping to scrape down the bowl as needed. Add the almond meal, the salt (if using), and the vanilla one at a time, combining each ingredient into the dough before adding the next one. Add in the flour mixture, stirring only just until combined. Do not over mix!

With clean hands, gather the dough into a ball and press into a rough disk. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least four hours or up to two days.

When you are ready to use the dough, grease a 9-inch tart pan with butter or neutral oil.

Take the dough out of the fridge, unwrap it, and sandwich the disk between two large pieces of plastic wrap. Roll the dough out with a rolling pin on the counter or on a large cutting board. You will need to lift up the sheets of plastic periodically so that they don't get rolled into crevices in the dough. Also, you will need to flip the dough over periodically so you can roll out the other side. If the dough gets too soft and sticky, pop it back in the fridge on top of the cutting board or a baking sheet.

When the dough has been rolled out large enough to cover the bottom and sides of your tart pan, peel off the top layer of plastic and carefully flip the dough over and lay the exposed side down in the tart pan, centering it. Peel off the other sheet of plastic, which should now be on top, and press the dough into the bottom and up the sides of the tart pan. It will probably crack and break, but you can repair by patching up the cracks with excess dough, moistened with water.

Cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or up to 2 days.

When you are ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 and line the unbaked tart shell with parchment paper, then weigh down with dry rice or beans or pie weights. Cover the edges of the crust with aluminum foil to prevent burning, and bake the crust for 15-20 minutes, until very lightly browned. Remove the parchment paper, weights, and foil, and bake for another 3 to 5 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool on a rack.

Chocolate Filling:

12 ounces good-quality bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

1 cup unsweetened MimicCream or heavy cream

1 packet (2 1/2 teaspoons) gelatin or agar-agar (to make this vegan)

1 1/2 teaspoons Ener-G egg replacer

3 tbsp cold water

1 tbsp boiling water

(if you can eat eggs, use 3 egg yolks instead of the gelatin, Ener-G and waters)

3 tablespoons margarine or butter, softened but not melted

1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise

1 baked 9-inch tart shell (see above)

Put the finely chopped chocolate in a heatproof bowl and set aside.

Put 2 tablespoons of cold water in a medium bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, and sprinkle the gelatin or agar agar over it. Let soften for 2 minutes. In the meantime, mix the Ener-G egg replacer and the remaining 1 tablespoon of cold water in a separate small bowl. Add the 1 tablespoon boiling water to the gelatin mixture, stir to combine, then add the Ener-G mixture. Beat with a stand mixer, handheld mixer, or whisk until frothy. Add 1 tablespoon of the MimicCream and briefly beat.

Put the rest of the MimicCream in a saucepan with the vanilla bean. Bring to a full boil, then turn off the heat. Pull out the vanilla bean (not with your fingers!) and pour the cream over the chocolate in the bowl. Give the hot cream about 30 seconds to melt the chocolate, then whisk gently, combining the cream and chocolate. Add in the gelatin-egg replacer mix (or yolks), still whisking gently, then add the butter. Now you will have a beautiful, dark, shiny ganache.

Gently pour the ganache into the tart crust, making sure the surface is smooth. Leave the tart out on the counter and keep an eye on it to see if it sets. Depending on the various egg, cream, etc substitutes you used, and the temperature of your kitchen, the ganache may or may not set at room temperature. If it will not set, pop it (covered) in the fridge for an hour.

This tart is best served at room temperature, so if you refrigerate it, remove and let sit at room temperature at least half an hour before eating.

How to Make Dinner

Come home from class at 5:30 on a dark October evening. Lock up your bike and climb the stairs to your third-floor apartment. Change into sweatpants because your jeans are soaked from from the heavy drizzle. Make a cup of tea.

Cut two strips of bacon into lardons, and cook in the bottom of a medium-size saucepan until you have a nice slick of fat in the pan and the bacon has started to brown. Remove the bacon with a slotted spoon.



Cut up half of a yellow onion and a clove of garlic. Saute in the bacon grease until soft and starting to brown.



Deglaze the pan with about 1/3 cup of red wine. Deglaze yourself with a nice big sip. The wine and onions and bacon fat are sputtering together. Stir briskly to combine, making sure you don't let anything burn. Add about 1.5 cups of beef stock and stir together. Add a bay leaf or two. Add the bacon lardons back in. Turn down the heat to a gentle simmer, put the ill-fitting lid on the pot, and go sort laundry for about 20 minutes.

Come back to the kitchen. Taste the broth. Is it pleasing to you? Add salt, pepper, more red wine, whatever, as you see fit. Add two big handfuls of egg-noodle-like quinoa-corn pasta. Make sure there is enough liquid to cover the noddles. Add some more beef broth if you need to. Turn up the heat to a low boil, cover the pot, and cook until the noddles are at your preferred consistency. Turn off the heat. Wash a bowl. Feel warm for the first time all day.

In search of pumpkin pie

This will be my first Thanksgiving with food allergies. I'm sure that those of you who have been through this already remember the uncertainty. The funny thing is, I don't feel very worried about dinner this year, myself. I've been cooking gluten-free ever since I've been back from study abroad, and for the last 2 months I've been skipping the eggs, soy, and dairy as well. And I know that I can make tasty food - cookies and pies that non-allergic people swoon over. It's my family thats having a little trouble.

My brother, who is a freshman at the same college I attend, went home a few weekends ago. My mum was talking to him about the upcoming holiday and the accommodations that may be necessary for my allergies, and apparently by the end of the discussion, both my brother and step-dad were staring her with their noses wrinkled, asking "But how is it going to taste?" Apparently alternatives grains and soy-free margarine just don't get their juices flowing. My mum is a lot less picky and a lot more open-minded, but I can tell she's a little intimidated by the seeming enormity of the task.

I ended up sending a long email to my mum, step-dad, and dad (who will be joining us for dinner, with his mom. Yes, I have an unusual divorced family) explaining some options for producing the familiar dishes of Thanksgiving in a form that won't make me sick for three days. And I added a little plaintiveness, meekly saying that I like food and I like sharing food with people I love, and I hope it isn't too much trouble to make things safe for me, and I firmly believe that everything will be just as delicious as what they're used to.

But now I have to prove it. Pretty words will only go so far if the pie ain't good. And so, the 2009 Pumpkin Pie Project. I looked at this recipe and several that I found in a Google search for "vegan pumpkin pie." I ended up combining some elements of all. I made a crust out of almond meal, sugar, and butter. I used egg replacer and rice milk. I used two small fresh pumpkins.. I roasted...


...blended...


...and strained...


... all through the night. The result wasn't quite what I was looking for, but hopefully, by the time big Turkey Day rolls around, it will be.

And you know what? It really wasn't half bad.