Pies, Cheesecake, and French Onion Soup Recap (Oh, My)

In one fell swoop, here's a last recap of all the pies (and other food-related items) I shared on Instagram (@jujulabean).  I'll give a little peek, and promise to do better in 2016...that's a resolution I'm going to keep!

I made 9 pies in one night (the peach sour cream was still in the oven) for a local cafe bake in August.

Cherry Almond

Triple Berry Crunch with Grand Marnier

Banana Cream Pie with Bittersweet Chocolate and Crystallized Ginger

Banana Cream Pie with Toasted Coconut 

(the camera made the coconut look a little orange here)

 Is 5 lbs. of apples too much?  The beginning...

The end...Double Apple Pie with Cornmeal Crust and Bourbon Caramel Sauce

Vanilla Bean Upside-Down Peach Cobbler with Cream

Salted Caramel Toffee Pumpkin Cheesecake

One view of my kitchen

Balancing Dessert (artwork by me)

Outside in the summer with my Bialetti Breakfast with La Mère Poulard Palets

French Onion Soup recipe courtesy of Sweet Paul Magazine.

Jumbo Chocolate Almond Muffin

Cranberry Walnut Clementine Cake

Yesterday I felt myself wanting a piece of happiness so I baked this Cranberry Walnut Clementine Cake.  It's still the holiday season so I actually had fresh cranberries in my refrigerator...and fresh clementines (!) which the recipe didn't call for, but the rind and juice of which I added.  Can you imagine that heavenly scent?  I almost think each morning I should squirt clementine juice and wonderfully bitter zest through the air!  O.k., so I'm getting carried away, I know.

I'm not sure why I don't post more of my baking...this I shall change, sweet foodie followers, for it brings me back to my youth when I would bake constantly in our large kitchen and dream of working at Chocolatier Magazine and being a pastry chef!

Now, I have a tiny kitchen, but I still love to bake.  It's art that edible, no?   Ironically, if I post a piece of artwork or a culinary creation, the latter seems to always garner more interest.  Not sure what that says about my art! ha!  Anyway, I'm just doing both for myself, I suppose, and am hoping you like to look at it, too. (-:

Cranberry Walnut Clementine Cake with Blueberry Acai Tea

Try the World

Hello adventurous eaters!  Have you heard of the website Try the World?  By subscribing, you receive a new food box every 2 months from a different country.  I love food, and I love world cultures.  Unfortunately, I don't have the budget to jet hither and yon, tasting the culinary delicacies around the globe.  Perhaps you're in the same boat.  If so, try this subscription out.  I'm expecting a box from both Argentina and Paris!  I just registered late last night, so hopefully you, too, can get in on this special deal.  I'll be sharing all my luscious goodies with you all soon. (-:

P.S.  Check out the Try the World Blog, which gives an inside look at each country with video clips.

Chicken Soup and A Hope For Immunity

My man has a big-time bad-arse cold, and I'm trying to make him well. AND, with full-disclosure let me say, I'm hoping the chicken soup cure will also be a preventative for me, because baby, I don't want that bug! Just in the nick of time comes a immunity-fighting recipe from the website, Well+Good (if you don't know about it, check it out--it's a great one). They grabbed it from the the website Crunchy Radish. I added a few additions of my own, and in after 4 hours, we had some luxurious chicken soup, the smell of its lime juice still clinging to my fingertips as I type now. Here is my re-creation in pictures.

Here's the end result first.  Mmm.  So steamy and good!

Kman is allergic to olive oil--yes, unbelievable--so I use healthy coconut oil instead in a heavy, well-seasoned pan.  My workhorse Calphalon, in this case.

Season chicken with sea salt and cracked pepper.

Use a 3 lb. mixture of chicken breasts and thigh meat.  The recipe calls for skinless, but I used an organic bit of thigh pieces with a little skin and thigh bone.  It adds good flavor.

Don't crowd the chicken.  I did these in 3 batches, 5-8 mins. per side.  The chicken isn't meant to be cooked through--just a sear.

Mmm.  Wonderful bits on the bottom of the pan.  Keep that delicious flavor!

Inflammation-fighting urmeric.

Add spice to pan to roast it.

Dried oregano, too.

Come to me, oh mighty rhizome!

Grate 2 T. of fresh ginger.  I have a white, ceramic dish specifically for grating ginger.  I've had it for about 15 years, and it catches all the ginger juice.  It's been in the stored in the same place for all those years, up until 3 weeks ago when I rearranged some things.  Do you think I could find it?  

Note to self:  DON'T reorganize! 

Throw in the juice, too!

Flying carrots!

Ginger, spices, garlic, one white onion, carrots, celery.

America's Test Kitchen rated ol' RR's stock (actually, it was Beef Stock) as one of the best.  Who knew?!  I decided to give this product a whirl--not usually what I use.  The original recipe calls for vegetable stock and just for 5 cups.  I used chicken stock and 8 cups instead.

I added an uncalled for bay leaf.

Had to switch to a big stock pot at this point.

You'll always see this bit of muck as a chicken soup comes to a boil  Just skim, and move on!  Lower to a simmer for 1 1/2 hrs.

I also added lovely shitake mushrooms at the very end, as a personal addition.

Into the bowl:  baby kale, freshly chopped dill, and lime juice.

First the kale.

Mmm.  A big scoop from the bottom of chicken goodness.  By the way, I easily broken up the chicken with a long-handled oversized spoon while it was still in the pot.

Steamy egg noodles for the man. 

Generous squirt of lime juice.

Freshly chopped dill.

Steamy goodness.

Ebert, our beagle, taking my chair.

Molly, our basset hound, loving the smell, too.  

Our German Shepherd, Kingston, got the skin--lucky boy.

Blackberry Pie

Happy New Year!  First pie of the year?  A totally inappropriate summer fruit pie.  Uh, huh.  I do what I want, lovely people.

I live in the Midwest and it's about 10 degrees out, so needless to say, I do not have fresh blackberries.  I do, however, have Oregon canned fruit, the best canned fruit in light syrup I have ever found, and which most closely resembles real fruit directly off the branch.  Hmm.  As I type this, I think, I could have used a frozen bag of blackberries.  Oh well. C'est la vie.

I mainly followed the recipe on the inside label of the can below.

Use the reserve juice of 1 can of fruit...it's not much as you can see in the level of the pan.  Add sugar and lemon juice.

Here's my first difference.  I used King Arthur Flour's "Instant Clearjel" instead of cornstarch.  It's the first time I've used it.

This stuff thickened up my juice mixture, but to me it seemed too thick.  Perhaps you need less of the clearjel than you would cornstarch.  See, this is where you just have to experiment as a baker.  Sometimes you can't follow the directions exactly.  Use your eyes, smell doneness with your nose.  Seriously, you get to that point.

I love this whisk.  It's a gravy whisk, and to me it is so much better than a balloon whisk when you're trying to prevent clumps when whisking in a thickener.

The main ingredient.

One of my favorite butters, Kerrygold.  I tried to remove the price tag, but no go.  I also love Plugra, but I didn't have it on hand.  Any super-fatted European butter is the way to go.

Anyway, my second variance of the directions was that I added several tablespoons of butter to my getl mixture to make it smoother.  Than I felt I needed to add the juice from the second can of fruit as well.  That Clearjel is powerful. (-;  Anyway, finally I was happy with the consistency.

Below I dotted the pie with more butter that will eventually give it a luxuriously silky texture.

It's finally to vary up your crust edging.  Here I used the front of a spoon.  

I topped this pie with heavy whipping cream and Demerara Turbinado sugar.

Almost ready for the oven.

Make a few slits for steam to escape.

One more shot in different light.  Sometimes these pies look better before they're baked.

All done!  Yum!  Like a slice of summertime in the midst of winter.