Freedom Friday - With a Camembert, Pear, Prosciutto Galette

As a result of some unfortunate circumstance I now have Friday's off.  I was given very short notice on this and at first I found it incredibly stressful. After I looked over my finances, figured out some income things, and set up a bunch of job alerts on some career search websites I felt like I had regained some control of the situation.  Following all this I spent some time listening to some mood boosting music, eating chocolate and talking to friends.

I woke up this morning feeling better, more in control and like I had the ability to savour this day and all the ones that follow. I slept in a little bit, but not too much. I took the dog for a longer that normal morning walk, and then I decided to make a delicious galette for lunch.

I had this galette brewing in my brain for over a week, ever since I made my first one (which was roasted vegetable and egg). That one took a significant amount of work, and I made it after I had been drinking so it was a bit of a challenge but it was delicious and fed me breakfast for a couple of days, so I was hooked. I began to look up recipes for other galettes pretty much immediately after and I landed on some flavour combinations that inspired me. When I hit the grocery store I found some ingredients on sale and settled on pear (bartlet), camembert and prosciutto. I originally was looking at brie instead of camembert, but I personally can not tell the difference between these two mild soft cheeses and the camembert was a much better price that day.

The making of this galette was so much simpler than my last one, and I am grateful for that because it gives me something that I can whip together for friends or to impress this really handsome man that hangs around on occasion. I hope you enjoy this recipe. I am going to plan more things to fill my Friday's and report back. Please let me know if you can think of other ways to take back my Fridays.


Camembert, Pear, Prosciutto Galette (Tart)

• 200g round of Camembert (small round, brie subs very well)
• 2 ripe but firm pears
• 8 thin slices of prosciutto
• 1/4 cup olive oil plus some extra
• 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1 sheet of puff pastry (thawed)

Pre heat the oven to 350° F
cover a baking sheet in parchment paper. Careful unroll the sheet of puff pastry onto the baking sheet. score the edges approximately 1/4" from the edge with a butter knife being careful not to cut all the way through. Brush the pastry all over with olive oil. Put in the fridge to chill while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

Slice pears into very thin slices.
Remove rind from camembert, cut into medium sized chunks.
Cut prosciutto into two inch rectangular chunks.

Take pastry out of fridge and bake in preheated oven for 5-7 minutes.

Remove pastry from oven and layer ingredients on pastry from the scored line inward. This is how I do it. I line the outside with pears and put some camembert n the inside to start the base. Then I layer pears, prosciutto, camembert, pears again. Finally I cut up the prosciutto into finer chunks and sprinkle it in the middle. Be creative! Do it your way.

Top the whole thing off with some balsamic vinegar and a bit of olive oil. You may not use the whole 1/4 cup, you may wish to use a touch more. Use your discretion.

A word of note, you may notice that the puff pastry had puffed while in the oven, and as you were adding your ingredients it deflated. Do not lose heart! It will live to puff again!

Put that baby back in the oven for 30-35 minutes until the crust is golden brown near the bottom (the top will still appear light) and is firm to the touch.

Remove from the pan by sliding the parchment paper off with a spatula under the galette for support onto a cutting board immediately adjacent. Use the spatula to lift the galette slightly and slide out the parchment and voila! Cut that baby into four or more (or less if you are really ambitious!) and enjoy!

And she said: Let them eat pie! - Gluten Free (tart sized) Mini Peach Pies

Summer is a delicious time full of fragrant juicy fruit and vegetables, delectable backyard parties and good friends.

I have entered that period in my life where my friends have started to have babies, and our parties have turned from all night ragers to delightful afternoon events more focused on food and friends than getting sloshed. This means that I have started pinning and dreaming up recipes that are transportable, delicious and focus on fresh fragrant ingredients. My group of friends also has a wide variety of food issues, the most prevalent being gluten intolerance.

This weekend we celebrated the impending birth of another baby into the group and my contribution to the party fare were these delectable gluten free individual sized peach pies.  The peaches were sitting on my table having been bought a few days earlier and put in a bowl to rippen. they had reached that perfect point and where begging to be used.

The idea of individual peach pies sounds delicious, less messy than a large pie that requires cutting and serving and i thought it would be pretty simple to pull a recipe from the internet. Not so. Fruit tarts are made with custard, and many gluten free flakey pie crusts are made with concoctions of flours that I did not really like the sounds of (too aromatic, not binding enough etc.) I actually made one batch that came out far too sticky and threw it away.

After all of my on the fly experimenting the recipe turned out amazing pretty great. This crust is flakey and crumbly, and super delicious.

Gluten Free Pastry Flour Mix (you can premix this)
1 cup Sourgum Flour (you may want to sift this but check your sifter if you don't have a gluten free one for any lingering flour and make sure you wash it well)
1 cup Brown Rice Flour
1 cup Tapioca Flour
1 heaping teaspoon of xanthum gum (add at time of use)

pour these into a large container with a lid and mix together, cover and store until use. will make 3 cups.

This mix is important, the combination of the weights and stickiness of the flours along with their mild flavours will give you a better crust.


Gluten Free Flakey Pie Crust (for 15 mini Pies or a double 9" Pie)

2 cups of the Gluten Free Pastry Flour Mix from above (retain remaining for flouring surfaces later)
3/4 cup of chilled crisco (vegetable based or lard based whichever is your preference) cut in to 1/2 in squares
4 tablespoons of ice water
1 teaspoon of salt

Using a pastry cutter, cut in crisco squares a couple at a time into flour until it resembles course crumbs. Once all squares have been added and the mix is crumbly add in 4 tablespoons of water one at a time. Using a fork press down on the dough, then scrape the bottom of the bowl mixing remaining flour in until the dough is mixed enough for the dough  to form a ball. Divide the dough ball in half, one ball should be slightly larger than the other, if you are making mini pies the balls can be the same size. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.


Peach Filling

4-5 ripe peaches (peeled and sliced)
the juice of one small lemon
1/2 cup of sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 tablespoon gluten free corn starch
24 tart tins (unless you are going to use a muffin tin with non stick spray but i find tart tins easier)
2.5" cutter

If you are making mini pies, slice your paches thinner than for a whole pie so that you can accomodate more slices in the tart tins. Slice the lemon in half, squeeze out the juice into a bowl so that you can easily pick out any seeds. Combine lemon juice, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg with peaches. Stir until combined.

Now its time to combine all these things into pie! Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Roll out your chilled dough on a floured surface (remember to use the remaining gluten free flour mix) just as you would for a regular pie 1/8" thick. Then use your cutter to cut out circles for your tart tins. Shape the dough into place in each tin making sure to push it up the sides, ensure you have no tears in the bottom. Keep a glass of ice water on hand to mend any broken spots. Save 1/8 - 1/4 the dough for your tops depending on what style you would like to do. When you run out of the first ball, use the second. The tops can be much thinner than your bottoms if necessary. When you are not using your pastry  store it in the fridge as you will find it becomes greasy and harder to work with as it warms.

When you have filled all your tart tins with pastry, it is time to dish out your filling! By this time it will be sufficiently gooey. Using a wooden spoon evenly dish out the filling ensuring that the filling is level or below the lip of the tart tins.

Now time for the tops! I used a heart shaped cookie cutter and rolled the dough out thin for my tops. You may choose to do lattice tops, or use your round cutter to make whole tops and cut vent slits in them so they look like regular pies. All that matters is that your pies have a way to vent. Vents are extremely important to allow the moisture to escape as the fruit cooks.

If you like you can use an egg wash on the tops by using one large egg and 2 tablespoons of water. beat with a fork and brush onto the tops with a silicone brush. Alternatively you can use olive oil. This will allow your pies to become a golden brown colour. I didn't use a wash on the batch pictured because I was in a hurry.

Cook in your preheated 350F oven for 35-40 minutes until brown. around the edges. The peach mixture will bubble and arc up. Do not be alarmed by this. It will fall as it cools.

T.Rex has a migraine

I have a chronic illness, yup it's true. I have chronic migraines. Part of my whole learn to eat better thing has been in an effort to be better and not get migraines but the truth is the migraine cycle doesn't really seem to give a shit if i eat all organic low glycemic meals or not. It is a monster that will devour me whole.

After a couple years of being mostly headache free I have rentered the land of migraine awfulness. The last four days have been spend in a total migraine daze where I am not sure if I should go to the hospital or lie down in a cave somewhere or just wait for my brain to find an escape hatch and crawl out of my head in the middle of the night.

complicate this by the fact that i have a lot of commitments at work and home and socially that i can't back out of. i'm tonning them down, but man it's just not fun for me right now.

so i am not cooking which sucks, and i am not eating delicious things, which also sucks. Migraines make me crave starchy foods and gatorade. Because i guess it sucks the electrolytes and sugars from me. so i've been existing on fast food burgers, fries, popcorn and gatorade. I try to eat my normal low GI foods but i find they just don't sustain me. I burn through them too fast which isn't right or normal.

I have had this migraine attack since tuesday. On that day i almost went to the hospital and begged them to give me a lobotomy. But i persevered and with a combination of every drug i had, gravol, gatorade, cheesy popcorn and not moving even the slightest bit i seemed to survive. Now I am in what seems to be a recovery period of frequent low blood sugar crashes no matter how high value/protein/low GI the food is, with constant dizziness and feeling like alice when she fell down the rabbit hole.

And yet i have been tow ork every day except one.
i have driven to the hospital over an hour away nearly every day to see my grandmother.
i am insane.

Pinning bbq recipes runs afoul

I am addicted to pintrest, and to be honest I have started moving on from websites that don't have pinable images.

I find it a great way to organize and sort through a whole crap load of web junk that i might have liked at one point in time depending on the mood i was in on a certain day or what i ate for dinner the night before.

That said this website has no pinnable images but it probably has the most easy to understand recipe for bbq bacon wrapped pork loin that i have found so: http://www.menshealth.com/bbq/recipes/bacon-wrapped-pork

Ingredients

1/3 cup Dijon mustard

b2tbsp black pepper

3 tbsp maple syrup

3 clobes garlic, chopped

1 tbsp chopped fresh or dried rosemary

1 ½ lb pork tenderloin

1 package thick cut bacon

Instructions:

1.     Stir together mustard, black pepper, syrup, garlic and rosemary in small bowl. Rub mixture on pork tenderloin

2.     Wrap bacon slices around tenderloin, securing with toothpics so bacon completely blankets meat

3.     Arrange tenderloins on unlit side of a hot grill, cover with grill lid

4.     Cook 15 to 20 minutes on per side until a meat thermometer registers 160F

5.     Let rest 5 minutes, remove tooth pics and cut into slices.

I will be making this tonight, probably with a red wine pan sauce. I will report back on how it goes!

UPDATE July 12, 2012

I know I said I'd be trying it later that day but I didn't. I got to it on monday instead...so here is the review.

DELICIOUS.

So I opted to do a bacon weave instead of just wrapping the bacon around the pork loin. I did this because i felt it would be a fun and effective way of making sure the loin was covered completely. It was super fun to make.

UPDATE July 12, 2012

I know I said I'd be trying it later that day but I didn't. I got to it on monday instead...so here is the review.
DELICIOUS.

So i opted to do a bacon weave instead of just wrapping the bacon around the pork loin. I did this because i felt it would be a fun and effective way of making sure the loin was covered completely. It was super fun to make.

After that I put the loin in the middle of the weave and used a silicone brush and brushed on the mixture described in the recipe above. I really layed it on thick, and it does get a little messy. I think next time I would put the bacon weave on saran wrap first so that when I wrapped the bacon around the covered loin it was less of a mustard explosion (it would also make for an easier roll).

Anyway you can see the wrapped up loin below. I used cut up tooth picks to secure the bacon in lose spots and at some of the ends

I have an older small bbq, and the loin was of a considerable size. Anyway we couldn't figure out what temperature to put the lit side on so we put it on high which worked out great. Here you can see it on the unlit side, this was about 3/4 of the way through cooking. It ended up taking about 50 minutes for ours to be finished though I think it would have been done after 40 but my partner in crime is a bit of a worrier when it comes to meat. I would have preferred to remove it from the bbq when it hit 150-155F inside, while he opted to wait for at minimum 160F. It was a touch dry for me, but not super dry by any means.

And here this baby is sliced, let me tell you it was delicious. The mustard gets absorbed into the meat and the pepper gives it a bit of spice that isn't overwhelming. I would do this again in a heart beat!

Also the foil pack in the background? Brussel sprouts with salt, pepper and butter. I haven't made them like that since girl guides!

The eat more challenge!

I am a crappy eater. I dont eat crap but i suck at eating in general. I love breakfast and i have a great partner who makes me inspired for dinner. My real problem is all the other times.

I need to eat at least 2000 calories a day and i dont. I am over weight largely because i eat below my basal metabolic rate of 1600.

So in an effort to eat more and feel better i discovered bento. Bento seems ideal for me because i would rather snack all day than eat another meal.

I am home with a broken foot so i figured i'd give it a go! Below is my lunch today

Green pepper slices, celery sticks and baby carrots with two tsps of hummus. Some blackberries and a sandwich on gluten free home made bread with hummus lettuce tomato and marble cheese.

Yum!

Happy easter!

I am not religious and if u was i wouldnt be christian. But being raised baptist i have a taste for christian holidays. I live spending time with my family and making delicious food. This year my family (consisting mostly of women) is coming to my place for easter and i'm excited.

It's also my moms birthday so i decided instead of pie we'd have cake. My youngest sister is celiac and my other sister and i range between varying levels of gluten intolerant. So a gluten free meal mandatory.

I scowrred the internet for gluten free cakes and got so confused by the many types of flours non of which i could find at a grocery store near me so i asked a friend who recommended the betty crocker gluten free cake mix. Well wouldnt you know it contains all the dry ingredients to make a great cake.

I ignore the instructions on the box and made my own. Recipie below:

One box of betty crocker gluten free chocolate cake mix
One cup hot strong brewed coffee
One cup buttermilk
One tsp vanilla
Two eggs
Half a cup olive oil

Preheat oven to 350, butter and flour two 8" pans (i used 9s because its all i had but they came out pretty thin) or line with parchment.

Add dry ingredients to bowl and yhrn add all the wet. Beat on medium for two minutes. It will look like runny pudding. Thats ok.

Put in oven for 25-30 minutes.

Voila! Cake.

Cake isnt complete without frosting and my mom loved raspberries so i made a raspberry puree and used it to make a raspberry buttercream frosting.

I hope she likes it!

Life is weird

The last couple months have been interesting, and resulted in me being completely happy after coming out on the other side of the fire.

I have taken a lot of time to get to know myself, cultivated friendships which are true and honest and loyal, and I have become a much better person because of this. I am also starting to get the life I wanted, and not the one I thought I should have.

Joy of joys.

I have been practicing non action a lot. So instead of doing anything when I don't understand another persons words of actions I stop and watch and wait to see what unfolds. This has helped me avoid a lot of weirdness and steered me along the right path.

I hope that big things will be coming in my direction soon, I am working towards them and hopefully I will be rewarded with them.

On sillier notes I have regained my knitting mojo! After a couple months where it was uncomfortable knitting I have learned a different style and have started knitting with joy again.

That means FO pictures pending!

I am currently working on a Dahlia sweater in a lovely grey, as well as a pair of ribbed socks in a colourway which I describe as strawberries and cream.

Pictures coming soon!