Choclate Cream Pie

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Chocolate Cream Pie

I was reading Anadamo’s post about pie. My Pi post inspired her to try an apple pie. Yeah! Anadamo – your pie sounded great. Congrats on a successful pie from scratch.

I missed making a pie on Pi Day but I thought – what the heck – and decided to make one today. I remembered I had a frozen prebaked small pie dough shell that I made a while back in the freezer. I needed to use it up. That limited my choices to a pie that could use a prebaked shell. Hmmm… cream pie would be good. I asked G and of course he said – chocolate.

Last time I made a chocolate cream pie, I used a recipe that I had been making since high school. It was little bit grainy since it was thickened by flour. I wanted something a bit silkier today. I have another recipe that makes a great banana cream pie. It uses a combination of cornstarch and flour to thicken the filling. That would be better. Much more like a French pastry cream.

I decided to cut it by 1/3 since I had a small pie shell. Eck! I had to use math to figure out how to divide 2 1/2 tbs by 1/3. l ended up taking everything back to teaspoons in order to divide it by 1/3.

Oh but it was soooo good. I had some great bittersweet chocolate left over from the chocolate cake I made a Christmas. I added a bit of Nestle semi-sweet chocolate chips. It wasn’t dark enough so I added a bit of unsweetened chocolate. It really makes a difference to use great chocolate. If you are looking for some great baking chocolate – check out The Chocolate Man website. For bittersweet – Maricaibo by Fechlin is awesome. For unsweetened – Caraque by Cocoa Berry is so good. No bitter taste even though it is unsweetened.

We scarfed down half the pie tonight. I suspect I won’t be able to sleep with a bit of caffeine from the chocolate. Oh well, it was so good.

Here is a recipe for the cream pie. You can use it as a base for any type of cream pie. I’ve included the variations at the bottom. Enjoy!

Chocolate Cream Pie

Cream Pie

2/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 Tbs cornstarch
1 Tbs flour
3 cups mild
3 egg yolks – slightly beaten
1 tbs butter
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
whipping cream
9″ pie shell, baked

In a sauce pan, combine sugar, salt flour, cornstarch and milk with a wire whisk. Stire constangly over medium heat until the mixture thickens. Boil for 1 minute. Then slowly add egg yolks and bring to a boil once again. (It can help to add a couple of spoons of the hot milk mixture to the eggs first before adding to the hot mixture). Remove from heat and add butter and vanilla.

Chocolate: Add 1/2 cup of semi-sweet chocolate to mixture. Stir until chocolate is melted and combined. Pour into pie shell. Chill and top with whipped cream.

Coconut: 1 cup shreadded coconut, toasted. Spring 1/2 over pie crust. Pour cream mixture over coconut and hill. Cover with whipped cream and sprinkle with the remaining coconut.

Banana: Put a thin layer of cream mixture over the bottom of the pie shell. Slice bananas over the thin layer. Continue alternating cream and bananas. Chill. Cover with whipped cream.

R. Crumb at the Frye

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We are on a San Francisco 60’s weekend. We started by watching “Zodiac”. I was curious since I remember reading about the killer when I was at school. I remember being spooked at times when new letters were received and I had to walk to school. The movie was interesting but too long. The movie spent too much time with the character played by Jake Gyllenhaal obsessing over finding the killer.

Today we went to my favorite museum in Seattle, Frye Museum. The current exhibit is R. Crumb’s Underground. Crumb’s cartoons were always around while I was in high school and college. He was part of the counterculture and the rebellion that went on in the late ’60s. But I knew little about him beyond the cover for Cheap Thrills album, the Keep On Truckin’ guy and Fritz the Cat.

The exhibit is a collection of his work through the years. Some of it fascinating, some of it vulgar and misogynistic. All very interesting.

I didn’t realize that he moved to France in the early ’90s to escape the commercialism and conservative religious trends in the US. There was a great cartoon of their live in a small French village. I searched around and found a couple of articles.

For more information:
Official Crumb site

Interview with Robert Crumb from Guardian Newspaper 2005

Salon article from 2000

Crumbland – Life in a French Village – IHT 2007

Pi Day

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3.14159265358979323846….

That magical mathematical number representing the relationship between a circle’s diameter (its width) and its circumference (the distance around the circle). Three fourteen. Today is the day to celebrate this mathematical relationship.

I didn’t know it was Pi day until I read this post on Serious Eats. It would have been the perfect day to make a pie but I didn’t

So if you are interested in knowing more about this holiday check out: Pi day

I will leave you with this:

Monaco Aquarium

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I uploaded my first video to YouTube. My Canon sd800 camera has a video mode. I took a few little video segments at the Monaco Aquarium and put them together with Audacity.

Vacation post – Monaco

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I had a chance to finish a post that I’ve been working on for a while on our visit to Monaco back in October. We didn’t go to gamble or be seen. We went for two outstanding natural history attractions; the Jardin Exotique and the Musée Océanographique de Monaco. I posted a few pictures of the garden and the city. Take a look!

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Favorite Spring Plant – Euphorbia

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Euphorbias in Villefranche


Euphorbia in Villefranche

Euphorbias are a very unusual plants. There are over 2000 species worldwide in the genus, ranging from weedy annuals to trees. They originate mainly from tropical and desert climates of Africa. I saw many large tree specimen plants in the exotic gardens of the French Riviera. They love the Mediterranean climate. You have probabaly even purchased one at Christmas time without knowing its heritage. Poinsetta is a euphorbia.

Unfortunately they are also somewhat toxic. Euphorbias have a white milky sap can cause reactions to skin, eyes and should never be ingested. Care should always be taken when working around Euphorbias as the milky sap can cause mild to severe dermatitis and blisters. The sap will also irritate the eyes so care should be taken not to rub your eyes. I always wear gloves and long sleeves when I work around this plant to prevent myself from getting any sap on my skin. They are also known as spurge and many are considered weeds in many areas.

So why do I love them? In the spring they bring a lovely chartreuse green with their blooms and foliage. The airy chartreuse blooms on the cover of Martha Stewart’s gardening issue is a euphorbia The plants also provide nice structure in the garden from their spiky leaves.

Euphorbia

Euphorbia myrsinites
Euphorbia myrsinites

Euphorbia hybrid
Euphorbia characias ss wulfenii hybrid

Euphorbia characias
Euphorbia characias

Euphorbia martini
Euphorbia martini

Baked Fettuccine with Asparagus, Lemon and Mascarpone

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fettuccini

Here is another good baked pasta from Fine Cooking. This one is very rich and it is a little more complicated than it seems at first. It took me four pans to prepare and bake the dish. It is so nice that G will clean up. Once it all comes together, the baking time is short.

I cut the recipe in half but made the full amount of sauce. I only used half of the sauce but it was easier to make the full amount of the sauce than try to cut it in half. The final dish is somewhat dry so some people suggest using double sauce but I think that would be too rich. The left over sauce will make a nice pasta dish for lunch.

There are several variations of this sauce on the web. One suggested adding smoked salmon which sounds great.

Baked Fettuccine with Asparagus, Lemon, Pinenuts and Mascarpone

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 lbs asparagus, cut in 1-inch pieces
8 scallions, sliced
2 lemons, zested
1 lemon, juiced
2-3 sprigs of thyme, chopped
salt, pepper to taste
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon flour
1 cup milk
1 cup mascarpone cheese
1 cup Grana Padano or parmigiano-reggiano cheese, grated
pinch of allspice
pinch of cayenne
3/4 cup fresh breadcrumbs
1 lb fettuccine pasta
1/2 cup pinenuts, toasted

Heat oven to 450 degrees F. Lightly grease a large shallow baking dish with olive oil. Bring a large pot of salted water to boil and blanch the asparagus until crisp-tender – about 2 minutes. Transfer with slotted spoon to colander and run under cold water. Drain well. Save water for pasta.

In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the scallions and saute for 1 minute to soften. Add the asparagus and saute briefly. Remove from heat and add half of the zest, the lemon juice and thyme. Season with salt and pepper.

In a medium saucepan, heat the butter and flour over medium heat, whisking until smooth. Cook 1 minute. Add the milk and cook, whisking, until it comes to a boil. Lower the heat and cook until smooth and slightly thickened 3-4 minutes.

Turn off heat. Add remaining lemon zest, Mascarpone and 1/2 cup of Grana Padano, whisking until smooth. The texture will be a little grainy. Season with cayenne, allspice, salt and pepper.

In a small bowl, combine the breadcrumbs and remaining Grana Padano cheese. Season with salt and pepper and a drizzle of olive oil.

Return cooking water to boil and cook the fettuccine. Drain well. Return the fettuccine to pan. Add the pine nuts, the mascarpone sauce and the asparagus. Toss and taste for seasoning.

Pour into the baking dish and sprinkle the breadcrumbs evenly over the top. Bake uncovered until bubbling and golden, 15-20 minutes. Serve right away.

Vegetarian Cassoulet

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Vegetarian Cassoulet

The March 2008 Gourmet is a special issue focusing on French bistro cooking. It has many interesting and easy recipes for many of the typical dishes from French bistros, from steak and fries, roasted chicken to profitroles. The cuisine is not necessarily vegetarian friendly since many of the dishes focus on meat or include some type of pork.

One of the recipes was for a vegetarian version of cassoulet. Cassoulet is a dish from southwestern France that is a stew made from white beans and meat. The meat varies by region with the most famous combination of duck, sausage and white beans. I have wanted to try it but never have since G does not eat meat.

So the recipe for a vegetarian version caught my attention. It was also pretty simple since it used canned beans instead of requiring the long cooking. I also had three cans of white beans that I have been trying to use. Perfect.

Vegetarian Cassoulet

The recipe starts by cooking a mirepoix, a combination of leek, carrot and celery. I could not find leeks at the grocery store so I substituted a shallot and chopped onions. These are cooked first in olive oil with sprigs of aromatic herbs and a bay leaf. The rinsed canned beans are added along with water and cooked for about 30 minutes. The final dish is sprinkled with garlic bread crumbs which added a nice crunchy texture contrast to the smoothness of the white beans.

I just checked the comments on Epicurious. Several of the people commenting added tomatoes but I enjoyed it without the tomatoes. I use tomatoes so much in my cooking – it was a nice change. A very satisfying dish.

Vegetarian Cassoulet from Gourmet

For cassoulet
3 medium leeks (white and pale green parts only)
4 medium carrots, halved
lengthwise and cut into 1-inch-wide pieces
3 celery ribs, cut into 1-inch-wide pieces
4 garlic cloves, chopped
1/4 cup olive oil
4 thyme sprigs
2 parsley sprigs
1 Turkish or 1/2 California bay leaf
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
3 (19-ounce) cans cannellini or Great Northern beans, rinsed and drained
1 quart water

For garlic crumbs
4 cups coarse fresh bread crumbs from a baguette
1/3 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1/4 cup chopped parsley

Halve leeks lengthwise and cut crosswise into 1/2-inch pieces, then wash well and pat dry.

Cook leeks, carrots, celery, and garlic in oil with herb sprigs, bay leaf, cloves, and 1/2 teaspoon each of salt and pepper in a large heavy pot over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until softened and golden, about 15 minutes. Stir in beans, then water, and simmer, partially covered, stirring occasionally, until carrots are tender but not falling apart, about 30 minutes.

Make garlic crumbs while cassoulet simmers:
Preheat oven to 350°F with rack in middle.

Toss bread crumbs with oil, garlic, and 1/4 teaspoon each of salt and pepper in a bowl until well coated. Spread in a baking pan and toast in oven, stirring once halfway through, until crisp and golden, 12 to 15 minutes.

Cool crumbs in pan, then return to bowl and stir in parsley.

Finish cassoulet:
Discard herb sprigs and bay leaf. Mash some of beans in pot with a potato masher or back of a spoon to thicken broth. Season with salt and pepper. Just before serving, sprinkle with garlic crumbs.

Vegetarian Cassoulet

In My Life

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I grew up in the age of 45 inch records. The first record I bought was a 45 of “I want to hold you hand” by The Beatles. I was caught up in the mania in 1963. I think Ringo was my favorite at the time although Paul was so cute. Now after all these years, I’ve come to like John. I’ve been listening to several of his solo songs now that they are available on I-Tunes such as “(Just Like) Starting Over” and “#9 Dream”.

One of the Beatles songs that I really like is “In My Life”. I was watching YouTube videos today and came across this montage of old video clips to the song. It brought back some good memories of a time gone by.

Summer vacation

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We got an email a couple of weeks ago from our niece. She gave birth to her son just before Thanksgiving and emailed us with an update. She mentioned that she had convinced G’s mother (her grandmother) to go on a camping trip to Twin Lakes near Bridgeport in Eastern California. She wanted to know if wanted to join them. Of course!

G and I went camping with his parents up the Oregon coast to Washington while we were dating. She is always remarking how much she enjoyed the trip and would love to go camping again. Wanting and doing are definitely two different things especially after 35 years have passed. G’s mother is in her mid 70’s and we really couldn’t see her camping. But our niece came up with a great solution. She and her husband wanted to go back to Twin Lakes. There are several full service fishing resorts at the lakes. The resort provides camping, motel and restaurant. Perfect. The young folks can camp and use old folks can stay in the motel.

She has arranged everything. We will be staying at Annett’s Mono Village for three nights in July. G and I decided to make it a road trip and we are taking two weeks off. We’ll drive down taking our time and rendez-vous with the group at Annett’s. Then we’ll go back to the Central Valley and spend a day or two with G’s parents before driving back up.

We haven’t driven down to Cali in over 15 years so this will be fun. We hope to take some time and see part of California that we haven’t seen, do a little hiking and maybe investigate some towns.