Thinking about my recent trip to Israel, I realize that fresh and good food was so easy to find there, and at relatively inexpensive prices. The restaurant at the beach, the little falafel shop, the pastries at the grocery store at 10 PM, the street corner Shawarma place…  It was all good, fresh, and cheap.

I haven’t seen any junk food chain stores! Can you believe it? Well… besides McDonalds… McDonalds is everywhere, isn’t it? But it’s not very popular in Israel. (They say that even Starbucks did not make it there.) So, you get my point, good, fresh food—and coffee!—was all around. Oh, and fresh juice too. Freshly squeezed juice stores like this one below were on every busy street.

Inspired by that, we started drinking freshly squeezed orange juice for breakfast at home. (The doctor says is has lots of fiber…)

We made fresh juice using these tools which failed to squeeze every sweet drop out of the fruit,

… and it was also somewhat messy and time consuming (Who has extra time in the morning to make orange juice?), so we went back to the boxed juice only to discover that the juice from the box, organic or not, with pulp or not, with added vitamins or not, tastes like nothing.

We are never buying/drinking that stuff again ever!

4 days later we rushed to the store and bought an electric juicer. (In case you’re curious where, click here.) What do you know? It takes only 5 minutes from start to finish, cleanup included, and the kids can do it!

Then, at 12:31 AM—Yes, 12:31 AM!!!—it hit me. None of the oranges we used had seeds!

In the morning, I had to test my revelation.

I cut all 4 different varieties we had in half. To my surprise, I found out that heirloom or not, organic or not, Navel or another… the oranges don’t have seeds besides a lonely, random speck of seed, see?

What happened to the seeds?

Who took them out of the oranges?

What does it mean?

And who’s gonna make fresh orange juice?

Read this article in Los Angeles Times: Back to school blech: Sack lunches too warm, study says

Schools starts in 2 weeks…….. Or has it started already where you live?

I don’t know about you—maybe you’re luckier than me—but where I live I can only buy pita that is dry and looks like cardboard. It’s nearly totally dead.

However, we love pita, so I buy it. But then, of course, it’s almost inedible. It bears no resemblance to a fresh, pliable, and sweet smelling pita as it should be.

That’s what makes a great mind work hard to find a solution, right?

Well, a few years ago my solution was to buy an oven stone (/pizza stone) and make my own. I really don’t have the time to do that anymore… So. I found a little trick!

All you have to do is add moisture back to the old, stale pita that who knows how many days, maybe even weeks, ago it was made.

When I buy pita, the first thing I do is to freeze it so it doesn’t get any staler than it already is (Does this sounds appetizing or what?). A day, or more, after you’ll notice some ice from the freezer accumulating on the pita, that is moisture—a good thing. Then I thaw the pita in the microwave, 30 second each, and finish it in a hot toaster-oven until it starts to puff.

Another way to achieve a fresh, pliable, and sweet smelling pita is to dampen it with some water, just sprinkle some water and rub it with your wet palms, let it soak for a few minutes and then reheat in the (toaster) oven, or even better, on a grill! Hey, summer is just around the corner!

So, to summarize: moisten/dampen and reheat. That it.

You can thank me later.

And this,

makes everything

so much

easier…

I love&hate frosting.

Yes, frosting is sweet, and some can even make it tasty. But after eating 1/2 a cupcake I feel the sugar rushing and gushing in my veins. And after eating 3/4 of a cupcake I feel a sugar intoxication going through my bones and my brains. (And I think about diabetes too…)

This is why I can never bring myself to make frosting at home! But, the other day, there was a birthday. And, a little girl asked for cupcakes. What was I to do?

I considered making a sour cream frosting. It sounded “healthier” and less fatty than cream cheese frosting, and hopefully, I thought, it’ll contain less sugar. See an example recipe for cream cheese frosting (for 24 cupcakes!):

• 2 sticks butter, softened
• 1 pound cream cheese, softened
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 cups confectioners’ sugar

OMG, who eats like that and lives to tell? That’s 2.6 tablespoons of suagr for the frosting only on each cupcake + add the sugar in the cake… Wowza.

(People, I think I’m becoming a “health” fanatic by the second… also see: Orange yogurt cake and… too much SUGAR!)

As I Googled-Binged “sour cream frosting for cupcakes” I found recipes like:

• 1/2 cup of butter (1 stick), room temperature
• 8 oz of Philly cream cheese (1 package), room temperature
• 2 – 3 cups of powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

***

• 1 1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar (add more until it reaches your preferred consistency)
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
• 2 tablespoons sour cream

***

• 4 Tbsp butter, softened
  1/2 cup sour cream
  1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  1/2 tsp lemon juice
  1/4 tsp salt
  2-3/4 cups confectioners’ sugar

***

• 1/4 cup of butter, room temperature
  1/3 cup of sour cream
  2 1/2 cups of powdered sugar
  1/8 teaspoon of vanilla extract
  pinch of salt

***

• 1/2 CUP (1 STICK) unsalted butter
• 3 CUPS powdered sugar
• 1 TEASPOON vanilla extract
• 3 TO 4 TABLESPOONS milk

***

OK, you got the picture. You can’t get away with using less then 2 – 2.5 cups of sugar for 12-24 cupcakes. (I really should try to make one with no more and 1/4 cup sugar and see what happens…. Sometimes in the future…)

I felt discouraged so I figured out let’s just drop off the whole frosting part. But what was I to do?

The solution? Real, homemade, freshly-whipped whipped cream! My favorite!

With a thin layer of red currant jelly (it tasted the best) on top of each chocolate cupcake + 2 tablespoons of vanilla flavored whipped cream (The whole batch of 1 cup heavy cream was made with only 1.5 tablespoons of sugar) + sprinkles + 1 marshmallow (Yeah, I know, marshmallow is not the healthiest choice, but… and… it’s only one) all the kids were very, very happy!

A glorious blue morning*.

The greyish-blue hue on the white blinds pulled me outside with camera in hand to capture this photo.

Back in the kitchen, still wearing my PJ, I poured myself a cup of coffee and then filled a pot with water, enough to cover some chicken bones, leftovers from last night’s roasted chicken dinner.

Another pot of chicken stock was simmering on the stovetop.

Are you using store-bought stock/broth? Then read this: Invest in stock.

If you’re using a store-bought stock, I really really want you to give this a try, at least once, and make your own stock—invest in the stock! After you try and taste the difference, you’ll understand why I insist. And here are a few tips, just in case…

Time

*This works with the evening’s cup of coffee too. PJ included.

Whether morning or evening, simmer the stock for 1, 2, 3 hours—as much time as you have. We’re not making stock for the Culinary Institute—taking a shortcut is OK. The result would still be far superior to any store-bought brand.

If you work full-time, you can do this during the weekend, while drinking your coffee and flipping through the newspaper. (Who reads a newspaper in the morning these days?)

Chilling

If you’re not going to use the stock right away after it’s done, (Although if you start making stock when you’re drinking your morning coffee, it might be done in time for lunch), cool it and store in the fridge, or freeze it.

To cool the stock quickly, create an ice bath. Do not let it sit for hours outside the fridge to chill! Fill a clean sink with cold water and lots of ice, soak the pot in the ice bath and stir from time to time until the stock gets cold enough to store in the fridge.

Finding Nemo bones and carcasses

Chicken bones are getting hard to find in the stores. (I bet they use them to make pet food.) So when I find some, I buy as many as I can/enough to fill one pot.

If there’s none to be found at the store, what can you do? Roast a whole chicken and/or start a savings account, a.k.a “a collection”, of bones from the roasted chickens you cooked and store in the freezer until you have enough to invest in the stock.

Fat

Roasting the chicken, versus using it raw in the stock, is an added step but in the end it makes concocting a stock easier and just as fast because it saves you the fat skimming step.

See how much fat is accumulated:

(This is after I put the cooked carcasses in the pot and poured the fat into a big jar.)

You’d want to skim the fat or else you’ll have a too fatty stock.

As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing’s wrong with some fat rings twirling at the top of a soup/stock. I remember playing with the little rings of fat floating in my grandma’s chicken soup, trying to create one large circle of fat… Fascinating, really. But, ah, that happened a zillion years ago.

This fat is delicious to use instead of (on in addition to) butter or oil for frying food, in (bacon) mashed potatoes, etc. This is what our grandmas used to do—use the chicken fat. Well, at least mine did. They did not throw away food.

The mesh skimmer

To skim the fat that rises to the surface, use one of these fine mesh skimmers. Get one with really tiny holes. I’ve got one like that with teeny tiny holes that even hold the liquid-y fat! It’s marvelous.

However, if you roast the chicken or use leftover cooked chicken bones and scraps, you won’t have a lot of fat to skim.

… and by the time I finished this post, ta-da!, the stock was done!

What tips do you have up your sleeve?

Some dishes, I think, are just too predictable, too obvious to even be mentioned to others—“Hey! Guess what I cooked today?”—and certainly they are not to be blogged about! Talk about roasted chicken. Or even braised chicken. They just seem to be too… (Fill in the blank), because I/we assume that everyone knows how to make them. Well, we know that this is isn’t so. Some people out there do need exactly those types of recipes.

However! What if I/we could make three meals out of one predictable, too obvious dish? It sure can save a lot of people a lot of time and get three dinners done!

It starts with chicken thighs roasted in tomatoes and herbs. Simple.

You have that for dinner,

… and you take the leftover sauce the next day and buzz it in the food processor to make the ever-predictable pasta with tomato sauce as a second meal (using 1-2 cups of the sauce). Easy, simple. Everyone can do that.

… and the third time around, you eat any leftover sauce as a soup, ooooor you can make shakshuka! How very simple.

Now, what do you say about that?

I say this is efficiency at its best.

Simple and predictable roasted chicken with tomato sauce and herbs

Serves 4-6

4 whole chicken legs, (split to thigh and leg, optional)
1 can 28 oz. diced/crushed tomatoes
4 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
1/2 to 1 onion, peeled and chopped
1 handful fresh herbs such as parsley and thyme (or use 1 teaspoon dried herbs)
1/4 cup white wine, optional
A good drizzle of extra virgin olive oil
Salt and black pepper

Put all the ingredients in a 9 * 13-inch baking dish, season well and roast at 375 degrees F for 50-60 minutes.

For pasta sauce, soup, and/or shakshuka:

Put everything that is left in the pan besides chicken in a food processor bowl and pulse till smooth. (I didn’t measure how much sauce was left. Will do next time…)

Use some of the sauce for pasta and some to be eaten as tomato soup or use it to make shakshuka.

I have finally met her. The pie lady.

I’ve heard so much about Kate McDermott’s Art of the Pie class in the past year. Some people call her “The pie lady”, some “The pie whisperer” but no matter what they call her, all of them love her and rave about her class, and her pies. Especially the pie dough.

In the past two decades I have used the same one apple pie recipe which I have had since 1990’s and the same fruit crostata recipe, and I wasn’t very curious about other pies at all. But I did get very curious to know more about Kate’s pie because all the talk about her around town. Finally, last Saturday I had a chance to participate in her pie baking class at Dish it up!

The thing that touched me the most about Kate’s pie was her relating to the pie almost as if it were a person: a friend, and at times, even as a child. She was talking to it, sending good vibes into it, thinking good thoughts about people she cares about while mixing and kneading it. She patted the chilled dough with her rolling pin, but did not hit it. “You would not do that to a child, would you?”, she asked. I confess, I banged quite a few doughs (but not kids!) that were hard to roll in the past. But no more, no more.

In short, Kate is putting her pleasant, warm personality into the pie. Making her pie was not an act without a thought or emotion, was not an automatic series of actions, although one could have expected it to be just that since she’s been making pies for many, many year. But no, watching and listening to Kate while she demonstrated making her pies was watching an act full of love, care, and warmth.

I must say, I think what I have witnessed was not only the “art” of the pie, but also the “soul” of the pie and its maker.

When we got to taste a freshly baked apple pie, I tried to identify what’s so different about it? I compared it in my head to the ones I had before. Maybe it’s the addition of leaf lard (I have never used it so far), but there was something beyond that. I think it was the love that was put into it.

The filling—it was phenomenal. Kate used many different apple varieties—one of each kind. I think there were 8 of them. Each one with a unique characteristic to add: some turned mushy when baked, some held their shape, some were sweet, some tart, there were greens and reds… And the spices… They were just right, and so gentle. Even though I saw it with my own eyes, I couldn’t help but ask, “Are you sure you put 1 teaspoon of cinnamon in this?”, because usually the cinnamon flavor really stands out, overpowering the fruit in apple pies.

Now what about the dough? It is definitely distinctive but more difficult to describe. I think that compared to an all-butter dough which tends to have a melt-in-your-mouth and crumbly texture, Kate’s dough  has a bite, it’s not very crumbly but more crispy, and crunchy, but most of all, it has layers—not at all a puff pastry but certainly it made me think of one. See?

Kate wrote a blog post full of tips about the pie making process, Flour, salt, fat and water.

There’s also an excellent post with the recipe and more tips here, in this post.

I took many notes during class. Here are the tips I learned:

For the dough:

Rule #1: keep everything cold! Everything—the bowl, the flour, your hands (chill in ice water), the rolling pin, etc. Keep them in the freezer! On hot days, put your mixing bowl inside a bigger bowl with ice.

Kate doesn’t sift and doesn’t take exact measurements. She keeps it simple and feels it with her hands.

Use butter that is sold wrapped in foil. It’s a sign for good, fresh butter.

Stop mixing before you think you’re done. You should still have large pieces of butter—this will create the marbling later on, which translates into layers of flaky dough.

For vegetarian (and Kosher) dough, you can use Earth Balance brand to substitute the lard and butter.

After every addition of water squeeze the mixture to test if it holds and pulls into a ball.

The dough is freezable, unbaked, up to a month. But, before freezing it, put it in the fridge for the gluten to relax.

For the filling:

Use a variety of apples.

Cut the fruit to large dice.

Don’t judge an apple (or a person) by the way it looks on the outside. It might be delicious. Taste it and see.

No need to peel the fruit. It will make every bite a flavor and texture sensation.

Use superior quality fruit! (Go to the market, if there is one close to you.)

To estimate how much fruit you’ll need, put the whole fruits in the pie pan and pile it high. Put it back again after dicing it to measure if you have enough before you proceed with the seasoning.

The amount of spices she used to season her pile of diced apples:

1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
2-3 gratings of nutmeg
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar/lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup flour

When rolling the dough:

Put a good amount of flour on the board

The technique: place the rolling pin in the middle of your “chubby disk”, from the middle, roll up, lift, go back to the middle and roll down. Turn the dough, repeat. Flip to other side, repeat.

Roll it to be as thick as glass.

If the dough tears, use water to glue it back together

Put the pie dish in the freezer

Brush excess flour off the rolled dough, on both sides, before transferring it to the pie dish

Kate doesn’t bother with greasing her pan. (The dough did not stick. Ha!)

The dough has memory. If you stretch it, it’ll shrink when you bake it (Remembering where it used to be.)

Scatter diced butter on top of the filling once placed in the pie dish

After putting the second rolled dough on top of the filling, roll it up, making a “reservoir” so the juices don’t escape out (I’ll add to that, always put your pan in a large baking sheet when you bake!). Also, take it off the edge. If the dough sits on the edge, it’ll melt downwards and it could burn.

If once you finished preparing the pie the dough gets warm, put it back in the fridge to chill before baking

Bake: 425 F degrees for 20 minutes + 375 F, 40 minutes. If it browns too fast, place aluminum foil with a hole in the middle (for the steam to vent), matte side up, to protect the dough.

A tip about ovens: If you want to test and see if your oven has hot spots, place slices of bread on a baking sheet and bake it, see where it browns and when not.

Make “tasties” with the leftover dough.

***

I also found a recipe for Kate’s Shaker Lemon Pie here and her blackberry pie in Saveur magazine, here.

My conclusion: Wonderful Kate makes wonderful pie!

OK, so we had a few distractions between the No-roll quiche crust post – because we visited Mount Rainier National Park, Blueberry Hills farm, and Lake Chelan – to the actual finished product, that is the mushroom quiche post.

I’ll be honest with you… For me, making – and eating! – a mushroom quiche is merely an excellent excuse for devouring mushrooms soaked in heavy cream. I mean, it’s mushrooms… sautéed in butter and simmered in heavy cream… Besides heavy cream made desserts, what could possibly be richer and more decadent and sinful than this??? Mushrooms with cream…

OK, OK, you twist my arm. A steak seared in butter and simmered in heavy cream with pasta and mushrooms to finish it off – soaked in heavy cream themselves – is indeed better than a mushroom quiche. But, if you seek a vegetarian alternative – for lunch or dinner, and even brunch – that’s the way to go.

Mushroom quiche

I used crimini mushrooms this time but feel free to use any kind you like, or a mix of them! (But I do not recommend using dried mushrooms. I made this quiche once before with rehydrated dried porcini (in addition to fresh ‘shrooms) and I didn’t like how it tasted; it tasted like fake mushrooms soup or one from a powdery mix or something… Not good.)

1 small onion, thinly sliced (about 2/3 cup)
12 oz. fresh mushrooms, washed, dried, thinly sliced (stems removed)
a few sprigs of fresh thyme or lemon thyme
1 fat garlic clove, minced
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
salt
freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup milk
1 cup heavy cream
3-4 oz. gruyere cheese, grated
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 quiche crust, arranged in the pan and chilled

Preheat oven to 360 F degrees.

In a medium size skillet, melt the butter with olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and sauté until it softens. Add the mushrooms, garlic, a touch of salt, black pepper, and thyme (Add a drizzle of oil or another knob of butter if needed) and sauté until mushrooms and onion are browned and soft. Remove to a bowl and let cool a bit.

To the bowl with the mushrooms, add the milk and cream and stir. Then, add the cheese and eggs and mix well. Pour the batter over the chilled crust and bake for 45-50 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and the custard is set. Let cool for 15 minutes before slicing and serving.

Cook till brown

This is what you end up with. Chill before adding the rest of the custard ingredients (so the eggs won’t curdle).

Take the chilled dough our of the fridge

Pour the batter

… it’s so easy

Ta-da!

Now, how do you take the quiche out of the pan, ha???

Run a toothpick, or one of those thin “thingies” like that red one in the photo, around the edges to loosen them from the side of the pan (If you greased the pan well, the dough will pull away from the pan as it cools).

Then, place the pan over a plate or bowl that is taller than the pan

… and there you have it

And we’re done

You know me, I’m a risk taker. A.k.a I get lazy and bake gnocchi to see what will happen, instead of cook them in boiling water as people are supposed to do.

To justify this sort of moves, I have developed a theory that all great inventors must have been lazy folks who just wanted to make their lives a bit easier… What else would motivate people to work more, and harder, to invent something new had they not seen the option to work less at the end of the process? Just think of all the risks taken! And all the years of research and investment!

Therefore, today I’d like to share with you – no, not a great invention – merely how I make a quiche crust without using unnecessary tools. My lazy-self was thinking, “Why dirty a working surface/board, a rolling pin, and a dough scraper when I can use my 8 fingers instead?” (No, I don’t have 8 finger. I do have 10 like most people. But only 8 get dirty!)

You might like this no-roll method – which can be used for tarts (which are sweet unlike a quiche which is savory; add sugar to the dough) as well – if you:

1. are a great inventor, risk taker… or not

2. are lazy like me

3. like shortcuts

4. are afraid of rolling dough with a rolling pin and/or transferring the rolled dough into the pan. Ouhuhuhuhu, scary.

5. and so on…

Here’s the process:

(Recipe at the end of the post)

Process the dough’s ingredients and stop when they start to form a ball

dump the dough inside your well-greased pan (I like to use butter, no spray.)

First, spread the dough around the edges

then, spread the rest on the bottom

Tighten with your fingers

and again around the edges

and again at the bottom, smoothing things out.

And, Ta-Da!

No-roll quiche crust

This is the same dough as the one in the French Onion Quiche recipe only this time I skipped the rolling and blind baking steps. (If you want to perform those steps, check the onion quiche recipe.) The dough turned out with a flaky and crispy bottom, so I guess blind baking was not critical.

For a 10-11-inch tart pan

2 cups flour
9 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, diced
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg, lightly beaten
1-2 tablespoons cold water

In a bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade, place flour, salt, and butter. Pulse until you get coarse pea-size crumbs, then add the egg and 1 tablespoon of water. Pulse until a moistened crumbs form. If the flour mixture still looks dry and doesn’t form into a ball, add another tablespoon of water and pulse a little more.

Take the dough out of the bowl and dump into a well-greased (tart) pan. With your fingers, work the dough around the edges and the bottom of the pan, spreading it evenly (as shown in the photos above).

Wrap the pan in plastic and refrigerate while you make the quiche filling >>> Click here for the mushroom quiche recipe !

****