Baked Beans with Sweet Potatoes and Chipotles

You know how it is when you just plain crave baked beans. This rich baked beans recipe will satisfy your cravings and throws in healthy sweet potatoes to boot. And, then there is the complex smoky flavor of chipotle peppers. What’s not to love…

Beans, Vegetables, Vegetarian

March 16, 2018

Neil’s Romaine Salad with Vinaigrette–garlicky, tangy and homemade

At dinnertime, my mother always placed a bottle of salad dressing on our kitchen table next to a bowl of pale iceberg lettuce pieces. Always Wish Bone. Always Italian. I’m an unrepentant foodie. I love food. Cooking is a delight for me. I love…

Salad Dressings, Salads, Vegetarian

March 14, 2018

Happy Pi(e) Day

Today is Pi Day. (Today also is Einstein’s birthday, if you have forgotten.) So, of course, there was no question what type of recipe should be featured on Blue Cayenne. Pie. Make that a delicious peach pie.

If you’ve forgotten your math, Pi is ∏, the sixteenth letter in the Greek alphabet and a symbol used in mathematics to represent the numerical value of the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter–3.14159 to start with but the number is irrational and has an infinite number of digits.

If you don’t know today is Pi Day, you haven’t been paying attention. Today is Pi Day’s 30th anniversary. All sorts of stuff happens on Pi Day. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology releases its admissions decisions on Pi Day at precisely 9.26, for example. NASA is running a “Pi in the Sky” math challenge. Princeton is hosting its annual Pi Day celebration with pie eating (and throwing) contests and an Albert Einstein look-alike contest. Around the world, some Pi fanatics began their celebration of Pi Day 2018 at 1.59 pm. and 26 seconds on March 14. (3.1415926.) Merchants, anxious to cash in on the day, often offer pizzas or real pies at $3.14 discounts. (Whole Foods is advertising a $3.14 discount this year.) Google is running this special Pi Day graphic today.

Pi also has insinuated itself into our cultural references. Pi was the secret code in Hitchcock’s Torn Curtain. The Springfield graveyard sign on the Simpsons beckoned: “Come for the funeral, stay for the ∏.” Givenchy has a cologne called Pi that it markets as highlighting the sexual appeal of intelligent and visionary men. (Personally, I plan to start hanging out by the men’s cologne section at Nordstrom’s. Who couldn’t use a little help in identifying smart men?)

So, bottom line, you need to eat pie today (and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow—Pie is an irrational dessert, after all.)

Here is a recipe for a wonderful peach pie and you don’t have to be a genius to make it. The original recipe ran in the New York Times. Here is the link: Sam Sifton’s Perfect Peach Pie.

Happy Pi(e) Day: Peach Pie

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Ingredients

For the Dough

2 1/2 Cups (300 grams) all-purpose flour
12 T. (169 grams) unsalted butter (cold, cut into 1/2 inch cube)
1 t. kosher salt
Yolk of 1 egg (beaten)
1 t. cider vinegar
1/4 C. water (from 3/4 C. ice water)
White of 1 egg (beaten)
Pinch granulated sugar

For the Filling:

6-7 ripe peaches (sliced--leave on the skins!) (approximately 5 Cups)
2 T lemon juice
1 C. granulated sugar (or 3/4 if you want your pie to be a bit less sweet)
5 T. cornstarch or 1/4 C. all purpose flour (or a combination)
Pinch of ground nutmeg

Instructions

Prepare the pie dough. Pulse the flour, butter and salt in your food processor until the mixture resembles a coarse meal with small pebbles of butter throughout the mixture. Add egg yolk and vinegar to 1/4 cup ice water. Stir and drizzle 4 T. of this mixture over the dough in your processor. Pulse to combine the liquid into the dough and continue pulsing until the dough forms a ball in your processor bowl. (Add more of the egg yolk/water/vinegar liquid if you necessary to get the dough to form into a ball.)
Turn dough onto a lightly-floured surface and form into a ball. Divide the ball into 8 portions. Use the heel of your hand to flatten each portion of dough and to expand the pebbles of butter. Gather the dough back together into a ball. Divide dough in half and flatten each half into a 5-6 inch disc. Wrap the discs in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 60 minutes.
Preheat your oven to 425 degrees F.
Make the pie filling. Slice peaches but do not peel them. Mash half of the peaches in a bowl and add the cornstarch. Add the mashed peaches to the remaining sliced peaches and add lemon juice and sugar. Gently mix and set aside for a few minutes.
Remove the pastry discs from the refrigerator. On a lightly-floured surface, roll out one disc into a circle and place into a 9-inch pie plate. Pour the peach mixture on top of the dough. Sprinkle with freshly-ground nutmeg. Trim the pie crust to fit the pie dish and wet the edges of the dough with a small amount of water.
Roll out the second disc of pastry into a round. Place the round of pastry onto the top of the pie. Pinch the bottom and the top edges of the pastry dough together. Cut a few slits in the top of the pie to allow steam to escape from the pie as it cooks. Brush the top of the pie with egg whites. Sprinkle top of the pie with granulated sugar.
Bake pie for 15 minutes at 425 degrees F. Reduce heat and continue to bake the pie at 375 degrees F. Bake until the pastry on the pie is a pretty golden brown color and the peach liquid is bubbling. This should take between 45 minutes to an hour.
Remove pie from oven and let it sit on your counter to cool. The peach juices will thicken as the pie cools.

Nutrition

Calories

2158 cal

Fat

17 g

Carbs

462 g

Protein

31 g

Click Here For Full Nutrition, Exchanges, and My Plate Info

https://bluecayenne.com/happy-pie-day

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Fruits, Peaches, Pie, Vegetarian

March 3, 2018

Swiss Chard Pie with A Vodka Crust

I was out of vodka. For years I’ve relied upon my neighbors to loan me a little of this and a little of that–a couple eggs or a cup of milk. But…it is an entirely different thing to call a neighbor and ask…

Uncategorized, Vegetables, Vegetarian

March 1, 2018

Roasted Cauliflower Salad with Chickpeas, Tahini and Avocado

This recipe for Roasted Cauliflower Salad with Chickpeas, Tahini and Avocado has everything–good proteins, healthy cruciferous cauliflower, peppery watercress, and beautiful Cara Cara oranges. Did I mention there are avocados, too? And, oh! those Cara Cara oranges! I’ll admit that I’ve fallen head-over-heels…

Avocados, Beans, Fruit, Fruits, salad, Salads, Vegetables, Vegetarian

February 27, 2018

Tuscan Farro Soup While Waiting For Hamilton

Oh, we strategized.

We’d be at our computers at 9 a.m. sharp, fingers poised to click the button that read “buy Hamilton tickets” the moment the digital clock struck nine. Then, The Segerstrom Theatre would place us into a “virtual waiting room” where the ticketing system would randomly assign us a number in the waiting line. We could do this!

Nine a.m.

Click!

Then, there was what we will forever call “the minor setback.”

40,018 and 42,303.

How could that even be? The answer to that question is that, apparently, more than forty thousand other Hamilton junkies signed in at nine, too. Again, how could that even be?

So, throughout the day my friend Carole and I have mostly watched our computer screens ever-so-slowly tick down the numbers. It is 6 p.m. as I write this–nine hours since we joined the line, and we are now 26,691 and 28,976 respectively.

What does one do while waiting in a virtual ticket line for nine hours? For Carole, it was a no-brainer. Clean your house while watching a marathon of old Colbert reruns. (Carole knows how to party!)

For me, it was a day to make soup and finish my income taxes.

I’m beginning to accept the fact that, at 26,691, the closest I may ever get to a Hamilton ticket is to read the lyrics online. This snippet seems apropos.

“Alexander Hamilton
My name is Alexander Hamilton
And there’s a million things I haven’t done
But just you wait, just you wait.”

Like Alexander Hamilton, I’m waiting.

My number is now 26,443.

How can that even be? Apparently, seeing the play Hamilton is going to be among the “million things I haven’t done.”

Here is a recipe for the soup. It’s quite good–a brothy Tuscan soup with farro. I don’t know if the founding fathers ate farro. It was popular in Europe and the Middle East during the time Hamilton et al were putting together our new government.

Tuscan Farro Soup

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Ingredients

2 T. extra virgin olive oil
1 large onion (sliced)
2 celery stalks (trimmed and chopped)
2 carrots (peeled and chopped)
Salt and pepper
1 T. minced garlic
1 C. farro (or spelt or barley) (uncooked)
2 C. cooked white beans
2 C. chopped tomatoes (I used Trader Joe's San Marzanos)
6 C. vegetable stock or water (If you don't eat all the soup on the first day, you will need to add more stock or water as the farro absorbs the liquid in the soup)
1/4 C. chopped fresh parsley and/or cilantro (I used both)
1/4 C. chopped basil (optional)
Freshly-grated Parmesan

Instructions

Heat olive oil in a large soup pot. Add onions, carrots and celery to the hot oil and saute for 5-10 minutes until the vegetables are beginning to soften. Stir the garlic into the vegetable mixture and add the farro, tomatoes and stock. Stir.
Turn up the heat and bring your soup to a boil and then turn down the heat a bit letting the soup simmer for about an hour until the farro is tender. Add the cooked beans to the soup and stir in the parsley and/or cilantro and cook for another five minutes.
Taste. Adjust seasonings. Serve with a generous amount of grated Parmesan sprinkled over the top of the soup.