More dessert - sorry, Dad

The other day I found a few sad stalks of rhubarb at the farmer's market. Even though they looked a little pathetic, I took them home and vowed to bake something. I've already made strawberry-rhubarb crumble and pie and I decided I needed to do something a little different. Since I'm feeling good about mastering a simple pie crust, I figured I should try something new. While flipping through Martha's cookbook (she scares me, but she certainly knows what she's doing), I settled on pate sucree - a sweet crumbly tart dough. I made it in the food processor super quickly. It was a snap.

Martha's pate sucree

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3 Tbs sugar
1 cup chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces
2 large egg yolks
1/4 cup ice water

Put the flour and sugar in a food processor and process for a few seconds to combine. Add the butter and process for about ten seconds, or until the mixture resembles "coarse meal." In a small bowl, beat the egg yolks and water together. Add in a steady stream through the feed tube with the machine running, and process until the dough comes together.


It's a snap. Seriously. Divide it in half, press into disks and wrap in plastic wrap. Chill for at least an hour.


I bought a few lemons the other day (you always need lemons). I was worried that I didn't have much rhubarb to make a filling on its own, so I figured I'd make some lemon curd to sass things up a bit.


Lemon Curd - adapted from Alice Waters

2 lemons
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 Tb milk
1/6 cup sugar
pinch of salt
3 Tbs butter, cut into pieces

Zest one lemon and juice both of them. Set the juice/zest aside. Mix together the egg, egg yolk, sugar, milk and salt. Add the lemon juice and zest and mix. Add the butter.


Cook over medium low heat, stirring constantly until it is thick enough to coat a spoon. Don't bring the heat up too high or the eggs will curdle - like scrambled eggs (full disclosure - mine curdled a little. Whoops. It's still good).


I poured it into a bowl so that the hot pot wouldn't keep it cooking.


Pretty! I also cut up the rhubarb and added a little bit of lemon juice, sugar and ground ginger to the bowl.


I rolled out my pate sucree and pushed into a tart pan. I baked it at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes.


I poured the lemon curd in....


And topped it with the rhubarb.


Then I baked the whole thing for another 15 minutes or so at 375 degrees (you don't want to under cook rhubarb - it's poisonous when it's raw).


It turned out really nicely. It's a little tart and the textures are really neat - the crumbly shell, the creamy custard and the fruit just melts in your mouth. I love playing around in the kitchen.

I'm still here.....

Hey all you people out there! I'm still here. I am now working one job (not two!) and I have time to blog again! I'm sure the three readers I have left will be thrilled (I have more than three readers, right? Maybe? Bueller?).

Anyways, I'm back and I've got yet another recipe for duck legs. I love duck legs. Read about it here. Or here. Or here. This one comes from the New York Times (click for the recipe) and it involves rhubarb (this should tell you how long it's been since I've cooked anything - is rhubarb even still in season?).

Basically, you brown some duck legs and save the fat that comes off (in a glass jar! Zack yelled at me for saving hot duck fat in plastic Tupperware last time - apparently that can give you cancer. Whoops).

You blitz some onion, garlic, ginger, garam masala, vinegar, cayenne, turmeric, black pepper, salt and 1/4 cup water in the blender or food processor (check the link for exact amounts), then saute over medium heat with some of the leftover duck fat. Add some coconut milk and water, bring to a simmer and add your duck legs, a little bit of brown sugar and some chopped rhubarb (it's not just for pies)!


Bring it to a boil, turn the heat to low and simmer (covered) for an hour.


If you have any fresh cilantro or chives, add those on top - I so did not have those. People who sleep five hours a night don't have time to buy fresh herbs. Such is life.

But I'm back! I'm ready to blog and ready to sleep.

Finally, I think summer is on its way

Today is the first day of my CSA! That's Community Supported Agriculture for those of you who don't know. You can read about it here. Basically, I get a box full of farm fresh vegetables and fruit from a local farm every week for six months out of the year! It's awesome.

I just had to bake something right off. I made a Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble. But that's not actually what I'm blogging about - I'm blogging about this pie that a made a few weeks ago (back when I didn't work 50 hours a week). But the crumble is very similar to this pie.

First of all, I had some pie dough lying around in the fridge. That's just the kind of girl I am. So that made this a lot easier. You could just buy pie dough if you wanted. Or you could make your own, like I did!


This is basically what I did. I chopped up some rhubarb -


- which is a vegetable, not a fruit. Did you know that? It's a very yummy vegetable. It goes well with pork too. But you probably don't want to put pork in your pie. So I mixed together some strawberries (all sliced and diced), one and a half Tbs flour, some lemon zest, lemon juice, a pinch of salt, 2 Tbs melted butter, some ground ginger (to taste) and 1/2 cup sugar along with the rhubarb.


Then I cut thin strips out of more pie dough and made a nice criss cross pattern. I had too much filling, so I made a few tiny pies too.


I baked it in my stupid broken oven at 300 degrees for about an hour (I really don't recommend this - stupid lousy oven) and then I got so annoyed that I put it in the broiler so that it would get brown on top.


It all turned out well though! I took it to a BBQ and everybody loved it. They all ignored the store bought pies that were there. Store bought pies cannot compete with my homemade goodness! I rule. And you can too! Make some pie. People like pie.