oven roasted chick peas

This is a recipe that I forget where it came from. I think it happened after I "discovered" kale chips last year and decided to try to oven roast/fry nearly everything. These chick peas have become the single-most popular (and requested) party snack I make.

The recipe is really easy to modify or adapt to your particular tastes - I often omit the cayenne if I am bringing it to a group of unknown human mouths who might not love the warm kick. You really can't go wrong unless you put dried herbs in - those babies will burn and make your delicious fried orbs taste horrible - trust me. 

If you are going to make a big batch, it is worth it to buy dried chick peas and soak and boil them yourself. It  takes more time, but is so much cheaper. (if you do this, you will need to add more salt) That said, canned chick peas aren't that expensive and you are the boss of you, so do what feels right. 

oven roasted chick peas

2 cans of chick peas, drained and washed well

1/4 cup olive oil 

1/4 tsp smoked cinnamon

cayenne (you can substitute something more mild like aleppo, but hold off and add it half way through cooking)

sea salt (you are going to use this 2x)

1/2 tsp ground celery seed

1 tsp toasted onion powder or garlic powder -both if you are awesome

2 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp ground cumin 

Pre-heat oven to 400F

1. Drain those chick peas really well

2. Spread them out on to a sheet pan or a baking dish - you don't want them doubled up

3. Generously coat the chick peas in olive oil - you should see extra puddling 

4. Sprinkle on the spices and salt. You will be tempted to roll the chick peas around to coat them DON'T. It will cause most of the deliciousness to fall off into the oil. 

5. Place the peas in the oven for 35-45 minutes - you are going to want to flip them at least 2x

6. Done = the chick peas shrinking to half their size, and darkening without burning. If you see some of them start to flake off their outer shell and crisp, you are there. 

So now you have a choice - take them out of the oven when they are crispy on the outside and a little soft in the middle, or keep on cooking for another ~10 minutes to get them to be more like the texture of spicy Indian snack mix. I prefer them the first way, but the second is also great

7. Remove from oven and allow to cool in the pan. 

8. If you manage to not devour them immediately, store in an air-tight container. If you make them a few days ahead of time, they will get a little soggy. You can pop them back in the oven, or a toaster oven, for a few minutes on 400 until you hear them start to sizzle, remove, cool, and serve. 

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gluten free, dairy free hot cross buns

This is the closest I have come to a dairy-free brioche! I modified my brioche recipe to make a Greek Easter Bread and Hot Cross Buns. It worked well and my only complaint is that the buns/bread deflated a bit post-cooling. I would add a bit of psyllium husk next time and see if that helped create a more robust crumb. 

The buns were stellar, the Greek Bread had too much lemon oil, so I think it could work well if you just omitted that one pesky ingredient. This technique doesn't require an overnight proof, but I find it easier to work with dough that has rested and had the time to build it's yeasties, especially if it is cooler out. (The extra yeast also means more flavor, so if you can let this sticky mess rest!)

 dairy-free brioche dough

1 1/4 cup sweet rice flour

1/2 cup tapioca starch

1 cup arrowroot

1 1/4 cup corn starch

1 cup millet flour

3/4 cup potato starch

2 tbsp yeast

1 tbsp kosher salt

2 tbsp xathan gum

2  3/4 cup almond milk cup water

1/2 cup honey

4 eggs

1 cup canola oil

1. Combine all the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl, with the paddle attachment at the ready. 
When you are ready to bake your bread(s) preheat the oven to 350F
**

2. Combine all the wet ingredients into a separate bowl and mix them until they are incorporated. 

3. With the paddle attachment on the lowest setting, gently mix the dry ingredients. Slowly pour in the wet ingredients.

4. Once all of the wet ingredients have been added in, turn the mixer up to high and mix for at least 5 minutes, stopping at least 2x to scrape down the bowl. 

The dough is going to be very very sticky and look quite wet. 

5. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

6. Punch down the dough, divide it into 2 bowls, add in your flavorings. 

7. Shape the dough - since the dough is so soft and sticky a disher is the best for this

8. Allow it to proof - this is going to take 20-60 minutes depending on size and temperature of your house. 

9. Bake at 350F until golden brown and cooked through (~30min)

Greek Easter Bread add-ins

2 tbsp lemon zest

1 tsp lemon oil (this was too much, should omit)

1 tbsp lemon juice

**

hot cross bun add-ins

1/4 cup chopped dried fruit

1 tbsp extract di sicily*

1 tbsp orange zest

1 tbsp orange juice

1 tsp lemon juice

*I not so secretly tried to recreate the flavors of panettone, so not super traditional, but they tasted great!

Hot Cross Bun Icing - 1/2 cup powdered sugar, a few drops of vanilla extract, and a few drops of coconut milk until it just comes together. You want to squeeze it onto the buns while they are still warm. 

cherry almond butter cookies that will blow your socks off

I was invited to a party where the host cannot eat dairy or cane sugar. Not wanting to disappoint - and knowing the crowd was a pretty open-minded bunch of heck-yeah-I-will-try-a-new-weird-food people, I thought I would attempt a dessert. No gluten, no grains, no sugar, no butter, no problem. These cookies were a giant hit. 

I basically made a modified version of The Ambitious Kitchen's Flourless Almond Butter Dark Chocolate Chunk Cookies. They are on the cakey-side of cookies, but who cares because they taste awesome and don't have a gritty or weird texture. I am not so subtly looking at you coconut oil and rice flour cookies of sadness. 

Cherry Almond Butter Cookies

1 cup creamy almond butter
4 dates (pitted)
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 egg
1/2 tsp kosher salt (plus more to sprinkle on top if you like)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract
1/4 cup chopped dried cherries
1/4 cup pistachios 

preheat oven to 350F 

1. In a mixer with a paddle attachment combine the almond butter, dates, maple syrup, egg, salt, baking soda, and extracts. Beat on medium speed for 1 minute.
2. Scrape down bowl, beat again for another minute. 
3. Stir in the cherries and pistachios
4. Spoon out 2-3tsp portions of the batter onto lined cookie sheets (parchment is your best bet here). 
5. Bake at 350F for 7-12 minutes
6. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 10 minutes on the cookie sheets, then you can transfer them to a cooling rack. 

These things taste so so so so good, but they will stick together if you stack them in a Tupperware - you have been warned.

pistachio liqueur

I love pistachios so much that when a friend offered me a sip of Dumante, a pistachio liqueur, I nearly tackled someone as I lunged towards the cup. Sadly, I was left a little wanting. It had pistachio flavor, but it was really light and gentle. (Pistachios are the most aggressive nut, but this didn't sing to me.)

I found a recipe online for pistachio liqueur, but I wondered how it would turn out if I omitted the spices. Some further research - via misspelling liqueur "liquore", lead me to the glorious discovery that Sicilians make a "creamy" style. Recipes seem to vary between adding actual cows milk cream, or blending the pistachios down and soaking them in alcohol so it is a bit of a nut milk infused booze.

I decided to start with the dairy-free style and see if I could attempt a clear liqueur.

I purchased half a pound of unsalted in-the-shell pistachios, and then shelled them.

Then I rough-chopped them, and it yielded a scant cup of meat.

I added them to a Ball jar (yes I put nuts in a ball jar), and covered them with 750ml of vodka.

I hemmed and hawed about it, but decided I did in fact really want some beautiful vanilla to join the party. I had Madagascar and Tahitian on hand. Smelling both, the Tahitian was the clear winner since it is a much lighter, fruit-ier vanilla, and I am hopefully it will play nicely with the nuts.

Then I took a blurry picture of nuts settling with the bean.

I labeled the jar and made a pact with myself to shake it every few days and taste it after two weeks.

the very best gluten free pumpkin bars

I am not one for gloating, but hear me people when I say that I have made the most delicious pumpkin thing ever! (The picture doesn't do it justice - these treats survived the worst public transit could throw at them this morning and still provided joy to others.)

Do you remember when I totally tried to pull of a failed pumpkin bread recipe and call it a "brownie"? We can laugh at that now, because with a few tweaks, that recipe has sprouted a new MOST GLORIOUS food.

Oh yes I did cut them into parallelograms. On-the-bias slices might just be tastier. Don't even think about asking me if one could put chocolate chips in said recipe. Chocolate has no place here. Stop trying to put chocolate on/in everything! Chocolate is good, but it overwhelms squashes in general. While I cannot stop you from mucking about in your own kitchen, I am going to pause and stare-you-down towards the right decision.

Ok, put the bag of chips down, and pay attention.

These guys are spicy, not in the chili pepper way, but in the loads of wonderful, intense spices that make this a borderline spice bar. If you are a traditionalist - aka boringmouth - you can half the spices and you will still have a good pumpkin bar. But why settle for good when you can have the best square of pumpkin in the world? (Seriously, why would you?)

gluten free pumpkin bars
1 stick unsalted butter (aka half a cup)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white or cane sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup millet flour
1/2 cup brown rice flour
1/2 cup hazelnut meal
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp Ceylon cinnamon
3/4 tsp Vietnamese cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground coriander
2 tsp psyllium husk
15oz (canned) pumpkin

Preheat oven to 350F
1. Cream the butter and sugars. You aren't going to fluffy, but you want to take it past the point where it is a ball of grit hanging on to your mixer, to a smear of stuff coating the mixing bowl.
2. Add in each egg, one at a time. Mix till it is thoroughly incorporated.
3. Combine all of the dry ingredients in a separate bowl.
4. Pour half of the dry mix into the butter/sugars/egg mixture and combine. Add half of the pumpkin to the bowl and combine. Repeat.
5. Bake in a 9x13x3 inch baking dish at 350F for 25-40 minutes depending on the awesomeness of your oven. You want to be able to insert a stick into the center and have it come out clean.
6. Cool.
7. Cut and enjoy! 

double twist on summer favorites

This is less of a recipe and more of a eureka moment. Same friend who cannot eat any grains, and nearly no carbohydrates, was in town at the start of tomato season. I really love a fried green tomato blt. It is probably my favorite sandwich of all time. The combination of the crunchy fried green tomatoes, soft, sweet ripe tomatoes, plus well there is bacon, which rules in general... it is just prefect.

In attempts to make something similar, and use up stuff in the freezer, I began wondering about the possibility of hazelnuts. I had some left over hazelnut meal from a recipe I tried (hazelnut strawberry tart, pictured on the faceybook, that tasted good but didn't hold together well enough to share the test recipe.)

I combined about a cup of hazelnut meal, salt, ground coriander, ground celery seed, ground cumin, cayenne pepper, toasted onion powder, garlic powder, and ground black pepper. I dipped the slices of green tomato in an egg wash (egg, salt) and then into the hazelnut mix. Fried in bacon fat these rounds wouldn't fool a southerner, but they were tasty and satisfying.

The salad is a slight adaptation of my previous attempt at a blt salad. Instead of a mayo-based dressing I used avocado. Just a whole avocado, the juice of one lemon, and some salt proved to be a fantastic creamy dressing for some mixed greens. Adding chopped, ripe tomatoes and crumbled bacon just took this over the top.

 Be mindful. Bacon-laced foods will attract beasts.

nearly carb free friendship - sugar free gluten free pudding

Friendship is weird. It is wonderfully complicated and gets better once you have gone through something really unpleasant together and come out the other side still wanting to talk to each other. So when a friend tells me I can't eat _____, I feel a special need to try to ease the transition. Us, those whom gluten cannot pass our lips, understand better than most, what it feels like when your food life is messed with.

That is how a nearly carb-free dessert was concocted. Count yourself among my pals, and a lover of sweets, well this is my best effort at a chocolate dessert for you. 

This recipe takes two days to make, which is ridiculous if you compared it to traditional pudding, but consider it like you would icebox pie, something that needs the power of the refrigerator and time to make delicious. 

There are three steps: creating the licorice syrup, soaking the chia seeds and cocoa powder, and then combining and cooking. Using both the licorice and stevia worked well together. Licorice has that sweetness that doesn't hit till your finished and your palate is nearly cleaned, and the stevia hits more up front at the start of the first bite - so together they work pretty well and don't test chemically or too weird.  (Surprisingly, the finished product does not taste like licorice at all!)

This isn't going to be a sweet dessert, it is going to end up tasting like a chocolate pudding like thing but its no pudding pop. You might be tempted to add more sweetener(s), don't. Adding more stevia or licorice results in a very off-putting mess that tastes more like you lost a dare and had to eat an entire packet of Equal. 

Licorice "syrup" 

3-4" piece of licorice root, bent into pieces if you can

1 1/2 cups of boiling water

1. In a heat safe bowl, pour the boiling water over the licorice root. 

2. Allow to steep for at least 2 hours, overnight if you can. 

The water will turn light yellow, then bright yellow.

Pudding base

1 cup coconut milk - the pour-able-when-cold kind from a tetra pack

1/4 cup chia seeds

1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

pinch of sea salt

1. Combine all ingredients - you are going to need a fork or whisk to break up the cocoa powder

2. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours or overnight

Finished product

1/4 cup of the licorice syrup

Pudding base

4 drops liquid stevia extract

1. In a saucepan, boil 1/4 cup of the licorice syrup. 

2. Once it has come to a boil, add in the pudding base, stirring constantly. The whole goal is to cook the mixture so it doesn't taste like raw cocoa powder. This will take about 10 minutes, or until the mixture darkens and no longer tastes chalky. 

3. Remove from the heat and add in the 4 drops of stevia. 

4. You can enjoy it warm, or return it to the fridge to chill. Using the pour-able coconut milk will help prevent the pudding from separating or hardening when cold. 

I couldn't pick a name - faux-pioca doesn't have quite the right ring to it. I am calling it pretty darn delicious. 

gluten free digestive tea

Most teas labeled "good for digestion" contain gluten. For some reason, malted barley gets tucked into tea bags as the digestion helper. Since barley is not one of the 8 mandatory allergens that must be disclosed (in the USA), it is often hard to know which teas are safe - I am staring you down "natural flavorings". For the most part, I grab some ginger chews and forgo the landmine of packaged teas.

A little inspiration from a local blog, and I decided to create my own winter mix.

1 part dried elderberry (immune system support)
1 part dried milk thistle (supports liver function)
1 part dried rose hips (high in vitamin c)
1 part dried hibiscus flours (beautiful red color)
1 part dried orange peel (tastes awesome)
0.5 part dried ginger root (pieces, not ground), the digestive aid

The resulting "tea"* really needs to steep for 5-10 minutes. It is a little peppery from the ginger and has a great bright right color with a gentle sourness; you can add some honey to round out the flavor. I hand-filled some teabags and you can see in the back I store them in a zip-lock. The rest I saved for when I am at home can can use a metal brew basket.

*Technically a tea has to include actual tea leaves, but I am going to take the vernacular liberties here.

KABLAM - the result tastes awesome and doesn't ironically cause digestive unrest.

nutella rice krispie treats

Sometimes great ideas happen because of an expected set of events converge. Gluten free rice krisipies go on sale. A friend comes to town. One has less than half a jar of Nuttella remaining.

I am not the first to come up with this idea, but I will say that I fancy myself a genius for adding in hazelnuts. I think it makes them extra crunchy, and since the bar mix is a bit softer from the added fat in the nutella, the nuts provide a nice contrast.

gluten free nutella rice krisipie treats
6 tablespoons of butter (use 4 if you want the more standard rice krispie bar harder crunch)
1 bag of marshmallows
1 cup of nutella
5 cups of gluten free rice cereal (I used Erewhon)
1 cup of roasted hazelnuts roughly chopped
2 pinches of kosher salt (option, but really makes this more awesome)
parchment paper or cooking spray

1. In a microwave safe bowl, melt the butter.
2. Roll the butter around the bowl and up the sides - this will help with clean up later.
3. Add in the marshmallows and melt them in the microwave, stopping and stirring with a rubber scraper every 30 seconds.
4. Once the marshmallows are melted and fully incorporated with the butter, add in the nutella. You want to stir this in and make it one with the marshmallow/butter mixture. You will need to microwave it once or twice for 10-20 seconds to keep the mixture warm and smooth.
5. Add in the cereal and nuts and stir, stir, STIR. (You might need to reheat the mixture for 10 seconds to keep it going. Really stir, cover all the bits with delicous molten goo)
6. Pour mixture out onto a well greased or parchment(better) lined pan. With the scraper spread mixture out till it is less than 1" thick. (If you put another piece of parchment paper on top, you can push the mixture out with your hands or something heavy like a smaller pan.)
7. Allow the treats to cool before cutting.
8. Bring to the beach and enjoy. 

kale chips

I did not want to make them. Kale chips seem like the "hip new health food", and I admit that I am the type of person who baulks a bit at food trends. (I dislike cupcakes and 2008 did not change my mind.)

It took seeing a small 2oz package of kale chips for over $6 to break me. I got a pound of kale, went home, used the googler, and made a batch myself.

All the recipes seemed too simple. Wash kale. Remove stem. Toss with olive oil and salt. Bake at 350F for 15-20 minutes.

I was wrong. Really wrong. THESE ARE AWESOME!!
They have the crisp-ness and salt of a potato chip, but are more interesting and super thin. They almost shatter in your mouth (in a good way). They are so addictive I nearly polished off the entire batch!

not by the hairs of my ginny gin gin

Ever since I tackled tonic water, I have been wanting to attempt homemade gin. Actually, that is a bit of a lie. Several years ago, I got into a rather heated discussion about my adamant dislike of gin. It falls into the category of "it tastes like licking a christmas tree, which I am not into". (see also, pine nuts)

For this reason, I had been seeking out a juniper-free gin. Apparently if you remove the juniper, gin it cannot be. Gin only is if juniper is present. This conversation lead to a quest for an "infused vodka" that contained all of the gin botanicals, sans juniper. We found one, but Four Square. It was ok, but very very very floral, and I say that in a grandma's perfume sort of way; not what I want in a cocktail, ever.

Recently being given a bergamot orange, I got inspired to muck around with centuries worth of fine acohol making. (Bergamot oil and/or peel is what gives earl grey tea its quintessential flavor and aroma.)

"Gin" or "infused vodka attempt 1"
4 cups vodka
1/4 ceylon cinnamon stick
1 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 bay leaf
2 whole allspice berries
1/2 a green corriander pod
1/4 tsp whole cubebs
1/4 tsp grains of paradise
zest of 1/4 a navel orange
zest of 1/4 a bergamot orange

I zested the citrus into the vodka, to aid in it funneling back into the bottle. I didn't use the full peel, because I fear the bitter.

I am hoping that the bergamont will offer up some of the intensity that the juniper usually does. I didn't have any licorice root, so I went with fennel seeds. The cubebs and grains of paradise are hard-to-find spices, but they don the back of the Bombay Sapphire bottle, so I thought since I was out at Christina's Spice Shop, I may as well pick some up and give it a try. The bay leaf isn't on any recipe either, but Knauer's recipe in Gourmet called for rosemary, and since I think that stuff takes like turpentine in large quantities, I thought maybe the bay would bring some earthiness and subtlety to the bottle.

All that is left is to wait and taste.

Pumpkin breakfast muffins

Its moving from smoothie to decidedly not-smoothie-for-breakfast weather and I have started up my quest for more interesting breakfast options. I have been throwing beets and carrots into breakfast bars, breads, and loafs as a way of upping the fiber and adding a little sweetness - not to mention terrifyingly awesome hues to my morning snack.

This batch was a little hodge-podgey. The batter was looking rather dry, so I added some applesauce last minute. It helped with the flavor and texture, but the final muffins took a long time to bake - though their centers remained very moist.

Pumpkin breakfast muffins

The wet team
3/4 cup water
3 tbsp psyllium husk (you could use flax seed meal if you like)
3/4 cup oil
2 eggs
1/2 cup dates chopped
1 cup apple sauce
1/2 cup maple syrup

The dry team
1 cup almond meal
1 cup millet flour
1 cup brown rice flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp mace
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp allspice
1/8 tsp coriander

The stir-ins
2 cups chopped fruits & veggies (beets, apples, oranges, cranberries)
1/2 nuts/seeds + 1/4 cup for topping the muffins (pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds)

1. Combine the wet ingredients and mix well.
2. Slowly add in the dry ingredient in batches, scraping down the sides of the bowl.
3. With the mixer off, stir in the fruit and nuts.
4. Dish into muffin tins and top with additional nuts.
5. Bake at 350F for 45-1 hour.
6. Enjoy your super high fiber muffins that don't taste like cardboard!

Daikon salad

It has really warmed up in Boston, so the idea of turning on an oven, or even the stove has ranged from -234 to about 1. (I am visiting Boston for a bit, and apparently compared to the scorching weather in D.C. I should not be complaining.)

With bbqs slated for the long weekend, I wanted to bring something bright, fresh and requiring zero heat to prepare. I found some fresh daikon in Chinatown and decided on a vinegar-but-not-quite-pickled salad.

The ingredients: daikon radish, jicima (I decided to omit, so just admire it), scallions, kolrabi, carrots, nappa cabbage and a jalapeno

Wash and peel the daikon:

With a hand peeler, or mandolin, very thinly slice the daikon. (I split it in half when the slices got too big for the peeler, so there were rounds and half moon shapes.)

Peel and ribbon the carrot - basically keep peeling the carrot, rotating it around so you get thin slices.

Cut the ribbons into thirds:

Peel the kolrabi - you are going to need a knife for the peeling part because the outside is thick and fibrous, but the inside is AWESOME. It tastes a bit like sweet broccoli, mixed with turnip. After its peeled, you can treat it like the daikon, and thinly slice it with the peeler or mandolin.

Clean the scallions and separate the greens from the whites. Thinly slice the white ends vertically to create long, thin slices. Save the greens for another thing.

Put all the chopped and sliced veggies into a salad spinner and SPIN. Get them as dry as possible.

In a separate bowl, add the sliced jalepenos - as much as you like (this pepper was very mild, so I kept the seeds in). Add in a few tablespoons of rice wine vinegar, a few teaspoons of sugar and a few good pinches of salt. (This is going to vary depending on how many veggies you have, start with 2 tbsp vinegar, 1 tbsp sugar and 1 tsp salt, and add more if you need it.)
Once the sugar and salt are disolved in the mix, you can toss in your veggies.

I added a little bit of lime juice to up the tartness. The longer the veggies sit in the mix, the more they will wilt and take on the vinegar flavor. Its great to serve it chilled with hot items off the grill.

"real" injera

Teff is a very tiny grain - in the grass family - that is the basis of Ethiopian injera. It is a thin bread, that is sour, with a soft, spongy texture. Its sometimes described as a thin pancake or a thick crepe, but it is much more. It functions as plate and utensil in Ethiopian cuisine.

My first visit to D.C. I saw injera at a gas station, and began my hunt for some "real injera", injera that is made with just teff. The D.C. metro area has the largest population of Ethiopians in the U.S., but all the injera - at restaurants, markets and gas stations - are cut with wheat and or barley flour. Teff, outside of Ethiopia is extremely expensive, around $10 a pound.

I decided to give it one more try, at Dashen Ehtiapain Grocery in Silver Spring. There were over 7 different types of injera, but all, even the darkest in color, were cut with barley or wheat. The clerk was very helpful, going through the bags of bread and then eventually given tips to making injera from scratch - he said it was key to mix the teff flour with water and let the larger particles settle to the bottom and discard them. 

‎This is my first attempt at injera, and while the recipe couldn't be simplier, I feel like I might be missing something. Maybe the dough needs to ferment longer. Maybe there needs to be more water? Perhaps I should have added oil to make it easier to handle. I am not sure. But the results, even though a little ugly at first, were delicious!

I have secretly thought that teff might taste like pumpernickel. This injera is very sour, more sour than sourdough - which makes sense, because you are basically cooking just the sourdough starter. There are hints of pumpernickel - aka rye - flavor, which leads me to think that a teff-based fauxpernickel is in my future. 

Injera
1/2 cup teff flour
3/4 cup water

1. Combine teff flour and water in a jar. Stir well.
2. Allow to sit, uncovered, at room temperature for 2-3 days, or until bubbles form.

Time to make the injera!
3. Stir up the starter.
4. Add a pinch of salt.
5. Stir again.
6. Pour onto a lightly greased, flat-bottom pan.
7. Cook only on one side, till bubbles form and the dough darkens.

The first batch stuck, so I switched to the caste iron skillet, which worked a lot better.

With pratice, the shapes improved and they stuck less!

Overall, I think the flavor was right, but they were not as supple and soft as I think they are suppose to be. They fell apart when I used them to pick up food. But they really were delicious with left over Peruvian chicken - with hot sauce, rice and beans and sauteed asparagus with caamelized onions. Not bad for a last-minute, late-night dinner.

Pi ... a little late

 
Pie is better than cake. I am not even going to entertain the idea that you are reading this and disagreeing with me. I have only once ever gestured towards a brawl over a difference of opinions, and let's not break my track record.*  Pie is glorious and should be celebrated weekly, if not daily, but alas, not all have realized the awesome potential of pie. I, like many others, see March 14 as a great day to celebrate the best dessert, the best dish ever created.

There was a point in my life when I was pretty good at math. I was "that girl" who took advanced calculus in college, for fun. (I know, my river of dork runs deep and has many unexpected turns.) Pi, the 3.14 variety, was something I was grateful became integrated into graphing calculators. I still sort of miss my TI-83, but mostly for the Tetris. 

Pie crust
1 cup sweet rice flour
1/3 cup tapioca starch
2/3 cup potato starch
2./3 cup corn starch
3 tsp sugar
1 tsp baking powder
3 tsp xanthan gum
1 tsp kosher salt
1 cup unsalted butter
1 eggs
2 tsp apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup half and half
ice water

1. Mix all dry ingredients together.
2. Cut cold butter in to pieces, cut into dry ingredients until the largest pieces of butter are about the size of peas.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs and vinegar.
4. Pour the wet ingredients into butter mixture. Mix together.
5. Wrap in plastic or place in zip-top bag and refrigerate for at least 20 minutes.

Apricot Filling
2 cups dried apricots (slab kind are tarter)
2 cups water
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1/4 tsp salt
4 tsp corn starch

1. Combine the apricots, water, sugar, cider vinegar, and salt.
2. Bring to a boil, lower to a simmer and cook uncovered till the apricots plump and half the liquid is gone.
3. Remove the apricots, set aside, and reserve the liquid.
4. Whisk the cornstarch into the remaining liquid.
5. Bring to a simmer and cook until the liquid thickens.
6. Add the apricots back in and allow to cool.

Putting it all together
1. Divide dough in half. Roll dough out between 2 sheets of parchment paper. Dust the dough first with tapioca starch if a bit sticky.
2. Add in the filling.
3. Roll the second piece of dough to form top crust.
4. Crimp edges and dock top (make steam vents, perhaps in a dorky math symbol)
5. Bake at 350F for 45-60 minutes or until golden brown.
6. Allow to cool completely before cutting.
7. Enjoy with strong coffee.

*I really should apologize to Marisa and our other guests that lovely evening at a piano bar, where we brought the average age of the audience down by 40. It was not appropriate for me to go to such extremes to explain my position that Frank Sinatra - womanizing aside - is far superior to Tony Bennett in every way possible. But honestly, I bet Marisa likes cake.