016. cinnamon pear cake/Things That Make Me Feel Better

Does the person you love ever do something so consistently and so unnecessarily that it drives you a little bit crazy? Even if it's something incredibly sweet? Well, J has this habit of calling me every single time he gets off work and is about to drive home. Every single time I answer and tell him that we can just talk when he gets home because the drive home literally take 6 minutes in traffic. What a weird, sweet man I have. 

Last Friday I got some bad work-related news. I wasn't going to be able to teach part-time at the other Montessori school as well as mine due to a "conflict of interest." This meant I had to continue working my current part-time job that I was really beginning to hate. I took it well and told them I understood. I really thought I was okay with it but, as usual, it took a minute so sink in. By the time I drove my 15 minutes home from work, I was on the verge of tears and insanely sensitive and J said something so kind that I laid my head on his shoulder and sobbed for an unnecessary amount of time. He soothed me and comforted me. The way that I work the butter into the flour, rubbing gently, every tiny piece when I make a pie crust, that's the way he soothed my crying. Gently and slowly and by the end of it I was okay and I'd fallen in love with him all over again and I had this incredible urge to bake. Actually, as I flipped through the rolodex I keep tucked away in my head of Things That Make Me Feel Better many options poked out their heads. Did I want to take a mountain drive? Did I want to walk along the creek? Did I want to get under the covers and read Calvin & Hobbes? Did I want to bake? "YES," my mind yelled at me "YOU WANT TO BAKE!"

And so I baked. J comforted me so well and now I needed to self-soothe with butter and flour and vanilla sugar and cinnamon and maybe plums? Or apples? I decided on pears and dug out a recipe I'd saved on Pinterest weeks ago. I was going to make Cinnamon Pear Cake and I was going to feel better. And I really did. And it was okay that J calls me unnecessarily because really, he just loves me, and also because he inspired me to bake this cake. So be thankful. I know I am.

This cinnamon pear cake is insanely good right away or heated up the next day along with a mug of Bhakti chai. Share it with your friends and neighbors or they will get fussy. I added gold sprinkles, left over from my best friends wedding, to add a little pretty to my gloomy day.

Cinnamon Pear Cake

(adapted from Roxana's Home Baking)

1/2 cup unsalted butter
2/3 cup white granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
3/4 cup milk
1 pear, diced

whipped cream (optional)
cinnamon for dusting (optional)

1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease/butter a 9" round baking pan. Set aside.

2. In a mixing bowl with the paddle attachment on, cream butter with the sugar until light and fluffy.

3. Whisk the flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon together in a separate bowl.

4. Add the eggs to the butter and sugar, one at a time, beating well after each addition. 5. Stir in the vanilla.

6. Add the flour mixture slowly, alternating with the milk.

7. Beat until just combined. Spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan.

8. Top with the pear chunks.

9. Place the cake in the oven and bake for 45-60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.*

(sorry my stove is disgusting! i promise i cleaned it later that same day...)

10. Let the cake cool completely in the pan (but you might want to run a butter knife along the edges just in case.)

11. Once it's cool, remove it from the pan and cover it with whipped cream, use a knife to tame those peaks and slather it all over.**

12. Dust this baby in cinnamon and gold sprinkles because why not?

13. Eat & share & thank me later.

*The original recipe called for 45 minutes baking time but mine took closer to 60 minutes. Maybe it's my oven or something but it took forever to get a nice golden brown around the edges. So totally worth the wait.

**The original recipe calls for cool whip instead of whipped cream but that stuff freaks me out. I bet this cake would be just as good without any topping or with a thin layer of your favorite jam. (Lingonberry! Whoa!) 

Love,
Marta

015. for the blustery days/for zipping up coats

And here we are. The yellow leaves are blowing off the trees and the squirrels are everywhere, cheeks stuffed to bursting. The heat comes on during the day and my toes are ice cold when I get into bed at night (J's least favorite thing.) I daydream of crock-pot recipes and Morning Glory muffins and hearty apple cakes. We have a lot more bundling up to do of the children at the Preschool for outside time-- so many hats to tug on and zippers to zip, fuzzy boots to smush their little feet into and red noses to wipe. It is cold and, for me, that's when I feel the most at peace. When I look out the window to yellow leaves barely visible through thick fog and I see my breath when I step outside. When the world feels still, yet especially habitable, I feel like me.

I am getting used to my new job. I work at a Preschool, as a French teacher and assistant teacher in the toddler classroom. I am so happy with it. I like nothing more than spending my days with little ones, watching them learn and helping them grow. I am grateful to have finally discovered this about myself. I am completely myself around children, there's no act. Around adults I always have to put on some sort of mask, but not around children. Its refreshing to let so much of myself out on a daily basis. The daily routines are getting better, too. I am learning to be in bed by 11:00 every night and I'm learning that if I leave my house after 8:10 am I will get stuck in all the school zones. I know what jeans will work for constantly getting up and down all day (answer: none. leggings all the way.) and what shoes will kill my toes after an hour. I am learning to expect less of myself, not in a negative way but in a "recognize my need for me-time" kind of way.

I am learning what recipes are always worth the extra time (lentil soup) and which ones are not (cauliflower pizza crust.) I have spent a lot of time on lentil soup. Not necessarily because it takes so long but because I make it constantly. I came across the recipe on Megan Gordon's blog, A Sweet Spoonful, last January. Megan is excellent at weaving food into stories and I find myself re-reading this particular blog post often. I recommend it, the post and the recipe. What appealed to me about the recipe was the inclusion of red wine vinegar and dijon mustard-- combined with lentils brings up many memories of childhood. I made them once, last winter, and was immediately hooked. I've experimented since then, adding more liquid, no celery, ground bison, italian sausage, fried egg on top.

It's such a hearty, soul-warming meal. It's perfect for days like today, when the wind is blowing all the yellow leaves off the trees and the squirrels' cheeks are stuffed to a brim. I will make it again for dinner tonight and I wanted to make sure you'd be able to, as well.

Cold Day Lentils

(adapted from Megan Gordon's recipe for Sam's Lentils) 

2 tbsp olive oil
1 small yellow onion, finely diced
4 cloves of garlic
3 medium carrots, thinly sliced
1 stalk celery, very thinly sliced
1 cup of green French Le Puy lentils
1 1/2 tbsp Dijon mustard
4 tsp red wine vinegar
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 lbs ground Italian sausage, mild (or get spicy if you prefer!)

In a kettle or pot, boil 3 1/2 cups of water.

Heat the oil on medium heat in a saucepan. Add the onion and garlic and cook until it's translucent. Fold in the carrots and celery and cook until soft. 

Add the lentils to the saucepan and stir well to coat the lentils in the veggies. Pour the boiling water into the saucepan until the lentils are fully covered with about an extra 1/2 inch of water on top. Bring back to a boil and then turn the heat to low and let them cook, covered, for about 20 minutes. 

Stir in the mustard, vinegar, and salt and let cook for another 15-20 minutes. In the meantime, cook your sausage in a seperate pan. When fully cooked, stir into the lentil pot and let it rest for the full 15-20 minutes. 

Test for doneness-- I usually have to wait a little longer but sometimes they're ready after 15 minutes. The lentils should still be slightly chewy but mostly tender. Serve immediately! They're also great the next day, so I usually make a little extra. This amount feeds 2-4 people, depending on how hungry you are.

014. for me/for the sea

My heart is wearing some seriously heavy boots today. I woke up a few hours ago with this insane amount of wanderlust that I can't kick away. It's not just wanderlust, though. I am in need of a significant change. Of scenery, I think. A change of place. I find myself dreaming of Salmon lodges in Alaska, of fishing docks in the Pacific Northwest, of teaching English in a small German town. I so deeply crave a change of scene I am having a hard time keeping it together today.

I wish I could change my place like we change the channel. I'd look outside at the sea and a second later I'd look outside at a mountain peak. I'd look out at a bustling city and again at a quiet meadow.

Most of all I want a small town on the ocean, near a bigger city. A place with fog and fresh seafood. Of cool summers and whale watching.

I am having such a hard time with feeling stuck today.

013. for Sarah/the sweet smell of strawberries

It was Monday afternoon and I was at home, waiting for my love to return many hours later from a week in Memphis. I had a sturdy bundle of deep red rhubarb and a pint of the sweetest-smelling strawberries the crisp March sun had ever grown in my kitchen. I had a jar of whole wheat flour and too much butter and this incredible need to make a pie-- an action I crave always yet am usually to intimidated by the thought to start. But here we were; strawberries, rhubarb, flour, butter and I with an afternoon free to knead and slice and chill and lattice to my heart's content. 

I didn't grow up with pie and I definitely didn't grow up with Strawberry Rhubarb pie. Having spent my childhood as a German-Italian transplant living in the foothills of Colorado, I couldn't believe my luck at going over to friends' homes for dinner. My eyes would grow enormous with excitement at the site of "real Italian" spaghetti & meatballs, with the sauce on the side and Parmesan from a green-capped shaker. And ranch dressing! That they put on pizza! And the snacks! Oh, the snacks. The pantries I gazed longingly at overflowing with fruit-roll-ups and twinkies and gushers! 

I can imagine now how my friends felt having dinner at my house. Gnocchi with Gorgonzola? Weird. Prosciutto and sweet melon? "Is that meat cooked?" But then the tiramisu. I'm sure any weirdness was forgiven after the tiramisu. Having lived in Colorado for a solid 15+ years now, I rarely have that reaction to food anymore. I've grown out of the wonder and into the appreciation for the variety of cooking I experienced. Until I tasted Sarah's Strawberry Rhubarb pie. My god, it was as if America had been lying to me all these years. The tartness of the rhubarb dancing with the warm sweetness of the strawberries and then something about tapioca! What! Mind blown. But I lost the recipe. A dummy, I am.

So on Monday, I made pie. I used Smitten Kitchen's recipe as a basis and spun it my own special way. If you want to make this, don't be intimidated to make your own pie crust. It's so damn simple, you won't believe you'd ever bought store-ready crust. 

So here we go.

Super Simple Pie Crust

(adapted from Smitten Kitchen's All-Butter, Really Flaky Pie Dough)

Makes enough dough for one double-crust pie with dough to spare.

{2 1/2 cups whole wheat unbleached flour (I used Bob's Red Mill brand but pretty much any wheat flour will do)

{1 tablespoon organic cane sugar

{1 teaspoon fine table salt

{1 cup organic unsalted butter, very cold (I like to chop mine up and then put it back in the fridge until I'm ready for it)

{1 cup ice-cold water

In the bowl of a mixer you want to hand-whisk the flour, sugar, and salt. Set bowl in mixer and add butter, tiny piece-by-piece, with mixer on lowest speed. Once all butter has been added (take your time!), set the mixer speed to 1, or just barely faster than the minimum speed. Watch closely. As soon as the butter pieces look smaller than pea-sized turn the mixer off. Visible butter means many lovely buttery layers!

Very slowly begin adding 1/2 cup of very cold water, with mixer on low speed. Add more water very slowly if dough is too dry. When it looks ready to knead, stop the mixer and get your hands in the bowl. You don't want to actually knead it. You want to smush it once or twice to incorporate any loose bits and the form two balls. Wrap these in plastic wrap and chill in your fridge for at least one hour. Overnight is ideal but who wants to wait that long for pie?

When the time's up, pull out one ball and roll it into a circle to fit your greased pie dish. When your crust is filled, roll out the other ball of dough and either drape over the filling or, using a pizza or pastry cutter, slice into strips and lattice. There! You did it! You made your own pie crust! Isn't it easy?

Now for the fun part.

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

(also adapted from Smitten Kitchen's recipe)

{1 recipe Super Simple Pie Crust

{1 1/2 pounds rhubarb, in 1/2-inch thick slices

{1 pound strawberries, hulled and sliced

{3/4 cup organic cane sugar

{1 tablespoon raw turbinado sugar (optional)

{juice of one organic lemon

{1/4 teaspoon salt

{1/4 cup quick-cooking tapioca pearls

{2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

{1 large egg yolk beaten to blend with 1 teaspoon water (for glaze)

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees.

First off, prepare your pie crust and place it in your pie dish. Pop this in the fridge for now! Then, wash, trim, and slice rhubarb and strawberries and combine into one big bowl.

Add sugar, lemon juice, salt, and tapioca to the bowl and mix very well. Spoon this into the pie crust. Dot the filling with little itty bitty bits of butter.  

Roll out top crust and cut holes for ventilation or slice to lattice pie. Trim edges to even with the dish crimp edges to make them pretty. I like to gently squeeze the overhanging dough (no more than a 1/2 inch) between my thumb and pointer & middle finger to make a cute wave around the edge. 

Beat one large egg yolk with 1 teaspoon of cold water for a pretty egg wash. Gently brush this mixture over entire top crust. 

Bake for 20 minutes. Then, decrease the temperature to 350 degrees and bake for another 25-30 minutes or until you see the crust getting golden and the sweet guts bubbling. 

Let cool on a wire tray so the juices gel up really nicely. 

Eat up! Be proud that you made something so delicious! I know I was.

I have so many more delicious things to share with you so stay tuned!

Much love,

Marta

012. ***flawless/sorry, guys

I know, I know. Sorry. I aim to write to you every month at least and it's been a while and I PROMISE I haven't forgotten you. In reality, I've been planning what to share with you! I've been doing research in the form of cooking delicious things and formulating recipes to share with you. In the meantime, I taught myself how to cross-stitch and I finished my first little piece!

See you soon!

(pinky swear)

Marta