Molasses Pecan Pie

James loves pecan pie, but every time he orders it he's a little disappointed. Most modern pecan pie recipes call for Karo syrup now instead of molasses, and no matter how good the pie is, if it's made with corn syrup instead of molasses, it just ain't right - at least this is what he's told me.

I'm not as big a connoisseur of pecan pies as James is, but I'm happy to take his word for it while I tuck into a big ol' slab of pumpkin pie. Still, on the event of his birthday a few days ago, I decided to make him a pecan pie with molasses instead of a cake, and darned if it didn't taste a little different. Seriously, it had a deep, almost caramely flavor. I'd love to do a side by side taste test, so if anyone has a really good regular pecan pie recipe that they wouldn't mind sharing, I'd be super obliged.

In the meantime, here's the recipe for James's Molasses Pecan Pie.

Note:

1. The original recipe is from the Oct./Nov. issue of Cook's Country Magazine. I made a few adjustments here and there, but left the basic recipe alone. Also, lightly toasting the pecans as they suggested really made a difference in pumping up the flavor. It was an extra step that really paid off.

2. You can use your own pie crust or a store bought pie crust. Either way, you don't have tp prebake the crust. Put it into your pie pan, prep it, and leave it in the freezer for a 1/2 hour. When everything's ready, fill the crust with the pecans and filling and whisk it onto the lowest rack of the oven at high heat. Then lower the temp. for the actual baking. All of this rushing around will keep your pie from having a soggy crust without having to prebake it, which you could still do if you really wanted to :-)

Ingredients:

- 1 cup maple syrup

- 1 cup packed dark brown sugar

- 1/2 cup heavy cream

- 2 tbs. blackstrap molasses (they call for 1 tbs. mild, but James likes the extra molasses flavor of blackstrap so we went with 2; if you like the oomph, but don't have blackstrap, use 3 tbs. mild)

- 4 tbs. unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 in. pieces

- 1/2 tsp. salt

- 6 large egg yolks, lightly beaten

- 1 1/2 cup pecans, lightly toasted and roughly chopped

- 1 generous tsp. of vanilla

- 1 9 in. pie shell - see Note above.

Process:

-Make the Filling-

1. Adjust the oven rack to the lowest position and heat oven to 450 degrees.

2. Heat syrup, sugar, cream and molasses in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the sugar is dissolved. About 3 min.

3. Remove the mixture from the heat and let it sit 5 min.

4. Whisk the butter and salt into the mixture and stir until combined.

5. Temper the eggs by pouring 1/4 cup of the mixture into the eggs and stirring vigorously - this will help keep the eggs from scrambling. Then pour the eggs slowly into the syrup mixture, all the while stirring briskly, also to help prevent scrambling.

-Bake the Pie-

6. Scatter the pecan into the very cold pie shell. Pour in the filling.

7. Moving quickly, put the pie in the 450 degree oven on the lowest rack.

8. Immediately reduce the heat to 325 degrees and bake until the filling is set and the center jiggles just a little bit. 45-60 min.

9. Cool the pie on a rack for about 1 hour. When it's cool, transfer it to the refrigerator and let it set for at least 3 hours (or up to 1 day).

10. Bring it back to room temp. and serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream or just on it's own. Even for a non-pecan-pie-person, it's pretty darn good.

Addendum 11/20/09: Because I'm a dork I have to post this. James took this pie into the 2009 Composite Software Thanksgiving Dessert Contest and we tied for 3rd place! Ming!

Duncan Buried the Pearls!

This will mean nothing to anyone, but I'm really relieved.

I've been working on a short story, "Duncan Merriman Buries His Wife," off and on for over a year. This is ages too long, even for me. Among the many, many problems this story has had is the amazing flip-flopping ending. It was almost as if Duncan didn't know what he wanted to do. Of course, this means that I didn't know him well enough and/or I wasn't listening.

Anyway, there is a pearl necklace that Duncan could either bury at his wife's grave, or keep with the implication that he might, one day, give it to a new love. One draft he would bury. The next he would keep it. On and on this went, burying and unburying the damn thing, but every time it was buried or kept, it never felt right. Until today.

I've been editing the final version for a deadline of October 1st, and still the ending fell flat. So, I chucked the final page and wrote it by hand. And for some reason, this time, it worked. Duncan buried the pearls, and burying the pearls was the exact right thing to do. I'm so happy I could throw something!

I know it probably sounds weird to refer to Duncan as if he were a separate, real person instead of a character I made up. Writing this story has been difficult for me - it's required skill that I have had to develop and an understated emotionality that I've never used before. After all of this time spent figuring his story out, Duncan is real to me, and I'm going to feel strange when the edits are finally done. But now that I know that he has his ending, I'll be able to let him go more easily.

Hooray!

Now I'm going to go throw something.

The Chicken Curry of No Attachment

So, something of a first happened to me last night. Have you ever made a meal where something goes just wrong enough to make the meal salvageable, but disappointing? Or, have you ever made a meal that was such a disaster you have to chuck the lot? Both of these phenomena have happened to me before and will happen again. Neither is what happened last night. Last night's experience was new and kind of neat.

I was 3/4 of the way through making chicken curry for supper when something went wrong. I added the yogurt to the curry, just like the nice recipe said, and next thing I know, my pretty curry is glorp. The yogurt curdled and split from the now mysteriously watery sauce and I was left looking at something that closely resembled vomit. I definitely did not want to salvage that. Still, I was left with three very nice chicken breasts that had been rubbed with curry and sauteed before the disaster. I did not want to waste them. I also had a bunch of tasty brown rice, but all of this needed sauce and I had no sauce. Then, all of a sudden, I adjusted. This is weird for me. I'm not a terribly adjustable person. I'm not even all that well-adjusted. But last night I adjusted with no problem.

I cut up the lovely curry chicken, tossed it with some arugula and feta and made a tasty hot salad from it. Then I made a batch of vanilla almond rice pudding from the rice that suddenly had no home. Nothing was wasted except for the vomit sauce, and I did all of this on autopilot. Very weird for me. Normally, I would have stressed out because of my attachment to how things were supposed to go. But this time, I didn't have that attachment and I was able to happily and easily adjust. This was a good experience for me, one I'd like to bring into other aspects of my life - not just when things go haywire in the kitchen.

Pasta with Basil and a Balsamic Glaze

This is so turning into a default recipe box. How completely boring for everyone but me. Facebook's hijacked all my pithy nothing's. Photos would probably help. Or clever names for the food, but honestly, most of the names that I come up with have little to do with the food, and the names are as much to remind myself what's in the stuff as anything else. Still, that might be something to work on.... Oh well. In the meantime, here's another recipe for the collection.

This one is from The Weeknight Kitchen newsletter at The Splendid Table website. It's very fast and delicious, although I did get a serious post-carb craving for sweets afterwards. Then again, I get a craving for sweets post pretty most everything, so maybe it wasn't the carbs. The recipe calls for lots of shredded basil, which was delicious, but I'm thinking that next time I'm going to try it was mint instead. I love mint in most of the places people put basil, so I figure it's worth a try.

And so now without further ado, yet another recipe, this time for Pasta with Basil and a Balsamic Vinegar Glaze. What a creative name.

Ingredients:

- 1 lb. pasta (shapes, spaghetti or linguini)

- Extra-virgin olive oil

- 8 large cloves of garlic, sliced thin

- salt and pepper

- 1 - 1 1/2 cups grated or shredded parmesan

- 3 tbs. balsamic vinegar, mixed with 1 generous tsp. brown sugar (don't skip the brown sugar, it makes all the difference_

- 1 -1 1/3 tight-packed cups fresh basil leaves, torn

- 1/2 -2/3 cup coarsely chopped toasted almonds

* Have everything chopped and measured before you start - the recipe, once started, moves along quickly.

Process:

1. Cook pasta in rapidly boiling, salted water for amount 9 minutes, until the pasta is slightly resistant to the bite, but not raw. You want it just under al dente.

2. Save 1 cup of pasta cooking water and set aside. Then drain the pasta and set it aside too.

3. Put the pot back on the stove at med. heat and generously film the bottom with olive oil.

4. Put the sliced garlic in the olive oil along with salt to taste and a generous amount of pepper.

Stir and cook the garlic for about two minutes, until it's tender but not brown.

5. Add 1/2 cup of the reserved pasta cooking water to the pot. Heat at medium and then add the pasta and toss quickly so the noodles are blended with the garlic.

6. Toss in the vinegar mixture and cheese to coat the noodles.

7. Lastly, add the basil and toss until well blended and fragrant - about 30 seconds.

8. Scatter the pasta with the almonds and serve hot.

Fried Plantains & A Random Note

I fried a plantain today! I've never done that before. I know there are a ba-zillion different ways to do it, but I went super simple for my first time out. Here's what I did:

1. Put 1 tbs. butter per plantain in a roomy skillet.

2. While the butter was melting, I cut the plantain in half twice - once through the middle and once length-wise so it was drawn and quartered in the end.

3. When the butter had stopped foaming, I put the plantain pieces into the skillet, and sprinkled brown sugar on top.

4. I let that side fry without touching it for about four minutes on high heat. Once they'd browned a bit on one side, I flipped them over and let the other side fry for about 4 minutes until it too was brown.

5. Then I put them on a plate, sprinkled brown sugar on top and James and I ate them. Yum.

And now for the totally random note: I also spent much of this evening pitting sugar plums to freeze for winter baking and preserving figs from my mom's tree in syrup. I feel absurdly proud of this :-)

Rosemary Sherry Savory Cake

I love this cake. Not only does it taste good, and not only is it light, but it's the only cake I know of that you can serve as dessert, and as part of your entree, depending on what you pair with it. Custard or vanilla ice cream? Dessert deliciousness. Pork roast and gravy? It's part of your entree. And the weird thing is, that it works beautifully both ways without any sort of alternation in the recipe.

The other reason I love this cake is because it looks a little funny. It's a souffle cake, which means that it's meant to sort of collapse in on itself in a spongy, moist, semi-dense kind of way. This means that it's appearance is a little unpredictable. Sometimes it comes out looking really adorable, like something a hobbit would make. Other times it's just kind of homely, but no matter what it looks like, it always tastes good.

This recipe is from The Greyston Bakery Cookbook by Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan, editor of Kitchn.com. It's a great recipe and a really good book - I'm looking forward to trying out more of their recipes, especially the Burnt Almond Torte and the Lotus in Mud Cake, a chocolate confection inspired by the Buddhist idea of beauty and compassion being rooted in darkness and pain.

But, in the meantime, here's the recipe for Olive Oil and Sherry Souffle Cake (their official title for it). It's so damn good!

Ingredients:

- 5 eggs, separated

- 3/4 cups granulated sugar

- 1 tbs. freshly grated lemon zest (I omitted this because I was out of lemons)

- 1 tbs. chopped fresh rosemary (Do Not omit this - it's crucial to the flavor)

- 1/2 cup dry sherry (I used cream sherry and it tasted lovely)

- 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

- 1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

- 1/2 tsp. salt

- 3 tbs. powdered sugar

Process:

1. Position the rack to the center of the oven and preheat to 325. Grease and flour a 12 cup Bundt cake pan (I used this) or a 10 x 4.5 in. tube cake pan. Set aside.

2. With an electric mixer on med-high, mix the egg yolks with the sugar until the yolks are thick and pale yellow. Use the whisk attachment.

3. Slow the mixer to med-low and add the zest and rosemary. Mix until incorporated, about 30 sec.

4. Drizzle in the sherry. Once incorporated, drizzle in the olive oil.

5. Gradually add the flour. Mix until well combined.

6. Pour the mixture into a large bowl and set aside. Carefully wash and dry your mixer bowl and whisk attachment. Then beat the egg whites and salt until the whites hold stiff peaks.

7. Gently stir in 1/3 of the whites into the batter with a whisk. This will lighten the batter. Then fold in the rest of the whites in two batches, blending completely.

8. Pout the batter into the prepared pan and put in the oven. Bake for 40 min., until the cake is a deep golden brown and a skewer inserted near the middle comes out clean.

9. Set the pan on a wire rack and cool completely. The cake will do what souffles do and collapse into itself, pulling away slightly from the edges of the mold. When the cake it cool, turn it out onto a plate.

10. If you're serving it as dessert, dust it with powdered sugar and serve it in all it's rumpled glory. If your serving it with your main course, garnish it with sprigs of rosemary, and serve slices with your meal as you would yorkshire pudding. Just thinking about it with goose and gravy makes my mouth water....

Rockin' Red Lentil Dal

This dal rocks. It rocks so much that even people who aren't quite so keen on tofu might like it.

Dal is, basically, Indian lentil stew / soup. There are several different kinds of lentils you can use - brown lentils (the kind sold with the dried beans and rice in grocery stores), French green lentils, and delicate red lentils. Any of type of lentil will work, but red lentils are my favorite for this recipe - they cook up quickly and they fall apart after about 20 min. of cooking, giving the dal an integrated, creamy sort of texture.

This recipe is adapted from The Gourmet Cookbook. The original recipe looked good, but it was a lot fussier than I felt it had to be, and I wasn't nuts about the spice blend they used, so I tinkered and futzed and came up with this - a very yummy, very quick, very filling way to satisfy your craving for Indian food on a week-day night.

Serves 2

Ingredients:

- 1/2 - 3/4 cup red lentils, rinsed and sorted. The amount you use depends on how soupy or how stewy you like your dal.

- 3 1/2 cups water or chicken broth

- 1 small onion, sliced

- 1 small garlic clove, crushed

- 1 tsp. fresh grated ginger

- 8 oz. extra firm tofu, patted fry and cut into 1/2 in. cubes

- 1/2 tsp. curry powder

-1/2 tsp. salt

- 2 tbs. olive oil or vegetable oil

- *dash of dried cumin

- *dash of powdered cloves

- *dash of cinnamon

- *dash of powdered ginger

- *dash of garam masala

- *dash of black pepper

* Use these spices in quantity to taste, but err on the side of using a lighter, rather than heavier hand. James and I don't like super-spicy food, so this blend is pretty mild. For hotter dal, add red pepper flakes or cayenne to taste.

- 1 cup (uncooked) basmati rice.

Process:

1. Cook it, set it aside and keep warm. You will serve the dal over it.

2. While the rice cooks, heat the 2 tbs. of oil in a dutch oven. When it's just rippling, add the sliced onion and cook, stirring often, until the onions are soft and just beginning to brown.

3. Add the spice mixture to the onions. Cook until blended and fragrant, about 30 sec. (this is called "blooming" the spices with the hot oil).

4. Add the garlic to the onions and spices. Cook just until fragrant, about 30 sec.

5. Add the ginger to the onions, garlic and spices. Cook for about a minute.

6. Add the washed and sorted lentils and the 3 1/2 cup of water or chicken broth. Bring to a boil, then simmer, uncovered, for 20 minutes, until the lentils had fallen apart.

7. While the lentils are simmering, pat the tofu dry. Heat 1 tbs. of vegetable oil in a skillet, and bring to the smoking point. Add the cubed tofu and cook until just turning golden on one side (about 1 min.). Then stir the tofu and cook for an additional 1 -2 minutes. *Alternately, you could leave the tofu uncooked until the last step. This will give the tofu a much softer, silky texture in the final dish. If you like your tofu firmer however, you should pre-cook it at least a bit. Once golden, drain on a paper towel.

8. When the lentils are done, take them off-heat and add the tofu. Stir it in, then let the dal sit, covered, for 5 minutes so that the flavors have a chance to blend.

9. Serve the dal over basmati rice, or the rice of your choice. Alternately, you can eat the dal as a hearty soup with some crusty bread or naan.