Custard Cornbread

Marion Cunningham & Deborah Madison get all the credit.  And this isn't the best picture, but we ate it all up too quickly.  I'm dashing this down here so we'll have it available when needed.  An 8 or 9 inch cast iron pan makes this rise beautifully and using organic or stone ground cornmeal helps make the separation into a custard even more apparent - a beautifully delicate orange crust rises to the top above the custard.

Buttermilk Custard Cornbread
(350 degrees, bakes for 35-45 minutes until it doesn't jiggle and pulls away from the sides slightly)
1 1/3 cup organic cornmeal
1/3 cup a/p flour
1 teaspoon soda
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup milk or cream-buttermilk combo
1 cup cream, reserved 'til the end
3 eggs
2 tablespoons butter

• Put butter in skillet and put in oven and turn oven on. 
• Combine dry ingredients in one bowl.
• Combine eggs and buttermilk, milk, cream-buttermilk combo, reserving that last cup of cream separately.
• Once the butter is melted and the skillet hot, swirl it to coat the pan then pour into the wet ingredients.
• Combine wet into dry ingredients(still reserving that last cup of cream) until just combined.
• Pour into that hot skillet and bring over to the oven.
• Open the oven door, put the skillet on the oven rack and pour that last cup of cream gently on top of the batter.
• Slide gingerly into the oven and bake as above.
• Serve with syrup or any special butters you happen to have on hand from visiting guests.

Looks like it will serve 6-8, but it serves only 4...4 very content people that is.

favorite cold remedy

Its been awhile. I've been calling the last few months "the vortex." Getting used to a new full time job, continuing the tea business and settling, once and for all, old chapters. I'm around a whole new set of germs and woke up this morning with that little tickle in the throat that just might be the beginnings of the cold/flu that I'm seeing all around me already. Here is what kept me from getting seriously sick during the three years of running my restaurant:

Echinacea Kamikaze

1)

in a small 4 oz cup, combine:

juice of 1/2 lemon or large lime

1 generous dollop of honey - sugar can be used, but honey is much better

2-4 squirts of liquid echinacea with golden seal (I use a no-alchohol variety)

optional: large pinch of cayenne (about the size of a lentil)

2)

fill the cup with hot water (about 2 oz)

and add more sweetener or lime/lemon juice to taste.

the cayenne will settle to the bottom and will be a final "hit" to the drink, so go easy the first time.

You can buy liquid echinacea with or without golden seal at most health food stores and I always have a bottle on hand.

Good luck with those colds!

Progress shows itself in funny ways

Stopped by Ida B. today with Greg, wanting his advice on improving the layout of the room. Our timing was impeccable, the cafeteria was actually unlocked. Planning didn't progress far (the layout has already been set for now) but I did get a key to the room, worn smooth and kept shiny by years of use. Stamped K-1.

I kind of like that.

Kitchen One.

So, I missed the boat, the planning of the room has to wait for covert, completable-in-a-weekend-operations. We'll do it in stages (with the principal's blessing as we go, of course). Right now the room feels like a weird apartment we just got for really, really cheap. Peeling paint and chicken coop frosted windows (do they open?). Get your stuff in there, move it around until it fits or move it out. Smile a lot.

All sorts of questions now pop in and out of priority:

• Will Feng Shui help?
• What blackboard?
• What do I do for lunch?
• Why are there two microwaves and five small rolling carts?

Other thoughts:

• These floors are awesome for rollerskates (just waxed linoleum) but better watch the water and get those rubber mats in quick.
• I want peg boards.

ok, it is really happening, really it is. really.

(an old floor in the bathroom of a rundown theatre in the Mission)

SFUSD new teacher orientation ("the new teacher project"-doesn't that sound so happy?) starts this Monday,and I still haven't heard from human resources yet.

And I have the principal of the year fighting for me...since April.

And she is a good fighter.

We know this will all happen, but it is amazing to experience how clogged/confused/bogged down the system is. Coming from a restaurant where now means NOW, it is hard to picture how things get done. Don't get me wrong, this is not a complaint as much as an observation at yet another complex and broken system. I'm just ready to get on the roller coaster ride, I've paid admission (CTE Credential), waited in line (application process within this budget period) and now would really like to belt up.

This morning the principal was explaining the next steps in this process to me - even she has been given additional procedures. In our conversation we started discussing how I will be able to coordinate with the school lunch people, since my classroom is the cafeteria. I've moved some items in, but there are still piles of various things that might be SNS's (Student Nutritional Services) or other teacher's from a pot luck, or just hand me downs.

We don't know is the answer.

So many regulations have been added to SNS, because they didn't comply with Federal requirements last year (and haven't gotten their reimbursements from the government - since MAY = $1.5 million a month) that we have no idea whether the person that has been handling this job at the high school will still even want to be there.

Let the ride begin.

Sweet Biscuits

This is not a biscuit. But it goes well with biscuits.

Short & sweet says it all!

Sweet Fruit Biscuits:

2 cups Flour

4 tsp Baking Powder

3/4 tsp Fine Salt

1/3 cup Sugar + extra for tops

6oz Sweet Butter(cold & cut into bits)

1 cup Cream+ extra for top

1/2 cup Fruit

• Preheat oven to 350 F.
• Mix together dries (and dried fruit if using).
• Cut in butter.
• Add cream, do not over mix.
• Add fruit, if dried, mix with dries, if fresh or frozen, toss it in last.
• Pat into square on a floured worktable, about 1/2 inch high.
• Cut into squares - you can freeze some on a sheet pan at this point (once frozen you can toss them into a zip bag and back in the freezer).
• To bake, brush with cream, sprinkle with sugar (fun sugar if you have) and bake until golden.

copyright, Modern Tea. Chef credit to Gabriell Rickard.

old cookbooks

The book automatically opens to page 261. Maida Heatter's Book of Great Desserts, 1974, purchased brand new, way back then. It went on a journey from my parents' kitchen in San Francisco to New Orleans, where it helped me make desserts for 300 people every week at a church across the street from where we lived on St. Charles near (believe it or not) Desire Street. It was 1983 and I didn't quite know that I was magically pregnant with my daughter.

Now, 26 years later we pull this book out for baking with almost 50 inner city teens who have nothing better to do in the Fillmore district. We are working up to selling them at the Farmer's Market this Saturday. They are actually spongecakes, not the true, brown butter madeleines made famous by Proust, but they are easy, you get to make that very fun fluffy egg spongy batter, and people still like them. We'll let the students choose which madeleine recipe will be the one we use.

It is amazing how life carries with it a chorus, repeating, echoing, reassuring in its familiarity. It can be that parachute pack as I jump out into a new adventure everyday.

Apricot Cros-tada!

Before we left for vacation, Greg & I pulled out Julia Child's cookbook, Baking with Julia, eager to bake with the season's first apricots. This is a great baking book, everything I've tried is friendly, accessible, creative and tasty.

Our experiment this time took her raspberry-fig crostata recipe into more of a south sea island experience, substituting unrefined coconut oil for the butter in the flavorful sesame-almond crust and filling it with a combination of apricots & apricot jam. You'll see my lattice is a "sun-ray" lattice - I chose to use a 12 inch tart pan (because I had so much fruit) and didn't want to weave an entire lattice over it. More fruit per bite, too.

Apricots so far have not been very flavorful due to the timing of our rains this year, but the small Blenheim's I've tasted this week have been delicious! It reminded me of this earlier attempt.

Here is the crust recipe...

Sesame Almond Dough

(enough for a 9 inch lattice topped tart)

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

3/4 cup blanched almonds or almond meal, lightly toasted & cooled

1/2 cup sesame seeds, lightly toasted & cooled

1/2 cup sugar

2 cups all purpose flour (whole wheat is ok too)

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

1/8 tsp grated lemon zest

8 ounces cold unrefined coconut oil

Optional:

1 egg & 1 teaspoon water for egg wash

sugar(fancy sugar) for sprinkling on the crust before baking

a) whisk eggs & vanilla extract together and set aside

b)process almonds, sesamed seeds & a few Tablespoons sugar until all is fine, but not oily or pasty.

c)turn the almond mixture into the bowl of a mixer and add the remaining sugar, flour, cinnamon, salt & zest. Mix on low to combine ingredients.

d)keeping mixer on low, add the coconut oil and mix until it resembles fine crumbs, but it is ok if there are still bits of coconut oil peeking out. Add the egg mixture and mix only until dough is uniformly moist and forms curds about 15 seconds.

e) turn mixture out onto a smooth work surface, knead lightly to bring it all together and wrap and refrigerate while you assemble the filling (can stay in the fridge up to 2 days ahead).

Filling wise, I used 2/3 apricots and 1/3 apricot jam - you will want the consitency to be thick. Even though the crust is pretty sturdy, no need for things to juice out. You can also add a tablespoon or two of flour for other juicier fruit (like berries). Make sure you like the flavor and add lemon juice, cinnamon or nutmeg as enhancements.

Back to the crust, time to roll things out.

The crust here is more cookie-like than pie, but that means you can

forgive yourself when rolling it out and press it into the pan.

See? Don't worry, it will be aok.

Just roll it out as best you can and press it into the corners. For the sun ray top, reroll your dough onto wax paper, slice it into strips and pop it into the fridge for a bit if it is too soft to handle.

Or you can roll out the dough and use various cookie cutters for decorative shapes on top.

Now it is just a matter of filling the tart, topping it with your crust decorations. You can refrigerate here for another 1/2 hour if the dough seems very soft (it will bake better) but we just brushed ours with the egg wash, sprinkled it with sugar and put it into a 350 degree oven for about 45 minutes.

Next time, I'm going to see if I can make fig or jam bars (not rolled newtons) using this crust.