Adventures in Gluten Free Part Whatever

Newsflash- gluten free pie crust is awesome.  Without gluten, you don't have to worry as much about over mixing the dough.  There's no gluten to activate, so no chance of it getting gummy.  Using just Bob's Red Mill flour and a standard butter pie crust recipe, that I fudged a little because, well, I didn't really feel like running out to by pie weights, I gussied up quite the leek and goat cheese tart.  I found the recipe for Belgian Leek Tart with Aged Goat Cheese (Flamiche Aux Poireaux) on Epicurious  and tweeked since I didn't have "aged" goat cheese but I did have "regular" goat cheese.  Also, my leeks came from the Whole Foods in Tribeca, not Belgium, but what can you do.

The recipe was a little complex, involving a pre-made leek confit that I did the day before, as well as a home made pie crust.  But the end result was well worth it, especially as my non-gluten-free dinner guest was whole heartedly impressed, without even realizing that the recipe had been tweeked.  You can see the full recipe on Epicurious here as it's not really worth re-writing.  I will say, I didn't use a special spring form pan, I free-styled on a large cookie sheet and I don't think my tart suffered for it.  Ok, perhaps beauty-wise, but not much I swear.

The Newest Vegetable of My Dreams

Per usual, I let Fresh Direct take the reins with my in season vegetables and this time I was NOT disappointed. I didn't even get a chance to take my own picture of my Tuscan Kale chips as I ate them so fast there simply wasn't time.

From Bon Appetit

Ingredients:

• 12 large Tuscan kale leaves, rinsed, dried, cut lengthwise in half, center ribs and stems removed
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
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Preparation:

• Preheat oven to 250°F. Toss kale with oil in large bowl. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Arrange leaves in single layer on 2 large baking sheets. Bake until crisp, about 30 minutes for flat leaves and up to 33 minutes for wrinkled leaves. Transfer leaves to rack to cool.

I actually baked mine a little hotter, like 400, for about 20-25 minutes, (and I added S&P, duh). They were perhaps a little too crispy and kept crumbling all over me and the sofa but the flavor more than made up for it. I also dipped them in sour cream. Amazing. Would be a great hors d'ouevre.

Pad Thai!

(sorry for the poor photo)

Last night, my friend Joanna and I embarked on our Bones tradition, cooking and red wine. World-renowned anthropologist Temperance Brennan, aka Bones, drinks red wine and eats a lot of Asian food, so we do, too! Jo and I decided to attempt Pad Thai and it was a culinary adventure to say the least but DELISH.

The recipe is here at epicurious.com. Parts we could've done better, ie we over fried the tofu, but considering this was way out of our collective cooking wheelhouse and it tasted amazing, we'll put it in the win column.

It's not a recipe for the faint of heart, it definitely took a full hour of work with lots of chopping, frying, pots, pans, and what not. And it was no healthier than the restaurant version, tons of salt and oil! But it WAS gluten free with tamari soy sauce.

Bones, sadly, was not the best episode and Jo guessed the ending 20 minutes in.