Coconut Flour Pie Crust

Coconut oil is solid at room temperature and makes it challenging to work with when a recipe calls for more than a tablespoon. I have 16 oz glass jars of organic coconut oil. I suppose that if I ever buy that humongous container from Costco, I would have to move it all into glass containers. I put the jar in a pot of water over medium heat. After a few minutes, enough of the coconut oil liquefied and to pour out what is needed instead of having to guesstimate the solid to liquid ratio. I have gotten many ideas about raw coconuts (like how to make coconut products from scratch with whole coconuts) from the Coconut Mamma blog. This recipe ratio is hers and I like its simplicity.

Unbaked Coconut Flour Pie Crust

Like an almond flour pie crust, this one is hard to gauge how thick it is when you pat it down into a 9" pie plate. Given how it bakes, this pastry is only good for the bottom of the pie.

Ingredients

1/2 c organic coconut oil, melted
2 eggs
1/4 tsp sea salt
3/4 c organic coconut flour
2 tbsp raw honey

Directions

In a large bowl (or food prep), beat together eggs, coconut oil, honey, and salt. Add coconut flour and stir until the dough holds together. Gather into a ball and pat into a 9" pie plate.

Prick the dough with a fork. (Sadly, this does not stop the pastry from rising from steam.)

Bake 10 minutes, until edges are golden brown. Let cool before using.

Homemade Soft Pretzels, batch #2

I planned to make these yesterday but didn't get around to it. The 1-hour proof for the dough turned into a 24-hour proof on the kitchen counter. This hasn't affected the taste or the rise at all. It made 2 lb 7 oz of dough. I converted the weight to ounces then divided by the number of portions I wanted to make. In this recipe I am making 12 pretzels, so each weighed out to be 3 1/8 to 3 1/4 oz on the digital scale. The biggest difference between batch #1 and batch #2 is the exclusion of milk in the dough recipe and the use of baked baking soda in the boiling stage instead of baking soda.

This NY Times article suggests how baked baking soda affects bread-based recipes like noodles and pretzels. However, the sodium carbonate is not the same as potassium carbonate used in Chinese cooking for ramen noodles and mooncake dough. I store my baked baking soda in a lidded mason jar.

Also, the warm water for the yeast was only 75 degrees F instead of the usual 110-115 degrees F. This also doesn't seem to have any effect on the rise of the dough. The weather has been unusually warm for this time of the year. Yesterday we hit a high of 70 degrees, with humidity; though, today we are back in the mid-50s with rain.

Dough Ingredients

1 1/2 c warm water (115 degrees F)
1 tbsp organic granulated sugar
2 tsp kosher salt
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast (or 1 package)
2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted (I think by mistake I put in 4 oz melted butter)
4 1/2 c unbleached all-purpose flour

Baking Soda Water Ingredients

2/3 c baked baking soda
10 c filtered water

Egg Wash for Pretzels

1 tbsp filtered water
1 egg yolk

Directions

For the dough ingredients, combine sugar, 1 tsp kosher salt and warm water in a 2-cup measuring cup. Stir to dissolve sugar and salt. Add yeast, stir. Let sit for 5 mins, until the yeast foams up.

In a 7-cup food processor, add flour, butter and 1 tsp kosher salt. Pulse together. Next, add the water/yeast slurry and blend until the dough comes together. Pulse or run the processor for 1-2 minutes. It'll be sticky (vs smooth and satiny in a stand mixer) and this is okay. You don't want to burn out the motor mixing a heavy dough like this.

Prepare a 5-quart mixing bowl with 1 tsp olive oil. Just swirl it around on the bottom. Dump the blob of dough into the bowl. You could rotate the blob so that it gets coated with the oil, but this is really not necessary. Cover the bowl with a dinner plate and set in a warm place in the kitchen. Let dough rise for at least an hour.

Bring a pot of water (10 cups) plus the baked baking soda to a boil. This will take some time, so better to start this step before portioning the dough.

Weigh your dough. Then divide it by the number of portions you want to make. This batch made 12 pretzels when rolled out to 18-20 inches. Alton's method makes 8 portions at 24 inches.

Place your dough on baking sheets lined with parchment paper, and cover with a clean kitchen towel. Given the day's humidity, I did not spritz the kitchen towels with water.

Roll each piece into a 18" to 20" log. If you have trouble figuring out how long this really is, either have a 24" cutting board and measure out 4" from the edge and mark it with a post-it note or tape one of those IKEA paper tape measures to your kitchen counter.

I did a variety of shapes to play with the dough. A double twist looked the most fashionable. Place each shaped pretzel back onto the parchment paper and cover with a kitchen towel until you have rolled out and shaped all the portions of dough. At this point, you could let the dough rise again. Mine did not and that is probably because I didn't knead the dough until it was smooth, or because I let it proof so long the yeast was entirely spent from farting all night.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. (This should take about 10 minutes)

By now, the pot of water should have come to a boil. Drop in two pretzels at a time and boil for 30 seconds. I used a slotted metal spatula to get the pretzels. Remove pretzels from the water and place back onto the parchment-lined trays. Repeat until all the pretzels have bathed in the baking soda solution.

Next, make the egg wash by whisking together water and egg yolk with a fork in a small bowl. Lightly brush this on top of each pretzel before baking. You can sprinkle coarse kosher salt on top or herbs or grated cheese or leave it plain. For this batch, I used a sparse amount of kosher salt.

Bake for 14 minutes total. At the 7-minute mark, rotate all the trays.

Let pretzels cool on a rack. Enjoy with or without mustard.

The ingredient ratio and methodology is adapted from Alton Brown.

Spicy Sweet Roasted Kabocha Squash

I thought about roasting the whole squash this way. I ended up roasting the slices 15 minutes on one side, and 10 minutes on the other. A few of the edges of the thinner slices burnt, so a total bake time of 25 minutes is too much. Maybe 10 minutes on each side might suffice. Smashing the whole squash against a concrete step worked really well in opening it.

Prep to make Roasted Squash

Ingredients

1/2 small kabocha squash, washed and seeded
3 tbsp brown sugar
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1 1/2 tsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Slice the kabocha squash into 1/4" slices.

In a large bowl, sprinkle spices on top of squash. Add sesame oil. Toss squash to coat. Add soy sauce and toss again.

Lay slices out in a single layer on a silicone mat-lined baking tray.

Roast for 10 minutes on each side. Flip slices and rotate the tray at the 10 minute mark.

Roasted Kabocha Squash Slices

Kitchen Notes: Ginger Beer, batch #2

I made another half-gallon batch of this today using bread yeast instead of champagne yeast. I'll find out in a couple of days if the type of yeast has any impact on the taste. You cannot use bread yeast when making hard apple cider, for example, unless you want your cider to taste like apple bread.

From the first batch, the first liter was drunk 2 days after I transferred the brew from the 1-gallon jug to the two 1-liter glass bottles. It was sweet and had a very strong ginger kick to it. The best part was the carbonation. Nice and fizzy. The second bottle was drunk a week after racking and it wasn't as sweet. It had some carbonation and it might have bordered on being slightly alcoholic. Nonetheless it's a fun experiment.

Coconut Chia Drink

Finally there is a use for my unused half-pint jars. This tastes pretty good at any time, morning or night. I usually make three 8 oz servings at a time. I started using Trader Joe's light coconut milk (the stuff from the can not carton) since it only contains coconut milk and water. You can get coconut milk with 60% or more coconut milk in the can at an Asian grocery store. Be sure to read the labels for the ones that just have coconut milk and water as its ingredients.

Ingredients per 8 oz (half pint) jar:

1 tbsp organic chia seeds
1/3 c light coconut milk
2/3 c filtered water
1 tsp honey or some stevia sweetener, if desired

Directions

Fill each clean jar with chia seeds. Pour in coconut milk, water and sweetener. Stir well so that the chia seeds don't all clump together. Put clean lid onto the jars and secure with a jar band.

Put in refrigerator for a few hours. The chia seeds will have ballooned in size from absorbing the water. Give the jar a quick shake before opening and drinking.

You can also blend the contents of one jar with 2 medium ripe bananas for a quick smoothie.

This doesn't have a pudding consistency and is really meant for drinking. It's also not for anyone counting calories either. Most of the calories in this recipe are in the chia seeds. A third cup of light coconut milk is about 50 calories.