Great Way Weekly

Every summer my husband and I seem to need to have at least 1 home-made blueberry pies or we feel like we missed something. The problem is that it’s too hot to want to turn on the oven! I’m also still experimenting with gluten-free crusts, which sometimes feels like a lot of work.

So, because of the heat and the gluten-free challenge, we haven’t had a blueberry pie in 2 years!

I’m taking the week (mostly) off of work to have a mini-vacation while I take the morning intensives in the South Boston Yoga teacher training program. I’m having a great time!

Monday I finally got over the heat/challenge thing and made this superb blueberry pie with almond crust. I found a recipe at Elana’s Pantry for this nice almond-flour crust. Since Elana’s instructions said to pat the crust into the pan rather than roll it out, I knew it would have a crumbly consistency. I decided to double the recipe and use 1/2 of it as a crumble topping, which I added in the last 15 minutes or so of baking.

Make sure you have vanilla ice cream on hand–the first bite makes it clear that you must have it a la mode! I love either Purely Decadent or Cocobliss‘s vanilla coconut milk ice cream for this.

The crust is not as cohesive as a wheat-based crust, but it crumbles charmingly and tastes delicious.

Blueberry pie with almond crust

For the crust and crumble (see Elana’s original posting here):

3 cups almond flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cp light-flavored healthy oil of your choice (Elana recommends grapeseed)
4 tbsp agave/brown rice syrup/maple syrup/honey
2 tsp vanilla

For the filling:

2 pints fresh blueberries
2 tbsp tapioca flour
1/3-1/2 cp sugar (I used Succanat)
1 tsp cinnamon
butter (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

To make crust and crumble:

Combined almond flour, salt and baking soda in large mixing bowl. In a separate bowl combine oil, agave and vanilla.

Stir oil mixture into almond flour mixture, mixing well to combine. Consistency should be fairly crumbly.

Press 1/2 of the almond mixture into a pie plate, reserve rest for topping.

To make filling:

Combine tapioca flour, sugar and cinnamon. Gently fold into blueberries, making sure everything is evenly distributed. If you’re using butter, put small pieces here and there on top of the blueberries.

Put blueberries into prepared pie crust and cover tightly with foil with a few small holes punched to let some steam out.

Bake covered for about 40 minutes. Uncover and distribute reserved crumble topping over pie (don’t touch! It’s hot and sticky).

Return pie to oven, uncovered, and bake for 15-20 minutes longer, until crumble topping is nicely browned.

I gave myself last weekend off–with July 4 on Sunday, I knew my practice would be slow, so I decided to take Friday and Sunday off. I love being active in the city, so I planned to do a different fun thing for each day.

I did a few hours of paperwork in my office in Davis Square on Friday, which was O.K. because I spent the afternoon biking the Minute Man Bike trail from Somerville to Lexington.

It was a beautiful day, and I hung out for a spell in Lexington.

Saturday’s activity was a walk from Central Square, up Main Street and over the Longfellow bridge into Boston.

My destination was Boston harbor.

Sunday morning was yoga with David at South Boston Yoga. It was super sweaty! We sweat more and more easily in the summer because our body’s energy (or “qi”) is up at the surface so it can open and close the pores and keep us cool. Which is what sweating is–your body keeping you cool.

Since I had spent so much time outside, I decided to give myself an soothing blueberry antioxidant mask to repair my skin from all the sun exposure. Here’s my recipe. The quantities are approximate–the goal is to have a smooth and creamy mask with a medium-thick consistency. It should be easily spreadable but not runny.

You should always patch test any home made beauty products before you smear them all over your face.

Antioxidant blueberry facial mask

1/4 cup blueberries
1/4 cup plain yogurt
1 tsp honey
a few drops of Vitamin E (optional)
1-2 tbsp cosmetic clay of your choice (I used Betonite clay).

Combine first three ingredients in a blender and blend well. Pour blueberry/yogurt mixture into a bowl, and stir in clay a little at a time until desired consistency is reached.

To use: Spread thin layer of mask onto clean skin. Relax for 5-10 minutes. Rinse.

My new fav food blog, the beautiful and inspiring JustBento introduces us to kabocha squash.

I’ve been trying to expand my winter squash repertoire, and came across this recipe for a Japanese-style squash. It looks pretty flexible, so I think really any variety of winter squash would do. I’m going to try it with the beautiful Red Kuri Squash I bought at the farmer’s market today.

It looks so much like a pumpkin that that’s what my husband thought it was, until I told him.

You may remember Fried Green Tomatoes as a pro-woman movie from the early ’90s, but the titular fruit is actually a tasty summer treat.

Sure, fried things are in general not so healthy. But for an occasional treat, green tomatoes are certainly better than bacon or french fries.

Martha Rose Shulman at the Gray Lady serves up a recipe with a Mediterranean twist. (She recommends a heavy nonstick skillet, but I always stick with cast iron, to avoid carcinogenic teflon bits getting in the food.)

1 pound firm green tomatoes

1/2 cup cornmeal (you will not use all of it)

Salt and freshly ground pepper

Extra virgin olive oil or canola oil for frying

1. Slice the tomatoes about 1/2 inch thick. Season the cornmeal with salt and pepper and dredge the tomatoes in it. You can do this in a large bowl, a flatter baking dish or a brown paper bag — whatever is easiest for you. You won’t use all of the cornmeal.

2. Heat a heavy skillet, either cast iron or nonstick, over medium-high heat, and add enough oil to coat the bottom by about 1/8 inch. Fry the tomatoes on each side until golden, about two to three minutes per side. Drain on paper towels, on a paper bag or on a rack. Keep warm in a low oven until all of the tomatoes are fried. Serve hot or warm.

Photo and recipe are from the New York Times, natch.

Agua Fresca, a beverage made from melon, water and lime or lemon juice, is a wonderful way to keep cool in the heat of summer. Gourmet foodie blog Smitten Kitchen describes how to make it.

In Chinese medicine, melon has cooling energy. But be careful: while refreshing, it’s best not to have melon with breakfast as it is too cold for a morning stomach just heating up to digest food all day. Save melon for later in the day.

And I agree with Smitten Kitchen: leave out the sugar. Melon is plenty sweet on its own. If you do need more sweetener, I recommend agave nectar, a sweet, honey-like product of the agave cactus (tequila!), which has a low glycemic index so it’s gentler to the system.

Head over to Smitten Kitchen for the recipe and more info.

Found this tidbit via StumbleUpon.

EDIT: Before I could get this piece up on the intarwebz, Lifehacker beat me to it. But I still found it first! Ha!

I spent most of the week before last on a yoga retreat, which was awesome. But it was also blazing hot. Even with intermittent air conditioning, I was sweating like a hog. So I was in desperate need of healthy fluids, and I needed something more effective than just water, but better than a sports drink. The answer: coconut water.

Coconut water comes from the inside of an unripe, green coconut. It’s what would turn into coconut milk if the coconut were allowed to ripen all the way.

Unlike coconut milk, the water is light, refreshing, fat-free, and replenishes lots of the same things sports drinks replenish (especially potassium), without all the various sugars, colors, and flavors.

It is, however, quite expensive: almost $6 per liter. I recommend mixing it with some regular water. It won’t be quite as lusciously tasty, but it will go farther and still be good for you.

And you absolutely must have it chilled.

You can also make cocktails with it, but that will of course negate its effects as a sports drink. For example, Chuck T. at Flickr has posted a recipe for a Coconut Water and Ginger Caipiroska:

You can find it at Whole Foods, and probably some other places as well, such as Harvest in Cambridge. It comes in individual serving sizes and liters, in aseptic packages. There are several brands available, and each has several flavors.

My fav brand (based mostly on price) is Zico, and my fav flavors are plain and mango.

For about a year now, I’ve been thinking about trying to make home-made mincemeat for my husband. My father loved mincemeat, and my mother would buy jars of Nonesuch Mincemeat and make a pie for him every winter. As a picky eater, I resolutely refused to even taste it. I don’t think my mom especially liked it, and perhaps my older brother would eat a bit. Despite my refusal to have even one taste of it, I remember thinking it smelled good. It was dark brown, and smelled sweet and spicy.

My memories of this good smell made me think that my husband would enjoy mincemeat, and that I might actually like it, too. We both love that other, much-maligned holiday treat, fruitcake (but only from Deluxe Fruitcake in Corsicana, TX–it’s the only one worth eating). I did some internet research for recipes and found one that looked like the right combination of tasty and not too difficult.

So, what is mincemeat? It’s been around for hundreds of years and no one seems to know what it’s all about. Traditionally, it did contain finely minced beef, along with fruit (fresh and dried), spices, fat (as suet) and some sort of alcohol like wine. It was a way to preserve meat and fruit in a time before refrigeration. I did find several recipes that had beef listed as one of the ingredients, but since I don’t eat beef (and since it sounds kind of yucky to put it in a sweet pie), I sought out an all-fruit version.

From reviewing several recipes, I determined that it’s a fairly flexible recipe that should contain some fresh apple and maybe some fresh orange, a variety of dried fruit (raisins, cherries, peaches, apricots), butter, spirits like brandy and spices. It’s actually really easy to assemble, and cooked quietly and happily on the stove for about 40 minutes.  I used the recipe for Bubby’s All-Fruit Mincemeat (found at globalgourmet.com), and adapted it to what I had on hand. Here’s a link to the original recipe.

I haven’t yet made my mincemeat pie, but this stuff is awfully tasty just eaten with a fork!

My adaptation of Bubby’s excellent recipe is as follows:

Cathy’s Mincemeat

1 Granny Smith apply, peeled, cored and cut into small pieces

1 naval orange, cut into small pieces (including skin and pulp)

2 small (or 1 large) Bosc pears

1/2 cup red wine

1 cup succanat (or rapidura, an unrefined sugar)

3/4 cup Brandy

1/4 cup dark rum

1/2 cup water

4 oz raisins

4 oz dried bluberries

4 oz dried apricots, cut into small pieces

3 oz mixed dried apples and peaches, cut into small pieces

5 tbsp butter

1 oz candied ginger, cut into small pieces

1 tsp allspice

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp salt

pinch cayenne

Combine all ingredients in a 6-quart saucepan and bring to a simmer.  Reduce heat to low and let it gently simmer for about 40 minutes, or until all of the dried fruit is plump and soft, and the liquid has been reduced to a very thick syrup. Cool completely. This should keep in the refrigerator for several weeks.

Now you’re ready to make pie!

Let mixture cool completely. It is not ready to use as a pie filling, or whatever else sounds good to you.

In my family, holiday meals are a time to indulge in rich foods that we don’t usually eat, and to eat just too much food.  I know I’m supposed to say that this is bad for you, and you shouldn’t eat too much , yadda, yadda, yadda.  I believe that if you generally eat a healthy, balanced diet and get some exercise, you can and probably should indulge from time to time.  I think that occasional spurges into naughty foods can help keep you on the straight-and-narrow that rest of the time and keep you from feeling deprived.

That said, there’s nothing wrong with making healthy foods for celebrations, as long as they taste good.

Here’s a recipe from the New York Times online, and it sounds like one of those healthy and tasty foods that I’m always looking for.  Sweet potatoes are rich in beta carotene, an important antioxidant, and have a low glycemic index (which always surprises me since they are so sweet).  Hungry for more health info about sweetpotatoes? Go here.

The apples in this recipe are also very good for you, as we all know.  I haven’t tried this recipe yet, but I do have all the fixins at home, so I’ll probably give it a whirl.  I think that I will add some spices to it, though–some cinnamon and maybe some ginger.

Please also note that this recipe is gluten-free.

Martha Rose Shulman at the New York Times shows us how to make

Sweet Potato Puree With Apples

This dish is great for Thanksgiving and always goes over well. Once you’ve tried it you’ll never want those candied yams again.

2 pounds sweet potatoes, scrubbed

2 tart apples, such as Granny Smith or Braeburn

Juice of 1 lime

1/4 cup plain low-fat yogurt

1 to 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted (to taste)

1 tablespoon mild flavored honey, such as clover

Pinch of salt

1. Preheat the oven to 425ºF. Scrub sweet potatoes and pierce in several places with a sharp knife. Pierce the apples in a few places. Line a baking sheet with foil and place the potatoes and apples on top. Bake for 40 minutes and remove the apples. Continue to bake the sweet potatoes until thoroughly soft and beginning to ooze, 5 to 15 minutes, depending on the size. Remove from the heat and allow to cool until cool enough to handle.

2. Turn the oven down to 350ºF. Remove the skins from the potatoes. Peel and core the apples, scraping all the flesh from just inside the skins. Chop the potatoes and apples coarsely and place in a foot processor fitted with the steel blade. Puree until smooth. Add the remaining ingredients and blend well. Transfer to a lightly buttered 2- or 3-quart baking dish.

3. Heat the puree in the 350ºF oven for 20 to 30 minutes, until steaming. Serve hot.

Yield: Serves 6

Advance preparation: This can be made through Step 2 a day ahead and kept covered in the refrigerator. Reheating will take 30 to 40 minutes.

–photo and recipe from the New York Times