News, views, art, food, books and other stuff, with the occasional assist of character dolls. This now incorporates my art blog, which you can still read up to when I blended them, at https://beautifulmetaphor.blogspot.com.
Please note that all pictures and text created by me are copyright to Liz Adams. Thank you for respecting my ownership.
Ages ago I got on a wonton wrapper kick, and made all sorts of interesting things, from tiny pies to ravioli and dumplings and various other ideas. Then I went on to make my own pasta, so the ravioli idea went away.
But I figured that since it's apple season, and I don't like eating raw apples, but don't mind them cooked, perhaps, since the farmshare is putting in massive apples each week, I'd better see what wonton wrappers will do.
I'm not fond of making pastry. I make good pastry largely because I have naturally cool hands, always a help from Mother Nature. But there are many things I'd rather be doing.
Sooooo, all round by China to say I did get a supply of wonton wrappers from my Asian store, and today made a little batch of Tiny Apple Turnovers. Spells tat. Oh. Well, they actually taste pretty good. Seen here on an antique dish, figured it was time to try and make my food look nice, since I don't have a food stylist on staff. I didn't count, but it's about a dozen and a half, if you need to know how many you'll end up with.
Filling: grated and chopped apple, one medium sized, oat flour mixed in to take up some of the juice, note the flour motif recurring throughout recipes these days, splash of lemon juice, drop of almond essence. Wonton wrappers, edges brushed with water, you can use eggwash if you feel fancy, pressed firmly down, both sides, and then stabbed with a big antique Russian fork. Take that, and that! You can stab them with anything else if you don't happen to have your big Russian antique fork handy right now.
And here they are, with a dusting of confectioner's sugar. I expect in some kitchens there's a nice little gadget you use to dust stuff with sugar, but in mine you open the bag and shake. These tiny turnovers are crisp, since the wonton wrappers are unleavened and thin. I baked them so as to have a little something with my afternoon tea today, and several days going forward.
Meanwhile, out on the patio, demonstrating a great disregard for the work going on indoors, and an independence of needing tiny pies, an athletic squirrel is doing his calisthenics at the same time as getting a nice feast of wild cherries.
He's welcome to them -- they're bitter and tiny and all pit. But birds and squirrels and rabbits are crazy for them. I have to keep sweeping the windfalls, cherries, that is, off the patio so they don't get trodden into the house.
The sort of pancake thing I showed you the other day made its debut as a pudding today. And I must say it worked very well.
I baked it for one hour at 390F, and all the liquid was absorbed, the flavors developed and it made a great dessert. Since there are only a couple of teaspoons sugar in the entire recipe, it can also be a nice winter breakfast, too. I think the low sugar content is a reason the flavors come out well, too, not being drowned out in sweetness.And it had been in the fridge overnight, which probably helped the flavors develop.
So this is a keeper for me. Oatmeal, Almond Flours Pudding. OAF pudding, well maybe we can come up with something a bit more appealing. Add the Apple and we can get OAFA, which sounds like a soccer (britspeak: football) association, but never mind, can't have everything. I mean, I made you a recipe, what more do you want? but if you can name it better, please do!
Meanwhile, it worked very well. Just use a pancake recipe, usual eggs and leavenings and salt, but instead of the regular flour, sub almond flour and oat flour, add in cubed eating apple, a big one, to the recipe, and go from there. I think this might go over okay with hungry kids, too. I can also see it making a killer cherry pudding, too, almonds and cherries being friends and all that.
So today I decided, since I had a huge eating apple to take care of before Tuesday's farmshare, and I had the oat and almond flours ready to go, I'd combine the two.
So I made a kind of pancake mix, using oat and almond flour, and the usual eggs and leavenings. Let that stand a while, and diced fairly fine the apple, sprinkled it with lemon juice to keep it from browning.
Then I made not exactly pancakes, not bound enough for that,but a lovely dessert on the pan, batter poured out, partly cooked, apple dice added, then turned almost cooked through, and spooned out onto a plate with a honey drawing on it. I like this touch. You don't have to wear a chef's hat to do this!
And it was really lovely, with the almond taste along with the honey and the touch of lemon and the apple flavor. Grinding the dried almonds into flour really released the taste, as I'd hoped.
Next experiment with the rest of the apple and the batter: poured it into a buttered ovenproof dish, and I'll bake it later and see how that works out.
If I'd wanted a really pancake-like mix, I'd have added regular flour, but I wanted to see what this would be like for flavor.
Following on the Great Oat Flour Experiment, here's a loaf I baked using oat flour, whole wheat and all purpose, with sunflower seeds on top. Before
and after
baking.
I wish I could transmit the smell of this bread to you! As you see, I scored it and it will be easy to cut into four loaves once it's cool enough to approach.
I got a large carton of old fashioned oats, and ground it to flour, so I now have a big supply of oat flour for things like bread and pancakes and whatever else it works with. In the fridge along with the whole wheat, the white whole wheat and the all purpose. And the vital or essential wheat gluten or whatever they call it. Ed note: Dragged myself out to the fridge to check, it's vital wheat gluten.
So I found this morning that sometimes it pays not to know what to do right away. When I do know, it's a matter of warp speed action. But when I don't, it pays not to.
So yesterday I finally thought why not just try this? I had wondered for years if I could grind old fashioned oats in my coffee grinder and get oat flour. Reasoning that it's like a small mill grinding grain for flour, so why not. And I finally did it. And it does make flour. Why didn't I do this before. Now I can have oat flour easily.
So I used it in a Martha recipe for apple oatmeal crumble, which actually, get this, wanted oat flour! perfect timing. This is a mag from the lot I got via freecycle recently. Not a fan of eating apples raw, but Granny Smiths in cooked form are good. And this recipe didn't ask for a lot of sugar, and none of that ghastly syrupy stuff a lot of recipes think you should use. So here's the result, and very nice it is.
It's breakfast food, I claim, since it's oatmeal and apples...and the dish is a freecycle.
Then among the suggestions for upcycling my cabinet doors, the one for a plant stand, using casters, reminded me with a clang that somewhere for years and years I've had a set of self stick casters waiting for a job to do.
Work of a moment to remove the old hinges and handle, stick on the casters (touchingly caring instructions remind you they're unidirectional, and to put them all on facing the same direction!) and here's the result.
Looks a bit like a big roller skate, or a low tech Mars vehicle, but it works a treat! see it in action here
and here. The big ficus tree can now be rolled about easily, yay.
Thanks so much for the idea, Irene. And I still have another door for a tray or a frame or something.
