Assortment

More in the less

When you look up from your gardening and you see three boys walking through the pasture toward the creek , one with a sled in his hand, and you know without a doubt that it is, indeed, the middle of June not the middle of January, you simply have to drop the trowel, grab your camera, and follow.

Somehow, you know this is gonna be good…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They call it ‘creek surfing’ (do your kids make up their own entertainment, then name it, too?) and I have to say that it looks like it could rival any waterpark ride I’ve seen!

After watching and shooting several runs, I think I can describe for you how it’s done:

It all begins at the low bridge where you stand, shivering in your shoes. Take a deep breath, then with the sled held firmly in hand in front of you, leap off the bridge and hit the water, steering with your body and legs. Boy-scream a lot. Get your bearings on the flat water, then boy-scream a lot more as you prepare to get shot around a curve straight into a patch of white water before you land in a calm eddy at the corner. Climb to the bank and explode into whooping and hollering  as you dodge mega-splashes from your brothers. Hand the sled to the next shivering boy, and repeat.

People? Remember me talking about the more  in this less sort of living we’re doing?

This is that.

 

 

Wishing you the loveliest of weekends, friends!  What are your plans?

 

 

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Classic Lemon Tart

Goodness. Here I am with Thursday’s morning sunshine coming through my window, and I wonder, where did Wednesday go?

You, too?

Well, I suppose if Thursday it is, then Thursday it is. Let’s just go with it, shall we?

Now then, about that lemon tart! You all sort of went bonkers over it last week when I showed it on Instagram. I get that. I really do. The curd is smooth and creamy with an intense sweet-tart lemon flavor, and  the buttery-sweet crust shatters appropriately when sliced.

How could I not share?

This one comes from a spattered and tattered January/February 2000 copy of Cook’s Illustrated  (speaking of which, if you want an incredible schooling in the craft of baking and cooking, this publication is for you).

 

Now, if baking a tart seems daunting, please just set that feeling aside, tie up your apron strings, and gather a few essential tools and some quality ingredients. There are only a few key things that you will need:

 

• Time – if you intend to serve this for dinner’s dessert, begin making it that morning.
• Tart pan – a 9 - 9 1/2 inch one with a removable bottom and fluted 1 –1 1/8 inch sides is perfect
• Rolling  pin – I use a French rolling pin, but any sort of rolling pin will work – so will a wine bottle or smooth-sided water bottle (yes, the whole seven months that we lived in a camper? I used a water bottle for a rolling pin!)
• Parchment paper – lightly floured parchment paper is necessary for rolling out the crust. Waxed paper or freezer wrap also work.
• A fine-mesh strainer – this is for that creamy-smooth curd
• A micro plane – this is one of those worth-its-weight-in-gold tools. Perfect for getting a fine zest from the lemons without getting into the pith.
• A pastry blender will work just fine for making the crust, if you don’t have a food processor, so don’t despair!
• An instant-read thermometer
• A reamer, to help extract all that good juice from the lemons

 

Sweet Tart Crust

1 large egg yolk

1 tablespoon heavy cream

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/4 cups all-purpose unbleached flour, plus more for dusting

2/3 cups confectioner’s sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

8 tablespoons very cold butter

 

Wisk together yolk, cream, and vanilla, set aside. In the mixing bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade, pulse to combine flour, sugar, and salt. Scatter butter pieces evenly over flour mixture and pulse until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. With machine still running, pour liquid mixture through feed tube and process until dough just comes together, 20-30 seconds. Turn dough out onto a piece of plastic wrap or wax paper, press into a 5”-6” disc, wrap tightly and chill in refrigerator for 2 hours.

Unwrap dough and let it come up in temperature for 5-10 minutes. Preheat oven to 375 degrees, and place one oven rack in the upper middle position, and one in the lower middle position. On work surface, place dough between sheets of floured parchment, waxed, or freezer paper, and with your rolling pin, roll out the circle of dough until it is 1/8” thick. Beginning at  one edge, roll the dough loosely around the rolling pin, then unroll over the top of the tart pan. Gently lift dough with your hands and press it into corners and flutes, leaving the excess dough falling over the top edge of pan. With your rolling pin, roll over the top of the pan edges. This cuts the excess dough perfectly away, leaving a nice, dough-lined tart pan. Freeze tart dough in the tart pan for 30 minutes.

Remove from freezer and line the tart with a 12” square of tin foil and place pie weights or dried beans (1 cup) in the foil to act as a weight when baking, preventing any bubbling of the crust. Place the tart pan on a cookie sheet and bake on lower rack 30 minutes, turning halfway through baking time. Carefully, lift the foil and pie weights/beans out of the crust by grasping the edges of the foil and lifting up. Place cookie sheet with tart pan on upper rack and continue baking until shell is golden brown, about 5 minutes longer.

 

 

Classic Lemon Tart

1   9” fully baked, warm tart shell

7 large egg yolks, plus 2 large whole eggs

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar

2/3 cup juice from 4-5 medium lemons, plus 1/4 cup finely grated zest*

Pinch salt

4 tablespoons butter, cut into 4 pieces

3 tablespoons heavy cream

 

Preheat oven to 375 degrees, making sure rack is in upper middle position.

In medium nonreactive bowl (only use glass, ceramic, or stainless steel when working with lemon, as other metals could impart a metallic taste to the curd), whisk together egg yolks and whole eggs. Add sugar and whisk until combined, about 5 seconds. Add lemon juice, zest and salt, whisk again until just combined. Transfer mixture to a medium nonreactive saucepan and add butter. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon until mixture thickens and registers 170 degrees on an instant-read thermometer, about 5-10 minutes. Pour curd immediately through a fine-mesh sieve set over a nonreactive bowl. Using the wooden spoon, stir curd around, pressing it through the mesh and into the bowl. Stir heavy cream into the curd and pour curd into warm tart shell set on a cookie sheet.

 

Bake until filling is shiny and opaque and the center 3 inches jiggle slightly  when shaken, approximately 10-15 minutes, but longer if necessary. Remove cookie sheet and tart from oven and cool on a wire rack to room temperature. To plate the tart, remove outer metal ring from the tart, and slide a thin metal spatula between the bottom crust and the pan bottom, sliding the tart onto a cake plate or cardboard round.  Cut into wedges and serve with fresh blueberries and whipped cream, if desired.

 

*To zest a lemon, hold the washed and dried lemon firmly in your hand, and with the teeth of the micro plane against the lemon peel, gently but firmly pull the micro plane across the surface of the lemon in long , even strokes. Repeat this over the entire surface of the lemon. The zest will accumulate on the top of the micro plane.

In the Running

:: Update:: The latest news is: Our little house is featured today in an article on Apartment Therapy! Go to their site to read the great piece that Carolyn wrote! Thank you Apartment Therapy!

 

Yesterday, beneath a beautiful Montana sky, I pinned a race bib on for the very first time. It said 10k in the corner. And I couldn’t help but wonder at all this.

Because I’m not a runner. Oh, I’d hurdled windrows of fresh-cut alfalfa when I was young, and I’d raced to the end of the dock on hot summer days, trying to be first to leap into the lake for a swim, but I don’t remember ever having been in any kind of coordinated race. Running for sport or pleasure just never made it into my range of interests.

Until two years ago.

 

It came from nowhere; at least nowhere that I could tell. Suddenly, it was just there, that urge to run. We were in northern California at the time, spending several weeks there that summer, and I had time, and I found a path along a river, and I had three boys on scooters zipping along ahead of me, and I had my husband, most mornings, running by my side, coaching.

 

So, I ran.

I ran slowly, but I ran.

Muscles woke up, yawned, stretched, and began to work. It was sore work. Crazy-sore work. But I found that I loved it, this running beside the river, watching birds and butterflies, listening to all there is to hear in a place like that, feeling the wind brush across my face. 

 

 

There was no plan or intention for this running, except to run quietly in my own time, in my own place, at my own pace. It was a portion of solitude in my days during a time of incredible tumult, stress, and loss. This was the beauty of it. Running didn’t come at me like a heavy burden with a list of bullet-pointed instructions attached that commanded me to set goals, strive, be better, be faster, and by such-and-such a time, sign up for this race, then go sign up for that one. It didn’t yell at me: Achieve! Achieve! Achieve! No, running was a gentle friend who met me in the morning, took me as I was, and hugged me when I finished, no matter how long or how far I’d gone.

It taught me so much about life.

 

 

So, there I was, yesterday, gathered under the big Montana sky, with runners 100 strong. For two years, I had put one foot in front of the other as quickly as I could. I had suffered injury that set me back more than once. I had learned about patience, learned about my body, learned about healing, learned about strength, learned about running. I’d learned that this whole thing was least about labels and most about heart.

Now, I was ready for my first official run.

The course took us from a smidgen of a little town, alongside a glittering river, up a steep grade between red rock canyon walls, across a dam that held back inky-blue water, down a mountainside that was drawn with wildflowers and puffed green trees, and back onto a gravel road, ending just past the coffee shop back in town.

 

 

 

My people were there, standing at the sidelines, looking for me to come down the road and make the final turn onto the gravel. They were cheering, snapping shots like the paparazzi, taking video. My man reached out, and I reached out, and our hands touched as I ran past. He said he was so proud.

 

The kids fell in beside and behind me, our kids, and friend’s kids and they were cheering and they ran the last few yards to the finish line, too. 

 

It was sweet. So very, very sweet to know just how much had crossed that line in the dirt. This was the run that took two years, but lasted one hour and ten minutes.

There’s something I’m quite sure about: this is not the end.

I’m in the running, now.

 

 

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