[Sca-cooks] Special diet friendly sweets - the results

[Amy Cooper]

Greetings to the list!

I think, in the end, my cooking for dinner yesterday was pretty
successful. The torta bolognese tasted quite nice - I was able to find
red swiss chard in the grocery store. The main problem I had with the
dish was I didn't think to dry the chard and parsley well before
blitzing them in the food processor, so the filling was very thin at
first. I also forgot to add the saffron and the butter, so it was
seasoned with just salt, pepper, and marjoram. One taster did think a
little under-salted, but to each his own! To fix the viscosity of the
filling, I added a few tablespoons or so of regular flour and blitzed
into the mixture. I would have preferred to use more cream cheese, but
didn't have any more in the house. I used pre-bought pie shells, and
completely made the top crust ugly when flipping it onto the filled
pie, but the filling rose quite a bit, too, and shattered the top
crust. Not the prettiest, but tasted fine. I think next time I may try
making my own pastry (maybe) and using my springform pan, so I get
more volume available for the filling.

For the compote, I used figs, chopped dates, dried cherries, dried
apples (snipped with scissors), currants and a LOT of red wine. I
simmered the figs for almost a half hour in just about enough wine to
cover, then used an immersion blender to make a paste. That then went
into a saucepot with the rest of the fruit, the rest of the wine, and
the spices. I used a lot of cloves, a good bit of mace, some allspice
(to sub for cubebs), cracked ginger (from Penzey's), and some black
pepper. It took a lot of simmering and more spices added to get it to
the point where my lord husband tasted fruit and spice rather than raw
wine. This was well received by the special-diet folks, and others in
the shire with sophisticated palates. I have a LOT leftover however,
and can't eat a whole lot of it myself, being pregnant. A couple of
bites, and all I taste is the wine. I was told it went very well as a
"sauce" for the roast pork that someone else brought.

I couldn't find vegan-friendly wonton wrappers in town, so I did end
up using the fried lozenges recipe from To Take a Thousand Eggs. My
lord husband helped a lot - he's the bread baker of the two of us, and
better with dough than I am. We made a double batch, and found it
needed a lot more water than expected. He mixed it by hand, but we
were able to use the kitchenaid to knead it. It fried up very well and
puffy (almost pita-chip-ish) in olive oil, and I polished off the
little bit of leftovers while watching TV after we got home.
Definitely a recipe I'll make again!

Thanks so much to the list for all your help with this :-) Next feast,
I may try some of the almond-milk recipes for the special diet folks,
but using rice milk instead. And the torta bolognese will DEFNITELY be
made again. Even the teenagers liked it!

Ilsebet