Guest Chef Recipe: Ginger Pear Tart

So my housemate Rachel is quite talented with the entire genre of pies. She can whip up the most incredible assortment of savory and sweet pies with ease. Somehow they are always incredible and sugar (but not fructose, honey or agave) free. Needless to say, I have started looking forward to Rachel uttering the phrase: "I feel like making pie"

This one was perfect on a rainy Seattle day with a nice cup of tea.

Ingredients:
1 9" square of puff pastry
3 D'Anjou pears-sliced
4 tablespoons of butter
1 grated stick of ginger
1/4 cup of agave
1 tbsp of fructose
1/8 tsp of salt

In a cast iron pan melt the butter then add the fructose and agave. Cook on medium heat until golden brown and bubbly. Add the minced ginger and salt, then bring to a boil again. Add the pears and cook on low heat for 15 minutes. Top with the pastry dough then put it in the oven for 15 minutes at 400 F. Enjoy!

One of the top five most amazing things I've ever made.

I don't really know what to call these... vegetable tortes? Caramelized onion and mushroom pockets? Vegetarian amazingness? Best alternative to turkey at Thanksgiving? Who knows. Either way I managed to impress some people with this one.

I ended up doing this in two steps. The night before I threw the filling together while I was making something else for dinner and then stored it in the fridge to save time the next day... I attribute some of the amazingness the fact that the filling sat in the fridge for almost 24 hours before meeting the rest of the dish.

Ingredients:
3 onions (1.5 for caramelizing and 1.5 for filling)
2 tablespoons of agave
2 tablespoons of butter (one for each like the onions)
2 portobella mushrooms
3 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar
1 container of crimini mushrooms chopped
3 cloves of garlic
1 whole Trader Joe's size package of tempeh
1 cup of a dry white wine
1 cup of vegetable broth
3/4 cup of bread crumbs
1 package of puff pastry dough
Fresh rosemary, sage, oregano and thyme
Salt and Pepper to taste
Gruyere and Swiss cheese (1/2 cup grated)

The night before I caramelized half the onions in one pan with some butter, a few teaspoons of white wine and a splash of agave. In another pan I sautee the rest of the butter with the onions, garlic and mushrooms. Once the onions are soft, add the vegetable broth, white wine, apply cider vinegar, a tsp of agave and herbs...simmer for about ten minutes. Add the cut up tempeh and cook everything on low-med for about half an hour. Let cool and store both the caramelized onions and vegetable mix in the refrigerator overnight.

The following day mix the heated vegetable mixture with the breadcrumbs and set aside. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Cut the puff pastry into squares that fit into a muffin tin and up the sides. Place a circular piece of foil into the bottom and "blind bake" the pasty sheets for 6 minutes. Fill the pastries with the vegetable breadcrumb mix, spoon a bit of caramelized onions onto the mixture and then top with the cheese mixture. Bake at 375 degrees F until the cheese is melted. You can easily do a cheese free version... I even did a few without puff pastry and they were also pretty tasty...

Pumpkin Spice Greek Frozen Yogurt

Going along with the fall pumpkin flavored things theme... I accidentally bought normal greek yogurt at the store instead of the non-fat kind I usually get. I decided to try out the ice-cream maker that was sitting in our freezer and it was surprisingly much easier to make ice cream than I previously imagined...

1/2 can of pumpkin
1 container of greek yogurt (Trader Joe's Size)
1 tsp of pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp of ginger
1/2 tsp of nutmeg
Agave to taste... I probably used 1/4 cup but you can add more or less depending on your sweet tooth.

Mix all ingredients together and then place in the ice cream maker. Stir until desired consistency is achieved. This stores pretty well in the freezer just make sure to transfer to a container first... I ended up having an hour long defrosting encounter in order to eat another serving of this...