Pasties

When my husband and I started in the Society for Creative Anachronism, one of the important features of serving* at a medieval-style feast was the ability to take home leftovers. Feast leftovers could frequently get a thrifty poor college student through a month if carefully managed.

Many years later, most people who cater our events try to be more concious about food waste, including myself. No one is going to go home hungry, but I try not to have trays of leftovers. My current group just doesn't have the college student population to support. ;) However, we still all cook for the high end of attendence estimates, so there are often some very tasty  leftovers available during clean up, and it's nice not to have to cook for a couple meals.

This weekend I brought home a quart of mustard stewed chicken. I'm catering one of these in 2 months, so have been working on the last kinks from my recipes, so tonight, I taught my husband to make mini pasties.

The important part here is the crust. Without gluten, it does not want to play nice. Bob's Red Mill GF Crust Recipe is my go-to, but needs more structure as a handpie.  We have to add those structural elements, or all is sadness. So I have added egg and xanthan gum, and I am so happy.

Half of these are just stewed chicken, half have spinach and chicken. All are tasty. Use any filling you want, go crazy. These are the original "honey don't forget your lunch."

Crimping hand pies is an art, born of practice. Don't worry if you're messy, you will get there. The most common problem is overstuffing- the size I did was 2T max filling. Overstuffed pasties tear and won't seal.

1.5c. Bob's AP flour
1/2t salt
1/2c butter, diced
1/2t xanthan gum
1 egg
4-6 tbl milk

Preheat 400. Mix butter & dry ingredients until corned in texture. Add egg and milk, form into ball. Cover and let sit in freezer for 15 min & fridge for an hour. Take a portion, roll out to 1/4 thickness. Use a biscuit cutter or top of waterglass to cut circles. Put in 1T filling, fold and crimp around the filling. Bake for 10 min.

*Servers don't have to pay for feast, and eat the "brokens" or the platters that come back and the extra food that doesn't fit on the communal platters. I had a 4 month period where I survived on milk, eggs, yogurt, and leftovers from 1 event a month.

GF Foccacia

I have been craving bread. For weeks. Then Pinterest served up this pin for Easy Cast Iron Skillet GF Focaccia from Fearless Dining. I looked at the directions, looked at the ingredient list, and decided to make a trial run.

With some changes, of course.

I didn't have any almond milk around, so I used 2% milk. No one in this household has dairy restrictions, so I generally don't worry about it. Almond milk will also retard your rise more than standard dairy, so, unless you need it to be dairy free, use real milk. It will still slow your yeast down, but not nearly as much.

One of the things I liked about the recipe is that it's baking in cast iron. I adore doing cornbread and skillet biscuits in my large skillet. This is certainly an option - the heavy pan does nice things to the crust, and also tends to even out heat in an oven. However, I decided to use my dutch oven for a couple of reasons: it's also a cast iron pan, but it a) has a lid and b) is enameled. Having the lid means I don't have to find another way to cover the bread during the initial rise. And being enameled lets me not worry if my seasoning is up to releasing bread, or if the bread will destroy the seasoning on my good skillet.

Having now made this several times this week, I can say that it's lovely with rosemary and parmesan baked on, or plain with butter and honey, and would probably hold up well to all your traditional foccacia inclusions and toppings.

Flour blend is important here, as it is with most gluten free items. This was made with Bob's Red Mill GF Cup for Cup blend, which is preferred here due to many issues with legumes on the part of my usual guests. The recipe is flexible enough that I would guess that most 1 to 1 blends will work here - Next is trying out my personal gf blend, and some of the others that have collected in my pantry.

GLUTEN FREE FOCACCIA (as adapted from Fearless Dining)
1 c Milk
2 t Dry yeast
1 t Honey
2 1/4 c Gluten Free Flour
1 t Salt
2 large Eggs
1 T Olive oil
3 T Shredded Parmesan (optional)

Heat the milk until lukewarm. Mix in the yeast and honey, let sit for 5 min. In a separate bowl, combine flour and salt. Add eggs to liquid and beat lightly, then pour wet into dry and mix until it starts to form a ball. This makes a relatively dry dough. Use about half the olive oil on the inside of your cast iron vessel, then spread the dough out evenly, edge to edge. Cover, and let rise for 45 min in a warm place. Preheat the oven to 375. Uncover. Drizzle on the rest of the oil. Bake for 25-35 min, or until it starts to go golden brown and crusty. Enjoy!