Ginger Love (and a recipe for how to make sweet pickled ginger at home)

I am a ginger devotee. It is probably one of my most favorite ingredients to eat or cook with. At Japanese restaurants there is never enough pickled ginger on my plate and I am willing to endure the hollow, sour feeling in my stomach that comes free eating far too much pickled food in one seating. Oddly, I have never attempted to make my own pickled ginger. Today, however is a new day, and guess what, I made what will now most likely become a staple in my kitchen—pickled ginger! 

What brought it all to the forefront was a batch of fast pickled radishes I put together at the food truck yesterday. I was needing a little salad pizazz and had a small bin full of fresh pink radishes (I'll actually give you all that recipe another time, once I figure out the precise proportions to use.) Either way, yesterday evening I was too tired to bother with ginger but my mind was already running with ginger thoughts and laughing at the idea I had never before even tried to make my own fast pickled ginger. Well today it was my priority. Between biscuits and omelets, pies and ice tea, I shuffled aside some time for ginger experimentation. 

The result is utterly satisfying. After eight hours of soaking, the pickles are fantastic; bright, extremely potent, sweet and with a true bite. I will bet tomorrow and even the day after, they will have come to terms with their fate and settled down to a somewhat milder delivery of their pickled ginger charm. 

Pickled Ginger Recipe

First wash and peel your ginger then slice very thinly until you have about one cup. I used a peeler, but a cheese slicer could work as well. Be sure to follow the grain or the ginger will be rougher in texture. Also note, the ginger gets more stringy as it gets closer to the center so optimally just use the outer portion for this recipe. Place the ginger in a bowl and mix with the following ingredients and then let sit covered in the refrigerator for at least 8 hours: 

1+1/2 teaspoons sea salt

1/3 cup white sugar

1/2 cup rice vinegar

1 cup water

Please enjoy and let me know how they come out!

                                                        ~Marica

Vegan Banana Muffins Recipe

I have a real soft spot for banana muffins. These particular muffins are yummy and yet still a tiny bit healthy. I often make a batch at the pie truck and then bring them home at the end of the day for my kiddos—They love when I bring treats. These days it's hard to keep my fifteen-year-old from eating us out of house and home. Seriously! As an added piece—so you can get in the mind of a crazy pie-maker/mother/obsesser-of-story-books—I have an old love affair with the Betsy Tacy and Tib books. I read each and every one multiple times as a child, and to be truthful, I even read some of her later books not so very long ago. Either way, in the stories the house keeper/cook always makes the family muffins on their first day back to school. I found this tradition so romantic. Every time I make my children muffins I think of Betsy and her family and the simple tradition that somehow has made a lasting impression on me. Silly as it sounds, I feel like these are the things that matter. These bits and pieces are what keeps us inspired, warm and decent people in a very complicated world.

VEGAN BANANA MUFFINS

In a large bowl mix:

3 ripe bananas 

1 cup orange juice 

1/2 cup grape seed oil

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon cardamom

3/4 cup dark brown sugar

1 cup ground walnuts

In a separate bowl sift together:

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup white flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix both sets of ingredients together. Pour into an oiled muffin pan and bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes and then rotate the the pan and bake for another 12 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.


                                                                    Cheers ~
                                                                                Marica

And a million pies later...

This was a good week. A long week, but good in so many ways. Firstly, I felt in tune with the pie truck—and that is a must to feeling good. Sometimes the inside me doesn't align properly with the tasks the world is requiring which certainly causes a lousy battle.  I find that when I feel as if I am playing, I am most at ease. It is a constant wonder in my mind if I am completely loopy, partially loopy, or if most people "play" when they are doing their best work. I hope some of you understand what I mean, because alas, it would be unfortunate to find I am the only one...

Secondly, this week I completed a project so huge and satisfying that my soul doesn't know how to withstand the comfort in having it done. I keep wanting to go back, tweak this, adjust that, yet there is nothing necessary to tweak or adjust. The project is done, at least for this stretch of the road. I am not going to be so thoughtful as to include you all in what the project is, I am not being coy or sassy, it is just that it needs to be kept unrevealed at this time. (Is unrevealed a word? My computer doesn't seem to think so). I will however say it is a book project, so no one will start believing that I built a house from ice blocks or sculpted a goddess in a giant boulder. 

Lastly, I managed to have my children clean the house—just enough—that my "weekend" was not fiddling with dishes, washing floors and scrubbing toilets. I'll admit, I did do all of those things; wash dishes, clean floors and scrub toilets, but they were all minimal versions of what would usually be defined as major cleaning. I am so thankful.

Oh, and on a simple, minor note of satisfaction, I bought a small wood-desk at Goodwill. I thought it was for my daughter's room, but my husband reminded my what a stack of things would gather on it in oh so short a time—and he is right—it will be of so much more use downstairs as a wee work spot for me. Now here I sit, so professional, writing this and feeling quite complete with my forearms resting appropriately as I type. What a lucky trick for me, guiltlessly buying something for someone else, and then reaping the benefit of its luxury.

Well, that just about does it.

All my best to Everyone!

                                                           Cheers ~

                                                                 Marica

Bits of these days…

May happened so fast, is it true we almost have made it through half this year already? It surely doesn't feel possible. May has brought many hot days. I feel like I should embrace them, but instead I still detest too much sun. 

Our little neighborhood here hosts an annul parade. Exactly one year ago Sunday, the pie-truck opened during the festivities of this yearly event.

This year we're far more experienced and no longer the newbies on the block. The pie-truck has had a good year. Winter was harsh, so harsh I often began to think we were nutty dimwits for opening the whole pie deal, but as weather warms and rain becomes an occasional treat, the pie patrons are returning. As well as the resurgence of orders for salad… 

Lazy afternoon naps are something I cherish as often as possible, especially since 

my schedule has returned to morning til night; it's all pie, all the live long day. 

Fittingly I must sing; in the tune of I've been working on the rail road:

I've been working in a pie truck

All the live long day

I've been working in a pie truck

Just to pass the time away ay-ay-ay

Can't your hear the timer blaring

Biscuits out to cool

Now the customers awaiting

There's still more dough to roll

Paiku won't you roll

Paiku won't you roll

Paiku won't you roll the dough ho-ho-ho

Paiku won't you roll

Paiku won't you roll

Paiku won't you roll the dough

Someone's in the kitchen at Paiku

Someone's in the kitchen I know oh-oh-oh

Someones in the kitchen at Paiku

Rollin' out the ol' pie dough

And singing

Fee-fi-roll out the dough

Fee-fi-filly-i-roll that dough-ho

Fee-fi-filly-i-oh

Rollin' out the old pie dough

Other bits of non pie life:

                                                   I hope everyone had a tremendous Mother's Day!

      

                                                                          All my best and many cheers ~

                                                                                                Marica

Pie Truck Post

I feel like I have very little time to take pictures right now. My days are soooo busy and filled to the brim with children, pies, house cleaning, and all the other little tidbits of things that have to be done. Gone are the days of toddlers and the four meals that happened before the sun even reached it's peak in the sky. I miss that slower pace. I miss it a lot. At the same time my current adventures are exciting. I am serving the world up pie. Real, handmade, scratch-made, flour-all-over-me-made pies, every week. There is surely monotony, but there is also that burst of life that can happen when I make a connection with a customer. There are the mornings where all that takes me through is, strong brewed chai, a dabble of music and the revelation that I AM MAKING PIE for complete strangers. This is my art, in the form of the word meaning expression, and I better make use of it while I choose to indulge in such indulgences. 

Like with anything, working out of a truck has its ups and downs. It is a very personal, very connected feeling situation. I see the weather—the windshield and other windows of the truck gift me the sensation of being part of each day as its shifts in and out of clouds, sun, rain, or the rare snowflake that will certainly make me giddy as a child. I am in conversation with each and every customer. They see me wash my hands and attend to their meal, from start to finish. Not so much the cooking, I'm in the truck, and they usually wander off to sit down, but as in the way you are a friend to a barista; they remember your drink and make it themselves. I am my own boss. I hesitate to use that word, it is so ugly and unbecoming of what the meaning of that is. I have the weight of making sure I cross my Ts and put tails on my Qs. I often am ready to turn off the propane-powered ovens, lock the door and leave the mess for another day. But I don't. But I do dream of it, sometimes. 

 I taste food, constantly. I actually realized something the other day—I recommend you give it a whirl—I realized that if you stop to taste food it tastes more. I am often beside myself with how amazing and unbelievably out of this world a simple thing like a mushroom sauteed in butter can be. What I noticed was, even if you eat something less than incredible, if you stop and let your tongue fully communicate to your brain before you swallow it down, it is remarkably more tasty. I tend to be a scarfer. I can eat a burrito faster than my stomach will enjoy, only near the end when I am already quite full do I slow down enough to truly taste. I am planning to adjust my tendencies. 

And I like how magical people find pie. I like touching the piece of a person that goes straight to their, for lack of a better word, "inner child"—the part of us that gets excited by windstorms and soft about Christmas lights. So often pie sounds good, but when it is delivered, it's a lukewarm, over-sweet, rancid butter lingering disappointment. I love knowing that what I set before these people is the right amount sweet, freshly baked with real butter, and the kind of care I would want someone else to put into my food. Even our sweet pecan pie, though sweet, makes the mark, at least in my opinion. 

 

I wanted a place to serve food from. The goal was good, real food—kind you read about in storybooks—at a price where it isn't only available to the aloof, fortunate eaters. That would make my stomach turn. It is an almost impossible balance, but so far we are hanging on. 

 

Well, long winded and pie oriented, I better get to bed. Tomorrow is Monday, lovely, lovely Monday. 

                                              Hope you all have a good night!

                                                                                         Marica