"Wait, didn't they say it was 21 days to lose a habit? Now they've upped it to 56?!" I'm always the last one to receive the memo.
"Actually, it's been increased to 90 days. They say it takes 90 days for us to see something differently."
They say. They say. I guess one ought to really do than accept what they say sometimes. So what did I do in terms of giving up things? I'd given up TV over a year ago. Or maybe it's been two. Now, I don't miss it. My approach to passive viewing has changed. I derive much more pleasure from TV because it's occasional, conscious, and more social. I have to watch it at other people's homes.
And the same thing seems to apply to food. I believe it's been over 90 days since I had a bialy or a bagel. My long work commute had ended and there was no routine to go into Grand Central to grab one.
And living in an area with no deli to roll out of bed to (if you're in the 60's between Mad and Fifth, you know what I mean), getting a morning bagel or bialy takes focus and planning. I need to channel my morning focus for other things so bagel/bialy fell out of routine.
So how did I find myself approaching the bialy differently after 90 days? I wanted to make a homemade bialy. I upped the ante. I wanted it homemade and gluten-free.
I don't have Celiac's but seeing a friend not be able to eat a baked good because it wasn't gluten-free made me realize this holiday baking would have to include GF items to my sleeve of tricks. It just seems to be necessary to stay relevant in the kitchen.
An amazing find was Bob's Red Mill Xanthan Gum. Plant-derived, it replaces gluten's job of giving a dough its elasticity and rise.
Loving the onions in the middle of the bialy, I decided to raise the bar again and make it an onion/potato/leek bialy with mango chutney. Hot out of the oven, I took a bite and I don't think I'll ever be the same again. It was that good. It was worth the 90 days of doing without.
The Post-90 Gluten-Free Bialy Recipe
You will need:
6 three-inch diameter tartlet pans (can be found at Williams - Sonoma)
1 cup of Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free (wheat free, dairy free) All Purpose Baking Flour
2 teaspoons of Bob's Red Mill Xanthan Gum
1 teaspoon of Aluminum-free baking powder (can be had at Whole Foods)
1 cup of lukewarm water
2 tablespoons of olive oil (and a little more for greasing the tartlet pans)
1/2 an Idaho potato
1/2 cup of chopped leeks (some from the base and some from the top)
1/4 cup of chopped onions
2 cloves of garlic
olive oil - q.s. (quantity sufficient) to sauté the vegetables
Himalayan pink salt - q.s. to make it tasty but not salty
optional - a little mango chutney to dab on your bialy
Instructions:
1) Chop up the potato, leeks, onions, and garlic. If you have a mandolin slicer with a wide tooth, it's easier to run the potato through it as if you were making latkes. I prefer to smash my garlic through a press. But you can easily get by without these gadgets if you just stick to chopping finely.
2) Sauté the vegetables with olive oil until the onions become translucent.
3) Put the flour, the xanthan gum, the baking powder, lukewarm water, and 2 tablespoons of olive oil into a Vitamix. Turn the dial slowly to 10 and keep it there until you feel resistance from the blades. There should be a small, smooth ball if you look into your Vitamix. If not, set the dial back to zero and swish around the lumpy things with the tamper and turn the dial back up. The end result of Vitamix effort should look like this:
.JPG)
4) Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
5) Grease the tartlet pans with olive oil.
6) Using a spatula, fill and spread the gummy paste of dough into the tartlet pans. If the tartlet pans look like the outer paper mold of a large Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, fill and smooth the dough so that the top of the paste looks as even as the top of the chocolate cup confection.
7) Add a little bit of the potato / leek mix in the middle of each "tart".
8) Bake for 25 minutes.
9) They will rise like popovers but once out of the oven, they will fall again. Out of the oven and a bit cooled, they are ready to flip out of the pans. Using a metal spatula or a knife, gently separate the bread from the edges of the tartlet pans. Turn it upside down and have the bialy gently fall off.
10) Dab a bit of mango chutney onto the center and you have an incredible bialy. This is fabulous.
And what was more fabulous was how easily I digested this bialy. This is the bialy that'll love you back.
Happy Post-90! ~e