Last night's pie and salad

I really needed to go to sleep last night and wasn't able to finish that last post. Waking up at 5am, no matter how early I go to bed, is not that easy. No matter how many times I do it. But, I'd much rather work early than work late. So no complaints.
I made a salad to go with the dumplings, keeping with the Asian theme. I used spinach, because that was all I had, and sauteed some mushrooms and tossed them in. I made my own dressing, based loosely off of a recipe for Japanese steakhouse dressing from the Joy. It's a lot better if you let the salad sit for a few minutes for the dressing to seep in. I think next time I'll add thinly cut carrots to the salad, maybe cucumbers too.

Asian ginger dressing
2 carrots, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
1/4 onion, chopped
1 1/2" ginger, peeled and chopped
2 T mirin
1 T wheat-free soy sauce
a few dashes of pepper
1 t of chili garlic sauce
2 T rice vinegar

Put everything in the food processor or blender, blend until smooth. Add salt to taste, or adjust seasonings to your liking.

crazy pie
On the fridge, we have a whiteboard where the roommates can leave each other messages. We all work different shifts and keep very different hours, so it's a good way to keep in touch. And draw funny pictures. This week I made a "dessert suggestion box" for everyone to write what they wanted me to bake this week. One roommate wrote that she wanted something along the lines of "blueberry/fruity creamy Wiggle pie" (Wiggle pie is what we call lemon meringue pie, which I make quite often). So I thought about that all day at work yesterday, and decided on a custard base-pie, with a layer of berries, then a layer of meringue. I'm not sure how I feel about the vanilla custard with meringue, but Alex said it was the best pie yet so we'll see what the two girls say.
The process was easy, I made it while the dumplings were freezing. First I made my usual pie
crust from Gluten-free Baking Classics, glazed it with an egg yolk, pricked the bottom, then baked it for 10 mins at 350. I found a simple custard pie recipe in the Joy, while that was baking I made a blueberry layer from 8 oz blueberries (frozen, cheaper), about 1/3 cup of sugar, a teaspoon of lime juice, and about 2 teaspoons of cornstarch. I heated that in a saucepan with 1 or 2 Tablespoons of water until it was thick. I spread that over the hot custard pie, then whipped up the 4 or 5 egg whites I had leftover from the custard with 1/2 cup sugar and a pinch of cream of tartar. I plopped that on top, baked the whole thing another 10 minutes until the peaks were turning golden, and cooled it. It's pretty good!