A Start to Summer

For me, summer is defined by its fruit; strawberries, peaches, nectarines, cherries, blueberries, rhubarb, raspberries. This summer, I have every intention of making the most of all of it.

The rhubarb plants in the backyard are perfect right now, so I was given the suggestion of making something delicious before they go to seed. While picking my rhubarb, I found a few spears of asparagus poking through the overgrowth. My dad decided last year, to grow his asparagus in a different part the garden, so his old plants, next to his rhubarb patch, have been ignored since last spring. The bed he had used before has very quickly, almost completely been taken over by chives, but in spite of that, four thin, perfect spears managed to poke through, and provided me with a bite of the freshest asparagus imaginable. I’m going to keep my eyes on that spot in the garden to see if any more brave asparagus rears its’ head. The new patch won’t be mature enough to harvest for a couple years, so this may be the only home-grown asparagus I’ll be getting for a while.

Back to the topic at hand, while strawberry-rhubarb is the better-known pairing, but the raspberries at my grocery store were, a) much nicer-looking than the strawberries for sale, and b) about half as much as the strawberries. That and Remedial Eating, one of my favorite blogs, recently posted a recipe for rhubarb and raspberry crisp. I found Molly and Remedial Eating only a few months ago, and it’s quickly become one of my favorites. Her photography is beautiful, her stories are funny and sweet, and her recipes make my mouth water.

I love fruit crisps, and I’ve made a lot of them, but they’ve only ever been just “okay.” Something was always a little (or sometimes a lot) off; the fruit would be too sweet, or too sour, too dry, or undercooked, not jammy and tart. The topping would be greasy, or sandy, and would rarely properly crumble. Sigh… The results weren’t ever BAD, per se, just not what I was expecting, and I’d eat my crisp feeling a bit defeated. I had a really good feeling about this recipe though. Maybe it was the photo of the perfect, slumped serving, juices pooling prettily on the plate, topped with whipped cream. Maybe it was how Molly took the time to advise you on how a particular amount of cornstarch in the filling would thicken the juices just so. Whatever the case, I was sold! I made it Saturday night, and again the next day for the Family’s Epic Lobster Dinner (To be described in further detail another time!). It was very much loved, and now I have a new go-to dessert!

A few notes on some adaptations I made for my crisp; I used whole-wheat all-purpose flour in my crisp, because I try to use whole-wheat flour wherever I can get away with doing so. The first time I made the crisp, I discovered that my brown sugar was granite-hard, and I did not have the emotional wherewithal to fix that (I have since found a nifty list of ways to soften rock-hard brown sugar.). I used an equal amount of white sugar, which worked out quite well, but I’m sure the crisp would have been even better with brown sugar. Also, I forgot about my first crisp while it was in the oven (surprise, surprise), so mine baked for about 50 minutes, instead of the recommended 30-40 minutes. Oops. It was fine though! In fact, as you can see in the photo below (I forgot to take any pics before we dug in) the topping is fine! No burnt topping here!

This would be great with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, some barely-sweetened whipped cream or some crème fraiche!

Rhubarb-Raspberry Crisp



(adapted from Remedial Eating)

4 cups rhubarb, sliced ¼” thick


12 ounces raspberries

¾ cup granulated sugar

3 tablespoons cornstarch


¾ cup whole-wheat, all-purpose flour


¾ cup Old-fashioned oats

1 cup sugar
(light brown is best, but white works fine)

Pinch of kosher salt

8 tablespoons (1/2 cup) salted butter, cut into 8 pieces, at room temperature

Preheat oven to 350°.

In a bowl, combine the fruit, the first amount of sugar and the cornstarch and toss lightly to combine, then pour into a baking dish.

In the same bowl (don’t worry about washing it out. I didn’t!), combine the flour, oats, sugar and salt. Using your (clean) hands, rub the soft butter into the dry ingredients, picking up handfuls and sliding it all between your fingers and palms. Keep going until there isn’t any dry flour lurking in the bottom of the bowl. The mix should now be an assortment of sandy clumps and loose crumbs.

Pick up small handfuls of topping, and squeeze gently to form large crumbs (peanuts to marbles in size). Scatter over surface of the fruit as evenly as possible, making sure you don’t have a big sand-hill of topping in the middle of the dish.

Bake for about 35-45 minutes, until your fruit is bubbling and jammy around the edges and the topping is golden-brown.

Allow your crisp to cool before serving, since the juices will be like napalm right out of the oven. I tend to prefer my fruit crisps at room temperature, because the topping gets a chance to soak up some of the juice.

Perfection on the Road

Nothing beats a nice cup of tea after being trapped in the truck for hours with my aunt's elderly dachshund.

Do-Over

I think I need to get some focus on here. At the suggestion of my (evil) sisters, I'm going to start doing something productive with my rather unwieldly recipe collection. I have more cookbooks than is entirely decent, and 200+ recipes saved in my bookmarks on the ol' Lappy 3000. I read food blogs the way normal people read the paper.

So, I'm setting myself some rules here:

• I must post at least once a week. We'll make Sunday my go-to posting day (no classes, and I'm not necessarily at work).


• Posts must include photos, since let's be honest, that's the best part of a food blog. I'm not allowed to use this as an excuse to buy a Cannon Rebel, as much as may I lust for one.


• I need to start cooking more, and start making headway through my stack of recipes, and I want the emphasis to be on healthy cooking, so that this does not turn into some kind of butter fest that goes straight to my ass. That being said, I love butter. :D

See you soon,

Kates

erm...

I'm a deadbeat food blogger.

There I've said it.

That being said, as someone who still lives at home (I tell myself it's because I want to save money), and as such, still have my mommy cooking most of my food, I guess I'm doing ok.

In a week, I'm traveling to Ireland with school (that's the "study" part of this blog), and I will have many posts (with pictures!) when I'm back! Yay!!

Momofuku To Start

I bought myself a little post-Christmas present about a week ago; David Chang's Momofuku cookbook. Having been an occasional follower of Momofuku For 2, I was really excited to get started, and I've already book-marked a bunch of recipes:

• Momofuku Pork Buns
• Ramen
• Bo Ssam
• Banh Mi
• Tomato Salad
• Roasted Cauliflower

I started with the pork buns, an endeavor that took two days from start to finish, not including shopping. I went to T&T in West Edmonton Mall, to get pork belly, baby cucumbers and some other bits and pieces. When I asked the butcher for 3lbs of pork belly, he gave me 3-2lb pieces! He skinned them for me free of charge, and the whole thing cost me about 15$.

Yesterday (Saturday) was spent making all those bitty steamed buns. I had a bunch of plans that day, so the process was spread out over the course of the day. I mixed and kneaded the dough in the morning, and left it for the first rise. After I'd punched down, and divided the dough up (into 48, not 50. My math skills are lacking), I left it to rise again while I went to the spa(!). After I was done there, about an hour later, I came home, and shaped the Muppet mouth-shaped buns. I left them again, this time for about two hours, while I went out for lunch with my sister, to Café Beirut (an amazing meal, I'll go back for sure and write about it!). When I got back home, I steamed them, in batches of 12 at a time.

On to the pork belly! I took my three pieces of belly, and rubbed them in the salt and sugar mix, and let them cure in the fridge overnight. The next morning, I started them in a 450F oven, for 45 minutes, instead of Chang's recommended full-hour, before I turned to oven down to 250 for another hour and 15 minutes. I let the belly rest, 'til it came to room temperature.

We had the buns and pork with Chang's Quick Salt Pickled cucumbers, hoisin, siracha, and Scallion-Ginger Sauce. All in all a perfect lunch, and a huge hit for with the fam.

Behold the beauty of roasted pork belly.