Just like that: Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp

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Oh Chicago. One day we are all lamenting over the fact that we still need winter coats and then, without warning, it’s full on summer and we are sweltering in our tank tops and shorts.  Despite the lack of some nice spring weather to prepare us for the hot summer days ahead,  you’ll hear no complaints from me about the weather. Just like that, it’s summer and just like that, we went from a family of four to a family of five, one warm sunny Sunday in June.

Last weekend we zipped through the farmer’s market and picked up some rhubarb (at long last!), some strawberries, grape tomatoes, potatoes and a cute little bird feeder for the kids to paint.  I still had my mind on the Rhubarb Plum Crisp from Rachel Allen’s book Favorite Foods at Home so I adapted it by subbing strawberries for plums. My father and brother-in-law came over for dinner and helped us eat the crisp.  Our strawberries were those amazingly sweet little ones that make grocery store berries taste like watered down Kool-aid. Their sweetness worked well with the tartness of the rhubarb that I had been craving for weeks. The original recipe uses only all purpose flour but I used a full cup of almond flour in place of the same amount of all purpose.  The result was a deliciously nutty topping that made me feel just a little bit better about all that butter.

Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp

Eight Servings

Adapted from Favorite Food at Home, by Rachel Allen

For the fruit:

4 tablespoons butter, unsalted

1/4 cup packed light brown sugar

1 lb rhubarb, washed and sliced into 1/2-inch (2cm) pieces

1 lb strawberries, washed, large ones sliced, small left in tact

1 tablespoon honey

½ teaspoon ground cardamom

1 cinnamon stick, broken in half

1 half-inch wide strip lemon peel

For the topping:

1 1/2 cups flour

1 cup almond flour

6 tablespoons light brown sugar

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon salt

12 tablespoons butter, unsalted, melted

1 tablespoon muscovado  sugar, for scattering on top

1. Preheat the oven to 350ºF (180ºC).

2. To make the fruit filling, melt the 4 tablespoons of butter in a large saucepan and stir in 1/4 cup brown sugar. Add the rhubarb and strawberries.

3. Add the honey, cardamom, cinnamon stick, and lemon peel, and cook for five minutes, stirring regularly.

4. Meanwhile make the topping. Mix together the dry ingredients and add the 12 tablespoons of melted butter, mixing quickly but lightly to form a crumbly texture.

5. Remove the cinnamon stick and lemon peel. Transfer the fruit mixture into a low baking dish, or just do it all in a low sided dutch oven like I did.  If your fruit gives off a lot of liquid, spoon some out and reserve for another purpose, then scatter the crispy topping on top. Do not press it down or it will get mushy. Scatter a tablespoon of muscovado sugar on top and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and the juices are bubbling.

6. Remove from the oven when the top is deep golden brown and you can plunge a paring knife into the middle and the knife meets no resistance, indicating the fruit is fully cooked.

Serve warm, with vanilla ice cream.

Eve showed very little interest in her first cooking lesson. 

We had a much more passionate response from our eaters.

Almond Puff Loaf with Preserves

Recently, both of my parents had personal genome (DNA) testing done.  The test results tell you about your ancestry, whether or not you are a carrier of certain diseases and provide information about an assortment of random traits such as tendency to like sweet or salty foods, eye color, amount of hair you had at birth, tendency to flush after consuming alcohol, whether or not you have dimples etc.  My parents’ results were not surprising per se but still very interesting. Most of the “traits” you can tell by either: (1) looking at them; or (2) knowing them for your entire life. In terms of ancestry, according to the test, my Dad is about 99% East Asian, almost exclusively Japanese but about 6% Korean and 2% Chinese.  My Mom is mostly Irish and English and a little bit French and German. This means that I am almost half Irish which may explain my penchant for oatmeal, brown bread, scones and preserves.  

If you look in my pantry you will see that I have several different types of preserves in there at any one time.  Right now I think I have two kinds of marmalade, blackberry, black currant, rhubarb ginger, strawberry and plum preserves and lemon curd.  ALWAYS lemon curd.  To some, this may seem strange “Who eats that much toast?” but I use preserves for all kinds of things; on top of waffles or pancakes, warmed up in a saucepan and brushed on fruit tarts, for cake and pastry fillings, a spoonful on top of a bowl of yogurt and granola and, of course, for the zillions of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches consumed around here. In the summer, I like to make my own preserves and put them up for the colder months ahead. Some years I don’t get around to doing much of my own canning and I just get my preserves from the Irish Boutique.  The Boutique carries a variety of Irish preserves and there's always something I want to try. 

The other day I was meandering through some of my favorite food websites looking for inspiration to motivate me to bake something yummy for a weekend playdate in the park. I stumbled upon this recipe for Almond Puff Loaf with step-by-step instructions and I was instantly sold. You probably have all of the ingredients you need to make it in your cupboard right now (I did) and, as much as I love working with yeast, I also love that this recipe doesn’t require any and therefore also doesn’t require extra time to let the dough rise. Even with the rather long baking time of 50 minutes, there was ample time to throw this pastry together while the kids had their (first) breakfast and still make it to the park by 10:00 a.m. The hardest part was deciding which preserves to top them with - my kind of tough decision.

For quality control purposes, Paul and I sampled the ends before packing the rest up for the park. 

The recipe makes two pastries so I ended up making one with lemon curd and vanilla glaze and the other with blackberry preserves and lemon glaze. 

Refreshments required to fuel all of that climbing, swinging and sliding.

Snack break.

Easy Brown Bread and Soup in May

Yes. I know it’s May.  The second half of May no less but I can’t help it. I am a soup person. Unequivocally.  In the winter I could live off soup.  Buttered bread and soup for lunch on a cold snowy day?  Probably one of the things I would miss most if I moved somewhere with a better climate.  My kids love soup too.  Sometimes Emmett says to me, “Mama, I’m SO hungry. I want soup!” It sounds kind of funny but I know what he means.  He means he wants real food. Something savory, hearty and warm that will fill him up and make him feel good inside. I totally get it. I wonder if other kids like soup too. Is soup kid food the way animal crackers and mac ’n cheese are? Or is it just my kids? Do they like soup because I do? Because of genetics? Or because they see how soup makes me happy? I may never know.  Because I’m not yet ready to say goodbye to Saturdays spent with a big pot of soup on the stove and the prospect of leftovers for an easy weeknight dinner, I’m making chicken soup and brown bread today.  We’ve got the whole summer ahead of us to break out the grill.

It’s hard to believe I never tried brown bread, or even heard of it, before I met my husband. Back when we were dating, there were times when we would stay at my father-in-law Paddy’s house.  In the morning, Paddy and I would always be the first to wake up (by a significant margin) and he would make me breakfast and tell me stories about Ireland, his wife and his adventures in Belize and America after leaving Ireland. We would sit at the table, chatting and drinking tea, eating sausages, eggs, beans and warm brown bread long before my husband or his siblings made their way downstairs. Now that we have little ones, those leisurely breakfasts with Paddy have turned into chaotic dinners with kids running all over the place, but I love brown bread as much as ever and it always brings be back to those early mornings sipping tea at his table.    

I’m sure that if you do a quick internet search you can find a million recipes for brown bread, I have tried a few myself (the one I liked best was written in glaze on a ceramic platter that I saw in Paddy’s on the Square).  Today I am using a mix from the Irish Boutique so we can have warm, freshly baked brown bread while focusing mainly on preparing the soup.  Because sometimes just getting lunch on the table can be difficult enough, especially when you’re 9 months pregnant with two hungry offspring nipping at your toes.

For the bread, just add milk to the plastic ziptop bag with the mix in it and mix it around in the bag until no clumps remain. Perfect (messless) job for a kid!  It even comes with a baking tin.  No dishes to wash.  Because it’s so easy to make, you can almost always find the time to throw it together and slip it in the oven just before lunch.  That way, you can eat some fresh out of the oven. Any leftovers can stay out in a bag or bread bin for a few days or you can slice it and freeze for another time.

Below is one of my go-to soup recipes.  It’s simple, healthy, inexpensive to make, and the kids love to wake up from their naps and have a big bowl of soup waiting for them.

Chicken, Bean and Vegetable Soup

Serves my family of 4 at least a couple of times.

For the Soup

1 onion, diced

½ cup carrots, diced

½ cup celery, diced

3 cloves of garlic, minced

2 tablespoons olive oil or butter

3 cups kale, chopped

Chicken (I use whatever amount is leftover from making the chicken stock or in my fridge from another meal)

1 can chickpeas (I’m not sure that it matters whether or not you drain the liquid in the can, sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t)

2 bay leaves

4 cups of chicken stock* or broth

Parmesan rind (optional - throw one in if you have one lurking in the fridge somewhere)

Lemon juice from half of a lemon

Salt and pepper to taste

Garnishes

Pesto

Grated parmesan

Chopped herbs

Red pepper flakes

Hot sauce

Greek yogurt

More lemon juice

*If I’m organized enough, and have a chicken around, I start the night before by putting what’s left of a store-bought rotisserie chicken (we often eat one of these at some point during the week), a couple of bay leaves, a few sprigs of thyme, an onion, a carrot and a stalk or two of celery in a crockpot for about 12 hours. When it’s done I strain and defat the stock and pick all of the remaining chicken meat off the bones, reserving it for the soup.

When it’s time to make the soup, saute the onion, carrots and celery in butter or olive oil over medium to medium-low heat until they are soft and the onion is translucent, about 6 minutes. Add garlic and saute for 2 more minutes.    

Next, turn the heat up to medium-high and add the chicken stock.  Once the stock is boiling, turn the heat down to a simmer, add the bay leaves, parmesan rind (if using) a pinch of salt and chickpeas and cook for about 20 minutes. 

At this point, I use my immersion blender to puree some, but not all, of the vegetables and chickpeas. Blending up some of the veggies and chickpeas thickens the soup, and leaving the rest whole provides texture.  

After blending, add the chicken, season with salt and pepper and simmer for another 20 minutes.  Add the kale and simmer for another 10 minutes or so.  

Squeeze lemon juice into the soup, check seasoning again, garnish with whatever you like and serve.