Rhubarb, Rhubarb, Rhubarb

A couple summers ago when my little nephew Alex was visiting we were all entertained by playing a game with him called “What Do You Like More?” It was a pretty straight forward game, we would simply name two items and ask Alex which one he liked more. My brother especially enjoyed replacing one of the items with Auntie Brilynn and asking him questions like “What do you like more… Bear or Auntie Brilynn?” or “What do you like more… Cookies or Auntie Brilynn?” or “What do you like more… Mosquitoes or Auntie Brilynn?” or “What do you like more… Dragon flies or Auntie Brilynn?”. For the record, I tied with Bear, (his favourite stuffed animal) lost to dragon flies and beat out both cookies and mosquitoes! You can find out all sorts of interesting information by playing this game with other people, not just a three year old. For example, if you were to play this game with me and compare everything to rhubarb, rhubarb would probably lose every time.

What do you like more… Rhubarb or chocolate? Chocolate.

What do you like more… Rhubarb or lobster? Lobster.

Ok, so maybe those ones were obvious, but if we keep playing, you’ll notice the rhubarb hating continues.

What do you like more… Rhubarb or three day old stale pizza? Pizza.

What do you like more… Rhubarb or doing the dishes? Dishes.

What do you like more… Rhubarb or chopping herbs and shucking oysters? Finally, a victory for rhubarb!

It’s not that I actually hate rhubarb but given the option of eating rhubarb or something else, nine times out of ten I’ll choose the something else. Despite this, rhubarb intrigues me. Possibly in part because it brings back fond memories of plucking a sun warmed stalk of rhubarb from the garden and proceeding to eat it by dipping the end in a cup of sugar between bites. These days I want to pair it with more savoury dishes, perhaps in a tangy bbq sauce or a chutney? Even though I’m harbouring thoughts of savoury rhubarb, I’ve been making nothing but sweet things in the form of Strawberry Rhubarb Ripple ice cream and Strawberry Rhubarb Mousse. If you asked me what do you like more… Strawberries or rhubarb? Strawberries would clearly win.

Unfortunately there aren’t recipes to accompany these dishes. The ice cream was made as an afterthought. I had made strawberry rhubarb jam and decided that I wanted to swirl it into a vanilla ice cream base. So I did. And it was good. It was extra good when eaten out of Cinnamon Tuiles, which I will provide a recipe for. Those were sort of an accident too. I had to make tuiles for a dessert at work and I’d never made them before so I did a trial run at home first. It just so happened that it paired great with my ice cream. The Strawberry Rhubarb Mousse was adapted from a recipe for cherry mousse that I found in Food & Drink magazine, which I’ve touted before as a great free publication put out by the Liquor Control Board of Ontario. I made that one for Mother’s Day as Mom requested ‘something with rhubarb’ and I grudgingly complied.

Cinnamon Tuiles, (Adapted slightly from Gourmet, November 1998)

1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter

1/4 cup packed light brown sugar

3 tablespoons light corn syrup

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375°F.

In a saucepan melt butter with brown sugar and corn syrup over moderate heat, stirring occasionally until sugar is dissolved. Remove pan from heat and stir in flour, cinnamon and a pinch of salt until smooth.

Drop batter by the tablespoon full onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Leave a lot of space in between as these cookies spread immensely. Bake cookies in middle of oven 6 minutes, or until golden.

Once you remove the tray from the oven, let the tuiles rest for about a minute before you try to remove them. If you try to pick them up too soon, they’ll fall apart. As soon as you’re able to gently lift a tuile off the parchment without tearing it, they’re ready to mold. You can mold them any way you like, I’ve pressed them into muffin tins as well as draped them over coffee cups and small bowls, it all depends what shape you want. Cool cookie completely and then transfer to an airtight container. Tuiles keep 5 days in an airtight container at cool room temperature.

Dessert Special

Carrot Cake with Candied Carrots and Carrot Shooters

Given my extreme inability to make decisions, it’s a miracle that I can figure out a dessert special every night at work. And truth be told, I can’t always. Sometimes I get part way through an idea and have to call for reinforcement. Like the day I made carrot cake. I had no problem making a carrot cake with nuts, raisins and spices, topped with an orange scented cream cheese icing but figuring out how to make it look interesting, (and not from 1972) left me drawing a blank. When in doubt, the guy with the tall hat and name embroidered on his jacket is probably a good person to ask. His answers, however, are sometimes more than I bargained for. I was looking for a little something to garnish my carrot cake with and ended up making candied carrots and carrot shooters to order.

Chocolate Caramel Walnut Tart Wrapped in Raspberry Jelly with Raspberry Confetti

Dessert specials allow for a little more freedom like being able to make carrot shooters. It was nice for one night, but it’s definitely not something I’d want to do at the height of summer business. Kind of like the day I made a Chocolate-Caramel-Walnut Tart and needed something to garnish it with. The tart on its own is quite nice, but needs some colour to look good on a plate. Chef suggested I do something with raspberry syrup and agar agar… that snowballed into wrapping rectangular pieces of tart in a raspberry jelly and then sealing the jelly with a blowtorch and sprinkling raspberry jelly confetti around the tart in a pool of crème anglaise. Once again, it was interesting for one night, not so fun for the whole summer.

Bread Pudding with Chocolate Sauce, Creme Anglaise and Vanilla Ice Cream Coated in Chocolate Crumbs

As much as I’d like to get an industrial ice cream machine and make every summer dessert ice cream based, it’s not going to happen, (sadly). That means I have to come up with new summer desserts for a menu change happening very shortly. This task should not be as difficult as it is for me. I’ve been pouring over cookbooks and looking through blogs for inspiration and coming up empty. I see tons of beautiful desserts and things that I love, but they don’t necessarily translate well in my work kitchen. Some items are too fancy, some are too plain, some are out of season, some are too fragile, we don’t have the equipment, the time, the right customers or the labour force for others. I’ve been told to employ the K.I.S.S. strategy to my summer dessert making, but with so many options, (and also restrictions) I can’t seem to narrow it down to five new menu items.

Lemon Curd Tart with Fresh Strawberries, Creme Anglaise and Strawberry Coulis

So I’m asking for your help. Bloggers and blog readers are notoriously generous and full of great ideas and I want you to help me choose some new dessert options for work. What are your favourite desserts to make and eat? What would you like to see on a restaurant menu? While you’re being creative with your suggestions, keep the following in mind:

-The dessert has to be able to be refrigerated for storage, without compromising quality.

-It has to be able to stand up to extreme heat and humidity, (meringues and sugar garnish are out).

-It has to be relatively easy to make, (because I’m not working 7 days a week for the rest of the summer).

-There needs to be a chocolate dessert, a fruit dessert and something cakey, (those don’t have to be together, but have to exist somewhere).

-It has to look pretty on a plate.

-I don’t have an ice cream maker :(

-It has to be able to be mildly mass produced, (and without taking me forever to do so or occupying all of the stoves and ovens and bench space).

Thanks for the suggestions… if I end up choosing any of your ideas, I’ll be sure to let you know! And will probably then ask for your mailing address so that I can send you something as thanks for helping save part of my sanity…

Chocolate Dipped Strawberries for a Wedding

Before the Heat

The heat is coming and summer is fast approaching. For school aged kids, teachers and anyone with holidays due, this is something to look forward to. Summer means days filled with bike riding in the sunshine, swimming at the beach, bbq’s and eating freezies. Or at least that’s the way I remember it once being… This summer is going to be different. I work in a restaurant where the busiest months of the year are by far the summer months. It’s so much busier that the staff size effectively doubles from May to September to be able to handle the flux in business. Having started my job there mid September of last year, I missed the majority of the rush. I have heard horror stories of how busy it was and will be, but I have yet to experience it myself. You could say I’m kind of like these Cinnamon Rolls and Peanut Butter Cookies, they’re waiting to be baked and I’m waiting to be overwhelmed by work, both of us are heading into the heat. I’m hoping that when it’s all over, I fair as well as they did…

Sangria Bites

A couple weeks ago, I posted about Manhattan Drops, which are basically a sophisticated version of jello shooters. I got the recipe from Food & Drink Magazine and along with the Manhattan Drops, there were recipes for Cucumber Rose Gin and Tonics, White Russian Bars, Cosmopolitan Meltaways and Sangria Bites. Since the Manhattan Drops went over so well, I thought I’d give one of the other recipes a try and decided on the Sangria Bites, mainly because I had most of the ingredients on hand.

If you want to be classy, serve the Sangria Bites in individual spoons, topped with a little lime zest. If you want to go the trashy route, make them in one big pan, hand everyone a spoon and let them dig in. Although the alcohol content in these isn’t as potent as the Manhattan Drops, after enough of them, no one will care how they’re served.

Given the success of these two recipes I think I’m going to venture out on my own and start turning all my favourite drinks into jellies. I’m going to make jellied drinks the new black. Next up on my list to make? Mojito jellies. You know you want some.

Sangria Bites, (Adapted from Food & Drink, Spring 2009)

1 ½ cups lime simple syrup, (equal parts sugar and water, infused with the zest of 3 limes)

3 packages (7g each) unflavoured gelatin crystals.

2 cups Spanish red wine

½ cup Grand Marnier

Extra lime zest for garnish

Pour the simple syrup into a small saucepan. Sprinkle gelatin overtop and stir to combine. Let stand until gelatin softens, about 2 minutes. Place this mixture over low heat and stir, gently splashing around the sides of the pan until all the gelatin has dissolved. Do not boil.

Stir the win and Grand Marnier into the gelatin mixture. Stir slowly for 1 minute. Pour into an 8 inch glass baking dish. Refrigerate for 2 hours or until very firmly set.

Cut the jelly into cubes and serves with a little lime zest on top.

Blueberry Maple Fro Yo

Favourite fro yo
Yummy blueberry maple
In chocolate cup

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Haikus are easy
But sometimes they don't make sense
Refrigerator

Blueberry Maple Frozen Yogurt
1 750ml container of yogurt, (whatever % you feel like using)
Maple sryup, to taste, (I start with maybe 1/4 cup combined with the blueberries and add more when I mix it into the strained yogurt if I think it needs more)
Blueberries, as much as you want, (maybe a cup and a half is a good place to start)
Vodka, a splash
Strain the yogurt overnight. On the stove stop, combine maple syrup and blueberries and cook until the blueberries release some juice and soften. Chill completely and stir this into the strained yogurt. Add a splash of vodka. Pour into ice cream machine and then freeze.

Cherry Blossoms

These blossoms mean that cherry season can't be too far off! The countdown is on.

Fresh Pasta

Reasons chickens are better than roosters:

1- Chickens lay eggs.

2- Chickens don’t crow at 3am.

We had a rooster once. Dad thought it would be a good idea to get a silkie chicken and rooster pair. The logic was that we thought we would end up with some eggs and the pair of them would look pretty neat. What he did not account for was the fact that our rooster would turn out to be deranged. He had no clue what time of day or night it was and would crow for hours on end in the middle of the night. I hated that rooster. One day Dad had finally had enough of him too and took the pair out to a friend’s farm where the rooster could crow as much as he wanted without robbing us of sleep and sanity. Now we have six chickens and although I’m not sure why Dad thought we needed SIX of them, I like them a whole lot better than that stupid rooster. Six chickens, however, equal up to six eggs a day. That means I have to continuously come up with ways to use them up.

Besides ice cream, one of my favourite ways to use eggs is by making homemade pasta. Michael Ruhlman, in his new book Ratio gives this easy to remember recipe for basic pasta dough:

Pasta Dough = 3 parts flour : 2 parts egg

I find measuring by weight a whole lot easier than by volume or piece, especially if some of the eggs your chickens are laying are double yolkers. But for those of you that don’t have a scale, (just go buy one, seriously) Ruhlman says that ratio works out to approximately 1 cup flour : 2 eggs. I use 00 flour when making pasta, (an Italian fine grind) and I find it works the best. Once you’ve got your pasta dough made there’s no end to the things you can do with it. I would be happy eating fresh pasta with lots of butter and a little cheese but since I was cooking for others I thought it would probably be better to make a meal of it. So I made a pesto sauce and also fried up some green onions, red peppers, bacon, shrimp and scallops. Tossed the whole thing together and there was dinner. Very good dinner.

Simple Breakfast Math

Homemade bread

+
Homemade maple smoked bacon
+
A poached egg courtesy of the chickens in my backyard

= 1 Tasty Breakfast

Team Cookies

Sometimes writing ideas come to me without any effort and in full detail. Other times I can only form thoughts in bits and pieces. Today you get the latter. But it comes with cookies!

Cookie of the Day: Peanut Butter, Oatmeal, Chocolate Chip Team Cookies.

Word of the Day: Schadenfreude.

Website of the Day: FMyLife.

Colour of the Day: Maroon.

Activity of the Day: Tennis.

Hunted Animal of the Day: Wild turkey.

Destination of the Day: Korea.

Rule of the Day: Rule #76, No excuses, play like a champion.

Song of the Day: Savior by Rise Against

Team Cookies (from Jls’ Mom and adapted slightly by me)

1 cup crunchy peanut butter
1 cup soft butter
1 cup white sugar
1 cup lightly-packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups old fashioned rolled oats
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tsp salt
1-1½ cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips

Cream together peanut butter, butter, white and brown sugar and brown sugar. Add eggs and vanilla , and beat until light and fluffy. In a separate bowl, combine oats, flour and baking soda and salt, and stir into peanut butter mixture. Add chocolate chips. Drop by spoonfuls onto silpat or parchment lined baking sheets. Place in oven at 350 degrees for 9-11 minutes or until lightly brown. Cool on rack. Makes 4 dozen.

My notes: These cookies are my favourite. And yes, I’ve already posted about them here and in ice cream form here, but they’re my favourite and it’s my party and I’ll post about them again if I want to. For those who are allergic to chocolate, (sad but true) substituting toasted pecans for the chocolate chips works well. In the past white chocolate chips and butterscotch chips have also been swapped in, but I like the chocolate ones best. If you don’t use chunky peanut butter, I’d suggest adding salted peanuts and omitting the salt.