Meadowy sweet strawberry tart tastes like Spring

Ahh, one sweet word for the delayed balmy, spring weather.

No-bake.

Two sweet words together: No-bake dessert.

Recently, I found myself with just a handful of fresh strawberries left until the farmers market opened the next day. We have been gobbling them, as is, for a week, so I wanted to do something special with these stragglers.

And, like most recipes I love, I had almost everything I needed to make a strawberry tart. I really wanted those crispy ladyfinger cookies to make the crust, however, the grocery store I judiciously chose disappointed me, but only for a minute. It did have Moravian sugar cookies – paper thin and crispy, with a delicate touch of lemon. A perfect complement to the almonds in the base.

I snatched up a container of mascarpone cheese, and what is quite likely the briefest grocery store experience of my life, was done.

You probably have cream cheese around the house and you can use it for this recipe, but if you have the time and money (this stuff isn’t cheap), go for the mascarpone. It lends a lighter, fresher taste to the tart and works better as a partner to the fresh berries and rich crust.

Orange liqueur is a traditional favorite with strawberries, but since I was thinking of a green meadow dotted with nodding wildflowers, I reached for the St. Germaine elderflower liqueur. You need to check out this trendy ingredient, especially if you don’t care for the harsh taste of alcohol in your no-bake desserts. The flowery essence floats over your tongue instead of punching you in the tastebuds.

Even though you have to use two appliances, the tart comes together quickly. Refrigerate it for an hour and you’re ready to go. You definitely need more strawberries than this, but, like I said – stragglers.

Strawberry Tart with Almond Crust

6 oz. Moravian sugar cookies or crisp lady fingers

1/2 cup of toasted, unsalted almond slices

4 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted

1/2 cup whipping cream, cold

8 oz. mascarpone cheese

1/4 cup elderflower liqueur

pinch of salt

1/4 cup confectioners sugar

2 cups fresh strawberries, sliced

For the crust, place the cookies and almonds in a food processer and pulse four to five times until you have fine crumbs. Add the melted butter and pulse just until thoroughly combined.

Spread the crust in the bottom and up the sides of an 8-inch pie plate.

For the filling, place the cream, mascarpone, liqueur, salt and confectioner’s sugar in the bowl of a mixer. Whip until the mixture looks smooth. Spoon into the crust and top with fresh strawberries.

 

Spicy chicken helps you mellow out

It’s hard to believe that it has been 10 years since I made jerk chicken.

I know that because I made it for my husband’s pirate-themed 40th birthday party and well, this coming June, he’s hitting another milestone.

That was some party. I decided to do all the cooking for 30 people. Huh, now I know catering is not my vocation. I was so tired by the time the first guests arrived that I could barely throw the leis around their necks. And, as usual, the weather refused to cooperate. We could have sailed a pirate ship down the road during the deluge, but everyone gamely huddled under tents or crowded into the kitchen and den.

But that was some chicken, too. When the plan to grill it got washed out, It just got chucked into the oven, and kept warm on a buffet. You have to love a versatile dish.

Don’t get me wrong, making jerk chicken is labor-intensive with all that spice, and chopping and marinating. But the way the oil and vinegar turn even the scrawniest of chickens into a tender, moist, sweet and spicy bite of the islands is worth it.

For a little while last year, a couple ran a Caribbean take out joint just up the street. The curries, pili  pili and jerk chicken were outstanding. Unfortunately, like many mom-and-pop places, they folded quickly. So, to get my island fix, I’ll have to start slinging some spices.

I’ll admit, I don’t like food that makes me cry, so I don’t use anything stronger than pickled banana peppers in my jerk spice. You can even use the jarred, chopped sub sandwich pepper mix. I know those who love nuclear heat say that only Scotch bonnet peppers will do for authentic Jamaican cuisine. Well, y’all have fun donning gloves to chop and seed those lethal monsters. If you want that blistering heat, substitute 1/2 of a Scotch bonnet pepper for the banana peppers. And don’t rub your eyes.

Jerk Chicken

Marinate the chicken at least 6 hours before cooking. Overnight marinating is great too.

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup white vinegar

2 Tbsp. lime juice

1 Tbsp. ground allspice

1 Tbsp. whole allspice berries (dried)

2 tsps. salt

2 tsps. ground black pepper

1 Tbsp. finely chopped fresh ginger

2 tsp. brown sugar

1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

3 large sprigs of fresh thyme

5 green onions (green part only), chopped

3 cloves of garlic, chopped

1/4 cup of pickled banana peppers, drained and chopped

8 pieces of skin-on chicken, white or dark meat

Combine everything but the chicken in a gallon-size zipper bag. Seal and shake to thoroughly blend the ingredients. Add the chicken to the bag and marinate 6 to 24 hours in the refrigerator. Turn the bag and give it a quick massage two or three times during the marinating.

To bake the chicken, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and coat a roasting pan with cooking spray. Place the oven racks in the middle and top of the oven. Put the chicken and marinade in the pan, and cover tightly with foil. Bake on the middle rack for 30 minutes. Remove the foil. To brown the chicken, either move the chicken to the top rack of the oven and bake another 8-10 minutes, or place it under the broiler. Either way, turn the chicken once during the process. Strain the marinade to remove the allspice berries and thyme before serving.

You can grill the chicken for 15-18 minutes over medium-high heat, while basting it with the marinade.

Plants and cookies make new beginnings easier

I received the most touching gift from a fellow gardener this weekend, and it wasn’t a plant. Well, OK, it was a plant, but along with the blue-eyed grass came a huge 1958 edition of The Art of French Cooking.

Now, this is not Julia Child’s meticulous breakdown of classic French cuisine for American housewives. Oh no, my friend, Mary, gave me the real thing – recipes lifted verbatim from the masters of French cooking, with directions for squab and bombes, calves’ heads and tripe, jellied sole and saddle of veal.

Of course, she was grinning when she handed it to my husband. The book, you see, is in pristine condition, almost as perfect as when Mary’s husband handed it to his new bride years ago, expecting her to present guests with amazing feasts. However, with a brood of children and a huge yard just clamboring for thousands of hours of labor, Mary’s interests turned elsewhere.

As entertainment, this volume is priceless, especially since it has dozens of cool photos, including a roasted split squab that is decorated to look like a frog crouching on the platter. Funny stuff.

The touching thing is that Mary and her husband have wisely but reluctantly decided it’s time to down-size from their family home and garden and move to a retirement community. Every lifelong gardener has to be pried from their land, and Mary is no exception. She’s a little relieved that the housing market is so slow. It will give her time to adjust to the idea.

The silver lining is that her new home has a community garden. And even more silvery – most of the residents are more interested in bridge and field trips than toiling away in the dirt. So Mary can dig in, plan, scheme, exchange seeds and plants and bring a little of her home with her when she moves. It’s what every gardener wants.

And, I did find a simple recipe in the dessert section of Mary’s tome for almond crescents. You make your own almond paste instead of relying on the canned stuff.  I think I’ll whip her up a batch as a going-away, thank-you present, and maybe I can talk her into taking some of our extra obedient plant off my hands…

Almond Crescents (Croissants aux Amandes)

(I’ve updated the directions a bit to make things easier)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat

1 cup whole, raw almonds

1 cup powdered sugar

1 Tbsp. apricot jam

2 egg whites

1 tsp. vanilla

1/4 cup flour

2 additional egg whites, slightly beaten

1 cup slivered almonds (the flat slivers)

Put the almonds in a food processer and pulse until they form a fine paste. Scrape into the bowl of a stand mixer. On low speed, gradually add the sugar, then the apricot jam, and then the egg whites and vanilla. Divide the paste into pieces the size of a walnut and roll each one in the flour. On a sheet of waxed paper, use your palms to roll each ball into a finger-sized cylinder.  Brush with the beaten egg whites and roll in the slivered almonds. Place on the baking sheet and shape into a crescent. Bake for 10-12 minutes until cookies just begin to brown. Remove them from the sheet immediately to a cooling rack.

Sometimes, sausage is the answer

I know it’s perverse, but every time I eat sausage, I think about The Jungle, Upton Sinclair’s fiction-based-on-fact expose of the horrors of Midwest meat packing plants. I had to present a report on the book in junior high school, and it still freaks me out from time to time.

And yet, I continue to eat sausage. At least nowadays I try to buy it directly from the guy who raised the animals, or from one of those crunchy granola stores. It makes me feel a little virtuous. I won’t argue the merits of sausage with you. We all know that nutritionally, it doesn’t have a lot. But, like bacon, its blend of salty, earthy and spicy flavors can stand alone or lend themselves to a complex dish.

Sometimes, you can cheat and use “healthier” sausage. The other night, faced with some beautiful orange and yellow peppers, I decided it was time to stuff those babies. I  opted for sausage links made with chicken, spinach and roasted garlic. I figured, hey, the green vegetable is already in there – saves me a step. And the combination is a winner.

I like using red, orange or yellow peppers instead of green ones, which have a stronger taste and don’t get as soft during the baking stage.

To the usual ingredients -  sausage, rice, onions and garlic and cheese -  I added a handful of mixed dried fruit that included golden raisins, cherries, cranberries and blueberries. Bingo. The bites of fruit beautifully offset the savory ingredients. The sausage adds plenty of flavor to the stuffing mix, so be sure to taste it first before you add any salt. I didn’t add extra salt to the mixture.

If you have pepper haters in your family, this mixture also tastes great stuffed in a pita or a wrap.  And I managed to make it through the entire meal without thoughts of  – well, you know.

Chicken Stuffed Peppers

1/2 cup raw pumpkin seeds (almonds or pecans work too)

2 Tbsp. olive oil

4 chicken sauages (any flavor combination works well)

1 sweet onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, chopped

1/8 cup dry sherry

3 Tbsp. water

1/2 cup dried fruit, chopped if necessary

1 cup cooked brown rice

1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

4 yellow, orange or red peppers, sliced in half and seeded

Lightly coat a 9X13 casserole with cooking spray.

In a large skillet over medium heat, toast the nuts or seeds and set aside. Raise the heat to medium-high and add the olive oil.  Remove the casings from the sausages and crumble the meat into the pan. Saute about 8 minutes, until the chicken starts to brown. Lower the heat to medium-low and add the onion and garlic and saute another five minutes. Pour the stuffing into a large bowl. Keep the burner on and pour the sherry and water into the pan. Scrape up any brown bits from the bottom of the pan. When the liquid has been reduced by half, mix it into the stuffing, along with the rice and fruit, cheese and seeds. Cover and let sit for 20 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Slice a thin strip from the bottom of each pepper half to keep it level and steady and mound the stuffing in each half. Bake for 30 minutes and serve immediately.

 

 

 

Rise up and make cake

Don’t be afraid of cake. Making cake, that is.

Put that box down – I’m talking about scratch cake. Even if you don’t remember where you put the flour, or the difference between baking powder and baking soda, you can make cake. I swear.

As I have said many, many times, I am not the baker in this family. But, when I buckle down and follow directions – without getting distracted – things usually turn out of the pan well. And if they don’t, then I can scrape up the crumbs and make trifle.

It’s true, the first thing you have to put aside when starting a cake is fear. What if it doesn’t rise? Slice it, spread it with butter and toast it for breakfast. What if all the nuts or fruit fall to the bottom? Serve it upside down. (You can usually avoid this by dusting add-ins with flour before adding them to the batter.) What if it sticks to the pan? Well, icing is like bakers’ spackle and can hide a multitude of blemishes.

We baking impaired folks have learned some tricks – things natural bakers just know, like how to breathe. Here are a few things I’ve gleaned over the years:

If you’re using a hand mixer, don’t lift the beaters out of the bowl while the motor is still running. Seems obvious, but when my friend, Linda, and I tried to make our first cake, lo those many years ago, I pulled this trick. We spent an hour getting the batter off Mom’s walls, cabinets, and yes, ceiling. And the dog.

Use cake flour for traditional cakes that should be light and airy. Skip it for poundcake, which is prized for its density.

Don’t soften butter in the microwave. No matter how careful you are, parts of it will become liquid – no good for encasing sugar crystals, which create those delicious pockets.

You hear it over and over, but using a separate scoop to fill measuing cups with dry ingredients is imperative. If you just dip the cup in the flour or sugar, you’ll smash the ingredients in, and get a lopsided serving.

Don’t use eggs right out of the refrigerator. Let them come to room temperature. If you don’t have time, place them in a bowl of lukewarm water for five minutes.

No one likes to grease and flour pans. That’s why you have children. Make them do it – over the sink to catch the falling excess.

Get a cake tester. This really cheap gadget earns it keep. My mother used to break off a straw from our broom. I shudder to think of the times she probably used the working side of the straw. Tooth picks are too rough. Batter sticks to them, giving you the false impression that your cake needs more time in the oven.

There, that’s not really a scary list. And since I just found a huge jar of fig preserves from Ocracoke in the back of my cabinet, I’m going to share Ocracoke’s Island Inn’s recipe for fig preserves cake. Leave off the glaze if you want a great breakfast cake.

I’m also including a simple poundcake recipe that uses 7-Up. Of course, ’round here, you can use SunDrop. In fact, it’s expected…

Island Inn’s Fig Cake

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a tube cake pan.

3 eggs

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon, each, of nutmeg, allspice, cinnamon and salt

1 tsp. baking soda, dissolved in a little hot water

1/2 cup buttermilk

1 tsp. vanilla

1 cup fig preserves, chopped in necessary

1 cup nuts, chopped

Coat the nuts lightly with sifted flour and set aside. Beat the eggs until light yellow. Beat in sugar and oil. Sift the flour and spices and salt together. With beaters running, add 1/3 of the dry ingredients to the egg mixture, then add the dissolved baking soda and 1/3 of the buttermilk. Alternate adding the dry and wet ingredients until everything is combined. Fold in vanilla, fig preserves and nuts. Pour into pan and bake about 45 minutes. Let sit for 10 minutes. Run a thin knife around the edges and invert onto a plate. After five minutes, drizzle with the glaze. (You can poke some holes in the cake with the cake tester before you add the glaze, if you’d like)

While cake is baking, make the glaze:

1/4 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 tsp. baking soda

1 1/2 tsp. cornstarch

1/4 cup butter

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Combine everything except the vanilla in a saucepan over medium low heat, and bring to boil while stirring slowly but constantly. Immediately remove the pan from the heat and let cool about 20 minutes. Stir in the vanilla. Spoon over warm cake.

SunDrop Poundcake

1 1/2 cups butter, softened

3 cups sugar

3 cups flour

5 eggs

3/4 cup SunDrop

1 Tbsp. lemon juice

1 Tbsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease a bundt or tube pan. Cream the butter and sugar together until smooth and kind of shiny. Beat in flour, one cup at a time. Mix in eggs, one at a time. Gently fold in the SunDrop, lemon juice and vanilla. Pour into pan, and bake for one hour. Allow to cool in pan for 10 minutes before removing.

Love it and lose it – a new food mantra

My sister-in-law, Nancy, and her friend, Cheryl, dropped in for brief stay this week to rest their feet.

They are 558 miles into their thru-hike of the entire Appalachian Trail. It’s been seven weeks since we dropped them off at the beginning the trail in Georgia. Black toenails, lots of bruises and a few cuts from falling on slippery rocks are badges of honor for these two middle-aged warriors.

They have met dozens of great hikers, been awed by fabulous views, discouraged by lingering winter weather and disgusted by stinky people in overcrowded shelters.

It’s all good, and they’re heading back out as soon as Cheryl gets back from her son’s wedding in Las Vegas Tuesday.

Their biggest worry is food. Carrying it, eating enough of it, and having the energy to prepare it. They are probably burning 5,000-7,000 calories each day as they hike 11-19 miles, depending on the terrain.

Think about it, that’s three times the daily energy most of us use – even with moderate exercise.

Sure, they’ve got the usual high-calorie candy, gorp, peanut butter, various carbs and hot chocolate. But they’re still losing weight, and probably some muscle. We were pondering what portable foods they could add that wouldn’t weigh them down further than their 40-pound packs.

That’s an eye-opener – a group of women discussing ways to keep weight on; discussing food as fuel; talking about food at all without the usual self-depricating talk about our bodies. The very absense of that kind of self-abuse made me realize how common it is when women talk about these things.

And that’s a shame.

It’s no secret that I love food and I need to exercise more to make up for that love. And that’s the way I’m going to look at it from now on. Love it and lose it. It’s time for me, and maybe you. to stop picking ourselves apart and do some math. You want dessert? Of course you do. Figure out what you have to do to earn it.

I recently started swimming laps again, and I figure each 45-minute workout is burning 600 calories. So only on days that I swim, I know the carrot at the end of the stick can be some gooey French cheese, or a slice of cake or a rich casserole.

Let’s face it, I’m never going to hike the Appalachian Trail. Eating freezed-dried anything is just not my bag. And my DVR would fill up way too fast for me to keep up with my favorite shows.

But I’ve got a plan now. Let’s see how it works.

Here’s what we’re having for supper after my next swim:

Blue Cheese and Bacon Pies

524 calories each  – might have to throw in a couple of extra laps so I can have a glass of wine too

Makes four

6 slices bacon, cooked and chopped

1 8.5 oz. package corn muffin mix

2/3 cup all-purpose flour

1 tsp. dried thyme

1 egg, lightly beaten

1/4 cup milk

3 tart apples, sliced thin

1 Tbsp. olive oil

1/2 cup Gorgonzola cheese, crumbled

2 Tbsp. fresh chives, minced

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Grease a baking sheet.

Combine the muffin mix, flour, thyme, egg and milk and mix briefly into a stiff dough. Divide into four portions, place on baking sheet and using your fingers, flatten each piece into a roughly round shape. Top with apples, leaving a small border around edges. Turn the edges up to form the crust and brush edges with olive oil.

Bake for 10 minutes. Remove the baking sheet from the oven, and sprinkle the pies with bacon pieces and Gorgonzola crumbles. Return to the oven and bake another 5 to 7 minutes, until crust is golden brown. Sprinkle with chives and a little basalmic vinegar, if you’d like. Serve warm.

 

 

 

 

Guilt comes in all sizes of tubs

I suffered from ready-made guilt during my last grocery shopping trip.

It’s the feeling that you are the laziest person on earth for grabbing a tub of something that is extra easy to make at home – and tastes better without all those stabilizers. We’re not just talking easy, we’re talking relatively quick to make, too.

So, why do we all keeping slinging tubs of pimento cheese, onion dip, ham salad and, gulp, pudding, into our carts?

Can we really be at the point where even the briefest time it takes to stir milk into instant pudding, or onion soup mix into sour cream, is more than we can bear?

Let’s take ham salad. Throw some ham chunks in a food processer with gherkins and some onion. Slap in some mayonnaise, maybe a little mustard and voila, lunch for a few days.

Look in any church cookbook and you’ll find half a dozen recipes for pimento cheese. They’re all pretty good – and simple to make. I can understand the hesitancy of diving into making a chicken salad – though with the plethora of rotisserie chickens laying about even this dish is relatively streamlined.

Maybe it’s nostalgia for the taste of a familiar product you grew up with. Perhaps the extra sugar and stuff added to the mix has you hooked. But, really, when simple homemade goodness goes by the wayside, as it has with chocolate-chip cookies, aren’t we losing something a little more than heirloom recipes?

The tub of food that got me started on this downward spiral was tzatziki sauce, that simple, fresh Mediterranean concoction of yogurt, garlic, cucumber and dill. Really, with some vinegar and salt, that’s all you need for tzatziki sauce  – it’s a lot harder to spell than to make.

Sure, I could argue against making the stuff at home because cucumbers and dill aren’t in season -  but neither were the pieces they used in the pre-made stuff.

So, next time I get a hankering for something relatively easy to make, I’ll buy the raw ingredients and whip it up, I swear – except for that BBQ slaw. I mean, a girl’s got to have something.

Tzatziki Sauce

Use it as a topping for chicken in a pita, or a salad dressing, or on the side with grilled lamb or beef. It’s versatile.

1 cucumber, peeled, seeded and chopped coursely

1/2 tsp. salt

1 Tbsp. cider vinegar

1 clove garlic, minced

1 cup plain Greek yogurt

1 Tbsp. chopped fresh dill (don’t use dried)

salt to taste

Put the cucumber in a sieve, sprinkle with the salt and let drain for 20 minutes. Rinse the cucumber and pat it dry with a paper towel. Place the cucumber in a bowl, sprinkle with vinegar and stir gently. Add the garlic, yogurt and dill. Taste and add salt if needed. Refrigerate for an hour before serving.