Rhubarb: I'm not over it yet...

Yesterday we had a lovely Sunday supper out at Brenda and Larry's, it was a gray day and so a warm dinner with people I love fit the bill. It also gave me a chance to raid Brenda's rhubarb patch...and raid I did! Brenda made me stop and take a picture as I came across the yard with my bundle.

That's my I-LOVE-RHUBARB-MAHAHAHA face. Not exactly sure what Punk is up to but I think it goes along with my evil rhubarb laugh. 

As I pondered my rhubarb pile I wondered what would become of it...I did platz, crisp, frozen yogurt...time for jam!

First canning of the season!

I am pretty happy. Many of you know how much I love being a Suzy Homemaker and canning is totally in that category. Here is the first jam of the year...

Vanilla rhubarb jam with earl grey tea...so yummy! Tomorrow is rhubarb chutney. 

Now that the canning ball is rolling don't even think of trying to stop me!

Are you a canner? Maybe we could have a recipe swap! Leave a comment and let me know you're favorite canned good.

On the rocks

Lately I have been all about the cool drinks, right now there are two jars of iced coffee in the fridge as well as a jar of chai syrup. In the freezer we have multiple containers of ice cubes, as well as a tray of coffee ice cubes. Usually I just make wacky flavors of iced tea through out the summer but I think this year things are going to get a little more interesting!
I have yet to perfect my chai syrup recipe, but I thought I would share a recipe by one of my favorite bloggers...The Pioneer Woman! I started making this iced coffee last year and it was a hit.
This recipe makes enough for 12 servings, I can't drink that much in a day or even two, so I put it in mason jars in the fridge.

Iced Coffee
1/2 lb ground coffee
4 quarts cold water (that's 16 cups)

Mix together the coffee and water, cover, and let sit at room temperature for 8 hours. I usually mix it up before I got to bed and let it sit overnight.
Strain the coffee through a mesh strainer lined with cheesecloth. Pour the strained coffee into a jug or jars and chill.

To make an iced coffee: This is where it gets fun! You can add anything. If you like your coffee straight up black, then just pour it over ice and enjoy. Or add some milk, any percent, and from any source (cow/soy/nut). Maybe you want it a little sweeter, stir in some sugar (white or brown), honey, agave nectar, or if you're feeling decadent (which I usually am) a spoonful of sweetened condensed milk!

Enjoy!

Rhubarb...the food really schmecks!

A few weeks I wrote all about crisps and my love for them. Well, here I am again with a different recipe, all because of rhubarb (which I also expressed my love for in a previous post). This is a recipe specific to rhubarb. It's the one my Granny uses, my Dad uses, Zoe uses and the one that Bread & Circuses used. How's that for a guarantee of deliciousness?
It's from this book:

Schmeck is a Mennonite word used to describe something yummy and flavorful. Schmecker is slang for something else that is not yummy or delciouus, so just beware. It's schmeck, not schmecker.
With the last of my rhubarb from Brenda I whipped up 4 of these crisps to have in the freezer for spontaneous treats. I thought I'd share the recipe and also encourage you to seek out some rhubarb! If you don't know any who has a rhubarb plant and if you don't have one of your own, the do sell it at Tall Grass Bakery at the Forks.
Edna Staebler's Rhubarb Crisp
Makes 1 9x9 pan

1 cup flour
1 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 cup butter, melted
3/4 cup white sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 cup cold water
1 teaspoon grated orange zest
3 cups chopped rhubarb
1 1/2 cups sliced peeled apples

In a bowl, combine flour, oats, brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg; stir in the butter. Press half of the mixture into the bottom of a 9 inch square baking pan.
In a small saucepan, combine the sugar with the cornstarch. Whisk in the water and the orange zest. Bring to a simmer, reduce heat and cook for 5 minutes, whisking constantly.
In another bowl, toss together the rhubarb and apple pieces. Arrange over the base. Pour the sauce over the top; sprinkle with the remaining crumble mixture. Bake at 350F for 50-60 minutes or until the top is golden and fruit is tender.
Serve with ice cream or greek yogurt!
Enjoy!

Sibling + Stacey Picnic

 Here we are...

We were together in the beginning, and now more than two decades later we are still together. That amazes me. 

I feel that this is the beginning of many more Sibling Picnics...

Long weekends are for picnicing

Zach whittling us a marshmallow stick

Happy long weekend everyone! I had great plans to celebrate Victoria Day by educating myself further with Queen Victoria's life and eating some English food, alas the plans never made it out into the world. Instead I picnic-ed! Yesterday was a supper picnic with my people at St. Vital park. It was pretty perfect.
Stacey indulged my strange enjoyment of catching a red pepper on a knife by repeatedly throwing a poor pepper at me. It's not like it was that hard of a feat, but clearly it cracked me up!

Today is another picnic, it has been a few years in the making and therefore is bound to be epic. It's a siblings picnic! Zoe and I, plus our siblings and their partners. 

What have you all been up this weekend? And don't be shy, remain anonymous if you need to, I would love to hear from you!

It's arrived...

Just a quick post to say...THE RHUBARB IS HERE! I saw Brenda this morning and she gave me the best treat EVER.

A huge bundle of rhubarb!
I am off to work now but I have my recipes picked out...

Tomorrow is going to be a very delicious day!

Mother's Day

 Hi Everyone! Hope you all had a great day yesterday celebrating Mamas! Zach cooked us a delcious feast, seriously good.

Grilled Zucchini Salad

Roasted Vegetables

Homemade Saffron Pasta with Spiced Butter

Pickerel Cheeks with Chermoula Sauce

and a Lemon Tart 

Halfway through eating Mom announced she wished she was a cow. Because then she would have four stomachs to fill with yumminess. That's possibly the greatest compliment!

Mom counting off which dish she would fill each of her four stomachs with

Thank you Zach for the delicious meal and Mama for all your hard work! I'm sending out waves of gratitude and appreciation!

Crisp

I have a thing for crisps, I will eat them at anytime and with any kind of fruit. When my Mom used to bake for us crisps were frequent, they were usually sweetened with honey and maple syrup and therefore made a perfect breakfast. At the bakery they used to make rhubarb crisp, which for me is the ultimate, I ate many bowlfuls.
I noticed a few brown pears in the fruit bowl, neither Zoe and I are brown fruit eaters...in fact I prefer my fruit quite green. So instead of waiting till their were complete mush I turned them into a crisp!
Crisps are so handy for using up "older" fruit, the flavor combinations are endless.  You can do it with fresh fruit, frozen fruit, dried fruit, I just love it! This is a loose recipe, meaning it is very adaptable and can be made for two people or ten and with any kind of fruit!
For my crisp this morning I combined my three brown pears, an apple, some orange zest, a splash of vanilla extract and a tablespoon of brown sugar. Then tasted it, and adjusted. No crisp you make this way will ever be the same. Depending on the season you will need more or less sweetener, sometimes if you are using frozen fruit or 'juicy' fruit you will need to add a tablespoon or so of flour to thicken the juices as it cooks. If you want to make enough crisp to fill a 9x13 pan, use the pan to measure how much fruit you need cut. Just cut the fruit right into the pan and stop when its full, add you extras (sweetener, zests, extracts, spices) and voila the base for a crisp!
Now for the topping! Here is the basic recipe I use. It makes enough topping to cover a 9x13 crisp. Depending on the size of you dish you can halve it or just make the full recipe and freeze the remaining for a later crisp.

1 1/2 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup flour
1 cup packed brown sugar
spices - cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger
pinch of salt
nuts (optional) - I added walnuts to mine
1 cup butter

Mix the dry ingredients. Cut in the butter, either with a pastry blender, two knives, or your fingers, until it resembles coarse crumbs. Add the nuts in. Sprinkle on top of the fruit. Bake at 375 until brown and bubbly, a 9x13 pan will probably take around 45 minutes.

I prefer my crisps with greek yogurt, both for breakfast and dessert. But it works with ice cream, plain, or with vanilla sauce. And enjoy!

Did you know that pretty bowls make food taste even better?

If you make this please let me know, I'd love to hear your fruit combinations! Be creative!

May Day

Here we are on May 8th already! My birthday countdown has officially began (52 days!) and spring has definitely sprung. They view from the apartment is now of freshly popped green trees, and they just keep getting greener with the frequent rain. 

On Sunday we went out to the country to celebrate May Day and to dance the May pole. It's possibly one of the most fun things to celebrate.

Everyone had a smile on their face as we went round and round!

We may be the only people in MB who do this and if that makes us strange, then so be it! I would much rather be strange and doing what makes me happy, then holding it in for the sake of normalcy.
                                       

Welcome to May! I think it will be a good one!

New Orleans Part 2

 I am not a photographer, I take factual pictures, definitely not artful. Which is okay because, lucky for me, I have a few people in my life that are fantastic photographers. Nathalie is one of those people and she was snapping away on our trip to New Orleans! She got the pictures developed a few weeks ago and I have to share a few because she really captured the trip. 

This one is definitely my favorite!

 Wow. Great job, Nate!

Finally a recipe!

I wanted to share this soup recipe with you today, it has two of my favorite ingredients in it...beans and yogurt! It is a very simple recipe and is quite satisfying, I actually ate it for breakfast this morning!

Yogurt Soup with Rice and Chickpeas
from Claudia Roden's Tamarind & Saffron
serves 6

100g rice (about 1/2 cup), cooked

4 cups chicken stock, homemade or bought

2 cups thick plain yogurt, not non-fat (I usually use something in the range of 6% - 11% milk fat)

2 tablespoons flour

 2 egg yolks

pepper and salt

14 oz can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

Bring the chicken stock to a boil in large pot, reduce to a very low heat.
In a bowl whisk together the yogurt, flour and egg yolks. Season with salt and pepper.
Whisk a bit of the hot stock into the yogurt mixture, just to bring it closer to the temperature of the stock. Then pour the yogurt mixture into the broth. Stir, allowing to the soup to cook until it thickens slightly.
Right before serving stir in the rice and chickpeas and heat through.

There you go! Have a great day!

Big plans...

Hello out there! I apologize for the lack of blogging, as some you know I started a new job last week and am still adjusting to a new schedule. I had such good intentions for this evening, in terms of blogging, but I ditched it all to have a spontaneous dinner with my family! So instead of testing out a new recipe and posting it here, I spent the evening with the top 3 on my list! But I promise by tomorrow morning there will be a new post including a recipe.

For now, check out the latest addition to the windowsill garden...I'm lucky to have a brother with more than just a green thumb!