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I had planned on taking the kids strawberry picking this weekend, but it got away from me, so I’m having a strawberry Pop-Tart instead. OK, OK, I’ve been eating Pop-Tarts for breakfast lately. Not everyday of course, but it has happened more than a couple times this past week. And it’s all Eva’s fault. Eva is one of our wonderful designers, and happens to have a thing for Pop-Tarts—the plain, unfrosted ones. The same ones I like. Now that she knows I like them, she’ll pop 2 in the toaster, one for her and one for me. Of course, they're not local, not green, not organic, not seasonal, not grown within 100 mile radius of the office, but occasionally oh so correct. Yummmm. To honor strawberry season, here’s a recipe for strawberry cobbler.
Fresh Strawberry Cobbler
Filling:
4 cups medium strawberries, hulled and quartered
1 cup sliced fresh peaches
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup orange juice
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
Biscuit topping:
1 cup all-purpose flour
3 tablespoon sugar, divided
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter, cut into pieces
1/2 cup buttermilk
Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. To prepare the filling, combine strawberries and next 5 ingredients in a medium bowl; stir well. Spoon strawberry mixture into a 10-inch deep-dish pie plate or 11 x 7-inch baking dish coated with cooking spray.
3. To prepare the biscuit topping, combine flour, 2 tablespoons sugar, baking powder and salt. Add butter, working with your fingers until mixture resembles coarse meal. Stir in buttermilk. Drop dough by tablespoons over strawberry mixture. Sprinkle with remaining sugar.
4. Bake 25 minutes or until strawberry mixture is bubbly and biscuits are browned. Serves 6.
Nutritional Information
Per serving: 230 calories, 6g fat, 4g prot., 43g carbs, 3g fiber, 390mg sodium.
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I’m not big on seasoning mixes, especially ones that tout themselves as alternatives to salt. But I am indeed crazy about Jane’s Original Mixed-Up Salt. It’s by Jane’s Krazy Mixed-Up Seasonings, so apparently Jane has some other varieties in her “crazy” line. My girlfriend, Sandi, turned me on to it. She keeps a bottle in the side drawer of her desk at the office. “Jane” is not going to divulge her mix, as the ingredient label lists salt, herbs and spiced, dehydrated onion, and dehydrated garlic. (How very coy of her.) All I know is it tastes natural and imparts a flavor regular salt doesn’t. For those of you who do care about sodium, it’s lower in that too, with 220 milligrams per ¼ teaspoon vs. 586 milligrams sodium in the same amount of table salt. Ooooh Sweet Jane.
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It’s the 75th anniversary of one of our favorite crackers—Ritz. What could be better than these buttery morsels? (Except their Ritz Bits Cheese Sandwiches, which I think are no longer available—drats.) I remember being intrigued by the Mock Apple Pie recipe on the box and wondering what it tasted like and how crackers could ever possibly resemble apples? Guess what, after 30 years of suspense, I finally got an answer, and yes, it does taste like apple pie. We tried in our test kitchen and were really surprised (and totally mystified to be quite honest) how crackers, sugar lemon juice and butter can transform into something that taste like apple pie. Now, it’s not the best apple pie we’ve ever had, not by a stretch, but if you find yourself without apples (and with Ritz crackers) and had a hankering for apple pie, it would suffice. Anybody else tried it or have a story? If so, please share.
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The range was on the blink the other night, so we had a no-cook dinner. The kids would have been thrilled with some pizza rolls tossed in the microwave, but since we had eaten Chinese take-out the night before, I had a taste for real food.
I found everything I needed in one quick trip to the store: A rotisserie chicken, a bag of mixed Italian salad greens, a red bell pepper and some microwaveable rice.
At home, I took the meat off the chicken, tossed it on top of the greens, drizzled some of the chicken juices over the salad, added a splash of balsamic vinegar, some roasted tomatoes and a little feta cheese. Served with the rice and red pepper strips, it made a tasty, fast meal.
Actually it was kind of fun, like when you have a can of beans in the pantry and not much else, or when the power goes out and you spend the night in candlelight.
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I was too tired after a 7-mile run the other night to do much cooking, so I went to Plan B with the defrosted boneless, skinless chicken thighs.
Tossing them into a hot oven with no seasoning was out of the question. In the pantry, I found a bottle of Pace Tequila Lime salsa, which gave me a good idea. I slathered three-quarters of a bottle on the chicken, scattered some feta cheese over it and baked it, uncovered, in a 425-degree oven for about 30 minutes. I microwaved corn tortillas in a damp paper towel for a minute or two, and we folded pieces of chicken in the tortillas.
Who knew a three-ingredient dinner could be so good? As my daughter said, oh my goodness, they were delicious.
I enjoyed mine with an icy Caguama, my beer of choice this month. It was a few days too late to call it a Cinco de Mayo meal, but we really liked it.
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Recipe writing and editing is an art. Getting someone from eggs and flour to dough to cookies takes more thought and effort than you might think.
Not long ago, I came across a recipe by British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver. It called for "a glug" of this and "a splashful" of that. I love Oliver's joie de vivre on the telly, as he might say, but I think readers need more guidance in print.
Still, I was intrigued to read an article in the New York Times about posting recipes on the social networking site Twitter.com, where posts are limited to just 140 characters. A woman in Northern Ireland has the formula down pat. Here's her "tweet" for a biscotti recipe:
Biscotti: mix 1/3c sug/3T oil/egg/t anise flavr; +c flour/t bkgpwdr. Roll log to fit bkgpan; pat down. 30m@375/190C. Slice~14; brwn+6m/side.
Isn't that something? I think it's a real feat, and the idea isn't wasted on us here at relish, where we strive to edit recipes into the fewest possible words without sacrificing clarity. We want to run as many recipes as we can in limited space.
In that spirit, we're printing more recipes in paragraph form rather than the standard recipe format. Let me know how you like it.
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That's way beyond my scope. I suggested an alternative: Let's cut out pictures of all the girls' faces and mount each one on a skewer, then we'll stick the skewers all over the cake.
As you can see in the picture, it was adorable -- and I'm happy to report it was the hit of the party.
Best of all, for me: No futzing with pastry bags and decorating tips, no huge mess to clean up. We just baked our favorite chocolate cake, frosted it and embellished it.
Sometimes mother is the necessity of invention.
So, the other day, Sam said, "Mom, would you rather be trapped in a cage with a lion for three days, or lick peanut butter off a hobo's foot?"
"Hmmmm," I said. "Neither sounds very attractive, so that's a tough choice. I guess I'd rather lick the peanut butter off a hobo's foot. That wouldn't necessarily kill me. What would you rather do?"
"I'd rather spend three days in a lion's cage," he said. "With the lion, I wouldn't have to eat peanut butter."
Sam hates peanut butter. For a parent, that's a bummer. PB&J has always been a parent's fall-back, when there's no lunch meat or you need something to eat portable to eat.
Peanut butter has more grown-up uses, too. When a friend told me she wanted a good peanut sauce recipe, I referred her to Laraine Perri's excellent Thai recipe published in the December 2008 issue. You'll find it here: http://www.relishmag.com/recipes/view/37028/thai-peanut-sauce.html. It's simple, fast and keeps a long time in the refrigerator. I like it with grilled chicken, beef, pork, shrimp, or tossed with noodles. And it's terrific with spring rolls!
Poor Sam. He may never know what he's missing
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