Posted in Recipes

Rhubarb Ginger Crumble Bars

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Have you ever tried rhubarb? I’ve met many people who had never tried it, and of those that have tasted it, it seems people have a love/hate relationship with it. If I had to describe rhubarb, I’d have to say it’s as if strawberry and celery had a child. It goes well in baked recipes paired with sweet berries, or in this case, zingy ginger.

This week at my office we’re having a bake sale and holding raffles for Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure®, ending with attendance at the race in DC. I’m thinking I might take a risk and make these rhubarb crumble bars. They’re pink and festive for breast cancer awareness, but will anyone buy them? Or maybe I’m secretly hoping no one buys them so I can eat them all.

You can use this recipe as a base and swap out any fruit you like. I prefer it with a touch of cardamom in the crumb topping, but you can swap it out with a different spice or omit it altogether. Pink peppercorn would go nicely and be extra-festive.

Baked Ratatouille with Morels

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I was given some dried morels from Marx Foods as part of their 5th Annual Morel Recipe Challenge and challenged to use these special mushrooms in a recipe where the primary method of cooking was baking.

You may not have heard of morels before. I have had a few dishes that used morels in a very special way, including a chicken fried steak with morel gravy, but it is not something that pops up on menus too often. Morels are great at soaking up whatever they’re in. They’re great, earthy, sponges.

From Marx Foods’ site:

Morel mushrooms have a honeycombed, hollow, cone-shaped cap from 1 to 3 inches high. They grow naturally in a range of colors from tan to almost-black. Morels are one of the most prized and beloved wild mushroom varieties. People go wild for their buttery-earthy flavor and aroma.

Unfortunately, their fresh season is fleeting, lasting roughly from May to July. Dried morels allow you to enjoy the flavor and beautiful appearance of morel mushrooms year round, and they’re very easy to rehydrate & cook with.

Dried mushrooms are a great value. It takes about 5 pounds of fresh mushrooms to create 8 ounces of dried mushrooms. In addition, they can be shipped much more affordably than fresh or frozen mushrooms.

One of my favorite savory, baked recipes is ratatouille. It’s a very flexible and predictable recipe that can be easily adapted to whatever ingredients you have on hand.

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The first recipe I tried was Ina Garten’s Chicken with Morels, but I realized that while it has baking steps in it, the ingredients are cooked stovetop more than in the oven. I used the chicken I created using that recipe in this dish, but any protein can be used. You can also leave out meat all together and serve it with more quinoa to get the same protein punch. This keeps great in the fridge for leftovers, or frozen into lunch-sized portions.

Go check out all the other entries in the 5th Annual Morel Recipe Challenge, and if you’re up for it, vote for my ratatouille!
Thanks again to Marx Foods for the chance to play around with this funky ingredient.

5th Annual Morel Challenge

Note: I was given the dried morels free of charge from Marx Foods, though all thoughts and recipes are my own.

Matcha Green Tea Cupcakes for St. Patrick’s Day ♣

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I usually don’t do anything for St. Patrick’s Day other than wear something green to avoid being pinched. This year, the holiday fell on a weekend and a delicious recipe popped up in my RSS Feed – these Matcha Green Tea Cupcakes from Oishii Treats.

I’ve been wanting to make green tea cupcakes for a while, but have been a bit wary. Green Tea is an acquired taste and I was worried how these would go over with my taste testers.

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I replaced half of the flour the recipe called for with whole wheat flour, which went well with the earthiness of the matcha, though it probably kept the cake from being more green. I also used almond milk instead of regular milk. Since green tea is an acquired taste, I opted to swirl the frosting so that it’d be half matcha and half regular cream cheese frosting. This kept the cupcake from being a matcha-overload while adding a nice flair.

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The best thing about these cupcakes are the smell. I love the way they smelled coming out of the oven and when I opened my carrier up to bring them in to the office. You’ll definitely want to use a nice quality matcha since they’re the star ingredient here. And, this is the way that you’re getting a dose of green, naturally!

Mini Blueberry Cheesecakes with Trefoils™ Cookie Crust

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The baking with Girl Scout Cookies® saga continues! Trefoils™ are sometimes seen as the plain, boring cookies that you always have extra boxes of after a booth sale. My sister had an extra box of Trefoils™ from last year and gave them to me on the condition that I bake something with them. Also, did you know that February 8th is National Girl Scout Cookie Day?

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I was a little burned out on chocolate, as crazy as that may sound, so I wanted to make something for my office for Valentine’s Day that was decadent, but lighter. I made my Mini Blackberry Cheesecakes recipe and replaced the blackberries with blueberries. I also replaced the vanilla wafer cookies with the buttery, fragrant Trefoils™ and added some almonds in too (omitting the almond extract in the original).

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It was easy to convince my office-mates to try these treats. The fruit on top makes it “healthy”; they’re bite-sized; they have Girl Scout Cookies® in them, which makes them “limited edition”. The crust on these are delicious and it goes well with the tanginess of the cheesecake and the tart berries.

Feel free to sub your favorite fruit on top or replace the cookies with what you have on hand. I had some extra filling and crust and swirled in some chocolate chips and crunchy cookie butter for a rich Valentine’s treat.

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Homemade Truffles

truffles_featureMy best friend Stephanie moved to Pittsburgh a few years ago. Even though I don’t see her as often as I used to, we make it a tradition to get together and make truffles every year (See: 2010, 2011). This was our third year, and we spent the weeks before deciding on flavors, shopping, and picking up packaging materials.

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No matter how much you plan in advance though, there are always some snags. We had a few last minute shopping trips, a recipe mis-calculation, and a slight shortage of boxes, but everything turned out great. I chose to make a Dark Chocolate Crunchy Biscoff truffle and Stephanie chose a Deep Milk Chocolate Earl Grey and Lavender truffle. Both were delicious (I’m not biased at all).

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This year we even remembered to print off some labels to put on the inside of the boxes so that recipients would know what they were eating. Extra truffles that didn’t fit in boxes were placed in bags. We also made just enough peppermint bark – some made in a cute rilakkuma chocolate mold, and some made in a brownie bite pan.

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The base recipe for these truffles are from a truffle making class that Stephanie and I attended at ACKC in Washington, DC on 5/25/10. These truffle recipes have served us well for the past three years, and we’ll continue to use them in the future.

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