Showing posts with label garden cooking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label garden cooking. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

Sandi's Fresh Rhubarb and Strawberry Pie

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It's our favorite time of year---RHUBARB TIME. This is a post from five years ago of our  Family's favorite pie/tart recipe. 
One of the first fresh fruits to ripen in the upper Midwest is Rhubarb. Tart and tangy it is one of our favorites.  This recipe includes some quick tips and variations.


We have two Rhubarb plants and they were huge, below is a photo from May12th I think, and they are 4 times as large now.


I always pick the biggest and reddest stalks for pie. The leaves immediately go to the compost pile.  A wonderful compliment to the rhubarb are strawberries, which are plentiful and reasonable right now. 


So, I just had to make some Strawberry/Rhubarb pie. At this point this recipe is mine or one learned long ago and from memory. 

Sandi’s Strawberry Rhubarb Pie or tart.   

Fills 2-8” pre-made pie crusts or one very large tart pan. (I allow thawing time for the pre-made pie crusts) A cookie crust adds some extra flavor in a tart. (I'll use a lemon/vanilla cookie recipe for tarts.)

Mix:
8 cups of diced rhubarb 
2 cups sugar or sweetner
½ tsp of salt

Stir in large microwaveable bowl. Cook on high for 4 min, and stir and then another 4 min on high. ( Pre-cooking the rhubarb gives a warm solution for the corn starch to dissolve and helps to shorten baking time).

Add:
4 cups of sliced cleaned strawberries
2 tsp of vanilla or more
Stir together into rhubarb

Make a mixture of
2 TBSP of cornstarch or thickener of your choice
½ tsp nutmeg
1 TBSP of cinnamon (we love cinnamon)
Stir into warm fruit until well mixed-
Split into pie shells or tart pan.

Mix 2 cups of rolled oats in bowl or chopper
1/2 cup of sugar
1/2 cup of flour
5 TBSP of cold oleo/butter
1 tsp cinnamon
(you could add chopped almonds to this also) 

Pulse in chopper or mix with a pastry cutter in bowl, until well mixed and crumbly.
Spread over fruit

Bake 1 hour to 1 hour 15 min at 350 degrees.

Serve with icecream/whip cream/ or cool whip.

Delicious warm or cold! 

As a girl when I stayed a summer in Denmark, we had rhubarb and strawberry treats all through the summer. Also, rhubarb pudding with fresh scraped vanilla bean was my favorite and of course drowned in rich cold cream. I will have to make that next!













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Thursday, October 4, 2018

Hearty Sweet Sour Beef Cabbage Soup

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We visited family in Wisconsin last weekend and came home with 6 cabbages and 3 bags of corn.
We didn't even try to plant cabbage in Chicagoland with such a late Spring and the quick hot temperatures. So, we were happy to have wonderful cabbages.
One of our favorite recipes is 

SWEET and SOUR BEEF CABBAGE SOUP!



Full bodied and hearty this soup is perfect for freezing. Steamy bowls served with bread or rolls, makes any chilly night the perfect night for soup.


Some of the ingredients for the soup, pretty simple list. I used my already canned tomatoes...and a bit of tomato paste, to add more flavor.


Such simple ingredients. Onions, Cabbage, Tomatoes. Not shown-Beef Bone Broth in a carton---This is the first time I used bone broth, but in this ritzy suburb it is hard to get anything with bones-everything is trimmed within an inch of it's life.


You can definitely use chopped fresh tomatoes, but all I had was yellow ones. So I stuck with the reds, I had canned.


The taste profile is enhanced with fresh ground pepper, canning salt, allspice whole, ground allspice, brown sugar, red wine vinegar, bay leaf, and garlic. 



Are you licking your lips now...I am.


Hearty, and full-flavored.


The allspice gives such a gentle flavor.
This is pretty much a mixture of several recipes I have used, and tweaked.

Prep Time with a chopper---15 min.
Cook Time 3 hours or crock pot it.
Servings 8-10

Ingredients:
  • 1# of sliced beef chuck roast or stew meat
  • Salt Pepper on the meat 
  • 2 Tbsp of oil to brown meat with
  • 1 32 oz. carton of Beef Bone Broth
  • 2 cups of Water
  • 1 large onion chopped (I use 1/2 yellow, 1/2 red)
  • 4-6 cloves of garlic minced.
  • 1 medium to large head of cabbage
  • 15 whole allspice berries
  • 3 quarts of chopped fresh tomatoes or equivalent from cans.
  • 1/4 cup of brown sugar (more if you like it sweet) our tomatoes were very sweet this year.
  • 1/4 cup red wine vinegar--I added a bit more as we like a tang---but you can do this at the end
  • 1/2 tsp black pepper
  • 1/2 tsp ground allspice
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 2-3 Tbsp of Tomato paste 
In heavy pot or frying pan---brown seasoned sliced meat in oil until browned on all sides. Remove meat and add chopped onions sprinkled with a little salt-cook until translucent. I added 1 cup of the water to the pan to rinse and remove all the 'good bits'. I transferred all to my soup pot: the meat and onions and liquid. (OR_You can transfer to crock pot here)

Add all the water, broth, cabbage and allspice berries. Sweat this down until the cabbage is tender after it reaches a boil, (1/2 hour or so).

Add the chopped or stewed tomatoes, and everything else, except the tomato paste. Season to taste. 

Cook down on simmer for another hour, or leave in crock pot on low all day---.
Stir in the tomato paste and heat through 15 more minutes, until thick and flavorful. Check seasonings, and remove the bay leaf. 

Serve piping hot---with crusty breads. Excellent frozen---and like all soups, better the second day!


No reason this couldn't be made with turkey, chicken, or ham, and appropriate broths with tomatoes.
We use smoked turkey legs instead of ham for veggie and bean soups. 

Excellent.

All the opinions and photographs in this blog are my own, unless otherwise designated. I have not been paid or reimbursed in anyway for my opinions, posts or any products shown or anywhere I shop.

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I will try and respond to every comment and answer every question.


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