SHAMELESS REPEAT!!! I think for the second time!!!!

And just so youse know, you'll probably get this every spring from me because strawberry rhubarb pie is a Mother's Day tradition around here..... And it's just so darn good that even avowed rhubarb skeptics usually love this pie.

Because it's just melt-in-your-mouth delicious and makes folks smile and then they envision things like Ma Ingalls cutting up the "pie plant" and making pie for Pa and the crew....

This is from First National Bank's Pioneer Sculpture Garden in Omaha... The artist did a great job of depicting the mother's worry from below as her son monkeys around atop the wagonload of goods... One wagon FULL of stuff, the only things they could carry along to a new life... a new locale. Makes me feel ridiculously spoiled.

They picture songbirds returning and sunny skies and green grass (this is a fantasy for LONG MONTHS up here, but not as long as in Nebraska and Minnesota this year!!! Hugs to all my beloved Heartland folks who would really like SPRING...)

So we're re-doing this in honor of Mother's Day... because spring is a time of re-birth and remembrance and for those of us who no longer have Earthly mothers it's a time to remember the past and embrace God's future for us.

And make pie. Or cake. :)

What's not to love????

For our Rhubarb Extravaganza, we're playing with strawberries and rhubarb today, and that only makes the world a nicer place to live!!!!

First, use the crust recipe I gave you HERE for the pie crust because it's the best pie crust ever, and NO ONE can mess it up. Promise!

So here's the basic filling recipe... We're going to cook it on the stove top first (I do this with blueberry, cherry and raspberry pie filling too, to avoid runny fillings.... )  I use a deep dish pie pan so if you're using a standard glass Pyrex pie pan, you can cut the recipe by a third or so... But if math is NOT your forte, buy a bigger pan.  ;)

6 cups fresh or frozen rhubarb, cut in 1/2 inch slices
3 cups strawberries, sliced, fresh or frozen
1 1/4 cup sugar
2/3 cup flour
2 tablespoons butter

Cut rhubarb, mix with strawberries in large (4 quart) kettle....



Mix sugar and flour....

Heat rhubarb and strawberries over medium/low heat until the berries start to juice... then stir in flour/sugar mixture. Cover and simmer until hot. Add the butter, stirring now and again. Once mixture thickens and rhubarb turns somewhat translucent, it's ready for the pie pan!

Preheat oven to 425 degrees (hot oven)

Roll out bottom crust and place in pie pan. Pour in strawberry rhubarb mixture. Now you may top with a second crust, rolled out and placed over hot mixture. Cut 3 or 4 vent "slits" in crust, crimp edges and bake approximately 20 minutes... Pie does not take long because filling is cooked and hot.

OR....

Use the Dutch/French apple crumb topping recipe HERE to sprinkle on top.

 Bake same as above.

OR...

Roll out crust, cut into thin strips and criss cross over hot filling, creating traditional lattice work top. (That's my favorite way!)

I do crimp foil around the edges to avoid them getting burnt. I hate burnt edges.... And for the crumb topping, if it starts to brown, I lay a piece of foil over the top to protect the sugar.

No matter WHAT ELSE HAPPENS IN LIFE, we must protect the sugar!  :)

And here's a little gratuitous home-grown Northern sugar:

I hope everyone had a glorious Mother's Day, or as they say on the TV show "The Middle"... A glorious Day After Mother's Day when mom can do what she wants!

The coffee's on!

It's a good day to go vegetarian

I don't know how many of you are (or WERE) Grey's Anatomy fans, but folks got a shock when the main heartthrob of the show, played by Patrick Dempsey, was killed off. One of the most quoted lines of the show was, "it's a beautiful day to save lives." The line stuck with me because I thought it was obvious foreshadowing. I just didn't know it was foreshadowing for my diet. Ack!

Following my heart cath recently, I thought all was good. No need for stents. The doctor mentioned "one little problem" to discuss when I came in but ManO just heard no stent and I was loopy. All I remembered hearing was the nurses saying, "you can't beat genetics."

Turns out I have a 40% narrowing thanks to plaque in one of the branches of my heart arteries. I am very thankful it was found. But it wasn't what was causing my chest pain. Esophageal spasms are the culprit. But because of that coincidental pain, they found the silent time bomb just waiting to be 100%. I had time to do something about it. Ack! But PTL!

In order to keep cholesterol plaque at bay, reduce acid reflux, and lose weight, I decided it was a good day to save a life and go vegetarian. Thanks to a lot of wise counsel on Facebook, here from Kav and friends sending me cookbooks, it's easier than I expected.


I've had to withdraw from meat slowly as Kav advised. It's also really important not to go to just salads. The transition is doomed with just lettuce. You need enough protein, good fat (like olive oil or nuts), and carbs to keep you energized.You also can't go the other way.  You can gain weight as a   vegetarian because folks often still eat too much sugar and processed flour.

One of my first big experiments was for Cinco De Mayo. No day is worse for me. A day when wheat and corn products are in the forefront, everyone is having fun but me. This year was even worse. I couldn't find rice tortillas and there was the whole meat problem. But I cobbled together a solution.

Spring rolls saved the day and saved me carbs. Rice tortillas are 24 grams of carb. Spring roll wraps? SEVEN. So what began as a problem turned into a great lo-carb solution.Then the whole meat thing. That was a fairly easy solve thanks to ManO. I was just going to make spinach and cheese enchiladas with beans on the side. He suggested I add them in in order to make it seem like he got his meat. Another great solution and it let ManO feel like he had some say in the process.

It was rather ironic I used Italian marinara, Irish cheddar, Vietnamese spring roll wrappers and American veggies to celebrate a holiday that began when the Mexican Army beat the French.

I know you are wondering about the cheese. We'll see how it goes but I need to get extra calcium right now. Life is a challenge. But as I told a friend, if it came down to it, I'd rather have books than meat, books than meals. Make the meal pretty and I can survive.

AND I've lost almost ten pounds at a very safe clip so far without feeling starved.

Here's the recipe in easy steps:

Cinco de Mayo Enchiladas

1 package baby spinach
1/2 sweet onion
1 can pinto beans
1 package spring roll wrappers
1 lb or less cheddar cheese
1 cup and a half garlic spaghetti sauce or one can enchilada sauce
Cumin
Salt
Olive oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

     
Step 1: Saute onion in a tablespoon or two of olive oil. Cook down spinach in onion/oil mixture until wilted.

Step 2: Rinse beans then add to veggies. Set aside.


Step 3: Following directions on spring roll wrapper package, wet the wrappers one at a time.

Step 4: Fill with two heaping spoonsful (see picture) of veggie mixture.

Step 5: Top with a sprinkling of cheese and fold/roll as directed. Save remaining cheese for topping.

Step 6: Set rolls in olive oil greased 9x13 pan.

Step 7: Brush tops of rolls with olive oil.  Bake for 25 minutes at 350 until slightly browned. Remove from oven.

Step 8:  Pour enchilada sauce or combined marinara sauce, salt and cumin (to taste) over rolls. Top with cheese and put back in the oven another 10-15 minutes until cheese is melted. 

Step 9: Serve with a tablespoon of light sour cream and shredded lettuce.

So, have you ever tried to go vegetarian? What prompted the experience or what keeps you from going meatless? Any advice for newbies?

Revisiting the Confessions of Mad Tea Junkie

After chatting with Julie last week, I decided it was time for me to again share my love of tea, so I'm doing a repost today. The one thing I remember most about this post was that I actually rendered Ruthy speechless. Can you imagine that? So here we go again.

Hello. My name is Mindy, and I am a tea junkie.

It all started a few years ago, on a cruise, when I sampled some passion fruit and jasmine white tea. From there, I branched out to Earl and Lady Grey, black tea, green tea.... Then my SIL started push--er, distributing the good stuff.

Now, I buy my tea by the half-kilo. Currently, I have at least four different varieties on hand.

In the beginning, I had the simple ball tea strainer. Then I moved up to what I call my tea gnome. I love it's fine mesh and the fact that I don't have any leaves drifting through my tea. But that wasn't enough. I have to have my tea even when I travel. That's what the mesh spoon is for.

Sometimes, when I feel like living on the wild side, I use my three-piece tea cup. Its holes are large, so I always have tea leaves in my drink. But it's fun to change things up once in a while.

And then, there's my tea tin. This is how I travel with my tea. So far, I haven't been stopped.

Just look at this Cream Earl Green. So beautiful. And so good for you.

 Loads of antioxidants.



What's your beverage of choice? Your splurge? The one you've just gotta have? And how far will you go to make sure you have it?

Since this original post, I've increased the varieties I have on hand. I mean, sometimes a girl just needs a Buckingham Palace Garden Party in a cup or some good ol' Texas Iced Tea Blend. 

But you know what they say, it's all good. 

On the Road Rerun Recipe - Rhubarb Custard Pies

I intended to have a new recipe for you today - a great one, actually - but I'm on the road visiting family. And I really did plan ahead! I had my photos and recipes on a flash drive, all set to upload to the blog when we reached our hotel....but then left the flash drive at home. I know right where it is, sitting on my desk, but that doesn't help when I'm 1200 miles away!

So we'll have to wait for a couple weeks to see the new recipe :(

Meanwhile, though, I'm bringing this fabulous pie out to look at again. Someone my oldest son works with gave him ten pounds of rhubarb last week! I was in heaven...except that we were leaving on this trip east and had no time to bake my favorite rhubarb pie. So I put the rhubarb in the freezer - - 

(easy peasy, lemon squeezee: Wash the rhubarb, trim off the ends, cut into one-inch pieces and freeze.)

- - and I'll bake the pie when we get home.

 Until then, you can enjoy the pie for me!

Rhubarb Custard Pie

How do we know spring is almost here?

You've felt it, haven't you?

On one hand, there are spring bulbs pushing their way through last year's debris, and birds arriving from the south on gentle breezes.

On the other hand, Old Man Winter is holding tight with both hands, refusing to let go.

We'll have a sunny warm afternoon one day, and the next day winter will come roaring back with a biting north wind carrying snow on its tails.

Except as the weeks go by, the wind doesn't bite quite so hard, and the snow doesn't last quite as long....

Don't worry. Spring will come. God promised, and He always keeps His promises :)

But I'm getting antsy. I can't wait to get back to the trails in the Hills!

The view east from Mt. Rushmore - in warmer weather!

Meanwhile, I have the perfect tonic for our Spring Fever.

It isn't rhubarb season for a while, but I saved some of last year's just to make this pie. 

Totally worth the wait!

This recipe is from my mother-in-law's side of the family (don't we just love old family recipes around here?). When she gave it to me, she wrote on the card "Grandma Ebenhoeh." I think she meant her mother - my husband's grandmother - but it could very well be from her mother, as well.

Edith (on the left) with one of her sisters in the Nason House.

Before she married, Grandma was called Edith. She and one of her sisters - I'm not sure which one, but she had eight of them - worked at the biggest house in town as domestics. That would have been in the early 1910's.

After she married John, and for many years after that, she was called Mama by her fourteen children (thirteen survived to adulthood).

My mother-in-law remembers that she was a wonderful cook, and the meals were always plentiful and good on their Michigan farm.

One big trial of her life was World War Two. She had five sons, and two of them enlisted early in the war. You can imagine how hard those years were for her! But they survived the war, and all thirteen children married and had families of their own.

One of her daughters is a regular visitor to the cafe - Hi, Aunt Jane!

And, believe it or not, her birthday is March 20, the first day of Spring!

This recipe is fantastic, and the perfect accompaniment - not cure, sorry - for Spring Fever.

Grandma Ebenhoeh's Rhubarb Custard Pie

Ingredients:

Unbaked 9-inch pie shell (not prebaked - not for this pie)
2 eggs, well beaten
1 3/4 cup sugar
3 Tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 cups rhubarb - fresh or frozen
1 Tablespoon butter

If you use frozen rhubarb, thaw it and drain the juice.

Preheat your oven to 450°.

Get your pie shell ready. If you don't already know how to make your own pie crust, here's the step-by-step demo I did a while back: Jan's pie crust demo. Or you can always cheat and buy those refrigerated or frozen crusts from the store. (I won't tell Ruthy!)

Now, this is not a pudding or cream pie, so don't prebake the crust. Just have it ready for your filling.

In a large bowl, beat the eggs, and then add the rest of the ingredients - but save the rhubarb for last so you can get the rest well mixed before adding chunks of fruit.

This is your custardy goodness! Now add the rhubarb (see it in the strainer in the background?) and pour the whole kit and kaboodle into your pie crust.

Dot the top with butter, and it's ready to go in the oven.

There's one little detail I left out when I made my pie. I don't like brown crusts, so I always put strips of aluminum foil around the edge...except this time.

Brown crust. Sigh.

I got over it.

Stick the pie in your oven (450° - remember?) for 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes, reduce the temperature to 350°, and continue baking until it's done. That detail depends on your oven - anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes. How do you know it's done? Do the wiggle test. Gently move the oven shelf - if the filling moves like a water bed, it isn't done.

Let your pie cool - at least to room temperature - and then serve. We ate ours plain, but wouldn't it be great with a scoop of vanilla ice cream?

Now it's your turn. What is your favorite spring tonic?

Chicken Roulade, but first DEBONE the chicken!

Hi, everybody! The Fresh Pioneer is back and I have an interesting recipe for you. This is something I've eaten many times, even watched someone prepare twice, yet had never cooked it myself. Chicken roulade! It's always been one of my favorite dishes but I knew how much work there was to prepare it. Also, I couldn't remember the exact steps. So, when I saw this video being passed around on facebook, I thought, "NOW is the time." The video (if you don't want to click the link) is of Jacques Pepin deboning a chicken. It's actually pretty entertaining... and not just for his lovely accent.

 So, first ingredient is one whole chicken. We usually buy our fryers from a local farm but our freezer was all out of fryers and I wanted to make this for guests that night so... to the store I went! (This cost about $6, no kidding. The free range fryers are about $10 each, but it's worth it to know they're cruelty free. This one... not so much. Still tasted delicious, though!)

 So, per the video, I chopped off the wings at the join.

 Pull back the skin until the two bones are showing. I think we missed a photo here, but the next step is to pull back and remove the smaller bone.


Then peel the flesh down until the meat is at the end of the joint. Then cut at that joint. Pepin calls this the "lollipop" and he says it in his cute little French way. My children were calling this the loh-lee-pope all afternoon. Here, they are, raw. After this, you can roll them in egg and bread crumbs and fry. I did that while the roulade was cooking.

 Now, reached to the front of the chicken and find the wishbone. Usually, commercially produced fryers have the wishbone broken during processing so we were surprised to see this one intact. Bonus! My littlest were excited to see who got the wish.

 Unfortunately, neither one of them did. I think the bone was too fresh and bendy.

 Slice the chicken down the back.
                                 
Gently peel back the skin...

 ... until you see the "oysters". (See, I'm pointing them out. )

 The chicken breasts are exposed there. Remove them from the rib cage, which is pretty simple. Lay the chicken breast on a flat surface and hold down the white tendon with a rag or your thumb. Take a sharp knife and separate the breast from the tendon. This keeps the chicken filet from having that tough and chewy part when you cook it. Discard the white tendon (looks like a ribbon, but somehow I didn't get a picture.)
Now, hold the rib cage firmly and pull until it releases from the flesh. I don't know if Jacques is stronger than I am, or if the commercial chickens are less happy to give up their bones because I was sweating. But, eventually, the rib cage was removed.

 Now, back to the chicken legs. We were working with the wings before, remember? We're going to get all the bones out. Use the handle of the knife and break the bone right at the joint. You can easily remove the bone from the other side now and there's only the joint left without breaking the skin.

 Random photo of innards. I cooked them and the dog was very happy.

 Now, we have a chicken coat, no bones, no innards. All meat and skin.

 You can wrap it up like this, tie with ribbon, and cook it like this.

I made some stuffing out of a box. I know, not fancy, but i reallllly love stuffing from a box. I don't know why. I think it's because it reminds me of feasts at my neighbor's house when I was little. My friend Barbara always made stuffing from a box and to me, it tastes like "happy days"!

 

While the stuffing was cooking, I rolled the low-lee-popes in eggs and bread crumbs and fried them. Hmmmmm.

 This is the finished product. Everyone looked at it and decided they would take a pass. Again, the dog was thrilled.

 When the stuffing was done, I chopped up some spicy kielbasa, peeled a head of garlic, and stuffed it in the center of the chicken.

 Now, pull the skin tight and make sure the stuffing is falling out. (Hello, Virginia's tummy! Get ready! Something tasty is coming!)

 Bake at 350F for about an hour, depending on the size of your chicken. It cooks faster because there are no bones, but if you stuff it with something raw, like sausage or anything with raw egg, you'll want to sue a meat thermometer. I didn't have twine so as it was cooking the skin started to pull back. I kept basting it to keep it moist, but I knew it wouldn't be a perfect circle like it would have been if I tied it closed like Jacques does.

 Here's a shot of the sliced roulade. It's really one of the most delicious dishes and I was glad I made it. I think if I deboned chickens more often, the first part would go a lot faster, but this time it took about 30 minutes prep (which may have included a few trips back to review the video). Restaurant roulade is much tidier, and usually has a lovely "jellyroll" appearance but I was happy with how this turned out. Bonus- my house smelled amazing!

Sliced Fuji apples and orange sections were the perfect accompaniment (although a friend of mine promises that baby spinach salad and blue cheese dressing is the best pairing).
 So, I hope you enjoyed this little foray into deboning a chicken. Next week, maybe we'll debone something else!
Until next time!