Archive for May, 2018

Rhubarb Time!

Wednesday, May 23rd, 2018

Have I mentioned lately that I LOVE rhubarb—and that my new book, Love, Laughter, and Rhubarb is coming out on Saturday?

I know I have—but I have to share another recipe here this week in anticipation of the book’s release!

I made these muffins twice this week, first on CT Style in New Haven, Connecticut, and then with my regular crew on Mass Appeal.

I’m suggesting that you watch the CT Style version because if you watch it you’ll see my nephew Michael. Michael has been acting as my intern for the past week and a half and will be with me through the book launch on Saturday.

He has helped me pack and mail books, pick rhubarb, weed the herb garden, move stuff around to prepare the house for the big day, and of course cook and cook and cook.

I have a feeling the other high-school seniors in his class have more traditional internships (without a lot of chopping or harvesting). The internship is supposed to show him what the business life of the person he is shadowing is like, however—and my business life is basically my personal life.

I guess there are worse lessons to learn than that!

Meanwhile, I am grateful for Michael. He is a teenager, and I am a set-in-her-ways slightly older person. So we have had a few tussles over priorities. We have basically had a wonderful time, however. And I’m very proud of him.

I can’t figure out how to embed the video below so that it fits exactly on my blog—but I’m still trying to embed it. You may also watch it by clicking on this link.

Happy rhubarb season! Thanks to all of you who have ordered my book. And if you haven’t yet done so, I’ll be happy to inscribe a copy for you. Here’s how to order.

Rhubarb Sugar-Top Muffins

Ingredients:

2 cups chopped rhubarb (fairly small pieces work best)
2 tablespoons confectioner’s sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) sweet butter
2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk
2 eggs
sanding sugar (or regular sugar if that’s all you have) as needed

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Toss the rhubarb in the confectioner’s sugar and set it aside. Melt the butter, and set it aside as well.

In a medium bowl combine the dry ingredients. Stir in the milk and then the eggs, one at a time. Stir in the melted butter, followed by the sugared rhubarb. Use a cookie scoop or a tablespoon to spoon the batter into lined muffin tins. Sprinkle sugar generously on top.

Bake until the muffins begin to brown on top and pass the toothpick test, 20 to 25 minutes. (If you want mini muffins, they may take a little less time.) Makes 12 to 36 muffins, depending on the size of your muffin tins.

This recipe recipe may be doubled.

We’ll Always Have Paris

Friday, May 11th, 2018

My mother (the farthest person to the right) and her friends at the French House at Mount Holyoke College in 1939.

On Mother’s Day—and on many other days of the year—I think fondly of my late mother. I often cook something she enjoyed making and eating.

When I was planning today’s Mother’s Day appearance on Mass Appeal, I thought of my mother’s love of Paris, a love she passed on to me, and decided to make crêpes. This classic Parisian street food can be savory or sweet.

I’m not the world’s best crêpe maker. My crêpes aren’t perfectly flat and even. They are good enough, however—and they’re delicious!

My mother first fell in love with Paris and France on a trip there after her freshman year at Mount Holyoke, escorted (along with several other students) by a professor and his wife.

She happily went back to Paris for her junior year abroad, acquiring such a flawless Parisian accent that she was mistaken for a Frenchwoman. (My French was pretty darn good, but French people always knew I was American.) And she returned again and again throughout her life.

Here’s a paragraph she wrote in a diary in 1953, when she visited the city as a young mother and went to see a play at the Comédie-Française:

During the intermission I wandered into the lobby and delighted my soul further as I looked out through the colonnades at the fountains in front. I felt as tho I were re-finding Paris as I had loved it! And the life—the magnetic life of the city as I saw it again wandering through the streets, the narrow streets thronged with shops and people.

I like to think that my crêpes would have delighted her soul, too! I can’t replicate those shops and people, but I like to think that I can recreate a little taste of Paris in her honor.

Making the crêpes on Mass Appeal didn’t go QUITE as planned. Live TV is live TV. I had an egg mishap, and I never got to turn the darn things on camera. We had fun anyway—and the end product was delicious.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Classic Savory or Sweet Crêpes

Ingredients:

for the crêpes:

2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup flour
2 tablespoons melted butter
more butter as needed

for the fillings:

lots of butter
grated Gruyère or Jarlsberg cheese OR lemon juice and sugar

Instructions:

Place the eggs in a blender, and blend them to mix them. Add the milk, salt, and flour, and blend again on low speed. Blend in the melted butter.

Cover your blender bowl, and let the batter sit for at least 30 minutes before making the crêpes.

When you are ready to cook, melt a small amount of butter in an 8-inch nonstick frying pan over medium-low heat. Spread the butter around with a pastry brush or a paper towel.

Pour a few tablespoons of batter into the middle of the pan. Swirl the pan around to distribute the batter as well as you can into an even, flat pancake. Cook for a couple of minutes, until the bottom is light brown and the edges left up easily; then flip the crêpe and let it cook on the other side.

Remove the crêpe from the pan, and let it cool on a plate or rack. Continue until you have used up your batter.

You may fill your crêpes to make them either savory or sweet. For savory crêpes (known as galettes), melt butter in an 8- or 10-inch nonstick frying pan. Spread it around as you did for the crêpes. Place 1 crêpe on the pan, let it cook for a few seconds in the butter, and then flip it over. Sprinkle grated cheese on top, and let it melt for a minute or so; then fold the crêpe over the cheese to make a half circle. Cook until the cheese melts; then remove the galette from the heat. Repeat with the remaining crêpes.

The process for making sweet crêpes is similar, but instead of putting cheese on the inside you will sprinkle sugar and a small amount of lemon juice inside each crêpe.

Makes about 10 crêpes.

And now the videos:

Tinky Starts the Crêpes on Mass Appeal

Tinky Finishes the Crêpes (more or less)

 

Coming VERY, VERY SOON!

Friday, May 4th, 2018

My new book comes out on May 26!

I will have copies next week. (I can’t wait!) If you have enjoyed this free blog over the years, please support me by purchasing a copy. If you really can’t stand rhubarb (surely not!), please consider asking your local library to order the book.

I know not everyone is a rhubarb lover–but I think everyone should be. Love, Laughter, and Rhubarb features not just recipes that have appeared on these pages but also a lot of brand-new unusual and usual recipes, from rhubarb pizza to coconut-rhubarb pie.

So … please order now! It is available from me in hardcover and from Amazon in kindle format. (It’s also available on Amazon in hardcover, but I make very little money that way–and I ship for free and autograph books. So please order from me.)

Here are the links:

Buy the book.

Buy the kindle.

If you are local to me (western Massachusetts) and would like to come to an event, those are detailed on my website I will be speaking at lots of bookstores and libraries–and will host the launch, the Hawley Rhubarb Matinee.

Thank you!