Following Chef Christine's Strawberry-Rhubarb Crumble

I so wanted to make this strawberry-rhubarb crumble that chef Christine posted, but when I was ready to make this, we just got out of strawberry season. I don't remember why but I had to make cupcakes and used up last batch of fresh local strawberries. I thought I was out of luck till next year. Then last thursday, I was given a second chance.

Dave of Blue Mountain Farms brought ever-bearing strawberries at downtown farmer's market. They looked a little firm but still smelled wonderful. My rhubarb plant is still going strong, we always have lemon at hands, so with strawberries, rhubarb and lemon, I was ready to make this fabulous cake.
Please follow chef Christine's recipe word by word. I made this cake on Monday night after work, after dinner, while fighting my allergies. Hopefully that explains why I used 9 by 9 pan instead of 9 by 13 and the cake looks much thick rather than nice thin as chef Christine had.
Yeon pointing at her 9 by 13 pan: "Dan, is this pan 9 by 13? It looks awfully big." (Please remember I grew up with meters and centimeters and sometimes I still get confused).
Dan: That's not 9 by 13. It is bigger than that. (He has no excuse. He was probably not paying attention).
Yeon: "Okay. I guess I will use a smaller pan then."

I had minor modification as far as ingredients go:

• I had only 1 1/2 cups of fresh strawberries, and my rhubarb stalks are mostly green with red hue, which meant strawberry-rhubarb mixture was going to lack strawberry flavor and color. I added 3 tablespoon of home-made strawberry-balsamic jam to enhance color and flavor.
• When I combined wet ingredients together for cake batter, I added fresh lemon peels from one lemon. I cut down sugar to 3/4 cup in dry ingredient for the cake.

I placed a parchment paper and buttered it so that I can take the cake pieces out easily. I am not sure if it was necessary step or not, but they do come out very easily.

It is a wonderful recipe. Since it requires cooking strawberries and rhubarb briefly, I could try making it with frozen strawberries. And yes, I have a good amount strawberries that I froze this spring. Did I mention my rhubarb plant is still going strong?

Yeon

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Welcome Spring Dinner

Dan got a rib rack on Friday and decided to smoke/grill ribs. He has some beautiful shots of the ribs before and after cooking and hopefully will post them soon. Here I present you with the photos of side dishes that we prepared for the dinner with our friends on Saturday.

Photo by Dan

Deviled Eggs: stuffed with smoked salmon, chives and chervil. I picked up a chervil plant from Nancy in the morning and used some in the afternoon! I used Rainbow eggs from Nancy and Dave.

Photo by Dan

Mixed green and arugula from Rieko and Erland. Radishes from Rick in pickling juice (not quite ready that night but were delicious the next day). Strawberry dressing is made from strawberries that we picked from Glade-Link farm last year. The small blue bowl is from Shuck Pottery.

Photo by Dan

Grilled spring onions from Jim (Tomatoes et al), and three different asparagus from Chris, Rich, and Rick.

Photo by Dan

Strawberry and rhubarb cobbler. Rhubarb is from my garden. The original recipe was for rhubarb only and I modified it to work with half strawberries and half rhubarbs. The original recipe is from the Herbal Kitchen by Jerry Traunfeld. I made deviled eggs above following his recipe from the same book.

• 1 pound of rhubarb stalks, cut into 1/2 pieces
  
• 1 pound of strawberries (frozen ones from last year, thawed and dried to remove access water)
  
• 1/2 cup sugar
  
• 1/3 cup spearmint, chopped
  
• 2 TBS of unsalted butter, cut into small pieces)
  

Biscuits

• 1 cup all-purpose flower
• 2 tsp baking powder
  
• 1/4 tsp fine salt
  
• 5 TBS sugar
  
• 4 TBS unsalted butter
  
• 1/2 cup minus 1 TBS heavy cream
  

I introduced the strawberries since my green rhubarb doesn't stay pretty when cooked , and because strawberries and rhubarb go so well together. I cut down the content of sugar and spearmint.

1. Preheat the oven at 400F.
2. Mix rhubarb, strawberries, sugar, and mint in a 9 x 13 baking dish. Dot with butter. Bake for 20 minutes and the mixture is bubbly.
3. While rhubarb and strawberries are baking, make the biscuit dough. Mix flower, baking power, salt and sugar (only 4 TBS), and then cut into butter using your finger tips or pastry blender until the mixture resembles a coarse meal. Pour the cream and briefly mix so that they come together. Roughly divide the dough into 8 discs.
4. When you take out the baking dish following the step 2, arrange the discs you made from the step 3 on top of the hot rhubarb/strawberry mix. Sprinkle the remaining 1 TBS sugar on top of the biscuit disks. Bake for another 20 minutes, or until the biscuit is dark golden brown.

This cobbler is sweet and tart at the same time. Our neighbor Mike asked if there was mint in the cobbler, while Jackie didn't know till he mentioned it. It is a fun and easy recipe and I would like to try with fresh strawberries again. If I can get a hold of red rhubarb stalks, I might try the original recipe too.

Yeon

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