Blackberry Pie Bars

I wanted to make a treat for dessert for my husband and kids and I had frozen blackberries in the freezer that the kids and I had picked last summer.  These bars were outstanding.  They were much easier to make then a pie, not having to make the dough and let it rest and then roll it out.  However I do highly recommened going to the extra step of zesting the lemon and rubbing the sugar in the zest it does make a difference.  In fact these were so good that we had to give some away so that I did not eat them all!

Blackberry Pie Bars with Lemon Sugar
Crust and Topping
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into cubes
zest of two lemons
Blackberry Filling
4 large eggs
2 cups sugar
1 cup buttermilk
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
pinch of salt
2  (16-ounce) packages frozen blackberries, defrosted and drained
(You can also use 6 cups of fresh blackberries, or 1 (16-ounce) package frozen blackberries and 3 cups of fresh blackberries)
To make the crust and topping-
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.  Grease a 9 x 13-inch backing pan with butter or cooking spray and set aside.  Zest two lemons.  Measure out the sugar onto a clean work surface.  Rub the lemon zest into the sugar with a bench scraper or the back of a spoon.  Rubbing the zest into the sugar will release oils from the zest and create a lemon scented sugar.
Combine lemon sugar, flour, salt and butter in an electric mixer fit with a paddle attachment.  Beat the ingredients on medium speed until the mixture looks dry and crumbly.
Reserve 1 1/2 cups of the crust mixture to use as the topping.  Press the remaining mixture into the bottom of the pan.  Bake the crust for 12 to 15 minutes until it is golden brown.  Let cool for 10 minutes while you make the filling.
To make the filling-
Whisk the eggs in a large bowl.  Add the sugar, buttermilk, flour and salt.  Gently fold in the blackberries.  Spoon the mixture evenly over the crust.  You may have to distribute the blackberries evenly around.
Sprinkle the reserved crust mixture evenly over the filling.  Bake for 45 to 55 minutes until the top is lightly browned.  Cool for 1 hour before slicing.
**If you’re using frozen berries, be sure to defrost and drain the excess liquid.  Place the frozen berries on a plate in the refrigerator overnight.  They’re defrosted and ready for bar baking!

Browned butter Blueberry Muffins

I love browned butter. If you want to make something taste really rich and decadent just use brown butter.  It is yummy deliciousness.  These muffins were really good.  Still not as good as the muffins that we had in south carolina this past summer but really good nonetheless.  If any of you have a really good blueberry muffin recipe let me know and I will try it out.  I am still looking for that elusive perfect blueberry muffin recipe.

Browned Butter Fresh Blueberry Muffins
makes 12 glorious muffins
7 Tablespoons unsalted butter
1/3 cup whole milk
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups fresh blueberries
For the Topping
3 Tablespoons cold, unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3 1/2 tablespoons sugar
Put a rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat oven to 375 degrees F.  Line muffin pan with paper or foil liners
Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat.  Keep an eye on the butter.  Melt and cook down the butter until little brown bits appear in the pan.  The crackling will subside and butter will begin to brown fairly quickly after that.  Keep a close eye.  Remove from heat.
Whisk milk, egg, yolk and vanilla until combined.  Add the brown butter and stir to combine.
Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl  Add milk and butter mixture all at one and stir gently to combine.  Gently but thoroughly fold in the blueberries.
Divide the batter among muffin cups and spread evenly.
To make the topping combine all of the ingredients in a bowl and rub together with your fingertips until crumbly.  Sprinkle evenly over the batter in the cups.
Bake until golden and crisp and a wooden pick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean, about 18-20 minutes.  Cool in pan on a rack for 15 minutes then remove from the pan.  Serve warm or at room temperature.

Turkey Pot Pie with Cream Cheese and Chive Biscuits

What do you do with leftover Turkey from Easter dinner, you make Turkey pot pie.  This meal was delicious.  The whole family ate it and enjoyed it, carrots and all.  I would make this again.  It was creamy stick to your bones man food.  The men in my house certainly appreciated me and the meal. 

Turkey Pot Pie with Cream Cheese and Chive Biscuits

For the Biscuits:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon granulated sugar

1/2 to 1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper (depending on how spicy you like your biscuits)

1/4 cup chopped fresh chives

1/4 cup (2 ounces) unsalted butter, cold and cut into cubes

4 ounces (half of a brick) cream cheese, cold

3/4 cup buttermilk, cold

For the Filling:

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

2 cups chicken broth

1 1/2 cups whole milk

4 ounces (half of a brick) cream cheese

salt and pepper to taste

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1/8 teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg

3 cups shredded turkey meat

2 tablespoons butter or olive oil

1 small onion, diced

1 small garlic clove, minced

1 1/2 cup thinly diced carrots

1 cup diced zucchini (optional)

1 1/2 cup frozen peas, thawed

Start by making the biscuits.  In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, sugar, black pepper, and chopped chives.

Add butter and cream cheese to the dry ingredients.  Use your fingers to quickly incorporate the fat into the flour.  Break up the butter and cream cheese with your fingers until some of the fat is the size of oat flakes and some of the fat is the size of small pebbles.

Make a small well in the center of the fat and flour mixture.  Add the buttermilk.  Using a fork, combine the wet and dry ingredients.  Try to moisten all of the flour bits with the liquid.  Dump the shaggy biscuit dough onto a lightly floured work surface.  Knead together until dough forms a disk about 1 1/2 inches thick.

Use a round, 1 1/2-inch biscuit cutter to cut biscuits.  Gather the dough scraps, knead for a few turns, and cut out more biscuits until no dough remains.  Place biscuits on a small cookie sheet and place in the fridge until ready to bake.

Next, make the filling.  Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Dice onion, garlic, carrots, zucchini, and thaw the frozen peas.  Set aside.

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt butter.  Whisk in the flour.  Mixture will be very thick.  Heat for 1 minute.  Turn flame to low and add the chicken stock.  Whisk until no flour bits remain.  Whisk in the milk and add the cream cheese.  Heat over medium low heat, stirring often, until cream cheese has melted and the mixture is the consistency of warm, thick pudding.  Add turkey, lemon, and nutmeg.  Stir.  Add salt and pepper to taste.   Remove mixture from heat and set aside.

In a medium skillet over medium heat, melt butter (or olive oil, if using).  Add onions and saute until translucent, about 3 minutes.  Add minced garlic and saute for one minute more.  Add carrots, zucchini, and peas.  Cook for  about 3 minutes.  The vegetables will not be entirely cooked through.  That’s ok!  Remove from heat and add vegetable mixture to the creamy turkey mixture.  Stir to combine.

Spoon filling into a 9×13-inch pan.  Remove the biscuits from the fridge and place them on top of the filling.  Brush the tops of the biscuits with heavy cream, buttermilk, or egg wash.

Bake for 20-23 minutes, or until biscuits are puffed and golden, and the sides of the pot pie are bubbling.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly before serving.

To reheat, preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.  Cover dish with foil and bake until warmed through, about 15 minutes.  Serve.

Turkey Pot Pie will last, well wrapped in the refrigerator, for up to 4 days.

Cheese, Vegetable and Chicken Fritatta

After making all these egg breads and desserts for Easter I had some eggs left in the fridge that needed to be used.  This recipe fit the bill since it used six eggs and is good for you.  I was actually shocked when my whole family ate this fritatta and said that it was good for supper.  I guess maybe my kids tastebuds or maturing, or maybe they were just really hungry!  Anyway it as easy, tasty and healthy!

Cheese, Vegetable and Chicken Fritatta

Ingredients

Frittata

• 1/2 cup assorted mushrooms, sliced thinly
• Olive oil spray
• 1/4 cup grated Romano cheese
• 1 large zucchini, sliced into half-moons
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1/4 cup white onion, diced
• 1 tablespoon Fresh basil, chopped
• 1 tablespoon Fresh oregano, chopped
• 1 tablespoon Fresh thyme, chopped
• 6 large eggs
• 1/4 cup 1% milk
• 1 precooked and cubed chicken breast 

Cast Iron Potato Kugel

Cast Iron Potato Kugel
Ingredients:
3 lb Yukon Gold potatoes, grated and drained 
3 jalapenos, diced
2 onions, sliced
4 eggs, beaten
2 tablespoons potato starch
1/3 cup matzo meal
salt
freshly ground black pepper

canola oil 
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350.  Saute the onion and peppers in a 12 inch cast iron skillet. Toss with the remaining ingredients. Pour into the pan. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until golden. Slice and serve.

Note: Potato starch and Matzo meal are sold year round but they are especially easy to find (and often on sale) right now because of Passover. I always stock up for the rest of the year, they always have great expiration dates.

My thoughts:

I love the idea of kugel but I am always disappointed. They always seem to end up gummy or mushy instead of creamy or not crispy enough at all. I was trying to think of a good way to get a very crispy outside while still preserving a creamy inside when I thought of my cast iron skillet. It worked perfectly. I wanted it to go with my Tex Mex pot roast so I threw some peppers in with the onions for some punch and sauteed them both to bring out their flavor. Because I used my cast iron skillet, it was super crispy on all sides and the top browned up wonderfully as well. Honestly, I can't put into words how much we liked this! We ate almost the entire pan of it in two days. Shameful, really.

Heavenly Chocolate Cake Roll

Heavenly Chocolate Cake Roll
Adapted from Jean Hewitt for The New York Times, June 8, 1975

Every time I have a slice of this cake, I wonder why we don’t make it more often. The realm of flourless cakes tends to be populated with brick-like truffle cakes but this one manages to be intensely chocolaty but also featherlight. They also tend to be flooded with butter and while you will never hear me complain about the presence of butter in a cake, the absence of it in this cake allows it to almost float away. We can’t let that happen, so it is anchored it with the most minimal frosting we know, whipped cream. The cold sweet cream against the airy bittersweet cake is, as far as I’m concerned, perfection itself. And it doesn’t exactly hurt that the cake looks like a pinwheel. Or a Yodel. Or a Ho-Ho. You know, whatever your poison may be.

Cake layer:
6 ounces semisweet bittersweet chocolate, chopped or 1 cup semi- or bittersweet chocolate chips
3 tablespoons water or strong coffee
6 large eggs, at room temperature, separated
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon table salt
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder, divided

Filling:
1 cup heavy or whipping cream
2 to 3 tablespoons powdered sugar (use more if you prefer a sweeter filling)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract or 1 to 2 tablespoons liqueur of your choice, such as Grand Marnier

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter or oil a 10-by-15-inch shallow baking or jellyroll pan. Line the bottom lengthwise with a piece of waxed or parchment paper that extends up the short sides one inch.

Melt chocolate with water or coffee in a small saucepan over very low heat until it is 75 percent melted. Remove from heat and stir until the remaining chocolate is smooth. Set aside to cool slightly.

Beat egg yolks with an electric mixer until pale and creamy. Add sugar gradually, and continue to beat until yolks are pale and ribbony. Gently stir the chocolate into the yolk mixture.

In a clean bowl with clean beaters, beat egg whites with salt until they hold stiff peaks. Stir 1/4 of egg white mixture into the chocolate-yolk mixture to lighten it. Fold the remaining whites into the cake batter in three additions. Pour batter into prepared pan and smooth top. Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes, or until cake layer feels dry (but very soft) to the touch and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. It will still seem a little underbaked.

Transfer to a cooling rack and cover the top with a light damp towel or two layers of damp paper towels for 10 minutes. Gently remove towels; don’t fuss if they have a bit of cake stuck to them. Run a knife around the edges of the cake. Sift one tablespoon cocoa over the top of the cake and cover the cake with a layer or waxed or parchment paper that is a little longer than the pan. Place the back of a baking sheet or a large flat tray over the waxed paper and invert the cake and paper onto it. Gently peel back the parchment or waxed paper that lined the pan. Sift the remaining tablespoon of cocoa powder over the underside of the cake and cover the layer with a thin tea or flour sack towel. Using the waxed or parchment paper underneath to help lift and roll the cake, roll the cake from short end to short end with the towel inside. Let cool completely.

Once cool, beat heavy cream with powdered sugar and vanilla until it holds stiff peaks. Get your serving plate ready and place it near your cake roll. Gently unroll chocolate cake and remove tea towel. [Try to get the tea towel to the hamper without touching anything, as it is saturated with smudgy cocoa and trust me, can mess up a white kitchen fast.] Spread whipped cream filling evenly over cake. Gently use waxed or parchment paper once again to reroll cake. Place on serving platter, seam side down.

If you’re fancier than us, you can now garnish it with shaved white or dark chocolate or even a drizzle of each, melted; raspberries are pretty too. Serve immediately in 1-inch thick slices or refrigerate until needed. This cake is best to serve on the first day it is made. It’s still delicious after that, but the whipped cream filling does begin to deflate a little into the cake spiral.

About this cake’s origin/name: When I first wrote about this cake in 2007, I was unable to find the original New York Times article my mother had clipped the recipe from but after finding an almost exact match of my mother’s recipe in a 2001 Gourmet, attributed the name and cake to it. Now that The New York Times online archives are in better order, I was able to find the actual article my mother read on a June day the year before I was born promising that you couldn’t go wrong if you made this heavenly chocolate dessert on Father’s Day. In this version, there are a bunch of minor changes, such as using coffee instead of water with the chocolate, vanilla extract in stead of Grand Marnier, and much less of it, more whipped cream filling (which I find unnecessary) but less sweetener in it (which I preferred) and the option to roll the cake from the short end, which my family always does. I prefer most of these original nuances, as that’s the way my mother always made it, but give some hybrid suggestions above. Neither recipe origin recommends pre-rolling the cake with a towel, but I picked that tip up from various food blogs and find it essential in virtually eliminating cake cracks.

Chicken Burritos

Chicken Burritos

Ingredients:

4 large tortillas
1 pound chicken breasts
1 medium carrot
1/2 cucumber
1 large onion
1 bell pepper
1 garlic clove
1 medium tomato
1 (canned) jalapeño
2 chicken bouillon cubes
2/3 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp cornstarch
2/3 cup corn
flat-leaf parsley
pepper & salt
sour cream
grated cheddar (to taste)

Directions:

Bring a pot of water to a boil and drop the bouillon cubes in there. My cubes are more flavor than saltness so I added a pinch of salt as well. Cook the chicken for 25 minutes—not too long or it’ll get really dry.


Don’t throw the broth away just yet. We’ll use it as the basis for the sauce.

Shred the chicken as soon as it’s cool enough to handle.

I turned the carrot, cucumber and bell pepper into match sticks. I cut half the onion in half-quarts and on the other side I finely minced the remaining onion, chopped the tomato and grated the garlic.

Heat a tbsp oil and saute the onion until translucent. Add the garlic and cook for another minute over low heat.

I finely minced a canned  jalapeño. This sucker was HOT! Canned worked great for me because it blends into the sauce. Add it to the onion.

Also add the chopped tomato, 2/3 tsp ground cumin and pour in 2 1/2 cups of the chicken broth. Season with a pinch of salt.

Bring it to a boil and let it simmer for 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes you stir some water into the cornstarch and add it to the sauce to thicken it. Let it simmer for another minute or two.

Gives you time to chop the flat-leaf parsley. Stir it into the sauce and turn off the heat.

Heat another 2 tbsp of oil and saute the carrot for 2 minutes before adding the bell pepper and onion. Cook for 4 minutes over medium high heat white stirring.


I wanted to see what adding cucumber would do. Worked like a charm. Added a wonderful crispness and freshness.

As soon as the veggies are properly cooked you stir in the cucumber sticks and the corn.

Pour 1/3 of the sauce in with the vegetables.

Add the shredded chicken, mix it all up and give it a few moments to heat through.


Normally I would lightly toast my tortillas for a minute in a hot non-stick skillet, no oil. But because I was gonna finish them in the oven I didn’t bother this time.

Divide the chicken and vegetable mix between the tortillas, sprinkle a little grated cheddar on top and roll them up to enclose the filling. Place them in an oven dish.

Spread the remaining sauce over the tortillas.

And top them with more grated cheddar to taste.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes at 400Fº (200Cº) until the filling is hot and the cheese has melted.
 

Looks good, but not quite finished yet. It needs a little somethin’ somethin’..

Like sour cream and more parsley! Now we’re talking.

What’s with the glare? I never said this would be healthy!

But it was fabulous alright. All things good rolled into one big burrito.

Baked Eggs

Baked Eggs

1bunch fresh asparagus, ends snapped off, and spears cut into 2-inch pieces

2tablespoons crème fraîche

Pinch of ground cumin, or to taste

6small eggs

¼cup finely grated Parmesan

1. Set the oven at 400 degrees. Have on hand 6 ramekins ( ½-cup capacity) and a small roasting pan. Bring a tea kettle of water to a boil.

2. Bring a large saucepan of salted water to a boil. Drop in the watercress and cook for 1 minute. With a slotted spoon, remove the watercress and transfer to a colander set over a bowl. (Do not drain the water). Rinse the watercress under cold water. With your hands, squeeze out the excess water. Chop the leaves finely; set aside.

3. In the same saucepan, cook the asparagus for 1 minute. Drain and rinse with cold water; set aside.

4. Add 1 teaspoon crème fraîche to each ramekin. Divide the watercress and asparagus among them. Sprinkle with cumin.

5. Break an egg into each ramekin and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and Parmesan. Set the dishes in the roasting pan and pour enough boiling water around the sides to come halfway up the dishes.

6. Bake the eggs for 12 to 14 minutes or until the whites are just firm to the touch. Set each ramekin on a small plate.