Grandma's Rhubarb Crunch

This recipe comes from my Grandma Virginia.  Yesterday, Kristin and I decided to add a twist to my favorite of her recipes: Rhubarb Crunch.  Instead of using 4 cups rhubarb, we experimented with about 3 cups rhubarb and 2 cups fresh strawberries.  We also cut the sugar in half to accommodate the sweetness of the strawberries.  This is one of the most delicious dessert recipes out there, and we hope you'll try it!

If you are a fan of classic rhubarb crunch rather than strawberry-rhubarb, just stick with 4 cups of rhubarb and one full cup of white sugar in the fruit sauce.

Fruit Sauce Ingredients:
1/2 c. white sugar
2 Tbsp. cornstarch
1 c. water
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Combine water, vanilla, and sugar in a saucepan.  Cook over medium heat, gradually adding cornstarch.  Cook and stir for about five minutes, until the sauce is thick and somewhat clear.

Crunch Ingredients:
1 c. white flour
3/4 c. oats (most kinds of oatmeal will work)
1 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. melted butter
1 tsp. cinnamon

Mix ingredients together.  Place half of crunch mixture in the bottom of a greased baking dish.  Add 3 cups diced rhubarb and 2 cups diced strawberries.  Pour fruit sauce over the fruit and top with the remaining crunch topping.

Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.  Serve with vanilla ice cream, and enjoy!

Rosemary Focaccia and Black Bean Bell Pepper Soup

Although it's April, Bellingham still has a few stormy days in store.  To combat the rain, we made some warm comfort food: hearty black bean and bell pepper soup with lots of toppings, and very easy rosemary focaccia bread.

Black Bean Bell Pepper Soup


Ingredients:
1 medium onion, diced

4 cloves garlic, crushed

1 red bell pepper, diced

1 anaheim pepper, diced
cilantro leaves, roughly chopped

1 chipotle pepper (canned), minced

3 cans black beans, drained but not rinsed

1 can crushed tomatoes with green chiles

1 cup chicken broth (or vegetable broth)

salt and pepper

olive oil

turmeric
cayenne pepper

lemon juice from ½ lemon

Fry onions at medium heat in olive oil until translucent; add turmeric.  Add garlic, anaheim and bell peppers and sauté.


Add chicken broth, black beans, and salt and pepper to taste.  Simmer and stir in chipotle pepper, lemon juice and cayenne.  Both chipotle peppers and cayenne can be very spicy, so it's up to you how you want to balance these two spices.  Allow the soup to simmer and thicken, covered, for about a half an hour.  Before serving, stir in fresh cilantro leaves.

Top with:

Cilantro, sliced and salted avocado, grated cheddar cheese, and sour cream.

Rosemary Focaccia

For the focaccia, we cheated a bit and used a bread maker to prepare the dough.  If you have a bread maker, this is really simple: follow your bread maker's directions for preparing pizza dough.  Ours called for:
1 1/8 c. warm water
1 1/2 tbs. olive oil
1 1/2 tsp. salt
3 1/3 c. all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. sugar
1 1/2 tsp. yeast

While the dough is rising (it takes about an hour), you have plenty of time to cook the black bean soup.  When the dough is ready, sprinkle with cornmeal and spread it across a pizza stone or pizza pan to about 1/2 inch thickness.  

Press indentations into the dough with your fingers, and drizzle the dough with olive oil.  Sprinkle with dried rosemary and salt (we think ground salt crystals taste the best on this, and Trader Joe's pink salt looks pretty!)

Let the dough rise for 20 minutes.  Bake at 400 degrees until golden brown.  Enjoy!

Restaurant Inspired: Black Bean Wontons with Lemon Cilantro Pesto, Corn Salsa and Prawns

Welcome to our first blog post!

Way back in December, Kristin and I had lunch at a pub in Seattle where we tried an amazing black bean ravioli with prawns and cilantro pesto, and this is our attempt at recreating it.  It turns out black bean ravioli is hard to come by, so we thought we'd make our own using wonton wrappers from the grocery store (which are cheap and delicious).  We also added a little twist by making the cilantro pesto extra lemony, complementing the prawns.  The whole meal turned out fantastic, and we highly recommend trying it out yourself!  It might seem complicated, but each of the steps is actually very easy.  If you do give any of our recipes a try, please let us know how they turned out!

P.S: we're working on getting better at paying attention to measurements, sorry for the approximations this time.

Ingredients:

Black Bean Wontons:
1 package wonton wrappers
1 can black beans, drained
a few tablespoons Parmesan cheese (we used slivered rather than grated)
salt and pepper to taste

Cilantro Pesto:
about 2-3 heads of cilantro, removed from stems
juice of 1/2 a large lemon or 1 small lemon
1/2 cup slivered Parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil
1 clove garlic

Corn Salsa:
3 roma tomatoes, finely diced
1/3 red onion, finely diced
1 cup yellow frozen corn, defrosted and drained (use fresh if in season)

2/3 lb Prawns or Large Shrimp

To make the corn salsa, simply combine diced tomatoes, diced onion, and corn in a bowl.  Salt and pepper to taste.

To make the cilantro pesto, combine cilantro leaves, garlic and parmesan cheese in a food processor.  Add sufficient olive oil to coat the cilantro.  Add lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste.  Process until blended to a nice pesto texture.  Pesto is pretty subjective, so taste it and feel free to adjust measurements based on what you prefer.

To make the black bean wontons, mash black beans and parmesan together in a mixing bowl.  Add salt and pepper to taste.


Place about 1 tablespoon of bean mixture in the center of each wonton wrapper.  Moisten 2 adjacent edges of the wonton wrapper with water, and fold the wrapper over so that the wonton makes a triangle.  Seal and crimp the edges of the wonton wrapper with your fingers.

Fry wontons in a large frying pan in oil over medium-high heat, until both sides are browned and crispy.

While the wontons are cooking, preheat the oven to 425 F.  Line a baking sheet with a single, even layer of prawns, and drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper.  Bake for around 10 minutes (depending on size of prawns), until the prawns are opaque and pink throughout.

Top black bean wontons with lemon cilantro pesto, corn salsa and prawns, and enjoy!