I spent the weekend baking.

I made some sourdough bread and braided it.

(but no picture.:( )

I made MORE bacon/peanut butter cookies and added a design so that they looked really pretty-

I like the way they look in the mason cookie jar!

And I made the bacon toffee/brittle but added some mixed nuts and cooled it on a black marble slab.  That looks very good and tastes, well, interesting and good.

And then I made salsa verde with tomatillos –

and used it to season pork enchiladas.

Shredded pork enchiladas and cheese and onion enchiladas.

Here are a couple of recipes if you are interested.

Salsa Verde

10 medium sized tomatillas, peeled and washed.

1/2 chopped onion

2 jalapeno peppers,seeded, roasted, peeled, chopped

1 small bunch cilantro

2 TBS lime juice

1 tsp sugar

salt and pepper

Broil the tomatillos, cut in half and the peppers until browned under the broiler.

Put all ingredients in processor for just a few turns, until everything is uniform in size and mixed, but not smooth.

Use with enchiladas or with corn chips as a dip.

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Brown enchilada sauce

1/4 cup vegetable oil

2 TBS all purpose flour

1 teaspoon each of cumin, garlic and oregano

2 TBS chili powder

2 cups chicken broth, or water

Heat oil in cast iron skillet (or heavy bottom pan), add flour and stir for about 3 minutes on medium heat, making a roux.  Stir until lightly browned and add spices, stirring constantly so they don’t clump or burn. Add broth or water slowly, stirring until your paste becomes a sauce and cook over low heat until it comes to a slow boil.  Boil, stirring until some of the liquid evaporates and you have a luscious gravy.

Pour a little in the bottom of your enchilada pan, roll up your cheese and green onions or shredded pork or chicken with a little salsa verde into warm corn tortillas and place next to each other, rolled end down.  Pour sauce over top and bake at 350 F for about 12 minutes – until heated through and bubbly- sprinkle cheese on top and broil for another couple of minutes and YUM- Enchiladas!

Sorry Luke, I couldn’t help myself.  I love these cookies and wanted to share the recipe.

Some of my family has a bacon obsession.  We think any recipe would be better if you only add some bacon.  My great nephew Taylor probably is most afflicted of  us all- his facebook posts have a common bacon theme when he posts about food.   After he posted a picture about carmelized bacon on top of his ice cream, I decided to make a peanut butter and bacon cookie.

There were already a couple of recipes on the cooking blogs- so I kind of used bits and pieces from them and added them to my own tried and true peanut butter cookie recipe and using an entire pound of bacon made them up last week.

It was hard putting all that bacon into one recipe- Jordan snatched a piece before I got it all chopped up- but I wanted to try the cookies so minus one piece the pound of bacon went into the bowl.

The cookies are delicious.  The bacon is empowering rather than over powering and they are substantial and filling.  This is not a cookie for the faint of heart or vegetarians, admittedly– but if you like bacon and peanut butter- you might want to give this recipe a try.

( I didn’t tell my husband about the bacon and he raved about how good the cookies were… I gave a sample to my knitting group and they really liked them, but couldn’t identify the bacon immediately.  So- not sure if I want to take out some PB or add some more bacon.  I think I like them just the way they are.)

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Recipe

Ingredients:
1 lb bacon- fried, drained, crumbled ( reserve the fat)
2 1/2 cups self raising flour
1/2 tsp each of baking powder and soda
1 stick of butter- room temp.
8 TBS of cool bacon fat
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
1 cup peanut butter
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup chopped peanuts
1 cup peanut morsels
turbinado sugar for garnish
Method:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Mix together dry ingredients and whisk. In a separate bowl cream butter, bacon fat and sugars until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla and mix well. Add bacon and peanut butter and again mix well.
Add dry mixture, 1/3 at a time and stir until it is all incorporated. Add peanut morsels and chopped peanuts.
Drop by tablespoon or make into walnut sized balls and place on cookie tray lined with parchment paper.
Bake for about 8-12 minutes. If you like your cookies a little browner go for the 12 minutes, otherwise keep an eye on them after about 8 minutes.
I wasn’t sure about adding the bacon fat, but I used apple wood and sugar cured bacon and it added a depth of flavor that is really good. Let me know what you think when you try them!

-keep an eye on them while in the oven- they brown up quickly

The ultimate cookie for those with a bacon obsession!

If you make them, let me know what you think.  If you think I’m a little nuts-

share that, too. 

If you are embarrassed by my strange obsession- again, I’m sorry, Luke.

It doesn’t really matter what language you use, these thin and flexible pancakes are always welcomed with a smile and ready appetite!

They take a while to make, because you cook each one individually- usually, by the time I’m doing the last pancakes, the rest have been gobbled down.  I try to save the last two for me, but sometimes, I only get the messed up one ( hah- purposely done!).

The recipe I’m sharing is so easy- it uses club soda for leavening and leaves out butter altogether.  Celia at Fig Jam and Lime Cordial has a wonderful recipe for Lemonade Scones using the same principle- in Australia, Lemonade= lemon/lime soda- like Seven-Up or Sprite.  Try her scones- only3 ingredients and they are great.

Here is the recipe for the palacsinta (pal- ah-sheen-ka )

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose (plain) flour

1 egg

1 cup milk

pinch sea salt

1/2 cup club soda or seltzer water

Vegetable oil for griddle

fresh fruit or preserves

confectioner’s sugar or cinnamon sugar for garnish

Method:

Stir flour into a bowl.  Add egg, milk and salt.  Beat gently until smooth.  Add seltzer or club soda.  Beat batter with wooden spoon until smooth.  Put batter in cool place and allow it to rest for 10 to 15 minutes.

Pour some oil into skillet and allow it to get very hot, but not smoking.  Pour in a small amount  of batter, thinly covering  bottom of pan.  Cook in hot oil until crisp.  Turn pancake over and fry on other side.  Add oil as necessary.  If batter begins to thicken, thin it with a small amount of club soda.

Spread pancakes with your favorite preserves, or you can use fresh fruit- I used sugared peaches on ours.  They may be rolled up or folded in half.  Sprinkle pancakes with  icing/powered sugar or cinnamon sugar and enjoy!

This recipe should make 12 very thin pancakes- Palacsinta!

Growing up in the greenhouse business, I didn’t get a lot of exposure to heirloom tomatoes.  Our business was to sell the best growing and producing vegetables- and in the late fifties and sixties (1950’s-1960’s) that meant hybrids.  We had Marglobes and Rutgers, Jubilee, Big boy, Early girl- all hybridized to give large, virtually seedless, and consistent fruit.  The idea was not to preserve the past, but to improve the tomato!

That has changed in these times of organic, local, and heritage vegetable consumers.  Now there is a great emphasis on the old stock of tomatoes and there are businesses that only sell heirloom seeds – which I like- but there is also the question on the use of these tomatoes- some of which have strange shapes that make cutting difficult. 

There is also the dense center vein and the blossom cavity at the bottom of the heirloom beefsteak tomato that makes using them a challenge.

Cutting these areas out greatly diminishes the usablility of the heirlooms- you sometimes end up with only half of the vegetable that can be used in a recipe.

I have found that the flavor and the historical romance is worth the inconvenience of the waste- and have found a way to utilize even the “wastage” by cooking them up into a sauce that can be used in soups or spiced up with herbs, onions and garlic to make into a pasta sauce.  If you are making a salsa, use the pretty part of the tomato for your recipe and save the cut away portions to cook down later.

For this salsa recipe, I used these tomatoes, pepper, and onion.

Normally, I would use jalapeno peppers, but this yellow pepper was supposed to be sweet- and when I cut into it to use for a different recipe, the veins and smell told me otherwise.  One touch of my finger to my tongue gave the secret away completely- HOT!!- very HOT!   So I decided to use it in my salsa!

I had  two red tomatoes and many more orange and yellow- so my salsa is more in shades or yellow, orange, green and red- rather than the typical red and green variety.

Ingredients:

1 large hot pepper, or several small jalapeno peppers, diced small

3 or 4 tomatoes, chopped

1 medium sweet onion, diced small

1 large handful cilantro, chopped finely

juice of 1 lime

salt and pepper, to taste

Chop everything up to a uniform size- I usually leave the tomatoes slightly larger because I like a bigger bite of tomato.

Mix vegetables up together, add juice and stir well.

Get out a tortilla chip and taste, add salt and pepper according to your pleasure- and enjoy!

Save up your tomato scraps until you get at least 1 1/2 cups (or you can supplement with a whole tomato to expedite your sauce) and then cook down in a saucepan with about 1/2 cup water added.  Add oregano, basil, garlic, sauteed onions, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper to taste and you have a fresh made pasta sauce.  Bring sauce to a slow boil- bubbles will form and pop slowly within your sauce and it will thicken slightly after being reduced- about 1 hour cooking time.

( If you like, you can run the sauce through a sieve to get the pulpy and dark tomato parts out- but they aren’t really noticeable once it is all cooked down and I usually let them add to the slight texture of this homemade sauce.)

I’ve had plain rhubarb pie.

I’ve had strawberry-rhubarb pie.

And they are really good.

But rhubarb custard pie is what I think of when you mention rhubarb pie to me.

My mother always made it with the custard- and it is perfect for a foil to the strong flavor of the rhubarb.  The tart flavor of rhubarb is tamed or modified by the sweet custard and you have perfection sitting on your plate.

It can be made without a top layer, since you already have the custard going on, but I like the look of a loose lattice top crust with the bubbly rhubarb pink juices staining the crust and gourmet sugar twinkling on top.

Twinkle * Twinkle * Twinkle * Twinkle* Twinkle*

This is really a simple pie to make and it brings back accolades of praise and happiness in your family.   Try it- you will love it.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/4 cup flour

dash salt 

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

3 eggs, beaten

4 cups 1″ slices of rhubarb

1 TBS butter

pastry for double crust pie **

Roll out pastry for bottom and fit into pie plate.  I use a glass pie pan because it gives you a good indication of the even browning on the bottom crust.

Mix together sugar, flour, salt and nutmeg and stir into rhubarb until it is well coated.  Pour beaten eggs over mixture and stir well. 

Pour mixture into pie plate- I like to make two smaller, thinner pies- but this will make one large deep dish pie.

Dot butter over the top of pie.

Roll out second crust (top) and cut into strips and lay them on top of pie, weaving them into a lattice.

Over and under, gently lifting up the pastry slices to form  loosely woven top crust. 

Then sprinkle with large gourmet  sugar crystals and bake for 50 minutes at 400 degrees F. 

I cover the crust with aluminum foil for the first 4o minutes so the crust doesn’t get too brown,  taking the foil off for the last 10 minutes brings it to a lovely golden brown.

**Double crust pie dough

2 1/2 cups pastry or AP flour

1 cup cold butter

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 to 1/2 cup ice cold water

Using either a pastry blender or food processor, work butter into flour and salt mixture until it is well distributed and looks more like the texture of meal.  Add water and gently mix together until it becomes a ball.  Divide in half and press lightly into a disk and then place in a bag and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

The custard will form whilst the pie is baking and will be a rich and wonderful base to the tart rhubarb.  This recipe has been in my family for at least the past 60 years and this pie never fails to bring smiles of happiness to every face.

Enjoy!