Yet another rhubarb scone recipe

Did I need another rhubarb scone recipe? Heck, no. I've already tried several, including revisiting a favorite during our recent cabin week. But was I rewarded for trying another rhubarb scone recipe? Hell, yeah.

Rhubarb scones

Adapted from theviewfromgreatisland.com. I ran across this one in my rhubarb Pinterest feed (is it peak Minnesotan to have a rhubarb feed?), but this site has lots of other lovely looking prospects to try as well.

Ingredients

½ cup sugar
2¼ cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons cold butter (1 stick), cut into pieces
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup buttermilk or half and half
1 cup chopped rhubarb

Method

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In the work bowl of a food processor, combine sugar, flour, baking powder and salt. Add butter and pulse until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. (Alternatively, if you don’t have a food processor, you can use a pastry blender or two knives to achieve the same result.) Add vanilla and buttermilk and process briefly until dough just comes together.

Remove to a lightly floured board and knead a few times to fold in rhubarb. Pat out into a circle and cut into 8 triangles or pat into a rectangle and cut into squares. (Or use a fluted biscuit cutter to cut rounds, as the original recipe called for.) Place two inches apart on a baking sheet (they spread quite a bit) and bake for about 20 minutes until just turning golden.

Rating: These are superb. Moist with excellent texture, not overly sweet or overly rhubarby, if that's a thing. They also reheated well. OK, so maybe I didn't need another rhubarb scone recipe, but I may have found a new favorite. It's possibly tied for first. It would be worth trying with the biscuit cut-out method, since it was the prettiness in the picture that led me to try this one in the first place only when it came time to make them I was in a hurry.

Chicken salad with tahini za'atar dressing

Sometimes you have to wrestle with a recipe a bit before you land in a spot that suits you.

This recipe appealed to me on several accounts. For one thing, once the snow recedes, it's chive season in my alley garden until snow falls again, so I'm always happy to find new recipes to use what amounts to a free commodity at my house. Also, I had bought a small jar of za'atar to use in another recipe that, ahem, I have yet to make, so it's a spice purchase guilt that needs to be assuaged. 

What didn't appeal to me about the original recipe was it was designed for a lettuce cup form. I object to it on the grounds of both structural integrity — pretty soon after you start eating them, you're basically looking a deconstructed salad that requires utensils — and it calls for romaine lettuce. I get why they specified that: With its firm ribs it's as good a candidate as any for trying to stand up to being pressed into service as a bread replacement. But while I can eat the leafy parts of romaine without ill effects, the ribs contain the same substance that makes iceberg lettuce crunchy, and me and a small subset of the population nauseous. 

So first I figured I'd just toss it all together like a salad.

Tahini chicken salad

Adapted from Better Homes & Gardens, March 2023. If you want to make the original recipe, buy romaine leaves to serve as lettuce cups. Not finding it on their website to link to, however.

Ingredients

¼ cup tahini
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons za’atar spice mixture
½ teaspoon ground cumin
¼ cup salt
2 cups cooked, shredded chicken
1 cup finely chopped celery
2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives
Lettuce or other green leaves for lining bowl
1 cup thinly sliced cucumber
1 cup chopped cherry or grape tomatoes

Method

In a small bowl, combine tahini, lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, mustard, za’atar, cumin and salt. If tahini is thick, add a bit of water to get desired consistency.

In a medium bowl, mix chicken, celery, chives and enough of the dressing to reach desired consistency. I found it took much of it, but not all of it.

If serving as a salad, place lettuce leaves at the base of a bowl (or plates if you’re plating it instead of passing it). Top with chicken mixture. Top with cucumber and grape tomatoes. Pass extra dressing on the side.

If you’re serving as a wrap or sandwich, spread a thin layer of extra dressing on the wrap or bread. Top with cucumber, tomatoes and lettuce and roll up or top with the second slice of bread.

Rating: That dressing is very tasty and it make a very nice chicken salad dressing base. The cumin and za'atar add a really nice flavor to the tahini dressing. But even with water added it's too sludgy to really play well with the lettuce greens and just turns them to mush.

Take 2: So I tried it again as written above, this time mixing the chicken, celery and chives and placing that on a bed of lettuce with the cucumbers and tomatoes on top. It worked better, and I still really liked that dressing mixed with the chicken. (That dressing could totally work as a veggie dip.)

Take 3: But what I realized is this really wants to be a wrap, just not in lettuce form. or else a sandwich. Otherwise there's just too much disconnect otherwise between the lettuce component and the salad itself. Sure enough, in wrap form, this was a dandy chicken salad sandwich.

Spring salad with savory granola

It's still early in the Minnesota growing season, so I couldn't find any of the prettier varieties of radishes, which would help in the looks department. Guess I'll have to make it again soon.

 

I made this one because I was looking for something to round out the outlines of a spring supper. I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about savory granola, but there was only one way to find out.

Little gem and savory granola salad

Adapted just slightly from “Come Hungry: Salads, Meals and Sweets for People Who Live to Eat” by Melissa Ben-Isha“Come Hungry: Salads, Meals and Sweets forPeople Who Live to Eat” by Melissa Ben-Ishay, as published in the Star TribuneStar Tribune. The original recipe called for two small heads of little gem lettuce, but I opted for what looked good at the market, store and volunteers in my garden. I’d say this serves 6-ish, depending on what else you’re serving. Savory granola needs to be made ahead to have time to cool, but it keeps well at room temperature.

Ingredients

6  cups mixed greens such as butter head, mesclun and arugula
2 Persian cucumbers thinly sliced, or six mini snack size, sliced thinly, divided
3 radishes, thinly sliced, divided
1 shallot, thinly sliced, divided
Savory granola for garnish

Dressing:
1 small shallot, finely chopped
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
½ cup olive oil
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon seasoned rice vinegar
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
¼ teaspoon ground pepper

Directions

Place lettuce in a large serving bowl along with most of the cucumbers, radishes and sliced shallots. Toss with the dressing as desired and top with remaining cucumbers, radishes and sliced shallots.

For dressing, mix chopped shallot, mustard, olive oil, lemon juice, vinegary, nutritional yeast, salt and pepper in a small bowl. This makes plenty, so count on having some leftover because the salad doesn’t need all of that to be well coated. You can make it ahead and bring it to room temperature before mixing. It stays pretty well blended.

Savory granola

1 ½ cups rolled oats
½ cup pepitas
½ cup sliced almonds
½ cup puffed quinoa
2 tablespoons sesame seeds
2 egg whites
⅓ cup olive oil
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
¼ cup ground pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.

Combine oats, pepitas, almonds, quinoa and sesame seeds in a large bowl.

In a small bowl, mix egg whites, olive oil, garlic powder, oregano, salt and pepper. Pour over oat mixture and toss to coat well. Spread on prepared pan and bake for 30 minutes. Stir, and bake for another 15 minutes or until golden brown and toasted. This makes way, way, way more than you’re going to need to serve as a salad garnish, but you won’t mind. Unless you mind having a shelf-stable inhalable snack in your house.

Rating: It has merit. The salad dressing can be made ahead and holds up well, and the savory granola falls into the category of Uncle Al Sicherman's standard response when asked how he was: "Odd, but likeable." The salad has fairly assertive flavors from the shallots, so if you're in the market for a mild-mannered supporting player, this might not be it. But if you're open to a bit of zestiness, this delivers nicely, and you can mix up the greens/veggies seasonally.

Nit: Puffed quinoa isn't available on the shelves of every grocery store. I grew tired of looking so I puffed my own. If you opt to do so, toast a very small bit at a time in a large shallow pan over medium high heat, shaking the pan as if popping popcorn, for up to a minute or just until it smells nutty. Otherwise you'll end up with something that tastes like burnt old maids in a popcorn bowl. 

Salmon with couscous-carrot-raisin pilaf

 

If a recipe gives you pause, do you give that pause back — as in give it a pass? Sometimes I do, although if the pause is caused by wondering do those flavors really go together, I'm more likely to give it a whirl in hopes of a pleasant aha moment than if I question methodology. In this case, I was wondering if baking couscous in a pan it doesn't specify being greased would actually work. It works just fine for baked rice, so I decided to go ahead with it simply because it looked so easy, and because salmon happened to be on a great sale at Lunds that week.

Salmon with couscous pilaf

Adapted from Martha Stewart Living Everyday Food, March 2005. Serves 2.

Ingredients

½ pound carrots (about 3 medium), peeled, sliced in half lengthwise, and cut into diagonal ⅛-inch pieces
½ cup couscous
¼ cup slivered almonds
¼ cup golden raisins
2 tablespoons fresh cilantro
½ tablespoon olive oil
⅝ cup water
2 salmon fillets, 6 to 8 ounces each
Lemon for serving, optional

Method

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. In a small, shallow baking dish (I used an 8-by-10-ish), combine couscous, almonds, raisins, cilantro, olive oil, ⅝ cup water, ¾ teaspoon salt and ⅛ teaspoon pepper.

Place salmon fillets on top of couscous mixture. Season with salt and pepper. Cover with foil and bake for 30 to 35 minutes until salmon is opaque. Plate salmon, fluff couscous mixture and serve along side salmon with lemon wedges.

Rating: This recipe is super fast to make, particularly if you've prepped the carrots ahead, and it tastes just fine. Would I make it again? If you asked me right as I was trying to plate it, I would have given you an emphatic no, because underneath some reasonably fluffable couscous, there's a layer of crunch you can only chip off the pan, which immediately triggers demerits. It diminished my ability to enjoy the dish, knowing that some serious pan clean-up awaited. I always factor clean-up time when considering if a recipe is a fast fix.

But I have to say, that pan wasn't so horrible afterward after a good soak. I used my Dansk enamel Kobenstyle pan that my mother gave me years ago, and much like the Le Creuset pans I sprung for decades ago when I could least afford them, I am always astounded what a soak and some baking soda will do in fairly short order. Still not convinced about the methodology of this recipe given the layer of crunch, but it was a fast prep meal.

Many years after I bought those enamel pans, I learned my mother was very upset with me because I had splurged on cookware instead of buying a proper dining room table for our dining-room-less one-bedroom apartment. We entertained small groups just fine; young, poorly paid journalists are not fussy about tablecloth-covered card tables surrounded by mismatched chairs so long as they're getting treated to decent home-cooked food and free booze. I don't think the dining table we eventually bought qualified as proper in my mother's mind either, since I later realized she really coveted a dark cherry French Provincial style dining set for herself (and by extension coveted it for me, despite that not being my style). Poor honey. She was a good sport all those years with the round oak table my dad bought for $5 at a farm auction while Mother was standing beside him and didn't even realize he was bidding. It was perfectly serviceable with three leaves, just not the bit of formal loveliness she always had in her mind's eye.

I stand by my pans and priorities. But I wish she could have had a table that met her vision.

Is there any moral to all that rambling? Maybe you do you. But if you don't have decent pans, be prepared to order takeout to serve on your beautiful table when you can't get food out of the pan.

Pumpkin soup with maple syrup and five-spice powder

 

While this recipe would make a great fall soup, it did just fine on a day that's rainy and in the 40s. Still in comfort food mode, with a few loaves of real bread rising even now. Because it was that kind of week.

Very simple pumpkin soup

From Bon Appetit ‘s Best Entertaining Recipes compilation. Looks like it dates to August 2004 or so.

Ingredients

2 (15-ounce) cans pumpkin puree
4 cups water
1 cup heavy cream
1 large garlic clove, peeled and pressed
¼ cup maple syrup
4 tablespoons butter, divided
½ teaspoon Chinese five-spice powder
4 ounces shiitake mushrooms, sliced

Method

In a large heavy pot, combine pumpkin, water, cream and garlic. Bring mixture to a simmer. Add syrup, 2 tablespoons of butter and the five-spice powder. Simmer another 10 minutes, whisking periodically.

Meanwhile, heat remaining 2 tablespoons butter in a small pan. Cook mushrooms until tender and starting to pick up color. Season soup to taste with salt and pepper. Serve topped with cooked mushrooms for garnish. Serves 6 as a first course.

Rating: This is a lot like pumpkin pie in soup form, so yum. But even if it weren't that tasty, I would make this again just because it's so stinking easy, and very pantry friendly. I used 1 can of pumpkin and one equivalent thereof of pumpkin I'd cooked, pureed and frozen last year. It comes together very quickly with minimal ingredients and dirtying of dishes. It may not be quite as rich tasting as this winter vegetable soup that also uses maple syrup, but if you're looking for a less thick soup for an appetizer, this one would be a decent choice.

If you want to make the soup ahead, just reheat and then finish off by cooking the mushrooms. The soup is fine without the mushrooms, but it does give it a bit of visual interest. If you're among those for whom mushrooms are too slimey, by all means skip them.

Butternut squash pasta with bacon, sage and brown butter

 

Three weeks ago the red-winged blackbirds were back by the lake's marshy areas singing their signature ascending three-note call. Last week we saw our first butterfly of the season, and today a dragonfly. The daylilies are pushing up and the trees are bravely budding out. Clearly it's spring-ish.

So I cooked a fall recipe. Because that actually really did make sense, since there was one butternut squash remaining on the orchard rack in the basement from last fall, and the sage plant will no doubt take at least a temporary a dive when we take it back outside. Still a few freezing overnight lows in the extended forecast, but time to be wrapping up last fall's bounty ahead of upcoming spring markets in three weeks. 

Basically, it's a perfect recipe for the time of year where I want even the mildest of winters to be over, but haven't sloughed off enough winter lethargy to truly developed spring ambitions. I want at least a week of just being able to walk around without coats before entering the prolonged months of all the physical labor that pretending to garden entails. If I had a hammock, I would crawl into it to rest up. Except I'm pretty sure that I couldn't get out of it again without help. But this recipe could make it worthwhile.

Butternut squash pasta with bacon and sage brown butter

From “Homemade Kitchen” by Alana Chernila

Ingredients

1 small butternut squash (1 to 1½ pounds), peeled, seeded and cut into 1-inch chunks
1 medium onion, cut into ½-inch wedges
1½ tablespoons olive oil
½ teaspoon kosher salt
4 ounces bacon, sliced
1 pound farfalle pasta
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
10 fresh sage leaves
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese

Method

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. In a large pasta serving bowl, toss together squash, onion, olive oil and salt. Spread mixture on prepared baking sheet and bake for squash is tender and onions have picked up color, about 30 to 35 minutes.

Meanwhile, place bacon on another baking sheet at bake at 450 for 18-25 minutes until crisp. Cut into pieces when cool enough to handle.

While squash and bacon cook, heat a large pot of water to boiling. Salt liberally and cook pasta until al dente. Drain, reserving at least a cup of cooking liquid. Place pasta in the large serving bowl in which you mixed the squash. Add cooked squash and bacon.

Heat butter in a small sauce pan until butter foams and takes on a light brown tint. Add sage leaves and cook briefly. Add mixture to pasta bowl, along with Parmesan, and enough reserved pasta cooking water to reach desired sauce consistency. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Rating: You really can't go wrong with roasted squash and bacon over pasta, and this recipe definitely does not go astray. Totally cheating with those ingredients, and while it uses a certain number of pans, it still meets my kitchen ROI bar. It serves 6; Dave really enjoyed the leftovers for lunch, because bacon.

Pretty sure this one can enter the rotation along with pasta with balsamic-roasted squash, bacon and blue cheese and roasted butternut squash Alfredo pasta.

Lemony white bean soup two ways, plus lemon garbanzo bean orzo soup with spinach, and chickpea soup with feta and herbed oil

 

If you really like one aspect of a recipe but not another, don't be afraid to take another swing at it until you find something that suits your taste. And test out other recipes of the same vein until you find your favorite. In this case, I wound up in a mini dive into lemony bean soups after trying this recipe from a recent Bon Appetit. This post is all about the marriage of lemons and legumes in soup form.

Lemony white bean soup

Adapted from Bon Appetit, March 2024

Ingredients

1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
Zest and juice of 1 lemon, divided
6 garlic cloves, chopped
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon kosher salt
8 ounces white beans, soaked overnight and drained
1 quart broth, or more
2 tablespoons butter
Parsley for garnish

Method

Pulse onion, celery, lemon zest and garlic in a food processor until chopped fine. Heat olive oil in a large heavy pot. Cook onion mixture and kosher salt until vegetables soften. Add beans and broth and cook, partially covered, until beans are tender. The original recipe suggests this would take 1 to 1½ hours. Pretty sure it took me nearly 2½ hours and I had to keep adding broth to keep it from turning into just cooked beans, so allow some leeway for both the time and the amount of broth. Add butter and lemon juice and serve garnished with parsley.

Rating: This soup had a nice bright flavor with the lemon, garlic and butter really coming through. But while I liked that aspect, it wasn't going to make it into the keeper pile because of a few knocks against it: There was such a disconnect between the clear broth and the beans with seemingly nothing to tie the two together. Plus, it's not the lookiest of dishes. And it really took a hit on the kitchen time ROI meter, since from start to finish time it takes a lot of cook attention and yielded a very scant 4 servings. If I'm going to spend that much time on a soup, it's good to have the leftovers to make it seem worthwhile.

Still, I really liked that flavor, so I tried again:

Lemony bean soup, Take 2

Note: After soaking beans overnight and draining them, I placed them in a slow cooker with one small onion, quartered, some lemon pepper seasoning and 1 teaspoon salt. I covered the beans with enough water to cover by a couple of inches and cooked them on low for 4 to 6 hours until tender.

Ingredients

2 medium onions, chopped
3 celery sticks, chopped
Zest and juice of 2 lemons, divided
12 garlic cloves, chopped
2 teaspoons kosher salt
3 tablespoons olive oil
16 ounces white beans, soaked overnight and cooked until tender, divided
1¾ cup broth
2 tablespoons butter
Parsley for garnish

Method

Pulse onions, celery, lemon zest and garlic in a food processor until finely chopped. Heat olive oil in large heavy pot. Cook onion mixture with salt until vegetables are softened. While onions cook, puree 1 cup of the cooked beans in the same food processor bowl. Add beans, bean puree and broth to pot and cook for 30 minutes to allow flavors to blend. Add butter and lemon juice and salt and lemon pepper to taste. Serve garnished with parsley.

Rating: This was fine out of the gate, but absolutely stellar the next day when flavors had time to blend and it brought out the amazing double zing of lemon and garlic. The slight added creaminess of pureed beans tied it together nicely, and making the beans ahead and then just adding them to the soup when I was ready to make it made my perceived invested time factor go way down. Yes, I know you have to cook the beans in advance, but in a slow cooker I barely have to pay attention so I can mentally discount that effort, so for me it counts as less time. Plus, it serves 8 quite reasonably.

Note: That method of prepping the veggies in the processor was pretty slick.

Lemon chickpea orzo soup

Adapted from the Simple Veganista

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil

½ medium onion, diced

3 carrots, peeled and diced

3 large garlic cloves, minced

7 to 8 cups broth, water and/or liquid drained from chickpeas

1 cup orzo

⅓ cup tahini

Juice of 2 to 3 lemons

Large handful of spinach

Chopped fresh dill

Method

Heat oil over medium heat. Cook onion and carrots until onion has softened. Add garlic and cook a minute more. Add the broth and/or water. Bring to a boil. Stir in orzo and garbanzo beans. Reduce heat and boil gently until orzo is tender. (I found it took close to 15 minutes.)

Turn off heat. Stir in tahini and lemon juice to taste. Add spinach and stir to wilt. Add fresh dill to taste and season with salt and pepper. Serves 8 reasonably well.

Rating: Quite nice, and no significant tinkering needed. I had wound up accidentally upping the tahini amount because I got a bit carried away when measuring and was too lazy to try to feed it back into the jar. Definitely better looking than the other bean soup, with more cheerful color to help counteract winter on a day when we woke up to fresh snow, it started snowing at 10 a.m., and wasn't forecast to stop for a full day. There's a nice creaminess from the tahini, color from the carrots and spinach, and just a slight bit of heft from the orzo. Better ROI on kitchen time, since it relies on canned chickpeas, which in this case was just fine.

Note: Like most soups with pasta, this one tightens up a bit as leftovers, so you may want a tad more broth on hand for reheating. I used the tiniest of orzo varieties, and it didn't really need more liquid since it loosened up once heated through, but you might if you use the standard size orzo.

Chickpea soup with herb oil and feta

Adapted from “Eating the Greek Way,” by Dr. Fedon Alexander Lindberg

Ingredients

1¾ cup garbanzo beans
1 large onion, chopped
3 tablespoons olive oil
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tablespoon cornstarch
3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
¼ cup olive oil
1 large handful of mixed herbs (I used parsley, lemon balm, thyme, tarragon and oregano)
¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
Feta chunks for garnish

Method

Soak beans in enough water to cover overnight. Drain and rinse.

Heat olive oil in a large heavy pot over medium low heat. Cook until onions are softened. Add drained beans and add enough water to cover by 2 inches. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until chickpeas are tender. The recipe suggested about 1½ hours. I cooked them for 2¼ and in retrospect wished I’d cooked them even longer, so allow plenty of time.

Mix cornstarch and lemon juice in a small bowl. Stir into soup and add parsley. Remove a couple of large ladles of the soup to a glass bowl. Process with a stick blender until it’s sort of pulpy-chunky. Stir back into soup.

To make herb oil, in a small food processor or blender, combine olive oil, herbs and Parmesan to make a loose pesto.

Serve soup garnished with feta chunks and a swirl of the herb oil. Serves 6-ish as a side, 4 as a main course.

Rating: Nice flavor, although not as brightly lemony as the other two, despite using lemon balm in the herb mix. It's fairly mild, and I did wonder whether I might have liked garlic in the herb oil, but there's really nothing wrong with it as is. The feta and herb oil work well with it and make it a bit lookier than it would be otherwise. My only real nit was that the soup really could have benefited from softer chickpeas than I achieved in a rather lengthy cooking time. They certainly yielded to a fork test, but this soup really needs them to be on softer side. Tempted to try making this into a crockpot recipe so I can more readily outwait it.

To be clear, I would be happy to be presented with any of these bowls of soup, but in some cases I might be happier if I didn't have to make it.