Rhubarb scones

This morning while lingering over tea, a plate of scones and the Sunday paper, I was brought to pondering coffee house scones and why we eat them. For me, each time I break down and buy one, I am reminded why I really shouldn't (calories and cost aside). They're tasty-ish, but not fantastic, and their texture often seems designed more for durability than edibility. I guess each time there's some vague hope that this time it will be really good, like a real hot scone straight from your oven. This recipe originally called for letting the scones cool completely on a rack. Are you nuts? That gives up half of their appeal and you might as well be eating a coffee house scone.

Now to see if I can make it through a summer with enough resolve to bypass the Thursday morning farmers market baked goods stand that I walk by on the way to my office. I know they aren't that great. I know that. No really. It's just like an outdoor coffee house.

These, however, are lovely.

Rhubarb vanilla scones

Adapted from baketotheroots.de

 

Ingredients

1¼ cups chopped fresh rhubarb

1 tablespoon plus ¼ cup sugar, divided

2 cups flour

2¼ teaspoons baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

Zest of 1 orange

1/3 cup cold butter, cut into small pieces

¾ cup heavy cream

1 large egg

1¼ teaspoons vanilla extract, divided

½ cup sifted powdered sugar

½ to 1 tablespoon milk 

Method

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 390 degrees. (This being a recipe from a German site, that's the translation for 200 C. My old Jenn-Air stove doesn't let me calibrate the temperature to quite that degree, so I just set it slightly below the 400 mark and it seemed to work out fine.)

Toss rhubarb pieces with 1 tablespoon of sugar and set aside.

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, ¼ cup sugar, salt and orange zest. Add the butter and mix in with a pastry blender or two table knives until the mixture is crumbly. 

Mix together the cream, 1 teaspoon vanilla and the egg. Mix into dry ingredients using a wooden spoon until well combined. Fold in rhubarb.

Transfer mixture to a lightly floured board. Flatten into a disk about 1-inch thick. Cut into 8 triangles. (A dough scraper is the perfect tool for both transferring the dough to the board and then cutting it into wedges.)

Transfer wedges to baking sheet and bake for 15 to 18 minutes until golden.

Whisk together powdered sugar, remaining ¼ teaspoon vanilla and just enough milk to make desired glaze consistency. Drizzle over warm scones. (Note, this is half the glaze amount the original recipe called for, but I thought it made plenty.) And jolly well eat them while they're warm, or reheat them later.

Rating: Very nice indeed. Good rhubarb flavor, a hint of orange and a very nice texture: not too crumbly, but not cakelike either. Very light. I've made some rhubarb scones before, but these definitely have the edge, and will become an annual way to use some rhubarb.

Extra! Extra!

After another relentless day of gardening, time to crack open one of Fulton Brewing's commemorative Star Tribune Extra! Extra! brews, on sale at local liquor stores now while supplies last in honor of the Strib's 150th anniversary. The Star Tribune print edition is on sale at newsstands now, while supplies and interest continues. Here's to another 150 years of delivering the news you need to know.

Feta radish quiche

We have heaven's own supply of dill that's volunteering even more readily than a Lutheran at a Habitat for Humanity site. It's nearly crowding out the volunteer mustard seedlings. Really miss the plant swap so I could pass along the largesse rather than just ripping it out. At any rate, when I see any recipe that calls for dill, it goes into the possibilities file.

Feta radish quiche

From Better Homes & Gardens, April 2017

Ingredients

1 unbaked 9-inch pie crust, however you prefer to achieve that

6 ounces of radishes, very thinly sliced

5 eggs

1½ cup milk

2 ounces crumbled feta

1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon pepper

Method

Preheat oven to 450. Place pie crust in a 9-inch pie plate and crimp the edges. Line with a double thickness of tin foil, loosely covering the edges as well. Bake for 8 minutes. Remove tin foil and bake until crust is set, another 4 to 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, combine eggs, milk, feta, dill, salt and pepper.

Remove pie crust from oven. Reduce heat to 350 degrees. Place radishes in layered circles around the bottom of the quiche. Pour in filling and bake for 40 to 45 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. I recommend using a pie guard or wrapping tin foil around the crust edges. I did and mine still got darker than I’d like.

Rating: Interesting texture compared to most other quiches I've made, probably because of the feta. It sets up into a custard just fine, but somehow it remains more scrambly-ricotta curdish in consistency. That's not a complaint, just an observation. Flavorwise, it was fine. The radishes become pretty mellow when baked. That's pretty much what this quiche is overall: Fine and mellow. Nothing wrong with it, but nothing to make me move it into the keeper pile. But it made an undetectable dent in the dill supply.

 

Curried chickpea spread sandwiches

 

Chickpea curry salad sandwiches

Adapted slightly from Parade magazine

Ingredients

3 tablespoons mayonnaise

½ tablespoon curry

¼ teaspoon chili powder

1 teaspoon lemon juice

Salt and pepper to taste

1 (15-ounce) can chickpeas, drained

1 tablespoon chopped pecans

1½ tablespoons golden raisins

1 green onion, minced

1 celery stalk, minced

Sliced red onion

Pea shoots (optional)

Lettuce leaves

Whole wheat bread slices (the spread goes nicely with a fairly dense bread)

Method

Combine mayonnaise, curry, chili, lemon juice and salt and pepper In a bowl.

Puree chickpeas in a food processor. Add chickpea puree to mayo mixture. Stir in pecans, raisins, green onion and celery.

Spread on whole wheat bread slices and top with red onion, pea shoots, lettuce leaves and another bread slice.

Rating: Quite enjoyable, and worth repeating. Dave was a tad skeptical, saying it looked awfully healthy, but then he made nom nom sounds. We cut the recipe in half, since it claimed it served 4 as originally written. But we made three perfectly generous sandwiches out of this half batch (as written above) and still had leftovers.  It made a nice lunch along with a garlicky Greek salad. It helped revive us after we planted the first of four raised beds.

Drink and a nosh: Italian bitter Cognac sour, and deviled cocktail sausages with lime chutney dipping sauce

I'm a big Campari fan, but lately I've been investigating the other entrants into the Italian orange bitter field (not to be confused with orange bitters). I saw a cocktail that called for Contratto bitter, which I've seen at some stores in town. But I found myself in a liquor store that didn't have it at the same time I had some egg whites that I needed to use and wanted to try the drink below. So a bottle of Gran Classico bitter followed me home.

Turns out there are all sorts of subtle variations in that arena that some people have gone into at great length and in detail. (If you really care, you can find out here.) I didn't care that much but it was mildly interesting. At any rate, the Gran Classico will keep a spot on the shelf.

Gran Classico Cognac sour
Adapted from Food and Wine, which used Contratto bitter

Ingredients
1 ounce Cognac
1 ounce Gran Classico bitter

¾ ounce lemon juice

¼ ounce simple syrup

1 egg white

Lemon wheel and brandied cherry for garnish

Method

In a large shaker (with no ice), combine Cognac, bitter, lemon juice, simple syrup and egg white. Shake it up to aerate it, and you'll find out why I mention the need for a large shaker. For many drinks if I'm just making a single drink I'll use a smallish shaker, but the egg whites are going to foam up like mad. Then add ice to the shaker and shake to chill. Strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with lemon wheel. (I lacked a brandied cherry, so I substituted a fresh cranberry for looks.)

Rating: Quite nice flavors and well balanced. With many Campari based drinks, you just taste the Campari, in which case I'm left with the question of why I bothered to not just drink it straight on the rocks? But this one is a tasty blend, with the Cognac holding its own nicely while still tasting the Gran Classico. The coloring on Gran Classico bitter is slightly less vivid than on Campari or Contratto bitter, which might account for why the drink was more tawny colored than the one I was aping. The egg white is just there for texture, not flavor, so I might be interested in trying it without, since I've never been overwhelmingly into drinks with egg whites.

Devilled cocktail sausages with chutney and lime dipping sauce
Adapted from Bon Appetit, December 1997

Ingredients
50 mini cocktail sausages
1/3 cup brown sugar
3 tablespoons ketchup
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon hot sauce
1 10-ounce jar mango chutney
1 tablespoon lime zest
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
3/4 cup mayonnaise

Method
Combine brown sugar, ketchup, mustard, Worcestershire and hot sauce in an 8-by-8 pan. Mix together and toss with sausages. (Mixture can be covered and refrigerated at this point if making in advance).

Preheat to 425 degrees. Bake for 25 minutes until heated through and slightly browned.

Meanwhile, combine chutney, lime zest and juice in a food processor and puree. Mix into mayonnaise and serve with sausages as a dipping sauce.

Rating: Really, who doesn't secretly like little cocktail sausages? I mean, anyone who isn't vegetarian? A slightly fancier version than what comes out of crockpots at football game parties, and the lime-chutney dip is nice.

Play along: "Born on Fire" by Ike Reilly, which we fired up after a ceremonial playing of "School's Out" by Alice Cooper. Because the first hour home as you prepare to start vacation calls for that sort of thing. Definitely time to not be at work.