This recipe embodies everything I hoped this blog would lead to. Last year was my first encounter with rhubarb and I shared it with you; this year, I couldn’t wait for it to show up so I could really explore what I’ve been missing.

Last year, making pie crust involved muttered swears and prayers over bowls and rolling pins, with no discernible rhyme or reason to success or failure. Through some crazy experiments, including learning to render my own lard, I’ve had three pie crust successes in a row–hardly mastery, but as least my confidence has grown leaps and bounds (…I’ve just jinxed myself, haven’t I?).

As much as I’ve learned about cooking over the past year, though, the best part by far has been sharing with you and reading your comments; those connections mean everything to me, so thank you.

When it comes to this pie, it seems a crying shame to wait until strawberries appear to enjoy rhubarb. Since their seasons overlap for just a few short weeks around here, half of rhubarb season is already gone by the time summer’s opening act takes stage. Why not enjoy spring’s sweetest offering on its own merits? I think it’s earned its moment in the spotlight.

If you’re a rhubarb newbie like me, this pie is a great place to start. Rather than muddling flavors with strawberries, rhubarb stands on its own here. Its tartness is tamed with just enough sugar to make this a for-real dessert, juices are thickened simply with flour into the prettiest mauve-y pink oozy filling, cinnamon adds just enough to bring out the full range of rhubarb’s flavors.

Cheers to year two everyone–thanks for sticking around. There’s pie on the counter and ice cream in the freezer, please help yourself.

Rhubarb Pie
As always, you can use whatever pie crust you like, but considering I’ve had three successes in a row with it, I’m ready to claim that this is my holy grail of pie crusts. The filling is adapted from Anne Dimock’s Straight-Up Rhubarb Pie.

1 double pie crust, prepared for a 9″ pie pan

6 cups diced rhubarb
1 1/4 cup sugar, plus more for dusting
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon flour
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon butter, cut into cubes

1 egg, lightly beaten with a tablespoon of water

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Mix together pie crust ingredients and form into two balls; refrigerate while you prepare the filling.

In a large bowl, mix together rhubarb, flour, sugar, and cinnamon.

Roll out one ball of dough to fit a pie pan, pour in filling, top with butter cubes. Brush edges of the crust with the egg. Roll out the second dough ball and lay it over the filling. Trim edges of crust and crimp them together to seal. Brush the top of the crust with more eggwash then sprinkle with sugar. Cut several vents in the top crust to allow steam to escape.

Bake for 15 minutes at 450 then reduce the temperate to 350 and bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the crust is lightly golden and pink juices are bubbling through the vents.

Attempt to restrain yourself from sneaking a slice while the pie cools. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

How could a bad mood survive when these little guys are around?

Whether it was the amazingly perfect weather, the stacks of bright red rhubarb stalks I’ve been waiting for, remembering to bring my knives for sharpening, watching the little kids dance to the guitar music, unexpectedly running into a friend, chatting with the honey guy about maple syrup-making, not-so-discreetly inhaling the bunch of lilac sticking out of my bag for the better portion of my visit, or any or all of the above–it was perfect.

This kid was a tough critic

I couldn’t even get today’s stash in one picture!

Lilacs (learned today that smashing the stems with a hammer and soaking them in hot water perks them up perfectly!); rhubarb, so much lettuce, radishes, green garlic, bread, mushrooms, honey (basswood linden, my favorite), maple syrup,  plus some lettuces, oregano, lavender, and orange mint to plant. Hopefully these herbs will do better on my mostly shade porch than last year’s chives/parsley/lemon balm, and the squirrels will keep their grubby paws out of my lettuce.

The very first picture of my mom and me

How do you tell your mom how awesome she is? It doesn’t seem enough to just say it. A card, or flowers, or brunch…none of those things is really my mom (also, being four states away makes brunch plans difficult). So for my mom on Mother’s Day, here’s how to make a soft-boiled egg.

Lest that sound completely random (more random than anything else I write? Probably not), there’s a story. Two years ago, my mom and I went to Italy (luckily my mom happens to think I’m a good travel buddy). On our first morning at the hotel, she spotted some contraption with simmering water and a bowl of eggs among the rest of the breakfast treats–how very European, we thought! My mom’s near-immediate response was to tell me how she used to love when my great-grandmother would make soft-boiled eggs when she was little, served in tiny egg cups with tiny spoons.

One egg and a few minutes later, my mom tap, tap, tapped the top of the shell open…to a nearly raw egg. Unfortunately there was no sign or anything about how long to leave the eggs for the desired doneness, so oops. We laughed and tried to figure out how to hide the fact that we clearly failed at apparently the most basic of cooking tasks. Ah well, we would get it right the next morning… and of course the next day ended up with a solid hard boiled egg.

I think we tried different variations nearly every morning of our trip and it became a running joke, but in my mind it was also a testament to just how memorable the women in my family are.

My mom and me, then

There was a lot about that trip–a lot about my mom in general–I could point out as a reason she’s amazing and inspiring. Her confidence in me–my ability to hike nine miles a day and more recently her confidence that I can do a 10k with her–makes me feel like I can do anything. I aspire to be in as good a shape as she is!

Mom and me, now. My mom’s arms would put Michelle Obama’s to shame.

She got me into cooking and showed me how good it feels to share good food with good people; she’s (nearly) a certified master gardener, I’m proud when I don’t kill my houseplants and love growing my little pots of flowers every year. My mom got her executive MBA while working full time with three kids under 13, and was a senior executive at a Fortune 1000 company until she decided to leave on her terms and go after her passions. She inspired me to get my Masters degree and while I may not aspire to her level career-wise, damn it, my mom kicks ass (sorry Mom) and I love bragging about her.

My mom is the funniest person I know, and knows that sometimes you just have to take the crap life hands you and laugh (Fine! Fiiiiinnnneee!). She has the best taste in movies, taught me how important a good hug and a good handshake are, always has my back (and has no problem telling me when I’m being an idiot), and is the reason I love to travel and be outside and can’t imagine moving too far from the water. Her home is my aspiration and inspiration.

This kind of derailed from my original story but I guess the point I’m trying to make is simply this–Mom, you’re awesome. And I finally figured out how to make soft-boiled eggs so we don’t embarrass ourselves the next time we’re in Italy.

Soft-Boiled Eggs
This is my new favorite way to cook eggs–no dirty pans, set whites with gooey yolks just right for dipping. If you want to be really fancy (or if you have some languishing in your fridge begging to be eaten), serve with smoked salmon.

2 eggs

Salt
Toast
Butter

Bring a small pan of water just to a boil. With a spoon, gently place eggs in the water and set a timer for exactly 5 minutes. Adjust the burner to keep the water at a simmer. When time is up, drain the water, then refill the pot with cool water until the eggs are handleable.

Serve with buttered toast “soldiers.”

Today’s take-home? Not much green, honestly. Purple asparagus, bread, cultured butter, milk, and cream. I forgot radishes though!

Everyone needs a go-to dish for when you’re slightly crazed–last minute guests, forgotten party you promised a dish for, or just bordering on hangry (my new favorite word=hungry+angry. Because who hasn’t been there?). For me, this is that dish.

More than a dip, kind of a spread, it’s all delicious however you use it. Plus–and this is key–it takes all of 30 seconds to make and can be made with pretty standard cupboard fare. Dump everything in the food processor, turn it on, scoop it into a pretty bowl (or don’t, I know how demanding the hangry can be), devour. Pita chips, crackers, vegetables, spread on a sandwich instead of hummus…all are perfectly valid and perfectly delicious options.

There is one thing that makes this dip extra special–namely, pomegranate molasses. If you’ve never tried–or heard of– it, it’s a great little secret ingredient in everything from salad dressings to a marinade for grilling meat or vegetables, or even drizzled over strawberries. Tangy and tart, it provides a depth to the dip that you can’t quite put your finger on. (Ok, maybe pomegranate molasses isn’t “standard” cupboard fare, but it should be! And it actually lasts a long time in the fridge, so if you can find some it’s worth a purchase. Otherwise you can easily cook down pomegranate juice with some sugar and lemon juice until it’s nice and syrupy–look, Alton Brown even has a recipe!)

In any case, thank god for easy recipes in between frantic project-doing, apartment-cleaning, cupcake-baking, and general chicken-sans-head-running. Molasses is blitzed together with toasty cumin and spicy cayenne, walnuts, roasted sweet peppers, olive oil, and bread crumbs. Done. If nothing else for my guests, I knew this would go over well.

So I may make myself crazy, but at least I make some damn good dip too.

Muhamarra
If you can’t find pomegranate molasses at your grocery store or at a Middle Eastern market, Alton Brown has a really easy version with just pomegranate juice, sugar, and lemon. I also like the addition of a few peppadew peppers for their sweetness and slight spiciness, but if you can’t find them (a shame, they’re awesome in or on just about everything) this is still exceptional without them. And bonus party trick–this is accidentally vegan! Ever-so-slightly adapted from Epicurious.

12 ounce jar roasted red bell peppers in olive oil with garlic, drained
4-5 peppadew peppers (optional)
1 cup walnuts
1/3 cup panko breadcrumbs
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 1/2 teaspoons pomegranate molasses
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper, or to taste
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, to taste

Combine all ingredients in a food processor until they form a coarse paste. If too thin, add a bit more panko; too thick, another tablespoon of oil. Adjust cayenne and salt to taste.

Serve with pita chips and vegetables for dipping, spread on a sandwich with roasted vegetables and goat cheese, stir into hot pasta, or just eat with a spoon!

I took home radishes, garlic mustard greens, lettuce, garlic chives, purple asparagus, mixed mushrooms, bread, eggs (spring eggs are just about the prettiest things ever), and ricotta and feta.

However.

On a rare gluttonous occasion, deep dish calls. Some Chicagoans say deep dish is only for tourists who eat at Uno’s, and that the best Chicago pizza is the extra thin cracker-crust. Personally, I like both for what they are. A monstrous bread/cheese/stuff/sauce casserole, deep dish is a one-slice meal and most certainly has its appeal–when it’s good.

Cooked in pans as ancient as the Cubs last World Series appearance, the crust somehow comes out flaky and buttery and golden and crisp as the most perfect croissant, but with midwest heft. The reverse-layering of cheese/stuff/sauce goes to show Chicagoans’ ingenuity when it comes to food. It keeps the crust from getting soggy (the bane of all good pizza is a soggy crust, also why I don’t like NYC-style pizza), protects the cheese from burning, and is overall just one of those “Oh. Duh.” moments. As for the “stuff,” sorry, deep dish is not meant for just cheese and sauce. Peppers, onions, chunky mushrooms, spicy sausage, yesss.

It’s funny how the nine years I’ve lived in or around Chicago have made their mark on me. While I still like ketchup on my hot dogs, they seem naked and bland now without sport peppers, and I’m somewhat distraught that I can’t find them at a grocery store back home (poor misguided Wegman’s stock guy, your confusion made me sad). The difference between “downtown” and “the city” actually makes sense. Trying to navigate somewhere that the streets aren’t laid out in a nice, organized grid would confuse the hell out of me now. Holding a conversation about the Bears and actually following a game no longer makes me laugh out loud at its impossibility. I appreciate the unique pride (and gloveless pain) Chicago has in its 16″ softball games. And I will whole-heartedly come to Chicago’s defense if anyone tries to compare it unfavorably to any other city.

I love this city, my adopted home. I know it has its problems, which aren’t insignificant, but what city doesn’t? Its neighborhoods and lakefront, culture and history, quirks and perfections, and of course its food from pizza to farmers markets–these make Chicago great to me, especially when I can share them with you.

Deep Dish Pizza
This is definitely a recipe made to share with a crowd (or at least 4 really hungry people). I like to use my 12-inch cast iron pan, so I use 3/4 of the dough and freeze the rest for a tiny pizza later. If you go this route, bake for closer to 40 minutes to make sure the crust is nice and crunchy. Adapted from Cooks Illustrated.

3 1/4 cups flour
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
1 1/2teaspoons table salt
2 teaspoons sugar
1 packet (2 1/4 teaspoons) active dry yeast
1 1/4 cups water, heated 110-115 degrees
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 teaspoon plus 2 tablespoons olive oil

Shredded mozzarella cheese
Toppings (I like spicy sausage, onions, and mushrooms, precooked and drained)
2 28-ounce cans whole tomatoes, squished up into chunks and drained well in a colander until most liquid is removed, or your preferred pizza sauce
Parmesan cheese

Add yeast to warm water and proof until foamy, about 10 minutes. With a dough hook attachment, mix flour, cornmeal, salt, sugar in a stand mixer on low speed until incorporated, about 1 minute. Add water, yeast, and melted butter and mix on low speed until fully combined, 1 to 2 minutes, scraping sides and bottom of bowl occasionally. Increase speed to medium and knead until dough is smooth, 4 to 5 minutes.

Drizzle 1 teaspoon oil over dough and turn to coat; cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap. Let rise at room temperature until nearly doubled in volume, 45 to 60 minutes.

I was wrong. So, so wrong.

My few run-ins with carrot cake usually went like this: a half-eaten, generic, leftover grocery store cake appears by the communal coffee pot at work and I, who should know better by now, help myself to a slice. It doesn’t taste anything like carrot, only vaguely of spices, and the frosting (which tastes nothing like cream cheese and inevitably includes tiny frosted carrots, because how else would you know what flavor this cake is supposed to be?) peels off like putty. If there are nuts at all, they are sad little crumb-sized pieces not worthy of the warning label “This product may contain nuts.”

The cake isn’t offensive, I still eat my slice, but I won’t even remember it ten minutes later, the only evidence a wadded up paper napkin and a few rouge crumbs on my desk.

And this is why mediocre food is really terrible; it’s not that the cake actually tastes bad, it’s that it’s uninspiring. It’s easy for great food to be inspirational, and bad food at least inspires me to never ever combine those ingredients again. But mediocre food? It just makes me think I wasted calories eating it. And I really hate thinking about calories.

I’m not saying all food should be drop-your-fork-and-drop-to-your-knees amazing. Shoot, for every post here I probably made a dozen average dishes or meals that weren’t worth the effort to type up, but if I’m going to eat cake, it had better be some damn good cake.

Back to the carrot cake. Last weekend I tried a sample of grocery store carrot cake mix, which was just good enough for me to say “Oh. Hey. I could make this.” (Sometimes I feel bad for grocery stores and their samples. I’m sure it’s not their intention that I taste and forgo the box in favor of making it from scratch.)

Flipping through a few cookbooks and combining bits and pieces of recipes from two of my baking bibles, I think I came up with something that is definitely better than mediocre. I may have, in fact, taken a bite of slightly warm, gooey-frosted muffin/cupcake hybrids and actually mumbled through a mouthful of delicious, “Why didn’t anyone tell me carrot cake was this good?”

This carrot cake is packed with everything I think it should be. Carrot, of course, makes its presence known in no uncertain terms; crunchy chunks of walnut will not be ignored (sorry Alton Brown, you were wrong on this count);   raisins plump up to better, juicier versions of themselves. And the spices? Let me put it this way: these cupcakes were under a heavy glass cake dome and I could still smell them every time I walked past.

And last but not least, though these are delicious without any frosting at all (dare I suggest they’re almost breakfast-worthy?), I would actually suggest doubling the frosting recipe to make sure you get a good ratio of frosting to cake–this coming from someone who generally scrapes off frosting like a picky six-year-old.

Now, of course, this discovery makes me question what other mediocre dishes I’ve eaten that could be spectacular. I think I have some more tasting to do.

Carrot Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting
In the spectrum from cupcake to muffin, these lean just a bit more towards cupcake in terms of sweetness but the method, add-ins, and consistency lean more on the side of the muffin.  While I like the nuttiness that whole grain flour adds to the cake, you can use all white flour. Also, I had a soon-to-expire container of marscapone cheese in my fridge, hence it’s delicious appearance in the frosting, but you can use an 8 ounce block of cream cheese instead. Adapted from The Joy of Cooking and I’m Just Here for More Food.

Cupcakes
1 cup very firmly packed carrots, shredded on the small side of a box grater
1 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup golden raisins

1 3/4 cup flour (up to 1/2 cup can be whole wheat or mixed whole grain flours)
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon mace or freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt

3 eggs
3/4 cup whole yogurt, plain
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and butter and flour a 12-cup cupcake pan (or prepare pan with paper liners).

Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices in a large mixing bowl. Add shredded carrots and stir together. In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs, yogurt, vanilla, and sugar until thoroughly combined. Add wet ingredients to dry and fold together 3 to 4 times, then add walnuts and raisins. Continue to fold together just until combined, it’s ok if there are still a few spots of flour or small clumps of carrots.

Portion batter into the muffin tin (a heaping 1/3 cup should be about right). Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a tester inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool completely on a rack.

Frosting
7 ounces cold cream cheese
3 tablespoons marscapone cheese
4 tablespoons butter, cut into chunks and set out at room temperature for 10 minutes
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup powdered sugar

Beat together cream cheese, marscapone, and butter at half speed with a mixer until smooth. Add vanilla, beat until combined. With the mixer on low, add the powdered sugar in stages, 1/4 cup at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition until fluffy. Refrigerate for 10 minutes before frosting cupcakes.

Happy birthday blondies!

As my sisters and I were raised good Catholic children (five years of Catholic school cured me of that PDQ, ask my mom sometime about my eight grade teacher calling home to ask if my mom knew I said I was an atheist), Easter was a Big Family Thing. And big family things usually meant trips to Cleveland to celebrate (aka feast) with either of our parents’ extended families.

Most memorable were the Easter egg hunts at our Aunt Sandy and Uncle Greg’s house with our cousins. There was always an egg in the mailbox and probably one on top of the ceiling fan in addition to the usual under chairs and in flowerpots. And we each had to find our own hidden basket–no hinting if you found someone else’s.

After the egg hunt were the egg wars. Much like the current March Madness, egg wars were based on a bracket system: pick one of the hard boiled eggs we had decorated the day before and pick your opponent. Small end to small end (we would have made Jonathan Swift proud), we’d smash our eggs together. Whichever egg was unscathed went on to compete against the other intact eggs–yes, my family is big enough they there were usually more than three rounds of this. My Uncle Greg and cousin Danny were the master at egg wars while the rest of us just waited for our wounded eggs to make a reappearance later in the day in the form of deviled eggs, usually courtesy of my Uncle Dave.

Once an egg champion was declared, it was off to church then on to my grandparents for lunch/dinner with an impossible number of people squeezed into their basement. And there was always lamb-shaped butter. I loved the lamb-shaped butter. The cousins would congregate upstairs around the Nintendo and the do-do-do-do-do-do of Mario Brothers and would only bug the adults to ask where the frozen strawberry dessert was…or maybe that was just me (that recipe to come soon).

I say all that to say this: Happy Easter everyone, and more importantly happy happy 27th birthday(s) Erica and Laura. I wish you success in all things, from your current creative endeavors to the next time you face off against someone with only a blue hard boiled egg on your side. If nothing else, you can always make deviled eggs.

Deviled Eggs
My Uncle Dave’s deviled eggs are the best, but I think these are a pretty close second. I didn’t realize until I was comparing some other recipes that horseradish isn’t traditional in deviled eggs, but it’s how I’ve always known them and I love the heat it contributes to a dish that can otherwise be too rich. You can scale this up or down as you need, but be aware that these are such perfect snacks that you may find yourself munching away and realize you just ate half a carton of eggs. Hey Rocky did it, so it’s ok, right?

6 eggs
2 1/2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 1/2 teaspoons (or more) prepared horseradish
2 1/2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1/4 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon sweet pickle relish
Salt and pepper to taste
Paprika to garnish

Place the eggs in a pot and cover with cold water. Set over medium heat, uncovered, and bring just to a boil. As soon as the water boils, turn the heat off, put the lid on the pot and set a timer for 11 minutes. When time is up, rinse the eggs with cold water.

Once eggs are cool, peel and slice eggs in half lengthwise. Scoop out the yolks into a small bowl and fluff with a fork. Stir in the mayo, horseradish, mustard, Worcestershire, and relish until the mixture is pretty smooth. Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper.

If you want to be fancy, you can pipe the filling back into the eggs before sprinkling lightly with paprika, but personally I think deviled eggs are not a “fancy” food. These are best served soon after they’re made, but will keep set on paper towels and covered with plastic wrap for up to a day.

Dinner and done.

The toppings really are up to your imagination, but in case you’re looking for some suggestions, the two above were: black bean spread, sliced green onions, queso fresco, over-easy egg; red pepper/eggplant spread, left over sauteed leeks, chicken sausage.

Naan
Ok, to be fair this part is not so quick though takes hardly any effort or attention and means I have the basis of dinner for at least a few nights. I’ve mixed together a batch of dough in about 10 minutes, shove the whole thing in my (turned off but warm) oven for up to four hours while I’m out doing fun things. Get home, take the bowl out of the oven, crank up the heat, flatten out the pieces of dough, and have fresh naan about 40 minutes after walking in the door (and most of that is just waiting for the oven to heat up).

I usually end up with about 6 slightly-larger-than-my-hand sized naan, but you could make more or less depending on your needs. Recipe adapted from Manjula’s Kitchen.

3/4 cup warm water
1 teaspoon active dry yeast
2 cups flour (up to 1 cup can be whole wheat)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
Pinch of baking soda
2 tablespoons oil (olive or canola work equally well)
2 1/2 tablespoons plain yogurt

In a small bowl sprinkle yeast over the warm water. Set aside to get bubbly, about 5 to 10 minutes.

In a larger mixing bowl, stir together flour(s), salt, sugar, and baking soda. Stir in yogurt and oil until the dough is crumbly; add the water and yeast. Stir/knead (I used a fork as the dough kept sticking terribly to my hands) everything together until the dough is smooth. You may need to add up to a 1/4 cup more flour to make it manageable but the dough will still be very soft and sticky.

Drizzle with a little extra oil, cover the bowl in plastic wrap, and set in a warm place until doubled, up to four hours.

Place a baking stone or upside-down cast iron pan on the lower-middle rack of your oven, turn the heat up to 500 for at least 30 minutes. Gently press the dough to deflate and knead for a minute or two.; divide into equal sized balls. Lightly roll each ball in flour then press or roll flat.

Turn your oven to broil. Fit as many naan onto the baking surface; bake 2 to 3 minutes or until the dough bubbles begin to brown. If serving immediately, brush with melted butter (ghee if you want to be authentic) or allow to cool and wrap tightly with foil for up to three days. To reheat, preheat oven to 400 degrees and bake naan for 2-3 minutes.