Category Archives: The Weekend Dish

The Weekend Dish – Scones

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Well, it has finally arrived. The opening day of the Summer Olympics is today.

Buckingham Palace

In honor of the host city, London, I felt scones would be a proper food tribute. 

The scone is a simple but delicious quick bread. It is traditionally served with clotted cream and jam. The basic recipe is versatile and can be modified by adding nuts, chocolate chips, zests, and fresh or dried fruits. My favorite addition is dried tart cherries.

They can be served with tea or they are also an excellent accompaniment to coffee. A few years ago, I found this recipe while trying to have a full-fledged tea party with my youngest daughter and since then our family has enjoyed them many times. This time I used our grandmothers’ dishes as an extra special place setting, figuring they don’t get out of the china hutch enough.

Recipe for Cream Scones

If you want to make them lighter you can use half and half or milk.

Preheat oven to 375° F (190° C) and place rack in middle of oven. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

2 cups (280g) all-purpose flour
1/3 cup (66g) granulated white sugar
2 tsp (10g) baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1/3 cup (76g) chilled, unsalted butter
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 tsp (5g) pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup (125ml) heavy whipping cream
Egg mixture for brushing tops: (brushing the tops with mixture helps with browning the tops)
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 Tbsp heavy cream

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Cut the butter into small pieces and blend into the flour mixture with a pastry blender or two knives. The mixture should look like coarse crumbs. In a small bowl combine the egg, vanilla and whipping cream. Add this mixture to the flour mixture stirring until just combined. Do not over mix this mixture. Knead dough gently on a lightly floured surface. Roll or pat the dough into a circle that is 7 inches (18cm) round and about 1 1/2 inches (3.75cm) thick. Cut this circle into 8 triangular sections. Alternatively, you can cut the the dough into rounds with a cookie cutter. Place on prepared cookie sheet. Brush the tops with the egg mixture.

Bake for 15 minutes or until lightly browned. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Variations:

-Add 1/3 cup dried tart cherries
-Add 1/3 cup miniature chocolate chips
-Add 2 tsp lemon zest and 1 Tbsp poppy seeds
-Add 1 Tbsp poppy seeds and use 1 tsp almond extract instead of vanilla extract and       sprinkle top of scones with sliced almonds after brushing with egg mixture.

I must say the only variation I have tried is the cherries and we love it so much that I haven’t tried the others.

I hope you enjoy these as much as we do and if you would like to follow the Olympics here is the official website. Perhaps while nibbling a fresh from the oven scone . . .

~Sue

Recipe courtesy of  joyofbaking.com

The Weekend Dish – Creeping Crust Cobbler

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… A Creeping Crust Cobbler Recipe and story

Apricots, like most good things, require patience.  The tree stands barren through winter’s chill while you are left to remember and dream, to wait and hope the small fruit arrives by the buckets come summer.

There are many things like an apricot.

Crystal Cove, CA

 A California sunset, for example.  Or, as Deborah Slicer writes in her poem, “Apricot,” “The weight of a small child’s fist, / a girl…”

Apricot Girl with her Nana who made the family’s first Creeping Crust Cobbler.

In our family it was a girl who inspired Nana, the Backyard Sisters’ mom and grandmother to 10, to turn a bumper crop of apricots into Creeping Crust Cobbler, now a summer dessert staple in all the sisters’ homes.

It was the blazing hot summer of 1987 and Nana had come to stay with Catherine who had just given birth to a son.  Nana made a tradition of spending a week with her daughters whenever a new baby was born. One of the joys of this time was getting an extended visit with the older children in the house, and one of the Apricot Girl’s favorite things was picking up fallen fruit from the ground.

Apricots were one of Nana’s favorite fruits and she knew there was something better to be done with this backyard gift than throwing them for Max the Golden Retriever to catch.  “Let’s turn this into something delicious for dessert.”

When Nana asked what sort of cookbooks I had, I pulled out one that her own mother, Gammy to us sisters, had given me as a wedding shower gift.  A Collection of the VERY FINEST RECIPES ever assembled into one Cookbook was exactly the kind of book to find a homey recipe for apricots.

Gammy loved buying cookbooks from church groups or school PTAs and this book was a compilation of a fund-raising cookbook publishers best recipes.  It perfectly captured the sort of mid-western American fare she made most frequently.  Turns out, I put the right tool in the good cook’s hand. On page 189, Nana found a recipe for Creeping Crust Cobbler.  We’ve tweaked it a little over the years.  But there’s one thing that’s never changed; I always remember the summer Nana and the Apricot Girl discovered one of the favorite desserts in the entire Backyard Sister family.

CREEPING CRUST COBBLER
Heat oven to 350.

1/2 C butter
1 C flour
1 C sugar
1 t baking powder
1 t salt
1/2 C milk

1 C, or less, sugar.
2 C fruit  We’ve successfully made this with apricots, peaches, plums, and blueberries, or any combination of them all.  You can use the fruit solo or mix together. I usually don’t peel the fruit, but you can if you like.

– Heat fruit with sugar in medium saucepan over medium heat until sugar melts and thickens a little.

– Melt butter in 10-inch baking dish by setting dish with butter in it in heating oven.

– Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in medium bowl.
– Add milk and mix.
– Spoon batter in large glops over the melted butter. (Is there anything better than a recipe that uses the word “glops?”)
– Pour fruit and sugar mixture over dough.
– Bake in 350 oven about 30 minutes, until crust is golden brown. (Sometimes this bubbles over into your oven so you might want to place the pie pan on a cookie sheet.)
-Crust will rise to the top.  Serve warm or cold.

Superb with a dollop of ice cream. Excellent for breakfast.

With sweetness,
~ Catherine, Sue, Gammy, Nana, and the Apricot Girl

p.s. You can read Deborah Slicer‘s poem, “Apricot,” in its entirety on the Orion magazine website here. Orion is a treasure for anyone interested in nature meets literature meets culture.

The Weekend Dish

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Venice, Italy                                                                                                 photo credit: Catherine Keefe

Dreaming of Venice, Italy? Maybe you have had your eye on La Biennale di Venezia or Venice Biennial, the  major contemporary art exhibition held there every other year, but just haven’t made it yet. This weekend if you are in Southern California, specifically the Los Angeles area, and want to try the next best thing, have I got an opportunity for you!  The Venice Beach Biennial will be held on the Ocean Front Walk.

Venice Beach, CA                                                                                              photo credit: James Keefe

In conjunction with the Made In LA 2012 project and directed by the curator of the Hammer Museum, Ali Subotnick, there will be over fifty fine artists combined with the veteran boardwalk artists displaying their works. In some instances, the fine artists will be collaborating with the boardwalk artists on projects. The display areas are the Boardwalk and the Recreation and Parks area near Windward Plaza (adjacent to Muscle Beach and the Graffiti Wall). For a list of the participating artists and more information click here.

The hours are:      Friday July 13 and Saturday July 14 from 11AM-sunset

Sunday July 15 from 11AM-6PM

So head on over to Venice Beach take in some art and enjoy the sunset.

Venice Beach Sunset photo credit James Keefe

To really make your Venice experience complete, you could also take a stroll through the local canals.

Ciao!

~ Sue

The Weekend Dish – Saddleback Salad

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Here’s today’s hot tip.
Leave the leftover 4th of July cookies in the kitchen instead of taking them to your desk. Whoops.

Here’s today’s cold tip.
Make a salad. Call it dinner. Pack it up and hike to your favorite swimming hole for a picnic.

I created Saddleback Salad, which takes its name from the mountain where I watch sunset shadows play outside my kitchen window, based on what I picked up at the Laguna Beach Farmer’s Market one Saturday.  The arugula tastes perfectly at home in a wild grass and meadow setting; the mango is like a little shady spot for your tongue.  Transport the lettuce, mango, pamplemousse, and almonds in separate containers.  Make the dressing at home; toss right before serving.

Saddleback Salad
4 C mixed greens
2 C arugula
2 C mango, peeled and diced
1/2 pamplemousse (This is the French word for grapefruit and I swear if you call it a pamplemousse it tastes better)
1/4 C slivered almonds

Dressing:
2 T apple juice
2 T honey
2 T lemon juice
2 T honey mustard
1/8 C olive oil
1/2 T ground ginger
3 chunks crystallized ginger, slivered

Toss greens and arugula in a large bowl.  Add mango and pamplemousse.  Pour dressing over all and garnish with almonds.

Round out your meal with a strawberry, blueberry, raspberry medley, and some fresh honey goat cheese spread on slices of full grain bread, garnished with a few dried cherries.

If you’re the type who likes to read a little poetry with your al fresco meal, Mary Oliver’s, “The Summer Day,” is as good as grace.  You can read it, or listen to Mary read it aloud here.

Hurry! There are only 78 summer nights left. Don’t waste a one.
With wild abandon,
~ C

The Weekend Dish

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Pritzker Pavilion Millenium Park

One of the many things I have learned from my visits to Chicago is that when the weather  warms up the slightest bit, people come outside. They will be out walking, riding bikes, roller skating and running. So in summer, it goes to reason, they are out in droves. This past week, I was one of them enjoying many of the outdoor activities that city has to offer. As my daughters and I sat on the lawn of Millenium Park on a Friday evening relaxing, enjoying a picnic and listening to the sweet sounds of the Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus, it struck me how nice it is to just be outside. When the concert ended, I wasn’t ready for it to be over. So we sat there being entertained by all the other lingerers, not yet ready to move on, until it was almost dark.

Pritzker Pavilion Millenium Park

Another night we went to a movie in one of the many parks. Nothing makes it feel like summer, to me, more than getting outside and watching a movie or experiencing a concert. Now that summer is officially here, the opportunities to get out and play are numerous in many, if not most, cities. Chicago has parks galore. Several of them are the sites of events during the summer such as movies in the park. There are festivals, parades and markets and the Chicago tourism website is a wonderful resource for locating an activity.

My hometown of Los Angeles offers many opportunities to enjoy outdoor activities during the summer months as well. Saturday night is movie night throughout summer in Exposition Park. Street Food Cinema, features food trucks, a band and a movie. The Getty museum hosts music on certain Saturday evenings through their Saturdays off the 405 series. Jazz at the LA County Museum of Art  can be found on Friday nights as well. Of course, one can’t forget the quintessential outdoor venue in LA, the Hollywood Bowl. Or, check out the lesser known Ford Theatre, right across the freeway from the Hollywood Bowl, for a smaller venue and eclectic mix of events featuring acts from Los Angeles County based artists. To find many al fresco activities all around LA try the Eye Spy LA website. I bet you can discover outdoor activities in your city too. Let us know maybe we will stop by for a visit.

Now go outside and play! Happy Summer!
~ Sue

The Weekend Dish – Snickerdoodles

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The summer I was nine years old our family embarked on a cross country driving trip. We were mixing touring the United States with meeting our mother and father’s extended families. Piling into the the large, brown Pontiac station wagon along with the ensuing daily “discussion” over who would get to sit in the rear-facing back seats became the routine. The anticipation of getting to St Louis, where our mother’s cousin and her family lived, was growing by the day. Following the introductions, a bit of awkwardness developed as we attempted to become acquainted. A snack of snickerdoodles and a drink was offered. We were unfamiliar with snickerdoodles but soon learned they are delicious cinnamon sugar cookies. There is nothing quite like cookies to put a slightly awkward crowd at ease. That afternoon, we shared stories and jokes getting to know each other better while nibbling snickerdoodles.  Our delight with the cookies during our visit  prompted our mother to request the recipe. The snickerdoodle has now made it’s place in my recipe box and it has become a regular on the annual Christmas cookie platter. The sweetness of the cinnamon and sugar along with a slight tartness from the cream of tartar mix together to create a perfectly delectable blend of flavors.  

Snickerdoodles

1 cup shortening   (I use butter)

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 eggs

2 3/4 cups flour

2 teaspoons cream of tartar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

Cinnamon sugar:  to make cinnamon sugar, mix 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon (or to taste) with a quarter cup of granulated sugar.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, cream together the shortening and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating thoroughly between each addition.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt. Add to the shortening mixture, beating well. Refrigerate until firm, about 30 minutes.

Tear off walnut-size pieces of dough and roll each into a ball. Roll in the cinnamon sugar mixture and place on an ungreased baking sheet, spacing the cookies about 2 inches apart. Cookies can be pressed with a fork in a criss-cross pattern if you want. Bake until the cookies are light brown and firm on top, 10 to 15 minutes.

Cool the cookies on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack to finish. Store in an airtight container.

Enjoy!

~Sue

Food, marvelous, wonderful, glorious food

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The orphans in Oliver! sing its praises, “food, glorious food,”  we need it to survive and I don’t know about you but I seem to spend a lot of time thinking about it. . . food! I devote countless hours to pondering what to make for meals then peering at produce and labels to pick the necessary ingredients, poring over menus when ordering at a restaurant and perusing cookbooks and magazines looking for inspiration. Recently I have found yet another way of expending even more energy on food by taking photos of it.

If you also like talking about and taking pictures of food there is a photography contest under way that may suit your fancy.  My Nikon Life Magazine is the sponsor, but you don’t need to use a NIKON camera to enter. They “want a mouth-watering story about a great food experience – told in both words and pictures.”   The contest has been divided into three phases and currently is in the third and final phase. The deadline for submissions is  31 August, 2012.  Just like the song in Oliver! the title is Food Glorious Food and you can click there to find out all about it.

Also, if you are in the Los Angeles area June 9th and are in the market for new, original artwork you may want to check out the pop-up gallery the Tappan Collective is sponsoring. The Tappan Collective is an online gallery selling artwork by emerging artists from around the country. The pop-up gallery is 7-10PM at the Jeffries Building, 117 Winston St, LA. To learn more and get all the details visit the Tappan Collective website.

~Ciao, Sue

bees

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Happy chance, serendipity, luck call it what you might it never ceases to amaze me. In the past month I experienced a convergence of events that was truly serendipitous. A couple of weeks ago while out in my yard removing shoots from under the apricot tree, I noticed the presence of an unusually large number of bees. First, one or two, that’s normal; then  seven or eight, that’s quite a few; then, I became aware of a steady buzzing sound which originated over my head! A bee colony had taken up residence in our apricot tree!

The seeming randomness and chaos of their movements is mesmerizing. I kept thinking of The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd and this advice regarding “…’bee yard etiquette’. She reminded me that the world was really one bee yard, and the same rules work fine in both places. Don’t be afraid, as no life-loving bee wants to sting you. Still, don’t be an idiot; wear long sleeves and pants. Don’t swat. Don’t even think about swatting. If you feel angry, whistle. Anger agitates while whistling melts a bee’s temper. Act like you know what you’re doing, even if you don’t. Above all, send the bees love. Every little thing wants to be loved.”

I love the little pollinators when they are at work doing what they do to the flowers and fruit trees in the yard. It is a good year for our apricot tree. We have a bumper crop and I know it is due, in a large part to those bees; however, I am not sure I want to have to deal with such a large number of bees at once.

Now to the serendipity, about three weeks prior to the appearance of the hive my husband   ran into a friend from years ago who we hadn’t seen in a very long time. She shared that her family was keeping bees and gave him a jar of honey.  After marveling at the hive and taking many pictures our thoughts turned to, what do we do with this hive?  So, what pops into our minds (well, my always connecting dots and joining occurrences thinking husband’s mind) calling the beekeeper family and see if they would like it. Sure enough they did want it and came that evening to collect the bees.

We ran into the family once again and they reported the bees have settled in to their new home and are doing “bee”autifully. They also shared another jar (the biggest jar I have ever seen) of honey.

One of my favorite ways to use honey is to drizzle it over Greek yogurt  and add some berries. I am now on the lookout for more recipes utilizing honey and coincidentally, a blogger who liked one of our posts, romancing the bee,  is a beekeeper herself and has many delicious sounding and looking recipes.

Bees are remarkable creatures when around and in their hives especially. Their ceaseless activity inspired awe in me as they crawled chaotically over each other each one doing their own thing . As one who has been stung too many times, I was doing my best to “send the bees love” and in the process developed a new appreciation for them.

~Sue

The Weekend Dish – Big Puffy Baby Cake

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Big Puffy Baby Cake

It begins with the scent of butter, slightly burning.

Early one Thursday evening in July, 1986, my husband Jim and I, along with Erin our 20-month-old daughter asleep in a stroller, arrived at a café au lait brown home in a suburb of Vancouver.  We’d found this place, a home-stay arrangement during Expo 86, the last World’s Fair to be held in North America, through an acquaintance which came by way of something like a business associate’s friend’s nephew’s mother-in-law.  We were here as part of a parenting plan that I can only look back at with fond compassion for my earnest intentions; I wanted to launch my daughter into a life of international travel. Yes, I’ll pause while you laugh and no, she remembers nothing of the experience.

Backyard Sister and daughter, circa 1986

Anyway, a small man with thick spectacles responded to our knock on the door.  He pointed down a dark staircase which lead to a basement and advised us that breakfast would be served at 7 a.m. the next morning. We didn’t want to wake Erin; ours was one of several rooms, separated by temporarily curtained walls, so we settled her in the middle of the queen-size bed between us, dined on apples and Cheez-Its, and looked forward to a meal I imagined to be delicious based on the rich buttery scent which had greeted us at the front door.

I’ll never know what was cooking upstairs because our downstairs breakfast consisted of Fruit Loops, canned peaches, and white bread that was impossible to toast without setting off the fire alarm.  We probably would have given this place more of a chance if it hadn’t been for the giant Rottweiler which freely roamed the house and scared me to death as his gleaming teeth were eye level with my child.

“I don’t expect silver and a tablecloth and fresh scones,” I told Jim when he listened to my plea to relocate.  “But I wouldn’t mind a fresh-cooked breakfast, a room with a window, and preferably no pets.”  I really don’t remember what made us decide to hop on the ferry to Victoria and walk into a Visitor’s Bureau asking for an accommodation recommendation, but by some stroke of luck we were directed to a beautiful cornflower blue Victorian home, painted with bright red and yellow fretwork, surrounded by a garden in full rose bloom.

“Breakfast will be served any time between 8 and 10. What will work best for you and your baby?”

In the morning, we awoke to the scent of butter, slightly burning.  Following our noses, we tiptoed down a wood floor hallway and discovered a large lace-covered dining table set with silver and fresh roses.  Karen, the soft-spoken woman of the house, served up a pie-pan of the most decadently satisfying combination of butter, eggs, flour, and powdered sugar.  When I had my first bite of what Karen called a Dutch Baby I had no idea that this recipe, which Karen later hand scrawled on a real estate agent’s note pad for me, would become ingrained in my memory from frequent use.

And while Erin remembers nothing of her World’s Fair visit, she loves the story of how her favorite breakfast joined family lore.  This is our go-to breakfast for occasions like birthdays, homecomings, and a welcome to our own out-of-town guests.

I first met this as a Dutch Baby, but some people call this Big Puffy Pancake.  Here’s Karen’s original recipe, tweaked throughout the years and renamed to encompass all its history in our family.

Big Puffy Baby Cake

4 T butter (and no, a butter substitute really doesn’t work)
4 eggs
1 C milk
2 T vanilla
1/2 tsp. salt
1 C flour

Set oven to 425.

Slice butter into a 10 inch pie pan and place in oven as it is heating. Let butter melt, until almost brown and bubbly.

Meanwhile beat together eggs, milk, and vanilla.  Sift flour with salt, and then add to egg mixture.  Stir well.  Pour batter into pan over melted butter.

Bake 20-25 minutes until pancake has puffed up over the sides of the pan. Serve immediately. It will deflate slightly. We like it sprinkled with powdered sugar.

Serves 8 moderate eaters, or 4 ravenous ones.

The Weekend Dish

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Ready, set…

When I bought a jembe and began toting it to drum circles my kids looked worried.  It wasn’t until after I began an informal jam session in the family room at the end of my daughter’s engagement party with her soon-to-be in-laws that my daughter finally broke the news, my son solemnly standing by her side for moral support.

“You know, um, Mom, there’s a certain um, stereotype, um, a certain, um, a certain kind of person who goes to drum circles.”

They thought I might be becoming a dope-smoking hippy.  I giggled, lectured on stereotypes, and kept right on seeking out all the drum circles I could find, quite clean and sober.

There are dozens in the southland, but since it’s spring, this would be a great weekend to take your beat to the beach.  If you’re in the Southland, take your pick of The Venice Beach Drum Circle, Hermosa Beach Community Drum Circle, Huntington Beach Drum Circle.  No worries if you live elsewhere. You’ll find a complete listing of Drum Circles throughout the US, including start times, exact locations, and which events provide instruments here.

What to expect?

A drum circle, like a sub-skin tattoo beats under bones and dancing bodies mark upon sand. A soul peeks and shouts, “I am mad!” with lust for living. Spinning. My chest – beating. My drum – beating. My palms – beating. My soul – flinging. My joy – rising.  Beating – my peace to palms – mine, bruised with beating the song. Still spinning – the sun. Still, stirring the still. Still – beating awake, the mute silent gawkers – still. Beating the sun – still. Setting the sun – still. Singing the song – still. Slowing the beat – still! Dark and then all – still.

A follow-up challenge, if you go:

Read Alex Wain’s “25 Handy Words That Simply Don’t Exist In English,” and see how many of these non translatable expressions you experience while immersed in a drum circle.  Personally, I always find #6 and #15 but I never ever encounter the feeling of #24. And that right there is the reason I return.