Mom's Rhubarb Crisp

At my parent's place, in the back yard, behind our shed, is a rather large rhubarb plant. When we first moved there it was tiny, but it has since expanded its territory. Once the rhubarb is large enough, it's harvested for one of our favourite rhubarb dishes─the crisp.

Perfect for a warm spring evening with family and friends

This is my mom's recipe, originally scribbled at the back of one of her dessert cook books. Since her rhubarb wasn't up yet last weekend when I visited, we decided to use up last year's batch of frozen rhubarb. If you're using frozen rhubarb like we did, try and defrost it first, because it tends to produce a lot of water that needs to be drained off before baking. 

I've doubled the recipe from my mom's original because there is just no use in making a single batch. In all my years of eating this dessert, I don't believe I've ever seen my mom make a single batch.

Serves: 6
Bake at: 350°F

Ingredients

6 cups rhubarb
2 tbsp flour
1 cup sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
2 Tbsp water (omit if using frozen)
optional: 1 1/2 cup diced strawberries

3/4 cup margarine
3/4 cup flour
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1 cup oats

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 350° F.
Mix first 6 (or 7) ingredients in a large bowl.
In another bowl cream margarine with sugar, then mix in flour and oats.
Lightly grease a 9"x13" glass pyrex dish.
Evenly distribute the rhubarb mixture in the glass dish.
Distribute crumble on top of the rhubarb equally. You can either pat it down a bit or leave the mixture loose.
Bake at 350°F for 40 minutes or until top is golden brown and the rhubarb is tender.
Let cool.
Serve at room temperature with vanilla ice cream, and enjoy!

Spring Sprouts!

12 hours

24 hours

36 hours

48 hours

60 hours

72 hours

84 hours

96 hours: Lunch Time!

With Spring fast approaching, its a great time to start sprouting. My currents favourites include alfalfa and chickpeas, but other varieties that are easy to grow sprouts include: fenugreek, radish, broccoli, mung beans, cabbage, mustard seeds, quinoa, lentils and pea sprouts.   

Sprouts are great on sandwiches or in salads. They taste great and they're good for you. Sprouts can be very expensive, and by growing them yourself, you can cut the costs and achieve fresher sprouts any time of year. 

My favourite sprouting method is growing sprouts in mason jars. To grow sprouts in mason jars, you will need a large glass jar, cheese cloth of mesh, an elastic, a drying rack, colander or large bowl to drain water. 

Soaking over night

Rinsed than left to drain

24 hours

To start sprouting, soak your seeds 2-4 times the amount of water, and let soak over night. In the morning, drain out the water, rinse, drain and let dry on an angle by a window. 

Rinse and drain sprouts twice daily, before bed, and in the morning works well. Harvest your sprouts within 3-7 days depending on the seed. 

Alfalfa can be ready to eat around 4 days, were as chickpeas takes even less time. For most sprouts, continue sprouting until they develop a long tail with a few green leaves. For some sprouts, such as chickpeas, quinoa, pea sprouts and mung beans and lentis, they can be eaten as soon as their tail emerges.  That being said, longer tails are commonly preferred for salads and some other raw dishes.
When these babies are ready, eat them or stick them in the fridge and keep refrigerated for up to 7 days.

Summer Rolls

Also known as garden rolls or spring rolls, the un-fried variety, this appetiser is not only fun to make, but it's tasty too! This dish is great made ahead for parties, but the fresher the rolls the better. I've made the dish numerous times, both with family, or by myself while watching a corny movie or a cooking show. 
Garden rolls are all about what's inside, never use canned or frozen vegetables, all the vegetables should be fresh, but there are quite a few different varieties of vegetables that you can chose from. In the recipe below, I've included some of my favourites, but you can leave out ingredients that your supermarket doesn't have or that you dislike, or add in veggies you love. So you don't like tofu? Leave it out! Half the time I'm too lazy to prepare the tofu any ways,  but if you're marinating tofu for dinner, you might as well include it. Other popular ingredients include zucchini, red or green pepper, black or white fungus, lettuce, red cabbage....and the list goes on.
Perfect for the summer because there is no frying or baking involved, just cutting and rolling, but also great whenever you want to bring a a fresh note to a Thai meal or need an appetizer for a dinner party.

Serves: 8 rolls

 

Ingredients

8 sheets large rice paper rounds

fresh cilantro, Thai basil and/or mint
1 small green onion, just the greens, sliced lengthwise, 1-2mm thick
1/4 cuccombre, julienned
1 small carrot, fine julienne or shaved
2 large handfuls of bean sprouts
2 large handfuls of snow peas
half a package of enoki mushrooms
handful of greens (such as lettuce, or swiss chard greens used here)
1/4 yellow pepper, julienned
16 pieces of tofu (~1/4 of a brick), cut à l'alumette (about the size of your pinky finger), marinated 
Glass noodles, one small sachet, or 1 cup cooked.

Sauce to serve, such as sweet thai chilli or vegetarian hoisin sauce

Preparation

Marinate the tofu as needed, I followed the Marinated Tofu Recipe.
Wash all vegetables and cut appropriately.
Cook glass noodles until aldente, drain and set aside.
Wash counter or table and arrange all items around your work area.
Fill a large pan or dish with warm water to soak the rice paper.
One at a time, soak rice paper for about 15 seconds, then transfer to clean work area.
Layer on the vegetables, starting with the herbs and greens and finishing with the glass noodles, leaving at least an inch at each end.
To close, fold each end up over the vegetables, then fold over the one side. Be gentle, but firm enough that you create a tight roll. If you are right handed, and if you're vegetables lie vertically, close the bottom and top first then fold over the right side so you can roll to the left. Normally, this will let you achieve tighter rolls, alternatively, you can lie your veg horizontally and roll upwards.
Repeat as needed, you may wish to do more than one at a time.
Cover with seran wrap until ready to serve.

Enjoy with friends and family