Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble

Fresh picked strawberries always remind me of my childhood.  Growing up my aunt and uncle had a strawberry patch and I was always envious of their fresh strawberries.  So much, that I begged and pleaded for my parents to let me have my own.  One year they finally gave in and and when my aunt and uncle needed to thin out their patch, I was allowed to bring some plants home to plant in my very own patch.  Soon we had so many strawberries that we couldn't eat them all.  My grandfather, affectionately known as PopPop had a great idea.  He decided to get some berry baskets, load me and my strawberries into his pick up truck, and peddle my strawberries all over the area.  I don't remember how much money we made that summer but at the time, I felt like it was a fortune and it is a fond memory that I still have of him.

Our CSA farm has pick your own strawberries but our weekly share basket has been loaded with them for the past three weeks.  We have eaten them plain, on top of a delicious pound cake with homemade whipped cream, and most recently I made a strawberry rhubarb crumble with it.  My kids liked this recipe so much that they requested I make it again.

Since the strawberry rhubarb crumble was such a hit, I decided to share the recipe.  This recipe came straight from our CSA at Solly Farm and has definitely earned it's place in my collection.

Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble

1 stalk of rhubarb, diced 1/4 inch thick

2 cups fresh strawberries, diced

2 tablespoons cornstarch

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup flour

1 cup oatmeal, old fashioned

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup cold butter

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Grease an 8x8 inch glass baking dish and set aside.

2. Toss together the rhubarb, strawberries, cornstarch, and granulated sugar until coated.  Dump the mixture into the greased baking pan and set aside.

3. In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, oatmeal, brown sugar, and salt.

4. Cut in the cold butter with a pastry blender.  Continue working in the butter until it clumps together into crumbs.

5. Top the strawberries and rhubarb with the crumble.

6. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 30-35 minutes or until crumble is browned and filling is bubbly.

7.  Serve warm with ice cream or whipped cream.

CSA Week 3

I was pretty excited last week when I got my CSA basket and couldn't wait to try out some new recipes.  This week's share also did not disappoint.  Included in the basket this week was lettuce, 2 quarts of strawberries, 2 stalks of rhubarb, 2 zucchini, and sugar snap peas.  Just like last week, I also received a few recipes with ways to use this bounty (which was great because I've never made anything with rhubarb before).  My middle son was super excited to see 2 quarts of strawberries.  He has become a big fan of them this year.  So much that I actually purchased an extra quart.  That lettuce made an amazing salad and the zucchini was actually eaten by my family who adamantly declares that they don't like zucchini.  We are anxiously awaiting next week's basket to see what other new goodies we will find.

Easy Roasted Asparagus

Here in Pennsylvania, the growing season is just starting out.  I have just finally planted the last of my seeds and seedlings and hopefully they will grow to produce bumper crops.  One of my husband's favorite Springtime vegetables is asparagus.  Now, asparagus is a perennial plant and I am super indecisive. So much to my husband's dismay, I have never committed to growing it in my own garden.  Lucky for him, this week's CSA basket had this beautiful bundle of tender spears.  Along with the basket came this recipe for roasted asparagus.  It was very easy to prepare and roasted up beautifully. 

Easy Roasted Asparagus

Ingredients:

    1 pound asparagus

    2 Tablespoons olive oil

    1 teaspoon garlic powder

    Salt and Pepper to taste

    1-2 Tablespoons lemon juice

    2-3 Tablespoons Parmesan cheese

1. Wash asparagus spears and cut off the tough ends.

2. Arrange them on a sheet pan and drizzle with olive oil.

3. Sprinkle on salt, pepper, and garlic powder.

4. Rub the spears so that the salt, pepper, and garlic powder distribute all over evenly.

5. Roast in the oven at 400 degrees for 10 minutes or until the asparagus is slightly golden brown and tender when pierced with a fork.

6. Drizzle lemon juice and sprinkle Parmesan cheese over the asparagus.

CSA Excitement

Have you ever thought about joining a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) but didn't know where to start?  I have probably considered this every Spring for the last 3-4 years.  This year, with all that is going on with Covid-19 and the uncertainty of the immediate future, I decided to take the leap.  I was driving by Solly Brother's Farm one day and saw a sign outside advertising their CSA.  The rest of my drive home was spent weighing the pros and cons of a CSA in an attempt at coming up with a way of convincing my husband that we should really spend such a large chunk of money in such an uncertain time.  To my surprise, I barely started to present my case when he all of a sudden shrugged his shoulders and said, "okay".  That's it??  Just ok??  I didn't have to convince him why this was a good idea?

Just to give a little bit of background, I'm a work from home mom with a lot of mental time on my hands.  I probably think up a million "great ideas" every day.  Only about 1-2 of them ever make it past my internal filter to actually be presented to anyone outside my cranium and even then I'm usually met with skepticism.  So for him to be so on board so easily?  I though for sure he was coming down with this new plague.  So with his blessing, I stopped by the farm and donned my face mask to sign up.  The whole process was super easy.  I just gave them my name and contact information and paid for the season.  Then I went home to wait for about 4 weeks.

Today is the day I've been waiting for.  Today is the first pick up day of the season.  Just as I was getting ready to load all the kids in the truck and drive over to pick up my glorious prize for patience, Mother Nature had a different plan.  Dark grey skies, 80 mile per hour winds, and rain coming down in buckets.  We decided to wait it out.  Which was good because about an hour later, the sun came back out and we were able to go claim our basket of goodies.

Now, our CSA sent out this handy little reminder email this morning so that I didn't forget today was pick up day.  It's like they already know me.  My mind is a sieve.  My phone has alarms set for approximately 15 minutes prior to literally everything that happens in my life.  But I digress.  In addition to the handy reminder, their email also gave me a list of everything that I could expect to find in my basket this week and 3 recipes on what to make with it.  I expect to find these included lists and recipes to be extremely helpful later in the season when I am finding unidentifiable (to me) veggies that I don't know what to do with.

This was another reason why I really wanted to join a CSA this year.  I don't know about you, but I am so incredibly tired of making the same meals every day.  My boys are 10, 7, and 3 and I'm pretty sure they are made of 50% macaroni and 50% cheese.  Ok, there may be some chocolate milk, ice cream, and chicken nuggets in there.  But really, their tastebuds are so boring!  I needed some variety in my life and having different fruits and veggies forced on me every week is just the motivation I was looking for.  So, without further ado,  I present to you CSA Basket #1:

Isn't she beautiful?  

To be honest, when I was reading the email from the CSA they kept referring to the basket of produce that was coming my way,  I kept thinking surely they are just calling it that to make it sound cute and fun.  It has to be coming in some used cardboard box or something.  But no, it really did come in this adorable market basket.  Next week, we will return this basket in exchange for our new one full of goodies.  To be fair, there is a lot of green in the basket this week and not all of it is fresh edible produce but it's only week one, and very early in the growing season.  So what did we receive this week?  

This just screams Spring!

Here is this weeks bounty, in all her glory!  Kale, spinach, asparagus, strawberries, 2 geranium flowers, a freshly baked pound cake, and some homemade strawberry butter.  The recipes that were provided were for Strawberry Shortcake, Easy Roasted Asparagus, and Spinach and Kale Quiche.  I will post more about those recipes after we try them.  Until then, check out some closeups of all these delicious treats.

Strawberry butter and pound cake

Quart of freshly picked strawberries

Kale

This is apparently spinach.  I've never seen this variety before.

Asparagus

 Geraniums!  I can't wait to see what color they will be.

WARNING, LITTLE BOYS ARE GROSS AND THIS STORY HAS LOTS OF POO IN IT.  PROCEED WITH CAUTION.

Life in the Hen House is never boring.  Today I went to change Jack's diaper before putting him down for a nap, only to find out that he did not have a diaper on!  I asked him where his diaper was.  His response?  "I dunno."  I yelled downstairs to Adam and asked where Jack's diaper was.  He told me it was outside in the yard.  I noticed a little smear of poo on Jack's leg.  Oh dear!  I quickly wiped him up, put a fresh diaper on him, and changed his clothing.  Adam brought me Jack's diaper from outside.  No poo, not even wet.  Apparently Jack decided to take it off and pee outside.  Score one point for potty training???  I put Jack down for his nap and went outside to investigate.  What I found was no poo, anywhere.  Wait, is that poo I see across the yard.  Yep, but definitely not Jack's must be from the dog.  I scooped it up, threw it in the trash, and continued searching.  Just when I decided to give up on finding it (honestly I was grossed out and convinced that the dog ate it or something like that) I smelled poo.  I looked down at the patio and sure enough, there was Jack's poo, smeared all over.  I grabbed the garden hose and sprayed it all off into the grass.  Then I got to thinking, that poo was smeared on the patio.  But Jack didn't have it smeared all over him.  Oh God, what did they smear his poo around with???  Then it hit me, Adam had taken his sneakers off outside before coming in the house.  He NEVER takes his shoes off before coming inside, not even when they are caked with mud.  I checked, and sure enough, there was poo on the bottom of his sneaker.  I hosed his sneaker off, cleaned up the rest of the evidence, and all is right in the world again.  At least until the next exciting incident here at the Hen House.

Homemade Lotion

Jack has been suffering from a case of patchy dry skin for the last couple of weeks and we have tried quite a few different lotions, creams, oils, etc but nothing seems to have completely cured it.  Today at his 4 month checkup our family doctor looked at his skin and confirmed what we already suspected, he's got eczema.  Now here is where I would like to do a jig while hugging the bejeezus out of our family doctor.  Instead of prescribing a steroid or some other medicated cream, she suggested I make my own lotion to apply to his entire body.  She gave me the ingredients that she would recommend and said that I could find about a bazillion different recipes online.  In the back of my head there was a little bell going off the entire time she was talking about the simple ingredients for homemade lotion.  It wasn't until I got home and Googled it (or Tim-ed it like we say in our house but that's a totally different story) that I realized why that little bell was going off.  I had previously found a recipe for homemade lotion when I was looking for other homemade cleaning recipes.  Here is the recipe that I originally found for homemade lotion.  Below is my exact recipe that I tried.  Hopefully I will remember to come back and write an update on how it works for poor Jack's eczema.

Homemade Lotion Recipe

1/2 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1/4 cup Organic Beeswax Pastiles
1/4 cup Organic Extra Virgin Coconut Oil
Approximately 2 tablespoons Organic Raw Cocoa Butter (I used a tablespoon measuring spoon as a guide and eyeballed the chunks of cocoa butter instead of grating it to measure it exact)

Add all ingredients to a quart size mason jar.  Place the lid on loosely.  Place jar in a small sauce pan filled about 2 inches with water.  Heat on the stove over medium heat.  As ingredients begin to melt, shake jar occasionally to mix ingredients together.  Once all of the ingredients are thoroughly mixed together, pour into whatever jar, tin, or other container you are planning to store it in.  The finished product will be too thick to use with a pump bottle so a tub or low jar works best for storing.  I used two small canning jars (4 oz each I believe) to keep one upstairs on the changing table and one downstairs in our diaper change basket and a little travel tin that I purchased at Target for in the diaper bag.  Just a warning, use this lotion sparingly.  A little goes a long way!

Claussen Pickle Clone Recipe

Ever since I posted some pictures of my homemade pickles on Facebook, I have been getting requests for my recipe.  Honestly, I can't really take credit for it.  I googled "Claussen Pickle Clone Recipe", looked through what came up, and picked one that sounded easy.  It worked.  My pickles taste very much like Claussen's.  Which mean's a lot considering that I'm a pregnant pickle snob.  (I've always loved pickles, not just since I've been pregnant.)  The recipe I used was actually for refrigerator pickles and I then canned some of the jars.  So here is the recipe that I used:

1 gallon cucumbers
1/3 cup dehydrated onions
6 garlic cloves (minced)
1 1/2 tsp. mustard seed
4 tsp. dill seed
1 1/2 quart water
2 cups cider vinegar
1/2 cup sea salt

Cut cucumbers into desired size. (halves, spears, chips, etc)
Put cucumbers into jars.
Boil liquids and seasonings for 5 minutes to dissolve salt.
Allow brine to cool.
Pour brine over pickles and let sit on counter for 3 days, turning occasionally.  (cover loosely with either cheese cloth or the lid of your canning jar to keep fruit flies out)
Then refrigerate.  They will keep for one year.

Note: I looked at some recipes for instructions on how to can these pickles since the original recipe was only for refrigerator pickles.  A lot of the recipes called for processing the jars for 10-15 minutes.  I did happen across one that was a Claussen clone recipe that said she only processed the jars for 5 minutes to keep the pickles from losing their crunch.  I followed the 5 minute recipe for canning my pickles.  We have only tried the refrigerated ones and not the canned ones so I can't guarantee how they will turn out when canned.  I will try to post an update once we start using the canned ones to let you know how they held up.