Strawberry Rhubarb Mini Buckles

Strawberries.

Seeing that word on my favourite country market's sign means one thing: summer.

Even though summer officially arrives in about two weeks, to me and other food-loving locals, hearing Trevor's shop is open for the season means that summer is for all intents and purposes...here.

In amongst onions, peppers, apples and other fruits and vegetables which winter well, were signs of warmer weather: asparagus, rhubarb and strawberries. Peas will soon arrive. Next month a whole host of other crops will appear.

But moreso than any other hot weather weather crop, finding local strawberries in punnets and baskets signals a fleeting few weeks of snow-less weather has arrived.

It's still early in the season. The berries aren't quite as sweet as they will be in a couple of weeks, but they are much more like precious little gems than what the chain stores have on their shelves throughout the year.

I couldn't resist. I bought a punnet of berries and a bundle of rhubarb stalks. I've always loved their sweet-sour combination--not to mention the gorgeous deep pink colour they take on when baked in pies or cooked in jams.

This time I decided to make some mini-buckles--fruited cakes with a bit of a streusel topping, thus named for the cake's buckled appearance. The finished cake has a bit of a sweet, crunchy top; a tart soft fruit layer, and a dense vanilla cake base. The combination is (I think) absolutely fitting for an afternoon tea break....in a garden...in the sunshine.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Mini Buckles

Yield: 12

Ingredients

For the Topping

50g (60ml/0.25c) sugar

30g (60ml/0.25c) cake flour

30g (30ml/2Tbsp) cold butter

For the fruit:

130g (310ml/1.25c) chopped strawberries (fresh or thawed)

80g (180ml/.75c) chopped rhubarb

2-4Tbsp (30-60ml) sugar, to taste

For the cakes:

2Tbsp (30ml) yoghurt

6Tbsp (90ml) milk

1tsp (5ml) vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste

100g (125ml/0.5c) sugar

55g (60ml/0.25c) softened butter

2Tbsp (30ml) flavourless oil

2 eggs, beaten

227g (430ml/1.75c/0.5lb) cake flour

0.25tsp (1ml) salt

Method:

Preheat oven to 180C/350F.

Line a 12-bowl cupcake tin with papers. and set aside

For the topping:

Rub together the sugar, flour and butter so everything is combined, but in varied pebble sizes (from grains of sand to no bigger than a pea). Refrigerate until you're ready to bake.

For the fruit:

Combine the strawberries and rhubarb with as much sugar as the berries dictate.

For the cakes:

Mix together the milk, yoghurt and vanilla. Set aside

Cream together sugar, butter and oil. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Mix in the the flour and by this point the curdled cream the the usual alternating method (flour-milk-flour-milk-flour), scraping down the bowl's sides between each addition.

Divide evenly between the cupcake bowls and level the batter as best as you can. Spoon equal amounts of the fruit mixture onto each cake. Cover with the topping.

Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the topping has turned a light golden colour and an inserted cake tester comes out cleanly.

Notes:

• As with pretty much anything using strawberries, try to use in-season strawberries. Better still, try and find local strawberries. If you're doing this out-of-season, then you may need more sugar.
• If you'd rather turn this into one large buckle to slice, this recipe will proffer a 20cm (8") round buckle

cheers!

jasmine

I'm a quill for hire!

Roast Vegetable and Tuna Salad

The sun, I fear, is nothing more than a myth. A rumour. A figment of some deluded soul's imagination.

I honestly don't know how much rain has fallen here since the beginning of April. I don't know how many days of dreariness we've had. Sun beams that actually reached the ground in two months? I'll guess three. The final numbers aren't out yet, but I won't be surprised if 2011 turns out to be one of the wettest, if not *the* wettest since they started keeping such records in this area.

It's rained so much that I see thin strokes of fuzzy green on the pavement. With indoor humidity at about 83 per cent according to the wall gadget, the air seems thick and chilly. My Monet print umbrella is my most prized possession. More valued than my kitchen scale, more used than my merlot-hued patent leather near-stiletto boots, more needed than my Blackberry.

That said, the grass is lush and green and my dahlias, irises, bleeding hearts and indigo are thriving. But those are the only real positives I can think of. Oh...and I didn't have to wash winter's salt off my car.

I usually don't moan about cloud or rain, but enough is enough. Really, it is.

It would be nice to feel the sun's warm for more than an hour or so every so many days...or weeks.

The problem with weather like this is I'm still mentally stuck in wintery foodish themes. I'm still roasting meats and making stews. This just doesn't seem right for late May in the northern hemisphere.

I just can't get excited about frizzy salad greens or light broths...not when it's as grey as slate and the sound of rain coming down the chimney reminds me of Jacob Marley's clanging chains.

In hopes of kickstarting my summer cooking, I've taken one of my usual winter staples -- roasted Mediterranean vegetables -- and hoped to coax back the sun with the simple addition of another Mediterranean item: tuna.

Generally I roast a good quantity of vegetables (sometimes adding courgettes (zucchini), or fennel) and keep it in the fridge as a side to go with roast birds or beast, as an omelet stuffing or in wraps, but this time I'm using the same mix, cold, for a salad base.

I prefer to roast the vegetables (well, fruit) separately as I don't want the tomatoes' juices to run into the aubergines, but if you'd rather roast them together, that's fine. I don't pay attention to how much of anything I add to the vegetables--it's totally to taste.

The salad itself is quite adaptable--I use tinned tuna out of convenience, but you can use grilled or seared tuna. If you don't want to use fish, you can use poached eggs, grilled pork or chicken, tinned chickpeas or even cheese such as feta or halloumi.

Roasted Vegetable Salad with Tuna

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

For the tomatoes

3-4 ripe tomatoes, cut into slim wedges
olive oil
red wine
balsamic vinegar
salt
pepper
dried basil
chilli flakes, to taste
1 red onion, cut into slim wedges
6 garlic cloves, with papers left on

For the aubergine/eggplant:
1 medium aubergine (eggplant), skin on, diced into 1.25cm (0.5") pieces,
olive oil
salt
pepper
ground coriander
dried basil
garlic powder
onion powder
chilli flakes, to taste

2 Roasted peppers, sliced

red wine vinegar
canned tuna (see notes)
black olives
capers
black pepper

Method
Line two cookie sheets with tin foil and set aside. Preheat oven to 170C/350F.

For the tomatoes
Mix the tomatoes with olive oil, red wine, a splash of balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper, dried basil and chilli flakes. Let sit for at least an hour if you can.

Scatter the tomatoes onto the other tray and nestle in the onions and garlic. Pour the macerating liquid over the lot.

For the aubergine

Mix all the aubergine's ingredients together with the fruit (yes, it's a berry). and tumble onto one of two trays.

Put both trays into the oven and roast for 30-45 minutes, until cooked but not burnt. One tray may take longer to cook than the other, if so take out the trays as they are ready

Allow to cool a bit and combine the tomatoes, aubergines and peppers with a drizzle of red wine vinegar. Give it a stir and let cool to room temperature

To serve, portion onto plates, top with tuna, scatter capers and olives over top and lightly dust with pepper.

Notes:

- I prefer tuna packed in olive oil, but if you can't find it, use the type packed in spring water or broth. You can also use grilled tuna instead.

- If you'd rather not do this with fish, try poached eggs, grilled chicken, grilled pork, or chickpeas instead.

cheers!

jasmine

I'm a quill for hire!

Happy Victoria Day! Bleu cheese stuffed burgers

It's the end of the world, as we know it...and I feel fine.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who had REM's music trilling through their brain yesterday morning as we (*gasp*) awoke and found life to be business as usual.

For those of you who don't know, or have forgotten, an end-of-the-world obsessed Harold Camping (an American radio evangelist) rejigged his calculations (notice the "re") and pronounced 21 May 2011 as the beginning of the end. Along with this was something like 200 million "true believers" were to be welcomed to the afterlife, and a tsunami-inducing earthquake was supposed to hit somewhere in the Pacific.

I'm not going to mention the dearth of reports mentioning people beamed up for their one-on-one with whomever they believe to be their maker. I've not read any evidence supporting a one-day more than 10-fold increase in average daily deaths on the 21st. I won't even hint that the earthquake's target area is known for regular seismic activity and the two *small* earthquakes that did happen didn't trigger tsunami warnings.

Really...It seemed like a pretty normal kind of day.

So while the nonagenarian preacher (with what I think of as an unhealthy obsession with the obliteration of the Earth) is "flabbergasted" that the end of days didn't come (or maybe he's just bewildered, that if it stealthily occurred, why the rapture didn't save him or apparently anyone he knew) the rest of the world ticks on...

And for those of us in Canada, it means getting on with our Victoria Day long weekend.

Victoria Day is Canada's unofficial start of summer. Those with cottages travel out to open them up for the season, gardens are turned, annuals are planted, and barbecues are fired up.

Well, just because I don't have a cottage, I've already taken care of my garden, the dahlias are in, and I don't have a barbecue doesn't mean I can't partake in the first long weekend of the season in appropriate fashion...

I suppose if I actually believed Saturday was the end of everything I may have planned a more appropriate menu...but really...if it's my last meal on Earth, I wouldn't have changed my game plan. I wouldn't have stopped eating red meat and bleu cheese and I wouldn't pour the gin down the drain.

For a last meal, why would I meander too far off my You Are What You Eat list? Why should I take on uncharacteristically trendy foodish airs or make a wholesale change in what I do in hopes that these last-minute changes in the final fleeting moments would change the inevitable?

So for this Victoria Day (or end of days day or not end of days day), my beginning of summer offering is a burger stuffed with bleu cheese and topped with red onions and fried mushrooms.

To me the key to a good homemade hamburger patty is to keep it as simple as possible.

Use ground chuck, fully speckled with flecks of white fat (regular ground beef, not lean or extra lean), salt and pepper. That's it: no eggs, no dried onion soup mix, no panade. For a bleu cheese-stuffed burger, look for a medium-firm cheese--I used Australia's King Island Dairy's Roaring Forties bleu--if you go with a softer cheese, you run the risk of it melting out of the burger while it cooks.

Top it however you wish. I chose dijon mustard, fried mushrooms and red onions. I will say if you happen to have any leftover bourgignon sauce in your freezer (as I tend to have) that works well with this burger.

Bleu cheese-stuffed burgers
Yield 4

Ingredients
500g (1lb) ground chuck, or medium ground beef
0.25tsp salt (or to taste)
0.5tsp pepper (or to taste)
4tsp medium-firm bleu cheese
four buns (hamburger, ciabbata, foccacia, etc)

Condiments and toppings (to taste)
Lettuce
Fried Mushrooms
Sliced red onions
Dijon mustard
Garlicky dill pickles

Method
Mix the salt, pepper and meat together. Divide into four equal portions.

Take each portion and form a ball, then push on one side to make a bowl- or a well-like shape. Add one teaspoon of cheese to the bottom of the well and close up the meat around the cheese. Press and form into a patty. Refrigerate until ready to cook.

Fry or grill until done. Serve on a bun and top as you please.

cheers!

jasmine

I'm a quill for hire!