Red Rhubarb Gelatin Salad

I love this stuff. It's layers of salty crunch and sweet cream enveloping a tangy gelatin layer. This recipe is a conglomeration of two other recipes  - one from The Joy of Rhubarb and the other I've already shared. It's a great way to use rhubarb and still get the decadence of the creamy and crunchy layers from the original raspberry version.

Gelatin layer:
6 cups rhubarb, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 cups water
1 6-ounce (large) package of cherry or strawberry gelatin (sugar free is fine too)
Optional: 1 cup fresh or frozen strawberries (do not thaw)

Creamy layer:
8 oz cream cheese, softened
8 oz whipped topping
1  - 1/14 cups sugar (taste)

Pretzel layer:
3/4 cup melted butter
2 tbsp sugar
1 1/2 cups hand-crushed pretzels 


Coat a 9x 13 pan with non-stick cooking spray.  Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees

Combine rhubarb, sugar and water in a saucepan. Cook over medium heat stirring frequently, until rhubarb is tender (8 min). Stir in dry gelatin. Pour hot mixture into prepared pan. Gently drop strawberries on top. Refrigerate until set.

Meanwhile, mix pretzels, melted butter and 2 tablespoons sugar. Spread into a 9 x 13 pan. Bake for 10 minutes at 350 degrees. Stir loose from the pan and let cool.

Combine cream cheese, whipped topping and sugar with hand mixer at medium speed. Spread mixture over set gelatin and chill again for at least 30 minutes, or until ready to serve.

Just prior to serving, top with pretzels.

Rosemary Focaccia

This recipe is one of the reasons I grow rosemary in the summertime. I love the process of baking bread, and specifically in this recipe, squishing the onions into the dough. The result is fragrant, crispy with a lovely Italian butter (olive oil) flavor.


2 medium onions, chopped finely
1/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 1/2 tsps active dry yeast
1/2 tsp sugar
1 1/2 cups warm water (110 to 115 degrees)
1/2 tsp salt
3 to 4 cups all purpose flour
2 tablespoons snipped fresh rosemary OR 2 tsps dried , crushed
Cornmeal
Coarse Salt

In a hot skillet, saute onions in 1/4 cup oil until tender; cool. In a large mixing bowl, dissolve yeast and sugar in 1/4 cup of water water; let stand for 5 minutes. Bubbles should have formed on the top of the water. If not, your yeast is bad. Buy new yeast :)

To the yeast solution  add 2 tablespoons oil, salt and remaining water. Add 2 cups flour. Beat until smooth. Stir in enough remaining flour to form a soft dough.

Turn onto a floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic (about 7 minutes.) Add onions and half of the rosemary; knead 1 minute longer to incorporate onions and rosemary. Place in a greased bowl, turning once to grease top. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 40 minutes.

Punch down dough. Turned onto a lightly floured surface; divide in half. Pat each portion flat. Cover and let rest for 5 minutes. Grease two baking sheets and sprinkle with cornmeal. Stretch each portion of dough into a 10-inch circle on prepared pans (or a rectangle...)  Cover and let rinse until doubled, about 40 minutes.

Brush with remaining oil. Sprinkle with coarse salt and remaining rosemary. Bake at 375 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from pans to wire racks to cool.

Move over bald guy. Cleaning the microwave

During grilling season, I really don't like turning on my stove. I'd rather use my microwave. I love it for reheating leftovers, but we have more of a hate relationship when it comes time for cleaning.

Enter a mug of water.

Fill a mug of water to the top. Nuke it for five to ten minutes. It'll release a lovely steam that loosens all the baked on junk. Then, easily clean most of it away. No special bald-guy sponge required.

Eric's Amazing Steak Marinade

I don't grill. Well, I don't need to. I have a husband who is extremely skilled in grilling.

This is a marinade he's been using in recent weeks. It started as a recipe he pulled from the Internet and has grown and changed as he's been cooking us steaks.

1 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup lemon juice
3 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp Dijon-style prepared mustard
2 cloves garlic, minced
3-4 medium sized steaks.

Combine all ingredients except steaks. (Don't obsess too much about measurements. Just don't go overboard on the soy sauce.) Mix well.

Marinade steaks in a bowl, container or resealable bag - whatever will help bring the steaks in as much contact as possible with the liquid for about 1 hour.

After an hour, transfer to the grill, cooking as desired.

Margherita Pizza

Tomorrow is opening day for the Twins. Tradition in our house dictates we have a floor picnic tomorrow during the game. Unfortunately, it's also on a Friday during Lent. No meat. *sigh*

So, despite it being out of season, we're going to do Margarita Pizza tomorrow.

Margarita is a not a traditional tomato-based American pizza, but instead a very sophisticated pizza with the  clean flavors of olive oil and mozzarella cheese (use the good stuff...) and amazing bursts of basil throughout.

You either start with the World's Best Pizza Dough. (No really, it's the BEST) or One Hour Pizza Dough.

Then you'll need:

Olive Oil (a glug or two)
A pastry brush, grilling brush or, in a pinch, clean hands
Mozzarella cheese
A tomato or two roma tomatoes, seeded and thinly sliced
Several fresh basil leaves (yes, fresh. Ok, you can't substitute, but I don't recommend it.)

Preheat your oven appropriately for your dough.
Roll the dough out into whatever thickness you enjoy.
Brush the dough with the olive oil. How much? Just enough so that your finger can slide. Not so much that you have an oil slick.
Top with mozzarella. As much or little as you like on your pizza.
Top with thin slices of tomato and sprinkle with a chiffonade of basil.
Bake as your dough recipe suggests.

How to "chiffonade" basil:

The idea of a chiffonade is to cut really thin strips. If you've tried, cutting a leaf into thin strips is hard. So, take the basil leaves and roll one around the other (envision rolling tobacco.) Once you have a rolled group of leaves, take a small knife and slice off a little of the leaves at a time. In the end, you'll end up with really tiny strips that you can sprinkle over your pizza. YUM!

One hour pizza dough

This isn't my favorite pizza dough recipe. But, my favorite recipe takes 2-3 hours. It's simply not practical for a weeknight. So, if my kids want homemade pizza on a weeknight, I use this one. I can go from yeast to eating pizza in about an hour.


1 package (2 1/2 tsps) active dry or instant yeast
1 cup warm water (110 - 115 degrees)
2 tbsps olive oil (I recently used an Italian herb infused olive oil. YUM)
1 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 1/2 - 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
pizza toppings

In a large mixing bowl, dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water. Wait for the yeast to proof (bubble. If it doesn't bubble, it's dead, you need new yeast.) After the yeast proofs, add oil, salt and 1 1/2 cups flour. Beat the mixture until smooth. Stir in enough of the rest of the flour to form a stiff dough. Cover, and let rest for 10 minutes.


Preheat oven to 425 degrees

Spray a cookie sheet or pizza pan with non-stick spray (if using a pizza stone, DO NOT spray.) Place dough on pan and push and roll out to your desired thickness. Pinch edges Poke all over with a fork to prevent bubbles.

Bake for 12-15 minutes or until browned. Add toppings (let me recommend Margarita Pizza) Bake for 10-15 minutes more.

Garlic or Garlic Herb or just Herb Bubble Loaves

Yeah, my family has purchased the garlic bread in the foil that you throw in the oven, wrapper and all. Yeah... this is SO WAY better. It does take time. It's not something that you can throw into an oven next to a frozen pizza when you get home from work. This is more of a Saturday work of art.

This recipe is a combination of two different recipes. 

Bread:
2 packages (1/4 ounce each) active dry yeast (or, instant yeast, in which case, the rising times will be thrown.)
1/4 cup warm water (110 to 115 degrees)
2 cups warm milk (again, 100 to 115 degrees)
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp shortening
2 tsp salt
6 1/4 - 6 1/2 cups flour (I've subbed up to a cup of wheat flour)

In a large bowl, dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water. Wait 5 minutes for yeast to proof (bubble.) If the yeast doesn't bubble, it's dead. Start over.

In the meantime, turn on your oven to warm. When it's preheated. Turn it off. 

After the yeast proofs, add milk, shortening, salt and 2 cups flour. Beat until smooth. Stir in enough of the rest of the flour to form a soft dough. 

Turn onto a floured surface, knead until smooth and elastic; about 6-8 minutes. (Ok, I admit it, I use my mixer to do this.)

Place in a greased bowl (one that can go into that warm oven, so metal is preferred.) Turn the dough once to grease top. Cover, and let rise in the warm oven until doubled (about an hour)

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. 

Punch the dough down. Turn onto a lightly floured surface and divide into fourths. Divide each section into 12 pieces. Shape each piece of dough into a ball, dip in butter mixture of your choice (see below.) Place in two greased 9x5x3 loaf pans (note, I said place, not pack.) Pour any extra butter over the top. Cover, and let rise until doubled, about 30 minutes.

Bake at 375 degrees for 35-40 minutes or until golden brown. Cool for 10 minutes. Pull to eat.

Butter options:

Option 1: Garlic Butter
Mix 1/2 cup melted butter with 1 tbsp dried parsley flakes and 2 tsps garlic powder

Option 2: Garlic Herb Butter
Mix 1/2 melted butter with 8 minced garlic gloves, and 1/2 tsp each of dried oregano, thyme, and crushed rosemary.

Option 3: Herb Butter
Mix 1/2 cup melted butter with 1/2 tsp each of dried oregano, thyme and crushed rosemary