Crockafeather Leekie

My last two free-range chickens (will order more from the Northwest Food Hub!) achieved thawed-ness at a very awkward time.  So I put them in the slow cooker, with some leeks and white wine.  Seeing them there, I thought, "Cockaleekie!" and so Googled.

Cockaleekie is Scottish.  Though Scotland's cuisine sometimes can seem a bit perverse, nonetheless the country fascinates me, with its lochs, remote highland moors, wheeling curlews, and rambling old houses.  But I digress.

It seems a certain Ronnie Clydesdale (how can you not trust that name?) from the Ubiquitous Chip restaurant in Glasgow has a recipe for Cockaleekie. It's probably authentic, but seems really plain.  

Wikipedia says that historically, prunes (!) were added to boost Cockaleekie broth's nutritional qualities.

Another website is so Scottish, it has an online game you can play called "Whack a Haggis."  Right.  Their Cockaleekie recipe calls for celery, bay leaf, and optional avocado. They also mention something called "Feather Fowlie," a soup finished with egg yolks and cream. 

Having picked up some duck eggs at the Northwest Food Hub, and having Pure Eire heavy cream to hand, a Feather Fowlie/Cockaleekie hybridization is emerging.   Also, thyme and bacon seem to be Feather Fowlie options. And nutmeg!  And it's topped with julienned prunes.  I love how prunes keep popping up in these recipes.

Back in the kitchen, I drafted a recipe based on my research, and added herbs, spices and prunes to the slow cooker.

The finished soup was deeply satisfying.  And so a blog post was born.


CROCKAFEATHER LEEKIE

For chicken and stock:

2 small free-range chickens
4 small or 2 large leeks, white
   and light green parts only, sliced
1/2 cup white wine
4 cups water
4 prunes
2 teaspoons dried thyme
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 bay leaf

To finish the soup:

1-1/2 cups sliced carrots
1-1/2 cups sliced celery
1-1/2 cups diced onion
1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper

3 cups of the cooked chicken, cut into smallish pieces for soup

1/2 cup Pure Eire cream
2 duck egg (or three chicken egg) yolks

1 cup sliced bacon
1 clove garlic, minced

2 or 3 prunes, julienned (cut in slivers)


Place all chicken and stock ingredients in 6-quart slow cooker.  Cook on high for 4 to 5 hours or on low for 8 to 10 hours.  Remove chickens from cooker and place them on a platter.  Strain the broth and chill.  Remove chicken meat from bones and set aside or refrigerate.

To finish and serve the soup, skim fat from broth.  Heat broth to simmering in a large soup pot.  Add carrots, celery, onion and crushed red pepper.  Simmer about 45 minutes or until vegetables are tender.

In a small skillet, fry bacon and garlic 'til crispy.  Set aside.

In small bowl, whisk together cream and egg yolks.

Turn off heat under soup pot.  Quickly stir in cream/egg yolk mixture.  Ladle soup into bowls and top with bacon and julienned prunes.

Taste the Scottish history!

Makes 4 very hearty servings.

Creamy Lemon, Garlic and Tarragon Chicken

 

Mr. Eating the Scenery once posited  that if tuna could be called Chicken of the Sea, it only stood to reason that chicken could be called Tuna of the Land.  Of course, this is the same man who wondered, upon observing this sign outside Yakima, a nearby city, if there was a corresponding sign outside Palm Springs billing it as the Yakima of California.  You can see why I like to keep Mr. ETS well nourished.

My intentions for these two free-range tuna ... er, chickens, started along the thyme and rosemary line.  But sunshine, bobbing robins, miscellaneous birdsong, bright green tarragon springing up outside ... diverse factors converged to make it obvious that something quite different was called for on this bright (albeit chilly) Spring day.  Herewith, the result.
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CREAMY LEMON, GARLIC AND TARRAGON CHICKEN
  
Long ago my mom taught me to cut up a chicken.  Later, my youthful, preppy self learned that you can buy chickens already cut up!  Now that I have reverted to local, free-range chickens, which come to me whole, I find that chicken-cutting-up skills, apparently, never leave you. 

2 lovely, free-range, local chickens  (mine were each about 3 pounds)
Coconut oil or your fat of choice
1 cup chopped tarragon
1 organic lemon, thinly sliced, seeds removed
8 cloves garlic, crushed or roughly chopped
1 cup white wine
Salt and freshly ground pepper

Pan juices from roasted chicken
1/2 cup Pure Eire organic Jersey cream
Fresh tarragon

Cut up chickens into leg/thigh pieces and breast pieces.   I left the breasts whole because I don't have a cleaver.  Put backs, necks, wings (if they're scrawny) into a plastic bag and freeze to make stock later.

Season chicken pieces with salt and pepper.

Heat oven to 450 degrees.

In large Dutch oven, heat coconut oil.  Brown leg/thigh pieces on both sides and remove to plate.  Brown breasts on skin sides, then turn upright in pan.  Pour in white wine.  Scatter half the garlic and tarragon over the breasts, and top with half the lemon slices.  Place leg/thigh pieces on and around the breast pieces, and top with remaining garlic, tarragon, and lemon slices.

Cover, and bake for 50 minutes.  Check internal temperature of breasts; when it is 165 degrees, chicken is done.  Lift chicken pieces from the Dutch oven and place them in a shallow casserole.  If you've left the breasts whole, remove the meat from them for easy serving.

Pour chicken juices through a strainer into a suitably sized saucepan.  Heat to a simmer, reduce if desired, stir in cream, heat through and pour over chicken pieces.  Top with fresh tarragon sprigs or chopped tarragon.

Serve with optimally prepared, fresh, local vegetables of your choice.

Makes 8 to 10 hearty servings.  And don't forget to make stock with the backs, wings and bones!

Mustard Greens with Ginger-Garlic Cream

While I love kale, spinach and chard, especially alongside savory meats, once in a while the noticeable spiciness of mustard greens makes a nice change.

For once, I actually followed the recipe directions and strained the ginger and garlic from the simmered cream, although I was tempted to chop them finely and leave them in.  The result is an elegant, creamy greens dish with a hint of exotic, spicy flavor ... quite delectable alongside Thundering Hooves spicy Italian sausage, into which I mixed a generous amount of minced CSA red onion. 
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MUSTARD GREENS WITH GINGER-GARLIC CREAM
From Fast, Fresh and Green by Susie Middleton

1 pound mustard greens
1 tablespoon kosher salt

1/2 cup Pure Eire heavy (though I prefer "ethereal" as more descriptive) cream
2 large garlic cloves, smashed
4 slices fresh ginger, chopped or smashed

Nearly fill a big pot with water, and add the salt.  Bring water to boil while you stem and wash the mustard greens.  Wash leaves thoroughly (this is a lot like washing the floppy ears of a large dog) and pull leaves away from thick stems.  As you finish each leaf, place it in a large bowl.  When all leaves are washed, run kitchen shears through the bowl a few times to reduce the size of the leaves a bit.

Add all the greens to the boiling water, pushing down to submerge.  Return to a boil for 4 minutes; taste a leaf for tenderness, then continue cooking for 2 more minutes, until greens are tender.  Drain in a colander, squishing the greens against the sides to get all the moisture out.  Set greens aside.

Heat the cream, garlic and ginger in a 1-quart saucepan over very low heat, simmering until reduced to 1/4 cup or so.  You'll need to stir the cream a few times to keep everything reducing nicely. When cream has reduced, remove garlic and ginger with slotted spoon.

Add greens to reduced cream, stir to coat, and heat just until hot.  Overcooking at this point will make the greens begin to release water.  Serve hot.

Makes 2 generous servings.

Butternut and Spinach Frittata with Cream and Walnuts

Mmm, creamy, squashy, nutty ... superbly satisfying on a cold January evening, with a green salad and grapefruit wedges.

Crank's Bible is a rich compendium of intriguing combinations, and gives great consideration, in an easygoing way, to the pleasure of both eye and palette. I found this cookbook on a sale table some years ago, picked it up, put it down, walked off, walked back ... you know the drill.

I'd had this recipe marked for weeks, and, finally, the perfect evening for it arrived.  I used my CSA butternut squash cubes, previously frozen, and local Davis Farms walnuts, Pure Eire cream, and CG Ranch eggs.

Believe it or not, I took this recipe down by half.  Nadine Abensur's version was positively Bacchanalian, with a whole dozen eggs and a cup of cream!  I did, however, use her full amount of garlic, on my yet-to-be-disproven theory that in most savory dishes, garlic is always welcome.
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BUTTERNUT AND SPINACH FRITTATA WITH CREAM AND WALNUTS
Adapted from Crank's Bible, by Nadine Abensur

6 local eggs
1/2 cup Pure Eire cream
4 fat garlic cloves, or 8 smaller ones, minced
1/2 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground pepper

1 pound butternut squash cubes
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon tamari
Dash of Tabasco, or red curry paste, or ground chipotle

5 ounces spinach leaves, washed and big stems removed, or use baby spinach
About 1/4 cup walnut pieces, broken into large-ish pieces

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

In small bowl, whisk eggs, cream, garlic, salt and pepper, and set aside to infuse.

In large bowl, toss squash cubes with olive oil, tamari and Tabsco, and spread on Silpat-lined cookie sheet.  Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until squash is fairly soft and edges have begun to carmelize.

Remove squash from oven, spread spinach leaves over squash, and stir the spinach in gently.  Return to oven for a few minutes, or until the spinach has wilted a bit.

Carefully spoon squash and spinach mixture onto a frittata pan or suitably sized ovenproof nonstick or seasoned cast iron skillet.  Heat over medium heat just until skillet is hot.  Pour egg mixture over squash, to fill out to edges of pan.

Now, you may either gently move the squash around, scraping with your spatula through to the pan bottom to allow egg mixture to fully cook, as the author did, or use my optional method of setting the frittata back into the oven, checking every few minutes to see if the eggs have gently set.  You don't want the frittata to get dry.

Sprinkle walnuts atop, and leave to set a while at room temperature.  Nadine Abensur says this gives it "time to settle and ease into itself."  (You see why I bought her cookbook?)

Serves 4 generously.

Mixed Berry Flaugnarde with Vanilla Bean

Mixed berry what?

This lush, earthy yet sophisticated dessert proved a beautiful, delicately vanilla-scented solution for a Costco-sized bag of mixed berries that had crouched for months (years?) in the bottom of my freezer.   You know, the one you keep moving around when you're looking for other stuff.  And you think, "What can I do with two pounds of mixed berries?  Why did I buy them in the first place?"

I love The Nourished Kitchen blog, and was enchanted by this recipe that is so satisfying to the senses, uses my berry largesse, and assuages my conscience for ignoring that bag 'o berries for so long.

A flaugnarde (flewn-YARD) is apparently kin to the clafoutis (kah-floo-TEE), but it is flourless and more custardy.  As it happened, my aunt had given me a tube of vanilla beans (she'd been to Costco, too, and shared), and my Pure Eire cream was ready for something new.

It does add a little continental flair to say "we're having flewn-YARD" for dessert, but this lovely dish would be good even without announcing it with a French accent.
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MIXED BERRY FLAUGNARDE WITH VANILLA BEAN
Adapted from The Nourished Kitchen

2 pounds mixed fresh or frozen berries
2 tablespoons vanilla extract

1 egg
2 egg yolks
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/3 cup maple syrup

1 vanilla bean (optional)

Preheat oven to350 degrees.

In a large bowl, toss berries with vanilla extract.  Put berries in a baking dish, and roast them for 20 minutes. They should have released most of their juices.

Carefully spoon berries into a colander set over a bowl.  Let them drain thoroughly; a screen mesh colander is best.  You want them to be as juice-free as possible.  Save the juices to use for flavoring other things like smoothies and ice cream, or simmer the juices down to make a lovely, vanilla-scented syrup.

In a small mixing bowl, whisk thoroughly the egg, egg yolks, cream and maple syrup.

Pour the strained berries into a shallow baking dish.  I used a 10 1/2-inch Corning ware dish with 1 1/2-inch-tall sides.  Spread berries evenly over bottom of dish.  If using vanilla bean, lay it on top of the berries.   Pour batter over berries and bake for 45 minutes or until the flaugnarde browns and the egg is just set.

Best served warm, after it cools just a bit.

Makes 4 generous servings, or 6 smaller ones

Homemade Ice Cream with Cherries and Dates

Ever seeking to reduce my use of refined sugar, and increase good fats, I decided to try making some ice cream with no refined sugar at all.  I'm certain that using our wonderful, local Pure Eire Jersey cream gave this ice cream its eye-opening, superior taste and texture.
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HOMEMADE ICE CREAM WITH CHERRIES AND DATES

Just a small dish is immensely satisfying, much like Italian gelato.

1 cup frozen pitted sweet cherries
10 pitted dates
3/4 cup water

2 teaspoons vanilla
1-1/2 cups Pure Eire cream

Place an appropriately-sized glass container with cover in your freezer so it is ready for the ice cream.  If you are going to serve it freshly churned, freeze little serving bowls. 

In a blender, puree the cherries, dates and water until smooth.  Add vanilla and cream, and blend just until cream is incorporated and mix is smooth.

Pour into ice cream maker and process for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the ice cream stiffens and begins to curl around the paddle blades in a big way.

Serve the ice cream right away, or spatula it (hey, if you can spoon something, you can spatula it, right?) into your frozen container.  Put right into the freezer.

Makes a little under 4 cups of rich, delicious ice cream, or about 8 servings to savor slowly!

Smoked Salmon Chowder

This delicious chowder has become our traditional Christmas Eve dinner dish.  Savory, hearty, with a subtle hint of tarragon ... it's a real keeper.  I've tweaked it a bit and see that I've written "perfect" on its page in the cookbook.
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SMOKED SALMON CHOWDER
Adapted from Soups and Stews by Maryana Vollstedt

Do make this a day ahead of time and chill so the flavors can blend.  Stir in the half-and-half when heating to serve.  You can leave out the half-and-half and still have a delectable, creamy chowder.

2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup chopped yellow onion
1/2 cup diced celery
1/3 cup all-purpose flour

4 cups chicken stock
2 cups bottled clam broth
2 Yukon Gold potatoes (about 1 pound), peeled and cut in half-inch dice
1 teaspoon dried tarragon
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dill
1 teaspoon paprika

10 ounces smoked salmon, from Northwest Seafood Market, skin removed and flaked
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 drops Tabasco sauce
1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
Freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup dry white wine
1 cup half-and-half (or mixed Pure Eire milk and cream), optional

In large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat, melt butter with oil.  Add onion and celery and saute until vegetables are tender, about 5 minutes.

Sprinkle flour over vegetables and stir.  Add stock and stir until slightly thickened.  Add potatoes, tarragon, thyme, dill and paprkia.  Cover and simmer until potatoes are tender, about 15 minutes.  Add salmon, garlic, lemon juice, Tabasco sauce, salt, pepper and wine.  Simmer, uncovered, 10 minutes.  Add half-and-half and simmer over low heat until heated through, about 5 minutes.

That Casa Mia Mango Dessert

Casa Mia makes a delicious dessert of zabaglione topped with mango puree.  My Costco mangoes were ripening alarmingly fast, so I decided to sort of replicate the Casa Mia dessert using my Pure Eire milk and cream.  Now, I use very little dairy, but can't seem to resist picking up some Pure Eire whenever I'm in one of our local health food stores.  My philosophy is that if you're going to have some dairy, why not have fresh, local dairy, from Jersey cows?

So.  I sliced two mangoes into the blender, and added enough milk and cream (okay, more cream than milk) so that the whole thing could blend into two servings worth of delicious, creamy, mango-y dessert.  Satisfying, and no processed sugar involved. 

Pure Eire, Again

It seems impossible for me to stop blathering about how incredibly delicious Pure Eire cream is. It makes amazing butter. And I served it, whipped, atop a plum tart. You simply cannot believe the sumptuous texture and deep, buttery flavor of this whipped cream! And two days later, the whipped cream left over hadn't even begun to separate.

I buy it at Richland or Kennewick Health Food Stores, in the dairy section. As of this writing, Wednesday is the usual fresh delivery day.

Let's face it, if you're going to have cream now and then, it might as well be ethereal, no?

Chilis Rellenos Americanos

I have always loved chilis rellenos. Authentic recipes call for dipping the whole cheese-stuffed poblano pepper into egg batter and deep frying it. The stem end is left on for a very rustic experience.

Over the years I reserved chilis rellenos for special occasions when eating out, and never made them at home. Then, about six years ago, I decided to come up with my own recipe, one that would satisfy but be less greasy. I've made it many times, always in the summer when the poblano peppers start appearing at the farmers' markets.

The dish is wonderfully warm, smoky, chile-y, eggy and satisfying. It would make a great breakfast casserole, but I usually serve it with cornbread and coleslaw for dinner.

Be warned that roasting peppers indoors WILL set off your smoke alarms. At the Richland Farmers' Market, there's a vendor who will roast your peppers over a gas flame while you wait. It doesn't take long, but you'll want to get right home and refrigerate the roasted peppers 'til you're ready to use them.

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CHILIS RELLENOS AMERICANOS

Smoky chipotle salsa is simply a can of chipotle peppers "en adobo" (sauce), which you puree and store in the fridge. This little jar of smoky heat will come in handy for a lot of dishes.

6 or 8 poblano peppers (you may see these incorrectly called "pasilla" peppers)
16 ounces or so grated jack, pepper jack, cheddar, or a mixture of cheeses you like (smoked gouda gives the finished dish a more smoky flavor)

8 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper

Sliced green onions if you have them
Smoky chipotle salsa, about 1 tablespoon

Wash the peppers and cut the stems off. Reach down into the center and remove the seeds. If using a pepper roaster over a gas flame, turn on your exhaust fan. Arrange about three peppers at a time over the flame so they get maximum exposure. As skins start to pop and char, turn to expose all sides and, when peppers are charred evenly, toss them into a bowl lined with a paper towel, and cover them immediately. Roast remaining peppers and let them cool gradually in the covered bowl for 15 to 20 minutes.

Alternatively, arrange peppers on oven rack and turn oven to 500 degrees. Turn on exhaust fan. Roast peppers 'til skins start to pop and char; turn if necessary. Continue with step calling for putting them in a paper-towel-lined bowl and covering them. You can also place them in a brown paper bag, rolling the top down closed.

Rub the peppers to remove the black char as much as possible. Lay them out on your work surface.

Beat eggs with milk, salt and crushed red pepper until very well blended.

Set aside some of the grated cheese to sprinkle on the top of the dish. Form remaining grated cheese into fists, as many as you have peppers. Gently open the peppers and put the cheese into the cavity. Arrange peppers in a casserole, and pour the egg mixture over. Scatter sliced green onions on top.

Bake casserole at 375 degrees for 15 minutes, then lower heat to 350 degrees and bake for 20 minutes, or until knife inserted into egg mixture comes out clean.

Drizzle smoky chipotle salsa over the top, then brush it around to coat top of casserole. Sprinkle reserved cheese atop, and serve.

Makes 6 to 8 servings, depending on how many peppers you used.

Raspberry Cream Scones

For some reason, I always thought a "cream scone" meant that you sliced it and put clotted cream on it. But no. You put the cream, a whole delectable cup of it, right into the dough. This makes a scone that puts anything you'll find at Starbucks, or almost anywhere else, into oblivion.

Be sure to use divine, local Pure Eire cream! Other fruits, fresh or dried, and nuts would work wonderfully here, I think. The key is to be quick and gentle when handling the dough.

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RASPBERRY CREAM SCONES
Adapted from America's Test Kitchen Cookbook

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt

5 tablespoons chilled butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

1 cup heavy cream
1 cup raspberries

Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 425°F.

Place flour, baking powder and sugar in food processor. Pulse a few times to blend.

Scatter butter pieces evenly over dry ingredients. Cover and pulse (about 1 second per pulse) 10 times. Butter should be evenly chopped. Transfer mixture to large bowl.

Quickly stir in heavy cream using a rubber spatula, just until mixed and a dough begins to form, then gently and quickly fold in raspberries.

Gather dough and knead gently on a floured board for about 30 seconds. Flatten dough with you hands into an 8- or 9-inch round, then quickly cut the round into eight wedges, using a long, sharp knife or a pastry scraper. (You can cut rounds, as in biscuits, but the more you handle the dough the less tender it will become.)

Place scones on Silpat-lined or ungreased baking sheet and bake until tops are light brown, 12 to 15 minutes. Cool on wire rack for at least 10 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Makes 8 scones

Very Local Butter

You can't get much more local than your own kitchen. Until discovering Pure Eire Dairy, and learning that saturated fats have been much maligned and in fact are quite vital to our health, I hadn't thought too much about making my own butter, although I've been purchasing organic butter for some time, and ghee occasionally.

Because the healthiest butter is made from grass-fed cows' milk, and Pure Eire's bossies are grass fed, it seemed right and proper to produce butter with their cream.

It is tricky to describe the vast difference in taste of this butter from commercial butter. Have you ever been in a cow barn at milking time? Have you been near a cream separator either during operation or when it's being cleaned? I have. But if you have not, butter made with this cream will taste unusual to you. Its flavor is the essence of pure dairy cream.

I learned a few things for next time, and because of this butter's ethereal taste and health appeal, there will be a next time.
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VERY LOCAL BUTTER
Adapted from Fat byJennifer McLagan and also from this site.

1 pint (2 cups) local heavy cream from grass-fed cows
1/2 teaspoon salt (if desired)
1 quart ice water, with ice in it to keep it cold

Let the cream warm to room temperature. Pour into food processor and turn on. The cream will whip, then separate, and then the butter will seize and become a ball, leaving a milky liquid in the food processor bowl. Immediately stop the processor when the butter becomes a ball. Pour off the buttermilk through a fine sieve, and save for other uses (pancakes, cornbread, etc.). Return any pieces of butter that collect in the sieve to the food processor.

Now you are going to "wash" the butter to remove the remaining buttermilk from it. Pour about a cup of ice water onto the butter and process so that the butter mixes with the water and then separates into a ball again. Drain off the water through your sieve, discarding the water each time, and repeat this process until the water is fairly clear. It took four washings for me. Gather the butter up into a ball.

Now you want to remove any remaining water from your ball of butter. I must take issue with the directions that called for squeezing the water out by hand OR kneading the butter on a clean towel. I used both these processes, and they are incredibly messy, the butter sticks to your hands and to the towel, plus your hands will quickly melt the butter, making it stick even worse.

In the end, I used a dough scraper to keep scraping the butter up off the towel as I kneaded it. During the kneading, sprinkle the salt, if you are using it, over the butter and knead it in.

I persevered, but for next time I am going to be on the lookout for butter paddles, which our ancestors used and which I suspect have not been improved upon for generations. You simply circle the ball of butter around between the paddles, and the water runs out in the grooves.

The yield is about one cup of the best-tasting butter you've ever had.

Update: We don't use a lot of butter, so I was especially pleased that this homemade butter kept sweet and delicious for three weeks. That's because I "washed" it, to remove the buttermilk. You can use the butter just as it comes out of the food processor without removing the buttermilk with the water washes, but it will go sour quite fast. This butter is best on breads, toast, popcorn, and used for sauteeing fresh vegetables ... the taste of the butter is so good that you'll want to use it in ways that let you appreciate the flavor.

Strawberry and Rhubarb Trifle

Here again is a simple yet brilliant culinary tradition brought to us by the British. What could be a more perfect way to showcase fresh, seasonal fruits than to loosely combine them in a delightful muddle of sponge cake, custard and whipped cream? If you don't have a trifle dish, use another pretty dish, or make individual trifles in glasses or parfait dishes.

The variations on the basic trifle are endless, which merely reaffirms its status as a truly classic recipe. All of its components can be changed to suit what you have on hand. Use almost any fruits, or use jam. The cake can be chocolate or any other flavor, or use ladyfingers or other cookies. (Just don't use Twinkies, you hear?) The custard layer soaks into the cake, so you can use other sauces and puddings to your heart's content.

A lovely way to celebrate a Mom who is the cream of the crop, as mine truly is.

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STRAWBERRY AND RHUBARB TRIFLE

3 pints fresh strawberries, trimmed and either left whole or sliced

Some fresh rhubarb that you have washed, trimmed and cooked with a little water and sweetener of your choice (I used agave syrup)

1 recipe Creme Anglaise from Joy of Cooking, or any custard sauce recipe you like; you'll need about 2 cups.

1 8-inch square (or 13- x 9-inch) sponge cake (or any firm cake) from your favorite recipe, cooled and cut into approximately 1-inch cubes

1 cup lightly toasted sliced almonds

1 to 2 cups whipping cream, whipped and lightly sweetened if you wish

Spread a little rhubarb in the bottom of the trifle bowl. Top with half the cake cubes. Pour half of the Creme Anglaise evenly over the cubes. Arrange half the strawberries over that, and spread a generous layer of rhubarb over them. Sprinkle 1/2 cup of the almonds over the rhubarb. Add the remaining cake cubes, pour the rest of the Creme Anglaise over them, and arrange remaining strawberries on top. Cover and refrigerate until you are ready to serve, up to a few hours.

Spread whipped cream evenly over top of trifle and scatter remaining 1/2 cup almonds over. Serve onto plates or into bowls. I used a wedge-shaped flat pie server to cut vertically down into the trifle like a pie, and lifted out roughly wedge-shaped, gloppy servings. But a big spoon would work too.

This dish served 6 people, with almost universal second helpings, with about 4 servings left over. Remember that you can size this dish smaller quite easily!

Books, Locally Roasted Coffee, Pure Eire Milk ...

Picture the east sun warming your back as you sip delicious, locally-roasted Buzz Joy coffee, perhaps in a latte, while browsing the Richland Library's wondrous Friends of the Library Book Sale Room shelves or perhaps visiting with a friend at the convenient and comfortable tables in the light and airy foyer.

Now imagine discovering that Buzz Joy's coffee shop at the library uses delicious, fresh, local, Pure Eire milk (from grass-fed cows) in its coffee drinks! I'm not a huge fan of the word "bliss," but putting all these things together in one place makes for a pretty darn pleasant experience.

To my amazement, Heather at the Buzz Joy coffee shop told me that having Pure Eire milk delivered is cheaper than picking up organic milk at Winco. Heather is also committed to recycling and her enthusiasm for walking lightly on the earth is quite contagious.

Check out Pure Eire's website for the amazing facts about why milk from grass-fed cows is superior to standard organic brands. And next time you crave a great cup of coffee or want to meet a friend for a cup, remember this lovely new option.

I found a video to show you what's going on in the coffee shop and book sale department at the library!