Heidi enjoying my crisp for breakfast.

For those of you who were up at the crack of dawn, shoveling yourselves out from the first of two snowstorms, you may have caught me  looking ever so bright eyed and bushy on Breakfast Television. Today, I shared my recipe for Pear and Blueberry Crisp with Heidi, the loveliest of tv hosts, and talked about all the great things happening with Select Nova Scotia this winter.

I promised that I would post this recipe – so here it is. It is super easy, and the fruit can easily be switched for other fruits that are in season or frozen from fresh. Remember, using local is always best!

Winter Crisp

Crisp

• 1C flour
• 1C brown sugar; packed
• 3/4C rolled oats
• 1/2C melted butter

Mix all the ingredients together. Place 1/2 in the pan and reserve the rest to put on top of the fruit.

Fruit Filling

• 4C pears; peeled & cut into large pieces
• 1C frozen or fresh blueberries

Mix and place on top of the bottom layer of crisp.

Syrup

• 1C water
• 1C white sugar
• 1tsp vanilla
• 2tbsp corn starch

Mix the ingredients together and bring to a boil on stove. Pour over the fruit. Now put the other half of the crisp on top. Place in a pre heated 350°F oven for 40 to 50 minutes.

You can serve this crisp with whipped cream, whipped cream with brown sugar and rum, Fox Hill Cheese House quark with maple syrup or quark mixed with honey.

Simple, seasonal, sweet!

It seems that my sis in law and I have a similar pattern when it comes to having babies; they’re always close together! Jean just gave birth to bébé #2, Oscar, and also celebrated her own birthday a few days later. To celebrate her “birthing-day” and her birthday, we had Jean and her better half, Jake, over for a casual dinner.  My one promise for the evening was that I would prepare a decadent  dessert. Sure – I can cook, but when it comes to baking or pastries, pardon my language, I suck ass! So, in an attempt to impress the birthday girl while keeping it dead easy for me, I concocted a tart of fresh valley peaches and blueberries with a lemon pastry cream. How easy was this dessert you ask? So simple  that even brand new baby Oscar could have made it. Store bought puff pastry and my simple pastry cream recipe were all that was needed. I topped it off with seasonal fruit, some fresh mint from the backyard and I was done. Take it from me, the lady who can’t bake; if I can make it look and taste pretty, then so can you!

Pastry Cream

1 C. milk
1/2 C. sugar
2 Tbsp. cornstarch
2 egg yolks
1/2 vanilla bean

Mix all the ingredients together in a saucepan and cook over low heat while stirring.  Cook for 3-5 minutes until mixture thickens and can cover the back of a spoon.  Set aside and let cool. You can flavour your pastry cream in any number of ways. Try adding fresh fruit, lemon zest or event a few shots of rum.

Sweet & sour at its best.

Doug and I have lived in our little blue house on Lake Banook in Dartmouth for 3 years now, and it wasn’t until this spring, while doing some major yard work, that I discovered a very random patch of rhubarb growing in our yard. How exciting, I thought. It reminded me of my childhood days, and how I would go over to Sheila’s (she was our neighbor in Shawville), and secretly cut her rhubarb from the patch behind her garage, and hope that none of the neighbors saw me! I would stuff it under my shirt, and make a run for my yard and bolt through the side door completely out of breath. Of course, my rhubarb cutting never went unnoticed, as my mother would interrogate me on my “lucky” find, and would place a call to the McDowell residence to inform Sheila of my bad behaviour. To make it up to everyone, I would bake a rhubarb crisp, taken from a local Shawville Minor Hockey Cookbook, and eat it hot right out of the pan! Now that I have my own rhubarb patch, I can make this sweet and sour concoction anytime. Give this simple recipe a try!

The Shawville Rhubarb Crisp

• 1 C. all purpose flour
• 1C. packed brown sugar
• ¾ C. oatmeal
• ½ C. melted butter
• 5 C. chopped fresh rhubarb
• 1C. white sugar
• 1C. cold water
• 2 Tbsp cornstarch
• 1 Tsp vanilla

In a bowl, mix the flour and brown sugar with the butter and oatmeal. Press ¾ of the mixture into the bottom of a 9″ pan; cover with the rhubarb. In a saucepan, mix all the remaining ingredients and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens. Pour over the rhubarb and sprinkle the remaining topping on top. Bake in a 350F oven for 45-60 minutes until it is oozy, bubbly and brown!

A little taste of vacation.

I recently returned form a trip down to southern Florida and decided that after watching many episodes of “Dexter“, that I too, needed to find the perfect Key Lime Pie! After many tastings and many disappointments, I decided to take the task into my own hands and attempt to make my own. Here is the recipe for the Key Lime Pie that worked best for me and that I ended up falling madly in love with.

The Perfect Key Lime Pie

Crust

• 1 1/4 C graham cracker crumbs
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 5 tbsp melted butter

Filling

• 4 egg yolks
• 1 can sweetened condensed milk (300ml can)
• 3/4 C Key Lime Juice (about 20 limes)

A trick to getting the most juice out of these little guys is to either roll them for a few seconds until they soften or pop them into the microwave for a few seconds.

In a pre-heated 350 oven, press the crust mixture into a pie pan and bake for 10 minutes. Let cool before adding the filling.

Whisk the eggs and condensed milk together. Add the lime juice and mix until incorporated. Pour into prepared pie shell. I leave you the option to bake or to not bake…difference is that if you choose not to bake it, I find the lime flavour comes out a lot more (you just need to chill for 3-4 hours). Baking it at 350F for 15 minutes cooks off the egg and mellows out the flavour. Your choice!

I chose to bake mine this time around (due to my pregnancy); they came out looking mighty fine.

I like to cool any baked goods on a wire rack; the air circulation helps the items cool down at an even and faster rate. Some people garnish their pie with either meringue or whipped cream and a slice of lime. I, as a purist, prefer plain ‘ol pie.

Click for the recipe.

Rhubarb – that sweet and sour spring miracle.  I love the first rhubarb cuttings of the season; a vibrant pink and a little bit sweeter than the older rhubarb which tends to be  thicker and greener.

Here is a great little recipe that I do with rhubarb that is dead simple and easy to personalize.

Stewed Rhubarb:

For this I cut the rhubarb up into 1/2 inch pieces and put it in a pot with sugar and lemon zest.  This part of the recipe depends on your own personal preference for “sweetness”. I generally like my rhubarb on the sour side, so I add very little sugar to my own stewed rhubarb.  My rule is 1 C. chopped rhubarb to 1/4 C. sugar (white or brown) and the zest of 1 lemon.

Pastry Cream:

1 C. milk
1/2 C. sugar
2 Tbsp. cornstarch
2 egg yolks
1/2 vanilla bean

Mix all the ingredients together in a saucepan and cook over low heat while stirring.  Cook for 3-5 minutes until mixture thickens and can cover the back of a spoon.  Set aside and let cool.

Brioche:

Cube up 1/2 a loaf of your favorite brioche and soak in maple syrup (this again depends on whether or not you have a sweet tooth).

Assembly:

Layer the ingredients in your favorite dish or glass.  This recipe typically makes 4-6 servings.

Click here for the full set.

Click to enlarge.

My husband, daughter and I ventured down to our local Farmers’ Market (Dartmouth) this morning as we had heard of the “croissant lady” known as “Two If By Sea“, and felt the need for a pastry fix.  Tara MacDonald is the marvelous woman who makes these scrumptious croissants and pain au chocolat.   To our dismay, she was already sold out of the croissants, and had but a few of the pain au chocolat left.  Each grabbing one, we left the market in a hurry so that we could get home and sample these little gems.  My, oh my, these pain au chocolat were marvelous!  Buttery, nice soft chocolate..mmmm.  I look forward to talking to her some more in the coming weeks, with some more pictures and maybe a recipe!  Stay tuned.