Virtual Running Date No. 16: Rhubarb Torte and Grandma

Good morning Crushers!

Although sad, I am relieved to report that Grandma found heavenly peace on Saturday, July 6 early in the morning. As predicted, she did live to see her 97th birthday. She always rallied for a party. She LOVED her birthday. Must be where I get it from...

Waving to the band with Uncle Steve

Anyway, if we were on a virtual running date, I would tell you that it has been a weird weekend. It was so much fun to see the 4th of July through my nephew's eyes. Patrick loved the parade! As each thing went by the parade route, he would yell, "Hi Police! Hi horses! Hi...music!" He couldn't quite say "marching band". He practiced saying "Happy birthday Great-Grandma!" and was a hit. Sometimes babies/toddlers are the best medicine!

After helping mom with some things at Grandma and Grandpa's house on Friday, Steve and I went with my brother, Mike, and sister-in-law, Melissa, and Patrick to Summerfest for the afternoon. Thanks to "Malt-o-Meal day" we got in free. Patrick loved the music and the playground. He waved at a band member of Pigpen Theater Co (great new band!) and the guy waved back! Patrick yelled "Hi Band!" Awesome!

If we were on a virtual running date, I would tell you that I envy all of the actresses who can cry without looking like a hot mess. They have these pretty tears that just gently roll down their cheeks and never smear their mascara. Well, I don't understand why they can't cry like the rest of us with raccoon eyes and red noses and such. Hollywood, step up to the plate.

If we were on a virtual running date, I would also tell you that next to Patrick's giggles, exercise is a wonderful mood lifter. Steve and I went for a 12 mile bike ride along the Bug Line Trail through Sussex. What a great trail! There were so many people out there enjoying it on bikes and on foot. GORGEOUS!

If we were on a virtual running date, I would also tell you that tears can sneak up on you at the most random times. For instance, I picked a ton of rhubarb yesterday afternoon. Because we had so much, I had to find something to do with all of it. Thankfully, my mother-in-law gave me a ton of recipes last year! So here I was in the kitchen just cutting up rhubarb (tip: use a kitchen scissors to cut the stalks into smaller pieces - works like a charm!) and all of a sudden, the strawberry/rhubarb mix just made me think of up north with Grandma. Ugh! That's totally going to happen at random points throughout the rest of summer. I just know it. Just goes to show how it's the little things that matter. Even rhubarb!

Strawberry Rhubarb Torte
(Based on the "Mom's Rhubarb Torte" recipe published in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Wednesday, April 27, 2011)

Ingredients:
Crust: 1 3/4 cups flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 2 Tbsp sugar, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 cup butter (1 stick), 2 egg yolks, lightly beaten - save the whites for the meringue topping
Filling: 2 egg yolks, lightly beaten - save the whites for the meringue topping, 1 cup sugar, 5 Tbsp flour, 3 cups fresh rhubarb cut into 1/2 inch pieces, 1 cup fresh strawberries, chopped
Meringue Topping: 4 egg whites, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/8 tsp cream of tartar, 3/4 cup sugar, 1 tsp vanilla extract

Gear:
3 bowls (or one bowl that you wash 2 times), measuring cups and spoons, stand mixer or electric mixer, spatula, and a 13 x 9 pan.

Directions:

Crumbles!

Preheat the oven to 325. Put all of the ingredients in a big bowl. Unless you let the butter reach room temperature and soften a bit, here is a trick to get it soft without getting too hot. If the butter is too hot or melty, then it will cook the egg yolks and then you get a weird scrambled egg texture in the crust. Put the butter (still wrapped) in the microwave for 10-12 seconds. Unwrap and slide the butter into your mixing bowl. Save the wrapper to grease the bottom and sides of your 13 x 9 pan. Remove any rings, wash your hands, and just use your hands to mix up the crust. It will be dry, but when it gets all crumbly, you know you're good to go. Press the crust into the bottom of the pan like I explained for the lemon bars.

Now, you can either use the same bowl and just rinse it out or grab another one. I used a big mixing bowl that had cup measurements on the side, so I filled it with 3 cups of chopped rhubarb and 1 cup of strawberries that I quartered. So bright and colorful! If you've never eaten rhubarb, it can be very, very tart, so the strawberries and sugar that you're going to add are important. Mix all of the filling ingredients together until it's well-coated. Then pour it over the crust. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until the filling looks "set" meaning that it doesn't jiggle if you wiggle the pan.

Such gorgeous color!

While that's baking, get out a big bowl with high sides because you're about to beat the heck out of the egg whites for your meringue topping. I used my stand mixer, but you can use a hand mixer too. Unless you're really ambitious, don't use a whisk. Your arms would be so tired! Anyway, this is really the only part of the recipe where it is important to put all of the ingredients in the bowl in order. Put in the egg whites that you saved from the crust and filling. Add the salt and cream of tartar right away. Put the mixer on medium-high and let that beat for 1-2 minutes until it starts getting really bubbly. It will look kind of white. Gradually add the sugar a tablespoon at a time. Beat and beat and beat it until it starts to look white and creamy. Then keep beating it some more. If you have a hand mixer, you'll want to give up and let your arm rest, but don't! You want the topping to make stiff peaks when you stop to test it. Once it does make stiff peaks, add the vanilla and beat for another minute.

That peak was so stiff, it stood there, just like that, for about 9 minutes
before I poured it over the filling!

When the filling and crust are done baking, pull them out of the oven and pour the delicious meringue filling (tastes like the inside of marshmallow, but better!) over the top. I just smeared it around until I thought the top looked pretty, but some people like to do little swirls or bat at it with the back of a spoon so it has tons of peaks. Whatever floats your boat! Make sure that the meringue reaches to all sides of the pan like you're sealing in the filling. Then pop it back in the oven for 12 more minutes or until the peaks start to turn golden.

I cannot lie. I had two slices right away! One was not enough.

You can serve it hot or cold. If you serve it cold, it slices better, but it's hard to wait that long! Enjoy!

Faith-filled Friday: Time Travel and Job

Good morning Crushers!

We arrived back in Milwaukee late on Wednesday night after what felt like the longest day ever. We woke up at 4:30 a.m. and left our hotel in Cairns on Wednesday morning in Australia. After a 2.5-hour flight to Sydney, a 5 hour lay-over, a 15-hour flight to Dallas, a 6-hour layover, and a 3 hour flight to Milwaukee we landed at about 10 p.m. on Wednesday night.

Wait, that's not possible! Oh yes it is, thanks to crossing the International Dateline. Time travel baby! However, that also means that we were more-or-less awake for over 30 hours. Add a few hours after we got home to put away all our junk because we had potential buyers coming to see our house the next day and you have two very tired travelers. Yipes!

Over the course of our trip, we took 7 flights, a lot of buses, one round-trip boat ride, a train and a skyrail. It is Friday and I still feel like I'm moving even though I'm sitting still. Crazy!

Speaking of moving while sitting still, we got to experience this in the weirdest way. While we were on our long flight over the Pacific Ocean, the little tv screen on the plane would show us our flight path. While we were sitting still on the plane (and ok, yes the plane is moving), most people went through an entire day. They were all up and moving and going about their business whatever that may have been. It kind of baffles me. And to think that God is watching over everyone? Just another reminder of what a great big God we have.

While traveling in Australia, I read a number of books including "Same Kind of Different As Me" co-written by Ron Hall and Denver Moore. Be prepared that you might cry a lot while reading this book. It was recommended to me by my friend Kalie. This girl has the biggest heart and a strong faith. I knew that if a book was Kalie-approved, I would love it! And I did. And I cried through most of the second half of the book. Life-changer.

Anyway, without giving too much of the book away, I just want to say that every character in the book goes through hardships. Some aren't that bad and some are truly awful. Some hardships they tackle together and some they each have to do on their own. Throughout it all, their faith helped them overcome whatever was handed to them. It made me think of Job in the Bible.

Job was a faithful man who had a very nice life. Then the Devil made a bet with God (Lesson one: don't bet against God) that he could make Job turn away from God. (Lesson two: don't be stupid). Job suffered through the loss of almost everything in his life from family to his home to his health. (Lesson three: don't take anything for granted). Despite being encouraged to just give up (Lesson four: surround yourself with faithful friends - not wimps), Job stood firm in his faith. He knew that no matter what happened, he had a savior who would not give up on him. I used this popular verse as my confirmation verse (Job 19:25-27):

I know that my redeemer lives,    and that in the end he will stand on the earth.
And after my skin has been destroyed,
And after my skin has been destroyed,    yet in my flesh I will see God;I myself will see him    with my own eyes—I, and not another.    How my heart yearns within me!

Hear that? After everything goes wrong, you've still got a loving savior, a redeemer. Pretty amazing.

Update on Grandma: She is now in home hospice care. Our family is holding together. Thanks to meals, love, support and prayers, we're getting through. I don't know how my wonder-mom does it all.

Prayer warriors, Wildtree beer bread, and pasta for dinner

Hi Crushers!

I have to say a huge thank you to all of my friends (who read the blog or not) who have been awesome prayer warriors lately. My grandma has been having some lower GI tract issues that I won't talk about here because they're kind of gross, and went to the hospital yesterday to have it figured out. She's 96 and is only one month away from her birthday (she's a Independence Day baby!). A little GI issues should not stop this woman, but they did throw everyone for a loop back in 2011 when Steve and I got engaged and again yesterday. She ended up having to stay overnight and then have a procedure done today. When you're as old as my grandma is, even if you don't act like it (and she doesn't!), that's risky to have anesthesia.

I'm really excited to say that she made it through her procedure. Now I know we're not in the clear yet, but I am leaving in one week (AH!) for Australia, so things are crazy around here anyway. I just hope that she feels better soon. I also hope that everyone has renewed strength for whatever lies ahead!

My Alma Mater's mascot is a warrior (like a knight, not a Native American). As a religious school, we were encouraged to be prayer warriors for each other spending time talking to God and building our prayer lives. Within the last year, many of my girlfriends from college have been calling on each other to be prayer warriors for each other and lift each other up. Whether it is in thanks or in "oh help" messages, we've been there. We've followed the call to "pray continually" message from 1 Thessalonians 5. It has been awesome to have those ladies to reach out to. I hope you all have a group like that!

I also hope that you always find the words when you need them. Although, "help" covers a lot and God knows what you mean! I recently saw a meme on Pinterest that said something to the effect of "the power of prayer doesn't depend on the person who is praying. It depends on the One listening." So true.

Anyway, I have two food-related items to tell you about since Grandma is one of my kitchen crushes and all. First, a short review of Wildtree's Whole Wheat Beer Bread. The bread is stupid-easy to make. Mix beer and bread mix and bake. EASY. It's also delicious with a little bit of butter and jam.

Second, unless something major happens with Grandma, I'm still going to host book club tonight (we read "Unbroken" by Laura Hillenbrand A.Mazing!). I'm also making this springy pasta primavera for dinner thanks to Iowa Girl Eats. I love it when I think, "Gee, I have no idea what to make" and BOOM. My favorite blog writers have an answer. Love it! I will probably make it exactly as it is written except for the fact that I bought green and yellow squash, and I might throw in a little cauliflower since I don't have 2 cups of broccoli. Can't wait for dinner!

Thanks everyone and know that I'm praying for you, too!

Christmas Cookies with Links

Hi Crushers,
As you may know from an earlier blog posting, Steve and I are using our Advent Calendar to count down to Christmas with #24daysoftogetherness that I saw on Tina's blog, Carrots N Cake. One of the days this past week was "share your favorite Christmas memory". I told Steve about how we all took my sister's Big Bird themed Big Wheels three-wheeler out for a spin in the snow when she was six. We both talked about our favorite gifts (his: VHS Wrestling game, mine: Cabbage Patch Doll), caroling, Christmas Eve church services with candles, and family time.

I forgot to tell him about Christmas cookie baking with Grandma K, Mom, my sister Lisa and I all crammed in my Grandma's kitchen. This was the same home that Mom grew up in, so there were probably 10,000 cookies baked in this kitchen over the years. This is where we learned kitchen time management, how to grease a cookie sheet, the correct size of a dough ball to roll, how to crush pecans and almonds, and above all that you are not allowed to lick the chocolate or sugar off your fingers before you are done! By the time we finished making candies and cookies, we probably had inhaled a cup of powdered sugar each, but it was so much fun!

This year, we all took turns making cookies with Mom and Dad in their kitchen. If I could nominate my mom as a kitchen crush for only one reason, she would win for most organized. Seriously. She organizes us all by what cookies we need to bake, who has the patience to roll out all the dough balls or dip them in chocolate and what ingredients everyone needs to buy. She's like the general of cookie organization. When other people are freaking out on trying to figure out when to put things in the oven so they all come out at the same time, I am not because my mom taught me that one. Virtual High Five, Mom!

We always say that, "We don't need to bake so many cookies this year", and yet we still make 13 different kinds! Here they are with links to the recipes (if I could find them).
1. Scottish Shortbread (we melt chocolate on top of ours)
2. Spritz Cookies
3. Molasses Cookies
4. Grandma M's sugar cookies (It's a secret, but this one is pretty darn close. We double this recipe since they melt in your mouth!)
5. Sugar Cookie cut outs (use the dough recipe from my blog post here)
6. Peanut Butter Balls
7. Ting-a-lings (some people call them chocolate haystacks)
8. Raspberry thumbprints
9. Rosettes (my dad is the pro at these)
10. Peppermint Bark
11.Cherry Chocolate Nougats - sorry all, but I cannot find this recipe online!
12. Pecan Fingers - from one of my favorite bloggers!
13. Chocolate-dipped Angel Macaroons (use the recipe for Angel Macaroons from this post here and if you dip one half in chocolate and sprinkle with some ground almonds it kind of tastes like an Almond Joy).

Please note that all of these recipes are actually handwritten on sheets of paper or down on note cards in careful cursive writing. I am supplying the links to the recipes that are the closest to what we made. Also note, we are cookie crazy, and make most of these as double batches so we all go home with at least 4-5 tins of cookies.

Pfew... That was a lot of cookies! I think I need a glass of milk now.

How about you? What are your favorites? Did we miss any?

UPDATE: Here are photos of all the cookies except the Peppermint Bark.

Cookie Contest Entry: Cranberry Pecan Swirls

I was never able to wait for a cookie to cool the whole way
before "taste testing".

Now that my cookies have been submitted to the office of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, I feel like I can share my recipe. Not that I think any of you would steal my recipe, but since I can't change what I submitted any more I can give you the best version of this recipe.

(There were three versions total... My husband ate a lot of cookies!)

For a bit of background, I wanted to enter an original recipe in the Localicious category. You can read all about it in my previous post here about my grandma and cookies. If you don't want to look back (although you should because my grandma is awesome), here's the short story version: You must use at least one locally grown or produced ingredient that isn't butter. Since Wisconsin is "The Dairy State", everyone could have counted butter as their local product. My Wisconsin ingredient choices are cranberries and honey. They worked really well together, and I feel like I've got tons of antioxidants flying around my body since I've also eaten a lot of these cookies. Plus, I snacked on cranberries as I was baking.

NOTE: The cookie dough is very firm, so you should probably use a stand mixer if you can. Otherwise, be prepared to invest in a new hand mixer. I burned out TWO of them in three batches! Granted, one of them was really old and wimpy, but it tried it's hardest. See Pulled Pork and Prayers for my hand mixer menace confession.

The recipe that I submitted doesn't have quite so much (barely any) fun tips or pictures, so you're in for a treat! Tips are quoted/indented.

Holiday Cookie Contest – Localicious Category Entry

Cranberry Pecan Swirls – Original Recipe

Dough Ingredients:

1 cup butter, softened

1 8 oz. package cream cheese, softened

1 ½ cup white sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

¼ teaspoon salt

1 tsp baking powder

3 ½ cups all purpose flour

Filling Ingredients:

2 cups whole Wisconsin cranberries

1 cup crushed pecans

3 tbsp Wisconsin honey (available at State Fair!)

1 tbsp orange zest (about one orange)

Directions:

In a large bowl, cream butter and cream cheese with a mixer until fluffy.

Tip: If you need to, you can pop the butter in the microwave for 10 seconds. Make sure the butter doesn't melt otherwise it's too hot for the egg. If it starts cooking the egg, then you get this weird scrambled egg consistency which is gross and you'll have to start over. 

Beat in sugar and then the vanilla and egg. Add baking powder and salt. Mix in flour 1 cup or ½ cup at a time so it doesn’t fly out of the bowl. Cover the bowl and chill in the fridge for at least two hours (overnight is fine).

Tip: I chilled mine overnight because I didn't have enough time to wait for this and keep baking all in one night. If you're doing marathon cookie baking during the day, you can totally wait.

While dough is chilling, crush Wisconsin cranberries and pecans in a food processor or blender until you have a barely-chunky paste. Mix in Wisconsin honey and orange zest. Cover and refrigerate until dough is ready.

Tip: Since honey is kind of a pain in the neck to scoop out without getting all sticky, it's actually easier to use your fingers than a plastic/silicone scraper. Just make sure you washed your hands well!

Using a rolling pin, roll out half of the chilled dough between two sheets of wax paper. Try and keep it in a rectangular shape.

Tip: You still may want to sprinkle some flour on the wax paper so it isn't all sticky. Otherwise, you swear at the dough when it sticks to your rolling pin, and we all know that there's no swearing in the kitchen.

See how the dough stuck to the wax paper on the lower right-hand side? Ugh.

When it is about 1/8-1/4 inch thick, spread half of the filling in a thin layer over the dough. Either using your hands or by pulling up the bottom sheet of wax paper, roll the dough over until you have a long roll of dough. Wrap in wax paper and pinch ends shut. Repeat this process with the other half of the dough and filling. Refrigerate at least one hour for easy cutting.

It's not quite a rectangle, but that's about as close as you need
to get for an even roll. Approx 11" x 14"

Tip: I put the two rolls next to each other and put some plastic wrap around the ends. I set them on a cookie sheet so they wouldn't roll out of the fridge or anything. I've seen some people even put them in two cups open-end to open-end so it's like a big capsule of dough so you don't have a flat side. However, I didn't care too much if one side of the dough was going to be a bit flat. They still taste good!

Preheat oven to 375. Cut chilled roll of dough into slices no thicker than ½ inch. Place on non-stick cookie sheet about 1 inch apart. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until edges are golden brown and the middle is firm. Makes 3-4 dozen cookies.

Thank you to my test market: Husband, Mom, Dad, Grandparents, Co-Workers and Friends!

Cookie Crush - Contest Coming Soon!

The annual Holiday Cookie Contest is coming up in our local newspaper, and I am thinking that this is my year to enter. I've got less than a month to come up with a recipe either adapted or original. I think I want to enter the "Localicious" category where you need to use products from Wisconsin (not counting butter).

I decided to check out what the top Wisconsin crops are to give me some inspiration. Besides dairy products, they are: corn (human food and livestock food), soybeans, potatoes, and cranberries. Apples and cherries are also grown in Wisconsin, but didn't come in at the top. I knew most of these thanks to my years of working at the Wisconsin State Fair, but I don't think I could make a cookie with potatoes. I'm thinking cranberries would be the way to go.

After checking the products list and reading the rules of the contest, my first thought was, "I need to raid Grandma's recipes" for some advice. For about 20 years, since the time I was old enough to be trusted to not lick my fingers between every chocolate-dipped peanut butter truffle I rolled (about 5-years-old) until a few years back when Grandma had a few strokes and lost most of her vision, we have made Christmas cookies at Grandma's house. Grandma is one of my kitchen crushes.

During the Great Depression, my young adult grandmother and her two sisters took jobs to help support their family. My great-grandpa died when the girls were small children (one great aunt was a newborn), so they depended on taking in boarders and other family members to help pay the bills. My Grandma, a college graduate despite financial hardship, became the head telephone operator in  Watertown, located in southern central Wisconsin. Her mother continued to keep house while Grandma and her sisters worked.

In 1942, halfway through World War II, Grandma and Grandpa got married. As a "career woman", Grandma didn't know how to do many common household chores. One family story tells about how as a newlywed, she starched Grandpa's boxer shorts so much that he could barely get them on! So, at 26-years-old, Grandma learned how to cook and bake, and became quite the domestic goddess. She could whip together a dinner party without trouble, and collected cookbooks from around the country until Grandpa claimed she could not possibly fit one more in their house.

Now at 96-years-old, Grandma doesn't cook anymore. Mom makes almost all of their meals. Like I said, Grandma had a number of strokes and has lost her vision almost completely. She still dreams of cooking and often wakes up from her afternoon nap wondering if they are having the lamb chops she baked in her sleep for dinner. Her dreams are so vivid she tells Grandpa (also 96) that she can smell them cooling in the kitchen.

I can describe to her any meal I make by giving her a detailed list of ingredients and description of how I made it. She will close her eyes and mentally walk through every step of the process. She's a tough judge. There's been a few times where she'll ask why I did a certain step or suggest that I maybe not make that meal again. On the plus side, she is spot-on with her suggestions. Grandma even gave me the idea the first meal I made for my husband while we were dating (stuffed pork chops).

Grandma still enjoys the Christmas cookies that we make and has her favorites (meringues and pecan fingers). Most of them are her recipes after all. We've switched baking in her kitchen to Mom's. Although she's not there commanding the kitchen in person, she's there in our minds when we ask, "Will she like this?" or "This is how Grandma did it." We even use her ancient nut chopper and Sunbeam stand mixer. Some things you just don't mess with.

I guess I'll have to make some test cookies up and bring them over for her to see if they get her approval for contest submission!

How about you? Do you have any family favorite cookies? Do you have any tips for submitting recipes for contests?