Homemade Cream Puffs
I’m so sorry I left you without a recipe for such a long time! Especially considering the last post was a tease for this amazing recipe I have for Homemade Cream Puffs filled with Rhubarb Mascarpone Filling. Considering rhubarb season is long gone at this point in late July, I think I’ll just see if I can convince you all to make these delectable airy puffs and fill them with ice cream instead. I have another batch in the oven right now for just that purpose.
It’s been so hot here in Philadelphia that I can’t really bear to cook much. Work in the market garden is really playing me out too so it’s been tough to sit down in front of the computer without dozing off. Explanations aside though, it’s about time I got this recipe posted. I got a tutorial on making cream puffs from my mom a few months back. I had never made them, thinking they must be really tricky and the privilege of a finely trained pastry chef. Turns out, I couldn’t have been more off the mark.
My mom apparently has known the secret to making a good batch of cream puffs for a long time. In fact, she apparently used to make them a lot when she was still keeping chickens in our backyard. I guess I was a little too young to remember. In any case, the trick is to use old eggs. Something about the aging of the proteins in the eggs helps make them more stable for holding air in the center of the puffs. I’m no food chemist so I can’t really explain it well. Just trust me when I say I’ve made several batches of these at this point and never once have I had one collapse on me. As my mom recalls, cream puffs were simply a good way to use up those extra eggs from the hens that had been languishing in the fridge for too long.
According to my mom, cream puffs were a very vogue vehicle for serving food at parties back in the day, both savory and sweet. Make them tiny or make them big, you can fill them with chicken salad, egg salad, dressed baby greens, cold cuts, cheeses… or got the sweet way and fill with ice cream, chocolate mousse, baked fruit, or even jam swirled into fresh whipped cream. I’ll be taking a batch of both savory and sweet ones to a picnic in a few weeks. It’s time cream puffs were back in style!
Roasted Rhubarb & Cream
It’s much too hot to cook right now. Philadelphia is in the midst of yet another heat wave, this one the worst yet for the summer. So, I thought I’d delve into my aging drafts pile and pull out something I made about a month ago when I could still look at the stove without cringing. Sadly, rhubarb is out of season for most of us now, but you might still find a few stray stalks at the farmers market, or you can just bookmark this preparation to try next spring.
Roasted Rhubarb & Cream is really rather divine. I made it a few times while my rhubarb plants were pumping out the tender red stalks. Each time I tweaked the recipe until I came up with this final version. And it’s not just the taste that had me smitten. Something about pouring that heavy cool cream over the steaming garnet rhubarb with flecks of vanilla bean is, well, very sensual.
Tasty in its own right, eaten with a spoon while it’s still warm, this concoction can also be blended to create a creamy sweet sauce or filling, thinned to the desired consistency with more or less cream. I’ll show you next time how I used it to fill fluffy homemade cream puffs…. oh, what a tantalizing tease!
Homemade Strawberry Jam
Strawberry season was a glorious one this year, starting early and lasting a long time. From the very first quart of local strawberries I saw – or rather smelled – in early May, I vowed to savor them more than ever. Somehow that sweet ripe fragrance got in my nose and stayed there, keeping the craving constant for these morsels of juicy ruby heaven. I never did get my fill, even after more than a dozen quarts!
While it was a bit expensive buying my strawberries from fellow vendors at the farmers market, I felt it was a worthwhile indulgence for fresh eating, particularly after a long hot day of selling my flowers. I wasn’t quite willing to fork over more than $6 a quart (really) to make my annual stash of strawberry jam though so I wait until I visited my parents in rural central Pennsylvania to stop by a nearby produce farm that had generous quarts of super-ripe berries for a mere three bucks. I greedily grabbed five quarts, though only four somehow ended up in Philly after the three hour drive back. Musta been a hole in the car console or maybe a stow away squirrel on board…
In any case, to send off strawberry season in style, I made a luscious batch of jam scented with a vanilla bean and cooked to a perfect consistency. Jam making really is quite easy, especially when you have a simple recipe that doesn’t require that dreaded pack of pectin that never seems to be on city store shelves. If you haven’t tried making your own homemade jam or jelly before (by the way, jam in chunky, jelly is strained to be smooth), this is the perfect one to try since it’s really very simple. The only trick to making sure the jam thickens is to let it boil vigorously, which means you’ll be needing a very large pot to keep it from spilling over and making a mess of your stove.
Slathered on a fresh thick slice of bread from a loaf given to me by another farmers market vendor, I decided strawberry season wasn’t really ending after all. This jam is so full of fresh berry flavor, I’ll feel like I’m eating a ripe strawberry when I crack open a jar in December.
Homemade Herbal Lemonade
The heat is on, woowhee! Really, it’s the humidity that’s pumping here in Philly right now. I was wringing my clothes out this morning in the garden. Still, a quick chug out of my icy jug of Homemade Herbal Lemonade was so cool and delicious that I was able to keep at the weeding for five whole hours! Well, I did take a break to pick some blueberries and raspberries somewhere in the middle there…recipes to come for those. In any case, this is a mighty refreshing beverage to have on hand on a hot summer day.
If (when) I get married, I think I’d like to have one of my close friends make several dozen of these beautiful bottles of lemonade to have scattered around in ice-filled tin tubs and on the long communal tables laid out with a farm fresh feast {I guess I’d better buy stock in a lemon company that year}. There’s just something about the way these jars gather condensation in the heat that makes me want to pour a glass and kick back with my flip flops off and the skirt of my sundress hiked up just a little higher. A jar would make a great addition to a picnic basket for an outdoor concert in the park or a drive-in movie. Bonus: add a shot of vanilla vodka and get a nice little buzz with your cool down. Perfect for a sultry summer night.
Wyck Summer Kick-Off Festival {Philly}
I had a great evening on Friday, strolling around the busy grounds and house of Wyck during their lovely little Summer Kick-Off Festival. The music was great and the weather perfect. I loved seeing so many folks enjoying this historic garden for all it’s worth. Kids were especially fun to watch as they discovered the baby apples on the trees, the chickens in the back, and the stilts under the ancient trees that were there for them to try out. I really went for one reason though…to try the limited edition Wyck Old Rose Gelato from Capogiro.
I love Wyck’s roses for so many reasons, but the chance to eat them (or at least their essence) tops the list. So there I was, giddy to take my first bite and boy was it good! Fragrant but not too “perfumey”, the taste of the roses initially striking with the first few bites but then fading to this wonderfully mellow floral undertone as my taste buds adjusted to such an unusual flavor. When rose season rolls around again next year, I’m going to see if my good friend and Wyck gardener-extraordinaire, Nicole, will let me take home a bag of rose petals to post a few rose-infused recipes of my own. For now, enjoy a few photos from this fun event and make plans to visit Wyck sometime soon for more fun, history and education. They have quite the full calendar of events all summer long.
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