Rhubarb Crumb Bars (Redux)

If the same recipe is posted again in a forest, and everybody sighs irritatedly, can you still hear them? Not if it’s an online forest. Although I can sense the sighing, and I’m sorry. But here’s the thing: I figured out how to make this without the weird syrup-making stage and with the ease of the mixer, and so I must share again. Because these bars? They are conversation stoppers. Truly. People will take a bite and say, “Oh my God, how much butter is in these?” “This is the best thing I have ever eaten. What is it?” And what they are is buttery-rich and sticky-edged, rhubarb-pink and caramel-sweet. There’s some oaty warmth, some jaw-cramping tartness, a lot of ooh-aah perfection. You will be a hero for one day. And you will have to generate a kind of humble rhubarb schtick, so that it won't seem like it's going to your head.

We are not cooked yet. That's why you're not drooling.

 I have made them three times in ten days. So I have actually been a hero for three days. ("These old bars? Pshaw.") At a weekend potluck, at which other people were given vague directions towards salad or side dish, I was assigned this specific thing, with lots of Ha ha, but only if you don’t mind making them again, but bring the rhubarb crumb bars or else. So I did.

Rhubarb Crumb Bars (Redux)

Serves 12

Active time: 20 minutes; total time 1 hour and 10 minutes.

6 cups sliced rhubarb (about 2 pounds before trimming and cleaning)

1 1/2 cups white sugar

3 tablespoons cornstarch

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/4 cups brown sugar

1 cup white flour

1 cup whole-wheat or whole-spelt flour (this is not a health concession: it actually makes it better)

3/4 teaspoon kosher salt (or half as much table salt)

1 cup butter (2 sticks; I use salted), slightly softened and sliced into small pieces

1 cup rolled oats

Heat the oven to 375 and heavily grease a lasagna-sized (11- by 7-inch) baking dish. I confess to using that unholy Pam baking spray--the kind that comes out of the can like foaming extraterrestrial phlegm but really keeps everything from sticking.

In a large bowl, stir together the rhubarb, white sugar, cornstarch, and vanilla.

Stir together the brown sugar, flours, and salt in the bowl of a standing mixer. Now add the butter, and beat it together until it just looks clump and fairly amalgamated. Add the oats and mix until they more or less disappear—just a few more spurts of mixage.

Reserve a heaping cup of this mixture, and press the rest of into the baking dish, breaking it up to distribute it, and patting it down firmly to form a bottom crust.

Pour in the rhubarb mixture, and spread it evenly over the crust. Sprinkle with the reserved oat mixture, breaking it up to dot it evenly over the fruit. Bake until the top and bottom are deeply browned but not burning—40-55 minutes. Serve in squares, warm or at room temperature, with or without whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

Brown Rice Salad with Asparagus, Feta, and Lemon

I am not an animal! I am rice salad.

Have I really never posted a rice salad recipe before? I know I’ve done the dauntingly magically expanding spelt salad (Summery Whole-Grain Salad sounds better!) and the really really good Minted Cherry Tabouli, but I just googled my name and “rice salad” and got nothing. Well, technically I got to this old blog post, which did indeed mention rice salad, and did indeed fill me with nostalgia, but did not, in fact, offer an actual recipe. And that’s strange, because I make a lot of rice salads, including a kind of muddledly Asian one, with the scallion dressing from here, and loads of chopped radishes, slivered cabbage, baked tofu, and peanuts. That’s a good one. And then there are the many random ones, with odds and ends of veggies and cheeses, herbs, good vinaigrettes, and gratings of citrus zest, and me saying, “Is this good enough to take to a potluck?” And usually, yes, it’s fine.

Have a already lost you at "rice salad" and you're asleep now, dreaming of pork chops and skirt steak and the kind of Brazilian restaurant where a hundred meats come by on a stick and you just grab the ones you want along with a tantalizing dish of chimichurri? Sorry.

Remember the Vegetarian Times scandal? When it turned out that the vegan ribs looked so tasty and alluring because they'd photographed actual pork ribs? That was kind of funny. This really is real rice salad!

But this is a really, really good rice salad—a “company” rice salad, if you will. The recipes uses my current favorite rice-cooking method (boiling it like pasta, which, festively, removes more of the arsenic). And it also offers a bonus excellent pan-roasting asparagus method. Plus, the dish is so perfectly balanced with the trifecta of salad ingredients: something rich (feta), something crunchy (toasted almonds), and something bright-tasting (lemon zest). Also herbs. You could add mint here to good effect, and you could add something sweet, such as dried cherries or slivered sundried tomatoes. Every bite is creamy and crunchy, sweet and bursty, lemony, balanced, and delicious.

Brown Rice Salad with Asparagus, Feta, and Lemon

Serves 8-10

This is adapted from this month’s Cook’s Illustrated. I tinkered with this and that, increased the rice from 1 ½ cups to 2, added a cup of green peas for their bursty sweetness, used feta instead of fresh goat cheese, added more parsley, etc. Also, the chive blossom garnish perfectly picks up the specks of purple from the shallot, which is just kind of subtly magnificent. If subtle magnificence is possible.

2 cups brown rice (I like short grain, even though they recommend long, because it’s sweet and nutty)

4 teaspoons kosher salt

2 teaspoons lemon juice

4 tablespoons good olive oil (divided use)

1 large bunch of asparagus, trimmed (I like the sweet, fat ones)

More kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

1 shallot, minced

The grated zest of 1 lemon, plus its juice (around 2-3 tablespoons)

1 cup frozen little green peas, thawed in a sieve under hot water

1 cup crumbled feta (or another mild goat cheese, or freshly grated parmesan, if you prefer)

¾ cup slivered almonds, toasted (or sautéed in a pan with a teaspoon of oil)

½ cup chopped fresh parsley

Chive blossoms for garnish, if you have them!

Cook the rice: Bring a pot of water to a boil over high heat. Add the rice and salt and cook, stirring occasionally, until the rice is just tender (around 25 minutes). Drain the rice well, then put it back in the pot, put a dish towel over the top of the pot, and replace the pot’s cover. Let the rice steam and cool for 10-15 minutes, then stir in the 2 teaspoons of lemon juice. (Cook's Illustrated has a, pardon, senselessly fussy step involving a rimmed baking sheet.)

Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in a wide pan over medium-high heat until it’s shimmering. Add half the asparagus with the tips pointed one way and half with the tips pointed the other. (This is the kind of Cook’s Illustrated detail that makes me smile—but if you picture trying to fit a lot of triangles together, it does make sense.) Cover the pan and cook until the asparagus are bright green and still crisp, which will take from 2 to 5 minutes depending on their size and/or freshness. Uncover them, increase the heat to high, season them with salt and pepper, and continue to cook until tender and browned, another 5 to 7 minutes, moving them around with tongs a little as they cook so that they brown evenly. Transfer them to a cutting board and leave them to cool, then cut them into 1-inch pieces.

In a large bowl, whisk together the olive oil, shallot, lemon zest and juice, 1 teaspoon of kosher salt and ½ teaspoon of pepper. Add the rice and the asparagus, and stir to mix, then add the peas, parsley, almonds, and feta and stir again. Taste for salt and lemon, and add more if it needs it.

Let it stand at room temperature for up to an hour (really try not to have to refrigerate it, or it will lose a great deal of its loveliness) then garnish with chive blossoms (or not) and serve.

I meant to take a picture of the asparagus in the pan, but I forgot!

You can get your handy Ben to fry the almonds for you.

and make the dressing.

Thank you. Also, games.

Friends, I showed some of your comments to Birdy, who loved them. Thank you. She is crazy about her own fuzz-head, but got a handful of (predictably) lukewarm responses at school. I loved balancing them with your enthusiasm.

Honestly, it's even worse than this. This is a 5- by 5-cube Expedit. If you know your Ikea furniture.

I am going to post an asparagus rice salad recipe later in the week. In the mean time, if you're interested, would you please click on the Master Games list over on the right, and let me know what you think? A number of readers have asked for it, only now I'm trying to figure out if the categories make sense, if the information is useful, and if it would be helpful to have more (or fewer) details. Or a key: average length of time, maybe, or the games that have the most staying power over time. Favorite two-person quickies, say. (!) Or games that have really been *the* all-time favorites. Should I say more about the word games that I mention only in passing? Or are there simply too many games and it's just overwhelming and makes you want to kill yourself with pity for us and our weird, sad gaming life? Because that's not what I'm going for.

More soon.

xo

And the winner is!

Kristen, the 5th commenter, with a son named Ben, has won One Good Egg! (Look, if you want to win, you need to give your kids the same names as mine. (Kidding.)) Please email me your address, Kristen, and everyone else: thank you so much for playing along! Buy Suzy's books, or check them out from the library. You won't be sorry.

In the meantime, Ben and I have been stranded, alone, with our hair.

First this happened:

And then, shortly thereafter, this:

If you give me a picture of the pope, I *will* tear it up. I will.

I was trying to figure out why the sweet sight of Birdy's head was making me cry. And then I realized:

There is no story here, not exactly. (Although our friend Corn pointed out that Birdy might be doing it in solidarity with Strawberry. Whom she now looks almost exactly like.) Really, they're just a couple of people with a fairly whimsical relationship to their hair. Which is a good relationship to have to hair. Plus, our friend Khalid had clippers.

Happy weekend, dear ones!

xo

One Good Egg (give-away)

Even as I type this, on a 100-degree early Friday evening with a cold Racer 5 IPA at my side, Ben is making dinner. "Here are leftover pinto beans," I said, and handed him the potato masher. "Can you make some kind of dip for us to have with tortilla chips and veggies?" And yes, he can. He's in there mashing and seasoning, stirring and tasting. Lemon, garlic powder, olive oil. Smoked paprika. Salt.

Jeez, Ben, you couldn't make something that didn't look so much like dog poo? (Kidding! So, so, so grateful.)

And that's good, because perhaps I will never cook again? Yesterday we had beans and rice from the freezer. (If you're doing the math here, that means that, yes, Ben has been charged with making dinner for four from leftover thawed frozen leftover beans.) The night before we had pizza toast. The night before that, the kids and I had boiled artichokes with melted butter. I have no idea what Michael ate for dinner, or if he ate dinner. One day, at a party where I'm serving Cheetos and dirt again, Michael will refer to the recipe blog I used to have, and everyone will laugh.

A very small part of the problem is Suzy Becker. Because now I'm reading the illustrated neurological memoir (a genre you doubtless know well) I Had Brain Surgery, What's Your Excuse? And really: I just want to lie in bed with her funniness and kindness, her illustrations that make me (literally) LOL.

In the meantime, I have scored a delightful give-away of One Good Egg! I know! Because honestly? You will love it. I promise. You will love it. The whole entire time I'm reading her stuff, I'm like: "I like almond croissants too!" and "I feel weird saying my name at a meeting!" I just love her. (That is so lame. What is wrong with me, besides the heat and the Racer 5 and the lack of actual meals? Can I think of no higher praise than her liking of the marzipannish pastries, the social awkwardness? Apparently not. But please know this: I wake at 4 every morning, and I'm psyched to be awake, so I can read more.)

It's the usual: just leave a comment. I'll close the bidding a week hence. 6:00 EST on Friday. Then you'll have to return to see if you've won, and email me your address.

Have a lovely weekend, friends.
xo

A Tiny Update (i.e. Veggie Burger Bites)

My darlings, I did not make anything new last week.

Perhaps I was lazy? It is true that we have a resident bird whose 4 a.m. call mimics the tambourine-playing of an exuberant, arhythmic toddler. I am slightly exhausted. But I do love the early light and sound.

It is also true that I've been making lots of old favorites. These rhubarb-crumb bars, for example. And this granola. These eggs. When I'm not out on my hands and knees, sniffing at the lilies of valley. Or stretching up to catch the too-much perfume of the decaying lilacs. Or closing my eyes to daydream about the bleeding hearts and peonies.

Spring is the season of the cigar-tube "vase"

and the world's tiredest cat.

Anyway. All I have to offer you is a miniature tweak of my veggie burger recipe. And it's simply this: make tiny ones for a potluck appetizer! It couldn't be easier. Just use a cookie scoop to portion out the mixture, then use wet hands to flatten them into patties. Chill if you've got time (so they don't fall apart) or go ahead and fry them right away in a nice big slick of oil. Drain them on paper towels on top of cooling racks, and serve hot, warm, or at room temperature. (I didn't have any cilantro, so I actually flavored these with parsley and chives and lime zest. Yum.)

My parting advise: Read One Good Egg, by my new friend* Suzy Becker. It's an illustrated trying-to-get-pregnant memoir that strikes just the loveliest balance between funny and earnest and irritable and kindhearted. I loved it.

* I have never actually met Suzy Becker. But I would like to. And we did exchange some exceedingly pleasant work emails!

Oh, and one last last thing: We are listening to Packing for Mars with the kids, and it is the perfect level of interesting for all four of us. Lots of delightful details about the very human side of space travel (e.g. pooping, peeing, barfing). I recommend it completely for anyone 10 and over. If you've never read anything by Mary Roach, prepare to be blown away by her wonderfully extravagant style of curiosity.

The Ultimate Kale Salad

Photo of Birdy and kale by Douglas Merriam, courtesy of FamilyFun (where I published almost exactly this recipe but without the breadcrumbs. I'm sorry FamilyFun! I wasn't holding out on you! I just hadn't seen the light).

Things are breaking up a little here, straining at the seams. In the Venn diagram, the circle of my happy, beautiful life is overlapping exactly with the circle of my thrumming fretfulness. It’s lilacs and lilies of the valley and violets, purple-scented perfume breathing into our windows where I lie with my beloved partner, where our thriving children sleep with the rosy blossoms of their faces tipped up into the moonlight. And also my oldest friend has been ill, my heart’s companion of 41 years, and this illness is the hazy double of all the rest of it, the ghost outline of every dogwood tree and Mother’s Day card and meal and thought. I don’t really know how to write about it, except to say that sometimes I feel like I’m living multiple simultaneous lives. It’s not that I don’t love baked beans and great novels and spring and kids, because I do, and this is really my real and happy daily-ness (as it is hers). And also there’s this other thing that I can’t write about, and that isn’t really mine for the telling, that is the dark side of this blog’s moon, if you know what I mean. Also, because she will get better, it seems silly to burden you.

I took this one myself just yesterday!

Anyways. I don’t know why I mention this now, except that I sighed a little existentially as I was uploading this recipe (Kale? So what.). Even though this is possibly the single best recipe I have ever shared, so please, please don’t let my sighing angst deter you from making and loving it, which you should and will! And you’re like, Haven’t I already made your kale slaw before? That one with the lemon? Or that one with the walnuts? And you have, and those were great, they were. But this one is better. This is the new and improved one (Now with new sudsers that actually gets your clothes clean!) that forces me to confess that the others must have been ever-so-slightly imperfect, because of the perfectness.

I posted, and then deleted, the one with Michael's parmesan-grating middle finger fully extended. I am not currently entirely confident about my sense of humor.

The Ultimate Kale Salad

Makes 1 large bowlful

Total time: 15 minutes

This is, currently, my most-requested recipe. I don’t mean to be immodest, but the number of people here for dinner who tentatively hold their plates out, “Oh, just a little for me,” and make the ew-kale face—and then return for an unseemly amount of seconds? Well, it’s a big number. Raw kale salad is, simply, the greenest-tasting thing I know, and it converts everyone who thinks they don’t like kale, because they’re thinking steamed and stinky, and are then shocked and delighted to be served a bright, fresh tangle of salad.

Also, I’m usually flexible, I know, but I have lots of picky notes here about trying to follow the recipe as written. There is something so utterly balanced about this, with the rich, salty cheese and the crunchy breadcrumbs against the tangy, garlicky greens. You’ll see. Also, this doubles well—so you should double it. (As shown in the photos below, where I am making lots.)

1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup fresh (or frozen) breadcrumbs (Note: if you don’t have any, just put a slice or two of any kind of bread in the blender! But maybe don’t use the dusty cardboard-scented kind from a cardboard can, which will not be tasty here.)

1 healthy bunch of very fresh kale (ideally the lacinato or dinosaur variety, which is sweeter and has a better texture here, but any kind is good)

¼ cup olive oil

1 to 2 large cloves of garlic, smashed, peeled, and finely minced or put through a garlic press

2 tablespoons sherry VINEGAR (Not cream sherry, not cooking sherry. Balsamic or white-wine vinegar makes a good, but not ideal, substitute.)

¾ teaspoon kosher salt

2/3 cup freshly grated parmesan

Heat the 1 tablespoon of oil in a smallish pan over medium heat and fry the breadcrumbs, stirring some, and then later more, until they are very brown and toasty, which will take longer than you might imagine (5 or so minutes). Set them aside in a bowl so that they don’t burn in the still-hot pan.

Wash and dry the kale. Now strip the ruffly leaves off the kale's stems by grasping the bottom of each stem and pulling your hand up it forcefully. Discard the stems. Stack and bunch the leaves together, then use a large, very sharp knife to sliver them as fine as you can. Put the slivered kale in a large bowl. (Any thoughts on the stems? I’m starting to think it’s silly to compost them and that I should either a) not bother stripping the leaves or b) find a great kale-stem recipe.)

Now, in a tiny pan, heat the oil over medium heat and fry the garlic in it until fragrant and just on the verge of coloring (which you will need to intuit, given that it won’t have colored yet!). Add the salt and vinegar, and stir for another minute as the vinegar sizzles furiously and the whole thing foams and becomes outrageously fragrant. Pour half the hot dressing over the kale and toss very thoroughly with a pair of tongs. Then get in there with your hands and massage it until the leaves are glossy and dark. Now taste it, and add more dressing as needed. Stir in the cheese and breadcrumbs, taste for salt and vinegar, and serve.