Vacation Lemonade

Last week we went on our annual vacation to southern California where my parents live. It truly is paradise there. Sunshine, palm trees, ocean breeze. One can see why so many people move there (or dream of moving there) someday. The weather was amazing, unseasonably warm and even a touch too hot a few of the days when it reached the high 90s.  Great for the beach or the pool but not the best for walking around Legoland for a few hours with little ones. Still, it’s tough to find complaints about a warm and sunny vacation now that we are facing the cold and dark pre-winter season here in Chicago.  Paul and I didn’t even realize that it was SO cold in Chicago until we got on the plane home and the pilot said “the weather in Chicago is partly cloudy with a temperature of 38 degrees”.  What? 38 degrees? It was about 70 when we left, but I guess that’s Chicago, especially around Halloween.

Pizza Port in Solana Beach.  One of Emmett's restaurant recommendations. 

Our vacation diet consisted of lots of baked goods, fried chicken, pizza, steaks on the grill, fish tacos, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, in-and-out burger, ice cream and one acai bowl thrown in there for good measure. So no, we didn’t cook. But we did make something. I’ll let you guess what it was.

Emmett.  The boy who ALWAYS has chocolate on his face. 

My parents have a bunch of fruit trees in their backyard including fig trees, citrus trees, and a persimmon tree.  Their lemon tree is seemingly always loaded with lemons which my dad uses to make amazing lemon marmalade based on a recipe shared with him by one of my aunts in Japan.  The kids don’t have the attention span for marmalade but they were very excited about the prospect of making lemonade with the lemons they gathered from the backyard.   

The kids picked lemons while my dad sliced them in half and juiced them.  Then we mixed them with sugar and water, heated in the microwave until the sugar melted. To that we added a whole bunch of ice and more water until we got the taste right. From now on, the taste of homemade lemonade will remind me of vacation and my parent’s lemon tree.

Splash pad! 

Here is the lemonade recipe we based ours on.   It comes from Ina Garten who I’m sure makes a perfect glass of lemonade for dear Jeffrey whenever he gets overheated and thirsty.

Lemonade

• 1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (5 to 6 lemons)
• 1/2 to 3/4 cup superfine sugar, to taste
• 1 cup crushed ice
• 4 cups water

Ina puts all of the ingredients in a blender and serves the lemonade over ice but we did it as explained above and that worked perfectly, with no grainy sugar slush left at the bottom of the pitcher. It also saved us from having to wash another appliance.

Back in the Saddle: Apple Crumble

Despite the balmy weather, we’ve been doing a lot of fall activities lately, including a trip to the pumpkin patch and driving around the neighborhood to see which houses have their Halloween decorations up.  Emmett LOVES the latter, and memorizes which houses have which decorations.  He remembers them all from last year too, so he knows which streets to check for his favorites.  “Scary kitty cat with head that moves” is his #1.  

I left September to making sauce from the last of the good tomatoes but now that it’s October, I think I’m ready for some baking.  Apples. Pumpkin. Warm spices.  All that stuff. What better way to get back in the saddle after a failure then to have a little help? My brother-in-law gave me this fruit crumble mix the other day and it was the perfect re-introduction.  Fail-proof. Fast. And a good excuse to get out the old apple peeler-slicer-corer that the kids love to use so much. The concept is: mix the crumble topping from the box with a splash of milk and cover your fruit filling with it.  Pop it in the oven until it’s all bubbly and golden and eat.  With ice cream, of course.

It turned out to be a good project for baking with little ones. They were able to peel, core and slice the apples (with the help of our little gadget), toss them with a little lemon juice, cinnamon and sugar, and mix the crumble topping with the milk.  As a loss reduction strategy (and to avoid a crazy mess), I was in charge of putting the filling in the baking pan, topping it with the crumble mix and putting the whole thing in the oven. About 50 minutes later the whole thing was bubbly, the topping browned and the house smelled like fall.

Crumble, like pie, really benefits from a chance to rest and cool before digging in - so the juices are absorbed back into the filling instead of seeping out all over the bottom of your pan. For this reason, I try to bake these types of desserts when I’m actually hungry for real food and prepared to wait awhile before sampling. This crumble stayed warm for hours.   We hung out, ate dinner, then played monopoly before tucking into it a few hours later and it was still slightly warm. Perfect with a scoop of cold vanilla ice cream.  

Eve probably enjoyed it the most. She and I shared some for breakfast the next day topped with plain greek yogurt and salted almonds.  Notice I took no photos of the actual eating part. I guess we were all just focused on the food.

Oven ready.  At this point I had probably invested about 15 minutes in the entire dish (including supervision of little helpers). 

Apple Crumble

• 1 box of Green’s crumble mix, available at Paddy’s on the Square in Long Grove
• 20 ml milk (which roughly equals a splash, I was surprised at how little you need, so start small)
• ⅓ cup almonds, roughly chopped (optional)
• 5 medium apples, peeled and sliced, I used a mix of Gala and Golden Delicious
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon or apple pie spice
• Juice of ½ lemon
• 2 tablespoons of sugar
• Pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 350F.

1. Mix apple slices with lemon juice, spices, salt and sugar in a large bowl.
2. Mix crumble mix with chopped almonds and milk.  
3. Place apple mixture in a baking dish and top with crumble mixture.
4. Bake for 50 minutes or until apple juices are bubbling and crumble topping is nicely browned.
5. Allow to rest for 2-3 hours.

Serve.

Browned beauty. 

A couple of notes on using the mix.  I didn’t follow the directions on the box which called for a higher cooking temp and shorter cooking time. I did this for a couple of reasons.  First, since I added almonds to the crumble part, I was afraid that they would start to burn at the 400F directed so I lowered it to 350.  Second, I cooked the whole crumble for about 50 minutes which was significantly longer than the 20-25 prescribed on the box.  This was because I used apples, which take longer to cook than some fruits, like berries or peaches. If, for example, I were to use this mix to make cherry crumble with cherry pie filling and no nuts in the topping, I would probably do it exactly as directed.

This crumble mix will go in my pantry from now on. It wasn’t too sweet and came together in seconds with just a splash of milk.  I can already think of a million other ways to use it - on top of coffee cake, banana bread or muffins, in lieu of a top-crust for a pie, on baked oatmeal or even donuts.

And just like that, I’m excited about baking again. What a difference a week makes.

Cinnamon Grahams

Happy Saint Patrick's day weekend! I've got my corned beef in the fridge ready to go and I'm about to go to the store for some cabbage - which was sold out at my local market (that's when you know you live in an Irish-Catholic neighborhood). But for today, its crackers.

I cannot tell you the number of cracker recipes I’ve bookmarked, pinned or torn out and filed away in my life. So, so many. I love the idea of making my own crackers but I never make them.  Until now. This recipe came to my inbox as the featured recipe for one of the weekly newsletters I subscribe to. I deleted it at first, because I need another cracker recipe like a hole in my head, but something made me go back and retrieve it from my deleted files. I skimmed the recipe once and it seemed easy enough. I turned the oven on and started throwing these babies together.

The entire process took 30 minutes and they were so good. We ate about a third of them while they were still on the sheet, not completely cool. After dinner we used them for s'mores.  Like granola, chicken stock and several other basics, after making these I wondered why I haven’t been making them for years. It’s never too late to start right? I feel like there are so many kitchen projects like this.  Versions of things we are used to buying but are so much better when you make them yourself. I always joke to my husband that I would make a good pioneer - if I had the time, I would eventually make almost everything from scratch (...oh, all the things I would do in my second life, or maybe retirement).  

Fortunately, I can make these crackers again with just a few minutes and ingredients I always have in my pantry. Since they are made with whole wheat flour and not too much sugar I would feel good about turning them into a cookie project and adding a simple glaze. I’m sure the kids would enjoy getting out the cookie cutters. Perhaps best of all, these last quite awhile though you may want to double the recipe if your kids are anything like mine where crackers are concerned.

Cinnamon Grahams

Adapted from the recipe in Better Baking by Genevieve Ko

1 cup whole wheat graham flour (Odlums coarse whole wheat flour works great in this recipe but regular white whole wheat flour will also work.)

3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour

1/4 cup wheat bran

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

Granulated sugar, cinnamon and sea salt for sprinkling

Whisk both flours, wheat bran, cinnamon, salt, and the baking soda in a medium bowl.

Whisk the sugars, oil, vinegar, and 4 tablespoons water in a large bowl until smooth.

Add the dry ingredients and stir until flour mixture is evenly moistened.  Cover the bowl and rest for 15 minutes.

Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350°F. Place dough on a large piece of parchment paper and pat into a rectangle.

Place a large sheet of plastic wrap over the dough, then roll the dough into a 14-by-12-inch rectangle. 

Mix equal parts granulated sugar and sea salt with a pinch of cinnamon. Sprinkle evenly over the dough. (As you can tell, I didn't do it in the right order. Woops!)

Using a bench scraper or knife, cut the rectangle into 1-by-2-inch rectangles, then poke the crackers with a fork to make dots. Slide the parchment (with the dough on it) onto the cookie sheet.

Bake the grahams until the edges are dark golden brown and the center is dry and set, 17 to 20 minutes. Cool completely on the sheet on a wire rack, then break into crackers along the cut lines.

Make Ahead: The crackers will keep at room temperature for up to 2 weeks or in the freezer for up to 2 months.