Dessert From My Blanket Fort: Cookies and Cream

Welcome to another recipe swap!

Every month, I release an original recipe from a vintage cookbook, All Day Singin' And Dinner On The Ground, a junk store find, and we each update and remake it in our own creative ways. This time around, we embraced "Jelly Cake", an old-fashioned layer cake. Our crew is immensely talented and diverse, as you'll see in the interpretations of this humble recipe by:  Dennis, Toni, Sabrina, Lora, Lindsay, Mari, Crissy and Lauren, Pola, Jamie, Claire, Shari, Joy, Monique, Linda, Priya, Rachel, Alli, Katy, Lana, Emily, Krissy and Jaclyn. Visit the swap page for everyone's bios and please visit all of our blogs to let us all know what you think of our inventions!

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It happens every summer and throughout the year when I'm feeling overwhelmed with work and life; the pull from the center of my chest towards my place in Burwell. The old library is my adult blanket fort, but with booze, room for ten, my cookbook collection and a new kitchen. The last time I was in residence (a summer ago), I went to the Chokecherry Jamboree in neighboring Sargent, Nebraska, a weekend-long celebration of its namesake, complete with vendors and a Little Miss Chokecherry pageant. Chokecherry bushes are abundant in the Sandhills of Nebraska, producing small, sour, juicy red berries. When I purchased this jelly at the festival, I also purchased two chokecherry bushes and planted them in my yard in Burwell. As soon as next summer I may be harvesting some of my own chokecherries and pairing them with peaches or apricots in pie. For now, 1,500 miles away from my sanctuary on the plains, I have jelly that one Linda Osborn lovingly put up for us to enjoy later. The resulting recipe is like most plains recipes and like the original Jelly Cake recipe; simple and understated, yet can be dressed up for company and served with coffee.

Chokecherry Jelly

Mixed Berries, Cookies and Chokecherry Whipped Cream
Serves: 4

Equipment:
Large short-walled rammekin, about 5" diameter
whisk
stainless steel bowl

Ingredients:
One package ladyfinger cookies
One pint fresh mixed berries
One pint heavy whipping cream
2 Tablespoons jelly or jam, your choice, stirred to break up

Optional:
maple syrup

Rinse and pat dry the berries. In a chilled stainless steel bowl, pour one pint of heavy whipping cream.  Add jelly, and whisk until the cream forms stiff peaks but is still glossy. Take ladyfinger cookies and line the walls of the rammekin with them, using a dollop of cream on the bottom of the rammekin to hold them in place. Once into position, carefully use a spatula or pipe cream in using a plastic bag with the end snipped off until cream reaches just more than 3/4 of the way up the ladyfingers. Smooth, top with berries, and chill the dessert for about an hour to set, reserving leftover berries and cookies to add to individual bowls of berries, cookies and cream.  If you like, drizzle with a little maple syrup and serve with fresh-brewed coffee.

Love Letter To A Pepper Tree

Pepper Tree,
I was on my morning walk when I first saw you.  I had barely finished my morning coffee, so I didn't recognize you, already standing there in a moment of your history on the side of the road, your patient, relaxed limbs outstretched. The sun was starting to kiss your crown. Last night, the Santa Ana winds blew some of your berries onto the ground and me out of sleep and into your path. If any moment had been different, we may never have met. Perhaps this is how many encounters in Ojai's fields and orchards begin. I picked up one of your twigs, heavy with pink pearls, as though grabbing for a necklace someone dropped.

"Are these peppercorns"? I asked my friend.
"Yeah. They're everywhere. If you look higher in the tree, the berries are still green."

A Southern California-style Spring Weekend Brunch

The hubs is on a production job three thousand miles away, for three months. I would love to be articulate about that, but I'm not going to. It sucks. So, I made a brunch that I thought we would enjoy if he were here sitting on the deck with me. This is also known as sulking.

Starting the morning with fresh berries, citrus, and sparkling water will cheer up everyone but the reincarnated 20th century French woman within me needing to add butter to something, anything. However, using the hubs' clean palate as inspiration, light flavor combinations became the stars of the table, no butter or snooty Frenchwoman required.
 

Southern California-style Spring Weekend Brunch
Intelligentsia coffee
Mineral water infused with thyme
Grapefruit drizzled with cinnamon honey
Fresh blueberries, raspberries and blackberries over plain, whole milk yogurt

Serves: one sulking blogger

Wild Berry, Mizuna and Smoked Trout Salad

Yesterday's trip to the farmer's market bore no direction, or plans for dinner with corresponding list, so for the first time in a long while, my eyes and nose were the sole decision makers.  My haul:

One package "wild berries"
One bag of mizuna greens
One head of red leaf lettuce
One fuji apple
Baby zucchini, purchased because the same vendor a month ago was selling the predecessors to these zucchini in the form of squash blossoms some of which I used here, prompting the bright idea to follow and cook this vegetable through its growth cycle
One handful of sugar snap peas
One German pastry, of the cream cheese and strawberry variety
One bunch fresh flowers

In the office, I set up my flowers in a vase and victoriously ate one German pastry and an apple.  When I got home, I made a salad and stumbled upon a new favorite flavor combination that will obsess me for a while.  Dear readers, prepare for an onslaught of berries and peppery ingredients recipes to come, starting here.