Summer Vegetables "Polonaise"

Witamy!  

We love vegetables from the farm.  

When just picked, they are so fresh, vibrant and full of flavor.  Now that we’re in the primo harvesting season we’re eating a lot more green, yellow and orange stuff than ever before.  Right now in our fridge and pantry we’ve got: fresh asparagus, a yellow cauliflower, green & yellow beans,  a big bunch of very young carrots, orange beets,

 kale, and some zucchini we just brought home.  We hope the two of us can eat all that before it spoils. We see a couple of vegetarian meals in our near future!

But...Peter is always encouraging Laura to add layers of flavor to the vegetables. 

She’s happy with just a little butter and salt & pepper,  but Peter is all about attacking his taste buds with the flavors of garlic, herbs, infused oils, balsamic vinegar, lemon zest, and more.

One delicious and easy way to satisfying

his flavor cravings is to prepare the vegetables the Polish way - “polonaise style.” 

This works with brussels sprouts,  beans, asparagus,  cauliflower,  young carrots, or whatever you can get at the market.  In fact, this preparation will work well with frozen vegetables (egads!) if you are pressed for time.  Try it tonight!

Serves 6

1½ pounds of vegetables

½ teaspoon of sugar

½ teaspoon salt

Salt & Pepper to taste

Lemon Zest (optional)

2 teaspoons of butter

2 tablespoons of toasted plain bread crumbs

Clean and prepare the vegetables in your usual way.  Rinse them well.  Boil a small amount of water in your pot, add the salt and sugar.  Cook the vegetables for about 10 to 15 minutes (depending on the vegetable) until just under done (remember they will continue to cook and soften on the platter.  Drain well and place in a warmed serving dish.

Melt the butter over a low heat and mix in the breadcrumbs.  Sautee for just a few minutes until golden brown and sprinkle over the vegetables.  Add salt & pepper to taste.  Optionally, sprinkle a little lemon zest over the top for a little extra kick. 

Note:   Peter likes a heavier dose of breadcrumbs so Laura often doubles the recipe, depending on the amount of vegetables being served.  But keep in mind that this is a topping to be sprinkled lightly.

Smacznego!  

Rhubarb-StrawberryTart - Polish Style

Witamy!

* recipe corrected 5-26-16

Poles love fruit tarts.  They’re nothing like American grocery store style fruit tarts with huge chunks of fruit in a yellow custard, and drenched in a shiny sweet glaze.  Those are pretty to look at but I prefer other European pastries that are less sweet.   

The classic Polish berry tarts we grew up with have fewer ingredients, they are simpler to make, less sweet and focus more on the natural flavors of the fruit.  This one is a favorite because it combines the flavors of berries and rhubarb for a wonderful contrast of sweet and tart.

Have you been to a farmers’ market yet this spring?  As the weather gets warmer, more and more berries are showing up for sale.  And since they are usually local and fresh picked, the berries are bright red and super-sweet. 

Now we’re also seeing rhubarb which is a bakers’ dream ingredient.  When raw it looks like red celery, and it’s quite tart on the tongue.  But when you cook it down with some sweetener, it can add such a beautiful bright fresh note to any fruit it is paired with. 

This is a favorite “go-to” dessert of ours because it is so easy and frankly flexible.  Any berries will work although we like it best when the berries are paired with the rhubarb for a more natural and fresher flavor profile. 

Yields 32 squares

Cake Batter

1¼       cups butter, softened

¾         cup sugar

1½       cups flour

1½       teaspoons baking powder

½         cup milk

4          eggs, separated

1          teaspoon vanilla extract

1          pounds rhubarb, cut into thin, ½-inch wide slices

1         pound ripe strawberries, sliced into 1/2-inch pieces

Preheat oven to 350°F.  Butter and flour a 10x15-inch pan.

Using a standing mixer, blend the butter and sugar and until pale and creamy.  Mix the flour with the baking powder and add to the butter - alternately with the milk.  Add the egg yolks one at a time, beating constantly.  Add the vanilla and blend thoroughly.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff.  Fold into the dough and mix lightly.  Spread the dough evenly in the prepared pan.  Combine the strawberry and rhubarb pieces and distribute the fruit mixture evenly on top of the batter. 

Topping

½         cup butter, softened

1          cup flour

¼         cup brown sugar, lightly packed

Mix the butter and flour until it resembles coarse crumbs.  Add the sugar and mix well.  Sprinkle the crumb mixture over top of the fruit.

Bake for 40 to 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  If the crumb topping starts to brown too quickly, place a piece of aluminum foil over the top of the cake.  Remove from oven.  Cool and cut into portion-sized squares.   A scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side would be a no-brainer! 

*  Note:  if your fruit pieces are too small they could render too much moisture and the middle of your tart will be wet. If so, bake a little longer, keeping an eye on the crust not getting too dark.

Smacznego!

Laura's Strawberry Pie

Witamy!
Strawberries are a favorite fruit in Poland and the number of recipes for strawberry dishes could stretch from Belarus to Germany or from the Baltic Sea to Slovakia - many times over.  Here in central Virginia, where we now live, the first crops of strawberries are just being picked.

We visited a near-by farm yesterday and got their first harvest, picked just hours before we arrived.  In fact we got these berries before the local farmers market had any, so we really lucked out.  On the way home Laura asked if I had any requests for the berries and I chose her strawberry pie in a nano-second because it is absolutely to die for and super-easy to make.  Truth be told the recipe below is not a heritage Polish recipe but it is Laura’s heritage recipe which she has tweaked and perfected over time.

As soon as we got home, we wanted to taste-test the farm-berries against some berries we had bought at the grocery store just the day before.  These were imported from California, and while they looked picture-perfect on the outside, that’s where the similarities ended.  Both samples were cut in half – the imported berries were quite pale in the center and the farmer’s berries were deep red throughout.  We bit into each and rolled the fruit around our taste-buds, just like a fine wine.  The “shipped-in” berries were rather bland and did not have that intense strawberry flavor simply because they were picked before their time.  But the farmer’s berries on the other hand, were juicy and had that bright sweet flavor that let us know they were still on their stems just earlier that morning.  There’s an obvious moral to this story…if you have access to a berry farm or a farmers’ market, it’s well worth the extra pennies to buy berries that are totally satisfying.  

Laura’s Strawberry Pie
(serves 8)

1  9-inch baked pie crust (homemade or purchased)
2 quarts  fresh strawberries 
3 tablespoons  corn starch
½ to 1 cup  sugar (depending on the       sweetness of the berries)
1 cup  water
1 teaspoon  butter 



Wash the strawberries and remove the hulls.  Mash enough of the strawberries to make one cup.  Put the mash with one cup water in a 1-quart or larger glass measuring cup.  Add sugar ¼ cup at a time, mix and taste until you achieve the desired sweetness.  

Microwave the strawberry mixture on high for 4 to 6 minutes or until the mixture is boiling.  Watch carefully so the mixture does not boil over. 

Soften the corn starch in a couple of tablespoons of water and whisk quickly into the strawberry mixture.  Microwave the mixture another 2 to 3 minutes on high or until mixture thickens.  Stir in the butter.

Let the mixture cool completely.  Cooling may take 30 minutes or longer.

Arrange the remaining strawberries, either whole or sliced, in the baked and cooled pie crust.  Pour the cooled strawberry glaze mixture evenly over the top of the berries.  Refrigerate until set, about 3 hours, before serving.  Garnish with whipped cream, if desired.
Smacznego!