A Little Experimenting

    I think the heat is getting to us all. Poor Hadassah has been trying to get comfortable all afternoon and just can't seem to find a good position. Flies are flying, mosquitoes are buzzing- it's just a muggy, no good mess. These warm days find us taking a break under the shade of a big oak tree and sipping plenty of cold ice tea, but not for too long.

      In between the rough housing and pestering pranks, the farm boy and I manage to get some work done. Today we focused on laying mulch and running some irrigation in the victory garden area. When milking, mucking, and mulching aren't tying us up, there is always harvesting to be done..and this week we have a hearty dose of strawberries and dew berries coming in off the vines.

        A kitchen full of anything leads to experimentation..and my farm boy loves testing out new recipes and ideas. This week we worked on flex recipes for cobblers and crisps; had to use up some berries, you know. From biscuit topping to cake style and even a granola topped version, we bubbled and brewed our concoctions and tested them out on every teen/college youth that made it through the gate.

on the left, crumble..on the right, cake style cobbler

 Cake-style Cobbler Flex-recipe

for every 1/2 cup fruit you need:

1 teaspoon sugar to toss with the fruit

2 tablespoons flour

1 tablespoon sugar

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

2 tablespoons milk

splat of butter for the cup/bowl

Toss berries with prepared fruit (cut in bite size pieces). Set aside while preparing the rest. 

Heat oven to 350 degrees. 

Stir together flour, sugar, baking powder and milk.

Place a splat of butter in the baking cup/dish and heat in oven until warm and melted.

Pour batter in cup..top with fruit..bake 20 minutes for small cup/40 for larger batch.

Top with fresh whipped cream or ice cream and enjoy!

A few notes:

adding lemon/orange zest perks up any fruit

frozen and canned fruits were tested with excellent results

if using canned fruit, skip tossing with sugar

for a gooier fruit filling, we stirred in a spoon full of preserves before baking

Add another tablespoon of flour and crumble on top fruit for a different texture

For a crumble:

For every 1/2 cup fruit

1 teaspoon sugar

1/2 tablespoon butter

3 tablespoons oats

1 tablespoon flour

2 tablespoon chopped nut

Toss fruit with sugar. Place in lightly buttered cup/pan. Crumble together remaining ingredients..place on top fruit. Bake 400 degrees 5-10 minutes for small cup/30 minutes for larger batch or till bubbly. 

You can replace the crumble mix with granola for a wonderfully speedy version.

As for the taste testers..I think they liked it, but it was a little hard to tell with all the clinking and slurping and burping. I thought it was delicious!