By Tanya Manus

One of the great pleasures of summer is picking berries and eating them, sun-warmed, straight from the vine.

When I was little, a visit to my grandparents’ house in Bremerton, Wash., was never complete without picking blackberries and raspberries with my grandmother. Their 1/4-mile-long driveway was lined with berry bushes, and after we picked them, my grandmother washed them and seasoned them lightly with sugar. We’d eat them by the bowlful for breakfast. I’d love another one of those mornings.

My passion for blackberries is shared by the entire city of Bremerton which, every summer, hosts a Blackberry Festival. I had the pleasure of attending it a few years ago and left with mini cookbook chock full of ideas for enjoying blackberries. Some of the recipes from the Blackberry Festival are perfect for us in the Midwest because they make use of frozen berries.

One of my favorite uses for blackberries, because they are scarce here, is to use them as garnish and show them off. A few fresh berries from the grocery store - and maybe a pesticide-free pansy or two from the garden - nicely dress up a lemon cake. I’ve also used individual berries as simple, colorful decorations on coconut cupcakes.

Or douse some fresh berries and fruit in wine and make yourself a nice sangria (recipe follows).

Getting a berry craving yet? Try these, from the Blackberry Festival’s “A Berry Nice Cookbook.”

For frozen berries:

Blackberry Cobbler

4 to 6 cups frozen blackberries

2 cups sugar

2 cups water

1/3 cup cornstarch

Bring to a boil in a saucepan, stirring constantly. Pour into a 10- by 12-inch baking pan. Drop topping by spoonsful onto berry mixture.

Topping:

2 cups flour

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

1/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup oil

1 cup buttermilk

Mix dry ingredients together. Add liquid. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 45 minutes.

For fresh berries:

Black Sangria

Cherries, blackberries and seedless black grapes

1 strip of peel from a whole lemon

1/2 cup strongly brewed black tea

1 bottle dry red wine

club soda (chilled to taste)

Place fruits and lemon peel in a 2-1/2-quart pitcher. Add the tea and enough wine to cover. Chill remaining wine. Before serving, pour remaining wine in the pitcher. Stir and add ice and club soda to taste.

By Tanya Manus

It’s rhubarb season, and several of my co-workers have been talking about their best rhubarb recipes, the ones that are tried-and-true favorites every summer. Thanks to my friend Irma and her namesake aunt, I’ve got a good old-fashioned dessert to add to the list.
Rhubarb Dumplings have been a treasured treat in Irma’s family for 49 years. The recipe was passed down from aunt Irma Davidson to my friend, Irma Koan, and her mother, Clo Trout, who love to make this each summer when fresh rhubarb is in the garden.
“As soon as the rhubarb gets tall enough, we pull some,” Irma said. “We also make strawberry rhubarb jam and rhubarb upside-down cake.”
Rhubarb Dumplings are a treat to make on a lazy summer day when you’ve got plenty of time. This dessert starts with lots of chopped rhubarb, and with pie crust made from Clo’s recipe. The pie crust dough is rolled out and cut into squares. The squares are filled with rhubarb chunks, topped with a sugar syrup and baked.

Irma and her family enjoy making the Rhubarb Dumplings. “It takes time, but it’s fun. We like to sing … and cook at the same time,” Irma said.
The end result is a dessert of flaky crust and tender rhubarb that “tastes like apple pie, but better,” Irma said.
I got the pleasure of sampling Irma’s family’s Rhubarb Dumplings just a couple of weeks ago, warm from the oven, served with vanilla ice cream. They’re very rich and hearty, and one recipe makes a plentiful batch. Irma sent me home with leftovers, and I enjoyed them the next day as a decadent breakfast pastry, too.

Rhubarb Dumplings
Roll out pie crust dough (recipe follows) flat and thin in a big sheet. Cut into squares about 3 inches by 5 inches, not too thick but not too thin.
In a bowl, mix 1 cup sugar, 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon and 2 tbsp. flour. Stir well with a fork.
Cut rhubarb into 1/2-inch chunks. You will need 6 to 7 cups of rhubarb chunks. Put a small handful of rhubarb chunks, 1 pat of butter and 2 tbsp. of the flour mixture on each square of dough and pinch dough shut. Put each one in a buttered cake pan, pinched dough side down.
Make a thin syrup: In saucepan, combine 1 cup sugar and 2 cups water. Heat on low and stir. Carefully pour syrup on dumplings in pan.
Bake the syrup-topped dumplings at 350 degrees until light brown, about 35 minutes.

Clo’s Pie Crust
3 cups flour
1 level cup Crisco
Use your fingers to combine until mixture feels like cornmeal. In a separate bowl, beat one egg, 1 tsp. vinegar, 1 tsp. salt, and 1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp. cold water. Add egg mixture to flour mixture; stir with fork. Mix with fork and knead three or four times.

By Tanya Manus

Who doesn’t love the semi-homemade craze?

A few store-bought ingredients, some creativity, and you end up with food that looks and tastes homemade, but cuts down on the time you spend cooking.

Cake mixes are great starters for semi-homemade treats. And just because the box says you’ve bought a cake mix, you don’t have to use it for cake.

Recently, when I was getting ready to entertain a group of friends, I was trying to find something different to serve. Usually, at our weekly gatherings, we take turns bringing dessert. I was rifling through my cupboards when I came across a box of Nana’s Apple Cake Mix from Tastefully Simple. I started with cake mix but ended up with a cobbler that left my friends raving. Rich and sweet, it was terrific paired with vanilla ice cream.

Cherry Cobbler

21 oz. can cherry pie filling (or any flavor pie filling you like)

1 box Nana’s Apple Cake Mix

1/2 cup (1 stick) softened butter

Spread pie filling into greased 8- by 8-inch baking dish. Cut cake mix and butter together until mixture is crumbly. Sprinkle over pie filling. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 to 45 minutes. Serves 9.

Nana’s Cake Mix in particular is what gave the cherry cobbler its extra-good taste, but if you don’t have that in your pantry, try this recipe from Cooks.com.

Quick Cobbler

1 can of your favorite pie filling

1 stick butter

1 small box (enough for 1 layer) white, yellow or spice cake mix (such as Jiffy cake mix)

Pour pie filling into 1-quart casserole dish. Sprinkle cake mix over pie filling. Cut cold butter into pats and arrange over top. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake for 1 hour. Serve plain, with ice cream or whipped cream

P.S. We’d love to hear from you! What are some of your favorite recipes?

Clear out your cupboards. The Girl Scout cookie sale is on through Feb. 22. If eating the cookies on their own isn’t enough, here are some recipes to try. Thin Mint Pizza Supreme, anyone?

Chocolate Thin Mint Pizza Supreme
1 package (18 ounces.) refrigerated chocolate chunk cookie dough
1/2 package (19 cookies) Girl Scout Thin Mints
1/2 cup white chocolate morsels
Vanilla ice cream, optional
Press cookie dough evenly in the bottom of an ungreased 12-inch pizza pan or a 13×9x2-inch baking pan. (Dough will barely cover the pan.) Break Thin Mints into halves or thirds; press cookie pieces into dough, covering evenly. Bake at 350 degrees for 12 to 18 minutes or until golden brown. Place white chocolate morsels into a small self-closing bag. Microwave the bag of morsels on medium high (70 percent power) for 40 to 50 seconds or until melted. Snip one corner (about 1/8 inch) off the bottom of the bag. Hold bag tightly at top and drizzle white chocolate stripes over top of pizza. When cool, cut pizza into 8 or 10 wedges. If desired, top each serving with a scoop of ice cream.
Makes: 8 to 10 servings
Submitted by: ABC Bakers

Lemon Crunch Cheesecakes with Caramel Apple Topping
8 Lemonades Girl Scout Cookies; 5 crushed, and 3 broken into small pieces
4 teaspoons melted butter
1package (8 ounces) cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1egg
1 cup finely chopped apple
1/3 cup caramel flavored topping
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place 6 foil baking cups in muffin pan. Combine crushed cookies and butter. Press crumb mixture into bottom of each foil cup. Beat cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until blended. Add egg; beat on low speed just until blended. Stir in cookie pieces. Spoon batter evenly over lemon crunch crust. Bake 20 minutes or until centers are almost set. Cool. Refrigerate 2 hours or overnight. Just before serving remove cheesecakes from foil cups. Top each cheesecake with chopped apple. Drizzle caramel topping over cheesecakes. Serve immediately.
Makes: 6 servings
Submitted by: ABC Bakers

For more recipes, go to
http://www.abcsmartcookies.com/cookies_recipes.asp?tab=byrecipe
 

By Tanya Manus

The cool, rainy days and crisp nights that heralded September’s arrival mean autumn is definitely on its way. A recent cold, wet Sunday put me in the mood for some of my favorite rainy-day comforts - wrapping up in a quilt to watch an old movie, and enjoying the sweet, spicy scent and taste of something warm from the oven.
I know we’ll have many sunny days ahead to enjoy before cold weather really hits. And many of us are still using up fresh produce from our gardens. So I think I’ve found an ideal dessert to bridge the summer-into-fall season we’re in now - rhubarb crumble.
A couple of weeks ago, I enjoyed rhubarb crumble that I bought from a vendor at the Black Hills Farmers Market. Not too tart, not too sweet, it struck just the right note. And on a crisp fall day, what could be better than enjoying summer produce in a wonderful, warm treat?
The next time it rains, or you feel that unmistakeable fall chill in the air, use some of that rhubarb you have stashed in the freezer to make this tempting dessert. For some interactive fun, you can find a crumble-making demonstration at YouTube, called The Rhubarb Triology - Crumble. Yes, it’s a video of a home cook named Monica making rhubarb crumble. Go to www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HnqYrWgAEo
Or you can try this recipe, which comes from a cook on RecipeZaar who calls rhubarb crumble “possibly the best dessert in the entire world.”

Rhubarb Crumble
2 lbs rhubarb, chopped into 1/2-inch pieces
1/4 cup sugar (superfine)
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon cornstarch

For the Crumble Topping:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup unsalted butter, cold and diced
3 tablespoons vanilla sugar (can substitute ordinary sugar)
3 tablespoons brown sugar

Place a baking sheet in the oven and preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
Heat the rhubarb in a pan on medium to medium low with the 1/4 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon butter, vanilla, and cornstarch for about 5 minutes, until the rhubarb is glossy and everything has melted together. Transfer to an 8-1/2-inch pie plate (about 1-1/2 inches deep).
To make the crumble topping, place the flour and baking powder in a bowl and rub in the butter until it is thoroughly combined, with a texture like soft crumbs.
Using a fork, stir in the sugars. Spread evenly over the fruit, attempting to cover all of it. (Exposed parts will bubble up). Bake on the sheet for 35-45 minutes. It’s okay if it bubbles over a bit, this is what the pan is for. Serves 10.

By Lynn Taylor Rick

Journal staff

When we bought our house about eight years ago, my husband and I were thrilled to discover that raspberries and blackberries grew in the backyard.

I may be a farmer’s daughter, but I seem to be challenged in the growing things department. House plants generally shudder in my presence. They shudder right up until the moment they die. Thank goodness for my husband and his green thumb. 

Anyway, back to the raspberries. Since I’m not good at planting food and keeping it alive, I was excited to see a food source that didn’t seem to need any work. Along the fence in our garden, the previous owners had managed a hefty crop of raspberries. And the first summer we picked and ate the little morsels without breaking a sweat. 

Then, things dried up and the raspberries did, too. For far too many summers, we had measely crops with a few raspberries here and there. I had almost forgotten how wonderful raspberries were until this year. After a soggy spring, we are living large in the raspberry arena.

Finally, we have enough to do more than just pick and eat them. Sure, most of the raspberries still go directly from the branch to a child’s mouth, but this year we have enough to drop a handful of raspberries into a bowl of ice cream or cereal.

But what about the extras? There must be others out there with raspberry bushes brimming with fruit. What do you do with your raspberries? What’s your favorite way to enjoy them? Do you have a favorite raspberry recipe?

By Jomay Steen
Last week, I and my old college pal, Zonya, went to the neighborhood grocery to pick up some items for bread pudding. As usual, the accident-prone Zonya was almost killed.
We were standing in the Express Lane of 15 Items or Less, which was only express in Superman’s Bizarre-O World where anything that is supposed to quick, i.e. expess, was painstakingly slow. There was only one express aisle open and about 25 people had lined up behind us as we watched the clerk count the eggs inside each container by touching them.
As we crawled along to the slow-motion action at the register, a workman began tacking up plastic sheeting for the store’s renovation project of painting the ceiling.
The workman was standing on a motorized elevator platform and had the platform floor above the checkout shelves to attach the plastic to the ceiling. To move the motorized vehicle further down the aisle, packed tight with balloons, chips and other snack items, he started to lower the platform. He wasn’t able to see the corner of the platform floor snag the Express Lane sign, which was attached to the ceiling’s metal framing with (I’d guess) 30-pound fishing line. He kept lowering the elevator until the lines pulled the overhead ceiling frames apart.
Ceiling tiles, express sign and a network of metal frames crashed toward the floor with a fair amount of dust and dirt. The metal rails swung down in an arc, falling straight for Zonya in arrow-like precision.
“Look out, Zonya. It’s going to hit you,” I shrieked while pushing my unsuspecting friend and her shopping cart into the people in front of us. Luckily, the metal frame zipping toward us in def-bomb fashion caught on a gossip magazine rack, bent its tip and narrowly missed us. Yet, it was nearly Zonya-on-a-stick.
To celebrate the near-miss, she created this tasty bread pudding.

Leftover Hot Dog or Hamburger Bun Bread Pudding
–Zonya Franklin
5 cups hot dog or hamburger buns
3 tablespoons butter, melted
2-1/2 cups whipping cream
1/2 cup milk
4 eggs
1 cup sugar
1-1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon or to taste
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon orange zest, finely grated (optional)
1/8 teaspoon salt
Powered sugar (optional)
Heat oven to 350 degrees.
Butter a deep casserole, baking dish or 9X13 inch cake pan and filled with torn bread buns. Drizzle melted butter over bread cubes. Set aside. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together milk, cream, eggs, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, orange zest and salt until well blended. Pour over bread. Place baking dish in a larger pan and place in oven. Fill larger pan with hot water until it reaches halfway up the sides of the baking dish. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes or until knife inserted in center comes out clean. Before serving, sprinkle with powdered sugar. Serve warm or chilled.
For best pudding, break bread up the night before making pudding to allow it to dry. One hamburger bun equals 1 cup; and you can substitute 3 cups of Half and Half for the milk and whipping cre

By Tanya Manus

A co-worker of mine, who says she comes from a long line of good potluck cooks, knew exactly what to bring when I invited her to my Fourth of July party - Pretzel Jell-O Salad.

Well, OK, her recipe calls it salad. I call it dessert. With a crust made of butter, sugar and pretzels, topped with a cream cheese layer and fruit and Jell-O, it’s too decadent to be salad. I know I had heard of this recipe before but I’d never tried it. But one bite of this crunchy, sweet, salty, creamy treat and I was hooked.

This dessert is light and refreshing, perfect for summer. The next time you need to take a dish to a barbecue or a potluck, try this. You’ll get lots of compliments! 

Pretzel Jell-O Dessert

Step 1:

1-1/2 to 2 cups crushed pretzels
1 stick of butter, melted
1/2 cup sugar

½ tsp. cinnamon (optional)
Mix together and press into bottom of 13×9 pan. Bake at 325 degrees for 6 minutes. Allow to cool.

Step 2:
8 ounces cream cheese, softened

8 ounces Cool Whip, thawed
1/2 cup sugar
Whip together ingredients and spread on top of pretzel mixture. Put in refrigerator until completely set (at least an hour).

Step 3:
Large package fruit flavored Jell-O (your choice - 6 oz box)
10 ounces (approximately) FROZEN fruit, same flavor as Jell-O (strawberries or raspberries are best)
2 cups boiling water
Dissolve Jell-O in boiling water. Put frozen fruit into bowl and allow to thicken. Once thick, pour on top of cream cheese/pretzel combination. Refrigerate until set. (You want the Jell-O to thicken first so the fruit doesn’t all float to the top - but it’s still good, even if it does).

On our Food page this week, reporter Jomay Steen and some friends launched their quest for the best malt in town. Limiting the choices to hand-dipped ice cream, they sampled malts at Fjord’s, the Millstone and Arnold’s Classic Diner.

I’m sure there are other great malts in town. Where’s your favorite place to go?