Bird's Nest Bites

A Cook & Garden, Together In The Pacific Northwest

Roasted Pear Muffins with Pear Chips

Fall is in the air, which gets me thinking favorite about Fall foods (big shock).  As part of this mental excursion, I got to wondering about the fact that I had never seen a recipe for pear muffins before so did some recipe snooping and found such recipes exist, but not very many.  I think this might be because pears, all by themselves, are not really what you would call ‘flavor bombs’, and to my mind require roasting and some cinnamon to get the ball rolling.  Always up for a challenge, I set out to make a pear muffin that would be all about the pear and capitalize on that roasted pear taste that is irresistible.  First, we’ll roast up some diced pears in cinnamon sugar, then add them to a batter that has lots of brown sugar to enhance that roasted concept. When all was said and done, the experiment resulted in a super moist muffin that smacks you right in the face with nice little pieces of roasted pear.  If you want to get really crazy, you can make some pear chips to decorate the tops.  Not at all required, but kinda fun.

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Mexican Spoonbread with Poblano Chilis & Corn with Fresh Tomato Salsa

Do you ever have one of those recipes in your head you’ve heard about and that sounded droolingly delicious, but you’d never even tasted it before?  Such is the case with yours truly and Spoonbread.  Just the sound of the name made me think of something creamy and most likely irresistible.   Spoonbread is a classic dish in the South and is usually made by cooking some cornmeal and milk on the stove top, then adding some eggs and maybe some cheese and baking it into a soft, creamy side dish.  I started upon my quest by looking at several recipes, made my own tweaks and came up with this one. It’s my own spin on this Southern classic, with some amped up flavor from the Poblano Chilis and Corn.  I also snuck in plenty of jack cheddar cheese to ensure the gooey factor in the equation.  And since there are still good tomatoes to be found, stirred together this quick fresh salsa with some jalapeno, lime, and cilantro to top things off.  Bake your Spoonbread until it’s just set and prepare yourself…. this one will knock your socks off.

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Blackberry & Peach Crisp

Here we have the ultimate late summer dessert.  The one where you hide pieces of it in various places around the house, then excuse yourself for some lame reason, seek it out and go dig in.  There are currently two pieces in our refrigerator and they will soon mysteriously disappear.  That’s just the way it is with this dessert.  You take a bite.  Then another.  Then add a scoop of ice cream, and another.   With that warning in place, I say let’s get moving on making some just for you.

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Zucchini Noodle Lasagna with Fresh Cherry Tomato Sauce

 

I, like many others, am buried alive by garden zucchini, and it has reached the point where we can’t give them away fast enough.  I am getting the feeling friends and neighbors are closing their curtains and locking their doors when they see me appear with my little bag of garden treats in hand.  Add to the fact that while deliriously happy to see our first cherry tomato appear, I began to avert my eyes and guiltily ignore the little guys when the big tomatoes began to ripen. A person can handle only so much guilt, so this recipe was designed to alleviate any that was associated with excessive garden production.  The cherry tomatoes are picked, halved and quickly sautéed to develop rich flavor and to drive off excess moisture.  The zucchini are thinly sliced lengthwise, baked for a few minutes just to soften, formed into spirals and set down in that fresh tomato sauce.  After that, a rich, cheesy filling is spooned into the center of the spiral…top the whole business with a little more tomato sauce, cheese, and buttered breadcrumbs for crunch.  Rich, satisfying, remarkably good for you, and fun to make.  Besides that, I can now look those cherry tomatoes in the eye again.

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Zucchini & Lemon Bread with Lemon Sugar Topping

 

I recently read that Zucchini Bread was the most frequently made and the most ‘gifted’ away bread of any other variety….it is also the one most likely to be thrown out by the recipient of said ‘gift’.  This is likely due to the fact that zucchini all by itself is seriously lacking in the flavor department.  Zucchini can also contain a whole lot of moisture, and if we don’t address that issue our bread ends up looking, and tasting like a flavorless hunk of sea sponge. I know this from first hand experience while creating this recipe, which was not a good one.  The only person who would eat that first attempt was my mother, who said “Hey, you can’t be Martha Stewart every day – get over yourself”. That comment was enough to get me back to the drawing board, and the result is this Zucchini Lemon Bread is bursting with fresh, citrusy flavor. We squeeze the living daylights out of the grated zucchini, which goes a long way to eliminate that spongy element of my prior attempts, and then top the whole thing off with a generous crackling crust of lemon sugar.  It’s fun to make, it’s easy, and I guarantee nobody will be secretly tossing this out if you can make yourself give it away.

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Peach Cake and Peach Soft Serve Ice Cream

 

Last summer, some readers asked if I thought I could make up a peach cake recipe.  It’s been banging around in my mind since then and now that we are in the middle of peach season, it seemed like a good idea to try and put one together. First of all, it had to be a solid enough batter to stand up to a peach, and that presents a challenge.  Peaches are both heavy and juicy, which can spell disaster for a wimpy cake batter that can’t take the weight or the added moisture. Turns out I didn’t need to look any farther than my own family tree…Grandma Vanderzanden to the rescue!  I dug out her old Rhubarb Cake recipe, made a few tweaks here and there, and ended up with a firm, moist cake that has plenty of peaches and a topping that is buttery, sweet, and has just a touch of cinnamon.  Whew!!! And since this is peach season, I figured tossing in a quick, no churn, soft serve peach ice cream might be a good match up for the cake.  This ice cream is loaded with fruit and has just the right amount of sweetness.  It also has no fat, so if you freeze it and unthaw, it tastes more like a granita than an ice cream.  I’m not complaining…either way is pretty good if you ask me.

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Salmon Salad with Grilled Sweet Corn and Blackberry Vinaigrette

I was thinking back to summers of my childhood, when all of us kids wreaked havoc at home and my mom, Neeners, was at her wits end, often looking heavenward and muttering ‘Give me Strength’.  When Neeners was at this point, I got shipped off to spend the night with my grandparents and Aunt Margie, and it was always a huge treat. If I was there on a Saturday night, it meant popcorn and watching Portland wrestling.  If I was an overnight guest on a Monday night, that meant that I could horn in when Margie and grandma’s friend Gladys would come for lunch on Tuesdays.  Gladys worked downtown (two blocks from Margie’s house) at the hardware store.  I was not a fan of Gladys. She seemed pretty snooty and never smiled.  Also, she was not a fan of children and I could not understand why since I was undoubtedly charming and most likely a brilliant conversationalist at six years of age.  However, Glady’s arrival meant we got to have grandma’s Salmon Salad for lunch.  This was high living, and as a kid we never had such things at our own house.  Looking back, I think it was just canned salmon, shredded iceberg lettuce and a whole lot of Miracle Whip all stirred together and served on nice dishes.

I have such fond memories of those visits (without Gladys) and wanted to recreate Salmon Salad in my own style.  This salad is hearty enough for supper and takes advantage of all that is Summer.  We’ll start with fresh salmon, and you can either grill or bake it to suit your mood. Then comes the garden bounty. I went a little bit nuts here since I am currently in major panic mode due to our garden churning out more food than we can give away, so take what you like and leave the rest, for another time.  The salmon sits on a bed of rainbow chard, and is topped with fresh yellow and red beets, colorful sweet peppers, watermelon radish, purple carrots, scallions, grilled corn, fresh blackberries and steamed green beans.  Add some grilled bread with garlic butter and a not-too-tart vinaigrette made with blackberry jelly.  I’d like to think Margie and grandma would have enjoyed it, but even if they didn’t, they’d tell me they loved it, because that’s what aunts and grandmas do.

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Cheesecake Squares with Blackberry Topping

For the most part, this recipe comes via my mom, otherwise known as Neeners. When we were kids, she used to bake her version (which was topped with canned blueberry pie filling and topped with Coolwhip), in her trusty square Corningware baking dish. We all pounced upon it and devoured it as soon as she would let us anywhere near it. This version has the same graham cracker crust and the same idea of a creamy cheesecake filling, but then I veered into a homemade blackberry topping and said ‘so long’ to the Coolwhip because it seems just fine the way it is.  It bakes up perfectly in a 13×9 inch baking dish, so if you don’t happen to have one of those vintage Corningware dishes running around, no problem.

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Shrimp Burgers with Tartar Sauce

Tired of the same old burger routine? Here’s a super-simple idea to add to your burger repertoire.  Just a few simple additions changes shrimp into an irresistible supper. The burgers are rich with shrimp, thick, and juicy, with just a touch of lemon and green onion.  After they come off the stove, they get slathered with a homemade tartar sauce to jazz up the whole works.  Add the bun of your choice, a fresh tomato, and go to town.

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Cremesicle Ice Cream Pie with Waffle Cone Crust

I have fond childhood memories of hot summer days, awaiting the neighborhood ice cream truck.  I don’t remember the driver’s name, but I thought he was ancient (but since I was 8, he could have been 25), wore a white jacket and hat, and drove a little red convertible around the neighborhood, blaring out some musical tune that could be heard for blocks, drove our parents crazy, and hypnotized all of us into running toward it at full speed. He arrived with a cooler that was fully loaded with as many ice cream treats a kid could imagine, which made it hard to decide what to choose.  I’m sure many an ice cream bar was melted with all us hanging over the side of his car, staring into the cooler, and mired in indecision.  One year, I was fully entrenched in my Drumstick phase, but when I discovered the Creamsicle the following summer, everything else fell away.  I still can’t resist that combination of creamy vanilla ice cream and orange sherbet, so dreamt up this super easy cremesicle pie. It can stay happy as a clam in your freezer for a couple of weeks or more, waiting for you to get the urge for a treat, and is nice to have for drop-in company.  The crust is crumbled waffle cones, held together with melted butter and a little sugar.  Then all that’s left to do is grab a couple of containers of ice cream and start layering. The crust is not baked in advance, so the whole thing comes together in a few minutes. I swear I can hear that little ice cream truck tune every time I grab a slice.

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