Cherry Berry Cobbler

The other day when I was at the local Hy-Vee with Mom, I noticed in the freezer case something with the Hy-Vee brand on it and it was called Cherry Berry Mix. The bag contained a fruit mixture of strawberries, cherries, blueberries, black berries, and red raspberries. This gave me an idea and I tried it today.

Combine in a large bowl;
2 16 oz packages of Hy-Vee's Cherry Berry Mix, partially thawed
3/4 C. white sugar
1/4 C. brown sugar
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1/4 C. corn starch
1 tsp. cinnamon (I like Penzey's Vietnamese cinnamon)
1/2 tsp. nutmeg (I like to grate my own and use slightly less if grating your own)
1 tsp. vanilla (always use the good stuff, the best you can buy, make it real)
Mix this very well coating all of the pieces of fruit well.
Pour into a 10x10 baking dish treated with PAM
Heat the oven to 425F.

In the bowl of the food processor pulse to combine:
1 1/4 C. flour
1/3 C. sugar
1/4 tsp. sea salt

Add:
7 tbsp. cold unsalted butter (I cut it up on the tablespoon marks on the stick of butter)
Pulse until the butter in worked in and the mixture resembles a course meal.

In a small bowl combine and mix well
1 egg yolk
1 tbsp. cold water
1 tsp. vanilla (again,use the good stuff)
Add the liquid to the flour mixture all at once and pulse until the dough comes together. If it seems to dry add additional water 1 tsp. at a time. Remember, don't over work the dough, it will make it tough.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface or pastry cloth. Pat to the shape of the baking dish and work to about 1/4 inch thick.
Place the dough over the fruit.
Brush egg white over the top of the dough and sprinkle with "sparkle sugar"
Bake at 425F for 10 minutes
Reduce the heat to 350F and continue baking for 50-60 minutes.
Cool about 30 minutes before serving with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

Yields 4-6 serving

Couscous Lemon Chicken Soup

I was recently in the Chicago area visiting friends and Cindy and I went shopping, of course. "Would I like to go into the William Sonoma store?" Silly question, how quickly can we get there. If you have never been to one, you are in for a treat. The price points are kind of high on most of the products but then you are looking at top of the line, in most cases. Still it is a great place for ideas. This day they were making a soup that had us asking for one more bite, please. As usually happens I take their recipe and tweak it to what we can eat or sounds good to me. So, I will leave it to you. Sandi, I know that you are gluten intolerant so you will have to work around if you try this one. Couscous is an African pasta of sorts, originally made from millet but lately from wheat flour. This soup used a Lebanese Couscous which just means that it a bit larger around than an orzo pasta or pearl pasta. Den thinks Barley would work but he is in love with barley. I got out my handy crock pot and set a carton of Chicken stock to heating. I set 2 quarts of water to boil to cook the 1 cup of dry couscous, remember it is a type of paste and takes about 5 minutes to boil to cooked enough for this soup. Drain it off and add it to the stock. In a heavy skillet combine and cook to soft but not brown 2 tbsp. EVOO 1/2 small onion, chopped 2 cloves of garlic, chopped, crushed or minced This is where I start to deviate, OK. I trimmed an entire skinless/boneless chicken breast and cut it into cubes. I added this to the onion and garlic in the skillet to get it started cooking. Back to the crock pot: 1 tbsp butter 3 tbsp fresh parsley finely chopped 3 tbsp. fresh cilantro (not in the package recipe but I added it) 3 tbsp. fresh coriander (I couldn't find this one so I didn't put it in) 1 tbsp. fresh mint, chopped (not available so not in there) rind of 1 lemon finely grated (just the rind here, don't get that white stuff undernieth, it doesn't taste nice at all, this is where a micro plane comes in handy, but watch the finger, it is very sharp) Juice from the same lemon. Salt and Pepper to taste. Add in the mixture in the skittet to the crock pot and I cooked it for about 1.5 hours on high. The couscous will finish cooking and swell to about twice the size. I came down with a cold while we were away and this feels great to a "stuffy sicky". God Bless and hugs, Linda

Roasted Root Veggies

While at a friends home this weekend, I was inspired by something that she did for dinner one night. I just tweaked it to suit our table. On a large sheet of heavy broiler foil, gather the following: 1 med. sweet potato, pared and cut into 1" cubes 1 med. white potato, scrubbed and julienned like for French fries 1 med. parsnip, pared and thinly sliced 2 med. carrots, pared and cut into 1" chunks 1/2 med. onion roughly chopped 2 tsp. Penzey's Herbs de Provence 2 - 4 Tbls. infused EVOO, I like Tuscan Herb from The Olive Pit (garlic and basil) HyVee offers a garlic infused olive oil as well as a basil infused olive oil. I purchased both, while at my mom's this past weekend and used some of each one. It was quite good actually and I used Mural of Flavor as I hadn't brought the Herbs de Province along this time. Prepare the veggies and mix together on the foil. Drizzle with the olive oil and the add the herbs. Mix well. Gather the foil up with the veggies in the middle and place on a heavy baking sheet or I used my 12 inch iron skillet and it worked great. Roast uncovered at 350F for 1 hour, stirring about once every 15-20 minutes. I made catfish fillets and this was the side. Great lunch. Thanks, Cindy!!!!!!!