Mango Jack

A few months ago, we stopped at Harvest Spirits and sampled the Mango Applejack that distiller and owner Derek had concocted.  It was delicious, but not for sale, so he told me how I could easily make it at home.  I bought a bottle of applejack from him. The dried mango is from the Honest Weight Co-op.
 
On March 19, I started soaking about 1/2 pound of dried mango slices in pure Applejack (Batch 12, bottle 518).  I tasted it today, May 14.  It is sweet and ready to sip.

Sweet and Sour Chicken

My hankering for tart food started with this Sweet and Sour Chicken dish from guest blogger Jaden Hair at Elise's Simply Recipes. I used a green and yellow pepper, and sliced carrots, and served it with brown rice.

I made it Thursday thinking Phil would be returning home that night or Friday.   He is still helping out his parents, so I ate it for dinner Thursday and Friday, and lunch on Friday and Saturday, and there is still some left.   It was really good.

Tonight's Dinner complements of Anne's Food Blog

I found Anne's Food blog yesterday and I prepared 3 recipes from it for dinner tonght.  Anne is from Stockholm, Sweden. I really like her recipes' style and the unique search method she has for her recipes. I actually haven't eaten any of these yet, as I will bake the chicken and dress that zucchini, whenever Phil gets back from his parents sometime tonight.   If I cook from here often enough, maybe metric conversion will finally become second-nature.  For now, I use these cooking conversion calculators frequently.

I had 4 boneless chicken thighs that needed to be cooked and a bounty of rhubarb in the garden. Anne's recipe came up when I searched on those 2 ingredients together.

Boneless Chicken Thighs with Rhubarb, cream, chives, sambal oelek (dried chilies).   This picture is before baking.  My rhubarb is mainly green.  It tastes great, but red would be prettier. (Oops, I forgot to add the honey and already poured the liquid over the chicken and rhubarb, so I drizzled a little agave over it since that is not as thick as honey).

Red Potato Salad with yogurt, parsley, coriander, mint, capers, vidalia onion, and celery. (Anne used yellow onion, no celery)
 

Zucchini Ribbon Salad with french tarragon, dijon mustard, red wine vinegar.  This picture is just zucchini with a couple of tarragon leaves, before adding the dressing.

The Mango Chutney Carrot recipe comes from a different website-Taste of Home.  I used half the butter and sliced regular carrots into matchsticks. I didn't have any OJ or oranges, so I added less than a Tbsp of fresh lemon juice. I have also made this with raw shredded carrots with fresh squeezed orange, instead of cooked carrots and it was delicious.  http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Mango-Chutney-Baby-Carrots.

Rhubarb is Ready! Rhubarb Bars and Pickled Rhubarb

All of the rhubarb plants sprouted flowers that had to be cut off (twice, already). It seems like it only took 2 weeks from the first leaves poking out of the soil to ready to harvest.  

I need to make something for a work celebration next week, so I made a smaller test batch of Rhubarb Bars with a shortbread crust.  I prefer more tart, so less sugar than most recipes, like Brooke's recipe. I don't have a 7 x 11 pan so I used a large pie pan instead.  The combination of the tart topping with the sweet buttery crust is delicious.
 

I also made Pickled Rhubarb, as that also sounded oddly compelling. We'll see if anyone likes it.

The idea is to serve as part of a cheese platter, so I made one jar with diced rhubarb  where the pickled rhubarb is featured as part of a white asparagus salad).

The rhubarb for the other jar was sliced in 4 inch thin sticks, so you can eat them like pickles.  My version was based on this recipe from Pickle Girl who made huge batches for her wedding, or this one from Mother Jones, but with different spices and proportioned down to 1 cup of cider vinegar, 3/4 c sugar, 1.5 inch sliced ginger, a couple of Start Anise, a little dried red pepper flakes.  I cut enough rhubarb stalks to fill a 1/2 pint jar of with thin sticks of rhubarb and another 1/2 pint jar of diced rhubarb. Then pour pickling liquid to top and refrigerate after it cools.