March of the Penguins

I made these cute appetizers several times between Christmas Eve and New Years Day.   They take a lot of time to assemble, but it goes quicker if you cut all the olives and roasted peppers and let them dry on paper towels while you cut the carrot feet and beaks, and then assemble in assembly line fashion.  The penguins are sitting on turnip skis or ice floes in 1 picture. In the other picture, they are adoring a Broccolini Christmas Tree!  Cream cheese at room temperature with a little butter added and a few seconds in the microwave will help it spread easier into the penguin's olive tummy. Large olive for  body and small olive for head.

Easy Strawberry-Rhubarb Quark No-bake Pie

I made up this recipe, liked it a lot, so I made it again for Sandra's Birthday Cake, and this time took a picture.  I needed to use rhubarb and strawberries still in the freezer from last summer since we will soon have a new crop, plus I had a tub of Quark and a small bottle of Meadowbrook Farms heavy cream left over from baking for last week's fundraiser.   And a unopened box of graham crackers in the cabinet I don't even remember buying.

Crust: 1 package of graham crackers, crushed in food processor. Mixed in about 5 T melted butter, and patted into pie plate.  Put in freezer while preparing the rest.

Fruit:  In saucepan, bring to a boil, a large bag of frozen diced rhubarb and frozen strawberries.  Add some sugar.  Boil and stir until rhubard dissolves and becomes thick.  Sweeten to taste. Put some in a bowl and put in freezer to cool faster.  Maybe a 1 cup?

Quark Filling:  Beat 8oz heavy cream with a little sugar and vanilla.  Meadowbrook Farms cream is so thick, this takes all of 30 seconds.  Beat in Quark quickly and add more sugar to taste.  Stir in the cooled or chilled strawberry-rhubarb puree.   Pour into the pie crust and put in freezer to set for a little while.  When set, decorate top with more of the chilled strawberry-rhubarb mixture.

Made it again August 2012

Quark is low-fat, but adding the heavy cream does away with that benefit.  It might not be as light and fluffy, but it could probably be made by leaving out the heavy cream and using a little gelatin to make the quark not weep, and/or drain the quark before beating.  Any fruit would work, but I really love the tartness of strawberry-rhubarb.  When I asked Phil what he thought of this creation, he said, "well, I am cutting a 3rd slice right now..."