I associate spring with crunchy foods: the snap of a fresh piece of celery and the crisp taste of peas.  As I posted last week, I love strawberry and rhubarb desserts in the spring, but I also tend to favor desserts that are airy, even if they aren’t ‘light’ in the caloric sense!  Enter the meringue–dead simple to make, light on the tongue, and with the perfect crunch.

While I was leafing through the 1967 cookbook, Cookies!, by Patricia White, I stumbled on her recipe for meringues, and after looking through my cupboards, I found some lemon extract, which suited my mood perfectly.  I think these would be lovely served with some ice cream after a barbecue!

I followed the recipe with a few, minor differences:

1. I added lemon extract instead of mint.

2. I used parchment paper instead of greasing a cookie sheet (do people grease cookie sheets anymore?)

3. I piped the meringue with the widest pastry tip I had because I liked the shape.

Here are the cookies before the went into the oven.

And here they are, ready to tempt the next person who walks by the kitchen!

The previous owners of our house lived in it for over 40 years.  In that time, they did no landscaping except for a random clump of rhubarb we found in the back yard.  I was sad that we didn’t have any fruit trees or flowers, but I was more than happy with the rhubarb!  For the last two springs we’ve enjoyed harvesting our rhubarb and turning it into the sweetest of spring-time desserts.  This recipe is from Sunset’s Kitchen Cabinet Recipes, vol. 3, published in 1944.

When Kevin saw me chopping the rhubarb and strawberries, he immediately offered to make the dessert.  I think he knew it would turn out perfectly and wanted all the credit!  And, thanks to the awesome recipe and Kevin’s culinary skills, this was one of the best strawberry-rhubarb pies I’ve had.  Kevin and I agree that we would add less sugar than the recipe called for, as it was a little too sweet.  Just in case you needed a cute little comic to inspire you to make this yummy pie, here you go!

Did I mention that the colors of this pie were fantastic?  Thank you, Kevin for making such an awesome dessert!

I promised to make an entrée for my choir’s annual charity auction and dinner, but I really wasn’t sure what to make.  It needed to be a recipe that I could easily scale to feed a large crowd and one that didn’t need to be served hot.  What’s a girl to do?  Serve quiche!  Thankfully, one of my vintage cookbooks, Wild Mushroom Recipes, published by the Puget Sound Mycological Society in 1978, had a lovely-looking recipe for a mushroom quiche that I had been eying.

The original recipe called for Sparassis mushrooms, and since I did not have time to learn how to forage for mushrooms, I substituted more readily available mushrooms for the less mycologically inclined cook.

Mushroom and Bacon Quiche

Adapted from Wild Mushroom Recipes

1 frozen pie crust

4 slices of bacon, fried crisp and crumbled

1 cup grated Swiss cheese

1 cup sautéed mushrooms (I used a mix of cremini, shitake, and oyster)

4 eggs

1 3/4 cup cream

1/8 tsp. nutmeg

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. ground pepper

1. Sauté bacon until crisp and remove from pan.  Crumble bacon into small pieces.

2. Chop mushrooms and sauté in bacon grease for 5-7 minutes on medium-high.

3. Sprinkle bacon, mushrooms, and grated Swiss cheese into the pie shell.

4. Beat together eggs, cream, and spices and pour over bacon and mushroom mixture.  Don’t over fill!

5. Bake for 35-45 min. at 375 until eggs are set and the top has browned.  Serve either hot or cold!

I scaled this recipe and made 6 quiches, baking two at a time.  I’m happy to report it was the first item at the auction dinner to be eaten up!  I call it a resounding success!

I am a BIG fan of maple syrup.  Frankly, given the right mood, I could probably be convinced to sip some out of a coffee mug.  Dishes involving maple syrup are some of my favorites, which is probably why I’ve always loved brunch.  So when I ended up with some leftover bread from the Essential Baking Company last weekend, I knew just what to make!  It was just starting to get stale, so I left it out overnight, with dreams of maple syrup and buttery French toast dancing in my head.

I woke up before Kevin and began to search for a French toast recipe that sounded tasty.  Most of the ones I found in my various vintage cookbooks were all very basic, and while I like plain ol’ French toast, I really wanted something with some spices to wake up my taste-buds.

I was lucky enough to find a recipe for Eggnog French Toast from the third volume of the Sunset Kitchen Cabinet Recipes published in 1944.

I’m not sure why French toast is included in a section on meeting daily food requirements, but if maple syrups is ‘required’ eating, then I am definitely on board!  I couldn’t wait for Kevin to wake up to start the French toast, so I ate mine with a cup of coffee, contemplating the sunny Seattle morning.  It was some of the tastiest French toast I’ve tasted.  The nutmeg and vanilla gave the dish the complexity I had hoped for and the maple syrup put a smile on my face for the entire day!

Before syrup:

After syrup!