In an ideal world, your kitchen is well equipped with tools and staples and you have all ingredients on hand for your recipe.
Enter the real world.
My recent family vacation in a rental house on Kauai’s north shore was a lesson in the art of improvisation.
Because the best shopping is on the south shore, we went directly from the airport to Costco and then to a supermarket to stock up before the long drive north. We would not be close to shopping at the house, so we had to think ahead. Would the rental house have staples? Would there be cooking implements? We didn’t know.
My 13-year-old nephew, Jared, was determined to bake a braided challah bread for the sabbath the next day. Surely they would have salt, but would there be flour, sugar or oil? We bought those, and, of course, yeast.
We even bought measuring spoons and cups (unnecessary, as it turned out). The house had a hand mixer, but the beaters were rusty, so Jared did it the old-fashioned way, by hand. The bread was delicious.
On Saturday, my brother invited a friend to dinner who mentioned her mother was staying with her, so now we had two extra people for dinner. What to serve?
If I’m in your group, you can be sure there will always be plenty of salad and vegetables. Gary had bought two large pieces of ahi tuna at Costco, which he planned to barbecue. (Fortunately the friend and her mother are small eaters!)
We had those wonderful Okinawan sweet potatoes I told you about last time. (If you missed it, find the story at ocregister.com/fullerton) I roasted some veggies, and we had more of the challah bread.
We even had some Costco shrimp left over from lunch, which I turned into a shrimp cocktail. But Jared was determined to make dessert.
Noting that we had berries in the house, he found a mixed berry crumble bars recipe on the internet. We had the flour from the challah. but it was bread flour. It turned out not to be a problem in this recipe. By some miracle there was baking powder in the house.
We had no lemon, but we had oranges, so we zested one and used the juice. There was no vanilla, but we had cinnamon. There was no cornstarch, of course, but I had packed some, because I like to sprinkle it in my shoes.
Now we had a bigger problem. We couldn’t find a baking pan.
Jared, the master of improvisation, found a non-stick pot, the kind you might use for soup or stew, and we decided to make half the recipe and bake the crumble in that. While not the easiest to spoon out, dessert was a big hit!
Wouldn’t you know it, as I was putting dishes away right before we left to go home, I found baking pans at the back of a shelf.
Fullerton’s Judy Bart Kancigor is the author of “Cooking Jewish” and “The Perfect Passover Cookbook.” Her website is cookingjewish.com.
Mixed Berry Crumble Bars
Try these bars from Celebrating Sweets, an online blog with a variety of recipes for desserts as well as main dishes, drinks, breakfast and more. Find it at celebratingsweets.com.
Ingredients:
- Crust and Topping:
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- Finely grated zest of 1 small lemon
- 1 cup (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Berry Filling:
- 4 1/2 cups chopped fresh berries
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 4 teaspoons cornstarch
- Juice of 1 small lemon
Method:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a 9×13 pan with foil or parchment, and spray with non-stick spray.
2. Crust and topping: Using a hand mixer or stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment, combine sugar, baking powder, flour, and salt. Add lemon zest, butter, egg, and vanilla. Beat on low speed until butter is evenly distributed in small pieces and mixture is crumbly. Dump a little more than half the mixture into bottom of prepared pan. Evenly press dough into pan.
3. Filling: Gently stir together all ingredients until well incorporated. Spread filling over crust, then crumble remaining dough over top of berries. Bake until top is light golden brown, approximately 40 minutes, Transfer pan to rack to cool, before cutting into squares. (Easier if you refrigerate first.)
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Cooking with Judy: Being creative in getting a tasty meal on the table - OCRegister
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