I don’t go crazy-overboard with the 4th of July / Independence Day Treats, but I thought that I should do *something*, and this is frankly the most Americana thing that I could think of …. breakfast cereal, marshmallows, peanut butter and red-white-and-blue sprinkles. Voila, festive Rice Krispies Treats, just in the for the holiday.
Originally, I was going to call this “Sprinkles and Twist” Focaccia, as I had found some mini mini cherry tomatoes that are marketed as “Sprinkles” and when I had decorated the top of the focaccia with them, it was sort of a twisty pattern. Once baked, however, the “twist” part wasn’t as evident, so I am just going with Sprinkles Tomato + Garlic Focaccia. Lots of garlic, lots of both sun dried and cherry tomatoes. Basil from the garden. Perfect snack and accompaniment to Italian Food. Yummy.
So many people only associate rhubarb with strawberries. I am here to prove that differently. Because rhubarb is an early summer harvest, and the cherry crop becomes ripe, at least around here, not too long after, I decided to combine those two fruits/veg and made some lovely and simple rhubarb-cherry compote. Add it to my usual crumble bars and you have a lovely, juicy, sweet-and-a-little-tart, handheld dessert or snack.
Sometimes, I like to see just how much flavor that I can squeeze into a recipe and I think that I may have done the maximum with these Lemon Explosion Cookies. In these crispy chip drop cookies we have the world famous Kind Arthur Baking lemon chips, zest from a couple of lemons, lemon extract and just to top it all off, lemon sugar (also from King Arthur). There is lemon on lemon on lemon and boy, are they good. Cookies that define summer sun!
I know that I am going to step into the land of controversy with this week’s bread. There are camps on both sides, with strong, heartfelt opinions. Very few foods elicit such strong opinions (maybe Brussels Sprouts) as much as this: raisins in cinnamon swirl bread (well, raisins in anything, really). I love raisin, and as such, yes, this Cinnamon Raisin Squirrely Bread does indeed have raisins in it. Lots of them, in fact. Don’t like raisins, leave ’em out. No harm done. 🙂
PS: auto-spell check “corrected” swirl to squirrel so I went with Squirrely Bread instead of Swirly Bread. Seemed funny enough.