Tag Archives: Recipes

Harvests and THE best Chocolate Raspberry Brownies on the Planet.

Looking on the counter I see today’s haul. A dozen or so jalepenos for hot poppers, a quart of raspberries, a handfull each of blackberries and strawberries, a couple of zucchini and a few green tomatoes for frying.

The Weatherbug calls for the possibility of rain today. I’ve known about this for a couple of days but I’m not buying into it. There have been promises of water before and here we sit not a drop. Just a few miles either north or south of us seem to get it but often it misses us. So… I am watering anyway. Not a lot, just an inch or so to soften the soil a bit. It is so hard in some spots now any rain would just run off anyway. I can almost hear a distinct ‘ahhhhh’ coming from the garden as I turn on the water.

I am putting the propagation bench (see the archives) to good use. A coworker gave me some rose cuttings last week from her miniature rose bush. I have 5 in cups on the bench. Another 5 black knight butterfly bush cuttings are also trying to root. I also have some basil that never made it to the garden growing in cups. It actually looks much better than the stuff outside. I’ve been harvesting it along. I got enough day before yesterday for a pasta salad that I love. mmm.

On to the brownies…

I picked this recipe up from the net. I made a batch with a couple of minor modifications and OMG it is THE best brownie I’ve ever had (if I do say so myself 😉 ).
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Chocolate Raspberry Squares Recipe by Robert Rothschild Farm

1/2 cup Butter, unsalted
2 oz. Chocolate, unsweetened
1/2 tsp. Instant coffee
3/4 cup Sugar
1 Egg
1 1/2 tsp. Vanilla
1/2 cup Flour
1 cup Fresh raspberries
1/2 cup Walnuts, toasted and coarsely chopped
1 Tbsp. Flour
6 Tbsp. Flour
3 Tbsp. Butter, unsalted, melted
Garnish Robert Rothschild Red Raspberry Gourmet Sauce and fresh raspberries
3 Tbsp. Cocoa powder
1 tsp. Vanilla
2 Eggs
3/4 cup Brown sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

For brownie layer: Combine 1/4 cup butter, chocolate and coffee in a small sauce pan and melt over low heat. Cook and reserve. In electric mixer bowl, add the remaining 1/4 cup butter and sugar. Beat to combine. Add the egg and vanilla and continue to beat just until incorporated. Add the melted chocolate and flour. Pour batter in a greased 9 inch square baking dish. Bake for 12 minutes.

For raspberry layer: In a small bowl, combine the fresh raspberries, walnuts and flour.

For top layer: Combine brown sugar, flour, cocoa, vanilla, eggs and melted butter in a small bowl. Reserve.
Remove brownie layer from oven and distribute the raspberries and walnuts over the top. Drizzle the top layer over raspberries. Return to oven and bake another 20-30 minutes.

To serve, spoon some Red Raspberry Gourmet Sauce on a dessert plate, place a raspberry square on top of sauce and garnish with fresh raspberries.

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When I made them I left out the coffee and raspberry sauce, substituted almonds for walnuts (didn’t have any walnuts) and probably used about 1 1/2 cups of fresh (just picked) raspberries. They turned out very moist and you could really taste the raspberries. I think they were even better the second day. This recipe is a keeper.

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Raspberry Syrup, hot poppers and planting time

Raspberry Pancake Syrup:
Yesterday I pulled the raspberries out of the freezer that I had been gathering every other day for the past two weeks. They filled an 8 qt pot to overflowing while frozen and once thawed and mashed took up about 3/4 as much space. This was heated slowly for the better part of two hours while I did some much needed weeding and painted the cold frame. The hot raspberry mess was poured into a colander lined with a double layer of cheese cloth and allowed to drip till cool. Last night I stuck the whole contraption in the fridge and let it drip overnight. I ended up with about 12 cups of clear juice.

I used blackberry pancake syrup recipe, keeping the sugar @ 2/3 cup per cup of juice. I ended up canning 8 pints this morning. Most of these will be given away this Christmas.

Hot Poppers:
I love hot poppers aka jalapeno bites. Halved jalapenos stuffed with cream cheese. I grew 8 jalapeno plants this year just to have some to try my hand at making them up and freezing them. Right now I have about 2qts of the halved, seeded peppers soaking in water to mellow them out a little. I scoured the net and found a recipe I am going to tweak a bit and will make them up tonight.

12 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup grated cheddar or jack cheese
25 jalapeno peppers, seeded, cut in half
1 cup milk
1 cup flour
1-1/2 cups dried packaged breadcrumbs
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tps onion powder

Mix up the cheeses and spoon into jalapenos. Mix garlic and onion powder with bread crumbs. Drop in milk and coat with bread crumbs. Freeze on cookie sheets. Package. To eat, bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes until hot all the way through, golden brown, and crisp.

Cold Frame Planting:
The cold frame is painted, situated and half planted. Actually I probably didn’t need to put these things in the cold frame yet as they will all withstand a frost or two. I just wanted to plant something in there.

I dug a bag of manure/compost mix I had laying around into one half of the cold frame (4×4 area) . I sowed some spinach, cherry belle radish, daikon radish, green onions and raab broccoli. The onions as well as the cb radish and spinach were planted in wide rows as we will eat the thinnings. I have yet to make the covers but they really aren’t necessary yet. If anything I may make them and put screen on them to keep bugs out. If this is a typical fall it will be another month before our first frost and even then frosts are generally sporadic till late November. I’ve actually picked broccoli in December with no protection at all but that wasn’t a typical year. Generally “serious winter” takes about 6-8 weeks and usually fills January and February.