With spring almost with us, the librarycook had a revelation, and a dilemma. Recipes for warmer weather don’t usually meet the librarycook’s requirement for reading time.
Despondently, the librarycook rifled through the pages of the September Delicious magazine, becoming ever more despairing. Almost all the recipes required constant attention – attention that should more reasonably be directed to the final pages of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine.
And then. The cover recipe. Pimm’s & Berry (& Rhubarb) Crumble with Macadamia and Cream. Sure, it only needed 15 minutes in the oven, but there was half an hour of macerating time, while the raspberries and rhubarb absorbed the Pimm’s.
But wait – in her delight at finding a reading-friendly recipe, the librarycook had overlooked the fact that macadamias were a featured ingredient. Call the librarycook unAustralian, but macadamias? No thank you. And it got worse. Added to the crumble alongside the macadamias was white “chocolate” *. A moment’s thought was all that was required. Replace those macadamias with pecans, and add dark (real) chocolate. Sometimes cooking can be like using a thesaurus.
And the verdict? Good old-fashioned comfort food, and with all that fruit (rhubarb**, raspberries, orange and lime zest, plus lime juice), practically a health food. Just don’t mention the double cream.
*it’s not chocolate – it’s made by removing the parts of the cocoa nibs that contain the flavour, leaving only the cocoa butter (i.e. the fats). When the librarycook eats chocolate, the kilojoule gain had better be worth it.
**OK, it’s technically a vegetable. So it’s even healthier. This dessert is practically a salad.
