eclaire (what's in a) name?

hi everyone, i’m back from my trip to the midwest, and finally sitting down to post after a long week at work.  i had a fabulous time with my family in indiana and chicago – we had beautiful weather, and spent time celebrating my great uncle’s 99th birthday, looking at pictures with my great aunt (my grandmother’s older sister), walking around the campus of purdue, viewing exhbits at the chicago art institute, taking the “l” to wrigley field, and most importantly, getting to know our family in the midwest a lot better and learning about my norwegian heritage.  i discovered that my love for cooking and welcoming friends into my home is decidedly norweigian, and learned that norwegians get upset when people visit without calling, because they can’t prepare coffee and bake cookies before inviting guests into their homes.  to that end, when our friends came over this weekend, i decided i had to honor my heritage and make some cookies (albeit with them, not before they came over).

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there are some cookbooks, like the one i used to make butternut squash risotto, that i go back to over and over, finding new and delicious recipes every time.  there are other cookbooks, however, that despite enticingly written concoctions, never quite carry through.  sadly, mike and i bought a cookbook like this years ago, entitled the student’s vegetarian cookbook: quick, easy, cheap, and tasty vegetarian recipes, by carole raymond. quite a title, huh?  we bought it when we were still students, and i can still remember spending an afternoon in the local bookstore, pouring over all kinds of cookbook options, before finally deciding that this cookbook had the most recipes that we would actually make.  unfortunately, every recipe we made was kind of a dud, and we stopped using the cookbook.  except for this one recipe, called sunday morning muffins.  the recipe was not perfect by any means, but i’ve reworked it a ton over the years (see all my edits below!), and i think it’s finally ready to share with you.

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one year ago today, mike and i celebrated our wedding with our friends and family at pajaro dunes. most of you know the story, but just in case you don’t – we started dating on september 20, 1999, and decided to get married on the saturday closest to our 8 year anniversary. we sweated over details, made lists, spent lots of money, and involved our family and friends in all kinds of projects to get to the day of the wedding.

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last weekend, we were invited to a bbq at a friend’s parent’s house and when we asked if we could bring something, dessert was requested. it was a very fortuitous request, because my dad had just sent me the recipe for a blueberry tart from the new york times (thanks, dad!), and i was waiting to make it for a group so mike and i wouldn’t consume the whole dessert ourselves.

on the morning of the bbq, we awoke early to the sound of mike’s cell phone alerting him to a technical issue with his company’s servers. mike rarely drives these days (he commutes to work on a bike), so we had lent his car out to his sister while hers was in the shop earlier in the week, and thus he headed over the hill in my car to fix the issue. i could have called her and asked for a ride to the store to obtain the ingredients for the tart, or for that matter, i could have called any of my other family members and friends dotted across the west side of santa cruz. but since the day was sunny and i needed some exercise, i decided to strap on my tennies and walk to the store. before leaving, i took one last thorough read-through of the recipe and realized that the dough needed to chill for 30 mins before baking. i had all the ingredients for the crust on hand, so i set to work making the dough, then stuck it in the freezer, grabbed my list and headed out listening to this american life on my ipod.

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as promised, i’m sharing the recipe for the delicious raspberry bars i made for the picnic last weekend. these bars came out of our favorite food magazine vegetarian times, and were absolutely amazing, combining some of my favorite foods: oats, cinnamon, and raspberries.  mmm, my mouth is watering just thinking about them!

i made a couple of changes to the veggie times recipe – the main change was using fresh raspberries and mushing them with a fork instead of using the raspberry jam that was called for in the original version.  i found the fresh raspberries gave the bars a delicious and full flavor, but were a little soggy from the extra water in fresh berries vs jam.

so, when i had the occasion to make the bars again this weekend for my sister-in-law’s house warming party (yes, i liked them enough to make twice in one week), i used raspberry jam.  the jam bars were a lot crispier (the top was especially crunchy, with the texture of granola rather than soft oatmeal cookie), but they had more of a hint-of-raspberry flavor than a full bodied, how-did-you-pack-this-much-raspberry-flavor-into-such-a-little-bar taste.  so, my dear readers, when you make this recipe you’ll have to decide: crispy and crunchy with raspberry aftertaste or soft cookie, packed with raspberry deliciousness.  good luck with the choice – i still can’t decide how i would make them the next time.

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