when life gives you lemons…

…grab some rhubarb and cook yourself a jam!

~Strawberry Rhubarb Jam~

What you’ll need:

• 3 stalks of rhubarb
• 1 box of strawberries (about 16 oz)
• 1 cup sugar
• Juice of 1/2 a lemon

What you’ll do:

Chop up the strawberries and rhubarb

Add the sugar and lemon juice and stir to coat the fruit

Store in the fridge over night (the sugar will begin to suck out the moisture from the fruit)

In a pan, bring to a boil then simmer for about an hour, stirring occasionally.  I also used an immersion blender to smooth out the chunks.  It only took maybe 5 seconds to get it soupy smooth, and in retrospect I wish I had left it a little more chunky.  So depending on your desired consistency – blend with caution!

Meanwhile put a saucer into your freezer.  After the hour’s up, the jam will have reduced and thickened like so…

Place a drop of jam onto your chilled saucer and see if it takes on a consistency to your liking.  If it gels and doesn’t run all over the plate, you’ve got yourself a jam!  I used my finger to see if it dripped off or held firm.

Now, proper canning lore involves scalding hot water and other contraptions that I just didn’t have lying around so I simply scrubbed a few recycled glass jars with boiling hot water and poured the hot jam into each one.

I just so happened to have six (yes, six) tubs of peanut butter lying around just waiting to be eaten (courtesy of very kind friend – thanks, Icy!!)

 So this jam was the perfect accompaniment!

Keeps for 4 weeks.  Take that, lemons.

eaten! @the dutch

Hands up if you love the spring.

(I do. I love the spring.)

If you aren’t quite sure if it’s time to rejoice in the name of spring yet, let’s refer to my handy “Is It Spring Yet?” checklist…

• Girls showing some leg in the latest floral fashions?
• Restaurants dusting off their outdoor furniture and throwing back the bay windows?
• Bars welcoming thirsty drinkers onto neglected rooftop bars?
• Greenmarkets displaying bountiful harvests no longer limited to root veggies and  apples?

Check, check, check and check! Yes, my friends, it is officially springtime in NYC!!

There’s no better time, in my mind, to open a restaurant than springtime in New York.  Everyone is high off the 65 degree sunshine (hey, it’s better than 17 with a windchill of -12) and the long, hard frosty winter is but a fast fading memory.

Enter The Dutch.

In an already fierce market for restaurant reservations, I had little hope that I could snag a reservation for dinner the week The Dutch opened, let alone during one of the most gorgeous weeks NY has seen this year.

Lo and behold, a 6pm table for 2 was actually available on Friday…just two days after the grand unveiling.

I’ll take it!

The Dutch | Hello spring!

I couldn’t wait to see what Andrew Carmellini would do with a non-traditional American menu (based on my stunning Italian meal at Locanda Verde, AC’s other gastronomic gift to the city).

Housemade cornbread appeared on the table shortly after we were seated.

An entire loaf for the two of us (and yes, we devoured a good 99% of it).  It was warm and crumbly, sweet and savory.

To share, we ordered the eggplant dip with housemade spiced chips…

The eggplant dip was reminiscent of a french onion dip.  But infinitely better.  It was creamy, garlicky and smokey.  The chips were amazing.  I wish these were sold in 10 pound bags.  I would buy several of them. Salted, peppered, and who knows what else – these were crisp and greasy and had to have been fried like 3 times.

There weren’t enough chips for the dip (they were so good on their own!) so when we ran out, I shamelessly heaped the dip onto my spoon and…yes…I did…

For my main I ordered the seared scallops with pickled ramps, bacon and pea puree.

What better way to say a big, fat HELLO (and where the hell have you been?!) to spring than with a plate that looks like this…

The flavors were as mild as the weather was that day – with a punch of pickle from those wondrous ramps.  The darling obsession of the culinary world, ramps are a delectable cross between an onion and garlic.

Pickled and paired with silky pea puree and smokey bacon is by far my favorite method of consumption.

The “chef’s special” was fried chicken a la Carmellini with honey biscuits and a trio of veggies (slaw, collard greens, creamy potatoes)…

The chicken was indeed special.  It was crispy-crunchy on the outside and moist on the inside.  I love the spice mix in the batter of the chicken, but I was a little bored after I finished munching on all the skin (don’t judge) and licking the honey butter off my fingers from the biscuits (I said don’t judge…)

The veggies were also just OK.  Not quite the high standard of my delicate scallops.

We overheard the pie specials of the evening (there are 2 types of pie baked fresh each day) rhubarb apple pie and…something else.  I stopped paying attention after I heard the word rhubarb.

With a crumble and housemade frozen yogurt…

Whoever made this froyo could put Pinkberry out of business.  It was tart and creamy like a real scoop of well, yogurt.  A perfect compliment to the puckering rhubarb and sugary crumble.

Oh if we could eternally live in the spring…such hope, such excitement, such a contagious energy zipping about the city…oh, and such good food!!

4.5 out of 5 stars for The Dutch.