Grapefruit-Orange Breakfast Shake

It's National Grapefruit Month!  Hurry and make this yummy breakfast smoothie, before the month is over.
This shake is not too sweet and filled with fiber, as it uses the fruit itself and not just the juice.  Recipe comes from a book I am really enjoying, called A Good Food Day:  Reboot Your Health with Food That Tastes Great by Marco Canora, with Tammy Walker.

Canora is a chef who found himself overweight, pre-diabetic, suffering from gout, etc. due to his poor eating habits.  Kind of like the shoemaker's kids who don't have shoes, it seems that many professional chefs spend their waking hours making good food for others yet neglecting their own diets.  This was true for Canora.  Lucky for us, he made some healthy changes and shares his real-life wisdom in this book.
I am still reading the breakfast chapter, but he's already got me buying steel-cut oats and chia seeds and putting stuff like cilantro in my smoothies.  Someone take my temperature, quick.

A GOOD FOOD DAY'S
ODE TO ORANGE JULIUS SHAKE
1/2 grapefruit, peeled
1/2 orange, peeled
1/2 t. vanilla
1 T. honey
1 c. ice
1/2 c. plain yogurt (Canora recommends full-fat plain Greek yogurt; I use fat-free regular plain yogurt)

Put everything in your super duper blender and whirl away.  (Note:  I blend the grapefruit, orange, vanilla, and honey first, in one batch, then add the ice and yogurt and blend again.  I find when I put honey in the blender at the same time as anything frozen, the honey just congeals into a sad little ball at the bottom and refuses to mix well.  Poor little honey.)

Roasted Carrots with Maple Syrup

This is one of those recipes that tastes way better than it should.  You look at the list of ingredients -- carrots, olive oil, garlic, salt & pepper, maple syrup --  and think, yeah, so?  But something about this combination is irresistible.  I think it's the sweet of the maple syrup matched against the saltiness of the salt.  Kind of like chocolate-covered pretzels, if you can let your brain go there.  
Plus it's super easy to put together.  You start with a bag of pre-peeled baby carrots, toss with olive oil and garlic and salt and pepper, and boom!  Into the oven it goes.  Perfect for a busy school night, or an afternoon snack, or company dinner.  Just about any time, I say.
In fact, I would like to announce this humble carrot dish as my favorite 2015 recipe discovery.  Tied with sunshine apricot preserves.
Good stuff.
Eat your carrots.

ROASTED CARROTS WITH MAPLE SYRUP

2 lb. bag peeled baby carrots
3 cloves garlic, peeled and mashed, plus 8 cloves, not peeled
3 T. olive oil
salt and pepper (I like to use sea salt)
1/4 c. maple syrup

Heat oven to 450 degrees.  Put parchment paper on a rimmed baking sheet.  Dump carrots onto pan.  Then add the garlic, olive oil, salt, and pepper and mix it all together.  (If you have little ones, you can let them mix everything up with their [very clean] hands.)  Roast for 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes or so.  Carrots are done when they're fork-tender and a bit browned.  Remove from oven, put in a serving bowl, and pour the maple syrup over.  Taste and see if you want to add more salt or pepper.  Serves six. One hundred fifty calories each serving, according to the Sept./Oct. 2006 Hallmark magazine, where I got this recipe.

Guess the Favorite

So which of this week's culinary experiments were the favorites, the ones I'll be making again?

Was it this apple thyme jelly, thyme courtesy of Kahuna's garden?

Or maybe this baked oatmeal, made with last summer's apricots retrieved from the freezer?

Or how about this homemade cranberry juice?

Do you have your pick ready?  You sure?  You want to call a friend to confer? 

Okay.  Here goes.

I can tell you straight off the apple thyme jelly was a big fat fail.  I followed instructions to the letter, but this still turned out verrrrry gummy and not at all what a jelly should be.  Someone more experienced at making jelly without adding pectin probably could have made this work.  But me?  All I can say is errrgh.  Not good.

The baked oatmeal was promising.  But the recipe I followed was too sweet, and it had 1/4 c. of oil in it to boot, so not as healthy as I'd like for a breakfast food.  I won't be making that one again, either. 

The homemade cranberry juice?  We have our winner!  It was easy and tasty and just plain fun to turn November's unused frozen cranberries into juice concocted by my very own self.  The juice made with these directions is a tad on the sweet side, so think of it as a lightly concentrated version and add plenty of ice and a bit more water when you serve it.  The recipe is from Drinks Without Alcohol by Jane Brandt.

HOMEMADE CRANBERRY JUICE

1 lb. fresh cranberries (mine were frozen), rinsed and stemmed

  (NOTE:  when you rinse frozen cranberries they will stick together in a lump and will not want to be corralled into your pot without at least a few skittering onto the floor.  Heads up.)

2 c. sugar

6 c. water

 

Put all the ingredients into a large pot and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for five minutes, until cranberries have burst.

Spoon into a sieve that you have lined with cheesecloth, set over a bowl to collect the juice.

 Smash cranberries against the side of the cheesecloth to extract all the liquid you can.

Cool and drink over ice, or put into straight-sided jars to freeze, making sure to leave enough room at the top for it to expand (about 3/4-inch should be plenty).

 

Happy day from our home to yours.

Pear Slushie

Delish!  That's all there is to say about this cold, lemony pear slushie.
If you have a pear, some orange juice, and a lemon or lime, you probably have all you need to make some refreshing deliciousness of your own.
The website for USA Pears provides you with all you'd ever want to know about pears, including lots and lots of pear recipes.
You'd like a pear slushie, you say?  Excellent choice.
Cheers.

Plum Fruit Leather

Plum jam?  Check.  Made two batches.
Plum sauce, to use on chicken or ribs?  Check.  Made the delicious recipe from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. 

And still . . . a tree full of plums.

 Seriously.

So today's project?  Plum fruit leather.  You just pit the little suckers, pop 'em in a saucepan with a bit of sugar (about 2 T. per each cup of plums), smash them up a bit with a potato masher, and cook over medium heat until mixture is just about boiling.  Then, in batches, puree in a blender until mixture is smooth.  If you want, at this point you can put the pulp through a fine wire strainer for extra smoothness.

Now tape plastic wrap onto a cookie sheet and pour the puree onto the wrap -- it should be about 1/4-inch thick.

Cover plum puree with cheesecloth, clipping it tight with clothespins, and set outside in the sun.  I'll bring this in tonight so the critters don't get it, and set it out again tomorrow.  According to the Sunset Cook Book of Favorite Recipes II, where I got this recipe, it should take 20 to 24 hours to dry.

"When fruit is firm to touch, try peeling fruit sheet off plastic (fruit is sufficiently dry when whole sheet can be pulled off plastic with no puree adhering . . .)"  Sunset also says that after you roll them up and seal them in plastic, you can refrigerate for four months or freeze for up to a year.

Can't wait. 
If this turns out to be wonderful, I know what I'll be doing for the next few days.

Anyone else inundated with summertime fruit?  What are you making?

Green Tea Banana Split Smoothie

A really good blogger, I think, would not spend her time pondering why

the lemon, on the left, is bigger than the orange, on the right.
She would probably type in the recipe for the wonderful orange freezer jam

instead of just leaving it on the kitchen counter and hoping it would type itself in.
She would instruct you on how to make your own bragging food labels from leftover scrapbooking stickers that, alas, never made it into the scrapbooks.

Likewise, she'd instruct on making orange sugar with the leftover orange rind.

She would probably regale you with stories of the open road

and inspire you with decorating tips like this antler chandelier

spotted at an Elko, Nevada hotel.
But alas, if you've spent any time at all on this blog, you will realize I am not a really good blogger.  I often go weeks between posts.  My pictures are uninspired.  The careful viewer will notice paper towels in the background or eyeglasses or a pile of mail that has been stealthily pushed to the side, only not far enough.
Aaaah, well.
What can I offer you?  How about this:  Green Tea Banana Split Smoothie.

A yummy snack, made with green tea, which is supposed to be good for you.  (A really good blogger would provide links here.)

Recipe from this book:  Green Tea:  50 Hot Drinks, Cool Quenchers, and Sweet and Savory Treats, by Mary Lou Heiss.
And shared with joy, from one imperfect blogger to . . . well, you.

GREEN TEA BANANA SPLIT SMOOTHIE

1/2 c. chilled green tea
1 c. low-fat vanilla yogurt (I used plain yogurt, added about 1/2 t. vanilla and about 1 t. maple syrup)
1 small ripe banana
1/4 c. chocolate syrup
4 ice cubes

Put everything but the ice cubes in the blender and mix.  Then add the ice cubes and whirl away.  This serves 2, by the way, so cut in half if it's just for you.

 

 

 

Homemade Cereal

I have wanted to try making homemade granola for a while now.  Kahuna is big into walking these days, and I am big into making homemade treats that will give him good fuel.
Which is how I came to make this recipe, unearthed from the depths of my file cabinet (remember file cabinets?), where it has resided since 1982 when I first clipped it out of a local newspaper. 
Remember local newspapers? 
Originally published under the title "Helene's Homemade Cereal," I wasn't sure if this actually qualified as granola.  But I googled all things Wikipedia, where I was assured that it does. 
This cereal contains oatmeal and walnuts and apples and wheat germ and coconut and raisins.  Oh my.  So far we've been eating it with milk, just like regular cereal, but I'm thinking it could bake up into fine little bars.  Or get mixed in with yogurt; maybe with a few blueberries added.  You get the drift.
I'm storing it in a large plastic container in the fridge because it contains diced apples.  While the apples do dry out in the oven, they don't dehydrate completely. 
So here's the recipe.  And then I want to know:
Do you ever make homemade cereal?  Please share.

Oatmeal Coconut Apple Cereal

5 c. oats
1 c. coarsely chopped walnuts
2 c. flaked coconut
2 c. chopped apples (about 3 apples)
1/2 c. wheat germ
1/2 c. sugar
1 1/2 t. cinnamon
1/2 c. butter
1 c. raisins

Get out as large a baking pan as you have; cover bottom with foil.  Spread oats in the pan and bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes.  In large bowl, stir together the nuts, coconut, apples, wheat germ, sugar, and cinnamon.  Add the nut/coconut mixture to the toasted oatmeal, drizzle the butter over all and mix gently. Put back in 350-degree oven and bake about 35 or 40 minutes, stirring gently whenever you think about it.  Remove from oven, let cool a bit, put into large bowl and add the raisins.  When cool, put in a closed container and refrigerate.  Wonderful served with milk and eaten with a spoon.

Christmas Baking

There's a whole lotta Christmas baking going on around here.
It's about time to start making some of those holiday recipes I've been collecting, don't you think?

Like this one from Family Circle, Saint Lucia Buns, from 1990.
I've always wanted to make these.

Here are some cookies from The Festive Christmas Cookbook, which first caught my eye in 2001.  They're called Marthe Nussbaumer's Dukatentalers, and I think it's high time Marthe's recipe came to life in my kitchen.

These Chocolate Peanut Butter Crisp Bonbons (with Rice Krispies!  Yum!) I just came across last week.  Good timing.  They are from the culinary mystery Final Sentence by Daryl Wood Gerber.

And then there are these nummy little appetizers. Tasty and simple, I've already made them three times in the last couple weeks.

You start with pita bread.  With a small cookie cutter, cut out circles then toast in the oven for about 6 minutes at 375 degrees. 

Top with a dab of whole berry cranberry sauce and a sprinkling of grated Cheddar cheese, broil quickly to melt cheese, and voila!  Yummy, healthy little snacks.  Perfect for munching while you're following your favorite football team.  I came across the recipe in a magazine advertisement; its origin, though, is from Healthy Seasonal Recipes blog.

So . . . any exciting Christmas cookery going on at your house?

Peaches and Cream Muffins

This has been a busy little kitchen lately.

Between playing with peaches

and making muffins for the church flea market

I have had a fruitful July.
Fruitful.  Get it?

These peaches and cream muffins are most definitely a recipe worth passing on.  They come from this At Our Table cookbook, which I mentioned buying last year.  This is only the second recipe I've tried from this book, but it's a winner.  Studded with chunks of fresh peaches and laced with grated orange peel, what puts these over the top is the cube of cream cheese dunked in the middle of each muffin before baking.  When warm, the stuff oozes like fine melted chocolate.  When cool -- well, nothing more to say other than it's mmmm mmmm good.

PEACHES AND CREAM MUFFINS

2 c. flour
1 c. sugar, divided
1 1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
6 T. butter, cut up
1 c. buttermilk (I just use regular milk with about 1 T. of lemon juice added)
3 T. orange juice (since you need orange peel for this recipe anyway, you might as well squeeze it from a fresh orange)
1 T. grated orange peel
1 egg
1 c. peeled, chopped peaches
4 oz. cream cheese, cut into 12 cubes

Streusel Topping:

1/3 c. flour
3 T. sugar
1 T. orange juice
2 T. butter

In medium bowl, combine flour, 3/4 c. sugar, baking powder, and baking soda.  Cut in the 6 T. butter with a pastry blender, until mixture is crumbly.  In small bowl, mix together the buttermilk, orange juice, orange peel, and egg.  Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until moistened.  Add in the peaches.

Line 12 muffin cups with cupcake papers.  Fill each about 3/4 full with batter, until all is used.  Put remaining 1/4 c. sugar in small bowl; dip each little cube of cream cheese in the sugar, then stick it down into the center of the muffin batter in each cup.

In small bowl, mix together streusel topping.  Plop a small spoonful onto each muffin until all is used.  Bake at 400 degrees for 15 - 20 minutes, until muffins turn a little bit golden.

NOTE:  According to the At Our Table cookbook, you can substitute other fruits for the peaches.

Fresh Peach Breakfast Goodness

I don't know why I love this dish so much.  To me, it's comfort food, creamy and full in your mouth, like rice pudding --  only cold.  And filled with peaches.  And berries.  And the crunch of a little walnut.

You can eat this Peach Muesli with Berries for breakfast, lunch, or snack.  I'm sure I've eaten it for dinner, too, in the same way you sometimes pour yourself a bowl of Cheerios and call it a day.

For some reason I make this in no other month than July, when the backyard peach tree gives forth her exquisite magic, one whiff of which tells you there is truly no other place you'd rather be than right here, nose in fruit, inhaling summer.

Mmmm.  I think it's time to go make another batch.

PEACH MUESLI WITH BERRIES

2 c. oatmeal, uncooked
2 c. fresh peaches, peeled and chopped
1 1/2 c. apple juice (I've also used white grape juice)
8 oz. vanilla or peach non-fat yogurt (or you can use plain yogurt, with a little maple syrup to sweeten)
1/2 t. vanilla
a large handful of berries (blackberries, blueberries, raspberries -- it doesn't matter) to throw on top of each serving
a small handful of chopped walnuts to throw on top of each serving

In medium bowl (one that has a lid is perfect), combine oatmeal, peaches, juice, yogurt, and vanilla.  Stir together well.  If eating immediately, throw some in a bowl and toss on the berries and nuts.  If eating later, just put in the fridge, covered, until you're ready to eat.  Toss on the nuts and berries before serving.  Keeps for several days -- if it lasts that long.
NOTE:  Recipe comes from the Venice Yacht Club Cookbook of 1998, which was dedicated to the memory of my Aunt Jan, a kind and fun lady.  Miss you, Aunt Jan.

NOTE #2:  If you have lots and lots of peaches, consider making some peach nectar.  Perfect for freezing and giving you that mid-winter reminder of summer.

Fruit and Cheese

You know how sometimes one thought hopscotches to the next and you find yourself in the library searching for a book about Thomas Jefferson's years in Paris and wondering just how, exactly, you got there?

Well.

I started by thinking about Bastille Day, July 14, a patriotic holiday in France.  Bastille Day led me to thinking about French food, which led me to

cheese fondue (which is Swiss, turns out, in spite of the fact that this one is called French Onion Fondue).  Which led me to a book about cheese, written by a poet who mentions Moby-Dick and cheese curd in the same sentence and makes it seem like a natural pairing.  That led me to my Silver Palate Good Times Cookbook

and its listing of fruits and cheeses, which led me to our backyard peach tree

which got me to wondering if I'd written about cheese and fruit pairings before, which led me to the Too Hot to Cook chapter of my book Queen of the Castle

where, turns out, I certainly had.

And now I'm curious about cheeses and France and the late 1700s and Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson and about what resources there are for homeschoolers interested in France

even though I am not a homeschooler and have no plans to teach a unit on France and by now Bastille Day is long over.

So here's a sandwich.  A fine snack or part of a meal when it's too hot to cook.

Bread (skinny baguettes are good)
Cheese (Mascarpone, a sweetened cream cheese that, turns out, is from Italy, not France)
Backyard or grocery store peach, sliced

Put the cheese on a slice of the bread.  Put a slice of peach on the cheese.  Eat.