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This is a fizzy, purple smoothie Andrew whipped up from the fruits we froze together this summer.
Smoothie #9
1 banana
approximately 1/4 pound each frozen peach slices and frozen blueberries
1 cup unsweetened plain almond milk
peach-flavored sparkling water
Blend all together until smooth.
I promised to share recipes that were successes and failures when I set up this blog. Spectacular failures often come with a good story, which is probably why I've been hanging onto this group of recipes without posting them. They were not highly impressive dishes (or haven't been tested yet) and they don't come with good stories. Despite that, I'm posting them here today because the blog entry is easier to find (and read) later than a little slip of paper with pencil marks on it. Hopefully in the future there will be revisions with photos and more exciting tales. Perhaps someone out there will try them out with the suggested "note to self" revisions and let me know how it goes.
Choco-cherry Smoothie
1 cup cherries from cherry bounce
1 1/2 cup seltzer water
2 cups homemade kefir
1 Tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 Tbsp cocoa powder
Blend until smooth.
NOTE TO SELF: try with 1/2 cup seltzer next time, possibly less kefir. Great chocolate and cherry flavor, but beverage ended up too thin to be a good smoothie. The tanginess was nice, but perhaps less kefir and/or a teaspoon more sugar would bring taste into better balance. Booziness of the alcohol-preserved cherries sneaks up on you, so warn people if you serve this to others.
Lemon-Chicken Pasta
3/4 pound thin spaghetti, cooked in boiling salted water
2 cups shredded leftover roasted chicken with lemon-pepper-garlic seasoning
75 g bunch parsley, chopped
juice and zest of 2 Meyer lemons
5 Tbsp olive oil
grated Parmesan cheese to taste
Whisk together the lemon juice, zest and olive oil. Toss with chicken and pasta and parsley. Sprinkle each serving with grated Parmesan.
NOTE TO SELF: I'm sure that this dish could be done with plain salt-and-pepper roasted chicken with just the addition of a minced clove of garlic and some pepper to the sauce. Next time, consider using at least 1 Tbsp less oil. This version was a little too oily.
The Large-Crowd Meatball Experiment
5 pounds ground beef (85% lean/15% fat ratio)
1 large onion, minced
2 Tbsp minced garlic
4 oz fresh bread, processed into fine crumbs
3/4 cup vegetable stock or milk
3 eggs, beaten
2 oz (by weight) sour cream
1 1/2 Tbsp kosher salt
2 tsp freshly-ground black pepper
2 Tbsp dried Greek oregano
2 Tbsp dried basil
Place ground beef in large mixing bowl. Saute minced onion and minced garlic in olive oil. Moisten breadcrumbs with vegetable stock/milk in a small bowl. Add sauteed onion/garlic and moist breadcrumbs to meat along with all other ingredients and mix thoroughly. Form into meatballs and fry in oil or bake.
NOTE TO SELF: These would taste great with ground lamb or beef-lamb mix. Salt was not quite overpowering, but could easily be cut to 1 Tbsp plus 1/2 tsp. Dried basil and oregano amounts (especially oregano) should probably be cut in half. Devote another blog entry to this experiment and its theoretical variations with Korean, sweet-sour, American meatloaf and Middle Eastern flavor profiles.
Bloody Mary Meatballs
3 pounds ground beef (85% lean/15% fat ratio)
1 1/2 cup rolled oats
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp freshly-ground black pepper
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup minced onion
1/4 cup Bloody Mary Mix
1 Tbsp prepared horseradish
Saute onion and garlic in olive oil and mix thoroughly with meat and other ingredients. Form into meatballs and fry in oil or bake. Serve in a Bloody Mary sauce I haven't written a recipe for yet or make Bloody Marys and eat meatballs as snack with cocktail.
NOTE TO SELF: Mixed parts of three different recipes together to create this one, can't try it out until there is a sharing occasion to make this with a Bloody-Mary-inspired tomato sauce to serve them in.
A contribution from Andrew, using leftover cider from a holiday party.
1 banana
approximately 1 cup frozen peaches
1/2 cup spiced apple cider
2 cups almond milk (1 1/2 cups if you like a really thick smoothie)
Blend all ingredients together in blender until smooth.
Now that the cherry bounce I made in May has had several months to mellow out in the bottles, its character has changed greatly. In June, it was very harsh and pretty tart, especially if I ate one of the cherries that had been steeping in the liquor. Now, it's sweeter and has the full flavor of cherries in it, but it still packs a boozy punch.
The sour cherry tree in our backyard is back in its best form this year, yielding an impressive amount of cherries. There are enough for the squirrels to get some dessert-on-the-branch plus we have as many as we can stand to pit for cooking now or freezing for later.
Here's the crop from the first two days of excellent picking, filling four 32-oz yogurt containers:
It's the start of the third year of having a yard without chemicals like fertilizer or pesticide (I don't know what the previous owners did, so I'm starting from when we moved in). To celebrate, this year we're eating edible flowers that appear in the yard.
At the special Easter lunch I made for myself and my husband, violets were the stars. They are the first of the edible flowers to show up in the spring. We went out in the morning to pick a bowl of the teeny purple flowers from our backyard.
This recipe has been a favorite since I encountered it at a student bar in Bonn, Germany, about 15 years ago. It's warming, sweet and soothing. Start with one coffeecup warmed milk (or soy milk or almond milk). Stir in 1 to 2 teaspoons honey and a shot of rum (light, dark, spiced, doesn't really matter), and a pinch of nutmeg or cinnamon if that's a flavor you like. Sit somewhere comfortable with a blanket wrapped around your shoulders or lap and enjoy the beverage hot.
Read more...For our New Year's Eve party, the most fun part about party preparation was baking our own fortune cookies and filling them with homemade fortunes! Ever since Andrew's grad school roommate and friends made their own fortune cookies for a mathematicians keg party, we've been very attached to the idea of making better fortunes (and possibly better cookies!) than the ones in Chinese restaurants.
I dug out a recipe I've been hanging onto for a few years in anticipation of just such an opportunity: the recipe from Sara Perry in Holiday Baking. The interesting flavoring element is one-and-one-third tablespoons Grand Marnier. Also surprising was finding out that these fortune cookies are pretty low-fat since they are made with just a little oil and just egg whites.
The finished products:
A sweet and tangy combination my husband put together for breakfast today. We both thought it could stand to taste a little more like kiwi, so next time we'd probably add two kiwis.
1 kiwifruit, peeled
1 banana
12 frozen dark sweet cherries
equal amounts of cranberry-pomegranate juice and unsweetened almond milk, to taste
Add all ingredients to blender and blend until smooth and pourable. Dairy milk or unsweetened soy/rice milk could be substituted.
Today's snack smoothie to take a break from chores. Very orange, a nice mix of sweetness with earthy tones and tanginess.
Smoothie #6
1 mango, peeled, cut in chunks
1 carrot, peeled, cut in chunks
250 mL unsweetened almond milk
250 mL cranberry/pomegranate juice
Put mango and carrot chunks into blender with liquids. Blend until carrot is fully incorporated.
Reference: Cariadoc's Miscellany, http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/cariadoc/drinks.html
I first ran into sekanjabin as a refreshing cold drink offered at an Society for Creative Anachronism event. When the basic flavored syrup is diluted with water, the effect is much like lemonade: tart and sweet. With a bit of sekanjabin to freshen it up, even stale or bad-tasting water is enjoyable.
The basics are: 4 cups sugar to 2.5 cups water, boil, add 1 cup vinegar, boil 1/2 hour, remove from heat and throw in a handful of flavoring, then strain that out after the syrup has cooled in the covered pot. To drink, dilute syrup with water. I prefer a ratio of about five parts water to one part syrup. After receiving the basic sekanjabin syrup recipe from my friend Jean, I started experimenting with new flavors. The traditional flavoring is fresh mint leaves, but I don't like mint much myself, so I'm always looking out for something new.
My old standby is sliced ginger root w/apple cider vinegar, with thinly sliced lemon w/white vinegar coming in a close second place. I haven't really goofed around much with wine vinegars, although I've enjoyed Jean's efforts with red wine vinegar and that type of vinegar would be more appropriate to pre-1600 cookery.
Other fun experiments have included the pale pink syrup from using pomegranate arils and white vinegar; rhubarb and mulling spices with brown sugar and apple cider vinegar (molassey flavor, not my favorite); and fennel seeds, anise seeds and ground coriander with apple cider vinegar, which was vaguely medicinal tasting, but refreshing.
My favorite sekanjabin of all so far was made with white vinegar and sea buckthorn berries (German name: Sanddorn) from a bush around the corner from our house in Calgary. The berries are bright orange, tangy and juicy, and they made the most beautiful and most exciting-flavored syrup yet. Here's a picture of my bottles of Sanddorn sekanjabin:
Andrew's latest creation:
1/2 cup frozen blueberries
1 banana in chunks
a couple tablespoons of juice concentrate for sweetener
1/2 cup frozen peach slices
unsweetened soy milk to taste (he likes less for thick smoothies, but I like more milk)
Pink and frothy! This smoothie was a "clearing of the decks" of fruits left over in freezer and fridge from previous smoothies. Need to make room for fresh fruits now that spring is here again.
2 to 4 oz frozen strawberries
about 8 oz frozen tart cherries
1 cup kesar mango pulp
1 banana in chunks
unsweetened soy milk
frozen non-citrus juice concentrate, thawed
Place all fruits in 5-cup (1.25L) blender and add 1 to 3 Tbsp juice concentrate to taste. Fill blender the rest of the way with soy milk. Use less soy milk if you like your smoothie extra-thick. Use even less milk to make a spoonable dessert.
Classic smoothie for my household. Canned mango pulp from the Indian grocery is the best dual-purpose smoothie ingredient. It's a fruit and a sweetener.
1/2 can kesar mango pulp (28 oz can)
6 oz frozen strawberries
1 banana
cold soy milk (My husband and I have differing opinions on how much. He says less for thicker, spoonable smoothies, so start at 1/2 cup. I say more for more easily drinkable smoothies, so add at least 1 cup if not more.)
Place fruits in blender. Add soy milk amount for desired consistency. Blend until smooth.
1 cup frozen peach slices
1/2 mango, sliced
1/4 cup cherry-apple juice
1 cup unsweetened soy milk
Very orange, naturally sweet, thick and frothy. This smoothie has a soy aftertaste, so would be even better with dairy milk if we kept that around.
1 banana
1 cup each frozen blueberries, frozen peach slices
1 cup unsweetened soy milk
1/4 cup plain soy yogurt
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup apple cider (Schnuck's grocery store brand, with pulp sediment and spices floating in it)
honey to taste
pinch of orange zest
Put all ingredients in a blender and blend till smooth.
Comments: The cider amount could be adjusted to make it less or more free-flowing. My husband likes smoothies thicker than I do. He likes soft-serve ice cream-level thickness, I like to be able to put it in a regular kitchen glass and drink it without a straw.
The last time we had a few oranges in the house, I zested them before Andrew ate them and kept the zest in the freezer.
All the otherwise dairy products are soy substitutes because I have lactose intolerance. I cheat and have dairy foods on occasion, especially cheese, with a dose of lactase pills, but I usually just avoid the dairy.
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