Beat the Heat!

This summer has been soooo hot and humid here, yuck!
Back during strawberry season, my boyfriend and I picked strawberries at a local farm.  Pick your own is a lot of fun and a cheap way to get good berries.  We couldn't eat all the berries that we picked before they went bad, so I decided to make frozen pops and beat the heat at the same time!  And these are boyfriend approved!

I found this recipe in the cookbook Deceptively Delicious, titled "Frozen Yogurt Pops."

Ingredients:
2 cups plain lowfat yogurt
2 cups berries
1/2 cup sugar

Start Cooking:
1. Combine all ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth.
2. Pour into popsicle molds and freeze.

Tips and Hints:
1.  You will need plastic popsicle molds for this recipe.  I found mine at five below, but I'm sure that you can find them at any number of stores.  If you don't have popsicle molds, you can use paper dixi cups and popsicle sticks.
2.  Nutrition Info: these pops are only 100 calories each and loaded with good stuff!  lots of calcium and fruit!

When life give you lemons...

So life gave me lemons, and I didn't make lemonade.
I don't even know when the last time I posted was... oops!  Life has been kinda crazy, but I've still been cooking!
New recipes and pictures will be posted within the nest day or two.  Thanks for your patients :)

Breakfast of Champions

No, not cold pizza.  Really yummy coffee cake!  I learned how to make this recipe at an Essen cooking class.  Don't know Essen?  Check them out!  This is a coffee cake with rhubarb filling.  My boyfriend and I went to pick strawberries earlier this week and the farm we went to had other homegrown produce, so I picked up some great rhubarb.  Recipe is boyfriend approved :)

Big Crumb Coffee Cake With Rhubarb


Ingredients:
Filling -
1/2 pound rhubarb, sliced 1/2 inch thick
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

Topping - 
1/3 cup dark brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 stick unsalted butter, melted
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

Cake - 
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup sour cream

Start Cooking:


1.  Preheat oven to 350.  Grease 8 inch baking pan.
2. Filling: combine all ingredients in a bowl and set aside.

3.  Topping:
a.  In a medium bowl, whisk sugars, spices and salt into melted butter until smooth.
b.  Gradually mix in flour with a wooden spoon.  Leave pressed together and set aside.

4.  Cake:
a.  In a bowl with an electric mixer, beat butter with sugar until light and fluffy.
b.  Add egg and yolk, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition, and then vanilla
c. Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a small bowl.
d.  Alternate adding sour cream and flour mixture to butter mixture, beginning and ending with sour cream.
5.  Put it together:
a.  Spread cake batter in pan, smoothing top.  Scatter rhubarb over batter, leaving accumulated liquid in bowl.

b.  Break topping into big crumbs and sprinkle over cake.  Bake for 45-55 minutes.

No Sugar Added

After watching cooking shows last week(when I was supposed to be writing a paper...) I decided to try to make something without any sugar.  So I made mini apple pies. And I have to say that I wondered where the sugar was.  Overall, it was good, but it could have been sweeter.

First, you have to make a Basic Pastry


Ingredients:
2 and 2/3 cups all purpose flour
2 sticks cold unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup ice water

Start Cooking:
1.  Use a metal blade in a food processor.  Put flour, butter and salt in the food processor and pulse until butter is chopped and evenly spread throughout the flour.
2.  Add water and pulse until dough forms.
3.  Separate into 3 balls, wrap in plastic wrap and flatten into discs.  Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.


When the dough is refrigerating, prepare Apple Filling

Ingredients:
4 apples, whatever kind you like
2 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons honey
1-2 tablespoons cinnamon(how every much you like)
1 egg

Start Cooking:
1.  Cut apples into bit size pieces.  Melt butter in large sauce pan, add apples to melted butter, over medium heat.  Add honey and cinnamon, stir well.
2.  Cover and cook for 5-7 minutes on medium heat.  After 5-7 minutes, you will see that the apples are soft and all the flavors have mixed together.

3.  After the pastry dough has been refrigerated for at least an hour, roll the dough out flat.  The flatter the better!  Put a cereal bowl upside down on the dough and cut around it, making a circle.  Place circle of dough on a baking sheet, brush egg around dough, used to help seal the dough together.  Put a scoop of apples in center of dough, then fold over and press edges together.

4.  Cut small slits in top of dough to vent air and bake for 17-23 minutes at 350 degrees, until dough is firm and flakey.  

Tips and Hints:

1.  Make sure you roll the dough really really flat.  My first batch, pictured above, was too thick and you tasted more dough than apples(not so good).  The second batch, with thinner dough was much, much better.

2.  I tried to roll out the dough before refrigerating for 1 hour, and it was really hard to roll out.  I would say refrigerate for more like 90 minutes.  

Enjoy!  And share your sugar free recipes! 

Marshmallow Sticky Buns

I found this recipe online, and LOVE them.  I have to say that I'm not a big fan of marshmallow, but these are great, and the marshmallow is not the dominating flavor.  This recipe uses the same technique as the pizza poppers.  

Ingredients: 
1 can refrigerated biscuits
2 tablespoons butter, melted
enough marshmallows to fill biscuits
cinnamon and sugar(however much you like)

Start Cooking:
1.  Pre heat oven to 350, well grease muffin tin.
2.  Separate biscuits and flatten as much as you can.  Sprinkle some cinnamon sugar in center of biscuit, then fill with marshmallows.

3.  Pull sides up to cover marshmallows and form into a ball.  Roll biscuit in melted butter, then in cinnamon sugar.  Place in muffin tin.

4.  Bake for 15-17 minutes.  Serve warm.

Tips and Hints:
1.  Make sure to WELL grease the pan.  They will stick!
2.  Put the muffin tin on a cookie sheet while baking.  The marshmallows in mine oozed out and I ended up cleaning a puddle of sticky marshmallow off the bottom of my oven.
3.  Can't eat them at all once?  Re-heat in oven until warm!  I tried re-heating in the microwave; they we OK, but better in the oven.

Enjoy!

Iced Tea

Since I will not be home much this weekend, I decided to scrap the 8 hour iced tea recipe and make one that doesn't take so long to make.  I decided on Wild Berry Iced Tea.

Ingredients:
4 cups water
3 tea bags(plain Lipton tea works great)
1 can frozen wild berry juice, prepared per directions on can

Start Cooking:
1.  Put 4 cups of water and 3 tea bags in a pitcher.  Set in the sun for about 2 hours.  After two hours, remove tea bags.  If you have an iced tea  maker, that will work fine, just use 4 cups of the finished tea.
2.  Measure out 3 cups of the prepared wild berry juice and mix with the prepared tea.  Serve cold, with ice cubes.

Something Special:
For a special treat, freeze a few fresh raspberries in ice cubes.  Serve with the tea.

 
Hints and Tips:
1.  Make sure you put the water and tea bags in the SUN, it will brew much faster.  I made mine this evening, and it wasn't in the heat of the day, and it seemed to take longer to brew.

Enjoy! 

Pasta Salad

drum roll please...  I did it, I made real pasta salad!  I know, not that exciting, but I've never done it before.
I did a combination of suggestions that I received and recipes that I found.

Ingredients: 
pasta(whatever shape you like, I used bow tie)
cucumbers
red peppers
carrots
tomatoes(if you like them, I don't)
chick peas
Italian dressing

Start Cooking:
1. Cook pasta per directions on box/bag.  Let noodles cool.
2. While pasta is cooking, chop all veggies into bite size pieces.  Drain and rinse chick peas.
3. Put veggies and chick peas in whatever container you will be serving or storing the salad in.  Add cooked pasta and Italian dressing, then mix well.

I then made english muffin pizzas to make a complete meal.

Ingredients:
whole grain light english muffins
reduced fat mozzarella cheese
reduced fat cheddar cheese
pizza sauce

Start cooking:
1. Lightly toast plain english muffins.  This prevents the bread from getting soggy.
2. Place toasted english muffins on a baking sheet.  spread pizza sauce on english muffins.  Top with 2 parts mozzarella cheese, 1 part cheddar cheese.
3. Bake until cheese is melted and crispy around the edges.

Hints and Tips:
1.  add chicken to pasta salad and pepperoni to pizzas for you meat eaters out there.
2.  To mix pasta salad: put a lid on the container and shake it!
3.  Line the baking sheet with tin foil for pizzas, makes for easy clean up!

Enjoy!