Two Fruit Smoothies from Annette

Judging from the humidity in the air, summer is almost here.  And, I had a coupon for frozen fruit...so it's smoothie season.  To discuss smoothies, I must explain my love for my Cuisinart Immersion Blender.  It was one of the kitchen tools I didn't think I'd use often, yet ended up using all the time!  Puree soups....no problem, whip mash potatoes..done, make a smoothie... easy!

Blueberry & Strawberry Smoothie

Ingredients: 
1/4 cup frozen blueberries
1 cup frozen whole strawberries (thawed slightly)
1/4 cup vanilla yogurt (cows milk or soy milk)
1/8 cup (more or less...) milk (cows, rice, soy, almond, hemp, goat... :) )
1/2 Tablespoon ground flax seed


Directions: Toss all ingredients except milk in a tall glass (I used the plastic one that came with the blender).  Stick in the blender and blend away.  I add a little bit of milk at a time to help it blend and also to get the consistency I want.  Enjoy!

Or what about...

PB & J Smoothie

Ingredients:
1 cup frozen whole strawberries (thawed slightly)
1/4 cup vanilla yogurt (cows milk or soy milk)
1 Tablespoon Peanut Butter
1/8 cup (more or less...) milk (cows, rice, soy, almond, hemp, goat... :) )
1/2 Tablespoon ground flax seed




Directions: Toss all ingredients except milk in a tall glass (I used the plastic one that came with the blender).  Stick in the blender and blend away.  I add a little bit of milk at a time to help it blend and also to get the consistency I want.  Enjoy!

Berry Crisp

Keri here with a recipe for a berry crisp. I hope you enjoy!

I read EatingWell's Rhubarb Strawberry Crisp, but I haven't seen any rhubarb at the Farmer's Market yet. Instead, I made a strawberry cherry crisp & modified the recipe a bit.

Keri's Strawberry Cherry Crisp

Filling:
1 lemon
1 pint of strawberries, cored & sliced
10 oz. bag frozen cherries
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons flour or corn starch (I used Jules' Gluten-free flour)

Crisp:
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup all-purpose flour (I used Jules' Gluten-free flour)
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
2 tablespoons butter, softened
1 tablespoon canola oil
1-3 tablespoon juice

Preheat oven to 375°F. Toss together fruit, sugar, and 2 tablespoons of flour/corn starch in a large bowl. Juice lemon over fruit mixture. Then, zest 1/2 of the lemon over fruit mixture. Transfer the mixture to a shallow 1 1/2-quart baking dish or deep-dish 9-inch pie plate, pressing down on the fruit to form an even layer.

To make crumble topping: Combine oats, 1/2 cup flour, brown sugar, butter and oil in a bowl; work the ingredients together with a fork or your fingers until the mixture is crumbly. Stir in the juice until the mixture is evenly moistened.

Distribute the topping mixture evenly over the fruit. Bake until the fruit is bubbling and the topping is golden, 35 to 40 minutes.

DELICIOUS! 5/5 stars!!

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip and Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies

My favorite item in the kitchen is my wonderful, amazing Kitchen Aid mixer.  Seriously, everyone should have one if you bake or make lots of doughs.  Best purchase I ever made.  Below is the Quaker Oats "Vanishing  Oatmeal Raisin Cookies" recipe.  But I don't really like raisins much, so I make them with dried cranberries instead.  I also make half with chocolate chips for Marcie, my favorite sister.*  And finally, thanks to my cousin Josie for sharing the secret to great cookies--cake flour instead of regular flour.


Oatmeal Chocolate Chip or Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies
Ingredients:
1/2 Pound of butter, softened (2 sticks)
1 c firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 c sugar
2 eggs
1 t vanilla
1 1/2 c flour (I use cake flour-thanks Josie) (For Gluten Free try Better Batter Flour)
1 t baking soda
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t salt
3 cups oats (For Gluten free use a GF certified rolled oat)
1+ c chocolate chips or
1+ c dried cranberries

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Beat together the butter and sugars until creamy.
Add eggs and vanilla, beat well.
Add combined flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt, mix well
Stir in oats and chocolate chips/cranberries, mix well
Drop onto ungreased cookie sheet
Bake 10 minutes or until you likeness
Cool 1 minute and move to wire rack
about 4-5 dozen depending on size.

Enjoy!
Christine

*I do not have a favorite sister--I was just checking to see if they were all reading...

Watermelon Granita

Okay everyone! Annette here.  I'm guessing you're probably wondering what's going on and where I've been.  Sorry! The month of April was really busy for me so I've been cooking and taking pictures of it, just not writing it up on here. I have a lot of dinners to catch up on. Also, you might have noticed some other people writing.  I opened up the blog to some of my cooking friends so you'll get all kinds of interesting things on here know.  Read more about them in the Who's in the Kitchen link on the right.

We spent Saturday in a cute, historic town nearby I was able to snag this cute blue Ball jar.  Some day when my man and I buy a house I want to do an aqua/poppy kitchen so I was excited about my new vase.



What's this have to do with cooking? Nothing. I just thought you might like some flowers. Okay...on to the Granita.  I originally got the idea for this from Amy at Simply Sugar and Gluten Free.  It was awesome and I want to do it with all kinds of fruit now. So good!






Watermelon Granita
Adapted from Simply Sugar & Gluten Free
Ingredients: 
1 whole seedless watermelon
3 Tablespoons lime juice
 1/4 cup sugar (I used Coconut Palm Sugar)

Directions: 
Puree your watermelon in a blender/food processor until liquid.  Add in lime juice and sugar. Taste to make sure it tastes good to you and add more juice/sugar if needed. Pour into shallow pans and put in freezer.  Stir with a fork after a few hours. It might take up to a day to freeze depending on how thick your pan is. Once frozen, scrape with a fork and enjoy.  It makes a ton so you can certainly share with others or use less watermelon!

I made mine in a huge Rubbermaid container and then didn't want to spend hours scraping it.  I let it thaw for a bit and then was able to break it into chunks and put in the food processor to turn it into a sorbet texture.  Either way is fun. Next time I make it I plan to freeze it in smaller containers so I can just dump it in the food processor and grind up.  It was so good! My man said he wasn't a watermelon fan but really loved the texture.

It's a great hot, summer day healthy treat.  Enjoy! --Annette

Strawberry Shortcake

Okay...Okay... I  know Strawberry Shortcake is not dinner food. But I'm not a founding member of the dessert club for nothing! I have to post some desserts snacks on here! Because this is NOT a dessert...oh no. It's a snack.  Yes...um...a snack.

                                                                              Source

So all week long I read the above book to my second graders.  It's a great story about the Little Red Hen's Great-Grandson who makes Strawberry Shortcake with the help of an iguana, turtle, and pot-bellied pig.  So after reading this for the 4th time in a week I craved Strawberry Shortcake!

Gluten Free Strawberry Shortcake

• Make the recipe for Classic Drop Biscuits from The Almond Flour Cookbook by Elana from Elana's Pantry.  I would give you the recipe but if you are gluten free then you should totally go buy this cookbook.  Promise...it's worth it! And check out her blog because it's a great resource!
• Clean and slice a bunch of strawberries. 
• Whip 1 1/2 cups heavy cream, 1-2 Tablespoons Agave Nectar, and 1 Tablespoon Vanilla until frothy, whipped-cream goodness!  Just make sure not to turn it into butter (aka. don't whip too much!) 
• Layer a drop biscuit, whipped cream, strawberries, and repeat.  
• Dig in with a fork and ENJOY!  It's summer in your mouth! Even though it's spring right now...

 Now because I know most of you don't need to purchase the expensive bag of almond flour.... here's the glutened recipe from the back of Cook-a-Doodle-Doo: 

Great Granny's Magnificent Strawberry Shortcake

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter
1 egg, beaten
2/3 cup milk
3-4 cups strawberries, washed & sliced
1 cup whipping cream, whipped

Directions
Preheat oven to 350*F.  Sift flout, then sift together dry ingredients.  Cut in butter until mixture is coarse crumbs. Add in beaten egg and milk, stirring by hand just enough to moisten.  Spread dough in greased 8 1/2 inch round pan, building up edges slightly.  Bake 15-18 minutes. Remove cake from pan; cool on rack 5 minutes.  Split into two layers; lift top off carefully.  Alternate layers of cake, whipped cream, and strawberries, ending with strawberries on top.

Where to start? Cheescake!

So, I've had the idea to create a blog based on the dinners my new husband and I are eating each night for awhile but never got it off the ground.  I think it's time to start!  Let's get some suppers cooking shall we?  Now granted, this post isn't about a dinner (I guess it could be... but WOW! that would be quite a meal!), but I thought I'd start off with a bang.  My man's favorite dessert is cheesecake. Any kind at all. It could be plain, chocolate, fruity, New York style...it really doesn't matter.

For New Years Eve this year I made us a rockin' cheesecake (gluten free of course!).  This was not dairy free but it was mostly sugar free. 

First I started with this basic recipe but made a few changes. 

New York Style Agave Cheesecake

Ingredients:
2 cups graham crackers  crushed Pamela's GF Dark Chocolate, Chocolate Chunk
1/2 cup butter melted
4 packages (8 oz.) cream cheese, room temperature
3/4 cup Agave Nectar
1/4 cup flour Better Batter Flour (or any GF flour)
5 eggs
1/3 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla

I also added chunks of Pamela's Cookies and chocolate chips to the batter. YUM!

Directions:

To make crust, in a small bowl stir together graham cracker crumbs and butter until well blended. Press mixture evenly onto bottom and sides of a greased 9-inch springform pan; set aside. Preheat oven to 350°F. To make filling, combine cream cheese, agave and flour in bowl of an electric mixer. Beat until smooth. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in cream and Mexican vanilla. Pour cream cheese mixture over crust, bake 15 minutes. Lower oven temperature to 200°F and bake 1 hour and 30 minutes longer or until center no longer looks wet or shiny. Turn oven off. Let cheesecake cool in oven 1 hour with oven door ajar. Remove cheesecake to a rack to cool completely. To prevent top of cheesecake from cracking during cooking, run a knife around the edge of the pan so that cake can pull away freely as it contracts. Cover and refrigerate cheesecake for at least 4 hours before serving.

Topping: 

After the cheesecake cooled I topped it with more Pamela's cookies broken up, some Glution's Gluten Free Pretzels.   On top of that I drizzled melted chocolate and some homemade caramel.It was A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. and totally unhealthy! But what a way to start the new year! :)  Enjoy!

Homemade Caramel Sauce: 

Ingredients

Makes 2 cups

• 1 cup sugar   light agave nectar
• 6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) cold unsalted butter, cubed
• 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup heavy cream

Directions

1. In a medium saucepan, heat sugar over medium-high until melted and brown at edges, 3 minutes. With a heat-resistant spatula, pull melted sugar toward center until all sugar is melted and caramel is deep amber in color, 3 minutes more.
   
2. Immediately whisk in butter, coarse salt, and pure vanilla extract (take care as mixture is extremely hot and will bubble).
   
3. Whisk in heavy cream.
   
4. Pour into a heatproof container and let cool. (To store, refrigerate, up to 3 weeks.)
   

From Everyday Food, October 2009