Peach Coglo

Green Love

I am a Southern girl. I was raised on grits, scrambled, fried perch and seafood, biscuits, collards, rice and gravy, green beans, black-eyed peas, turnip greens, ham, watermelon, peaches, cornbread-all of the Southern staples. I will usually try most things once-most, not all. Even though my food loves now include anything from sushi to olives to German noodles, you would never have convinced me that I would love a green smoothie. Two weeks ago, I would never have imagined the addiction that has thoroughly taken over my kitchen.

My husband and the kids are horrified, all except Eden; she is riding this train with me. I have been toying with the idea of green smoothies for a year now. It took me that long to try one. Boy am I glad I did. My favorite green smoothie recipe so far is from Hannah. I absolutely love it!

The parsley and kale in the smoothie cleanse the blood and deliver all kinds of energy. The mango is a treat. I learned recently that mango has some addictive qualities. After only four days of this smoothie, I can vouch for that. Oh well, there are worse sins.

The one thing I can't handle is bananas in smoothies. There I said it. I know everyone just loves bananas. I don't. I like the word a lot, but not the fruit. I know I am completely weird, but it's how I roll. After discovering how good these smoothies can taste and make me feel, I am really dreaming of my spinach, lettuce and green herb harvests. I have to plant the seeds first though.

I actually find this cray-cray green color to be appealing now. It just looks like a cup of energy to me. I tell ya this stuff is waayyyy better than coffee or Coke for rebooting my energy. As much I adore coffee and Co-Cola (as we call it), when I choose a smoothie I don't get that crash afterwards and I don't feel guilty. The guilt is my issue, but it's great that I don't even have to think about it.

So how about you, have you had any food surprises-things you thought you would loathe but actually ended up loving? Does anyone have any green smoothie recipes they'd like to share?

See? Green smoothies spread joy. Happy Tuesday everyone!

We are Santa's Elves

Most of the major gift-making is complete.  There are a few lingering projects and a couple of gifts just won't make it to the post office until after Christmas.  I must say with the help of Tonya hosting a Handmade Holiday over at her blogspace, I was much more prepared than last year.  I was able to make one gift last year when I had plans for several.  This year I managed to make all of the teacher and friend gifts, and I am finishing up the kids and other family members.  I felt a lot more connected with the holiday this year.  I think it has something to do with increasing my mindfulness during the Advent season this year and having to slow down as I made things and planned.   I think I will continue making gifts for birthdays and other celebrations throughout the year.  It feels really good when I can do it.

How about you; is there anything about this year's holiday that feels different?

 

 
Here is my first attempt at peppermint bark inspired by this recipe SouleMama found and shared.  I also made some peppermint bath salts.  This bit of making had the house smelling so delicious, wintry and cozy.  I must remember to get more mason jars and lids for next year.

 

 
What feels and might just be a sea of gifts ready for giving . . . .

Have a lovely day everyone!

 

Reindeer Floats

It's that time of year again-Reindeer season.  Around the Christmas holidays, I try to make special treats here and there for the kiddos.  One treat that Helena and Elijah especially like is the Reindeer Float, which we have renamed The Wild Christmas Reindeer Float in honor of Jan Brett's lovely story.  I got the basic recipe and ingredients from their preschool teacher a few years ago.  I don't remember the exact recipe proportions, but it doesn't seem to matter.  The kids love it and look forward to The Float every Christmas season.  It doesn't matter how cold it is outside.  They like the fact they can have a teency bit of ginger ale.  It makes them feel grown-up.

 

I think the recipe is pretty much in the public sphere now so it should be okay for me to share it here.  You can use whatever ratio of each ingredient you enjoy.  I don't think there is any science to it.  However, given the neurological sensitivities in this house, I use naturally colored sugars and candy to avoid the extra food coloring.  I also get ice cream without the added hormones and other fun extras.

Wild Christmas Reindeer Float

ginger ale

vanilla ice cream

peppermint sticks

decorative sugar sprinkles

I only give the kiddos a little bit ginger ale in their floats, using a smaller glass helps.  It doesn't take much to get a strong and happy smelling fizz going.  I add a couple of small scoops of ice cream, then it's peppermint sticks on either side of the glass for the reindeer antlers.  Sometimes Usually the candy breaks when I unwrap it.  When that happens I just toss the rest of the pieces in or sometimes save them for the next float.  Then I sprinkle a bit of decorative sugar on top of the whole concoction.  There!  You now have an official Wild Christmas Reindeer Float.  Enjoy!

 

Caramel Apples

 

 
Caramel-mmmm.  I have always enjoyed it.  When I was a kid, nothing would make me happier than getting those Kraft caramels for Halloween or a fall treat.  Well, that and candy corn, would simply make my season.  I have always loved the way caramel apples looked, even though I didn't eat them.  I know; I have some odd eating preferences. 

With Autumn and Halloween arriving, I wanted to do some cooking with the kiddos.  While reading sweet Heather's blog I was reminded of how much I liked looking at caramel apples (she also shares some other awesome crafts and recipes).  Why not make some?  Yes, I will take on caramel making.  No one told me how tricky it could be.  Despite a few bumps, I rather enjoyed the process.  It was just not what I was expecting, and I am still not sure I got the candy consistency that I needed.  Well actually I am sure it wasn't what I needed, but it did the job.  Miss Impatient didn't wait until she could "form a soft ball" with the caramel.  Oops, lesson learned.

I found the simple caramel recipe here.   It uses everyday ingredients.  I must confess the scariest part of the recipe was 'cooking' the sugar.  I was so paranoid about scorching that the process took longer than it should have.  I mean it took a looooonnnngggg time to melt that stuff down and it looked all kinds of crazy while it was cooking!

 
Starting the sugar melting process . . . .

 
Getting some help . . . .

 
What is going on with this sugar?

 

 
I guess this is supposed to be progress.

 

 
Finally . . . except I probably should have cooked the caramel mixture a bit longer.  I also should have walked my lazy carcass across my tiny kitchen and gotten out the candy themometer.

 
We used wooden "food" dowels in hopes that we can reuse them later for more apples.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

I will definitely do this again.  I heard the caramel apples were good, and Doran really enjoyed the process.  I learned my lesson about the 'ball-forming' phase.  Indeed, I do think we have ourselves a new fall tradition around here.  This is a fall candy-making first for us.  Our usual tradition is going to the store and buying some candy corn (a tradition we'll continue to keep as I am not giving up my candy corn).  Are there any fall foodcrafting traditions you enjoy?

 

 

It was Just Peachy

 
On Friday, I was canning again.  I told my friend Julie that she could now call me a 'caniac'.  I think I am.  This time I canned was the peaches we had picked.   I must say we have had the worst time finding organic pick-your-own peaches around here.  Maybe it's due to the fact that peaches are soft-skinned and therefore tricky to grow (or grow profitably) without bathing them in pesticides, or so conventional wisdom claims.  So I chose a process that would make use of washed and peeled peaches and hoped for the best.

I used the peach jam recipe from Preserving Summer's Bounty.  I lucked out and had the exact number of peaches the recipe called for, but I was a little concerned about their size.  Whenever a recipe calls for a medium something or another, it's hard to know what the author considers to be medium.  The more uptight part of me would like a descriptor like "your peaches should be about the size of a tennis ball".  Given the vagueness of the size requirements, I didn't know whether or not I was using too much or too little pectin.  The recipe was supposed yield four half-pints.  I ended up with six half-pints, four four ounce jars, one whole pint (I had run out of wide-mouth lids for my half-pints).  I even had enough to fill a prep bowl at the end.  Surprisingly, despite all of the surplus, the jam actually set.  Yippee!  Greg thinks it's quite tasty, and I must say I enjoy it myself.  It is like a little bit of golden heaven, tangy and sweet.

So we now have blueberry and peach jam for our bread.  I think this peach jam will bring its own set of memories on blustery winter days! 

 

Canning Sauce

Mason jars, with their lids and bands, have always fascinated me.  The treats and foods they held were a mystery.  How did they get in there?  You mean an individual person can save tomatoes for winter?  Don't you need a factory and machines to do this?  Lately I have been thinking about sustainability, food safety, commercialism, and self-sufficiency.  Canning is one way of being more in charge of the food my family eats.  We know where is was grown, and how it was made.  It will be a wonderful treat to eat in the dead of winter what we grew the summer.  In no way are we a self-sustaining family.  We could not survive on our tiny little garden and our food-growing methods.  Often we make two trips to the grocery a week for milk (we need our own cow and a bigger refrigerator). 

Greg and I tinkered around with canning some blueberry jam and salsa, separately of course, when we were first married.  Recently we made some blueberry jam using the freezer method.  So now it is back to tomatoes.  I made tomato sauce using Soulemama's tasty recipe.  I didn't have any balsamic vinegar, but it was divine nonetheless.  There really is a difference between even good commercial tomato sauce and homemade sauce using your own garden tomatoes.  

I didn't have many tomatoes as they have been slothfully slow in turning this season.  A certain person who shall not be named insisted that my piddly amount of tomatoes would be enough for one batch (you know who you are).  I was using my Red Siberians - small, tasty, small, juicy and did I mention they are small.  In hope and desire to can something, I charged ahead.  The blanching went well.  I actually enjoyed it.  The pureeing, spicing, and sauteing of garlic and red onions went swimmingly.  The sauce smelled so good.   

I think my first and probably biggest problem was my piddly amount of tomatoes.  Here is what my labors produced.

 
There was barely enough sauce to feed our family of six for one meal.  We do like our sauce, and a lot of it in this family.  Oh well, we decided to put that tiny amount of sauce to use.  There was no point of using a water bath since we couldn't ensure safety of the sauce with that gaping amount of headspace.

Tortellini with homemade garden tomato sauce!

Finally this week, our tomatoes have begun ripening in earnest.  Today I will attempt to can some more homemade sauce.  The taste is addicting.  We will also attempt to process some apples and peaches we picked over the weekend.  The kiddos are out of school for Rosh Hashana, so this should hopefully make for a good time.  Wish us luck.  I think we may need it.  ;-)

Late Summer Goodness

You-know-who harvesting our very first tomato a couple of weeks ago.

I sat organizing school clothes in utter disbelief that the summer is nearly over.  The trees are starting to change here and there.  The morning air is becoming cooler and more crisp.  Already?  I remember when summer days lasted for what seemed like forever.  Now I am scrambling trying to get in the last summertime visits to the beach and hoping all of the tomatoes turn before the truly cold weather sets in for good.  Here's some late summer goodness we hope to indulge in for as long as we can before the wind changes.

 

 

We are enjoying this summer orzo salad with basil and tomatoes.  Helena's favorite part is the red onion.  Doran loves the orzo, while Eden and Elijah eat the salad as a whole.  I got the yummy recipe here.  The recipe calls for fresh corn which I think is best, but the salad is also delicious with generic frozen corn from Whole Paycheck.  So if you can't get fresh corn, find a frozen corn brand that you like and you will do well. 

Oh boy, blueberry cheesecake ice cream!  I heard it was delicious.  It was gone before I could have a taste.  Luckily we still have blueberries galore in the freezer.  It's a recipe from Cooking Light.  The recipe is a bit of a process but well worth it according to Greg.  It's a good enough recipe that you can make your own adjustments (within reason of course) and the ice cream is still delicious! 

Have a lovely weekend everyone!  

Basilmania

If there is one summer herb I love, it's basil.  I have tried to grow it for five years, off and on.  Some years I was so discouraged I didn't even try.  Other years, I would plant the seeds and nuttin'.  This year I planted seeds and it is finally a basil bonanza!  I am beyond ecstatic.  Since I have my own basil now, I made pesto for the first time.  I made it sans the pine nuts or any nuts at all.  It was incredible.  The kids weren't too crazy about it, but I think they will come around.  In the meantime, that's more for me and Greg to share.  I used the basic pesto recipe.

Pesto sans Nuts of Anykind

1 large bunch of basil or 1 1/2 cups of basil

1/4 cup parmesan to start, you can add more if you like

1 Tablespoon of olive oil (also to start)

2 garlic cloves (also to start)

Sometimes you can use more garlic depending on how spicy the garlic is and how much you like garlic.  Usually I use my immersion blender because I am too lazy to pull out the regular food processor.  I just throw all the ingredients in together and blend until I get a smooth, greeny paste.  As I blend, I add a little more olive oil, a little more cheese until the mixture tastes just right.  Sometimes I add a little salt and pepper to taste.  It usually doesn't need much.  I have heard that you can also add lemon juice.  It's all a matter of taste. 

I just love the spicy smell of basil and the warm smells of parmesan and olive oil.  It is quite a treat.  I usually pair the pesto with some of Greg's homemade bread.  This combination is fine for dinner or lunch or both!  To have a taste of this summery goodness while the snow flies, just blend the basil and the olive oil.  Leave out the parmesan cheese.  When you are ready to use it just thaw, season and blend away like you did in August. 

As soon as I can remember to get some extra ice cube trays, I will freeze many of my basil leaves and also some pesto.  I really wish I could find some of those old-fashioned metal ice cube trays.  Does anyone else remember how careful you had to be with the release mechanism on those?  My grandma had some that I used to always hurt myself with whenever I tried to release the ice.  I'd raise the lever, pinch my finger(s) and/or ice would go whizzing around the room.  Those were the days.

If you can see past Doran's designer pajama shorts, you can see Elijah harvesting some basil.

The Farmer won't eat pesto, but he will eat a peppery basil plant at eight o'clock in the morning.

I am thinking we will have a weekend filled with basil and pesto, some to enjoy now and some to preserve for later this winter.  Have a lovely weekend everyone!

Blueberries and Buttermilk

 
A page from my all-time favorite cookbook, Apples for Jam. . .

Many of you already know that we have been shameless blueberry fiends lately.  As a matter of fact, we went blueberry picking yet again on Saturday.  We have picked so many that we had to find some immediate uses for our berries.  Many were made into a delicious jam; we have already wiped out one pot of jam for use on Greg's homemade biscuits.  Others were frozen but some didn't make it to the freezer because they were eaten or they became overripe.  Having learned our lesson to use or preserve the blueberries immediately, we were back in the patch again.

One good recipe we discovered came from Apples for Jam.  It is a blueberry buttermilk cake.  It is not an incredibly sweet cake. It doesn't resemble the traditional cake you would find in a bakery or even the usual birthday cake.  It is kind of like a coffee cake, but not too heavy on the sugar.   Greg thought it to be a tad dry, but I have heard that some homemade cakes can be drier compared to their boxed counterparts.  I don't know if it was the way the oven behaved that day, the lack of humidity or the cake's personality.  All that being said, it was still delicious.  The berries were so juicy.  Their juice soaked up the top of the cake and mixed with the bits of crystallized sugar.  At first Helena was not too sure about it and she didn't eat much.  Then sometime during the day, she couldn't get enough.  It was the kind of cake you could give your children for breakfast and not feel like you are neglecting them.  I daresay it's kind of a healthy cake if such a cake truly exists.  I fear they are a little like unicorns.

This is our (meaning Greg's) effort.  The cake didn't get as brown as the one in the cookbook even though it was thoroughly baked.  Despite it's rather pale complexion, the cake was tasty.  I think with Helena, Greg and Eden eating it, the cake only lasted two days. 

All in all, a very good cake.  Now we are on to the next blueberry recipe.  Happy Monday!

Jamming!

 

As a part of our blueberry adventuring, we have had to find things to make with our pickings.  Oh it's such a hard job right?  Helena and Elijah wanted blueberries in their pancakes.  I think Helena was more in love with the idea than the actual product.  Greg used a different pancake recipe than the one we usually use from Apples for Jam.  Helena was none too amused with that change-up.  We have made a note of it and vowed never to stray from the original recipe again.  Sorry about that Helena.

So far I have frozen some blueberries.  Who knew you were supposed to freeze them on a cookie sheet for the best results?  I'll tell you who didn't know - me!  Well this year I have seen the light, thanks to a blueberry helpful hint sheet the folks at the orchard were giving out.  The blueberries freeze into perfect little violet marbles, ready to be used throughout the winter.  They look and sound wonderful as they roll around.  They will be a wonderful memory of our summer as we use these while the snow flies.

On the blueberry makings list are the following: blueberry cheesecake ice cream (I have made the vegan version which was great, but if anyone has a dairy version, I would be most obliged), blueberry buttermilk cake, blueberry muffins, a possible blueberry smoothie.  Amy just posted some delicious Italian Ice recipes over on her blog.  We will definitely be making blueberry Italian ice.  I can just imagine it with a touch of lemon or lime.  It's going to be tasty; I can't wait.

The other day we made hand pies and some blueberry freezer jam.  When Greg and I have canned in the past, we had no children or just Doran.  I usually prefer the boiling method.  I would love to try that with the children now.  There is nothing like hearing the pings and tinks as the jam jars seal tightly after hanging out in the hot water bath.  The process is just so gratifying. This go round we made freezer jam because Miss Eden is just a wee bit busy.  She insists on being a part of the action.  She drags the step stool all around our tiny kitchen and hangs onto the counter with her fingertips so she can see what's happening up close.  It would be way to nerve racking for me to can the blueberries using my trusty boiling method with her around.  We might try it if we can get her to take a nap one of these days. 

 
  

For our freezer jam, we used a no sugar/low sugar pectin.  We followed the recipe on the box and consulted a couple of cookbooks.  It worked wonderfully.  For some of the sugar we substituted a cup of white grape juice.  You can also use apple juice.   While he boiled the blueberries, Greg added some butter to decrease foaming.

 

Our canning funnel has taken some hits over the years.  Whatever happened to the metal ones?!  But just look at that rich color.  I am so happy with our results.

 

And so we have freezer jam.  Do you have some favorite blueberry recipes?