Roasted Broccoli and Garlic

Roasted Broccoli and Garlic

Trying to get my daughter to eat and love broccoli has not been easy.  This whole food texture thing she has is more trouble than I initially thought.  I mistakenly thought that since she loves roasted cauliflower then roasted broccoli would be a no-brainer---apparently not so with her.  Despite her refusal to eat broccoli, this roasted broccoli and garlic dish has become a new favorite for my husband and I.  We both love it! Not only do we love it, but I served it to some friends, and they loved it too!  I'm just going to have to keep trying with my daughter, she has not been won over by a love of broccoli--yet!

Prep time: 5 minutes

Cook time: 15 minutes

Total time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

2.5 cups of broccoli sliced

3 large cloves of garlic sliced thinly

Coconut oil spray or 3 tablespoons of olive oil

Sea salt and black pepper to taste

Directions: Pre-heat oven to 400F degrees. Line a sheet pan with foil and spray it with coconut oil. Add broccoli, and sprinkle with sliced garlic.  Season with sea salt and black pepper then spray the broccoli generously with coconut oil spray.  If using olive oil, add broccoli to a bowl with olive oil and toss until broccoli is coated, then add it to the sheet pan, sprinkle sliced garlic, season with sea salt and black pepper. 

 Place in the oven and cook for 10-15 minutes or until broccoli starts to brown a bit.  Remove from oven, serve and enjoy.

How to make Condensed Milk--Condensed Coconut Milk

How to make Condensed Coconut Milk

It's not often that a recipe that I concoct requires the use of condensed milk.  Condensed milk is definitely one of those products that has a very specific use.  When I was a little girl I remember looking in my grandmother's refrigerator and always seeing a can of the Eagle brand condensed milk.  Given that the same can was always in her refrigerator, I don't think she had many recipes that required it's use either.  I'm not exactly sure what is in the super sweet concoction sold in the can now, but when  I was making up the recipe for my Coconut chocolate bars, I decided that I needed to prepare my own. I've done this with almost every kind of milk, cows, coconut, and almond.  All come out perfectly.  If you are going to do this, then I suggest doing so when you have a few hours to spend at home.  Doing this over low heat, allows you more freedom to do other things while it cooks.  If you want to speed up the process, you can use higher heat, but that will require much more from you in terms of stirring and keeping a watchful eye.

Prep time: none

Cook time: 2 hours

Total time: 2 hours

Ingredients :

2.5 cups of coconut milk (or milk)

3/4 cup of maple sugar (can use whatever sugar you'd like)

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

2 tablespoons of butter (optional)

Directions: Add milk, and sugar to a sauce pan and simmer over low heat for 1.5-2 hours, or until the milk is reduced by half.

Once the milk has reduced(condensed) whisk in butter and vanilla extract. Pour into a container and let cool.

It will thicken on it's own as it cools. Allow the milk to cool completely before adding it to a recipe.

Strawberry Apple Fruit Roll-Ups

Strawberry-Apple Fruit Roll-ups

Now that summer has arrived we are constantly on the go.  Which means that we spend much more time in the car.  My daughter does surprisingly well on car rides, however, she does better if I am armed with plenty of games to fill her time, and of course snacks don't hurt.  She is extremely fond of apple strings--apples that I run through my vegetable spiralizer on the spaghetti attachment, however they oxidize so quickly after making them, I like to save those for home snacks.  Enter fruit roll-ups, she loves them and they are extremely travel friendly.  If you follow this blog, then you know I have several recipes for fruit rolls ups my tropical punch fruit roll-ups are my absolute favorite, but the pineapple, or strawberry fruit roll ups are equally as delicious!

Ingredients:

10 ounces of strawberries stems removed

2 medium sized apples, cores removed

Directions: Place the strawberries and apples in a blender and blend until smooth.  

Pour the mixture out onto a parchment lined sheet and smooth into a thin layer.

Place in a dehydrator on 134 for 4-6 hours, or in a oven on the lowest setting for 4-6 hours.
Fruit roll-ups are done when you can peel them off of the parchment without them sticking.

How to make Cherry Lemonade--with real Cherries

Homemade Cherry Lemonade--Made with Fresh Cherries

Lemonade is as American--especially Southern American--as cherry pie--see my upcoming blog about that--and I'd be remiss if I didn't share one of my favorite summertime drinks--Cherry Lemonade.  Cherry season is almost at an end here, so I thought I'd give the last of my cherries a brilliant send off, by highlighting them in two recipes.  If it's too late in the season and you can't find a fresh cherry anywhere--then use frozen cherries--skip thawing them, and blend them frozen with the lemon and the sugar.  Doing so will allow you to omit the use of ice cubes.

Ingredients:
1 cup of fresh cherries (pits and stems removed)
1 cup of fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup of maple sugar (can sub other sugars, and if you like your lemonade on the sweet side use more sugar)
3 cups of water
ice for chilling

Directions:  To a blender add the cherries, lemon juice, and sugar and blend until well combined.  Add this mixture to a pitcher, with the water and some ice, mix well, serve and enjoy.

DIY How to Make Powdered Sugar--Maple Sugar-Coconut Sugar-Date Sugar-Palm Sugar

How to make you own powdered sugar--Yes even Powdered Maple, Coconut, Date, Palm, Agave, or Honey crystal Sugars

How many times have you been in the middle of baking, and found that you were lacking one vital ingredient--Powdered Sugar.  If you're anything like me, the last thing you want to do is run out and buy a bag of powdered sugar.  If you're really like me, you probably prefer to use a less processed form of sugar, like maple sugar, coconut sugar, date sugar, or palm sugar but have failed to ever find a powdered version of either of those sugars in your local grocery store.  Well now you will never have that problem again--unless of course you don't have any form of granulated sugar in the house at all, then this can't help you.  But if you do have granulated sugar, then this DIY tutorial will help.  All you need is sugar and a spice or coffee grinder --any type of granulated sugar will work--even Maple sugar, Coconut sugar, Date sugar, Palm sugar, Agave sugar, or honey crystal sugar.  Watch this video and I'll show you how. Then use the sugar to make my recipe for Flourless Chocolate Meringue Cookies

White Bean Salad with Lemon Cumin Vinaigrette

White Bean Salad with Lemon Cumin Dressing

This salad represents all that this blog is about.  It's lazy in every sense of the word lazy and at the same time it's fresh and vibrantly flavorful.  I was talking to a girl friend  of mine  the other day about food and little ones.  She was in need of some advice about healthy choices for her little one. We went through the list of what she currently feeds her little one.  On her list was a simple salad of canned white beans drizzled with lemon juice and olive oil.  I thought it sounded delish, and I set out to make my own version of that salad.  Pair this salad with a crusty piece of sourdough rubbed with a little garlic and grass-fed butter and you've got a rustic and delicious meal that didn't require you to turn on the stove.  Lazy--yes, absolutely! But it tastes anything but lazy--that counts right?;-)

Ingredients:

15 ounce can of Organic White beans (drained and rinsed)

1/2 cup of feta cheese crumbled

1/2 cup of organic rainbow radish diced

1/2 cup of cherry tomatoes quartered

1/2  cup persian cucumbers diced

1/2 cup of red bell pepper diced

1 Tablespoon of fresh organic Thyme leaves

Sea salt and black pepper to taste

Vinaigrette

5 Tablespoons of fresh lemon juice

3 Tablespoons of olive oil

1/2 teaspoon of cumin

1 medium clove of garlic finely chopped

Sea salt to taste

Directions: Add all of the ingredients except for the sea salt to a large bowl and toss well.  

Add all the ingredients for the vinaigrette to a mason jar cover and shake until well combined.  If you don't have a mason jar, just whisk together all the ingredients for the vinaigrette in a bowl, and set aside. Salt the salad ingredients just before serving, this will prevent the tomatoes and cucumbers from becoming soggy.

 Drizzle with a generous amount of the vinaigrette, toss  again to combine, serve and enjoy!

Smokey Paprika and Lime Chicken Kabobs

Smokey Paprika and Lime Chicken Kabobs

I think that there is definitely an art to marinades. I'm still learning that particular art. I recently purchased the highly acclaimed Modernist Cuisine book set. It's massive and filled with information--extremely useful information. I'm only on the second book about 1000 pages into this probably 7000 page set, and the information that I've learned has completely changed the way that I view cooking.  This set is amazing! If you're interested in the how's and why's of cooking, from a scientific perspective---then you want this set. If you can save the $550 plus dollars it costs to buy this book set then I highly recommend it.  Or just stay tuned to my blog, lot's of changes are coming.  Not to mention appliances. One is the immersion circulator that I've been wanting for years.  Another is a vacuum chamber sealer.  I returned my Food saver in preparation for this machine.  This machine makes marination super easy, and effective.  It sucks out all of the air in the chamber and compresses everything in it. Thus making pickles in a matter of minutes, and  infusing steak or chicken and fish with marinades in minutes. Long gone will be my days of marinating anything over night.  I'm really excited for my vacuum chamber to arrive. Not having my Food Saver or a vacuum machine has been torture, but life goes on.  This particular marinade is a mixture of dry and wet ingredients.  It's really delicious, and so flavorful, that it doesn't need more than a few minutes to flavor the chicken--gotta love a quick marinade with no fancy equipment.


Ingredients
1 teaspoon of onion powder
1 teaspoon of garlic powder
1 teaspoon of smoked paprika
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 tablespoon of lime juice
1 lb of skinless boneless chicken thighs, cubed into one inch pieces
Sea salt and black pepper to taste

Directions: Add the onion powder, garlic powder, smoked paprika, olive oil and lime juice to a small bowl and mix well.

Season the chicken generously with sea salt and black pepper, add it to a large bowl.  Add the marinade paste to the chicken then toss well to cover the chicken with the marinade.

Place chicken on skewers and grill cooking until chicken is cooked through about 10-12 minutes. Serve and enjoy!