Peak of Their Season

When you start out with perfect ingredients, sometimes you don't have to do much to them- or should I say often times you shouldn't do much to them. Case in point, strawberries in peak season. Every week we recieve a mystery box from the farmers market and every week on most occasions, they contain a large 16oz box of strawberries. In the beginning they were ok, and have slowly worked their way towards getting better and better. This past week they were PERFECT. I wouldn't want to do anything to mask their sweet essense. SO dessert was simply the strawberries with some thick organic sour cream and a little brown sugar to dip it all in. Summer doesn't get any better than desserts like this!

Corn Casserole

When I was little I remembered a corn casserole that my grandmother made- and I loved! I could never get enough. Later as I was older and wanted to make it, I took one look at the recipe with 1 1/2 cups oil, cheddar cheese and all the other ingredients, and knew there was no way in good conscience I could make that. I had run across a recipe in Cooking Light Magazine that looked like it could be something close to what I remembered, so I decided to give it a try. It quickly became one of those "keepers"- it was everything I remembered it was. My husband didn't even want our guests to have seconds- he wanted to make sure he had some leftovers for himself! Coming from Cooking Light meant it had a healthier flavor profile- but still the perfect addition to any summer meal. Using peak of the summer corn is one of the keys to making this great. It does call for canned creamed corn, which I had made some last summer and froze, so I have used that, but the canned products work well, especially when pressed for time. One of these days I would like to not have to depend on a corn bread mix for my recipe (not my style) but my first attempt to deviate produced some different results so for now, here it is:

Corn Casserole (from Cooking Light Magazine)
1/4 cup egg substitute (or 1 egg OR 2 egg whites)
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 (8 3/4-ounce) can no-salt-added whole-kernel corn, drained
1 (8 3/4-ounce) can no-salt-added cream-style corn
1 (8 1/2-ounce) package corn muffin mix
1 (8-ounce) carton plain fat-free yogurt
Cooking spray

Mix all the ingredients together and pour it into a greased 8" square pan or 9" pie pan. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes or so, until the middle is completely set.

Oatmeal Cookies

Here is a great "lower in fat" healthier oatmeal cookie. Although it's been modified quite a bit, I got the original recipe from Perfect Light Desserts written by Nick Malgieri and David Joachim. This is a great book filled with solid recipes (at least the ones I've tried so far) that rely on real ingredients used smartly to make them healthier. It's not filled with sugar free products or whipped toppings. You wouldn't be able to tell these cookies are lower in fat, and I've packed them with all sorts of goodies.




Oatmeal cookies (makes about 24 cookies)

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 TBS soft butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg (room temperature)
1/4 cup applesauce
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups oats
1/4 cup golden raisins (or dark if you want)
1/4 cup pepitas
1/4 cup cocoa nibs (these you could substitute chocolate chips, but the cocoa nibs give the richness of chocolate with more health benifits, and helps to temper the sweetness of the cookie)

Pre heat the oven to 375
Mix all the dry ingredients (flour through salt) together and set aside. In another bowl cream the butter with the white sugar, and then add the egg and then the brown sugar. With such little amount of butter, it's hard to mix if you put both sugars in at once. After everything is completely emulisified, mix in the applesauce and vanilla. At this point add all the dry ingredients and finally the oats, raisins, pepitas, and cocoa nibs.

Using parchment lined or greased sheet pans, scoop tablespoon fulls of batter onto the sheetpan, with a few inches between each cookie. At this point you could easily freeze half the cookie batter for later.
Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes, just until you see the top is a light golden brown. If you bake them too long they will get very hard and crunchy. It's important to time the bake so they stay soft and moist after they cool.

What's for Lunch?

I realize I have been pretty slow on posting lately. Now that everything is put back into the kitchen and my inspiration is returning, I find myself very short on time! I'm not sure how some of these bloggers do it, who have to work other full time jobs. Most of what I've been cooking has been food to take to work for my husband and I. So I figured I could at least start posting some of the things I've been making for our lunches (and dinners since we both work nights)...



I was inspired by a beautiful bunch of parsley I had gotten in my weekly box from the CSA I subscribe to (will post more about that later). I couldn't think of a better use for it than a tabbouleh salad. This is a recipe I found in "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian" by Mark Bittman. I haven't had much of a chance to use it yet, but I found a great recipe in there for tabbouleh. One of the things I liked about it, is it had not only parsley, but a lot of mint as well as some scallions. I've modified it some and threw some crumbled tofu on top.

Tabbouleh Salad-4 generous servings

1/2 cup medium grind or fine grind bulgur
1/4 cup good quality olive oil
1/4 cup lemon juice
zest of 2 lemons
2 cups chopped parsley
1 cup chopped mint
1/2 cup chopped scallions
2 medium tomatoes (or 2 cups of cherry tomatoes cut in half)
1/2 of a cucumber (about 1 cup) chopped

Bring a medium sized sauce pan filled with water to a boil. Add the bulgur and let it come back up to a boil and then immediately turn off the heat. Let it sit until softened, and then drain well. Season the bulgur with the lemon juice, olive oil, and some salt and pepper. In a separate bowl mix the herbs with the lemon zest. Shortly before serving, combine the bulgur with the herbs and tomatoes and cucumber, check again for seasoning (may need a little more salt and pepper).

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

I'm still a little slow to post, even though we have full use of our kitchen we are still busy with finishing up the details. I did want to put up a quick post, and I know that these are totally out of season, but I love these cookies and wanted to put them up on the blog! This fall when all the pumpkins were fresh from the ground I went kind of crazy buying 10 of them and spent the better part of a day roasting, pureeing, portioning and freezing the puree. The work paid off though because I have wonderfully flavorful pumpkin puree to make these cookies with! As fall is beginning to get closer (not that close) and I still have lot's of puree left I might have a few more out of season pumpkin posts (to clear my freezer for the next batch)! These cookies are very light and tender but full of flavor.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbs plain yogurt
1 cup pureed pumpkin (if you are using canned pumpkin add up to 2 TBS of milk if the puree seems very thick, it should be the consistency of the yogurt)
2 1/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour (can substitute all purpose flour)
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp cloves
1/8 tsp allspice
1/8 tsp mace
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips (or your favorite chocolate cut in to small pieces)
1/2- 1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (also optional)
1 cup rolled oats (optional- I think they are only good in the cookies if batter sits a few days in the refrigerator, giving the oats time to soften)

Pre heat the oven to 375. It is important that all the ingredients are at room temperature. Cream together the sugars and butter until light and fluffy. Slowly add the egg and vanilla and yogurt. Mix until it is completely emulsified. Sift togeher the dry ingredients and add alternating with the pumpkin then add the oats and choclate chips. Scoop into heaping tablespoon mounds on a greased cookie sheet. Bake for 12-15 minutes, when you touch the center of the cookie it should spring back. It's important not to overbake these cookies or they get dry. I like to make this batter, scoop it out onto a cookie sheet and then freeze the dough. Once frozen put all the cookies into a zip lock bag and bake just as many as you need. They will be good in the freezer for quite a while. This works well with any basic cookie dough and it's an easy way to bake something when you have a sweet tooth and it also lets you only have a few around to tempt you at a time! Nothing is better than fresh cookies warm from the oven.

Cheesecake Pops

I first have to apologize for the lack of posts lately, but our kitchen remodel has been keeping us very busy (not to mention challenged to cook post worthy items). I think if it weren't for the Daring Bakers I probably would have even fewer postings in the last month!
This month's theme was Cheesecake pops. The recipe can be found here. This recipe is an adaptation of from a book by Jill O’Connors called ”Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey.” These are a little time consuming to scoop and roll into balls, but a fun way to eat cheesecake. These are great for parties because the portioning is taken care of and I think the sticks lend themselves to creative serving ideas. In my picture I had a cup filled with rock salt, and stuck them in the salt. I always love small portions of food because I usually find myself satisfied after a few bites, and this was definitely the case with the cheesecake. It was also a nice ratio of chocolate to cheesecake. On the outside I rolled them into two different toppings. The lighter more fine coating was some leftover candied peanuts that were finely crushed and the other was Feullitinne - a somewhat speciality item, but essentially the same as a ground up sugar ice cream cone. These were a lot of fun, and the cheesecake recipe came out very creamy and subtle which makes it the perfect base for all sorts of fun toppings!

Please be checking back to my blog, as our kitchen is almost finished and I will be cooking a lot more now (and posting more items).

Carrot Cake

This is a recipe I have been developing overtime, a mix of a few recipes with a few of my own additions. This is becoming a cake served at a lot of our family functions. I think I still need to make a few tweaks before I am happy with it but it’s still good as it is! I have two different pictures posted here, one of a birthday cake that I did for my Grandma Ruth in early March, and then one recent picture taken so the inside could be seen as well.


Carrot Cake Makes 1 9-10” square or round about 1 ½ inches high

2 eggs (room temperature)

4 oz browned butter*

½ tsp vanilla

¼ cup white sugar

½ cup brown sugar

2 oz AP flour

2.25 oz whole wheat pastry flour

¼ cup almond meal (finely ground up almonds sometimes called almond flour)

1 tsp baking soda

¾ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

1 ½ tsp cinnamon

¼ tsp nutmeg

¼ tsp ground ginger

4 oz grated carrot

½ cup golden raisins

½ cup unsweetened coconut

4 oz crushed pineapple (or finely diced fresh)

* browned butter is made by melting butter slowly in a pan until you see all the milk solids turn to a dark brown color. The butter will look fairly dark and the browned bits will stick to the bottom of the pan. Be careful to not let it burn at this point. This is what is referred to as browned butter (beurre noisette). It has a great nutty flavor and aroma that works really in this cake. This can also be replaced by regular butter (using the creaming method) or oil.

Instructions:
Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a square or round pan and line it with parchment and set aside. Whisk the eggs through brown sugar together until frothy. Sift the dry ingredients (and put back all the pieces of almond meal that didn't make it through the sifter). Mix into the wet then fold in the carrots, raisins, coconut and pineapple. Bake until a skewer comes out clean and when pressed in the middle, the cake bounces back.

White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

I like this frosting because it is not too sweet, but with the addition of all the white chocolate it is so easy to work with.

9 oz white chocolate (must be good- the flavor does come through)

12 oz cream cheese – room temp

6 oz butter

1 ½ TBS lemon juice

Melt the white chocolate and mix into the cream cheese. You can do this by hand or on a mixer using the paddle attachment. Once all mixed in slowly add the butter and once mixed add the lemon juice. If you want it sweeter you can add powdered sugar to taste or also some zest (up to 1 tbs) or even vanilla.