Peaches are in season! Hooray! Peach Muffins Ingredients: 1 1/2 cups plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour 1/2 cup granulated sugar 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 cup fresh peaches (2 medium peaches, seeded), chopped (or frozen unsweetened peaches, thawed) 1 cup sour cream 1/4 cup unsalted butter (1 stick), melted 1 large egg 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract Cupcake liners (optional) Instructions: Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Lightly grease or line a 12-cup muffin tin and set aside. Sift 1 1/2 cups of the flour, the granulated sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a large bowl. In a small bowl, toss the peaches with the remaining 1 tablespoon flour. Whisk together the sour cream, butter, egg, and vanilla in a medium bowl. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, stirring quickly until just combined, being careful not to overmix. Fold in the peaches and divide the batter among the muffin cups. (The dough will be somewhat cakey.) Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the muffins comes out clean and the muffins are puffed and golden brown, about 20 minutes. Remove the muffins from the oven, let cool in the tin for five minutes, and then turn out onto a wire rack to cool. Pork Chops with Roasted Peach Sauce
Ingredients: 3 ripe peaches Butter 6 T. brown sugar 1 tsp. powdered ginger 2 T. soy sauce 1 T. garlic Cooking spray 1 T. olive oil 4 thick pork chops, boneless Pepper Instructions: Peel peaches, and cut in half to remove the pit. Place on a baking tray, hollow side up, and dot with about 1 tsp of salted butter per half. Sprinkle each half with 1 T. of brown sugar, and roast in preheated oven at 425 for about 25 minutes, or until tender throughout. Combine roasted peaches, soy sauce, and ginger in a food processor; process until smooth. Set aside. Spray a large skillet with cooking spray and heat with olive oil over medium heat. Trim all visible fat from chops, season with pepper, and brown chops. Remove chops and cover with foil. Pour peach sauce in skillet, and boil until reduced by half. Add chops, and serve.
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There's nothing like a roasted chicken Sunday dinner. This recipe is so easy, but it does require a bit of planning ahead. The chicken needs to brine for 5 hours and then sit in the fridge and crisp for at least 4 hours. Brine Ingredients: 4 quarts water and / or apple juice 6 T. kosher salt 2 T. granulated sugar 1/2 large onion, diced 1 small carrot, diced Other leftover veggies and bits 1/2 head garlic Fresh or dried herbs of your choice Chicken and Gravy Ingredients: 1 whole chicken Tarragon or oregano 1/2 stick butter Salt 1 peach 1 leek 2 springs rosemary 1 cup white wine 1 cup chicken stock Olive oil 4 T. flour 1 cup apple juice or cidar Combine all of the ingredients for the brine in a large container. Add the chicken and let it brine in the refrigerator for at least 5 hours. Remove the chicken from the brine and pat it thoroughly dry with paper towels. Combine the herbs, and butter in a small bowl. Season, to taste, with salt. Work the butter under the skin of the chicken and massage it into the breasts and the legs. Massage the butter on the outside of the skin as well. Put the peach, leek, and rosemary in a roasting pan and season with salt. Arrange the chicken on top of the veggies and refrigerate uncovered for at least 4 hours. This will help the skin dry out and become really brown and crispy. After refrigerating, the chicken is ready to go in the oven. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Put the wine and chicken stock in the bottom of the roasting pan. Slather a bit of olive oil on the chicken -- like putting suntain oil on a 70s beach babe. Roast the chicken in the preheated oven until the skin gets really nice and brown, about 30 minutes. Lower the oven heat to 350 degrees F for the remainder of the cooking time. Baste the chicken every 20 minutes or so. Cook about 12 minutes per pound. Once it gets to the proper color, tent the chicken with aluminum foil to prevent it from getting too dark. Remove the chicken from the oven when an instant-read thermometer inserted in the thickest part of the chicken registers 160 degrees F. When the chicken has reached the proper temperature, remove it from the roasting pan to a cutting board and let it rest for at least 15 minutes. Cover loosely with aluminum foil. While the chicken is resting, make the gravy. Strain all the veggies over a bowl to separate them from the stock/mixture. Discard the veggies. Skim off the fat and add it to the roasting pan. This is the fat for the roux. Put the roasting pan over 2 burners and over a low heat and whisk in the flour. Cook until the mixture looks like wet sand, about 4 to 5 minutes. Slowly whisk in the pan juices and the apple juice/cidar. Cook until the mixture has thickened and reached a gravy consistency. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Pour into a serving pitcher or bowl.
Here's link that shows how to carve a chicken: http://www.finecooking.com/articles/how-to-carve-roast-chicken.aspx Found in fridge: waning baguette, cottage cheese, jar of roasted red peppers, one sad tomato. You know, ricotta gets all the glory, but cottage cheese, drained and mashed a bit, is really the same thing when it comes to recipes. Ingredients: Half jar roasted red peppers Basil Tomatoes, grilled as here Baguette Cottage cheese Instructions:
Drain and mash your cottage cheese until it looks like ricotta. Toast your bread as you like. A lower fat option is to toast it, but I like Julia Child's way -- grill it in olive oil! Put your grilled tomatoes, red peppers and basil in a food processor and pulse it up. You just want to get it spreadable, but still have the individual ingredients show themselves. Layer your bread with cottage cheese and then tomato/basil/pepper mixture. Devour. I was delighted to receive a Sweet Dumpling squash from the garden at The BeHive. Wow -- amazing what the kiddos are growing this summer with the help of dedicated volunteers and staff. Thank you, BeHivers! This is definitely a summer squash, as the skin is easily peeled and the seeds are soft. The color is a beautiful green-peach, a bit lighter in color than a cantaloupe. See pics below. I sent 2 pies back to The BeHive kids with some fresh whipped cream so that they could reap the benefits of their garden. This pie has the consistency of pumpkin pie, but a little sweeter. Yields 2 pies Ingredients: 1 sweet dumpling squash, peeled and deseeded, steamed in chunks for 25 minutes or until tender 3 cups peeled and chopped carrots, steamed until tender 1 ¼ cup granulated sugar 4 eggs, beaten 1 T. cinnamon 1 tsp. salt 1 tsp. allspice 2 cans evaporated milk 2 unbaked pie shells -- I always use David Letterman's mother's recipe Instructions: Okay, ya gotta take your time with the pureeing and the draining of the carrots and the squash. Here's what I did: I pureed the carrots first, since they have a bit more density, then added the squash chunks a bit at a time to the carrots and continued pureeing. You can do this in a food processor, but I've had better luck with a mixer with the wire whisk -- you know, the one you use for whipped cream? After everything was PRETTY well pureed, I put the carrot/squash puree through a sieve to drain the excess moisture. This also required a lot of patience, but I was rewarded with a 1/2 cup of yummy carrot squash juice, which I mixed with apple juice for a fab-o breakfast drink. After you've drained the puree, then let it go for another spin in the mixer/processor just to get it extra smooth. Okay, hard part over! Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
Mix the sugar, beaten eggs, cinnamon, salt, allspice and evaporated milk until a uniform color. Pour into unbaked pie shells. Bake for 15 minutes on 425, then reduce the heat to 350 and bake for another 45 minutes. Let cool and set for 2 hours. Eat immediately after, or refrigerate. Zoe and I spend a GREAT weekend with Adam and the boys; Zoe is head over heels in love with her cousins Ethan and Noel. For toddler dinner on Saturday, Adam prepared a delish dinner of these cakes with a side of broccoli. He found this recipe on Weelicious, and here's the link to the recipe.
Since Zoe and I are such cheese lovers, I might experiment with a bit more cheese, perhaps parmesan. I'll let you know how the next batch with extra cheese goes. What's your favorite toddler snack? I just love cabbage, but not the usual salads made with cabbage, especially cole slaw. I found this recipe and altered it slightly. It is crisp, balanced and delicious. Give me your feedback if you try it!
Ingredients: ¼ large head red cabbage, cored and shredded 1 to 2 ounces gorgonzola or other blue cheese, crumbled ⅓ cup chopped walnuts ⅓ cup dried cranberries 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 1 tablespoon raspberry vinegar Salt and black pepper Instructions: Put the cabbage, cheese, walnuts, cranberries, oil, and vinegar in a medium bowl, and season with salt and pepper. Toss, taste and adjust the seasoning, and serve immediately. Ingredients:
3 cups all purpose flour + flour for dusting 3 tbsp olive oil 1 1/2 tsp active dry yeast 1 1/2 tsp sugar 2 tsp salt Instructions: Dissolve the sugar in 1 cup warm water and add the yeast. Let the yeast activate for about 5 minutes till the yeast froths. Mix the flour and salt together. Add the yeast mixture, oil and enough water to make a soft and pliable dough. I do this in the food processor and then do a final kneading by hand. Place the dough in an oiled bowl, cover and allow to double in volume. Punch back the risen dough and gently shape into a round. Dust the top of the bread with flour. Allow to rise. Bake at 400 F for about 30 minutes. If tapped on the top the bread will sound hollow once it is done. Cool on a rack. Almost Flourless Blood Orange Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Balsamic Marinated Strawberries4/13/2013 So my fabulous sister Beth is in town this weekend, and we visited a store in the Arboretum called Con' Olio, where I was introduced to the world of flavored olive oils and balsamic vinegars. We bought four bottles: Blood Orange Olive Oil, Basil Olive Oil, Cranberry Pear White Balsamic, and Dark Chocolate Dark Balsamic. Besides the delish dressing we made from the cranberry pear white balsamic to go with our spinach salad, we made the tremendous dessert below. I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we enjoyed making and eating it! Cake Recipe from the Con' Olio website:
Ingredients: 7 ounces 70% dark chocolate, coarsely chopped 1/2 cup (4 oz.) Agrumato Blood Orange extra-virgin olive oil** 1 cup (7 oz.) granulated cane sugar, divided 5 large eggs at room temperature, separated 2 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour 1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt Whipped cream for serving **Note: We didn't know that the small bottle of blood orange olive oil we bought was only a 1/4 cup of oil, so we just added another 1/4 cup of regular olive oil. We think it turned out perfectly balanced -- and that maybe the full 1/2 cup of blood orange olive oil would have been too much. Instructions: Preheat the oven to 350°F with the rack positioned in the middle. Line the bottom of a 9-by-3-inch round cake pan with parchment paper. Put the chocolate in a large stainless-steel bowl and melt it over simmering water. Whisk it until it is smooth. Add the olive oil, whisking in a steady stream. Whisk in 2/3 cup of the sugar, the egg yolks, then the flour and salt. Put the egg whites in the bowl of a stand mixer and beat on medium speed with the whisk attachment until they start to foam. Add about a third of the remaining 1/3 cup of sugar. Beat until the whites become opaque, then add another third of the sugar. When the whites begin to increase in volume and become firmer, add the rest of the sugar and turn the mixer speed to high. Beat until the whites form soft peaks when the whisk is lifted from the bowl. They will still look slightly wet. Fold the whites into the chocolate mixture in two additions. Pour the batter into the pan and bake until the cake is puffed and a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean or with only a few crumbs clinging to it, 35 to 40 minutes. Let the cake cool completely, still in the pan, on a rack. It will deflate as it cools. Run a table knife around the edge of the pan and invert the cake onto a serving plate. Peel off the parchment paper. Lightly dust the top of the cake with powdered sugar. Serve at room temperature, with whipped cream and the marinated strawberries. Marinated Strawberries with Chocolate Balsamic -- from our imaginations and a bit of websurfing Ingredients: 16 oz of strawberries, cleaned and halved (or quartered if they are large) 1/4 cup sugar 2 T. chocolate balsamic vinegar Instructions: Combine the sugar and balsamic vinegar, and then add the strawberries. Marinate at room temperature for at least an hour, but no more than 4. Serve with yummy cake. I don’t care for anything made with mayonnaise, except perhaps aioli. I decided to experiment with my own, mayo-free version of a chicken salad. Ingredients:
2 cooked chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized cubes 4 basil leaves ½ c vanilla yogurt –OR–½c sour cream and 3 T. honey Salt to taste 1/3 c. chopped pecans or walnuts 1/3 c. chopped dried cherries or dried cranberries Instructions: Mix all ingredients in large bowl. Make sandwich with toasted bread or bagel; add dressed salad greens if desired. The chicken-basil sausage we buy at our local Sprouts market is soooo good and we seem to always have some on hand in the freezer. From the leftover veggies from steak night, I made Zoe a petite pasta with a bit of pesto. Super easy to make, completely gone in 5 minutes!
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