It's all about the recipe. Really, it is! I have amassed quite a collection of recipes from my favorite cookbooks and food magazines, and now, because of all the foodie blogs out there, I am adding more every day! I test every recipe I post. Some I've been cooking for years, decades even, others I have cooked just once or twice. I don't post mediocre recipes. I don't post good recipes. I post GREAT recipes, recipes that I LOVE. When I find a recipe like that, I can't wait to share it! And the only thing better than sharing a recipe is hearing that someone else tried it and is as excited about it as I am :) Please, try something! Then let me know if you love it as much as I do! Or even why you don't... Either way, I'd love to hear from you!
I’m STILL immobile, thanks to this *&#$%! broken ankle (and still MAD about it, can you tell?), and my 19 year olds are cooking for me. Fortunately I have had plenty of time to cruise the food blogs (so there HAS been some good in this predicament). I found this recipe on Culinary Covers (from the cover of Everyday Food, June 2010)… Perfect! Three ingredients, with a bit of salt and pepper, then quickly grilled on a skewer! So it’s a fun-to-make recipe, too! My son used store-bought marmalade, but perhaps next time I’ll have him make my microwave marmalade recipe, too. He served this on a bed of white rice (all he knows how to make right now), but any kind of grain would work. Green beans or any other veg would have been nice on the side–but he was in a hurry to see a movie! The 19 year olds who came over to pick him up were very impressed with his culinary skills. I wish all nineteen year olds knew how easy it is to cook impressive food…
Note to parents of 19 year olds moving into their first apartment: add a Hibachi to that growing list of “nice-to-have” items.
Grilled Orange Glazed Shrimp
32 large-sized shrimp (with tails on)
salt and pepper, to taste
1/2 cup orange marmalade
1 tablespoon grainy Dijon mustard
8 wooden or metal skewers
If using wooden skewers, soak in cold water for at least 30 minutes. Drain before using, and freeze leftover drained skewers for next time. Place 4 shrimp onto each of the 8 skewers (or 2 shrimp onto 16 skewers if serving as appetizers). Season shrimp with salt and pepper, to taste (use red pepper if you are into the sweet-spicy thing). In a small bowl, stir together orange marmalade and mustard. Brush glaze on all sides of the shrimp. Grill shrimp on a preheated, oiled grill for 2 minutes, flip, brush on more sauce, grill for 2 more minutes. Brush any remaining sauce on shrimp. Serve immediately.
Paula Deen disappointed me with her Orange Cake, but NOT with her Orange Sherbet. This is one of those “Philadelphia-Style” ice creams that I am so crazy about. There’s no custard to make and no eggy taste to the resulting ice cream. The directions called for whole milk and whipping cream, but I used whole milk and half and half. If you don’t mind a not-so-creamy texture to your ice cream, you too can reduce the fat content by using one or two steps down in the type of dairy called for in the recipe, using half-and-half plus low fat milk, perhaps? Since this ice cream also has some orange juice in it, it is automatically lower in fat than many other ice creams out there! BUT, you can be sure the taste is still GREAT, or I wouldn’t be posting this recipe. This sherbet has a strong orange taste, but not overpoweringly so, it’s like the taste of a really good mushed up 50/50 bar! (Reducing the fat content of the dairy, making the sherbet icier, will only intensify the similarity). In fact, [light blub goes off!] this sherbet should probably be called “Smashed 50/50 Bar Sherbet”!
1 1/2 cups orange juice
grated zest of one orange
3/4 cup sugar
2 T. freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 teaspoon orange extract (use vanilla extract if you don’t have orange)
1 1/2 cups whole milk (or 2%, 1%, or non-fat… every step down in fat content will affect the texture and creaminess/iciness of the sherbet)
1 cup whipping cream (or half-and-half)
In a large bowl combine orange juice, zest, sugar, lemon juice, and extract. Stir until sugar is dissolved (2-3 minutes). Stir in milk and cream. Cover and chill for 2-4 hours (or overnight). Pour chilled mixture into container of an electric ice cream maker. Freeze until slushy. Remove mixture to an airtight container and freeze until firm (about 2 hours).
Bon Appetit is my favorite food magazine. Every month there is one spectacular recipe after another. This month’s issue was no exception. For some reason, this cake was classified as a coffeecake. Very odd. This is a recipe for a very nice dessert cake. It’s not a big gooey layer cake with a lot of frosting. It’s a one layer cake rich with coconut, bittersweet chocolate chunks, the grated peel of a whole orange, and a coconut drizzle. (If you have the magazine, see pages 84, 85, and 91.) Love it! My five testers all gave it a thumbs up, too. There’s no doubt that I will be making this again.
Coconut Cake with Chocolate Chunks and Orange Zest
For Cake
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup shredded coconut
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 teaspoons finely grated orange peel (peel from one orange)
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (or coconut extract)
1 cup canned unsweetened coconut milk
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate (use bars and break into 1/2-inch irregular pieces), divided use
extra 1/2 cup shredded coconut for topping
For Coconut Drizzle:
3/4 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons (or more) canned unsweetened coconut milk
1/2 teaspoon coconut extract
Cake:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Generously butter 9-inch cake pan with 2-inch-high sides. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt into medium bowl. Stir in shredded coconut and set aside. Using electric mixer, beat sugar, butter, and orange peel in large bowl until light and fluffy. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla or coconut extract. Add 1/3 flour mixture, beat until blended, then ½ coconut milk, then 1/3 flour, then ½ coconut milk, then last 1/3 flour mixture, beating just until blended after each addition. To make the chocolate chunks, leave the chocolate in wrappers and bang with a meat mallet. Fold 4 oz of bittersweet chocolate pieces (one entire bar) into batter. Spread batter evenly in prepared cake pan. Sprinkle remaining chocolate pieces (1/2 bar) over batter, then sprinkle with an additional ½ cup coconut. Bake cake until golden and tester inserted into center comes out clean, tenting with sheet of foil if coconut atop cake is browning too quickly, 60 to 70 minutes. Transfer cake to rack and cool in pan 45 minutes.
Coconut Drizzle
Whisk powdered sugar, 2 tablespoons coconut milk, and coconut extract in small bowl to blend well, adding more coconut milk by 1/2 teaspoonfuls until mixture is thin enough to drizzle over cake. Remove cake from pan and drizzle with glaze. Do not over drizzle. Cool cake completely on platter. Cake can be made up to 1 day ahead. Cover cake and let stand at room temperature.
I’m pretty sure I was one of the first people ever to taste a smoothie. There was a smoothie man on campus at San Diego State University in 1976. He had a blender, fresh pineapple, fresh bananas, and a bunch of fruit juices. Every smoothie consisted of a large slice of fresh pineapple, half a banana, ice, and juice. The juice determined the flavor of the smoothie. They smelled divine, tasted divine and the memories lasted…
I’ve been making smoothies at home for a long, long time. Probably since 1977. I have spent 33 years perfecting this recipe…, it’s GREAT, better than the smoothie man’s, and it’s simple. Even I have this one memorized: 3 cups of frozen fruit, 2 cups of juice, and 1 cup of yogurt with an optional squirt of honey or spoonful of jam. (I use honey or jam only if the yogurt is plain and the fruit tart–usually the sweetening is not needed.) The recipe makes 4 cups of smoothie goodness. Enough for a 2, 3, or 4 people for breakfast. Just making one for yourself? Get out the blender (you don’t even have to measure)… Pour in one to one-and-a-half cups of frozen fruit, 3/4 to 1 cup of juice, and a small container of yogurt. Whirl on high for about a minute. Done. What a way to start a summer day!!!
I like using the frozen fruit because then there’s no need to use ice–which dilutes the intensity and the goodness of the smoothie. Now don’t be using packaged frozen fruit this time of year. I know you want to buy all those fresh berries from the market. Go ahead! Freeze the leftovers. When the strawberries get a bit past their prime…, rinse, pull the stem off, freeze. Same with peaches nectarines, apricots, plums, and bananas. No need to peel them. Just wash, slice, and bag. Leftover fresh pineapple? mango? Slice, freeze, and bag along with some blueberries, raspberries and blackberries. (OK…,it’s best to ‘open freeze’ the fruit first. Place the sliced fruit on a tray, freeze as is, then remove to a Ziploc bag. If you freeze wet fruit it tends to freeze into a solid ball. Starting out the morning with a cleaver and a ball of frozen fruit can be frustrating…). By the end of the summer you will have a wide variety of frozen fresh fruit for your smoothies and think how great you’ll feel having had a few healthy servings of fruit each day for breakfast.
I made our first smoothies of the season yesterday. Frozen strawberries (all the frozen fruit we had, usually I have more of a variety), orange-mango juice, plain yogurt, and a squirt of honey.One for me, one for my nineteen year old son and his friend, and one for my eighteen month old grandson. My son, texting away, drank a third of his and said, “Can you make more of these?” I said, “Sure. Are you that hungry”. He said, “Yeah, I’ll have another one…, but my friends are driving by and they want to stop by and have one. I told them how good they were.”!
Tonight for dinner my grandson and I had smoothies made out of frozen strawberries and raspberries, orange juice, and blueberry yogurt. Delicious (even though the picture is one of the worst pictures I’ve ever posted). My son’s favorite is frozen peaches, peach yogurt, and any kind of juice. I like to jazz his up with some frozen raspberries or raspberry yogurt. My daughter likes a citrus smoothie–frozen pineapple, sometimes with some mango and banana, lemon or plain yogurt and grapefruit juice, orange juice, or lemonade. I like frozen raspberries and blueberries, plain or berry yogurt, and any kind of juice…, but orange-passion fruit is to die for…
Let me know your favorite flavor combination! Enjoy!
Polly’s 3-2-1 Smoothies
3 cups of frozen fruit
2 cups of fruit juice (start with orange…then experiment)
1 cup of yogurt (any kind)
optional squirt of honey or spoonful of jam
Put frozen fruit in blender. Cover with juice. Add in yogurt. Blend until thick and frosty. Add in a squirt of honey or jam, if desired. Whirl again to blend. Makes four cups of smoothie goodness. Pour into 2, 3, or 4 glasses. Add a straw…, and maybe a squirt of whipped cream. Serve. YUM!
