Apricot Almond Bran Muffins
June 19, 2012
Muffins can solve many problems: a hungry house full of weekend guests, a last minute snack for preschool, quick and easy breakfasts through the week (from the freezer), or as I recently found myself, with double my usual number of hungry children running underfoot. While not all muffins hold well enough to serve after they have been left to cool, these muffins are still moist and flavorful hours after they have cooled or even reheated from the freezer.
Apricot Almond Bran Muffins are adapted from a recipe in Supernatural Everyday by Heidi Swanson that I have come to love. If you are seeking a super dense. chewy style of bran muffing, this is not the one. Though this recipe is whole grain with a healthy dose of bran, the texture is incredibly light and tender. The taste of butter is unmistakable. I added apricots to take advantage of the beautiful fruit found at the market. Almonds, always a friend of the apricot, flavor the muffin and add a crunch to the top. Make these for a crowd, or just for a few and freeze the rest. They reheat beautifully.
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Cherry Rhubarb Jam (Low-Sugar)
June 13, 2012
School has been out for two weeks now, the sun is blazing, and the canning pot has reasserted its dominance on my stove top. Hello summer! Canning is usually a solitary sport for me, squeezed in the early hours of the morning or late at night when the kids have finally succumbed to sleep. While the bubbling caldron of jam is still a bit much for my youngsters, they are quite capable of helping me to process the fruit. My son found the cherry pitter to be quite a lot of fun and was thrilled when I handed him the knife to cut the cherries. Who needs summer camp when you can enlist your kids in practical life skills at home? (Of course, give me a few weeks and I may be screaming for them to go to any sort of camp that will take them!)
Cherry Rhubarb Jam is a delightful balance of sweet and tart with a rich background note of vanilla. The color is absolutely divine. This is my second attempt at this type of jam and it is an absolute hit. There is a relatively small amount of sugar added. Cherries are so naturally sweet that it is very easy to over-sweeten them. The fruit macerates for an extended time before cooking. This reduces the overall cooking time, since the fruit has already given up its juice. Shorter cooking times mean fresher tasting jam and more vibrant colors. This jam is sure to a new June tradition in our house. Absolutely delicious!
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Lebovitz’s Strawberry Frozen Yogurt
June 8, 2012
Summer, with a capital “S”, beginning with the longest day of the year, is weeks away, but thanks to our local school board, summer is in full swing here. School is out, pools are open, and that means it is time to break out the ice cream maker. My kids and I (since I teach for a living) are wholeheartedly leaping into carefree summer-mode. I am now in the business of putting smiles on their sweet little faces and nothing works better for that than some form of sweet frozen goodness.
Lebovitz’s Strawberry Frozen Yogurt made its way into our lives (and bellies) last summer. As strawberry season unfolded this year, I could not wait to make it again. David Lebovitz is a master of desserts and this frozen yogurt is no exception. The recipe starts with a full pound of perfectly ripe seasonal strawberries macerating in sugar and vodka. Once they are nice and syrupy, simply blend them with yogurt (he calls for whole milk, but I find lowfat makes it perfectly creamy) and pour into your ice cream maker. Wow, the result is frozen yogurt with an amazingly intense strawberry flavor not to mention the remarkable pink color. The yogurt has a tender yielding texture and truly tastes like strawberries. Head for the field or market, gather the most delectable strawberries you can find and make this dessert. It is sure to bring a smile to your face.
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Indian Pork, Potato, and Apple Stew
June 5, 2012
Spring may not be the typical season for stews, but they are comforting and sometimes we need a little comfort even when the sun is shining and the nights are warm. On one such pleasant evening, my family gathered around our garden table to enjoy this stew. The recipe comes from 660 Curries, by Raghavan Iyer, that a friend generously gave to me as a thank you gift. Choosing from over 600 curries is a bit of a challenge. This one stood out because it is composed of ingredients I generally have in stock (and perhaps you do too): potatoes, apples, carrots. I also happened to have a leftover grilled pork tenderloin on hand, but the recipe below calls for uncooked pork. Either works well.
Since it was a glorious spring evening, I served Indian Pork, Potato, and Apple Stew with a shredded cabbage and carrot slaw to lighten the meal. It also paired beautifully with a jar of Curried Cauliflower Pickles (which I need to make a double batch of next season, because one pint is NOT enough for our dinner table). The stew was a tasty blend of rich flavors mingling with the sweet apple and heat from the spices. This is quite a tasty stew for any season.
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Buttery Carrot Cake and Cream Cheese Frosting
May 31, 2012
I fell in love with carrot cake, when I fell in love with my husband. For years I had an exclusive (some would say dependent) relationship with chocolate. Given a choice of ice cream, cake, cookies, snacks, drinks (you get the picture), I would almost always sway towards the chocolate offering. So you can imagine the shock and ensuing protest when he suggested we serve carrot cake at our wedding. I still do not know how he convinced me, but I did give up the vision of rich chocolate cake with richer, thicker chocolate frosting willingly agreed to carrot cake. One of our marriage’s first big compromises.
Key to our agreement was that we found an absolutely fantastic bakery, The Buttery in Santa Cruz, that baked up the most luscious carrot cake imaginable. This was 10 years ago and I still remember how delicious it was! This recipe is NOT from The Buttery, I adapted it from one clipped from a newspaper years ago, but it is the next best thing. It includes the absolutely key ingredient BUTTER! Flip through a pile of carrot cake recipes and you will see how rare this ingredient is. Almost all of the carrot cake recipes in my collection call for vegetable oil, which makes a nice moist cake, but fails to deliver the distinctive buttery note that reminds me that chocolate (while a delicious intoxicant) is not the only way to celebrate an occasion. The cream cheese frosting is super creamy and just sweet and tangy enough to add a nice counterpoint to the rich cake.
This particular cake I whipped up for a very special person to celebrate her 65th birthday. Which brings me to another reason to love carrot cake… there is no need to wait for a birthday or wedding. Carrot cake is fancy enough to hold its own on these occasions, but simple enough for an afternoon snack. Really, it is full of carrots and nuts and raisins; it is practically health food!
My Pantry Shelf 