Wild Huckleberry Pie

My Brother's Birthday is August 1st which happens to be during huckleberry season and he LOVED huckleberry pie and every year for his birthday our mom would make him huckleberry pie. My brother will be 30 this year and I plan to surprise him with the pie mom used to make for him when he was a kid.

3/4 Cup Sugar

21/2 T. Corn Starch

1/4 t. salt

2/3 cup water

1 cup Huckleberries or any other berry that is in season

2 T. Butter

11/2 T. Lemon Juice

2 cups huckleberries

In a sauce pan bring to boil 1st 5 ingredients, cook until very thick, stirring constantly. Remove from heat.

Stir in last 3 ingredients.

Pour into cooked pie shell, chill.

Serve with whipped cream

Pavlova

Over this holiday season my sister-in-law (SIL)  and niece came to visit.  While here my SIL  made Russian salad with homemade mayo, which left me with a lot of egg white.  I found Povlova as one of the things I could make to use up the egg whites.

The kicker was, I had never had this dish before so I was unsure as to what the end product should be like.  I looked up several recipes and videos online and ultimately followed a Martha Stewart recipe and a Simply Recipes post.

I did mix the cornstarch with the sugar before adding it to the egg whites.  Once the whites where at a stiff peak I folded in a teaspoon of vanilla and a teaspoon of lemon juice.

This dish was unbelievably easy and delicious.  I think that I will try reducing the sugar from   1.5 cups to only 1 cup to reduce the sweetness a little.

Fruit Tart

Crepe Cake Layered with Blueberry Gelee and Lemon Curd

This week my baby boy is turning 8.  He was just a baby when I started this blog, I was looking for an outlet that was not all about babies.  He was a baby and his big sister was a toddler back then and I felt like all I did was change diapers, clean the house, and cook.

Actually, there was not time for much else!  Because I was already cooking I figured I could find 10 minutes every few days to set a type out a recipe that I had tried, and to log recipes because my brain was so fried I could not remember a thing.   Truth be told I never did really find 10 minutes for uninterrupted blogging, it never failed I get a few words in a I hear "MOM".  those days have passed an I can get 10 minutes without "MOM"....ooooo, never mine, BRB.

okay where was I...

Now that L is turning 8, and I am about to graduate college and set for the CPA exam, and heading back into the working outside of the home world, I find that life has taken over and the blog has been neglected (trust me I am still cooking).  Moments like this week where I make lemon curd and blueberry gelee with my boy, and then 100 crepes, and assemble all the bits and pieces together I hear the blog calling my name again.

L asked for a crepe cake with berries and lemon curd and this is what I made...

~Crepe Cake Layered with Blueberry Gelee and Lemon Curd~

Fresh Juice - Apple + Mango + Kiwi

This is the best juice I have bad with my juicer in the 10 years that I have owned it.  

2 small jonagold apples 

1 medium Mango

2 small kiwi

dash of cinnamon 

Breakfast

I love the blog Simply Breakfast and I have been taking some photos of my morning meal myself.  Here I have Vinta Crackers with brie and honeydew melon with a side of coffee.  Setting out one back deck enjoying my wonderful garden.

Peach Cobbler

Back in the day, when I started this blog one of the things in my head was I could put my Great Grandmother's peach cobbler recipe on the blog and not have to hunt for it every fall. for the last 5 years or so that I have had this blog, the weather gets cold and I am hunting for that cobbler recipe. Well no more, I am posting it here today.

4 tablespoons Butter
1 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 cup milk
3/4 cup sugar
2 cup peaches
1/2 cup sugar
Pinch of Cinnamon

slice peaches and mix with 1/2 C. sugar
Melt butter in the bottom of a baking dish
Combine flour, salt, baking powder, 3/4C sugar and milk. Beat until smooth. pour batter over melted butter in baking dish. top with sugared peaches
Bake at 375 for 40ish minutes

Week One on the Weight Program

while it is not fancy it is a good diet meal. Whole Wheat Spaghetti with ground turkey spaghetti sauce, simple salad with light balsamic dressing and balsamic strawberries.
1 small package cooked spaghetti (serving on 1 cup per person)
8 oz ground lean turkey
1 med onion
jar of your favorite low cal spaghetti sauce

1.5 cups cleaned and quartered strawberries
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

1 tomato, chopped
4 cups lettuce, chopped
1 cucumber, chopped
4 tablespoons light balsamic salad dressing

meal serves 4 (with extra pasta for the growing, hungry kids) the meal equals...lets not call them points...9 zucchinis

Mystery Fruit #4

Guanabana

not much to say, didnot like this one either. Guess I am just an up north girl who love fresh apples and pears and peaches

Mystery Fruit #3

Star fruit

Okay so there really isn't much mystery in this one, i is starfruit and I am sure most people have seen this one in the stores. However, it is one of my favorite, it is juicy with a hint of acid like an orange plus a slight pear flavor. it is just good!

Mystery Fruit #2

Pitaya or Dragon Fruit
This Dragon fruit had a tropical flavor kind of like papaya or melon with the typical musky undertone of most tropical fruits. I just cut the fruit in half and tried a few bites with a spoon. I did not care for it but once I did a little reading it appears that it is often made as a sorbet with straberries and I can see it being very good that way.

Mystery Fruit # 1

Cherimoya

About once a month something will pop up in the produce section of my local grocery store that I do not recognise or I have never tried before. I have been calling them mystery fruits and this one is one of the first that I tried. To tell the truth I find most of these mystery fruits to have a musty or musky taste kind of like musk melon or papaya which I am not a fan of. This fruit was not any different, it was sweet with a texture almost like the inside of a pumpkin with a slightly acidic musk like undertone.

Fresh Squeezed

~Orange Juice~One of our family favorites and one of the great things about living in Mexico.

Beautiful Fruit

High Fiber Friday

Mango

Today we will talk a little about Mango. I never liked Mango until I was pregnant with my son, for some reason my heart would miss a beat just at the smell of Mango, I jus tcould not get enough and when I found out that for every mango I got 4 grams of fiber I was sold. I am happy to say that the love for the fruit that I developed while pregnant has stayed with me, and I get a few every week.

Mangoes help combat cancer it boosts memory, regulates the thyroidaid and digestion and helps shield against Alzheimer's. One Mago has aproxametly 135 calories, > 1g of fat, 4mg of sodium, 323mg of potassium, 35 carbs, 3.7g fiber, 31g sugar, and 1g protein. Mango also has a lot of vitamin C and lets not forget they taste good.

Berry Birthday Cake with Beautiful Blossoms

DD had picked 2 lollipop cakes for her birthday. Cupcakes to share at school and a cake covered in lollipop flowers for on her birthday to have with family and friends. This is the Story of the lollipop flower cake.

It is so cool when you start to make a cake , get out the pans and my 4 year old daughter pops up on the chair and says "I will butter the pans", only a child that cooks can do that.

DD chose a berry cake for this cake, I am sure she was thinking that carrot cake did not sound all that good. The cake is one that is in my William-Sonoma Outdoors cookbook, and one of my favorites books, and it is called mixed berry bundt cake.

5 eggs

1 2/3 cups sugar

1 1/4 cuos unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 Tablespoons fruit Liqueur

2 1/2 cups all-pourpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

pinch of salt

1 1/2 cups raspberries

1 1/2 cups blueberries

Preheat oven to 325F. Butter and flour a 9" bundt pan.

In a large bowl, blend the eggs and sugar using an electric mixer. Add the butter and liqueur and beat until fluffy. Add all but 2 Tablespoons of the flour, the baking powder and the salt, beat until well incorporated and no lumps remain.

In a another bowl, combine the berries and the reserved 2 tablespoons of four. Toss to coat the berries evenly with the flour. Gently fold the berries into the batter.

pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake until a wooden skewer inserted comes out clean, about 60 minutes. Remove for the oven and let cool in the pan for about 30 minutes. Unmold the cake to cool completely.

I baked the cake in 2 9" cake pans instead of a bundt pan to make a layer cake.

I then frosted the cake with cream cheese frosting tinted green with cooked spinach.

2.5 sticks butter at room temperature
24 ounces cream cheese at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 cups powdered sugar
1 bunch cooked spinach that has been pureed in the.

In a large mixing bowl add the butter and cream sugar and blend until combined and light and fluffy. add the vanilla, sugar and enough spinach to give the green color you like. Mix well and set aside.

I put the cake together using Martha's directions Here using lollipops and suckers as flower blossoms.

Cranberry Pear Muffins

I used White Whole wheat instead of whole wheat pastry flour by accident so the muffins were a little wheaty; however, the wheaty flavor worked very nicely with the lemon zest.

2 Cups flour

1/2 cup Brown Sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup buttermilk

2 eggs

3 Tablespoons melted butter or oil

1 cup cranberries

1 cup pears, peeled and diced

Preheat oven to 400F and butter 12 regular muffin cups.

In a Large bowl, sift flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In another bowl, whisk together buttermilk, eggs, and oil.

Pour milk mixture into four mixture and quickly stir to make a smooth batter being careful not to over mix. fold in fruit and spoon batter into muffin cups.

Bake 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted into Muffin comes out clean. let cool in pan for 10 minutes and then turn out.

Apple Cake

1½ Cups Flour
2 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/8 tsp. allspice
1/8 tsp. Cayenne
1/2 Cup room temperature butter
1/2 cup Brown Sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
4 cups grated apples
1 cup bran (all-bran)1/2 cup pecans

preheat oven to 350F.

peel and grate the apples

In a bowl combine dry ingredients.

In a large mixing bowl beat butter and sugar until blended. Beat in eggs one at a time. Stir in apple, bran, pecans and flour mixtures

Spread batter into a 9" buttered baking pan and bake for 40 to 45 minutes.

Apple Lavender Muffins

Rose from 64 Sq Ft kitchen made Apple Rosemary Muffins that I had to try. I didn't have all of the ingredients for her muffins (such as Rosemary) so I came as close as I could. My changes are in Red.

 - 1 cup white wheat flour 

- 1 cup whole wheat flour 

- ¼ cup oat bran or wheat bran 

- 2 tsp baking powder

 - ½ tsp baking soda

- ¼ tsp salt

- 1 tsp ground cinnamon

 - 2/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar

 - 2 large eggs

 - 1 ½ cups plain yogurt or buttermilk

 - 1 tsp vanilla 

- ¼ cup unsalted butter, melted

 - 1 ¼ cups grated, peeled and grated apple (about 1 large)-see notes

 - 1 tsp lavender leaves, chopped

- ½ cup Dried Cranberries 

- 1 small apple, silvered 

- 2 tbsp granulated sugar mixed with 1 tsp ground cinnamon

 Preheat oven to 400F.   In a large bowl stir together the flours, bran, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and brown sugar. Set aside. 

Beat the eggs on low speed until blended, and then beat in the yogurt, vanilla and butter. 

Add the dry ingredients and mix on low speed just until half moistened. 

Add the apple, cranberries, and lavender and stir just until evenly distributed. Do not over mix. 

Spoon the batter into buttered muffins cups. Put a thin slice of apple on each muffin and sprinkle the cinnamon sugar evenly over the top. 

Bake for 15-18 minutes. 

Let the muffins cool in the pan on a wire rack for 2 minutes, and then turn out onto the rack. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days or freeze for up to a month. 

Notes: The muffin was a little too wet. My apples were very juicy so I think that if I squeeze the juice out or use less yogurt. The flavor was very nice not too sweet with a lot of apple flavor. Very Nice!

Raspberry Crème Brulee

I had a big container of cream for something that I was making; however, I did not use it all and had a lot of cream left over. I decided to look around in some of my food blog haunts and see what I could find to use up the cream.


I found crème berry brulée on What's for Lunch Honey?

My Creme Brulee is not as pretty as What's For Lunch Honey, but I also don't have the correct ramekins. All in all the brulee was flavorful with a nice sugar crust and the raspberries complemented the cream wonderfully.

I did make a few changes so I would  have to go to the store.

ingredients:

500g heavy cream
1 t. pure vanilla extract
5 egg yolks
60g sugar
1/3 cup raspberries
50g sugar for top sugar crust
Pour the cream in a pot and add vanilla. Gently bring the vanilla cream mixture to a boil over a low heat. Whisk frequently. When the cream starts to steam, remove from the heat.
In a mixing bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and sugar until well blended.
Temper the eggs with the hot cream and then gently mix the eggs and cream together with a spatula or wooden spoon being careful not to incorporate too much air into the mixture which will cause the custard to be bubbly.

Equally divide the berries into the bottom of the ramekins and then add the cream mixture and then chill overnight. This is an extra step, which you can skip if you are pressed for time. But Meeta recommends it as it gives best results.
Pour simmering water into the tall-sided oven-proof dish about halfway up the sides of the individual ramekins.
Bake the custard for about 35 to 45 minutes. Take out and allow to cool at room temperature, then place in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 hours.
Just before serving, sprinkle the top of each serving with a thin, even layer of sugar and brown the sugar
I caramelized the sugar with my husband's propane torch. If you are using the torch, heat the sugar with the flame until it begins to brown. Stop when it reaches a golden color. It should not get too dark. (for those of you with food torches, you know what to do).

If you would like more details on how to make this please visit Meeta's blog.