Chocolate Yogurt

A while ago I found some recipes for making different flavours of greek yogurt.  It was the chocolate that got my attention - I love chocolate.  Well I tried it, and it was alright.  I liked it, it was great while I had it, but I wasn’t going to rush out and buy greek yogurt to make more.  This may have been for a couple of reasons - I could still taste the “tang” of my yogurt, the is that I am just not used to the thicker texture of the greek yogurt.  It might be the brand I using, I am not sure, but I have found that the flavour will give me issues and I already am a texture eater.

To get to the point of all this though, I recently tried this again with our regular yogurt.  I had bought strawberries as I thought I had some greek yogurt left from a dinner I had made the week before that I wanted to use.  This seemed like a great plan with some strawberries for snacks.  However upon arriving home, the container of yogurt was not to be found - I must have used it in smoothies one morning to get rid of it, oops.  Not wanting to give up on my chocolate snack for the week, I grabbed some of my vanilla yogurt.  The result was fantastic, I love it.  It tastes like a nice dark chocolate mousse, and is light and airy.  Actually this really reminds me of a chocolate mousse.  It is like dessert.  I know that this is not as healthy as the greek version (which is still good), but I am going with it.  It is nice to know that I can make it with the yogurt I keep on hand for everything else and I don’t have to pick up anything special.  


Chocolate Yogurt.  
1 cup vanilla yogurt (I used a french vanilla, but it shouldn’t make a big difference)
2.5 tbsp coco powder

Directions: Mix the coco powder and vanilla together.  Enjoy!

Note: Use your favourite yogurt, I use Astro Original yogurt, it is nice and thick and doesn’t use any of the fake sugars.  I find it is thicker than the other brands I have tried, but not as thick as a greek yogurt.

Chocolate Greek Yogurt
1 cup greek yogurt
2-3 tbsp coco powder
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp maple syrup

Directions: Mix the ingredients together until well blended.  Enjoy.


Reviews:
I like both, but the most popular is the recipe made with vanilla yogurt.  I have also made this with vanilla greek yogurt and it also turned out as well.  A great snack for dipping fruit in or just eating with a spoon.

Lemon Blueberry Cake

I had some fruit that was around leftover from the first fruit delivery of year and I decided to try a Blueberry Buttermilk Cake.  I had some lemon curd in the fridge as well that hadn’t gotten thick enough to fill cupcakes with and decided to add it to the cake.  What I ended up with was a wonderful moist lemon cake filled with fruit.

Lemon Blueberry Cake


Ingredients:
½ cup unsalted butter, room temperature
2 tsp. lemon zest or more — zest from 1 large lemon
3/4 cup + 1 T. sugar
1 egg, room temperature
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. kosher salt
½ cup buttermilk
½ cup lemon curd
2 cups fresh blueberries

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350F and prepare a 9x9 pan by lining with parchment paper or buttering and flowering.
2. In a bowl cream together the butter and ¾ cup sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Add in the egg and vanilla, mix until well combined.
4. Mix in ½ the flour and baking powder, followed by the buttermilk.  Then add the remaining flour and baking powder.
5. Fold in the lemon curd and blueberries.
6. Pour in the prepared pan ( you may have to spread it out to the edges as it is a thick batter), and bake for 35-45 minutes.  After 20 minutes remove from the oven and sprinkle the 1 tbsp of sugar over the top before you finish cooking.  Check if the cake is done by poking a toothpick into the middle (as long as you don’t hit a blueberry it should come out clean).

Variation:
Switch out the blueberries for raspberries for a yummy twist on this cake!

Reviews:
This cake got great reviews and quite a few people thought it was better with raspberries than blueberries.  I suggest going with the fruit you prefer.  

Even O who isn’t a huge cake fan loved this cake so much he ate a ⅓ of it in a single day.  Both times I brought it to work, I didn’t have any leftovers (and I didn’t have to work too hard to get people to eat it either!).

Lesson Learned for Making Jam

I was visiting my parents when they informed me that they had a bunch of strawberries for making jam that they had picked up that day. No problem, I can handle jam - right? Well after two batches of plain strawberry I was bored and wanted to try something new. I was already putting together an apple rhubarb crisp, and apple strawberry jam sounded great. I googled a bit and came across a few recipes, but non used commercial pectin - they used the pectin already contained in the apples. Being ambitious I decided to try my hand at making jam the old fashioned way - condense the fruit enough so the pectin already there gels it. I read the directions, I measured and I started. Then I stirred, and I waited, checked the temperature, stirred and waited some more. After an hour or more I was thinking that this had to be done - it was getting really thick, but the temperature wasn’t moving! I waited some more, and the mixture of apples and berries on the stove was slowly moving toward the consistency of apple butter, not what I was going for. Upon looking at the stove, my Dad discovered the burner had been turned down. I had been keeping the mixture hot enough to evaporate the liquid but not enough to increase the heat - ooops. Upon turning the burner back up, I quickly reached the desired temperature of 220F and moved on the fill the jars with my really thick jam. The result of my mishap is a thick and delicious concoction - somewhere between a jam and fruit butter.


I am determined to get this process right, so I will be trying more jams the old fashioned way hopefully later this summer/fall. Next up is Strawberry Cherry jam.

Papaya Coconut Cupcake

I had some papaya in the fridge that I wanted to use and the oven was already on as I was baking some cinnamon buns for O’s work. What else could I do but try some cupcakes? I found a recipe on Chockylit but decided to make a couple of changes, mainly adding whole wheat flour.


Ingredients:
½ cup oil
2 large eggs
¼ cup coconut milk
1 ⅓ cup sugar
1 ⅓ cup all purpose flour
⅔ cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
½ cup shredded coconut
6 ounces of pureed papaya

Method:
1. In a bowl mix together the oil, eggs and coconut milk.
2. Add in the sugar followed by the flour and baking soda.
3. Once the flour is mixed in add the coconut and papaya and mix until just incorporated.
4. Fill cupcake cups (the batter will be a little sticky) and bake for 22 minutes at 350F. The cupcakes will be golden on top and a toothpick will come out of the cupcakes clean.
5. Allow to cool, and enjoy!

Reviews:
I enjoyed this but am hesitant to call them a cupcake. The consistency of the cake is much more like a muffin than a light and fluffy cupcake. O thought they were a little bland, but no one else seemed to have that complaint (and I blame this on my papaya - seriously, why did I think I could get a flavorful, sweet, juicy papaya in the middle of Canada in the winter?).

I topped these cupcakes with a strawberry cream cheese frosting which is the hit of the day (it really stole the thunder from the cupcakes themselves) and the recipe for that will be coming shortly.

Weekend update

So this weekend my family and I dealt with nearly 300lbs of fruit, crazy right? There were five of us on Saturday working on the fruit. The count for the weekend was:
17 cups pear jam
16 cups peach jam
7 pints of apple sauce
30lbs of apples became apple chips
28 quarts of pressed apple juice
1 apple caramel pie
1 batch peach ice cream
1 batch caramel apple pie
15 lbs of peaches sliced and frozen
6 pie crusts

Oh, and my brother and Dad made 25lbs of pepperoni sausage for pizzas! I am so excited to eat that this week.

Earlier in the week my mother had made 28 pints of canned pears as well.

It was a busy weekend for everyone, but we managed to get most of the fruit done. There is a few more pears to get canned (Mom wanted to try a recipe of ginger pears), a few peaches for a pie, apples for pies, and about 15lbs more apples to be dried.

I am working on getting some yummy fruit recipes up, so keep looking - hopefully I will get one or two tonight!

Berry White Chocolate Cookies

I had a potluck to go to and wanted something new to take. While out for breakfast with a friend I saw that the day’s muffin was a white chocolate blueberry. Naturally while eating breakfast I started mulling, something was tickling my brain. Later that afternoon it clicked that it would be a great cookie flavour, and upon some more thinking I reasoned almost any berry would go well in a white chocolate chip cookie.

The recipe search began, and I didn’t find one I liked. They all used to many flavors (I am sure they were delicious but I wanted something simple and quick) and dried fruit. So I got to work modifying a chocolate chip cookie recipe (I wanted a nice light chewy cookie base). The outcome has received great reviews, however I can not get a consensus on which fruit was better.

Berry White Chocolate Cookies (makes about 2 doz)

Ingredients:

½ cup butter (soft)
½ cup brown sugar
¼ cup white sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg
1 cup flour
½ tsp baking soda
½ cup white chocolate chips
Fresh berries (I used raspberries and frozen blueberries)

Directions:

1. Cream the butter and sugars together until fluffy. Add in the vanilla and egg, beating until well mixed.
2. Slowly add in the flour and baking powder until mixed
3. Fold in the chocolate chips.
4. Spoon cookies onto a baking pan using teaspoons. Once they are on the pan poke berries into the top of the cookie – as many as you want. For larger berries (raspberry, blackberry ect) you will want to ½ or ¼ the berry first.
5. Bake at 375F for 10-12 minutes, until the middle is set and the edges are turning a nice brown.
6. Cool on a wire rack.

Variations:
If you would like a fluffier cookie use 2 eggs and 1 1/4 cup of flour. This variation has also gotten rave reviews.

Use any berries you would like with any combination of chips that you think would be good. Raspberry with a dark chocolate may also be good. Use you imagination.

Reviews:

These cookies were a real hit, everyone seems to have liked them so far. They won’t keep long with fresh berries, but they aren’t many in the batch so them disappearing should be no problem.People just can't seem to leave them sit on a a table too long.

I am looking forward to trying out other berries in them and dried or frozen berries during the winter! (I have a feeling these cookies are going to be made a few times).

Cheesecake Filled Strawberries

We got invited to go to a friend’s house for supper in the afternoon. Now what to bring, I always bring desert – but what on earth do I have time to make with only 1.5 hours from the time I get home until supper, and I needed to stop at the grocery store. Hmmmmm. I was in the middle of the cheesecake phase after having made mini freezer cheesecakes earlier in the week, and when I saw that strawberries were on sale, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I know I have seen this someplace, but I can’t remember were, and I can’t find the post so I did my own thing.

Ingredients:
Fresh Strawberries
4 ounces (1/2 brick) of cream cheese
½ cup sugar
½ cup whipping cream

Garnish:
Graham cracker crumbs

Directions:
1. Wash and hull the strawberries, then set aside.
2. Beat the cream cheese until fluffy and smooth, then add in the sugar and continue beating until it is creamy.
3. In a separate bowl beat the whipping cream until it forms soft peaks. Fold the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture.
4. Fill a pastry bag (or Ziploc bag with the corner cut out) with the cream cheese mixture and pipe into the hollowed stawberries.
5. Touch the top of the strawberries (with the cream cheese exposed) into the graham cracker crumbs.
6. Store in the fridge until you are ready to serve.

Variation: These would be great with melted chocolate drizzled over them as well.

Reviews:
These were delicious, I couldn’t stop eating them. This is a nice light cream cheese filling that isn’t too heavy and compliments the strawberry very well. Our friends enjoyed them and we had no leftovers to take home.

Mini Pie in a Jar!

Upon looking for things to do with my peaches, I came across and interesting idea on Eating Well Anywhere for Pie in a Jar and Crisp in a jar. While the crisp in a jar looked really easy, I know that the people in my house are bigger fans of pie, so I thought I would try those. I checked out the links and liked the instructions on Lloyd and Lauren.

I immediately went on the search for the right jar – we had some of the 4 oz jars kicking around, but those were not big enough the stomachs I feed, so it was off to the store. I managed to find some nice low, widemouth 8 oz jars that don’t narrow at the neck. Perfect!

I came back the house and proceeded to put O to work pealing and slicing peaches (I figure if he is going to enjoy all the pies, he could at least help a few of the 60lbs of peaches I ended up dealing with this year). As he was busy with the peaches I made pie crust. I happened to be at my parents house while trying to do this, and of course never thought to look and see if they had lard, or what they had for recipes. They had Crisco in the house and so I simply used the recipe off box. I don’t know that I will be using it again, as it wasn’t my favourite to work with – we will see how it turns out after baking.

Then I made the pie filling:

6 cups of sliced peaches
¼ cup brown sugar
2-3 tsp Cinnamon

Mix together, and place in Pie tin.

I put the bottom crust into the each of 6 jars, then filled the jars with pie filling.


Once the filling was in, I topped each pie with a circle of crust and crimped the edges. After putting the tops on the pies (and cutting a vent) I put the lids on the jars and into the freezer they went.

To bake:
Let me the pie thaw some before putting it in the oven – if the jars go from extreme cold to extreme heat, they could shatter. Remember to take the lid off before baking.

Bake the pie at 400F for 30 to 40 mintues (I am not sure how long with is going to be, as I haven’t baked one yet). The crust should be a lovely golden colour.


Reviews:
These were fun to make and turned out really cute. I am looking forward to seeing how well they bake. Due to the rearranging of the pantry and arrival of new freezers this week, it may be a while before I actually bake one.

Apricot Orange Marmalade

My mom got a batch of apricots with her peaches this year, and since I was delivering fruit, I also go to help figure things out. The apricots turned out to be pretty ripe after the trip to the parent’s house, and so we decided to make some jam, well then mom decided marmalade would be nice. I did a little searching and came up with Apricot Orange Marmalade from Global Gourmet.

I have reposted here with a couple of notes:

3 pounds apricots
2 tablespoons finely chopped orange zest (we used the zest from 2 large oranges)
1 cup orange sections (This was the two oranges we zested, the large segments breakdown during the cooking)
2/3 cup fresh orange juice
2 cups granulated sugar
3 half-pint jars and matching lids (use new lids only)

Pit and quarter the apricots. There should be approximately 9 cups. In a 12-inch skillet or sauté pan, combine the apricots, zest, orange sections, juice and sugar. Allow to stand for 1 hour at room temperature. ( I had it covered at this point, but that was mostly to keep out any flies that were roaming around. I don’t know if it made any difference to the end product)

Cook the mixture over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, for 1-1/2 hours, or until mixture looks glazed and clear liquid is no longer visible. Continue cooking, stirring constantly, for another 30 minutes until the marmalade is thick. (I ended up cooking mine for a 3.5 to 4 hours before it was a consistency that I liked)

Sterilize the jars by washing and rinsing them in the dishwasher without detergent; keep them warm in a 250 degree-F oven. Pour boiling water over the lids to soften the rubber seals.

Ladle the hot marmalade into the hot jars, filling to within 1/2 inch of the top. Wipe the rims and seal with the hot lids and metal bands. Place the jars on a rack, without touching, in a large, deep pot with water to cover by 1 inch. Cover and boil for 15 minutes. Use tongs to remove the jars to a cooling rack and allow to cool to room temperature. Check the seals. The jars are sealed when the center of the lid is slightly indented and cannot be pressed in with a fingertip.

Makes 3 half-pints ( I actually got closer to 5 half pint jars)

Fresh Cherry Cobbler

Alright, so I had still more cherries left in my fridge, they were getting to point that they absolutely had to be used in the next day or so, and I was at the point were my stomach was letting me that under no circumstance should I be eating even a quarter of the amount left. So, what do I do with all these cherries? That is right – I bake something, that way the hubs will consume it or share with the boys at work, and I no longer have to worry about it.

I did some googling and came across bakin’ and eggs, and a yummy looking recipe for Fresh Cherry Cobbler.

Filling:

5 cups Bing cherries, pitted

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup water

4-5 teaspoons cornstarch

Topping:

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup sugar

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

3 tablespoons cold butter

1 egg, lightly beaten

3 tablespoons milk

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Butter a 2 quart baking pan
In a saucepan over medium-high heat mix together the filling ingredients and cook until bubbling and thickened – about 10 minutes, stiring frequently. (Start with 3 teaspoons of cornstarch and add more if the mixture is not thickening – remember it will thicken a little more when it cooks in the oven and when it cools).
Pour filling into the prepared baking pan.
While the filing is cooking mix together the flour, sugar, baking poweder and cinnamon in a new bowl. Cut in the butter until the mixture become crummy (not bad, just looks like crums).
In another bowl combine the egg and milk. Then stir the mix into the flour mixture until just combined.
Top cherry filling with tablespoons of dough. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until topping is golden in color.
Serve with ice cream.


Reviews:
Hubs and his friends enjoyed it. I don’t know if cherry cobbler isn’t the hubs favorite or if he has been overwhelmed by all the fruit and new things in the house lately, but it actually lasted for more than a day! He says it was great, so I am going with he has to much food going on in the house.

Freezing Blueberries, Rhubarb and Zucchini

Alright, this is pretty simple, but I was putting everything else up, so why not this as well?

I have done this for years and it works really well. The pre-measured bags are really handy, when I want to bake something, I pull out the bag with the correct amount and allow it to thaw as I am getting everything else ready and started. I have been doing this long enough that I know what amounts I need for my favourite recipes to do the pre-measured bags, but I have found that 2 cups is usually pretty standard.

Blueberries:
1. wash the blueberries and pick out any "bad" berries.
2. Lay in a single layer on a pan/cookie sheet and put in the freezer until the berries are frozen and firm.
3. Measure out and place in freezer bags. Remove the air from the bags, seal and label before placing back into the freezer.

I did bags of 4-5 cups (pie, cobbler, crisp), and 2 cups (muffins, breads, snacks)

Rhubarb:
1. Wash the sticks of rhubarb and chop into small chunks.
2. Measure out the desired amounts and place in freezer bags. Remove the air from the bags, seal, label and freeze.

For this I usually do bags of 4-5 cups (crisp) and 2 cups ( mixed crisps, muffins)

Zucchini:
We always have tons of zucchini from the garden and we do this every year. We usually let the zucchinis get pretty big (half the time because we forget to check for them).

This sight has great pictures for the steps (which I of course forgot to take), so check it out.

1. Peal the zucchini (I know not all people do this but I don't like the dark green flecks in my baking). I then cut the zucchini in half and remove the seeds with a spoon.
2. Grate the zucchini with a cheese grater.
3. Measure out desired amounts of the grated zucchini, and place in freezer bag. Remove the air from the freezer bag, label and place in the freezer.

I have found that most of the bread recipes call for 2 cups, so I do lots of 2 cups bags, and the occasional 1 cup bag (incase I stumble upon a smaller recipe I want to try or I want to half something I am making.) The bags of zucchini are also great to thaw and add to lasagna or casseroles.

Busy Weekend

This weekend I went to my parent's house, accompanied by my Friend Iza and about 60lbs of fruit. Iza and I spent a few days making jam and various other fruit products resulting in a cooler full of various forms of frozen fruit and over 40 jars.


Somehow in there we also found time to eat some of what we had made along with some fantastic food on the BBQ, much of it straight from my parent's large garden. There was also some time for play, Iza had fun photographing the dogs and cows.



The final products from the weekend are:
Peach Jam
Apricot Jam
Black Forest Preserves
Peach Salsa
Peach Chiptole BBQ sauce
Frozen Peach Pie Filling
Frozen Apricot Pie Filling
Frozen Cherries
Frozen Blueberries
Frozen Pre-measured shredded Zucchini
Frozen Rhubarb

The rest of the canning from the days before leaving was Cherry Jelly and Blueberry Jelly.

I will be posting recipes and reviews over the next few days as I get time to photograph, type and try all the creations.