Saturday, June 30, 2012

Super Easy Strawberry Rose Sorbet

Some days I just can't wait to get a blog entry posted. I don't want to lose a recipe that I just scrawled on notepaper, so I record it online for future reference (that I can't lose!) I also love sharing my new found recipe joy with others.

This is one of those recipes. I am typing as I am licking strawberry sorbet from my lips!

We came home with more than a bucketful of fresh-picked, pesticide-free strawberries that we were so eager to bite into! After a more-than-substantial afternoon strawberry snack, I was trying to decide what to make with the rest of the lovely ruby-red berries.

I found a British recipe for Strawberry Rose Sponge Cake that looks devine. I started making the sauce for the sponge when I thought it tasted awfully good and with some tweaking would make an excellent sorbet.

Yowzers! Was it ever delicious! And so, I share...

If you happen to get your hands on some local, super fresh strawberries, I totally recommend this easy sorbet recipe. Quickly prep it before dinner (all of 30 seconds!) and it will be ready by dinner's end!

Super Easy Strawberry Rose Sorbet
Serves 4 dainty portions or 2 greedy gobblers
You should be able to find rosewater at a well-stocked grocery store that has a good ethnic foods section. If you can't find it, just add some fresh squeezed lemon or orange juice instead.

2 cups small, perfectly ripe strawberries, tops removed and rinsed
4 tbsp icing sugar
1 tbsp rosewater (or fresh squeezed lemon or orange juice)

1. Place ingredients in a blender, or use hand blender, and puree until smooth.
2. Pour contents into a glass or metal cake pan. Freeze for 15 minutes. Stir with fork.
3. Continue to freeze for another 45 minutes, stirring and scraping up the sorbet every 15 minutes until it is the right consistency (about 1 hour). Or, you can process in an ice cream maker instead.
4. Spoon into bowls and serve immediately!

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Suzie's Granola

You can say I am lucky lately. Blessed again by friends who love to bake!

This week I was particularly lucky to get a container of this lovely homemade granola from Suzie.

It was still warm when I received it and it had a lovely soft and chewy texture spiked with jewels of dried fruit and crunchy nuts. It is so good that I have been rationing it. I have just a few spoons of it swirled into my morning (and sometimes afternoon!) yogurt.

I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did. I think the kids would enjoy making this- personalizing it to their unique flavours of dried fruit would be fun.

Go ahead and make the full batch- you will love it and then you can share the love...thanks Suzie!

Suzie's Homemade Granola
Suzie suggests these measurements are approximate- add more or less of what you want. She also makes a version of this with cranberries, strawberries and blueberries...use what dried fruit you can get your hands on. Make a half recipe if you must.

8-9 cups whole oats
2 cups sunflower seeds
1 cup wheat germ
1 cup wheat bran
1 cup oat bran
1 cup sesame seeds
2 cups almonds or nuts of choice
2-3 cups raisins
3 cups chopped dried fruit (she says to use whatever you want- the one I received had dried mango and cherries, dried apple, dates, dried apricots)
2 cups honey
3/4-1 cup oil

1. Have a large bowl and mix all the above ingredients together well.
2. Heat honey and oil in a saucepan. Boil until foaming and then pour onto dry mix and mix well.
3. Spread out onto 3 large cookie sheets that are greased. She bakes it at 325 degrees in a convection oven (regular oven should be about 350 degrees). At 7 minutes in, she takes them out and stirs it around and then puts them back in the oven on a different level (top to bottom, etc.) Bake 7 more minutes (or slightly more with a regular oven- you may want to do 10 minutes each time for a regular oven) until desired "doneness".
4. Take pans out of oven, let cool on pan. Break apart and store in sealed container. (Suzie suggests baking it longer if you want it crunchy...I really, really enjoyed the chewy consistency, so I recommend that!)

Monday, June 4, 2012

Oven Roasted Almonds with Fresh Herbs

The almonds in the cupboard were expired. But being me, I didn't want to throw them out. They were only slightly expired and were still in the original packaging so I decided to roast them and bring some new life to them.

I remembered reading a roasted almond recipe in Alice Waters' cookbook, The Art of Simple Food. Turns out everything in that cookbook is amazing. So of course this was no exception. The herb-infused salt on these almonds is really outstanding.

And so I share these addictive little nibbles that I can only imagine would be great with a glass of wine, an appetizer plate or as a little snack any time of day or night!

Oven Roasted Almonds with Fresh Herbs
Easy
This is only slightly amended from the original recipe. Alice calls for thyme and savory but I used thyme and parsley instead because that was what was in the garden. Try it with what you have in your herb garden, but be sure to mince the herbs.

1 1/2 tsp hot water
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 1/2 cups raw almonds
3 thyme sprigs, leaves only
1 tsp minced flat-leaf parsley
optional: 2 tsp olive oil

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Stir together hot water and salt in a small bowl until dissolved. Toss with almonds and herbs.
3. Place in cast iron skillet or baking dish and bake for approximately 15-18 minutes, tossing every 5 minutes. They taste great now! If you want to kick it up, move on to step #4.
4. Optional: Toss with up to 2 teaspoons olive oil. (This is what Alice calls for, although you can get away with a lot less if you want just a touch of flavour).