Fruit Dip

Strawberry Recipe #4 

(well not really a strawberry recipe but delicious with strawberries)

This is the simplest but and most delicious fruit dip!  It goes amazing with any kind of fruit.  I especially like this dip with cut up apples.  But of course amazing with Strawberries too!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup cream cheese ( any kind, whipped, lite etc)

1/3 cup plain greek yogurt

1/3 cup brown sugar

Preparation:

In a medium bowl combine all ingredients and blend well with a hand mixer.  I like to use my whisk attachment on my hand beater to whip it up nice and light and fluffy.  Pour into a bowl and enjoy immediately or cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate.

Strawberry Salsa

Strawberry recipe #3

This is the perfect summertime recipe and a great way to use up all those strawberries.  The most perfect combination of all things delicious!  Serve with cinnamon chips.  You can make your own or buy the store bought kind both will be delicious with this salsa.

Ingredients:

Salsa

2 lbs of fresh strawberries, diced

Zest from 1 lime

1 Tablespoon of mint, chopped

1 Teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 Tablespoons strawberry jam

1/2 teaspoon fresh cracked black pepper

Cinnamon Tortilla Chips

6 small flour tortillas cut into 1/8ths

1/2 cup of granulated sugar

2 Teaspoons ground cinnamon

A little canola oil

Preparation:

For salsa combine all ingredients in a bowl and toss to combine.  I found it was easy to mix the jam in when it was warmed first in the microwave to make it a bit looser.

For cinnamon chips.  In a small bowl mix together sugar and cinnamon, set aside.  Next, using a pizza wheel or a sharp knife cut tortillas into 1/8ths.  Lay all the tortilla triangles on a piece of parchment paper and brush with oil.  Sprinkle generously with cinnamon sugar and bake in a 350 F degree oven until golden brown, about 6-8 minutes.

Strawberry Hand Pies

Here's Strawberry recipe #2.  My kids are obsessed with Empanadas both sweet and savory so I was excited to make this Hand Pie recipe!  This sweet version is perfect and easy to make.  Another great dough that you can fill with any filling you like.  We also made chocolate hazelnut hand pies too with the left over dough.  YUM!

Ingredients:

Dough:

1/2 cup butter, softened

4 oz cream cheese, softened

1 cup all purpose flour

Filling:

1 cup chopped strawberries

1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Zest of half a lemon

2 Tbsp cornstarch

Finishing:

1 egg, beaten for egg wash

Preparation:

Cream butter and cream cheese together until light and fluffy.  Add in flour and mix just until dough comes together.  Place dough in plastic wrap and chill for 30-60 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350. Place parchment paper on a pan and set aside.  On a floured or powdered sugared surface, knead the dough a couple of times until it is a nice round ball. Then, roll dough into a circle with a rolling pin, about 1/4" thick.  Cut circles using a large round cookie cutter about 2 1/2 to 3".  Place each circle on the parchment paper prepared pan.  You will need to re-roll the dough a few times until it's all used up.  You may want to refrigerate in between if it gets too soft.

In a small bowl, gently combine chopped strawberries, sugar, vanilla, lemon zest, and cornstarch.

Fill each pie round with 1 tablespoon of filling, don't over stuff.  Take one side of the dough and pull it over the filling. Use a fork to crimp the edges together and poke an air hole at the top of each pie.  Brush each pie with eggwash. Sprinkle with white sugar (optional). Bake for 30-35 minutes or until pie is golden brown.

Strawberry Cream Cheese Bread

I have a lot of Strawberry recipes heading your way!  I bought a huge 5lb container of strawberries and they were not as good as they looked for just eating by themselves but perfect to bake with!  Here is the first of many Strawberry recipes!  This Strawberry Cream Cheese bread is amazing.   It a very light but moist texture and it isn't overly sweet!  You can add really any berry that you like but I love it with strawberries.   Very easy to make all in one bowl!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter, softened
4 oz cream cheese, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup buttermilk ( I used 2 teaspoons of lemon juice and 1/2 cup of lowfat milk - combine and let stand for a few minutes)
1 1/2 cups strawberries, diced

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Grease and flour a 9×5 inch loaf pan.  Cream together butter, cream cheese and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla and combine well.  Mix in one at a time baking powder, baking soda and salt. Next add flour one cup at a time until batter if fully mixed and smooth.  Last add in the buttermilk and stir until combined.  Carefully fold in strawberries.  Pour batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake for about 50 minutes.  The inside should be set (not jiggly) and the top golden brown.

Classic Crepes

Homemade Pancakes is my go to quick easy weekend breakfast for my kids.  I've been wanting to try to make crepes for awhile now so I finally gave it a shot.  What a huge hit these were.  I love how you can serve them so many different ways.  The kids can choose to spread on some Nutella or jam or eat them plain (which is my favorite way) They are sooo good they really don't need also on top.  I love it with fresh berries and a little powdered sugar!

Ingredients:

2 eggs

1 cup milk

1 cup flour

1 tablespoon melted butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon sugar

1 pinch of salt

Preparation:

Mix all ingredients in a blender until batter is well combined and smooth.  Heat a 10" non-stick skillet or a crepe pan if you have one.  Melt a teaspoon of butter in the bottom of the pan and pour a 1/4 cup of the crepe mixture in the bottom of the pan swirling it around so it reaches the edges of the pan evenly.  Let sit for about 30-45 second before loosening the edges with a spatula and then using your finger tips or the spatula flip the crepe over to cook for another 30 seconds on the other side.  No need to add anymore butter to the pan.  Keep going with more crepes stacking them on top of each other until the batter is finished.   I serve these simply by folding them in quarters, sprinkling with powdered sugar and adding fresh berries.  You can also add jam, hazelnut spread, syrup of whatever you would like! 

Blueberry Crumb Bars

I just made these today when I noticed a full pint of blueberries untouched in my refrigerator.   Wow these are good!  Sweet and tart all in the same bite!  The addition of the Greek yogurt in the filling is perfect to cut the sweetness of all the sugar in the crust.  These were delicious straight out of the oven or once they are cooled!  You can also substitute any berry that you prefer as well as mixing all the leftover berries together! I will have to try that next time.

Ingredients:

Bottom Crust and Crumble Topping:

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup sugar

Pinch of salt

3/4 cup cold butter, cubed

Filling:

2 eggs

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup flour

1/2 cup non-fat greek yogurt

Pinch of salt

2 1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries

Preparation:

Spray a 9x13 baking dish with non-stick cooking spray and Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large bowl combine all crust ingredients (flour, sugar, salt and cubed butter).  Using a hand mixer blend ingredients until the mixture looks like coarse sand.  It should be crumbly not smooth.  Remove 1 cup of the crust mixture and set aside to use as the topping.  Take the remaining crumb mixture and press into the prepared 9x13 baking dish covering the bottom.  Bake the crust in your preheated oven for 10-12 minutes until the crust is firm but should not be brown.

While the crust is baking prepare the filling.  In a bowl whisk the eggs and hen add the sugar, greek yogurt, flour and salt.

When the crust is ready pour the blueberry filling over the top of the hot crust and then take your remaining cup of the crust mixture and sprinkle over the top of the filling.  Bake for 60 min until the top is slightly browned.  Wait about 20 minutes and slice into squares.  Or if you do not have the patience serve by the spoonful hot over ice cream! YUMMY!

Light Whipped Fruit Mousse Parfait

HAPPY LABOR DAY!

This recipe is an oldie but a goodie.  We used to always make this as a pie with a low fat graham cracker crust.  Now with so many of us not eating carbs we have adapted this family favorite to a yummy, refreshing mousse parfait.  This is great for a BBQ dessert or to serve at a Brunch in the summertime.  I've also served the mousse in a large bowl with graham crackers for dipping for those who want to have some carbs ;)

Ingredients:

1 box sugar free strawberry Jello (or any other flavor you like)

2 containers of light strawberry yogurt (or any flavor to match your Jello choice)

1 tub of light cool whip, defrosted in the refrigerator

1/4 cup water, boiling

Preparation:

Dissolve Jello with 1/4 cup of boiling water.  In a large bowl add the yogurt and the dissolved Jello and mix to combine.  Once combined, add the entire tub of cool whip and fold in until thoroughly incorporated.   Assemble into a parfait by alternating whipped cream with each layer of fruit mouse. Top with fresh fruit and then refrigerate for at least 4-6 hours but I prefer overnight.  Serve cold. 

Make other flavors if you want to have a colorful, multi layered parfait.  For this parfait we used strawberry and orange/peach - Great combination!

Orange/Peach: Orange Jello and Peach yogurt

Lime: Lime Jello and Key Lime yogurt

Lemon: Lemon Jello and Lemon yogurt

Raspberry: Raspberry Jello and Raspberry yogurt

Really the flavor combinations are endless!

Apple Fig Fruit Leather

My fig tree seem to produce about 10 ripe figs every few days so this is perfect for my blogging needs LOL.  Most recipes call for 8-12 figs and you have to use them within a day or so or they will go bad so this has been working well for me.  This recipe for fruit leather I have always wanted to try and it was soooo super easy and really delicious.  My kids ate it all in a matter of minutes.  One batch really didn't yield very much so next time I will have to double or triple the recipe so I have more to store for a few days.  Also next time I will dry the fruit leather on parchment paper so I can cut it up including the paper and roll it up so it won't stick on itself when it's stored.   I can't wait to try other fruit versions of this, so great and no added sugar (honestly with the figs I didn't even really need the honey at all).  You can find the original recipe at Mama.Papa.Bubba

 

Ingredients:

10 ripe figs, washed and halved
2 apples, cored and peeled
1 cup of water
1 tablespoon honey

Preparation:

Preheat oven to the lowest setting.  Mine oven only goes down to 170 degrees F but 125 degrees F would be better.   Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper (paper should cover all edges of the pan) or you could cover the entire pan including edges with foil an then place a silpat liner on top of the foil. 

Place figs, apples and water in a covered pot and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer fruit, covered for about 30 minutes, or until very soft and water is absorbed.  Pour everything into a food processor or good blender and purée until smooth.  Pour fruit mixture out onto parchment-lined baking sheet and use the back of a spatula to spread the fruit purée out so it covers the entire base of the pan. Shake the pan make the purée as even as possible.  The edges tend to be much thinner and will dry out fast than the middle if you don't get it spread out evenly to the edges.
Put pan in the oven for approximately 8 hours if on 125 degrees F.  I set mine for 7 hours and check since my oven temp is higher and it only actually took 6 hours at 170 degrees F so definitely check yours around 5 1/2 hours. 

You want to remove the fruit leather from the oven when it’s still sticky to the touch, but not at all wet.  You may find that part of your fruit leather will be done earlier than the rest.  In this case,  you’ll need to remove the fruit leather from the oven, cut off the finished part, and return the still wet to the touch part to the oven for another hour or two.  It's done when the leather will peel easily off of the liner and the bottom side will be shiny.

When finished, simply remove the large sheet of fruit leather from the baking sheet, cut of the excess parchment paper around the edges, and cut directly through both the remaining parchment and fruit leather to create strips.  Roll strips and store in an air-tight container.
Enjoy!

Quick and Easy Fig Preserves

 

I absolutely love fig jam and preserves served with cheese, so delicious.   So when I picked a few more figs this morning this was the first thing I wanted to make.  Not sure if this technically classifies as jam or preserves because there is no pectin in this recipe but it's sweet and thick and perfect to spread on toast so in my book it's close enough :)  It definitely won't have the shelf life of the preserves that you buy in the store so make it just a day or so ahead of the time you want to use it.

 

Ingredients:

 

1 cup fresh figs, diced

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup water

1 teaspoon pure vanilla

Juice from 1/2 a lemon

 

Preparation:

 

In a small saucepan combine all ingredients.  Cook over medium heat until thickened, about 10 minutes.  Use an immersion blender directly in hot pan to puree the fig mixture into a smoother (but not completely smooth) consistency.  Pour into a small bowl and refrigerate until completely cool. 

Thanksgiving 101 - Edible Turkey Center Piece

This is a great idea that I got from my friend Maria.  She made it last year for Thanksgiving and posted a picture on Facebook and I knew it would be a big hit at the kids table for Thanksgiving.  The only change I made was to replace the cheese cubes with pineapple chunks since we always have a kosher Thanksgiving dinner and we can't serve cheese with a meat meal.  The kids LOVED this.  They sat at the table and started eating it as their "appetizer".

Ingredients:

1 small round watermelon

1 bunch of red grapes

2 cans of pineapple chunks

1 bosc pear

2 mini marshmallows

1 slice of red bell pepper

1 slice of yellow or orange bell pepper

long skewers

tooth picks

Preparation:

Begin by placing the watermelon in a small bowl so it won't roll around.  Attach pear to the front of watermelon by using a few tooth picks.  Stick tooth picks halfway into watermelon and then push the pear onto the toothpicks to hold it in place.  Attach the marshmellow eyes using one toothpick per eye.  Next cut the red pepper into a "gobbler" shape and attach to side of pear with a toothpick.  Do the same with the yellow or orange pepper for the turkey's beak.  Prepare the "feathers" by alternating between grapes and pineapple about 2/3 of the length of a skewer.  I made all the fruit skewers in advance and kept them on a covered sheet pan with foil in the refrigerator to stay cold until just before all the family arrived.  About 15 minutes before I placed all the fruit skewers into the top and back of the watermelon to look like feathers.