Strawberry Muffins, Crisp and Dressing, Oh My!

The Hangry Foodasaurus herself!  2012

Hangry Foodasaurus, June 2012

  

           Hangry Foodasaurus, June 2012

There is nothing better than fresh, local produce!  I love the summer and all it has to offer.  This past weekend my husband and I went strawberry-picking at Red Fire Farm in Western, MA.  For the second year in a row we have our CSA here and this was our first visit to the farm.  It was a little adventure for us to get out of the city,  plus an experiment to see how long I could last in the car (at 28 weeks pregnant).  We rented a Zipcar for the day and headed out to the Pick Your Own patch in Granby, MA.  It was so beautiful to see rolling hills, hear frogs and peepers and see barn swallows swooping over the fields.  We could hear a baseball game nearby and the fresh air and breeze were incredibly therapeutic to us.  We were so used to our surroundings as children growing up around Pittsburgh, PA and living for 6 years in Ithaca, NY where open land and nature surrounded us.  We were excited to move to a city (Cambridge in 2010) but the glamour has worn off and we really realized how much we missed the farms and fresh air!  We still love cities, but we feel like someday we need to settle in a more wooded community :)


My plan was to take it easy and not overdo it, but as soon as I got in the fields I couldn't help but get into my Yoga squat position and pick away!  8 quarts of strawberries later my fingers were berry-stained and we were happily sweaty and satisfied with our goodies.


On the way home, with the strawberry scent wafting in the breeze, I began to dream up ideas for what to do with all of our booty.  I certainly was too tired to deal with them on Saturday, so we stored them in the fridge (unwashed) in open colanders to preserve freshness as much as possible.


On Sunday I was a baking machine making strawberry wheat muffins, strawberry crisp with almond crunch topping and strawberry-poppyseed salad dressing.  Not to mention having strawberries on granola, cereal, in fruit salad drizzled with yogurt smoothie and of course, by the handful!  We also froze some to have on the ready for fruit smoothies.


For the Strawberry Crisp, I adapted the recipe from Eclectic Recipes blog http://eclecticrecipes.com/strawberry-rhubarb-crisp


I doubled the strawberries, didn't use rhubarb and lessened the brown sugar.  I also added coconut to the topping.

Hangry Foodasaurus, June 2012

The muffins were very easy.  I followed a recipe from Alida's Kitchen  almost exactly.  I used a little more yogurt and did less sugar than instructed.  I also sliced a strawberry to place on top of each muffin for a nice presentation effect.  












For a really tasty dressing, try this strawberry poppy seed dressing.  For the salad I used mixed greens, spinach, slivered almonds, raisins, strawberries, onions and kohlrabi.

Strawberry Poppy Seed Dressing

HF, June 2012

Agave nectar-small amount

2 teaspoons German mustard (any will work fine though)

1/2 tsp. salt

1/3 cup rice vinegar (or apple cider, red or white wine would be good)

2 Tablespoons Vidalia onion (red onion could work here)

8 fresh strawberries

1 T. water

3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil (vegetable or canola would be OK)

2 tsp. poppy seed

Hangry Foodasaurus, June 2012

  

Throw all ingredients in the blender and puree.  Dressings are fun because you can mix and match ingredients that you prefer.  This dressing is a really pretty pink color when finished! 


If you haven't already, please sign up to become a follower of the Hangry Foodasaurus!  I love to share my recipes and love of food, so pass it on!  Thanks :)

Colorful Salad with Golden Beets

Hangry Foodasaurus, May 2012

I am all about plating my food and making it look presentable.  Presentation is so important to me that even if I cut up apple slices with peanut butter for myself I can't help but arranging the slices in a radiating pattern with a dollop of peanut butter in the center.  I think things just taste better when you take them time to arrange them artfully.  Plus, it makes you more excited to eat it because it seems more special.

This simple and delicious salad is perfect for a light lunch or to go along with dinner.  It is particularly colorful (I love the purple/yellow combo) and even though it only has 5 ingredients it's packed with flavor.  You can have this a few days in a row if you plan ahead in advance.  It takes about one hour to roast the beets and 20 minutes to roast the onions, so take that into account.  What I like to do is roast beets and onions after dinner (or along with dinner) one night so they are ready for the next day.

You'll need:

1 bunch of organic golden beets (with stems)
1 large organic red onion
Organic mixed salad greens, arugula or baby spinach
Pepitas (pumpkin seeds)
Parmesan or Goat cheese
Salad dressing of your choice (I will give my staple dressing below)

Beets:
Remove tops and bottom root with a sharp knife.  Scrub beets thoroughly.  Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper and wrap each individual beet in foil.  Roast on 400 degrees F for about 50 minutes or until a fork can poke through with ease.  Allow to cool for about 10 minutes more before peeling and slicing.

(save the tops in a bag in your fridge and for later use--sauteed beet greens are mild and tasty.  I used mine in my quiche recipe)

Onions:
Peel and slice red onion, place on a roasting sheet with sides and drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper--notice the pattern ;)  Roast about 20 minutes on 400, or until the onions start to carmelize, but not burn. Use a spatula to turn them about halfway through.  Remove from pan and put in a bowl to cool.

Pepitas:
Toss pepitas onto a baking sheet and toast them until they are fragrant (keep checking because they burn quickly)!  I use the toaster oven but you can do this in an oven as well along with your onions and beets.  Remove from heat, toss and cool on baking sheet.

Hangry Foodasaurus Go-To Dressing:
4 teaspoons Dijon mustard
3-4 teaspoons of Cider or White vinegar
salt and pepper
Drizzle extra virgin olive oil into mix and stir vigorously until everything blends together into a golden yellow dressing.  Add more/less to taste of any of the ingredients.

If you aren't making the salad the same day, refrigerate the beets, onions and store seeds in an airtight container once cooled.

If you ARE making the salad, go ahead and plate up your washed greens, top with beet slices in a circular pattern, and display onions across the center.  Sprinkle with desired amount of goat cheese or Parmesan cheese and pepitas.  Drizzle with dressing and enjoy!  Serve with multigrain bread and some protein item of your choice.

Makes about 4 servings

Hearty Daily Granola

I honestly can't believe it's taken me this long to post one of my staple foods in the house:  granola!  I know, I know, being the "Earth People" that we are (term coined by my mother-in-law), it comes as no surprise that we eat granola every single morning with our breakfast.  And sometimes for a snack!

This winning recipe is the best because it's easy, fast and makes a large volume.  I've adapted it from a Bed & Breakfast on the San Juan Islands (off the coast of Washington State).  I haven't purposely omitted their name, I just forget!  If anyone knows the name of the B & B, please remind me and I'll give them credit!!  It's a gorgeous and rare escape only a quick ferry ride from Seattle.  In 2008, my wonderful friends Tessa and Dave were married there and part of her wedding favor for guests was this very granola!  She gave me the recipe because I loved it so much and we've been making it religiously ever since.

Hangry Foodasaurus, 2012

Here's what you need:

o   7 cups oats  (regular or steel cut or a mixture)

o   ½ cup brown sugar (you can always use a little less)

o   ½ cup olive oil (I used ¼ cup EVOO and ¼ cup coconut oil)

o   ½ tsp sea salt

Hangry Foodasaurus, 2012

o   ½ cup each of:

o   almonds

o   pecans (I omitted pecans, doubled up on other seeds/nuts)

o   walnuts

o   cashews

o   pepitas

o   sesame seeds (I omitted)

o   flax meal (I used whole flax seeds or sometimes omit altogether)

o   millet

o   oat bran

o   coconut

o   sunflower seeds

-¾ cup honey  (you can substitute maple syrup or a blend of both)

-1 T vanilla extract (I sometimes use almond extract)

-2 tsp cinnamon

You can also spruce it up by adding your favorite dried fruits or other grains!!  I tend to get the raw, unsalted and preferably organic versions of all the nuts and seeds.  Roasted nuts work too, but stick with the unsalted.

Mix everything together in a very large bowl.  Leave some clumps remaining.  Spread onto 2 large-sized flat baking sheets with sides.  Bake at 300 degrees F for 30 minutes.  I always put the racks towards the center and switch places with the two sheets on the shelves halfway through—stir at this point.  Allow to cool on baking sheets (it will continue to cook), stirring frequently until completely cooled.  Store in airtight containers in the fridge.  

Tip:  Once refrigerated it is trickier to break apart, so I always leave out the container that we're currently using and rotate through the refrigerated ones.  

Even though there's a ton, it goes quickly around our house, so I like to stock up for at least 2 batches worth when I go to the grocery store.  My favorite thing to do is top Greek yogurt with this granola and berries, mangoes or other fruit.  Also, amazing on its own with unsweetened vanilla almond milk (or your milk of choice).

Happy Crunching!

A Hangry Hiatus

I can’t believe how long it has been since my last post!  I am sorry for all of my readers who have by now, given up on the Hangry Foodasaurus.  I’d like to think I have a pretty good excuse for not writing and my hope is that once I explain what’s been holding me back, you’ll forgive me.

As some of you know I’ve just completed my 200-hour Yoga teacher training, which took place over the course of 9 intensive weekends.  We traveled from Boston to Philadelphia about once per month and Nathan and I were hosted while we were staying there by some very gracious friends in the area :).  The weekends were extremely challenging physically and mentally, but one particular weekend I was more exhausted than ever.  I could hardly keep my eyes open.   The next morning I tried drinking some coffee and for those of you who know me coffee is a must!  After the first sip I could hardly keep it down.  Hmmmm…well after putting two and two together I surmised I might be pregnant, and it turns out I am!

Of the many interesting changes that come with being pregnant I found one of the craziest to be the absence of hangriness.  No shakiness, dizziness, extreme agitation.  In fact, for the first 3 months I could hardly eat anything at all and especially couldn’t fathom touching a vegetable.  Hummus became my enemy.  The thought of salad made me gag.  I was all about reverting to my childhood:  mac and cheese, pop-tarts, frozen waffles, pierogies.  Thank goodness I am over that hump because it was starting to get a bit unhealthy.

Don’t get me wrong, I still need snacks and treats, but at least I can say I eat vegetables again.  Way back in December I started to get a hankering for scones.  I found a really good recipe from Joy of Baking, which I’ve adapted slightly.  Since then I’ve made this recipe a total of three times, each time varying the ingredients ever-so-slightly with amazing results. 

You’ll need:

• 2 cups (260 grams) all purpose flour

• 1/4 cup (50 grams) granulated white sugar

• 1 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda

• 1/4 teaspoon salt

• 1/2 cup (113 grams) (1 stick) unsalted butter, cold and cut into pieces

•  1 total cup of filling ingredients such as: chocolate chips or chunks, toasted walnuts or pecans, dried cherries or cranberries, fresh blueberries or candied ginger

• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract OR almond or lemon extract

• 1-2 teaspoons of lemon or orange zest

• 2/3 - 3/4 cup (160 - 180 ml) buttermilk (I never seem to have buttermilk so you can use regular milk and sour it by adding a tablespoon of lemon juice and allowing it to stand for 10-15 minutes)

• Turbinado sugar for sprinkling

Basically you want to pick things that sound like they’d work well together like:  Lemon-ginger, dark chocolate and dried cherries and walnuts, cranberry-orange, lemon-blueberry.

How to:

1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C) and place rack in middle of oven.

2) Grease a baking sheet with organic vegetable shortening or use parchment paper.

3) Zest orange or lemon if using zest.

4) In a small measuring cup whisk together the buttermilk (or milk and lemon juice) and extract.

5) In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

6) Cut the cold butter into small pieces and blend into the flour mixture with a pastry blender or two knives. I don’t own a pastry blender so I just ended up crumbling it with my fingers to get all the big chunks out.  (The mixture should look like coarse crumbs.)

7) Stir in the chocolate chunks, dried cherries, nuts, lemon or orange zest, etc.

8) Add wet mixture to the flour mixture. Very Important! Stir just until the dough comes together (add more buttermilk or flour as necessary). Do not over mix the dough.

9) Transfer to a lightly floured surface and knead dough gently four or five times and then pat the dough into a circle that is about 7 inches (18 cm) round and about 11/2 inches (3.75 cm) thick. At this point my dough is always on the flaky, dry side and not every bit of flour is mixed in but that is OK.

10) Cut this circle in half, then cut each half into 4 pie- shaped wedges (triangles). Place the scones on the baking sheet. Brush the tops of the scones with a little milk and sprinkle with turbinado sugar for a nice effect.

11) Bake for about 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool.

Makes 8 scones.

Dark Chocolate, Cherry, and Walnut Scone: A. Andiorio

These have been an absolute winner every time I’ve made them.  They are moist, flaky and go great with your morning coffee or tea.  They are best consumed right out of the oven, but if you somehow have any leftovers they are also good warmed up in a toaster oven.  

Birthday Times! Ice Cream and Cake and Cake!

The finished product!  Yellow Cake with Chocolate Sour Cream Frosting

Yummilicious with French vanilla ice cream

On January 3, we celebrated Nathan's 31st birthday!  Some neighbors and friends joined us and though it was bitter cold outside (8 degrees F!) we had a cozy little gathering.

If you want the recipe, it is from an awesome food blog Smitten Kitchen 

I pretty much followed the recipe exactly, except for the cake: I used wheat flour, and organic cane sugar, which created a cornbread-like effect and was very tasty.

Also for the icing what I did differently was omit espresso and used brown rice syrup instead of corn syrup.  It was sort of difficult to spread, but with some elbow-grease it all worked out nicely.

Now for the hilarious part!  So, I have never made a real, from-scratch cake.  I was hell-bent on doing a 9-inch layered cake and this recipe seemed fool-proof, or so I thought...

Cake batter prep went smoothly and looked beautiful.  I popped the pans in the oven and about halfway through baking I smelled something burning.  I ran over to the oven to discover my cakes flowing like lava out of the pans and oozing onto the oven and all over the racks!!!  I quickly slid some baking sheets under to catch the goo.  Sadly, that didn't work and the bits on the bottom caught fire and smoke was billowing out of the oven :(

Thankfully, Nathan saved the day by calmly opening the window, shutting off the oven and helping me pry burnt pieces from the oven.  He reassured me the cakes could be recovered, which I doubted but wanted to believe.

So I set about scraping the pans' edges free of batter, placing sheets under the pans and commencing with part 2 of the baking.  It worked!!!  I was thrilled!  Nathan was thrilled too because the cake kept oozing but eventually formed a nice little mold of cake around the outside of the pans which we were able to eat right away!

If I didn't tell you it happened, there was no way to tell there was a cake mishap!  The only thing I can think that went wrong is that perhaps the pans were 8-inch causing the overflow.  Or maybe my baking soda was too fresh?  I checked and the flour was definitely not self-rising.

Everyone liked it, we had a little adventure making it and I finally succeeded in making a cake from scratch.  Yay!

I'd love to hear about your baking mishaps--do share as it's way more funny after the fact ;)

Pizzelles: A Holiday Tradition

Pizzelles remind me of my childhood and kind of look like snowflakes

Pizzelle iron made in Pennsylvania close to my hometown in Southwest PA!

A tin my grandparents had given to me for the express purpose of pizzelle storage

 


















Pizzelle-making has been a tradition in my family for as long as I can remember.  My grandparents would spend countless hours preparing the batter, placing dollops of the batter onto the iron and blessing each pair with a prayer before moving onto the next.  Not only was the prayer a blessing, but it was also the perfect amount of time that the pizzelle had to stay on the iron for proper cooking time (about 30 seconds).  I remember the process being an all-day affair because we made at least 12 dozen cookies and you can only make 2 at a time!

Most Italians in our hometown made them around the holidays, but my grandparents had them available year-round.  My cousin and I would sneak into the walk-in pantry in my grandparents' cellar and pop open one of the enormous tins and have a few pizzelles every day!  They are truly addictive with their sweet crispiness and lingering subtle combination of anise, vanilla and lemon extract.

There are tons of variations in the recipes such that you can make them chocolate, vanilla, lemon with lemon zest and extract, anise with or without seeds...name your favorite flavor and it likely can be done!

In my family's recipe anise is the prominent flavor with vanilla and lemon not far behind.  By having all three extracts the anise wasn't super-overwhelming (the black licorice flavor can be a turn off for some palates).  Fact:  One of my youngest cousin's (who shall remain nameless) diet basically consisted of pizza, chocolate and pizzelles.  I am not kidding!  For a picky-eater, pizzelles remained high in his ranking!

I made a recipe of 3 dozen last week and they were gone in less than a week!  I did give some away AND we were out of town for a few days.  I swear I only ate 3 or 4...My husband only had 1!  I have no idea how they disappeared so quickly!

Since they were always readily available in my house growing up, I reached for them in times of hanger/hunger.  Pizzelles tend to bring out the Hangry Foodasaurus in the best of us so be on the lookout!

The basic recipe has flour, eggs, vegetable shortening or oil, sugar, and extracts of your choice.  No dairy, no nuts, so they are "safe" for most people with common food allergies (dairy, nuts).  Let me know if you'd like the recipe that I used last week.

Note:  The way my family passed on the recipe was by including it, hand-written in the pizzelle-iron box.

Pasta is an entirely different and extremely important tradition in my family as well, but more on that as the holiday season progresses...until then, send me your comments, feedback, thoughts!

The Fairy Tale of El Bandido

El Bandido restaurant, what a wonder you were to behold.  Located in Spring Valley, NY, this little place has everything a Hangry Foodasaurus could dream of.  We had had some recommendations from our hotel (thank you so much!), but we never expected our experience to be so, well, magical!


We arrived.  We were seated.  We observed:

Tasty Mexican cuisine...check!

Fun and colorful ambience...check!

Kind and attentive service...check!

Price...well, it seemed a little expensive but here's why it was worth it:

We all ordered margaritas and I ordered tamales and my counterparts ordered enchiladas and a burrito.  


They served us chips and salsa.  Everything seemed to be going business as usual until low and behold they brought a cheese quesadilla appetizer with guacamole to our table.  We thought to ourselves...this can't be for us we didn't order an appetizer...hmmm....we gobbled it up quickly before they could take it away!  But, we realized that everyone was getting this appetizer as a part of the meal.  Pretty fantastic!


Then the main courses arrived.  The tamales were in house-made fluffy corn shells unlike I have ever eaten before.  Everything was awesome!  We thought it was over but then they brought us dessert!  We didn't even order dessert, it just came along with the program.  I can't exactly remember the details but it was some sort of crispy, cinnamon shell with bananas and ice cream.  It was just the perfect amount of dessert that your taste buds desire after dinner.


Then the real clincher--AFTER DINNER DRINKS!  Unsolicited, tasty after-dinner dessert shots.  Unbelievable!


We honestly couldn't have predicted that any of this would unfold like it did.  They so far exceeded our expectations that it is almost sad to go to any other Mexican restaurant now because it won't be as impressive.  


In any case, it was a fun way to end a lovely weekend of celebrations and it's always good to to open to happy surprises.  

As a side note:  I promised on my other blog to list the basic recipe we used when making tomatillo salsa.  We discovered that cumin and tomatillos makes that distinct Mexican food flavor--try it!  This recipe is a simple one from allrecipes.com submitted by Kim Binning.  The only thing we changed was we sized everything down as we had less tomatillos + we added a spice blend with chile peppers + we added a small amount of an heirloom red sweet pepper instead of the serrano chile.

Ingredients

• 1 pound tomatillos, husked
• 1/2 cup finely chopped onion
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 1 serrano chile peppers, minced
• 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, or to taste
• 2 cups water

Directions

1. Place tomatillos, onion, garlic, and chile pepper into a saucepan. Season with cilantro, oregano, cumin, and salt; pour in water. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer until the tomatillos are soft, 10 to 15 minutes.
2. Using a blender, carefully puree the tomatillos and water in batches until smooth.