Say Sangria!

It's an Italian Sunday dinner at my house tonight--and since we're relaxing after a long week, that means take-out from Metro Pizza. You can pick up a Ranch Chicken Salad, a Baked Ziti pasta, or even a Flying Piggle pizza of BBQ pork and butter pickles (check out their enticing menu), but you just can't take home their Sangria. So I thought for tonight, and for my mom especially, I'd make my own.

I remembered a recent e-mail received from another restaurant--Mimi's Cafe--ever since I joined their eClub. In the message, their Chef Adam offered summer party tips including a recipe for Sangria that provides a whole serving of fruit in the dish! Healthy fruit + red wine + just a bit of sweetness sounded like a winner in my book.

To put my own twist on it, I used a 2007 Beaujolais-Villages red wine we had around the house instead of their suggested Pinot Noir (I know nothing about wine, but mine looked nice), and a glass bottle of Sprite from Mexico (since they use sugar cane to sweeten their soda instead of the processed High Fructose Corn Syrup). I also didn't cut my fruit slices in half, preferring the look of whole orange, lemon, and lime circles in my pitcher for presentation.

All the ingredients you need!

 
The resulting recipe for Sangria emerged:

Ingredients:

1 bottle red wine
2 Tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup lemonade
1/2 cup orange juice
1 bottle (8.45 oz.) sparkling water (I used San Pellegrino)
1 bottle (12 oz.) Sprite
2 oranges, sliced
1 lemon, sliced
1 lime, sliced
4 medium-sized strawberries, sliced

Directions:

1.) In a large bowl, whisk the wine, sugar, lemonade, and orange juice together until the sugar has dissolved. Add the sparkling water and Sprite and then stir again.

2.) Place the slices of fruit at the bottom of a large glass pitcher (Chef Adam suggests a 6-quart container), then pour the wine mixture in and stir.

3.) Refrigerate the pitcher until ready to serve. Stir once before pouring (I recommend placing a few slices of fruit in your glass first and then pouring the Sangria on top) and enjoy!

In Chef Adam's recipe, the Sangria needs to refrigerate at least four hours or even overnight to intensify the fruit flavors. Ours lasted only as long as it took for my dad to pick up the pizza (about an hour, give or take). Still, there were no complaints at our dinner table!

Just thought I'd note here that, no, Sangria is not a baked good, but this recipe is still short, sweet, and decadent, with a healthy kick of fruit that can be nibbled on after the Sangria's all gone. Yes, I just finished watching Food Network Star and am probably channeling Giada.

Buon appetito!

Individual Portion Baklava!

(As mentioned in my previous post) Great for kids, or just for a quick and easy dessert for yourself!

Ingredients:

2 squares of puff pastry dough cut to about 2-3 inches square (I used Pepperidge Farm brand)
2 Tablespoons chopped pecans (or walnuts--but pecans are a little more kid-friendly)
pinch of cinnamon
1/2 Tablespoon honey for inside the baklava
1/2 Tablespoon honey for the drizzle
1/2 Tablespoon water for the drizzle

Directions:

1.) Preheat the oven to 425 degrees and lay out your two squares of dough on parchment paper (please don't use wax paper, it will melt in the oven!). With a rolling pin, roll the squares out flatter until both are roughly twice their size in length only (should resemble long rectangles). Cut your rectangles in half so you now have four squares/rectangles.

2.) In a small bowl, combine the pecans, cinnamon, and honey. Spoon about half the pecan mixture over one square that will be your base. Place another square on top of that, spoon on the rest of the pecan mixture, and place a third square on top of that layer. Your fourth square of dough is extra and can be used to make another baklava or just baked alone as an extra piece of flaky crust.

3.) Transfer your baklava on its parchment paper to an ungreased baking sheet and bake ~8 minutes. Keep an eye on it and remove from the oven if it starts to brown too much.

4.) In another bowl, mix the last 1/2 Tablespoon honey with the 1/2 Tablespoon water, stirring quickly. Drizzle over the warm baklava.

5.) Cut the baklava in half diagonally to make triangles if desired. The cutting should help the puff pastry deflate a little and look more like traditional baklava. The taste should already be very similar to traditional baklava! Let cool just enough to not burn your mouth, and enjoy!

All Baklava-ed Out!

Yesterday my supervisor gave me one of the best compliments you can give someone like me. She called me a "Chef Librarian." While I don't hold either title officially yet, the words represent two of my three greatest interests (writing being the third), so I always relish the opportunity to be able to combine both in a single activity. On July 26, 2011, that activity presented itself again in the quarterly preschool program I present at the Green Valley Library called "Bake with Me." With our Summer Reading Program theme of multiculturalism, I wanted this summer's baking project to be a dessert from another country. How could the deliciously flaky, sticky sweet Mediterranean treat of baklava not come to mind? To keep it simple for the kids, I always invent individual portion recipes for "Bake with Me" events (check out some past programs on our library's blog) and test my recipes the night before to make sure they work. The baklava experiment turned out perfect on the first try!

Normally made with phyllo dough ("phyllo" means "leaf" in Greek, because the dough is thin as a leaf), I found a super simple and quick way to make baklava for kids with puff pastry dough instead to maintain that awesome flaky texture in only an 8-minute baking time. The result is based on a baklava recipe I found in the Nancy Drew Cookbook (yes, the super sleuth bakes too!) with my own little adjustments. It turned out so well, I made extra for my coworkers, then got home and used the leftover honey, nuts, and dough to whip up another batch for a going-away party this afternoon. My kitchen smells amazing, evidence of this baking adventure is all over the counter and sink, and now I am officially all baklava-ed out! Time to wash dishes!

And again, to keep this post short and sweet, I'll bring you the Individual Portion Baklava recipe in my very next entry: here.

Reading to the kids at the library while the baklava bakes!

Quick Gingerbread Cookies!

...a.k.a. Bad Movie Night Christmas in July Gingerbread Men Cookies recipe
(as discussed here).

Ingredients:

1 and 1/2 cups + 2 Tablespoons whole wheat pastry flour
3/8 teaspoon baking soda
6 Tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
<1/2 Tablespoon ginger
<1/2 Tablespoon cinnamon
<1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1/4 cup molasses

Directions:

1.) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a small bowl, sift the whole wheat pastry flour, baking soda, and spices.

2.) In a large bowl, cream the butter, sugar, eggs, and molasses with an electric mixer or a fork beating very fast until the butter has disappeared into the mix and the ingredients are well combined.

3.) Slowly add the flour mixture to the butter mixture in several batches, pouring from the small bowl into the larger bowl, stirring, and pouring more, and stirring again after each addition until the flour mixture has been thoroughly incorporated.

4.) Using your hands, shape the dough into a small mound in the large bowl and place in the freezer for about 13-15 minutes (14 worked well for me). Remove from freezer, place between two sheets of parchment paper, and flatten with a rolling pin to about 1/4- to 1/8-inch thick. Cut into shapes with your favorite cookie cutters.

5.) Place cookies on an ungreased baking sheet and bake for 7-8 minutes or until edges are just crispy. Remove from oven, cool about a minute, and remove to a wire rack to cool completely. Once cooled, can be eaten plain or decorated with icing of your choice.

These cookies have a great ginger, clove, and molasses flavor without being too overwhelmingly sweet. If you miss that kick of sugar in your cookies, definitely go with the icing. Since my brother and his friend aren't lactose intolerant like me, I threw together a quick frosting made from powdered sugar mixed with half-and-half (not measured), stirred until thick enough to spread like frosting. If you prefer to "drizzle," use more half-and-half. To "coat," use more sugar. Wal-Mart decorating gel also works....

Christmas in July

I bet you can't wait! It's only four days away! That's right--it's time for Christmas in July! No, I don't actually celebrate the day that's exactly five months away from my number one favorite holiday, but this year in July my brother asked if I could possibly whip up a batch of gingerbread cookies for him and his friends to celebrate their weekly "Bad Movie Night" showing (this week: The Gingerdead Man. Yeah, I don't want to know either...).

Actually, the request from my 22-year-old brother went more like this:

David: "Cookies?"

Mom: "We don't have anymore cookies."

David: "Cookies?"

Me: "I can make you some cookies."

David: "Cookies?"

Me: "What kind of cookies do you want?"

David: "Gingerbread."

Me: "...Okay."

Thus began a new baking adventure of producing enough cookies to feed three hungry 20-somethings by the time their 70-minute bad movie was finished. If you've ever made gingerbread cookies, you might know that the dough needs time to chill in the fridge--sometimes even overnight--before being returned to room temperature, rolled out, and cut with adorable cookie cutter shapes.

I had my own "go-to" gingerbread man recipe from years ago, but it still called for that same extended chill time, hadn't been tested in a few years, and was...all the way upstairs.

Time to experiment! I knew I wanted molasses, brown sugar, and cloves in my recipe for sure, so I began to search gingerbread recipes online (using my iPhone that was already downstairs) until I came across something close to what I wanted. Using that as a basis, I began to tweak proportions, add a little more of the stuff I liked (omg, cloves smell amazing) and then chilled the dough in the freezer for just under 15 minutes.

It came out cool but not too hard, which allowed me to flatten the dough easily and quickly cut out various men (and women) shapes before baking them in the oven and praying they tasted acceptable to my brother and his friends.

 

I needn't have worried--20-somethings, like teenagers, will eat anything.

However, they did seem to genuinely enjoy how the cookies turned out, finishing about half the batch before deciding they wanted to buy frosting at Wal-Mart and decorate the rest.

I have limited artistic ability, but the above cookies (aside from the single one adorned in white--mine) were adorably dressed by my brother's friends after I went to bed. Mission accomplished.

And to keep this blog short and sweet, my Bad Movie Night Christmas in July Gingerbread Men Cookies recipe will be posted next.

Indulgence: Lemon Yogurt Cake

For Mother's Day (and sometimes birthdays too), I love making Barefoot Contessa Ina Garten's Lemon Yogurt Cake for my mom! With the oil content and sugar especially, it's difficult to label this one "healthy," though I still substitute whole wheat pastry flour for the flour and also use nonfat Greek yogurt instead of the whole-milk yogurt the recipe calls for. I haven't tried experimenting with reducing the 1/2 cup oil for a reason--the moist quality of this cake is absolutely perfect! If you're looking to save on calories, skip the glaze (though I personally think it ties everything together) or just serve yourself a thin slice. I was never much a fan of citrus in my baked goods...until I tried this recipe. Enjoy!

Did you know...?

A great way to add health benefits to your baked treats while keeping them as tasty as possible is with a little spice! If you're cutting back on fat and sugar, try experimenting with the flavors of cinnamon, ginger or even rosemary as in my favorite Rosemary Shortbread Cookies from Southern Living. Rosemary may help in the prevention of certain cancers and heart attacks, cinnamon has been known to help lower cholesterol and blood sugar, and ginger can ease motion sickness!

With fall just around the corner (I like to plan ahead), don't forget about nutmeg as a perfect addition to seasonal goods like pumpkin pie and eggnog-flavored treats. I'm already contemplating a possible eggnog cookie or breakfast bread this holiday season (with Soy Eggnog, of course!)

Chewy Oatmeal Cookies!

If you know anything about me, you know that I like my cakes moist and my cookies dry--well, crispy, so to speak. There's nothing quite like biting into a thin and crispy chocolate chip cookie or a crunchy and crumbly piece of shortbread. However, every once in a while I get a craving for something just a little bit...chewy. Not those chewy granola bars and not a sticky, gummy caramel pop either. I'm thinking: oatmeal.

Unlike my peanut butter cookie experiments, which came out a little too dry on the first try, my first attempt at oatmeal cookies were exactly what I was looking for in an oatmeal cookie--perfect amount of chew with just a hint of molasses flavor from the brown sugar and no unnecessarily add-ins (think raisins, nuts, etc.) taking away from that flavor or making me chew or crunch too hard.

Thus, my traditional Oatmeal Cookie recipe was born:

Ingredients:

1 stick of butter, softened (recommend: microwave ~20 seconds)
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 and 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
<1 teaspoon salt
<1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
2 cups quick cooking oats (can substitute with whole rolled oats)
1 cup whole rolled oats

Directions:

1.) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2.) With an electric mixer (or with a fork whipped very fast, as I did), combine the butter, applesauce, brown sugar, and white sugar. Add the eggs one at a time and beat after each. Stir in the vanilla.

3.) In a separate bowl, sift the flour, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture, stirring after each addition until the flour mixture is well incorporated. Fold in the oats.

4.) Form the dough into small mounds, flattened just slightly on a cookie sheet greased with nonstick cooking spray. Bake approximately 8-10 minutes (7 minutes worked perfectly on mine).

5.) Cool 5 minutes on the cookie sheet, then transfer to a wire cooling rack. Eat and enjoy!

With not too much butter for a cookie recipe (it does make about 36 cookies off just one stick), my traditional whole wheat pastry flour, a touch of applesauce, and two different kinds of oats, you can still count this recipe as a slightly healthier alternative to traditional cookie fare. And it tastes amazing too.  =)