Posts from the ‘Brunch’ Category

May 1

crêpes au chocolaté

As full as life is these days, I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to share a special treat that a MOM might like. Besides, I promised a mom I would.

I’ve shared another crêpe recipe with you previously (“plain,” yet not-so-plain, and simply wonderful) – partly because of its versatility, savory or sweet, it remains our favorite.

Don’t misunderstand – today’s crêpe is no slouch! And it steps in to fill the cockles of a chocolate-lover’s heart…it might even be the one to make a Mom or Grandma swoon….if you aim for that sort of thing.

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With a plateful of warm crêpes of chocolate, you’ll be faced with choices…What to pool inside? What to dribble over?

♥ A mixture of sour cream & crème fraîche, sweetened & flavored with vanilla, tucked inside (see below), and fresh berries toppled over…

♥ Or perhaps the yogurt of your choice, and then once again berries on top…

♥ Or even sliced bananas tucked inside and then a good dollop of cinnamon-scented whipped cream…and even an extra drizzle of chocolate…

♥ You might decide to roll them instead of folding them like hankies…

♥ You can dust the finished crêpes with either dark chocolate or confectioners sugar…or both…

For a dessert:

♥ Maybe you’d like to macerate your berries in melted raspberry sorbet first – you’ll know what to do with them from there…!

♥ You might like a softened vanilla ice-cream inside & a rich chocolate sauce dribbling over the edges of your hankies…

NOTE: Keep in mind that it’s best to prepare these at the very least one hour ahead of cooking. Two hours is better. Overnight, or a full day ahead, is great! This allows the flour molecules to become fully hydrated and the crêpes to become their tenderest.

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Chocolate Crêpes

Makes 12 – 8 to 9-inch crêpes

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Butter – 1 Tablespoon

Bittersweet Chocolate – 1½ ounces (40 g) – chopped

Milk – 1 cup (250 mL)

Large Eggs – 2

Sugar – ¼ cup (55 g)

Vanilla Extract – 1 teaspoon

All-Purpose Flour – 1 cup (125 g)

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Into a small to medium saucepan place the butter, chocolate and milk and gently heat, stirring occasionally, until the chocolate has melted. Remove from heat.

Using a medium-size bowl, beat the eggs with the sugar. Add the vanilla and then the flour. Now beat in the chocolate milk mixture, slowly at first to eliminate lumps from forming. Pour the mixture into a pitcher or jug. (If lumps are present, strain into the pitcher.)

Allow to sit for at least one hour. See NOTE above.

Check the consistency of your batter. It should be like a thin cream…add small amounts of milk, mixing thoroughly, until desired consistency is reached.

When it’s time to cook your crêpes, a non-stick skillet (8 – 10″) will work best. But any skillet of this size will work…they will just require a spraying or a buttering/oiling of the pan from time to time. Crêpes are better if they’re drier, but don’t let this stand in your way of a treat!

Heat the oven to 150°F (65°C) and place a plate inside. Place your skillet over medium high and allow it to come to temperature.

(Count on the first one or two crêpes being trials, just as in pancakes.)

Depending on the size of your pan, you’ll only need 1½ to a scant 3 Tablespoons of batter per crêpe. Once your pan has reached temperature, raise it off the heat and drop in the batter, tilting the pan in a circular motion so that it coats the bottom of the pan evenly. Any holes can be filled with a touch of additional batter. When the underside is cooked and the topside is mostly dried (only about 1 minute!) lift one edge with a butter knife, or a skinny spatula (or even your fingers) and flip it to finish the crêpe – 30 seconds or so.

Place them on the heated plate in the oven (covered with foil) as you prepare the others, or serve them as they come out of the pan, as you prefer.

These crêpes will freeze well if prepared ahead. Simply place parchment paper or waxed paper squares between them, and then placed in a freezer bag. Allow them to come to room temperature and then gently reheat them in a warm oven. Then fill and prepare as you like.

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Apr 29

25 Comments

just another ‘ordinary’ breakfast in India

Last fall I introduced you to my friend Amit who grew up in Delhi, India. (See a wonderful rice and beans dish of his mother’s, Rajmah, that I posted at the time.) Amit, a man who loves all things associated with the kitchen, has inspired me in my own. Now borrowed from him are chai, rice and bean dishes, chutney, a couple salads and several curries that he brought to the US when he immigrated here. This is Amit’s father’s birthday month and in honor of that, I was asked if I could share a favorite dish of his Dad’s too. I told my good friend I’d be happy to.

Have you ever heard the expression that a person grows into the name he or she was given? It appears to be the case with Amit’s father, a gregarious man with a smile that lights up his entire face, and possibly the entire room. His name: Prakash Chandra Jain. Prakash means light, and Chandra – moon! Can you imagine being given such a name?! And then, having the privilege of growing into it?

Seen here with wife Anjana, at the wedding of their son Moni to his new bride, Richa.

~ ~ ~

Sri Prakash Chandra, since retired, had his career as an experimental physicist. He’s always been an exacting man – both in his lab and in the kitchen where he loved to cook for his family. His interest in the culinary world was already well-evidenced by the time he was a young man in college where he took the lead in his dorm’s dining hall — purchasing the food, planning the recipes for the cooking staff and in general, managing the kitchen. Experimentation wasn’t restricted to his physics lab either – he’s been known to work and work on a recipe until he’s perfected it. And one of his favorite dishes is one that Amit and his family grew up eating on a typical (ever-delicious) Delhi morning.

Paranthas stuffed with cauliflower & spices

served with cumin raita and an out-of-this-world green chutney

Sounds complicated, no? Well, it’s not a bowl of instant oatmeal or a cereal bar grabbed on the way out the door (but who writes of that?) It’s sit-down food, meant for moments to savor.

Cauliflower stuffing

1 medium cauliflower, shredded (using a coarse grater)
Grated ginger root (using fine grater) – a piece about 1 x 1-inch
Cilantro: 2 to 3 Tablespoons, chopped (Amit’s family uses leaves only)
2 teaspoon Garam masala
2 teaspoon coriander powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 jalapeño pepper (optional, but we like) – minced

(NOTE: Amit has also made this stuffing with purple potatoes, cooked & chopped finely, then prepared as in the directions for this stuffing. How very pretty that would be.)

Heat oil in a pan. Add ginger and sauté until just slightly brown. Add the cauliflower and spices. Cook uncovered over low-medium heat, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes (or until tender).

Should you have any left over, this stuffing is delicious to eat as a side.

Green Chutney

fresh ginger – 1 inch x ½ inch piece

1 Tablespoon cumin seeds

15 – 20 leaves of fresh mint

2 whole bunches of fresh cilantro

2 cloves garlic

1½ salt (Amit likes 2)

juice of 2 limes

1 jalapeño – ribs and seeds removed

¼ to ½ water (more like 3/8)

1 to 2 Tablespoons plain yogurt (optional – I wanted to preserve the brilliant green color so didn’t add)

3 Tablespoons shredded unsweetened coconut

Apr 2

41 Comments

Easter bread – a Greek tradition

This is the bread traditionally made for Greek Easter, and much like the one our Yaya would bring to the table.

Yaya’s kitchen had a converted wood oven, marbled-linoleum floors, tall ceilings covered in tin tiles, and smelled like nothing you’ve likely ever breathed — but should have! I remember, as a young girl, standing in her kitchen, watching in utter fascination as she – wearing an apron over one of her always-black dresses – would gently wrestle huge batches of dough, her stocky arms covered in flour, her hair wound in blonde-white braids around her head, her face serene. Four boys in that family, and they ate a lot of bread. And we did too, whenever we visited our Yaya and Papou.

I don’t have my yaya’s recipe for bread. But Yaya didn’t have or use recipes. How to make bread was in her body somewhere. She didn’t think it or measure carefully. She poured from glass bottles, scooped with bare hands, smelled and felt and knew when things were right.

This isn’t Yaya’s recipe, but it’s as close as I could come. It’s a brioche-type loaf – tender-crumbed, buttery, with a hint of anise and orange, absolutely delicious. The red egg is optional of course, but quite pretty nestled in its sesame-strewn, braided nest. If you decide to use one in yours, insert it between the twisted or braided ropes after it’s risen but before the egg-wash and sesame seeds have been added. You can insert the egg either uncooked or hard-boiled, but it’s typically not eaten after its baked with the bread.

In a separate post to follow tomorrow, I’ll be sharing a recipe for a – quick & easy – alternative to this loaf. It’s a Challah that I’ve made for years using the food processor, but with slight variations for this occasion.)

Easter Sweet Bread – Tsoureki

the recipe can be doubled for 2 Tsourekia

½ cup warm water
the zest from 1/2 large orange
1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
½ cup warm milk
½ cup unbleached white flour
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 Tablespoon active dry yeast
½ teaspoon salt
½ cube unsalted butter (1/4 cup) – melted
¼ cup plus 2 Tablespoons sugar
1 extra large egg, well-beaten
½ t. anise extract
2½ to 3 cups unbleached white flour
1 egg white, well beaten
sesame seeds for the top
1 red-dyed Easter egg (optional)

Using a microplane zester if you have one, remove only the zest of ½ orange. Finely chop the zest and add it to the warm water and olive oil in the bowl of your mixer. Add the warm milk and combine well with a whisk. (It’s important that the zest be very fine here so as to fully infuse the bread with delicate flavor, but no chunks of peel. If you don’t have a microplane, I recommend you put the first three ingredients in a blender first, then add them, along with warm milk, to the bowl of your mixer.)

In a separate bowl, combine the ½ cup flour, 1 T. sugar, the yeast and salt. Add slowly to the wet mixture of the previous step, whisking as you go, until all is well-combined. Set in a warm draft-free place to proof for 20 minutes.

Fit the stand mixer with paddle attachment and return the bowl to the mixer. Turn on low speed, and slowly add the flour. (Yaya knew the amount of flour is always variable in a bread recipe. It’s going to depend on how you measure both wet and dry ingredients, the humidity, the size of your eggs, etc. Last time I made this, it took nearly 3 cups, but if you add too much, your bread will be lacking in tenderness, which would be such a shame! Add the final ½ cup gradually, as needed. You’ll want to add enough flour so that the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl and starts to rise up on your beaters.The final dough should have the feel of a baby’s soft bottom. If that helps?? It’s really not tricky!)

Increase the speed of your mixer slightly and knead for 4 minutes until the dough becomes silky. (If you don’t have a stand mixer you can do all of this by hand. Because there’s no whole-grain in this recipe, this is not a difficult one to knead – and there are times when kneading just feels so right!) Take the dough and all its little bits from the bowl, form into a nice ball and return it back to the bowl to rise. Cover and set in a warm place to double – about 40 minutes. (One nice environment is in your oven – no heat! – just fill another bowl with hot water and put it inside the oven along with your bowl of dough. Or you can rest it on a sunny ledge – if you live in one of those places where the sun shines!)

Turn the dough out onto a very lightly floured board. (Or if you like, you can lightly grease it instead.) Roll into a long rope with your hands. Pick up the two ends of your ropes and set them down close to you. Now, just draw one end of the rope over the other, then under, then up over again. (All you’re really doing is making two complete twists.) Gently squeeze the ends together.

The halfway mark where you first folded the rope is where the egg will eventually nestle. But not yet. Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Cover and set in a warm place to double in size, another 40 minutes to an hour approximately.

Jan 20

38 Comments

where do you look for sunshine?

When rain in Seattle or Portland makes national news, you know things are about as bad as they get here. Standing water on freeways, drains unable to keep pace with the deluge, stretches of highway closed, even a few small towns along rivers evacuated. We get grey days, and mostly gentle (and occasionally incessant) rain here, but not monsoons that turn umbrellas inside out and flood boots with the rain that falls fast down our jackets. I was hydroplaning down the freeway about 10 miles an hour below speed limit, heading toward a long (and long-overdue) coffee date with a dear friend. Carolyn had been out of town for more than a month and I’d missed her. I was thinking of her sunny self as I tried to see through the waterfall that was my windshield. I was thinking too about where it is we go looking for sunshine when our eyes and skin are hungry for it.

Carolyn and I sat drinking our large steamy cups of chai, catching up with the parts of each other’s lives we’d missed. And then, from beneath the table she brought out a canvas banana with a zipper along one side. “Bananagrams,” she said. “You’re going to love it!” She spilled the tiles onto the table, and we turned them over, letters face-down, as she explained how the game is played. Carolyn was right of course, my friend knows me. From here on out, along with my camera, Bananagrams go where I go.

~ ~ ~

Not long ago I’d visited a fellow-blogger – Violets and Cardamom – and was struck by her pretty mango lassi. It was lovely.

Today, I winged my own with several changes. Knowing the deliciousness of the pairing of mango, coconut, ginger, lime, cardamom and banana, it was a simple matter to drop them into a blender, whir them up, pour them out, and stick a straw into a glass of gleaming sunshine.

Dec 29

20 Comments

German apple pancake

No food tradition in our family is longer-lived than the German apple pancake. So central a family holiday tradition, so beloved, for years it even served as the “secret password” between my daughters and me. We never needed to use it, but it was comforting knowing it was there. ; )

Every Christmas morning for our children’s lives our house would fill with the sweet perfume of cinnamon and nutmeg and caramelizing apples. Every Christmas morning, the girls’ eyes, and later on, the boy’s, would pop at the big puff of a pancake as it came from the oven. (It’s a bit of a wonderment really.) From the oven, I’d slip it onto a warm platter and then – into the golden heart of it a steaming skillet-ful of glistening caramelized apples would tumble. I think it’s become impossible for any of us now to separate Christmas morning from the pancake.

As true as that is, we enjoy this special breakfast too much to relegate it to one morning a year. It manages to show up at birthday breakfast tables by request, and occasionally it appears just because someone’s in need of a little extra lovin’ or an atta-boy or -girl! This year we’ll bring it the New Year’s table too. It’s how our family celebrates with breakfast.

So disappointed I forgot to include the cranberries for this one – it’s positively beautiful with them.

German Apple Pancake

serves 6 to 8

the pancake:

3 large eggs
¾ cup milk
¾ cup all purpose flour (3¾ oz. – 105 g.)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon granulated sugar

1½ Tablespoons butter

the apples:

1½ pounds apples (up to 2 pounds will work) – Granny Smith are a good choice
¼ cup melted butter
¼ cup light brown sugar
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg (either new or freshly grated is best)
½ cranberries (optional)

the sprinkling of snow:

powdered sugar

Place an oven rack in the middle position. Preheat the oven to 500°F.

Into a blender (or food processor) break 3 eggs. Add milk and vanilla, and process for about 30 seconds. Add the flour, salt and sugar and process until lumps are gone, about 15 seconds. (Don’t overmix.) Allow to “bloom” – for flour to absorb the liquids completely – at least 15 minutes, and as long as overnight. Briefly mix again before pouring in the pan.

With oven at 500°F, melt 1½ Tablespoons butter in a heavy skillet over medium heat- cast iron works very well for this. When the butter has turned to foam, swirl it around the bottom of the pan, and slightly up the sides. Pour in the pancake batter and place the pan in the oven. Promptly lower the heat to 425°F. Cook for 10 minutes at this setting, and then lower the heat to 350°F and cook for about 15 minutes longer. (If during the initial stages of the baking, the center of the pancakes bubbles up and forms a little mountain, pierce it with a long handled fork. No worries if it doesn’t completely flatten though because the apples will take care of most of that.) Like magic, the sides of the pancake will rise up and form a bowl. Read more

Oct 28

12 Comments

buttermilk biscuits – with a difference

If you’ve been following along, you may recall that one damp gray day it became necessary for me to bring indoors bushels of lemon verbena, listing badly in the rain. You may remember too that – as a happy consequence of this most deliciously fragrant herb having come indoors – our house now smelled like a commercial for the cleanest house on the block (which, no doubt, it wasn’t unless all my neighbors were having particularly messy days.) Anyway, I digress.

That day rather than clean the house, I opted instead to churn up some lemon verbena ice-cream, an impressively easy choice to make. I also dried a pint-jar full and with the rest, I made a lemon verbena sugar to store in the freezer for inspirations that might come later. I had plenty of this citrusy sugar to share and so I did.

Mike, our wonderful son-in-law and certainly one of the biggest foodies in the family – (and that’s not without considerable competition) – decided to incorporate some in his biscuits. What a great idea! And so the next time I made biscuits, I did the same. And they were wonderful! And then, not content to leave it at that, I had to try a different addition from the herb garden. And we loved those too, and so I share: buttermilk biscuits – with fresh sage and orange zest. There will be a footnote on the lemon verbena variety but, because you can’t find that herb in your grocery store and will instead have to wait until next year when you plant your own, those biscuits won’t be the headliner here. (Don’t worry, I won’t let you forget to plan for it next summer.)

~ ~ ~

Did you know there was such a thing as biscuit flour? I didn’t. It’s simply a flour milled from 100% soft winter wheat. But you can approximate it using equal parts of all-purpose flour and the lighter, softer cake or pastry flour. If you have cake flour by all means use it. If you don’t, not to worry. Just use the all-purpose flour but know that your biscuits won’t be quite as flaky and light as they might otherwise be.

To top these you may want to try incorporating a drizzle of honey and a bit of orange zest into some softened butter — allow the whole of it to melt down the sides and be caught by your tongue, just in the nick of time!

Buttermilk Biscuits with Fresh Sage & Orange Zest

1½ cups all-purpose flour
1½ cups cake or white pastry flour
4 teaspoons sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1¼ teaspoons salt
¼teaspoon baking soda
½ cup plus 2 Tablespoons cold, unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 cup cold buttermilk
3 large sage leaves, roughly chopped
the zest of one large orange

Preheat the oven to 425°F. If you have a cast-iron skillet, put it in the oven to bring it to the same temperature. If you don’t have one, use a cooking sheet instead. (The case for biscuits made in a cast-iron skillet is that the bottoms & tops will be lightly browned and crispy, but the sides, because they’re packed closely together, will be soft and tender.)

May 20

5 Comments

Crepes

When I was a newly-married, very young and inexperienced cook, I decided to make crêpes for my mother’s birthday. Bold move! I’m not sure if I’d ever even eaten a crêpe before, but I’d surely seen them, and knew I’d adore them if given the chance. So I turned to Julia Childs (one of only three cookbooks I had at the time.) Her fully-detailed recipe and the accompanying illustrations gave me all the assurance I needed. The next day, voila! savory chicken crêpes for dinner! And they were a huge hit, talked about for years in our family! I’m thinking that the memory of those crêpes far exceeded their deliciousness, but that’s what happens when the telling of anything gets all wrapped up with love.

There was nothing wrong with that crêpe recipe, in fact it was good, but I’ve found one better. Chef Alice Waters, after spending years in Paris, once thought of opening her own crêperie. Friends prevailed on her though and eventually she opened Chez Panisse, the now-famous restaurant in Berkeley, instead. Still, her long-time love of crêpes is evident in every tender bite of these delicate little pancakes. You’ll taste it, I promise.

Here I’ve filled them with whole-milk yogurt (or substitute sour cream) and ladled on strawberries, sweetened and bathed in Grand Marnier. We have a couple family birthdays this weekend and this will be a treat worthy of the occasion. Breakfast or dessert? Must we choose?

(The batter is best made a day in advance. Julia advised the same.)

Buckwheat Crêpes

(makes about 4 cups of batter, enough for 30 crêpes)

In a small saucepan, warm the following:

2 cups milk
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. sugar
4 Tbl. (half stick) butter

Once the butter has melted, remove the pan from the heat and cool.

In a bowl, measure and stir together:

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 cup buckwheat

Make a well in the flour and with a wooden spoon, stir in

1 Tbl. vegetable oil
3 eggs

Stir until the batter is smooth and free of all lumps. Then, beginning with just a spoonful at a time, add the milk and butter mixture, incorporating fully with each additional spoonful. About half way through the process, you’ll be able to add the remainder all at once; whisk to blend thoroughly. (If you have any lumps remaining, put the batter through a strainer.) Finally, whisk in:

1/2 cup beer

Cover the bowl with plastic and refrigerate overnight. Remove from the refrigerator one hour before frying.

With a moistened cloth or paper towel dipped in vegetable oil, lightly grease a 6- to 8-inch fry pan (with shallow, sloping sides). Put the pan over medium heat. Using a small ladle or large spoon, pour in about 2 tablespoons of batter. Tilt and rotate the pan quickly, spreading the batter out to cover the bottom of the pan evenly. Cook until brown, just a minute or two. Lifting one corner of the crêpe with a very thin spatula or a butter knife, pick the crêpe up with your fingers and flip it over. Cook briefly on the other side, no more than a minute. (As with other pancakes, you can consider your first two or three to be trials. I should add that the buckwheat will continually drift to the bottom of your bowl, so give the batter a stir each time you ladle new batter out.) You can stack the crêpes on a plate as you go, covering with a tea towel. Just before serving, spoon in the desired filling, fold crêpes in fourths like little handkerchiefs, and put them in a hot oven for just a few minutes. Then spoon on the topping of your choice and dust with a sprinkling of sugar.

These are also tasty with good jam or marmalade folded inside, topped with either sour cream (that’s been thinned with a bit with cream), or crème frâiche, then dusted with confectioners’ sugar.

For Savory crêpes: These crêpes are equally delicious as a main course when filled with a savory filling. (Think mushrooms, crab, chicken, vegetables, cheese, etc etc etc.! If I get any specific requests, I’ll be happy to share!)

(The crêpe recipe alone comes from Alice Waters’ The Art of Simple Food)

May 9

4 Comments

A slower, lemony breakfast

On a Saturday or Sunday morning, it’s such a delight to slow down the pace a little. Putzing a bit in the kitchen, and then savoring an extra cup of coffee or tea, with a plate of tender, lofty, lemony cakes is one sure way to do it. Maybe a game of Scrabble with your honey, and you’re home free. Not all (and maybe not many) will want to go the extra step of making their own ricotta, but I promise, it’s only slightly more complicated than boiling milk. If you want to give it a try, I’ve included some instructions that you can access by clicking on the “CONTINUED…” link below. But using a good quality store-bought ricotta will do just fine. The photos here show these cakes virtually unadorned, and they’re simply, delicately delicious that way. (A pat of soft butter, a good squeeze of lemon, a dusting of powdered sugar. A fork.) But you can also serve them with a Blueberry Sauce (recipe below) or a berry syrup, or (can we possibly wait?) heaping spoons of slightly sweetened and sliced Oregon strawberries (I’m sorry – they’re simply the best on earth.) I enjoy maple syrup, but it’s not what I’d put with these. They’re much better complimented by fruit. You’ll see.

Lemon-Ricotta Pancakes

9 ounces of ricotta cheese (1 cup + 2 Tbl.)
1/2 cup milk
2 large eggs, separated
zest of one lemon
juice of one lemon
1/2 t. vanilla extract
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 t. baking soda
1/4 t. fine salt
Extra fresh lemon for serving, or fresh fruit or berry syrup of your choice

Get ready: Turn your oven to 200°F and put your breakfast plates in to keep warm. Turn your griddle on to medium high. Then just before ladling out the batter for your cakes, brush the griddle with a little bit of neutral oil (such as canola or grapeseed.)

The batter: Separate the eggs, putting the yolks into a medium-size bowl, and the whites into a small one. Whisk the whites until frothy. (It’s not necessary to form peaks of them, but do get them white and full of air.) Mix the egg yolks with the ricotta cheese, milk, lemon juice and vanilla extract. In a separate small bowl sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda. Stir in the lemon zest. Mix the wet and dry ingredients until just blended. (Don’t over-mix or your tender little cakes will turn tough and mean.) Then gently fold in the frothy whites until blended.

Griddle: Spoon out the batter onto your greased griddle. It’s best for these if you keep the size small – say, around 3 inches diameter. You may find it works best if you spoon out a little and spread it slightly so that it’s not too very thick. (Around 1/4″ inch or so.) That way, they’ll be golden brown outside and cooked fully inside. Do a test run of several cakes to see if you’re happy, and then go to town! Like all pancakes, they’re of course best straight from the griddle, but you can keep a stack of them warm in your oven under a towel for a short time without harm.

Serve: As I mentioned above, they’re perfectly flavored to my taste with just a little more lemon juice, some melting butter and a dusting of powdered sugar. But the Blueberry Lemon Sauce here is a very nice accompaniment too! Come summer though, these cakes will lose top-billing to the strawberries that will gorgeously smother them.

for a printer-friendly version of the pancakes, click here.

Spree’s Lemony Blueberry Sauce

1 cup frozen blueberries (I love the little ones for this)
1 cup fresh blueberries
3 T. water
2 T. fresh lemon juice
3 T. sugar
1 t. lemon zest

Put the water, lemon juice and sugar into a small saucepan and stir until the sugar dissolves. Add the frozen blueberries and simmer for 5 to 7 minutes. Add fresh blueberries and lemon zest and simmer for about another 3 minutes. Serve warm.

for a printer-friendly version of the blueberry sauce, click here.

To make your own ricotta cheese, please click on the “read more” link below…