Posts tagged ‘strawberries’

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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Jan 28

23 Comments

spreenkle #8 – (on pesticides)

beautiful fresh vegetables and fruits, their kaleidoscopic colors, their squat, bulbous, and stringy shapes, and their deep-earthed or floral scents, make me woozy. extolling their many virtues, urging you to eat them, treading that fine line between encouragement and pushiness, i try not to sound too much like your mother ….

but I’ve sworn to tell the truth, and the complete story is not all health & happiness.

fruits and vegetables have their dark side.

unless you grow your own (and even if you do I suppose) those colorful containers of nature’s goodness may be hiding some pretty nasty insect-defenses… yes, poison, people…and as a general principle, and one I recommend, it’s desirable to avoid consuming poisons wherever possible. 😉

Below are two lists. They’re in alphabetical order, so it’s important to note that the top three on the Avoid List don’t reflect the 3 worst offenders. The worst are: Spinach – Strawberries – and Celery (in that order.)

The lists aren’t inclusive of all fruits and veggies of course. They’re only meant to identify the ones most apt and least apt to have high pesticide levels. (Results were obtained from a sampling of produce from the across the US.)

12 Foods – MOST Pestidicdes

Apples
Bell Peppers
Celery
Cherries
Imported Grapes
Nectarines
Peaches
Pears
Potatoes
Red Raspberries
Spinach
Strawberries

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Mar 19

31 Comments

spreezza!

Oh, you’ve not heard of it? Spreezza’s that immensely popular little dessert pizza, covered with marscarpone cheese, topped with juicy fresh fruits, drizzled with some delectable sauce or other, some even scattered with herbs. Oh, you’ve not heard of them? I guess I must have made it up.

It begins with a good pizza dough….

This No-Knead Pizza Dough is bubbly, chewy, crispy and better than you’ll find at most pizza parlors. It can be used for ALL manner of pizzas – nothing at all about it restricts it to the dessert realm – in fact I’m the one who’s taken it there. It’s a take on the now-famous No-Knead Bread of Jim Lahey (owner of Sullivan St. Bakery in NYC) who introduced it a number of years back to rave reviews. I posted the bread late last year but if you missed the post and would like to take a look, you can check it out here. This pizza dough, like the bread that inspired it, derives its wonderful complex flavor from its overnight fermentation. So the only thing you have to consider moving forward is to start it the day before you plan to enjoy it.

Now if you’ve got a hankering for a spreezza and you don’t want to wait til tomorrow, you can always begin with a store-bought dough (Trader Joe’s has a very good one), skip all this that I’m about to tell you about the dough, and move quickly to the spreezza recipe further down. But you might want to return to this dough another time, because it really is wonderful.

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(Each of the following 10 to 12″ pizzas will make about 4 portions of dessert, 2 slices per person. About the same amount would hold true if being served for brunch with accompanying eggs and/or meats and other items. For breakfast, I’d allow more per person…maybe half a Spreezza per person. You can halve the recipe easily if you like. Or make the whole thing, break it into portions, wrap and refrigerate for up to 3 days to use in other ways…like a traditional pizza. Or stay tuned because I’ve got another fun idea coming up very soon! Flavor and texture of the dough will not suffer at all for the extra time spent in the fridge. If you want to wrap and chill ahead, just allow 2 to 3 hours once they come out of the fridge for unwrapped dough balls to rest before forming into pizza pies.)

No-Knead Pizza Dough

makes six 10″ to 12″ pizzas

(about 20½ hours, with only 90 minutes active time)

7½ cups all-purpose flour (3 lb. 1.5 oz. or 1000 grams) plus more for shaping loaves later
4 teaspoons fine sea salt
½ teaspoon active dry yeast

Half recipe of the No-Knead Pizza Dough

makes three 10″ to 12″ pizzas

3¾ cups all-purpose flour plus more for shaping loaves later (1 lb. 14 oz. or 850 kg.)
2 teaspoons fine sea salt
¼ teaspoon active dry yeast

Whisk flour, salt and yeast in a medium bowl. While stirring with a wooden spoon, gradually add 3 cups water (1½ cups if halving the recipe!). Stir until well incorporated. Mix dough gently with your hands to bring together and form into a rough ball. Transfer to a large clean bowl. Cover with plastic and allow the dough to rise at room temperature in a draft-free place until the surface is covered with tiny bubbles and dough has more than doubled in size. About 18 hours time, though time will vary depending on the temperature of the room.

Transfer dough to a floured work surface. Gently shape into a rough rectangle. Divide into 6 equal portions (or 3 if halving the recipe.) Working with 1 portion at a time, gather 4 corners to the center to create 4 folds. Turn seam-side down and mold gently into a ball. Dust the dough with flour; set aside on the work surface or floured baking sheet, and repeat with the remaining portions.

Let the dough rest, covered with plastic wrap or a damp kitchen towel, until soft and pliable, about 1 hour.

To Bake the Pizza Dough

During the last hour of the dough’s resting, prepare the oven. If using a pizza stone, place a rack in the upper third of the oven, put the pizza stone on it and preheat oven to its hottest setting, 500° – 550°F (260° – 290°C.) (If using a baking sheet, no need to preheat that.)

Working with 1 dough piece at a time, dust the dough generously with flour and place on a floured work surface. Gently shape the dough into a 10″ to 12″ disk (25-30 cm.)

If using a pizza stone – Sprinkle a pizza peel or rimless (or inverted rimmed) baking sheet lightly with flour. Place dough disk on the peel or prepared baking sheet, and, using back-and-forth movements, slide pizza from peel onto the hot pizza stone. Bake the pizza, rotating halfway through, until the bottom crust is crisp and the top is blistered, about 5 – 7 minutes total. If using this pizza dough for a Spreezza, brush with melted butter when you rotate the pizza.

Spreezza!

(pronounced spreé-tza)

Now, here is where this whole thing turns so fun! I’ll give guidelines for 2 versions here. I’ll share others as seasonal fruits appear. This isn’t science. This isn’t hard-and-fast measurements. This is Playing with Food!

for each 10-12″ pizza, you will want – approximately:

Marscapone Layer

Marscarpone cheese – 8 ounces
zest of ½ lemon (about 1 Tablespoon
Juice of 1 lemon
2 teaspoons (to 3 tsp.) powdered sugar

Berries

Fresh strawberries – ½ – ¾ cup, sliced
2 teaspoons (to 3) powdered sugar (for strawberries)
zest of ½ lemon added to strawberries
Fresh raspberries – ½ cup
Fresh blueberries – ½ cup
lemon thyme – a couple sprigs
blueberry balsalmic vinegar – or good quality aged balsamic vinegar
OPTIONAL: Additional Powdered Sugar, sifted – you may want this especially if you’re serving for dessert as opposed to a brunch or breakfast

~ ~ ~ Read more

Jul 3

7 Comments

Mixed Berry Cobblers

Happy 4th of July everybody! I hope you have something fun cooked up for yourselves!

I’ve been waiting for this day! Well, more precisely, I’ve been waiting for this month. We’re in full-berry season now! Oregon’s own deep-red-to-the-core strawberries, plump sweet blues and earthy blackberries, and delicate deep-pink raspberries. Why not put them all together and bring them to the picnic? I’ve got some wonderful simple ways to enjoy the fruits of berry season, but I’ll begin here, with these little mini-cobblers. Maybe something like this will make it to your 4th of July table.

But if not today, then maybe soon, while the berries are sun-filled and still sweet with summer.

Mixed Berry Cobblers

(Makes enough for about 8 servings)

These cobblers can be made in little ramekins or mini-casseroles, or mini-cocottes (like the one pictured above.) Or if you’d prefer, you can make one large 2-quart cobbler. The directions up until the end are identical.

Biscuit Dough

1-1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for kneading surface
3 Tablespoons sugar
1-1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 Tablespoons chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2″ cubes
1/2 cup cold whole milk

Filling

1/2 cup sugar (or vanilla sugar – see NOTE at bottom of recipe)
1-1/2 Tablespoons cornstarch
7 cups mixed fresh berries (but not more than 1-1/2 cups of strawberries) (if the strawberries are large, cut them in half)
1/2 vanilla bean, scraped of its seeds – (berries love vanilla, but this is a completely optional addition)

For Serving

Vanilla Ice-Cream or lightly sweetened whipped cream (with a dash of vanilla extract)

Preheat your oven to 400°F; place the rack in the middle position.

Prepare the filling: In a large bowl whisk together the cornstarch and sugar (and the seeds from the vanilla bean if using.) Add the berries and toss to coat evenly. Spoon the mixture into small pots to within 1/2-inch of their tops, or into a 2- quart casserole.

Make the dough: Whisk together the sugar, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. Add the butter, and using your fingertips, rub the butter in with the flour until the resulting mixture resembles a coarse meal, with butter pieces the size of small peas or smaller. Add the milk and stir just until dough forms. Gather dough together into a ball and transfer to a lightly floured surface where you’ll knead gently 5 or 6 times. (Add flour to the board if necessary to keep dough from sticking.)

If making mini-cobblers: Pat the dough to about 1/2-inch thickness. Using a biscuit cutter the appropriate size for your mini-casseroles, cut out enough biscuits to cover your cobblers. Place them on a parchment-covered cookie sheet or jelly roll pan and bake for approximately 20 to 25 minutes, or until fruit is bubbling up and tops are nicely browned. Allow to cool for at least 15 to 20 minutes before topping with vanilla ice-cream or slightly sweetened whipped cream.