Strawberries for every meal

Although I did visit the Farmer's Market and stocked up on basic supplies (milk, eggs, and salad greens) last weekend, this week has been a disaster for meal planning. Between travel, meetings, and family celebrations I didn't get to make many real dinners this week. As I don't have too many meals to share, I decided to focus on one ingredient we used a lot this week instead...

...Strawberries!!

I fondly remember picking strawberries with my mom and sister every summer. Unfortunately, I feel as if the berries weren't treated properly. We would pick a whole bunch of them (because it was fun!), have strawberry shortcake that night, eat a few over the next few days, freeze some, and everything else ended up rotting because we get bored of them.

I was dedicated to not letting that happen this time! We took the kids on Father's Day morning to a small, very reasonably priced local farm and picked 4 pounds of berries. By Wednesday morning every last berry had been eaten and I took the girls back to pick more! Here are some of the delicious ways we enjoyed our fresh berries...

Breakfast - Delicious whole wheat based banana bread incorporating fresh whole berries

Adapted heavily from this recipe

Ingredients

3 very ripe bananas

10 small strawberries

2 eggs

2 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour

1/2 cup natural sugar

1/3 cup unsalted butter

1/4 cup coconut oil

1/2 cup milk

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1/4 cup brown sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease or spray a loaf pan with butter/oil. Mash bananas in a bowl and set aside.
2. In bowl of stand mixer, cream together butter, coconut oil, and natural sugar. Add milk, eggs, and bananas and mix until well blended.
3. Mix together dry (flour, baking soda, salt, brown sugar) ingredients in a separate bowl with a whisk. Add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix just until incorporated.
4. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan. Insert the whole strawberries into the batter - push them in just until they disappear, but not far enough that they are touching the bottom of the pan.
5. Bake for 60-70 minutes.

Lunch - Refreshing yogurt and granola parfaits perfect for lunch on a warm summer day

Homemade whole milk yogurt and homemade granola make this a great "real food" for breakfast, lunch, or snacking!

Dinner - Fresh crisp lettuces, sweet berries, creamy feta, and crunchy homemade croutons topped with tangy honey mustard vinaigrette make this a great pairing with the grilled protein of your choice

Strawberries pair beautifully with the feta and honey mustard dressing in this flavorful side

Honey Mustard Vinaigrette (from Real Food Has Curves)

Mix together all ingredients in a small bowl with a whisk until well blended:

• 6 TBSP olive oil
• 1/4 cup white wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 2 teaspoons honey
• 1 mashed clove of garlic
• 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
• 1/4 tsp salt

Dessert - Rich, creamy strawberry ice cream churned at home with nothing artificial added!

Scaled down and modified based on what I had in my fridge from this recipe

Ingredients

1 cup reduced fat or whole milk

1/2 cup whipping cream

1/2 cup half & half

1/2 cup natural sugar

8oz pureed fresh strawberries

Splash of lemon extract

Dash of sea salt

1. Mix all ingredients in a bowl with a whisk
2. Freeze according to ice cream maker directions
3. Remove to a freezer safe container and continue freezing

Cake Pop Secrets

Before I share these tips, I need to put it out there that I recognize the possible hypocrisy of this post. I've been focusing a lot on real food and cake pops are definitely not real food. Nearly everything I've read about real food acknowledges that sometimes we are going to have foods that are more industrial and less than perfect. With a kid in the house and my own love of baking and decorating, I am willing to admit that cake pops are going to happen. Not as often as I would have in the past, but every now and then I'm willing to let a pop slide by.

After lamenting the loss of many a cake pop in the past, I have finally devised an (almost) fool proof method for excellent cake pops. Here are my tips...

1. Plan ahead! Ideally cake pop making should be spread over 2-3 days. First, the cake should be baked and cooled. Next, the frosting/ganache can be made and combined with the cake crumbs to create the cake balls. Lastly, the dipping and decorating can be done.
2. If using boxed cake mix, replace most of the oil with water to make the cake firmer.
3. Make ganache instead of frosting - the ganache works better as a glue to hold the pops together and majorly elevates the flavor of the pop.
4. After you make them, the cake balls should be refrigerated until firm - at least 4 hours, best if left overnight.
5. Take out your whole container of balls and dip the sticks in chocolate before inserting them into the pops. Once all sticks are inserted, place all the pops back in the fridge until you are ready to start dipping.
6. Keep the chocolate you are dipping in thin by adding a few drops at a time of canola oil.
7. Dip in small batches. Only take 1-2 pops out of the fridge at a time. This will keep the cake ball cold so that the chocolate hardens quickly and smoothly. 
8. If you are drawing anything on (see the lacing on the baseballs) or attaching decorations do it as soon as the outer coat of chocolate is hardened and before the pop "warms up" too much. 
9. After dipping, keep the pops at room temperature out of the fridge. Putting them back in and out creates condensation and stickiness of the pop which makes them hard to wrap up and less appetizing overall.
10. Once wrapped try to keep in a cool, dry, dark place to prevent melting!

Farmer's Market Menu 6/10

I'm going to try and make this a regular feature to help inspire others to really get into shopping/cooking local. To allow myself the time to actually do this, I'm going to keep the commentary to a minimum. Basically, I'll share what I bought and how I used it with photos and links to recipes with modifications.

Pint of Battenkill Creamery half and half
Pint of Battenkill Creamery chocolate milk
Dozen Cornell Farms eggs
Head of Chinese cabbage
Large bunch of cilantro
2 quarts of white mushrooms
1 pound of cube steak
3/4 pound of lamb steak
1.5 pounds hot sausage
Garlic scapes
Bag of spinach

Sunday - Slow Cooker Lamb Curry. I modified by swapping a can of organic garbanzo beans for the potatoes. Next time, I would add more spices to punch it up a bit and decrease the amount of broth to make the sauce thicker. Overall, a tasty recipe.

Monday - Stir-fried Cabbage, Mushrooms, and Broccoli in Garlic Sauce with Brown Basmati Fried Rice. I cooked the fried rice in the pan first, removed it to a covered dish, and then made the stir-fry in the same pot to save dishes. I made the garlic sauce ahead of time and added it to the pan after cooking the vegetables. I just cooked it long enough to thicken the sauce. 

For dessert, bug and I attempted to make some ice cream. This turned into somewhat of a disaster because my ice cream canister wasn't frozen enough and the mixture didn't churn properly. As I had already invested so much time and valuable raw ingredients (milk, natural sugar, half and half, vanilla beans, and eggs) into the project, I froze it anyway. The consistency was off, but the flavor was there. It was essentially a rich, creamy frozen vanilla custard. I served it drizzled with clover honey and toasted almonds.

Tuesday - Spinach and Mushroom Lasagna. I ran into a sale on all natural/grass fed ground beef, so I decided to make this a meat lasagna for my husband. I used Trader Joe's no boil lasagna noodles. I cooked the beef first and added the onions/mushrooms to it. I didn't bother to cook the spinach, I just chopped it and mixed it into the ricotta. I didn't use Romano cheese, I had Parmesan so that's what I used. I didn't add egg to the ricotta mixture. I decreased the total amount of mozzarella to 2 cups. Everyone, including the bug and baby bear, loved this dinner.

Wednesday - I am home with the girls on Wednesday mornings, so we usually have a full cooked breakfast. This week I heated up some frozen pancakes that I originally made on Monday and made us omelettes. I used the egg whites that were leftover from the ice cream experiment mixed with fresh dill, fresh chopped spinach, ham, mushrooms, and feta for my breakfast. 

My husband liked the cube steak we made last week so much, I used the same exact recipe this week. For sides, I sauteed some leftover radishes with a bit of olive oil and then finished them with butter, white wine vinegar, salt and pepper. I also made a simple side salad of chopped organic romaine, organic grape tomatoes, and mozzarella pearls tossed with homemade Italian dressing. 

Thursday - I attended a CME (Continuing Medical Education) training session on Adolescent Reproductive Health (one of my special areas of interest at work) this evening so the family just had leftover lasagna with some simple buttered carrots and baby zucchini.

Friday - I was really burnt out by the end of the week and couldn't bear the thought of cooking another meal, so we opted for some (not so healthy) take-out.

Other special things I cooked up this week were a big batch of plain whole milk yogurt and a dozen whole wheat tortilla shells.

Cooking the FM

It's been a week and I never checked in about what I was cooking with all the products I scooped up from the Farmer's Market last week. Where have I been? Why haven't I posted anything? Kids and exhaustion are my answers.

Life is just really crazy (I'm extrememly overdue for a "mommy" post...) and I can't seem to find the time to share on here as much as I'd like to. I know I don't really have all that many readers, but I like to think of this as my creative outlet and posting makes me happy. 

So, I am stealing 15 minutes this morning and sharing my meals from last week. Between shrieks of, "Mommy! I need - insert ridiculous demand - NOW!", cleaning/cooking non-stop, and dealing with an infant who has discovered the best way to make her needs known is through loud, disgruntled squealing I didn't remember to snap photos of everything, but I'll share the ones I did take. 

Happy reading and menu planning!

Saturday - Get together at my in-laws house and swimming for the first time this season. We ordered sandwiches, but I made the salad pictured in the upper left with organic green leaf lettuce, fresh radishes, cucumbers, shallots, homemade salt and pepper whole wheat croutons, and fresh dill dressing.

Sunday - Marinated cube steak and sauteed mushrooms/onions with organic (frozen) green beans and pasta pictured middle right. We also finished the leftover salad from the previous night.

Monday - Scrambled farm fresh eggs with dill, feta, and mushrooms on homemade pita bread (upper right) for breakfast. Dinner was fajitas made from leftover cube steak with red peppers, onions, and mushrooms, shredded cheddar, sliced avocado, and sour cream served on homemade tortilla wraps. 

Tuesday - For breakfast all week my kids ate whole wheat pancakes that I made over the weekend and froze. I had a conference in the evening so my husband just did take-out for himself and leftovers for the bug.

Wednesday - Before heading to work, I threw some yogurt into the oven to culture. For dinner, chicken thighs and pasta salad with the Rasta Pasta blend, pearls of fresh mozzarella, and organic grape tomatoes. Both were marinated in a homemade Italian dressing. I also threw together a quick dill cucumber salad in a red wine/mustard dressing that wasn't great. I'll tweak the recipe before I post anything about it. 

Thursday - Beet yogurt dip pictured on the middle left for lunch on leftover pitas. For dinner, mild pork sausage sandwiches with the rest of the mushrooms, red peppers, and onions on rolls from a local bakery (with regular refined flour I am sure...) and a tabbouleh like salad made with fresh herbs, quick cooking barley (I was thinking barley instead of bulgar - it turned out pretty yummy despite my mistake!), cucumbers, and feta.

Friday - Pizza was the plan! Dough and shredded mozzarella from Roma's Imports in Latham. The bug topped hers with pieces of baked ham, we made ours half and half. The first was a local red sauce topped with the leftover sausage/onions/peppers. The other half was spread with the homemade garlic scape pesto pictured on the bottom right and topped with some sundried tomatoes and cheese.

Homemade Pitas

When I started to focus more on simple, whole foods I began looking for recipes to replace some of the store-brought staples in our house that are laced with chemicals, preservatives, and sugar. Although it takes some extra time and preparation, the end result is SO worth it.

My husband and I really enjoy eating hummus as a snack, but I've been really disappointed by the taste (or lack thereof) of wheat pita bread options at the store. It's even more disappointing when you read the labels and see how many additives there are. So, my search for a better option began. I made a few batches of pita bread from this recipe. Although the bread tasted good it didn't "puff" and form a pocket like you'd expect from a pita (it was more of a flat bread). Today I decided to give a new recipe a try and I am so glad I did. These pitas puffed just right and taste great. You will never accept the store brought variety again after trying these...

Adapted from this recipe over at Mama's Gotta Bake

Ingredients

1/4 cup warm water

Pinch of sugar

Packet of active, dry yeast

3+ cups of whole wheat white flour

1 tsp sea salt

1 1/4 cups warm water

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tsp honey

Coconut oil spray (or oil)

Directions

1. Dissolve sugar and yeast in warm water and let stand for 10 minutes until bubbly.
2. Pour yeast mixture into bowl of stand mixer and add 3 cups of flour, salt, oil, honey, and water.
3. Stir mixture with wooden spoon until moistened.
4. Attach dough hook and mix on low for 10 minutes (you could knead by hand, but I'm too lazy for that). 
5. If the dough isn't coming together after the mixer has been on for 5 minutes, add more flour a TBSP at a time. You want the dough to be cohesive enough that it kind of rolls into a ball around the dough hook.
6. Take the dough out of the mixer and knead it a few times by hand before forming it into a ball. (I sprayed my hands with the coconut oil to prevent the dough from sticking to me for this step).
7. Spray a bowl with coconut oil (or grease with olive oil) and put the dough ball into the bowl. 
8. Place dough into a pre-warmed oven (set to 120 degrees, opened to let the big rush of heat out, and then turned off) or just cover it with a towel and place in a warm place to rise.
9. When the dough has doubled in size (approximately 1 hour), punch it down and divide into 10-12 pieces (depending on the size of the pitas you want). I did this by shaping the dough into a rough log shape, cutting in half, cutting in half again, and then dividing each quarter into three equal-ish pieces. Roll each piece into a ball shape and set aside to rest on a lightly greased cookie sheet. Cover the balls with a piece of plastic wrap that has also been spritzed with oil and set aside for 20-30 minutes.
10. While the dough is resting, place a baking stone (or non-stick cookie sheet) into the oven and preheat to 400 degrees.
11. When the oven is heated and your dough is done resting, prepare a lightly floured surface to roll out the pitas. I sprinkled a little bit of extra flour on each side of the dough, flattened it with my palm, and then rolled it to a rough circle/oval shape approximately 1/8-1/4 of an inch thick.
12. Working in batches of 2-3 (depending on how big your pitas are), place the rolled out pitas onto the baking stone/cookie sheet and bake for about 5 minutes. I really recommend setting a timer for 4 minutes and checking them at that point. At five minutes my pitas were just barely browned, but the puffed tops were firm to the touch. Cook less for softer pitas, longer for crisper pitas.
13. Remove pitas from oven with a spatula or tongs and place to cool on a baking raking.
14. Fill with the stuffing of your choice, cut into wedges to use with dip, or be inpatient and eat one still warm from the oven like this girl right here did! 

Farmer's Market Menu Planning

We do have a few year round farmer's markets (Troy Waterfront Market), but this is really the start of the season to start looking for fresh local products. I try to go every weekend (missed it last weekend because I was in the office) and check out what things are starting to become available. I spend the rest of the week searching out and pinning recipes so I am ready to cook with what I get the following week.This year I've been frequenting the Troy market, but might check out the Delmar one next weekend.  This was the first weekend that my goal was really to buy the majority of my groceries at the farmer's market. Pictured below is what I purchased with links to the vendors that I could remember...

1/3 pound spicy mixed lettuces
Overflowing pint of radishes
About 1 pound of red beets
Bundle of garlic scapes
Bunch of dill
Quart of white button mushrooms
Dozen local eggs
1/2 gallon whole milk
Pint of chocolate milk
1/2 pound "Rasta Pasta" blend
1/2 pound Garlic Basil fettuccine
1 lb mild Italian pork sausage
2 large chicken thighs
1.3 pounds of cube steak

I can't remember the exact prices of everything, but I went into the market with $60 and left with a pocket of change and a single dollar bill. I'm guessing I spent about $57 dollars. Not pictured, but also prominent in my menu planning is a loaf of white wheat bread from All Good Bakers that they generously gave me for free when I was in for lunch on Friday.

So far I've made:

• a simple green salad using a handful of the radishes tossed with some store bought organic lettuce I had to use up, cucumber, and shallots and dressed with a homemade dill dressing and homemade croutons
• thick slices of french toast (simply whisk 4 eggs, about 1/4 cup of milk, and a generous splash of vanilla then soak your bread slices before cooking in a buttered skillet/griddle - add a delicious crust to the slices by sprinkling one side with organic cane sugar as it cooks) and fried eggs

Check back later this week for more recipe/meal ideas