I have to admit, I don’t often enjoy low calorie or healthy stuff as much as the tastes good bad for you stuff, but this is absolutely delicious and refreshing for summer!
Here’s what I’ve come up with:
White Grape Gazpacho, anyone?
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Category Archives: recipes
A wonderful cocktail to sip while setting up my new Mac!
I’ve infused Cold River Gin with dried apricots and fresh strawberries (I left the apricots soaking for about a week, added the strawberries after 4 days) and added club soda and a splash of St. Germain. Delish and the color is beautiful!
A St. Germain Cosmo…
Equal parts vodka and cranberry with a heavy splash of St. Germain and the juice from one lime…delish!
St. Germain + Clementine + Back River Gin from Maine
Today’s cocktail experiment involves gin, not usually my favorite spirit. But this combination is really nice. Maine’s Back River Gin, St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur, fresh Clementine juice and club soda – a very light and refreshing, not too sweet cocktail!
Valentines Day Breakfast in Bed
My afternoon in the Danforth Inn’s kitchen with Meredith Goad, food writer for the Portland Press Herald was fun and delicious. My first video (photographers are usually behind the camera) seems a tad boring to me but I’ll work on it for next time.
The Danforth’s kitchen seems home to me, it’s one of Kim Swan’s inns and the one where I hold the Art of Breakfast cooking workshops for Maine’s Innkeeping Academy that we started a little over a year ago.
I love to show how combining simple ingredients in unique ways can elevate breakfast and add a touch of sophistication.
Ah, the lost Art of Breakfast?
Tortilla Soup with Roasted Pulled Pork
1. We (okay my husband did!) brined a pork roast in sugar, water, salt and peppercorns and let it sit overnight.
2. He then marinated it for 3 hours in:
lime juice (1/4 cup)
clementine juice (from 2 clementines)
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoonancho chile powder
1/2 teaspoon chipotle chile powder
1 teaspoon granulated garlic
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
3. Drain, pat dry and brown in skillet. Reserve marinade.
4. Place pork roast into a slow cooker with 2 sliced onions and the marinade, cover and cook for 6 hours on high.
We ate ours with tortillas, sour cream, salsa and Monterey Jack cheese. But the next day, the soup was born!
For the soup:
6 cups chicken broth
1 can of diced tomatoes with juice
1 can white beans
the juice from 2 limes
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon ancho chile powder
1 teaspoon chipotle chile powder
1 teaspoon granulated garlic
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups shredded cooked pork (you could use chicken)
Sour cream and corn tortilla strips for garnish
Heat all ingredients except lime and pork in soup pot and cook for 15 minutes. Add pork (with the cooking juices) and cook another 30 minutes. Add lime and then ladle into bowls. Top with sour cream and tortilla strips and enjoy!
Like this:
Malted Peanut Butter Cookies
A small twist on a classic cookie.
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup peanut butter (heaping)
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon malted milk powder
2 tablespoons milk
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup chocolate chips (optional)
Cream sugar, butter, peanut butter and malted milk powder until smooth. Add egg and vanilla and mix for another minute. Fold in dry ingredients and mix until just incorporated. Fold in chips.
Place small scoopfuls onto a lined baking sheet and sprinkle sugar on top. Press the tines of a fork in a criss-cross pattern. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes.
Berry Infused Twenty2 Vodka and St. Germain
My latest concoction with a local Maine vodka and my new French favorite, St. Germain.
1 pint of ripe strawberries and 1 half pint raspberries, crushed, add to airtight container and cover with 2 cups vodka. Let sit in the refrigerator for 48 hours.
Add to a shaker with ice, 1 cup of the berry vodka, 1/4 cup St. Germain and shake. Fill a martini glass with about 1/4 cup club soda and fill the rest with the berry mixture. Add a small piece of lemon peel and enjoy!
This is the natural color, there is no added juice at all. It’s beautiful and delicious!
White Chocolate Chip Blueberry Oatmeal Cookies…
I thought I would post a blueberry recipe today since I just found a link to my blog from WildBlueberryHealthBlog.com today. They named me their #5 food blogger for us foodies infatuated with Maine!
White Chocolate Chip Blueberry Oatmeal Cookie
Makes about 36
Ingredients
1 stick butter, softened
¾ cups sour cream
1/3 cup sugar
¾ cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup medium cut oats (not quick cooking)
2 cups flour
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup fresh Maine blueberries (if using frozen, allow to thaw and drain completely; or you can use non-Maine blueberries if you have to)
Preheat oven to 350
Directions
In mixing bowl combine butter, sour cream and sugars in mix on medium speed until well blended. Add eggs and mix until smooth.
Add baking soda, baking powder, vanilla and salt to mixture and combine.
Fold in oats, then flour and mix until just blended. Fold in white chocolate chips.
Drop onto parchment or silicone lined baking sheet by rounded tablespoons about 2 inches apart. Bake for 10-12 minutes until puffed and barely dry to the touch. Try not to allow the cookie to brown.
These are actually soft enough to make in small muffin tins.
Like this:
My first shot at making homemade gnocchi!
Light, fluffy potatoey pillows from heaven! They turned out perfect. This was a Culinary Institute recipe from the book “Cooking at Home with the Culinary Institute of America” and it was just right.
Here’s the recipe:
3 russet potatoes, peeled
Salt
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 large egg
1 egg yold
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1 pinch freshly grated nutmeg
3/4 cup all purpose flour, or as needed
3 tablespoons grated Parmesan
1/4 cup minced fresh flat leaf parsley
Peel, cut and place the potatoes in a pan with enough cold water to cover by 2 inches. Cook until tender, 10-12 minutes. Drain, return them to the pot to let them dry over very low heat until no more steam rises. While potatoes are hot, push them through a ricer or food mill into a bowl (I couldn’t find my food mill so I used a medium fine strainer and it worked fine.
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.
For the gnocchi dough, add 1 tablespoon of the butter to the potato, add the egg and egg yolk, pepper and nutmeg and mix well. Incorporate the flour to make a stiff ball.
Divide the dough into egg sized pieces. In a floured board, use flat of your hand to roll the dough out into a cylinder about an inch in diameter. Cut them into one inch wide pieces. Gently roll the gnocchi against the tines of a fork to create ridges (this part I skipped!).
Add the gnocchi to boiling water and 2-3 minutes later, when they’re floating, remove them with a slotted spoon. Add the remaining butter to a saute pan over high heat and add some gnocchi and toss until hot and coated with butter. This is where I continued to cook mine and brown them a bit. Then I added my sauce, but the CIA recipe calls for just adding the Parmesan and the parsley.
I used reconstituted Marx Foods‘ dried mushrooms (Matsutake and Porcini) for my sauce with a little bacon, wine and butter. Add in the browned gnocchi, toss and serve over fresh baby spinach. It was delicious!
