Archives for June 2010

Preserving the Bounty: Freezing Corn

June 29, 2010 By

At this time of year, corn is available for practically pennies an ear, whether you grow it, pick it, or buy it at the grocery store. It’s one of those things that’s not so readily available - at least fresh - the rest of the year, so it’s a good idea to stock up. Unfortunately, it’s also one of those food items that requires a little more effort in order to prepare it for storage, even freezer storage.

Canning corn is certainly one possibility, but because it is a low-acid food, it requires a pressure canner, which I don’t have. Besides, freezer corn retains more of the texture and taste of fresh corn. Over all, if you have the space, freezing is the best option.

You do need to set up your work station when freezing corn, because you have to follow a specific sequence and once it’s set in motion, it moves pretty quickly. First of all, heat a large pot of water (the largest one you have) to a full rolling boil. While it’s heating up, fill another bowl with ice water. It helps if you actually have ice to put in it, but I don’t, so I just filled the bowl with cold water and kept it in the fridge. It’s also very useful to have a pair of tongs to handle the corn.

Shuck the corn and remove as much silk as possible. Once the water is at a full boil, place the ears of corn in the pot (not too many at one time, so that it heats thoroughly). When the water returns to a full boil, allow the corn to boil for about 5 minutes.

Immediately remove the corn to the bowl of ice water to stop the cooking. Allow it to cool for about 5 minutes.

Once the corn is cooled, it’s ready to be put in the freezer. You can certainly freeze the cob whole, but the texture is better (and it’s easier to use) if you cut off the kernels. Here’s the coolest trick ever: Place the cob in the hole in the spindle of a bundt pan. Hold it steady with one hand while you slice off the kernels with a knife in the other. The kernels will fall into the bottom of the bundt pan, ready to be collected for freezing.

Gently stir the kernels and break up the strips. Place in a freezer-safe zippered bag, and label for storage. Don’t forget the date!

Freezing corn is perhaps not as QUICK as freezing other fruits and vegetables, but it doesn’t take as much time as canning! If you’re prepared with everything in place, the actual process is about 15 minutes or so, which is not bad at all.

Although it’s a multi-step process, it’s still pretty EASY. Not as easy as buying a can of frozen corn at the grocery store, but worth it for sure, especially if you buy local and/or organic corn.

It’s certainly CHEAPer than buying frozen corn. I will admit that I have been known to walk away from a grocery store with free frozen vegetables in my cart, but that’s certainly not a guarantee. It doesn’t happen every time, I can assure you! But if you compare the minimal cost of corn in season to the regular price of a comparable bag of corn, the savings can’t be beat. Even the 15-20 minutes of your time is worth it.

It’s certainly HEALTHY! Frozen corn is nutritionally superior to canned corn, hands down. And frozen, fresh, local corn? Even better! Corn is often maligned because of its high sugar content, but it also is a great source of fiber, and surprisingly, folate. Folate is used in the formation of cells, and as such, is particularly important in early pregnancy and in the prevention and/or treatment of anemia.

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Don’t throw away that bread!

June 23, 2010 By

I hate throwing food away! I hate it with a passion. When I work so hard to acquire the food as inexpensively as possible in the first place, it breaks my heart to throw it away. It seems like such a… waste. Which it is!

So I do my best NOT to throw food away, a battle which requires effort on several different fronts. For example: eating or freezing leftovers before they go bad, using even the bones of meat and the peels of fruits and vegetables to make stock and broth, only buying as much food as we will use before it goes bad, etc. etc. One element of this food fight is to come up with creative uses for almost-bad food, like past-ripe bananas or stale bread. It’s still edible, just not in its natural form.

Here’s my challenge to you: next time you have a partial loaf of bread wasting away on your countertop, don’t throw it away! Get creative and see what you can do with it. Seasoned bread crumbs are an easy place to start. Or just crumble it up as is and throw it into your meat loaf or hamburgers. If you don’t have time to deal with it before it really goes bad, pop it in a zippered bag in the freezer so you can tackle it when you do have a spare moment. (side note: you can do this with bread ends/heels, too: just collect them in the freezer and use them when you have a good amount)

I actually had two different kinds of stale bread on my countertop yesterday: cinnamon rolls and 1/3 of a loaf of wheat bread. I had tried a new recipe (the same bread recipe for both actually) and it wasn’t quite the texture I was looking for, so we didn’t eat it up as quickly as we normally would. I put both to use, in different ways, of course, and here were the results:

1. Croutons (which became Chicken Zucchini Stuffing Casserole)

I cut the bread into cubes, sprinkled some Italian seasonings and garlic salt on them and popped them into a 300F oven for a little while. They dried out nicely into perfectly seasoned croutons, which I then used in the following recipe:

Chicken Zucchini Stuffing Casserole
3-4 cups croutons or stuffing mix
1/2 cup butter, melted
2 TBSP butter
2 TBSP flour
1 cup milk
1 cup chicken broth
1/3-1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese, divided
2 cups cubed or shredded chicken
1 TBSP olive oil
1 zucchini, diced
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 onion, chopped (optional)
1 clove garlic, minced (optional)
salt and pepper to taste


Some of these measurements are not exact because I forgot to measure them. It’s not super vital to have the exact amount in any case.

Pour the melted butter over the croutons and stir until they are completely covered. Set aside about 1 cup of the croutons to use later as a topping. Place the remaining croutons in a 2qt casserole dish.

In a saucepan over medium heat, melt the 2 TBSP butter. Whisk in the flour and cook for a minute or two. Slowly add in the milk and chicken broth, stirring all the while. Simmer until slightly thickened. Remove from heat and stir in about half of the Parmesan cheese until it is completely melted. Add salt and pepper to taste. Pour over the croutons in the casserole dish.

Heat oil in a medium frying pan. Stir in zucchini, celery, and onion and garlic if using. Saute until translucent and somewhat tender, but try not to brown them. Add to casserole dish.

Add the chicken to the casserole dish, also, and stir all ingredients until well combined. At this point, you can add an optional 1/2 cup of plain yogurt or sour cream for extra flavor, tang and nutrients. Sprinkle the reserved croutons over the top of the casserole, and cook uncovered at 350F for 35-40 minutes. Sprinkle remaining Parmesan over the top, and cook an additional 5 minutes or until it is melted.

This is a delicious and healthy take on the traditional chicken casserole that uses stuffing mix and canned creamed soup.

Now, for my cinnamon rolls, this is what I did:

2. Cinnamon Bread Pudding

I just adapted a traditional bread pudding very slightly to meet my needs. You can do the same thing with cinnamon bread, or really any yeast bread. I’ve seen where people do the same thing with quick breads like muffins and such, but I’ve never personally tried that so I can’t vouch for it. At any rate, the end result will be something like French toast bread pudding… which is why I ate it for breakfast this morning!

Cinnamon Roll Bread Pudding
1 cup milk
2 TBSP sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 egg, slightly beaten
2-2.5 cups cubed dry cinnamon rolls or other bread

Mix together the milk, sugar, cinnamon and egg until well blended. (You can do this quickly in a blender.) Place the bread cubes in a 1.5qt casserole dish and pour the milk/egg mixture over it. Stir well until combined. Allow the mixture to set for a while so the bread soaks up the liquid. Bake, covered, for 40-45 minutes at 350F. (Following these instructions will result in a more moist bread pudding, which is the way I like it. If you like it more dry, then don’t allow the bread to soak up the liquid, and don’t cover the baking dish).

Traditionally, bread pudding is served with hard sauce, but I had some of this Cinnamon Syrup in the fridge, so i just used that. Mmmmmm! Like French toast, but better!

Is it QUICK to use up your stale bread like this? I don’t think it takes all that much time, honestly. In particular, bread crumbs and croutons are very quick: just pulse the bread in a processor for crumbs, or chop it into cubes for croutons. Sprinkle with seasonings to taste, spread in a single layer on a pan and bake at 350F until it’s dried. They can be store in an airtight container at room temperature for quite a while.Like I mentioned before, if you can’t take the time right now, store it in the freezer until you can.

Is it EASY? Very! You don’t have to do anything complicated to save stale bread: if nothing else, throw it in the toaster or oven, or make French toast.

Of course we know it’s CHEAP! I never have to buy bread crumbs or croutons because I make them myself with leftover bread. And any time you use up something you would otherwise throw away - you are saving money!

And is it HEALTHY? It all depends on the bread you started with. Is it whole grain with minimal, natural sweeteners? Then yes, it’s healthy!

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What to do With 5.5 Pounds of Raspberries!

June 21, 2010 By

First of all, I have to say that I did not take this picture of raspberries; I found it here. Isn’t it lovely?

Now, on to the main subject of today’s post: Raspberries! If you’ve been following me on Facebook (and if you’re not, you should!), you know that, tragically, I missed the entire strawberry season (which seemed awfully short to me this year), and was determined to make up for it by getting in on raspberry season. My DH, My Certain Little Someone and I therefore made our way to the nearest pick-your-own farm and proceeded to pick raspberries with abandon. Well, our Certain Little Someone ate them with abandon, at any rate. The price was considerably cheaper per pound if you picked at least 5 lbs, so that was our goal.

Thankfully, I had a plan in mind for all those raspberries: jam! I’m not going to go into detail in this post - I’ll save it for another day - but suffice it to say jam is a lot easier than I had imagined (although not without its difficulties). I only made one batch of jam, though, so there were plenty of raspberries for other purposes.

1. Freezing
Using the same procedure for blueberries that I outlined in this post, I froze a whole container of berries. In the future, I’ll use these frozen berries for smoothies, as delicious additions to yogurt, baked up into muffins or pancakes, or maybe even for dessert sauces.

2. Eating
There’s no point in saving all the raspberries for the future! There is nothing like a fresh, sun-kissed raspberry, so I enjoyed as many of them as I could. My Certain Little Someone also likes fruit with his coconut milk yogurt in the morning, so he enjoyed them as well. He also was quite fond of just popping them in his mouth at snack time or any time of day!

3. Pancake Syrup
I threw some berries in a saucepan, added a little water and some honey and let it cook and simmer until just slightly thickened. It made a delicious berry topping for my pancakes the next morning!

4. Berry Crisp

I like berry crisps better than berry pies, although I couldn’t really explain to you why. Maybe it’s the pie crust? It gets in the way of all that gooey berry goodness! I much prefer berries with a scattering of sweet crunchy topping instead of all that doughy crust. Since my DH doesn’t eat berries, I thought it only fair that I make the crisp allergen-free so my Certain Little Someone could enjoy it… and so that I didn’t eat the entire pan myself! You can find the recipe here. It’s easy to convert it back to its traditional version: just use whole wheat flour in place of the sorghum flour blend, and butter in place of the margarine or oil. Everything else remains the same.

6. Jam!
I am no expert on jam, that’s for sure. A few years ago, I made a mostly-successful batch of strawberry freezer jam, but that was it until this year. A few weeks ago, I made a jar (yes, a jar) of apricot jam, which was all my prior experience up to this point. I think I was more or less successful, but the proof is in the pudding, by which I mean, when I open up the jars I will find out if I can make jam or not! Like I said before, though, it was much easier than I imagined, even the canning part. Small batch canning is really pretty easy and doesn’t take a lot of time or expertise. It does seem like everything happens all at once: at the moment the mixture is finished and hot, you have to immediately pour it into the jars, seal and process them right away. I did have some minor struggles with this bout of canning (only my third ever), but nothing major and nothing to deter me from trying again. Anyway, I got 4 full jars of jam, and then a half jar worth, which I put into the fridge.

7. Hmmmm… what next?
I do have a cup or two of raspberries left that are begging to be used up wisely. I’m hoping to try my hand at frozen yogurt, but that would require yogurt, which I don’t have at the moment! Hopefully in the next couple days, I can complete that project and report back to you!

So, what would you do with all those raspberries?

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With a Cherry on Top

June 14, 2010 By

Earlier this spring, I was thrilled to find a practically brand new ice cream machine (electric with a gel bowl - no cranking, ice or salt for me!) at a thrift store for $10! It may have been used a few times, but most of the packaging was still there and it looked perfectly brand new. I can’t tell you how long I’ve been keeping my eyes peeled for an ice cream machine. A few times, I’ve almost bought one new - and they’re not all that expensive - but I just never did. I guess I wasn’t (and still am not) sure that I would use it often enough to justify spending money and taking up space.

I decided this weekend to put my ice cream maker to the test and see how I did. I have very little experience with homemade ice cream: there was one time when I was a child, that my Sunday school teacher had her class over to her house to make ice cream. All I remember from that occasion was that it took a long time! Other than that, my closest encounters with homemade ice cream have been science experiments in kindergarten and elementary classrooms, where you make a simple ice cream either in a bag or in a ball that you roll around.

My first quandary was how to make ice cream without any egg. You know me, I like things simple, and I did not want to deal with making a custard and cooking an egg. I just wanted to mix it up and put it in the freezer! I also did not want any raw egg - yuck! If you’re looking for the same thing, here’s a great article by Allrecipes.com that explains the different types of ice cream and has some very helpful user comments at the bottom. Unfortunately, I found this article after I already made my ice cream. Oh well, I will put it to good use next time.

Anyway, so I ended up making what the article refers to as “Philadelphia style” ice cream, which is to say, no egg, only I didn’t know that’s what I was doing. And I started with this recipe, omitting the egg and reducing the cherry mixture by about half. All in all, it turned out very well, and even my DH said that it was better than homemade ice cream that he remembered. He also doesn’t like cherries (haha!) but he said it didn’t have too strong of a cherry flavor, so it was good. If you like cherry flavor, I’d recommend going with the proportions in the recipe (although you can still reduce the sugar, I think - mine was very sweet), or adding in some fresh chopped cherries after churning.

I have a lot to learn about homemade ice cream, and I’m also anxious to try my hand at frozen yogurt, sorbet and other ice cream variations. In the meantime, here’s my very first experimental recipe.

Not-Very-Cherry Ice Cream
1 cup ripe sweet cherries, pitted and halved
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1 cup heavy cream
2 cups whole milk
1/2 tsp vanilla

Follow the instructions for your ice cream maker. For mine, that meant freezing the bowl the day before. I also made the cherry sauce the day before: Place cherries, sugar and water in a double boiler and cook until cherries are soft. Puree in a blender or with a stick blender. Chill. Mix remaining ingredients. When cherry sauce is cold, add to milk mixture. When ice cream maker bowl is completely frozen, pour in ice cream mixture and churn for required amount of time. If desired, add fresh chopped cherries at this time. Remove from bowl and place in a freezer-safe container and freeze until desired texture.

This was delicious served with homemade chocolate sauce and a fresh cherry on top!

Homemade ice cream is not exactly QUICK, although if you have an electric machine, the actual hands-on time is minimal. You have to plan ahead in order to freeze the bowl and make sure your mixture is properly chilled before trying to churn it into ice cream, so it’s not as instant as picking some up from the store or going to an ice cream shop. However, when the machine does most of the work, the only active time required is probably about 10-15 minutes max.

It is pretty EASY, though. I’m discovering that there are tricks and techniques to getting the best texture, but really, you can’t go wrong with frozen cream and sugar! No matter if your ice cream is rock hard or soft-serve, the taste is the big thing, and that’s not hard at all. Well, I should qualify that I suppose: I personally think it would be very hard to make ice cream with a hand-crank machine. Hence the electric one!

Whether it’s CHEAP or not requires consideration. I try to spend $2 or less on a carton of ice cream in the grocery store, which these days is about 1.5 quts. My ice cream maker makes 1 qt, so each recipe is slightly less than what I pay for in the store. I can guarantee that I spent more than $2 on this ice cream recipe, considering the cherries, whole milk and cream. However, the total I spent probably ended up being $3 or $4, which is definitely cheaper than regular price ice cream. Also, I prefer to buy Breyers or Harris Teeter’s all natural ice cream, which goes on sale far less often than other ice creams, so is harder to come by at a good price. Homemade ice cream is all natural, so I figure that makes it a pretty good deal.

It’s definitely HEALTHY-er than most ice creams out there, which are full of artificial flavors and colors, plus high fructose corn syrup, trans fats and any other number of chemical additives. Plus, with homemade ice cream you can limit the amount of sugar, and add in a lot of fresh fruit, so the end product is almost nutritious, instead of being a waste of calories.

Find more yummy summery recipes at:

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Artisan Bread and Pizza

June 12, 2010 By

I recently purchased a cookbook I’ve been eyeing for a while: Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes a Day, which is the sequel to Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois. Jeff is a doctor and Zoe is a pastry chef, and together they worked to create a method that anyone could use to make bread at home, even with limited time constraints and little baking experience.

The basic idea is this: mix a whole batch of dough (without kneading!), let it rest/rise for a while, then store it in the fridge for 2 weeks. At any point during those 2 weeks, use a portion of the dough (most recipes make enough for 4 regular size loaves) to shape, rest, and bake a loaf of bread. The 5 minutes a day is the “active” time that you spend working with the dough and doesn’t include resting and baking time.

There’s a lot to like about this method: it’s easy, uses basic ingredients (although there are recipes for more exotic breads, like Black Sesame Pita, or Msemmen Flatbread), and really doesn’t take a lot of active time. I also love that there is always some dough in the fridge that I can use, and it’s pretty flexible, too. So far, with one batch, I made one loaf of whole wheat bread, one loaf of cinnamon bread, and …. pizza!

Most of the breads you can make with the dough require at least an hour of rising time, but when you use it for pizza, the resting time is unnecessary. That means you can take a hunk of dough out of the fridge, roll it out, pile on the toppings, bake for about 10 minutes and…. presto! Homemade artisan pizza in less than half an hour! That’s QECH!

Using the artisan bread in 5 minutes a day baking method, you should prep your dough on a pizza peel while a baking stone is preheating in the oven. When the dough and the stone are ready, you slide the dough from the peel onto the hot stone. This ensures that the pizza crust will bake up evenly and nicely browned. I don’t have a pizza peel, though, so I just prep the dough right on the un-heated baking stone and put the whole thing in a preheated oven. It might not make perfect crust… but it comes pretty close!

Of course, you can make whatever kind of pizza you want, but this is what I did:

Artisan BBQ Chicken Pizza
1 portion Master Dough recipe from Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes a Day
1/2 cup BBQ sauce
1 cup shredded chicken
2 cups shredded cheese (I used cheddar and mozzarella)

Preheat the oven t0 500F or 550F, as hot as it will go. If you have a pizza peel and a pizza stone, place the pizza stone in the oven to preheat until the pizza is ready to bake.

Roll the dough out to 1/8″ thickness, either on a pizza peel or on a pizza stone. (Of course, you can bake the pizza on a regular old pizza pan, too.)

Spread the sauce evenly across the dough.

Top with chicken and cheese. If using a pizza peel, slide the pizza onto the baking stone, or place the stone (or pan) with the pizza in the oven, on the lowest rack.

Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until crust is browned and cheese is melted. Cool slightly, then slice and serve.

With a little preparation, this is a super QUICK method. When I made it tonight, I pulled the dough from the fridge, as well as the BBQ sauce, which was leftover from an earlier meal. The chicken came from the freezer, also leftovers from an earlier meal. All I had to do was shred the cheese, and put it all together!

Very EASY, too. Rolling out the dough was the hardest part, and that wasn’t very hard.

Pretty CHEAP, considering all the leftovers that went into the pizza! Pizza is actually a great way to use up leftover meats and veggies in a new and delicious way.

This is HEALTHY in many ways. For one, I used whole grain dough for the crust, which makes it a complex carbohydrate. I used homemade BBQ sauce - no high fructose corn syrup or chemical ingredients! Using homemade cooked chicken is healthier than pre-packaged, preserved, cooked chicken, or even canned chicken. It would have been healthier to add some vegetables (onions, peppers and tomatoes come to mind), but most vegetables that are suitable for pizza are not exactly suitable for my DH!

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Preserving the Bounty: Freezing Blueberries, Peaches, Spring Onions and Zucchini

June 7, 2010 By

Quick plug before I get to the actual blog: don’t forget to “Like” my Facebook page! You can keep track of what I am up to in the kitchen there, as well as let me know what you’re up to and what you’d like to see on this blog!

Can I tell you how much I love this time of year? It’s amazing how much more widely available fresh produce is now than during the winter. Even in these days of hothouses and imported (sometimes from as far away as Asia) produce, it’s still the spring, summer and early fall that finds us abounding in all kinds of vitamin and mineral goodness. More and more people are realizing the importance of buying their produce fresh, local and organic, and local farmers are responding - with enthusiasm!

There are a lot of ways to procure local fresh foods, but that’s another topic for another day. Suffice it to say that I have been stalking my local farmer’s market every week and have been taking advantage of local grocery stores’ cooperation with local farmers (although I admit their definition of local is sometimes a stretch!). Whenever I can, I also go to the closest organic grocery store (which, unfortunately, is not as convenient as I might like) and am able to find local organic produce, occasionally for the same price as the convention, imported kind in a regular grocery store. I am still waiting on my garden-in-pots to produce, but it’s coming along nicely, so in a few weeks I should have some fresh veggies on my balcony as well!

The question is, what to do with all this bounty? As people are stocking up on the local produce, they’re realizing two things: 1.) they want to enjoy it all year long, not just in the summer, and 2.) there’s no possible way to eat it all at once before it spoils. These realizations are leading to a revival of the old-fashioned arts of canning and drying. I’m very interested in both of these, and plan on at least attempting to can some things this summer, but for now, I want to talk about a more modern method of preserving the precious bounty: freezing.

My mom actually was the first to introduce me to this idea. Every summer when I was growing up, we would go to a local blueberry farm, and fill literally every container in our house with blueberries. Then we’d go home and clean and freeze the blueberries, and eat them all year long, usually in blueberry pancakes. I had a little overload on frozen blueberries growing up, so it took me awhile to regain my taste for them, but now I am doing the same thing - on a much smaller scale! My mom also made freezer jam and freezer pickles.

I am attempting to follow in my mother’s frozen footsteps, but she had a definite advantage over me: a chest freezer. I, probably like many of you, only have the freezer that is attached to the top of my refrigerator. Trust me, if I had a place to put it, I’d buy a deep chest freezer in a heartbeat, but that is not currently an option. Thankfully, my family of 3 is much smaller than my mom’s family of 13, so we don’t need to freeze quite as much! I just save a little extra from each week’s gathering of produce, and we enjoy it well into the winter and sometimes beyond.

Frozen, like canned or dried, produce does lose some of its fresh texture and flavor, but that doesn’t render it useless. Some frozen fruits and veggies can be enjoyed fresh or raw in salads and the like, but most of the time they are better when baked or blended into homemade goods, like breads, pancakes, and other goodies. Frozen fruit is also perfect for smoothies or ice cream, or sometimes even sprinkled over cereal or granola (thaw first); it also makes great sauces and syrups as toppings for desserts or pancakes.

Freezing, in general, is pretty easy, but just in case you’ve never attempted it and like some guidelines to follow, here’s a brief primer on the produce I’ve frozen so far this season:

1. Blueberries

Blueberries are so easy: just rinse them carefully and remove any remaining stems or - yuck! - worms. Blech. I actually did find a worm in one of my packages of blueberries, which is really quite disgusting. Anyway, make sure the berries are clean, then spread them in a single layer on a small pan covered with a clean dish towel, making sure as much as possible that the berries are not touching each other:

Place the pan in the freezer and leave it there until the berries are frozen hard. Remove the berries from the pan and place them in a freezer-safe bag or container. I personally prefer containers because they’re easier to stack in my space-deprived freezer, but bags work very well, too. Label the package clearly so there’s no confusion later on as to the contents (although blueberries are hard to confuse!).

Use the same method for any kind of berry. Strawberries you may want to slice first, in which case, cover the pan with plastic wrap instead of a dish towel.

2. Peaches

 

First, the peaches have to be peeled, which is the hardest part. Set a pot of water to boil and mark an X on the bottom of each peach with a knife. Drop them into the boiling water for about 30 seconds and then remove them with a slotted spoon to a bowl of ice cold water. When they’re cool enough to touch, use a knife to pull off the peel, starting with the X slits you made earlier. The peel will slide right off. This method is best to use when you have a bunch of peaches to peel at one time.
Cover a pan with plastic wrap and spread the peach slices on it, taking care not to overlap them:
Place the pan in the freezer until the peaches are frozen hard, then remove them and place them in a freezer-safe bag or container, once again remembering to label them.
Note: Sometimes peaches will brown slightly when frozen. You can avoid this by using a dash of lemon juice if you’d like. The browning doesn’t affect the taste, but it does affect appearance and possibly texture.
3. Spring or Green Onions
These are some of the first vegetables to arrive on the scene at the farmer’s market. They’re also very easy to freeze! Simply wash them thoroughly and then slice them up, bulbs, stems and all. Freeze in a freezer-safe bag or container. They might get mushy when they thaw, so they’re probably not perfect for salads or other fresh dishes, but they’ll go great in soups, broths and casseroles, even dips.
4. Zucchini
Zucchini is famous for its, um, shall we say availability? Lots of creative cooks find all sorts of ways to use zucchini throughout the summer. It’s so easy to freeze for use in the winter, too: all you have to do is shred it. If you have a food processor with a grating blade, that job is super simple and takes only seconds. Otherwise, it takes a little bit of extra time and elbow-grease, but it’s definitely worth it if you’ve run out of ideas for what to do with all that zucchini! Once you’ve grated it, simply freeze it in freezer-safe bags or containers. If you can, it’s best to freeze the grated zucchini in 1-cup portions because otherwise you’ll have to defrost the entire package, only to use a small portion of it.
Freezing is QUICKer than canning, so if you have ample freezer space, it’s the ideal way to save all that bounty of produce for use in the winter. Some types of produce require a little extra time and preparation for freezing, but the time spent on the front end will be worth it on the other end when all you have to do is pull it out of the freezer to use in your baking and/or cooking.
It is very EASY, too. Most fruits, and some vegetables, simply require cleaning and possibly slicing before being put in the freezer. Other vegetables might require blanching, but that’s pretty easy, too.
Freezing produce yourself is much CHEAPer than purchasing it already frozen, especially fruits. I can’t remember the last time I purchased frozen fruit, because it’s too expensive and rarely goes on sale. Vegetables are a different matter, but it’s still cheap to freeze your own.
It’s certainly HEALTHY, especially if you buy the freshest local organic produce you can find. Unlike canning, freezing actually helps to preserve the vitamins and nutrients found in the fruit, so it’s the best way to save them for future use.

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Birthdays and Ice Cream

June 2, 2010 By

They just go together, right? No birthday celebration is complete without ice cream… although, just yesterday, we did happen to celebrate my sister’s birthday and realized too late that there was no ice cream. Poor sister! My husband, however, did have ice cream at his birthday celebration - in case you can’t tell by the candles in the picture above, he turned 31.

Oddly enough, my husband prefers his ice cream plain, without any toppings whatsoever. He does love caramel and butterscotch flavors, though, so on occasion, he’ll use a little of either of those. Most of the time, though, it’s just him and his ice cream.

Not me. I like a little ice cream with my toppings. And even though it was his birthday, I decided to offer a variety of toppings to our guests who were helping us celebrate, to enjoy with their ice cream. Or ice cream to enjoy with their toppings, as they saw fit.

My brother says that I am the only one he knows who makes their own ice cream toppings. I know, however, that I am not the only one who does, because recipes for various sauces abound in the blogosphere. Why do I make my own ice cream sauces? I guess I have multiple reasons:

1. We don’t eat ice cream very often, and like I said, my DH doesn’t ever eat toppings with his. Therefore, I never think to put it on my grocery list, and even if I did, I wouldn’t want to spend the money on something that would likely go eventually to waste.

2. Ice cream toppings are not good for you. Neither is ice cream, really, but at least with that I can easily get all natural kinds without artificial flavors or colors or high fructose corn syrup. And, now that I have an ice cream maker, I can even make my own! Homemade ice cream toppings are at least a smidgen healthier than their storebought counterparts.

3. This goes with #1, I guess, but those little jars are downright expensive! I don’t like to spend money on stuff I feel guilty eating.

So I make my own ice cream toppings. And you know what? It’s quick. It’s easy, It’s cheap. And even relatively healthy!

The possibilities are endless, but this is what I did for my DH’s birthday:

1. Chocolate Sauce

I used a recipe from my vintage Fannie Farmer cookbook, one of my all-time favorite cookbooks and a great resource for basic sauce recipes. It calls for baking chocolate, but I substituted 3 TBSP cocoa powder and 1 TBSP coconut oil for each ounce of unsweetened chocolate. I also reduced the sugar by half - and it was plenty sweet!

Rich Chocolate Sauce (adapted from Fannie Farmer)
2 oz unsweetened chocolate (or 6 TBSP cocoa, 2 TBSP coconut or other oil)
1 TBSP butter
1/2 cup sugar
2/3 cup cream
a few grains of salt
1 tsp vanilla extract

Combine all ingredients, except vanilla extract, in double boiler and cook and stir until well blended and slightly thickened. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.

This chocolate sauce will thicken upon cooling, so it’s probably best to serve it warm.

2. Strawberry Syrup

You can use any berry to make this syrup. I actually didn’t have any apple juice at the time, so I just used water and about a teaspoon or so of honey, and it was perfect. Peaches would also be delicious.

3. Butterscotch Sauce

Butterscotch is one of my DH’s favorite flavors, and even if he doesn’t like ice cream toppings, since it was his birthday, I made it in his honor! I used this recipe from Smitten Kitchen. Warning: don’t cook it too long or it will get too thick and won’t pour easily (but it will still be delicious!). Closet Cooking also has a great Caramel Sauce recipe which I’ve used before, omitting the corn syrup.

4. Whipped Cream
Whipped cream is so easy to whip up (if you pardon the pun) in a jiffy, and is available for a great price at warehouse stores, so there is no excuse to use an aerosol can or a tub of fluff. If you must, I believe the aerosol can actually has some real cream in it, as opposed to the tub of whipped topping that has very little real food in it, being mostly chemical in origin, so please go with the aerosol. But really, it takes about a minute or so to whip up some heavy cream with a tad of sugar, and it tastes soooo much better. And is better for you!

5. Chocolate Chips
Real chocolate is best, although I will admit that for some reason I had vanilla chips this time. I don’t even know why I bought those because I really do prefer real chocolate chips with real ingredients in them. At any rate, they make great additions to an ice cream sundae bar.

6. Bananas
Bananas turn a sundae into a split! They also add a little nutritional value, which doesn’t hurt.

7. Chopped Candy
This was my indulgence: chopped Heath bars left over from some special occasion or another months ago. I love toffee, and it went perfectly with the ice cream. But it’s not healthy, so we’ll just pretend I never said anything, OK!?

There are lots of other great toppings you can collect from different corners of your pantry: nuts (candied or not), granola, chopped cookies, brownies, crumbled graham crackers, dried flaked coconut, etc. Really, the options are limited only by your imagination!

This is a great QUICK dessert idea when you have guests coming over with short notice. It’s a particularly great option if you have kids on your guest list!

It’s so EASY, really! Plop the ingredients in a pot on the stove, stir, cook a few minutes, and you’re done! You can make all the sauces ahead of time, and warm them up if necessary just before serving.

It’s definitely CHEAPer than buying all the toppings at the store, since most of the ingredients are readily available in your pantry and fridge. The chocolate sauce and butterscotch sauce will keep for a few weeks in your fridge, so you can continue to use them for ice cream, or get really creative and use them as toppings for fresh fruit, pancakes, or waffles.

Making your own toppings is much HEALTHY-er than purchasing them. No artificial flavorings, colors or preservatives, no high fructose corn syrup, and only as much sugar as you want to use. Furthermore, homemade sauces are made with real, fresh ingredients, which have much more nutritional value than canned processed ones.

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