Peach Strawberry Smoothie

Hot days just make you want a smoothie. I have not had much luck making smoothies at home - they seem easy enough to make, but for some reason I could never make one that I was really satisfied with. My husband thought it was silly that I would look for smoothie recipes online ("Just take some fruit and yogurt and throw it in the blender Ruth"), but I didn't want to waste good fruit on a so-so smoothie.

I bought peaches and strawberries from the farmers market yesterday (from South Carolina, so at least they were kind of local...) and wanted to make a good smoothie out of them. I found this recipe that is so simple, yet made an excellent smoothie. Previously I had been using fruit, ice, and yogurt to get the texture that I wanted, but the smoothie always tasted diluted. I want my smoothies to burst with fruit flavor. Then I found this recipe and I realized - duh! Frozen fruit. I could achieve the consistency and coldness that I wanted if I just used frozen fruit. So I cut up a cup of strawberries and a peach, froze them for an hour, and then blended them with some soy milk and some vanilla extract. Delish! I've found what I have been looking for in a smoothie recipe. We always have soy milk and vanilla, so I don't have to buy any extra ingredients when I'm hankering for a smoothie. The freezing the fruit thing does require a little planning, but worth it to avoid adding ice and getting a more intense fruit flavor.

Tip: One kitchen item that I love having, especially for smoothies, is a stick (handheld) blender. I got one for Christmas and I love it. It's so easy to use, and you can make smoothies quickly and with little effort. I have one that comes with a beater attachment and a food processor attachment, and also used it this weekend to make homemade whipped cream and to chop up fresh cranberries for scones. I highly recommend one if you use a blender, hand mixer, and/or food processor on a regular basis.

Mozzarella, Tomato and Basil Salad

When we were on vacation in Colorado, one of our friends made this delicious appetizer. The other name for it is Insalata Caprese, and it is a classic dish from the Italian region of Campania (thanks Wikipedia). We loved it and it is a very easy, yet elegant dish to serve. Here is a paraphrased recipe:

Ingredients:
Fresh mozzarella
Tomatoes (I used grape tomatoes. You can also use cherry tomatoes, or sliced tomatoes)
Fresh basil
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar

Put the mozzarella and the tomatoes in a serving dish. Cut the basil up (I stacked the leaves, rolled them up, and then cut them into slivers), and sprinkle the basil on top of the mozzarella and tomatoes. Drizzle olive oil and balsamic vinegar on top. I mixed it all up at this point to evenly disperse the oil and vinegar. Viola! You are done.

I brought this to an Italian themed potluck tonight and people raved. And it only took me about 5-10 minutes to make this! We served it with slices of French baguette but you could eat this by itself too. You can also thread them onto toothpicks, but that takes too much work in my opinion. This is a great, easy dish you can quickly throw together for a party, and people think you are a fabulous cook because of it.

Key Lime Pie and Key Lime Pie Ice Cream

I've made key lime pie a ton of times, but have never blogged about it. It's one of the easiest desserts I've made, and this recipe makes a pie very similar to what I've eaten when I've been in Florida, the famed birthplace of the key lime pie. The recipe tells you to make your own graham cracker crust, but I just use a store-bought crust. I use bottled key lime juice (I use the Nellie and Joe's brand, which you can get at some grocery stores). I've tried making it with real key limes, but squeezing all those tiny limes made my hand hurt, and the pie didn't taste any better than it does with bottle juice. I'm all for making things from scratch if it makes things taste better, but if it doesn't, well, my mother didn't raise a fool. I've also tried making it with Persian limes (the regular limes you find at the grocery store) - do not do this. It's a totally different taste and not nearly as tart. I also just use Reddi-Wip (the generic version of course, because even though I'm a foodie, I am still cheap) instead of whipping my own whipped cream, because that's what I'm used to having on my key lime pies. This makes a nice, tart pie. Cut back on the juice if you don't want it as tart, or just add more whipped cream on top.

I had to use up all my key lime juice, so I decided to try this new ice cream recipe I found. It was great when it was right out of the ice cream maker and was still soft, and my husband immediately declared that it was the best ice cream I've ever made. However, the next day it was not nearly as stupendous. The texture was kind of icy and gritty... the flavor was good but I could not get past the texture. It was kind of a let down, as I was really looking forward to homemade key lime pie ice cream. Maybe this recipe would be better with more cream and less milk, or throwing some eggs in there. Or maybe I should just make key lime pie and just freeze it. Oh well. I will keep experimenting.

Best Cocoa Brownies

I was in the mood for brownies the other day. I find brownies to be a little easier to make successfully than cookies. I can buy a better cookie than I can make. But I can make good brownies pretty easily. I have been meaning to try this recipe for a while and finally had a good cocoa powder to make them with. These were great - very rich and chocolately. I have been disappointed so many times with chocolate cake and brownies that look really chocolately, but when you bite in there is almost no chocolate flavor. If I wanted brown cake, I would order brown cake, not chocolate cake. These brownies, however, will not disappoint. I didn't get a candylike crust like the recipe described, but I did get some really good brownies. Yum.

Cheesy Potato Soup

I've taken the next step in learning how to cook - I made up a recipe today. Well, okay, this soup recipe is not completely original - I looked at a few recipes and got some ideas for a base for it - but it's different enough from the ones I looked at that I feel I can say this one is my own. We had this for dinner tonight. I haven't gone grocery shopping yet this week, so I just used what I had on hand. We thought this was pretty good. It is a nice, creamy, comforting soup for a cold day. I added two secret ingredients - Louisiana hot sauce and a little Worcestershire sauce - and they added some depth of flavor without being too prominent.

1 medium onion, chopped
1-2 garlic cloves, minced
3 tbsp butter
5 medium potatoes, diced
1 1/2 cups water
1 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups milk
1/4 cup flour
1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
2-3 tsp Louisiana hot sauce
Dash of Worcestershire sauce
Salt and pepper to taste

Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Saute onion and garlic until onion is transparent. Add potatoes, water, and salt. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 15-20 minutes until potatoes are tender. Add milk and flour and increase heat to medium. Heat until starting to bubble and thicken. Mix in cheddar cheese until melted. Add hot sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and salt and pepper to taste. Makes 2-3 servings as a main course.

Roasted Asparagus

Roasted asparagus doesn't really go with arroz caldo, but I bought some asparagus on a whim this week and what better day to eat it than yesterday? I followed a recipe in the Joy of Cooking. Roasting the asparagus on high heat gives it a delicate flavor. My hubby said that the heads tasted like pumpkin seeds (which was a good thing). I'll make this my go-to asparagus recipe. Here it is, paraphrased:

1 pound of asparagus
Olive oil
Parmesan cheese, grated
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 500 degrees Fahrenheit. Trim the ends of the asparagus. Place in a shallow baking pan in one layer. Drizzle olive oil onto the spears. Roast for 8-10 minutes, until they are getting tender but still a little firm. Transfer to serving dish and season with salt and pepper. Top with a little Parmesan cheese.

One-Step Lasagna with Basil

Last week was "Use Up All The Ingredients In The Kitchen Week". One such an ingredient was ground beef. I had a couple pounds of ground beef in my freezer from when I made sloppy joe's for a work potluck, which was many moons ago. I found this recipe for lasagna and thought this was a perfect way to use up that brick of ground beef that was taking up room in my little freezer. I skipped the Italian sausage and just used all ground beef, and used Walmart brand spaghetti sauce, which we like just fine. I also threw in some oregano, marjoram, salt and pepper while I sauteed the beef. I thought this was pretty good, but a little too meaty for us. Maybe if I had used Italian sausage I would have liked it more. For ease of preparation, though, this recipe cannot be beat. This was a lot simpler to make than my usual butternut squash lasagna (which is delicious but very labor intensive).

I would use this recipe again, but maybe cut back on the meat (this is just personal preference since we are not big meat eaters). I would also try adding spinach or some other veggies just for variety.