Mango Lassi Popsicle

I'm absolutely in love with two flavors right now: Mango and Cardomom.  This has both - yummy! 
I have to thank Desserts for Breakfast for this recipe - they have a Strawberry-Honey Yogurt one on there too that looks just a delicious.

2 cups ripe mango, chopped
1 1/2 cups Greek yogurt
1/2 cup milk
2 Tbsp sugar (I substituted 2 Tbsp of honey instead which worked well)
BIG! pinch of ground cardamom
big pinch of salt

Blend everything up in the blender.  Pour into popsicle molds and freeze.
As a side note, my picky picky 5 year old who "hates" fruit - loves these popsicles!

Orange Julius - Pineapple Julius Copy Cat Recipes

As a kid, going to Orange Julius was a big treat.  So sweet and refreshing!  My favorite always was the Pineapple Julius, yum!  I recently found a copycat recipe for Orange Julius on Pinterest.  I didn't think it would be that difficult to adapt to make a pineapple version.  I was right.  This was very easy. 

Here's the Orange Julius recipe I found from the Budget Savy Diva

• 6 oz. can frozen concentrated orange juice
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup water
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 8 or more ice cubes
• 1 Tablespoon of Instant Vanilla Pudding Powder

Instructions

1. Place all ingredients in a blender except for the ice cubes.
2. Blend until mixed
3. Add ice cubes one at a time – blend until smooth.

Here's my adapted, lightened up Pineapple Version:

1-2 cups fresh pineapple, chopped into chunks
1 cup milk
1 cup water
1/4 cup Splenda
1 tsp vanilla extract
8 or more ice cubes (I didn't have any ice, so I left these out, but I can see where they would make it even better)
1 Tbsp of Instant Vanilla Pudding Powder (I didn't have any on hand, so I used Butterscotch instead)

Place all ingredients in a blender, except for the ice cubes.  Blend until mixed.  Add ice cubes on at a time, blend until smooth.

Inside Out Caramel Apples

Like a lot of good recipes, this one was passed on from a friend who saw it somewhere else.  My friend found it on Random Thoughts of a Supermom (original post here).  They looked easy and yummy and seeing as I haven't had much success making real caramel apples, I thought I'd try it out.  Okay the picture does not do the yumminess of this justice at all.  But trust me, it's tasty.  My 6 year old thought so to.

Basically you take an apple (or several apples).  Slice the top off, scoop out the inside core.  Put a few sliced mini carmels inside with some chopped peanuts, a little dab of butter and bake at 350* for 30-40 minutes (until the apple is soft).  Very tasty on a fall night.

Canning Applesauce

We had a fantastic time apple picking this year.  But you know how it is, apple picking goes so fast that the kids fill your bags with more apples than you can possibly use.  But this is the year I started canning, so I thought I'd make a little (read a LOT) more applesauce than usual.  My kids love it.  I looked up a bunch of recipes on sites I like and then thought I would just do the math to make a large batch of the applesauce recipe that I used last year.  That recipe was posted by Heidi of Tried and True Cooking with Heidi.  It is the best applesauce I've had.  You can find the original recipe here.  I used 38 apples in my canning version (although it would have been easier to use 40, now that I'm thinking about it, so I'll post as if I used 40 apples)

Yield: 5 litres of applesauce

40 apples
7.5 cups of water
2.5 cups of sugar or Splenda
5 tsp cinnamon

Peel and slice all your apples.  Place all of the ingredients into a large stock pot and mix.  Cook until the apples are soft, stirring occasionally.  Use a hand blender to puree. 
Prepare your canning jars and lids.  I think you can use a water bath for canning applesauce, but I have been schooled in the safety of pressure canning.  I pressure canned this for about 20 minutes at 11 psi which worked beautifully. 

Yummy, yummy applesauce

I saw this recipe over at Tried and True Cooking with Heidi last month. She calls it "The Best" Applesauce. It looked wonderful and I figured it had to be better than the apple mush I tried to pass off as applesauce last year. It was! So delicious. I first made it for my boys and one of their friends a couple of weekends ago and made it again by request of my oldest son last week. He loves it. He says it's his favorite snack ever. My youngest loves it too, which is great for Mr. Picky who won't eat much of anything that isn't bread or chocolate.

Here's the recipe:

4 apples - peeled, cored and chopped
3/4 cup water
1/4 cup white sugar (she suggested Splenda and that's what I used too)
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

In a saucepan, combine apples, water, sugar, and cinnamon. Cover, and cook over medium heat for 15 to 20 minutes, or until apples are soft. Allow to cool, then mash with a fork or potato masher if you want chunky sauce, or put in the blender for a smooth sauce. I quite like a smooth sauce, so I used my hand blender and it worked like a charm. Thanks Heidi for this one!

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

I had this huge craving for pineapple upside down cake last week and while I was on Cheryl's site (Cooking Dunkin Style)there was a link within to her pineapple upside down cake. I adapted it a little, but stayed pretty true to her recipe.
While I was making this I was reminded of cooking over the campfire for Girl Guides. Did anyone else make pineapple upside down cake in a can back then? This one is much more sophisticated I'm sure :o)

1st - heat up the stove to 350 - melt margarine or butter in your cake pan (round is best) (a few spoonfuls) add brown sugar and smooth together over the bottom of the pan (another few spoonfuls). Take out of the oven and set aside until later.

In a mixing bowl mix together the following:
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened - I used margarine
2/3 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup milk
Mix all the wet ingredients together first and then add the dry
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1st - add pinapple rings to the bottom of the cake pan. Set a marichino cherry inside each if you wish.
2nd - pour the cake batter over top and spread out evenly.
3rd- Bake the cake in the middle of the oven for 45 to 55 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pan on a rack for 15 minutes, run a thin knife around the edge, and invert the cake onto a plate.

*I used a spring-form cake pan when making this. I recommend setting it on top of a
baking sheet as some of the margarine leaked out a bit when melting. If you do use one of these, just let the cake cool for 15 minutes and then turn over onto a plate, release the triggers to let the cake out.

My Favorite Banana Bread

This recipe comes from one of the most unique cookbooks that I own. It is "Cooking With Mickey, Vol. II" and contains the most requested recipes from Walt Disney World and Disneyland. I have to admit that I haven't made most of the recipes in this book, but keep it just for this recipe. It is in no way low-fat, in fact it is high fat, high sugar and really, really yummy!
I ended up with this book thanks to my brother. My brother and I have a love affair with everything Disney since we were kids. It was one of our favorite family vacations. I grew up on the west coast of Canada and quite often we would camp our way down the coast from BC to San Diego and back. I was almost 5 the first time we did Disney and I look forward to the day when I can take my kids there too. Jeff (my brother) spotted this book at a Disney store in Seattle about 9 years ago and knew it would be something I would like (especially since it had their cinnimon french toast recipe in it which he loves and knew there was a good chance I would make it for him).

My family at Disney way back (circa. 1989?) I'm about 12 in this picture.

The Recipe
1 cup butter (melted)
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp water
2 cups banana (mashed)
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
3 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
1 cup walnuts, chopped (optional) - I've never put in the full 2 cups, usually I make it without, today I added about 1/4 cup

Preheat oven to 350*. Sift together flour, salt and baking soda. Set aside. Mix melted butter and sugar until well blended. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each. Add bananas, water and vanilla. Fold in flour mixture and walnuts and blend until all flour is moist. Pour batter evenly into 2 greased loaf pans. Bake for 1 hour or until the centre of the loaf is firm and a toothpick comes out clean.

Peach Topping for Pancakes

Those who have been following my blog for a while will know that my family never gets tired of pancakes. I usually make pancakes on Saturday morning for PJ and cartoon time with my boys. This week I had some fresh peaches in the fridge that needed to be eaten up and I remembered playing with a banana/pineapple topping a few years back that I thought would go well with the peaches. It did and it's super-easy!

2 fresh peaches, sliced into 8 pieces
a few spoonfuls of brown sugar
a few spoonfuls of margarine

Melt the margarine in a saucepan over low-medium heat. Add the brown sugar and peaches and mix well. Cover to let everything simmer together while your pancakes are cooking.

Cherry Chocolate Muffins and a Bananaberry Smoothie

Well, my oldest son asked me to buy some cherries not too long ago. Sure. Unfortunately, he decided that the best way to enjoy cherries was to make cherry juice and squish them. After cleaning up a good sized mess (note to self, never leave 4 year old with cherries unattended), I hid the rest of the bag in the back of a fridge drawer.

Coincidentally, I started noticing cherry based posts on some of my favorite foodie sites. One for chocolate cherry muffins caught my eye. This morning I decided to bake those muffins. But do you think I could find the original post? Why, oh why didn't I bookmark it? I should know better, I'm not going to remember who posted it...there are too many lovely recipe sites out there. So I started to search. Yes, I went through each blog site and typed in the word cherry to search. After about 10 blogs I found it. It was at Joy in My Kitchen. The recipe can be found here.
The muffins turned out quite nicely. I did omit the chocolate chips as I had used up what I had earlier this week making chocolate chip cookies. My son really liked them too.
I thought smoothies would make this into a more complete breakfast. They are so great and so easy. This version had:

1/2 container of vanilla yogurt (650 g size, PC provantage brand)
1/4 cup skim milk
2 generous cups of frozen mixed berries
2 ripe bananas, cut into chunks

Everything goes into the blender and blend until smooth. I did have to stop a couple of times to push the fruit down, but it all worked and tasted so delicious.
The funny thing was my youngest who watched me make the smoothies. He saw me put the banana in and said, 'no like banana Mama', but he was the first one to ask for seconds of the drink :o)

June Strawberries

Have you ever seen anything so beautiful? Gorgeous aren't they? Mmm, I love fresh strawberries. (Alright and technically I know that these are May strawberries but June Strawberries just sounds so much better)
My friend Hilary asked me way back at New Years if I would make one of the desserts for her wedding to another friend of ours Shawn. I was so delighted that she would ask. And I have to admit that I hemmed and hawed about what I would make. I wanted it to be good. I wanted it to be light and weddingish. I knew that their wedding was to be relaxed and casual, but special and I wanted to make something that would match that atmosphere. And then I read a post at Cheat Day Cafe in April. It was Melody's strawberries with fat-free cheesecake filling. They looked heavenly and I knew I had found a match. As I was admiring them one day I asked my husband what he thought. He thought they looked great but had I considered chocolate dipped strawberries? Ooohh, no I hadn't, but now I did. As I looked up chocolate covered strawberries I came across white chocolate coconut dipped strawberries too. Now we're talking. Now we are in strawberry heaven. So I made all three.
I changed Melody's recipe only slightly. I couldn't find any cheesecake flavored pudding, so I used vanilla. I also had trouble getting the stiffness I wanted for the filling, so I added about a half cup of icing sugar. It worked and the result was lovely (not as pretty as hers, you have to take a look) but I was pleased.
Making chocolate dipped strawberries was easier than I ever thought. The only tricky part is making sure not to overcook the chocolate. Once you have it melted to the right consistency you have to work fast. I made mine by melting a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips in the microwave on low heat. Stir every couple of minutes until it's nice and smooth. Then dip the strawberries in and set on wax paper to harden the chocolate shells. Keep at a cool temperature.
The white chocolate coconut ones were similar only I melted a bag of white chocolate chips and then had a bowl of finely flaked coconut ready. Dip in the white chocolate, dip in the coconut and set on wax paper to harden.
There is a trick to making the chocolate look nice. Twist the strawberry as it is in the chocolate to coat it well and continue to twist as you take it out.
I made 2 large trays of the strawberries. I made 30 cream filled, 15 white chocolate coconut and 15 chocolate dipped (these were very large strawberries) - plus a few practice ones for my family. I had a lot of compliments on these. I just couldn't believe that something so pretty and tasty was so easy to make.

Here are the bride and groom at their wedding this past Saturday - don't they look so happy? The wedding was really so perfectly them. Fairly casual and fairly special.

Saturday BBQ at the park

One good thing about living in a company town is that they have used some of their land to turn into a park space. And because they are an oil company they pipe gas into the park right to gas BBQ's. I love this. Several times over the sunny (and somewhat warm) season (it's not long around here) we take our BBQ up to the park for dinner and then go for a hike afterwards.

Steak Marinade

1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup steak sauce
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tbsp lime juice
2 tbsp brown sugar
1/4 tsp ground pepper

Mix everything together in a small bowl. Pour over steaks to marinade for at least 2 hours (I like to marinade them for 24 hours, it tastes better). I also bought the club pack (read=big, cheap pack) of steak meat this week. It came with 2 large cuts of beef. I cut one into serving size steaks and trimmed the fat from it. I then marinaded it with this marinade in a ziplock bag. The other steak I trimmed the fat from and cut into strips to marinade for fajitas (look for this recipe later this week).

Chick Pea Salad

Also known as Red, White and Yahoo Salad from Eat, Shrink and Be Merry by Janet and Greta Podleski. One of my favortite summertime salads (and requested potluck dishes).

1 can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 pint of grape tomatoes, (slice each tomato in half)
1 container of mini bocconcini, (slice each cheese in half) - (about 2 cups)
1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped
1/4 cup red onion, finely chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp balsalmic vinegar
salt and pepper to season

Mix everything together

*Bocconcini is fresh mozzerella in little cheese balls. You can find it in the specialty cheese area (or fresh pasta area) of your grocery store. If you've never had these before, you are in for a treat. I make another salad, that's very similar with the larger bocconcinis and tomatoes and basil that's absolutely delicious too :o)

Fruit salad

I love fruit salad, it's so easy and you can pretty much put whatever kind of fruit you want in it. When I was teaching kindergarten, for our end of the year party I would have the kids each bring in a fruit of their choice. We'd then cut it all up and put it in a big bowl to mix togehter, naming it friendship salad.
This week's fruit salad had:
1 banana
1 gala apple (peeled)
2 kiwi
1 cup mixed berries
1 mandarin orange cup (1/4 cup), drained
1 tbsp lemon juice

I know, I've said before that I'm not a fan of oranges, and I'm not...but I don't mind them in fruit salad because I can pick around them and other people like them.

Also at our BBQ picnic we had Party Mix and Pop.

You'll notice that this didn't have anything to do with Memorial Day. We don't have Memorial Day. Our May holiday Monday is Victoria Day (the week before). Victoria Day falls the Monday before May 24th, which was Queen Victoria's birthday. It's in rememberance of her and an acknowledgement of the reining sovereign (Queen Elizabeth) It doesn't mark the beginning of summer holidays either (though we still think of it as an official marker of summer). We still have until the end of June before school is out. I hope all of you had a great May long weekend (regardless of where you are and what you are celebrating and when) Cheers!