Clean and Green Start

It's the beginning of a new month and after all the indulgences and heavier food of the last couple of months, the beginning of February has me all fired up about lighter, cleaner, greener fare. So the motto for this month's cooking will be: clean and green.

With that in mind, I started the family off with a great breakfast smoothie this morning. According to them, it was my best smoothie ever and completely dairy-free. Here's what I blended this morning:

Best-ever Breakfast Smoothie

Ingredients:

12 oz. fresh strawberries, washed and hulled

1 1/2 medium bananas (fresh or frozen)

1 large orange, peeled

1 cup water

Preparation:

Add all the ingredients to a high-speed blender and blend for 30 seconds or until smooth and creamy. Pour into glasses and enjoy. Yield: approximately 4 cups or 32 oz.

Variation:

Many times I like to add 1-2 Tbsp. of freshly ground flax seeds and 1 Tbsp. of wheat grass powder. If you add flax seeds, add a little more water, too, since flax seeds will jell the smoothie slightly.

Apple-Orange-Banana Smoothie

When I grew up, my mom's favorite fruit salad consisted of apples, oranges and bananas. I don't remember her ever dressing the salad, but just cutting up the fruit and tossing the chunks to mix them well. The orange keeps the bananas and apples from turning brown, so it's a salad that is not only healthy, but also looks lovely. After the morning walk with the buddies, I made a smoothie based on my mother's fruit salad combo. It is very tasty and quickly blended.

Apple-Orange-Banana Smoothie

Ingredients:

1 banana

2 apples

2 oranges

8 oz. orange juice (freshly squeezed is particularly nice)

1/2 cup low-fat yogurt

2 Tbsp. freshly ground flax seeds

Preparation:

Wash all fruit well and cut into large chunks. Put all ingredients into a blender and blend on high for about 30 seconds, or until everything is smooth and creamy. The recipe makes about two 16-oz. servings.

Biscuits and Gravy

When we go to Finland–Finland, Minnesota, that is–we always make sure that we have breakfast at Our Place, the restaurant in this town of 400+ people on the North Shore of Lake Superior. It is the local hang-out where people gather to watch football or baseball and where you get a good breakfast, lunch or dinner without feeling robbed. On Saturdays and Sundays only, the restaurants serves the best biscuits and sausage gravy you can find anywhere according to my husband. With the weather turning colder and our appetites increasing for more substantial fare, I gave making biscuits and gravy a first try today. I received a two-thumbs-up approval rating from my husband with the words that I can make that again. Be warned though: This is not a recipe to make if you're watching your waistline.

Biscuits and Sausage Gravy

Ingredients:

12 oz. Jimmy Dean Sage breakfast sausage

4-6 Tbsp. butter*

4-6 Tbsp. all-purpose flour*

1/2 tsp. kosher salt

1/4 tsp. black pepper

4 cups whole milk, warmed

Preparation:

Cook sausage in a large skillet over medium heat, breaking it up into small chunks, until it is no longer pink. Add butter and heat until melted. Add flour, salt and pepper and cook and stir for a few minutes until everything is blended well. Heat milk in the meantime. Gradually add the milk, stirring constantly. Bring mixture to a boil, reduce heat and cook for a few minutes until the sauce is thickened. Serve sauce over bicuits. Makes 4-6 servings.

*Tip: If you like your sauce rather thin, use less butter and flour without changing the other measurements. If you like it a little thicker, go for the full 6 tablespoons of butter and flour!

Hunt for the Perfect Overnight Waffle

A waffle is like a pancake with a syrup trap.

–Mitch Hedberg, comedian–

If you have, like me, searched high and low for the perfect waffle recipe, look no further because I have arrived in waffle heaven. And as soon as you make the recipe following below, you will be there, too. The waffle batter is prepared ahead of time–at our house that usually means at night–and used for breakfast waffles in the morning. I stumbled upon it at gourmet.com, and lo and behold, it actually is a Fannie Farmer Cookbook recipe. This is the best waffle recipe ever if you like tasty waffles that are crisp on the outside. The only comment I have to make is that the batter is very thin and will not bake properly in a Belgian waffle maker; however, it is perfect for a traditional or classic waffle iron. So, without much further ado, here is the perfect waffle recipe:

Overnight Raised Waffles

Ingredients:

1/2 cup warm water

2 1/4 tsp. dry yeast

2 cups warm milk (I like using whole milk)

1/2 cup melted butter

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. sugar

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 eggs, beaten

1/4 tsp. baking soda

Preparation:

Use a large mixing bowl because the batter will rise considerably. Start by mixing the warm water and yeast in the mixing bowl. Let sit for 5 minutes. Then add the milk, butter, salt, sugar and flour and mix until all the ingredients are blended well. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let sit overnight at room temperature.

In the morning add the beaten eggs and baking soda to the mix and stir. To bake waffles, pour about 1/2 cup of the very thin batter onto a hot waffle iron and bake. Serve immediately and top with fresh fruit–berries are delicious–and maple syrup. Makes about 7 seven-inch round waffles. Any unused batter can be stored for a few days in the refrigerator.

Perfect Spring Day, Perfect Smoothie

Here's a perfectly blended smoothie in a beautiful color for a splendid spring day:

Ingredients:

1 papaya, peeled, seeded, cut into chunks

1 orange, peeled and cut into chunks

3/4 to 1  cup of low-fat yogurt

dash of nutmeg

dash of stevia to sweeten smoothie (optional)

Preparation:

Blend all ingredients in a blender for at least 30 seconds until smooth. Pour into glasses. Makes about two 12-oz. servings.

Pretty Tasty All-Fruit Breakfast Smoothie

It's been very busy around here for the last couple of weeks and all I have time for today is record the recipe for a pretty tasty breakfast smoothie, dairy-free, that I whipped up in a jiffy this morning before dashing off to another appointment:

Dairy-free Breakfast Smoothie:

1 orange

1 banana

1 apple

6 oz. orange juice, ideally calcium-enriched and non-pulp

Mix all ingredients in a blender on high speed and serve. Makes about one 20-24 oz. single serving that'll fill you up till lunch-time.

Strawberry-Banana-Yogurt Smoothie

I made an excellent breakfast smoothie this morning:

Blend in a blender:

1/2 cup plain, low-fat yogurt

1 fresh banana

6 large strawberries, fresh or frozen

1/2 cup of cranberry water*

This makes about one 16-oz. glass of creamy, pale pink smoothie. Delicious! If the smoothie tastes a little too tart–after all, it all depends on how ripe the banana and how sweet the strawberries are–, you may want to add a little agave nectar or very, very little stevia (sweetleaf) extract. If you're unfamiliar with stevia, please check it out. It's a great and healthy alternative to sugar.

*I make a quart of cranberry water to either sip on its own throughout the day or to use when blending juices and smoothies by mixing 28 oz. of water with 4 oz. of unsweetened cranberry juice.

Of All Sorts of Pancakes

When I grew up, lunch was the biggest meal of the day, and it was always a warm meal cooked from scratch by my mother. Some lunches were more elaborate than others, but some of the most simple ones were my favorites when coming home from school: Spiegelei auf Brot (fried egg on rye bread), Eierpfannkuchen mit Blaubeersoße (egg pancakes with blueberry sauce), and Kartoffelpfannkuchen mit Apfelmus (potato pancakes with applesauce).

When my mom made potato pancakes, it was a labor of love because it always took a while to prepare: using a box grater, she finely handgrated a bunch of raw, peeled potatoes, mixed them with an egg, a little salt, and fried them in butter–she always used butter for frying–until they were browned and crisp on the outside. They were dense and substantial and served with apple sauce. Try the following recipe and see if you can't be a convert to potato pancakes:

Kartoffelpfannkuchen (Potato Pancakes)

Ingredients:

1 lb. potatoes, peeled and grated

1 large egg (or larger than large egg…:))

1/2 tsp salt

1/4-1/2 grated onion (optional)

butter for frying

Preparation:

Peel and grate potatoes. Add a slightly beaten egg, salt and a little chopped onion, if desired. Mix everything together. Heat butter (or a little oil) in a frying pan and ladle batter into pan. Fry until golden brown on each side and serve with applesauce.

So, these were the pancakes of my childhood–they were definitely lunch fare for me. Now on the very first day I ever woke up in America, my then-future-mother-in-law Dorothy asked me what I wanted for breakfast and asked, "Pancakes?" I responded, kind of confused, "For breakfast?" Little did I know what American pancakes were like. I was soon to find out. Dorothy's pancakes were golden brown, fluffy and light, and often made with Bisquick. She served them with fresh fruit and syrup, a couple of strips of crisp bacon or sausage patties on the side. This was a tasty breakfast and for a number of years my husband and I made pancakes using Bisquick often. But one day, after we had become parents and were trying to feed our toddler for breakfast and didn't have any Bisquick in the house, we discovered that you can actually make pancakes totally from scratch. (Duh!) It was the day we discovered Deborah Madison's recipe for oatmeal pancakes in her book, "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone." This has been our absolute favorite pancake recipe for breakfast ever since. Here it is:

Oatmeal Pancakes

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups rolled oats

2 cups buttermilk

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

2 Tbsp. brown sugar or maple syrup

1/4 cup canola oil

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 cup flour

1/4 tsp. grated nutmeg

1/2 tsp. baking soda

Preparation:

Stir the oats and buttermilk together and let stand for 20 minutes. Beat the eggs with the vanilla, sugar, and oil, then stir in the soaked oats. Combine the dry ingredients and add them to the oat mixture as well. For each pancake, drop 1/4 cup batter onto a heated griddle or skillet and cook over a medium-low heat until the tops are covered with holes. Turn the cakes over and cook the second side. Because of the moisture in this batter, the cakes need to cook slowly, but turn them only once.

Just for good measure, I should probably throw in a couple more pancake recipes, so that I have all of the recipes we've enjoyed in the past in one neat and tidy location.

Mutti's Eierpfannkuchen (Mom's Egg Pancakes)

Ingredients for approximately 2 (8-in.) pancakes:

1 large or extra large egg

1/2 cup whole milk

1/3 flour

dash of salt

pat of butter

Preparation:

Blend egg, milk, flour and salt together in a bowl. Melt a pat of butter in a small (8-10 in. in diameter) non-stick pan. Ladle batter into the pan and brown pancake on both sides until it has a nice golden color. I personally have always liked Eierpfannkuchen a little bit more on the pale side of golden. To serve, my mom used to sprinkle the pancake with a very small amount of sugar and roll it up. This is heavenly! It always amazes me how something so simple can taste so good.

Variation:

My favorite variation to the plain and simple egg pancake has always been Apfelpfannkuchen, the egg pancake with apples. To make Apfelpfannkuchen, peel and core an apple and slice it thinly. Then, before adding pancake batter to the frying pan, arrange thin slices of apple on the bottom of the pan and sauté lightly to soften the apple. You can get really creative when arranging the apple slices and make pretty patterns. Then add the egg pancake batter and finish browning the pancake as described above. Sprinkle with a little sugar if you like and do not roll it up.

There are more variations to the egg pancake, but I better leave that for another day. :)

The Chocolate-Banana-Flax-Flax

Even though I love smoothies, I've never liked my husband's favorite breakfast smoothie because it's too sweet for my taste. But he loves it for some inexplicable reason. So, for the record, here it is. It's a quick recipe!

Dan's Chocolate-Banana-Flax-Flax

Ingredients:

2 scoops chocolate whey protein powder

1 banana

2 Tbsp. ground flax seeds

1 good and generous squirt of flax oil

1 cup water

Preparation:

Add all the ingredients to a blender and blend until smooth and creamy. Then drink.

Vanilla Bean Ice-Cream with Blueberry Sauce

Dessert tonight was simple and delicious: store-bought vanilla bean ice-cream covered with warm, homemade blueberry sauce.

To make the sauce, combine in a saucepan:

2 cups fresh blueberries

2 Tbsp. water

3 Tbsp. honey

Heat everything on medium heat until the berries are soft, about 5 minutes. Remove and purée in a blender. Serve over ice-cream. Store left-overs for up to a week in the refrigerator.

By the way: this sauce is also good over pancakes and waffles for breakfast!

Morning Rush

As a kid, I remember a Heinzelmännchen cartoon on TV that depicted a little sleeping Heinzelmann that woke up when the alarm rang, hit the snooze button and proceeded to sleep with a smile on his face while a speech bubble above his head read, "only 15 more minutes." Or something like that. (Heinzelmännchen are, according to legend, little Black Forest gnomes that would come into the city of Cologne at night and do all the work for the people, so they could rest and be lazy during the day.)

This morning I had that kind of morning and overslept royally! Awakened by the soothing sounds of my wind chimes buzzer at 6 a.m., I hit the snooze button to stretch out for only one more minute and continued to sleep until 6:46 a.m. That spelled trouble! Of course I had planned on being up early and baking fresh rolls for the kids while making their school lunches, but with all the lost time, I had to make a new plan–and quickly.

The quickest breakfasts, and in all honesty some of the most nutritious, are fruit smoothies made in a high-speed blender. I use a VitaMix and love it. It can turn anything into a smooth puree. In any case, a quick look into the freezer and I found some frozen wild blueberries. The idea of a fruit smoothie was born. Bananas? Check. Yogurt? Check. I toasted two slices of whole grain bread and whipped up the following recipe in the blender:

Blueberry-Banana Smoothie:

2 bananas

1 cup yogurt

1 cup frozen blueberries

a good squirt of flaxseed oil

Blend everything until very smooth and creamy. Pour into two glasses. Makes about two 10-oz. servings–the perfect amount for the whirly-birds before school.

School lunches had to be done quickly, too, so I made sandwiches for the girls with ham and baby swiss cheese, cut up a whole orange for each one and filled their waterbottles with fresh water. Well, that was my rushed morning in a nutshell.

Feeling a bit like Julia this morning

A good French omelette is a smooth, gently swelling, golden oval that is tender and creamy inside. And as it takes less than half a minute to make, it is ideal for a quick meal.

(from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking)

I've been up early, and after sending the kiddos off to school with their home lunches, cleaned the kitchen and started reading the newpaper. Now it's time for breakfast, especially since I watched dear hubby stick his head into the fridge, take a deep breath and exhale in a sigh, as if to say, "What's there to eat?"

After having explored Julia Child's kitchen on the Smithsonian Institute's Web-site this morning, I feel inspired to cook a little like Julia. How about an omelette filled with sautéed spinach and feta cheese? L'omelette aux épinards et au fromage?

I have to admit I have yet to master the art of making a French omelette, and it takes me quite a bit longer than 30 seconds to make one–actually more like 5-10 minutes when they're filled. Also, being largely self-taught in the kitchen, I have developed my own way of folding omelettes, but thanks to a great non-stick pan and spatula I do a satisfactory job. I'm thinking about trying the French method some time when I have a surplus of eggs and time. It'll be an eggsperiment! (If you're interested in watching Julia make an omelette, click on the link!)

Today's spinach-and-feta omelette was large enough for two servings:

Ingredients:

3 large handfuls of fresh spinach

2 eggs

2 egg whites (left over from last night's chicken fricassée sauce!)

2-3 Tbsp. crumbled feta cheese (or more to taste)

1-2 Tbsp. chicken broth

1 tsp. olive oil

1 pat of butter

Sautée spinach in a little chicken broth and olive oil, just until wilted. Sprinkle spinach with a little salt if desired. Set spinach aside.

Whisk two eggs and two egg whites with a touch of water until well-blended and smooth.

Melt a pat of butter in a hot non-stick pan, pour eggs into hot pan and let them set. Add sautéed spinach and 2-3 Tbsp. crumbled feta cheese, fold omeletter over, divide in half and serve.

Julia Child's kitchen, by the way, designed by her husband in 1961 and used as a set for many years for her cooking show, was donated to the Smithsonian Institute in 2001. Click on the link to read all about Julia's life and her kitchen. It's kind of fun!

One more tidbit to share: I just remembered reading a book a couple of years ago that was fun to read, and apparently there's a movie based on it coming out later this year with Meryl Streep in the role of Julia Child. The book is called "Julie & Julia: My year of cooking dangerously," written by Julie Powell. It is based on Julie Powell's blog that chronicled her year of cooking her way through Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking."

Milk Rice Morning

With the girls off to school and the kitchen already clean before 8 o' clock in the morning, I have a little time to enjoy a cup of coffee. The boys (our dogs), also known as "the buddies," are lying next to me: little Lenny wedged into the chair with me and big Louie on the floor. It's funny that they always want to be where I am. Somehow, maybe because I spend most of the time with them and do most of the training, I've emerged as their "superhero," and whatever I do, they're right by my side.

In any case, after last night's dinner we had some rice left over, and this winter I have started making milk rice for the kids for breakfast to use up some of the rice we often have left over from Chinese take-out. The girls used to love a bowl of warm oatmeal on cold winter mornings, but for some reason not any more, at least not this winter. I realize serving milk rice for breakfast is like serving them a bowl of pudding, and it is not nearly as nutritious as a bowl of oatmeal, but it doesn't happen very often and makes them smile. How can I resist?

Here's how I made milk rice for 2 servings this morning using left-over rice:

Milk Rice

Ingredients:

1 cup cooked rice

1 1/2 cups milk

1/4 cup raisins

1 beaten egg

2 tsp. vanilla

1 Tbsp. brown sugar

Preparation:

Heat rice and milk together in a small saucepan until the mixture comes to a boil. Cook for a few minutes until the rice absorbs the milk. Add raisins. In a bowl, beat the egg and add the vanilla and sugar. Now add some of the hot milk to the beaten egg mixture, then pour the egg mixture into the pot and stir. (I find that this prevents curdling.) Cook over low heat until the mixture turns into a custard. Cool slightly and serve.

By the way: if using left-over brown rice, the nutritional value of this meal can be greatly enhanced. Brown rice may absorb less milk, though, so adjust measurements.

Zucchini and Goat Cheese Omelette for Breakfast

With a little extra time on my hands this morning, I decided to use the zucchini I found in the fridge before it would turn into an science project. The vegetable was still firm, with no spots of any kind, smelled fresh and begged to be julienned, sautéed and stuffed into an omelette with a little soft goat cheese. It put a smile into my husband's face who had been up since the wee hours, already driven one daughter to school, and worked in the office for an hour. Here's my recipe for one serving:

Zucchini-and-Goat-Cheese Omelette

Ingredients:

butter and olive oil

1/2 medium-size zucchini, julienned

kosher salt

2 eggs (sometimes I remove one of the egg yolks to lighten the dietary cholesterol load and give it to the dogs that are always appreciative of such small gestures of love)

1/2 to 1 ounce of soft goat cheese, crumbled

Melt a pat of butter in a small (8- or 10-inch) non-stick pan, add very little olive oil and sauté the zucchini until it's just softened a bit. Sprinkle a little kosher salt on top of the zucchini while sautéeing it. Remove the zucchini from the pan and place it in a covered bowl to keep warm. Do not wipe the pan clean.

Whisk the eggs together with about a tablespoon of water and pour into the pan over medium or medium-low heat. Wait until the eggs start to set, spread the zucchini on half of the eggs, sprinkle with crumbled goat cheese and fold over. Keep in the pan just long enough for the cheese to warm through and melt. Serve immediately.

Fridge Cleaning Continued

Today's breakfast was another meal to clean the fridge. I found 3/4 lb. of fresh asparagus, already washed and trimmed, 5 eggs, and a little grated cheddar and decided to make a frittata. I didn't think the meal would be anything special, and it wasn't, but, nonetheless, it was pretty tasty.

Ingredients:

3/4 lb. fresh asparagus, cut into chunks

a little chicken broth

a little olive oil

couple dashes of kosher salt

5 eggs beaten with 1-2 Tbsp. water

2 handfuls grated cheddar cheese

Here's what I did: 

I first cut the asparagus in chunks, about 1 1/2 inches in length, and sautéed them in a little chicken broth and olive oil over medium heat. I seasoned the asparagus with a little kosher salt, and when the asparagus was sautéed enough to be al dente, I spread it evenly on the bottom of the pan, added the beaten eggs and sprinkled a couple of handfuls of grated cheddar cheese on top.

When the bottom of the egg mixture was set, I moved the pan into the oven and broiled it until the top was set, too. The frittata made four servings and everyone at the table liked it. Another successful meal from the top of my head. : )