Archive for the ‘fruit’ Category

A Long-Overdue Visit

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009

When one of my best friends from high school said she would be in town a few weeks ago, I was psyched. I hadn’t seen Kelly in five years. After high school our lives took different directions, which often happens when kids go off to college. And I guess I took for granted that she would always be nearby and maybe one day we would see each other. But then, about a year ago, much to my horror surprise, she got married and ran away to live in the Northwestern part of the country. When we recently re-connected, I wasn’t all that surprised to learn that in the time we had spent growing apart, we had actually been growing more alike. Kelly had become a fellow “foodie.”

So, we planned to do what “foodies” do best—cook and eat. But there was one complication: a few years ago, Kelly discovered she has a dairy allergy. Coming up with a dairy free meal was pretty simple, but dessert would be a little more challenging.

After stewing over the options for a few days, I became obsessed with the idea of taking a typically dairy dessert and making it diary free. And since we were having a Mexican-inspired meal, Tres Leches cake was an obvious choice. Tres Leches means “three milks.” It is essentially a sponge cake soaked in a blend of sweetened condensed milk, condensed milk, and heavy cream; it is often topped with fruit and whipped cream.

I wasn’t sure how to pull it off, so I consulted the Internet. A thorough search yielded few suggestions. I was going to have to wing it. The recipe for Pastel de Tres Leches from Fonda San Miguel: Thirty Years of Food and Art was a perfect starting point since the sponge cake doesn’t call for any dairy. For the milks I would use cream of coconut (a very sweet coconut product, often used for making piña coladas), coconut milk and almond milk. Then I got to thinking—since I had never tried this before, I was worried that the saturated fat in the coconut milk and cream of coconut would solidify in the refrigerator and my cake would have the texture of a sponge soaked in butter. (This is exactly why one should not try out new recipes one’s dinner guests, but I’ve always ignored that advice.) The solution was two parts almond milk to one part cream of coconut, which technically makes this a “Dos Leches” cake, but it tastes flipping outstanding so who really cares?

In case anyone is wondering, I also made a carrot and pineapple scallop ceviche and I tried to make tacos al pastor in the oven. I didn’t think either recipe came out that great, which is why we’re skipping dinner and going straight to dessert.

Dairy-Free Pastel de “Tres Leches” for Kelly
(with coconut and mango) 

I apologize to everyone who can’t eat dairy for including the whipped cream in the photo. I did not try to substitute with a non-dairy whipped topping (although you could if you want to) because I wanted to keep this as natural as possible. And since most of the people I was serving don’t have a problem with dairy, I made up a batch of whipped cream for those who wanted it. So if you don’t have a diary allergy, feel free to top this with a little sweetened whipped cream along with the mango puree. I have tried the cake with and without—it is delicious both ways.

1 1/2 cups unbleached flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

6 large eggs

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup water

3 teaspoons mexican vanilla extract

1 15-oz can cream of coconut (goes under the name Coco Lopez and may be found with the mixers in the beverage isle)

3 cups plain, unsweetened almond milk

2 ripe mangoes, diced (optional)

1. Oil a 9 x 3 springform pan and preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.

3. Put the sugar and eggs to the bowl of a stand mixer and beat on high speed with the whisk attachment until the mixture doubles in volume. Add the vanilla and the water and mix on medium speed to combine well.

4. Gently, so as not to deflate the eggs, fold in the flour mixture. Pour into prepared pan and bake 35 minutes or until firm. Remove from pan and cool completely.

5. In the meantime mix together the cream of coconut, almond milk and the remaining two teaspoons of vanilla.

6. When the cake is cool, cut off the top crust with a serrated knife. Place it in a deep dish and poke holes in the top of the cake with a toothpick. Using a ladle pour the “milk” mixture over the top of the cake a little at a time, allowing the liquid to soak in before adding more. Continue until all of the liquid is soaked in. Refrigerate at least 1 hour.

7. Puree the ripe mangoes and taste. Add sugar if needed.

8. Serve each slice of cake topped with a spoonful of mango puree.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in baking, desserts, fruit, mexican | 1 Comment »

Good news about the Economy and $75 a week

Wednesday, February 11th, 2009

I don’t have to tell you that the economy sucks right now. Everybody knows that already. You can’t watch TV without hearing it, you can’t open a paper or a magazine without reading it and we talk constantly about who is going out of business or who has lost a job. And I don’t have to tell you that people have been cutting back and saving their money to prepare for the worst. It’s all a little extremely depressing and scary.

But, for me, there has been a bright side to all of this gloom and doom. In an effort to scale back our budgets and pad our savings accounts a little, I have put a limit of $75 a week on our grocery spending. According to the IRS, the national standard for food expenses in a two-person household is $528 a month. That’s about $132 a week. In contrast, some people claim that $62 a week is the poverty level for two people (I’m still not sure how that figure was determined and it seems a little high). In any case I’ve decided that $75 a week is a realistic amount for us and we are now two weeks into our $75 a week experiment. 

Okay, okay, I know what you’re thinking. Cutting back your food budget? That’s not good news. Hang in there while I explain. Cutting back would be difficult (and possibly detrimental to our health) if we had to sacrifice quality. So instead, I decided that I can continue to buy the quality ingredients I love if I swear off most prepared foods. The key here is to buy ingredients. And with that in mind, I began making cuts with some guidance from this list.

The good news in all of this mess is this changes how we eat for the better. Here’s why:

1. Foods made from scratch are generally healthier than prepared ones. They only include what you choose to put in them, and all of those things will have names you can pronounce.

2. Cooking from scratch does require some extra effort, but most of the prepared foods you can buy are far inferior to what can be made at home from scratch, so to me, they are well worth the extra effort (think homemade mayonnaise, homemade yogurt and fresh-baked bread).

3. Buying food with a limited budget also limits the amount of meat you can buy. You’ll get more food for your money when you spend the bulk of your budget on things that come from plants: fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and beans. We should all be eating more of these anyway:

Fresh fruits and vegetables

This means fewer meals will be centered on meat and as a result you’ll likely consume more fiber and plant derived nutrients and fewer saturated fats. Doesn’t that sound great? Sure does! Sign me up!

So what does this mean for the blog?

Well, as I begin to learn how to make some of the prepared foods I normally buy at the grocery store, I’ll write about it so you can learn right along with me. I’ll also be working on a list of tips that will help you eat well on a limited budget. It will soon be located to the right under “Pages on De Nacho.” Stay tuned folks—good things are coming up!

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in fruit, vegetables, vegetarian | No Comments »

When Life Throws You a Whole Crap Load of Lemons, Make Lemon Bars.

Friday, January 2nd, 2009

Okay so “life” hasn’t necessarily been throwing lemons, but Greenling sure has been handing out a lot of them. I’ve been accumulating lemons every week now for about a month. As it turns out, I don’t use them nearly as fast as they come. And these aren’t just any lemons, they’re meyer lemons. Ever since they were little buds on the lemon tree they knew they would become something more than just lemonade.

I made lemon bars once, about four years ago. When they came out of the oven, much to my dismay, they had more or less become “one with the pan.” I couldn’t get them out. After about a half hour spent scraping and prying with every utensil imaginable (including some that are not normally found in a kitchen), I finally managed to extract a few for a taste test. What I then experienced was most unpleasant. The caustic, biting flavor of too much sour lemon was accompanied by a dose of saccharine sweetness I had not experienced since my days of hiding in the pantry munching on sugar cubes. These were not, in my opinion, the way a lemon bar should taste.

I was willing this year, at my mom’s request, to try again. And this is where Meyer lemons come in. Substituting them for the original in a lemon bar recipe results in a much more pleasing balance between sweet and sour. Try it. I think you’ll like it.

Meyer Lemon Bars

Even though this particular recipe (adapted from Smitten Kitchen who adapted it from Ina Garten) calls for a whole cup of lemon juice, with the use of meyer lemons, the sour flavor is not overpowering. The shortbread layer also has less sugar, which puts the focus exactly where it should be—on the lemon curd. Also note that you can save yourself a lot of frustration by lining your baking dish with a sheet of parchment paper. If you don’t have any parchment paper, I hope you have a chisel instead.

Crust

1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 cups flour

1/8 teaspoon kosher salt

Filling

6 extra-large eggs at room temperature

2 1/2 cups granulated sugar

2 tablespoons grated lemon zest (4 to 6 lemons)

1 cup freshly squeezed Meyer lemon juice

1 cup flour

Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and grease a 9 by 13 by 2-inch baking sheet or casserole dish. Line with parchment paper.

2. For the crust, cream the butter and sugar until light in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Combine the flour and salt and, with the mixer on low, add to the butter until just mixed. Dump the dough onto a well-floured board and gather into a ball. Flatten the dough with floured hands and press it into the greased baking sheet, building up a 1/2-inch edge on all sides. Chill (Note: I skipped this step with no ill effects).

2. Bake the crust for 15 to 20 minutes, until very lightly browned. Let cool on a wire rack. Leave the oven on.

3. For the lemon layer, whisk together the eggs, sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice, and flour. Pour over the crust and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or about five minutes beyond the point where the filling is set. Let cool to room temperature.

4. Cut into small squares and dust with confectioners’ sugar, just before serving.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in desserts, fruit | 1 Comment »

Greenling Deliveries—December 9 & 12 2008

Saturday, December 20th, 2008

So I’m not going to post the photo for the December 9 delivery. It’s too bad because it was one of the most perfect looking bunches of produce I have gotten from Greenling so far. Everything was flawless—even the avocados. When I first felt the avocados I went on and on about how I was sure that they were going to be completely rotten inside. I whipped out a knife and cut the softest one open, without any intentions of using it at that time because I was 99.9% sure that it was going to have to go into the trash. And what did I see when I twisted it apart? Perfection. There was not one stinkin’ brown spot anywhere inside. So I literally had to eat my words—and into the salad it went. When that box arrived it was cold, windy and raining. I was not about to go set up the goods outside for a photo, so I just laid it out on the dining room table and took a snapshot for the sake of record-keeping. But seriously the photo is bad, so if you really want to see it, you’ll have to go to Flickr and take a look. You’ve been warned.

The photo for the December 12 delivery is only a little bad. Here it is:

I was sick for three days this past week with a stomach virus (ugh), so that’s my excuse for this photo. BUT just as I started to feel a little better, my Lowel EGO lights arrived. So I decided to break them out for a test run. This probably would have turned out pretty good if I had turned off the overhead light, which was causing all the harsh shadows on the table. Had I felt better I might have spent a little more time, but I didn’t so this is it folks. Sorry! Treats for this week included green leaf lettuce, arugula spinach blend, grapefruits, oranges, cilantro, oregano, another head of cabbage, lacinato kale, radishes, meyer lemons, apples and my personal favorite, green tomatoes.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in fruit, vegetables | No Comments »

Greenling Box — 12.02.2008

Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008

Here is my delivery for this week. I think it’s even better than last weeks. We got: avocados, mushrooms, red potatoes, meyer lemons, oranges, cilantro, apples, radishes, arugula, beets, bok choy and salad bowl lettuce.

I was really excited to see collard greens in the box. I really enjoyed the ones in the last box, and when Greenlings Mason Arnold and Devon Haire came to talk about the service at my office this week, they brought a sample box and let everyone take something home. I, being the greedy little produce hoarder that I am, grabbed the collard greens, two meyer lemons, two onions and a bunch of fresh thyme.

I cooked the collard greens up that night with a slice of bacon cut up really small and some garlic. We ate them all. I suppose olive oil and garlic would be almost as good. Or maybe olive oil, garlic and mushrooms. Mason says the key is not to cook them too much and apparently he’s right.

Another happy discovery was beets. I have been eating tons of beets lately. My co-workers expect me to turn purple any day now. A lot of people don’t know that the best way to cook beets is to peel them, cut them up, toss them with salt and olive oil and roast them in the oven without foil. They get so sweet they’re almost like candy. If you wrap them in foil, they’re still good, but you’re essentially steaming them. When you leave the foil off, the flavor of the beets gets more concentrated and they taste so much better.

Here are my beets all cut up and waiting to go in the oven. Once they are roasted I like to eat them immediately, right off the pan put them in a green salad with this vinaigrette:

Favorite Vinaigrette

You can use almost any vinegar in this recipe. My mom always says that the key to a good salad dressing is to use a few types of vinegar. I like to use a tablespoon of white or red wine vinegar and a tablespoon of rice vinegar. Use what you have or what you like.

Makes about 3/4 of a cup of dressing.

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons vinegar (1 tablespoon each of two types)

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

2 teaspoons dijon or grainy mustard

1 lemon, juiced

1 teaspoon honey

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 teaspoon salt

pepper to taste

1. Measure the olive oil into a 2 cup (or larger) measuring cup. Add the remaining ingredients to the cup and whisk everything together. Allow it to sit for several minutes.

2. Whisk again. Taste with a leaf of lettuce dipped into the dressing. Adjust seasonings if necessary.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in fruit, vegetables | 2 Comments »

Shaker (Meyer) Lemon Tart

Friday, November 28th, 2008

So in my Greenling box I got three Meyer lemons. I had never cooked with Meyer lemons before, but I had heard that they have a milder flavor than regular lemons and a thinner, softer skin. So instead of just juicing the lemon, I decided I wanted to try to use the whole lemon. I found a recipe that does just that and it’s called Shaker Lemon Pie.

The story behind the Shaker Lemon Pie is that the Shakers, being a frugal bunch, didn’t want to waste the lemons by squeezing the juice and throwing away the fruit and skin. So they devised a simple lemon pie recipe that uses the whole fruit, thinly sliced and macerated in sugar. The resulting pie has a “grown up” lemon flavor that’s a bit like marmalade. It’s a little bitter from the lemon pith and if you think you might not like that flavor, you should probably skip this one.

I also want to mention that the original version of the pie, from Saveur magazine uses a top crust. I cannot in good faith make a pie that uses two plus sticks of butter in crust real estate alone, not today anyway, so I skipped the top crust and cooked it in a tart pan. So now we have Shaker Lemon Tart. Get it? Tart? Okay, on with the recipe.

Shaker Lemon Tart
Adapted from Deb at Smitten Kitchen who adapted it from Saveur Magazine.

Warning: Do not attempt to make this with regular lemons. You will be sorry. Also, if you don’t have a mandoline or similar device for making paper thin slices of lemon, you might also regret this one.

Makes one 10 inch tart.

2 large meyer lemons

2 cups sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 whole eggs and one separated egg

3 tablespoons butter, melted

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Coarse sugar, for sprinkling (optional)

Whipped cream (optional)

Dough for one single-crust pie (click here for the scoop on making the best crust ever)

1. Wash and dry lemons thoroughly and finely grate lemon zest into a medium bowl. Using a mandoline, slice lemons as thin as you possibly can and discard the seeds. Add slices to zest and stir in the sugar and salt. Cover and set aside at room temperature for 24 to 48 hours. Letting the lemons macerate for longer will allow the skins to break down giving the filling a more appealing texture

2. Preheat the oven to 425°F. Lightly flour a clean surface and roll the dough to 1/8 inch thick. Fit it into a 10-inch tart pan and trim and crimp the edge.

3. Mix the lemon-sugar mixture three of the eggs and one egg yolk, reserving the egg white in a small bowl. Add the melted butter and flour and combine well. Pour in to prepared tart shell. At this point, if you’re neurotic, you can use the trimmings from the crust to make little decorative shapes to put on top. Or not.

4. Beat the reserved egg white until frothy and brush over exposed crust and decorative pieces if you made them. Sprinkle the pieces with sugar and bake separately at 350 until golden brown. Bake the tart in the middle of the oven for 25 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 350°F and bake for 20 to 25 minutes more, or until the crust is golden and the tart filling is nicely browned and puffed. Place the decorative pieces on top of the tart if you made them. Cool on a rack and serve warm or at room temperature with whipped cream if desired.

    Tags: , , , ,
    Posted in desserts, fruit | No Comments »

    First Greenling Local Box

    Tuesday, November 25th, 2008

    Local Box Delivered 11.24.08, originally uploaded by Kristin516.

    Yesterday was like Christmas. When I came home from work there was a big green box on my front porch filled with all kinds of fruit and vegetable goodness. This was my first time ordering from Greenling Organic Delivery, a subscription food delivery service. Everything they deliver is local or certified organic and sustainably produced. The “Local Box” is what you see here and it contains a variety of local produce that varies based on the seasons and what is available.

    We got: hydroponic bibb letttuce, baby carrots, sweet potatoes, yellow onions, avocados, apples, oranges, kale, collard greens, baby spinach and arugula blend, meyer lemons, cilantro and radishes.

    In addition to my local box I also ordered a half gallon of organic milk, blue cheese, whole wheat tortillas and some extra onions. The blue cheese I ordered wasn’t available so they substituted another brand. Had I known I probably would have taken that item off my order, but it’s really no big deal.

    So far I’m really impressed with the quality and the service. And I love that I can order what I need right from my computer and it will magically appear on my doorstep. Or maybe I’m just easily amused.

    Posted in Uncategorized, fruit, vegetables | No Comments »