Strawberry Frozen Yogurt! What’s that? You say it’s September? You say, “Isn’t Strawberry Frozen Yogurt kinda silly in, uh, September? You know, like 2 months after berry season?”

Yeah. So what’s your point? I managed to find some strawberries at Trader Joe’s a couple of days ago, was just walking by and I smelled them and man, did they smell good. So I bought them and then they sat for a couple of days. Then they got moved into the fridge for another day or two because they were getting pretty ripe and NO ONE was eating them. And then yesterday they turned into delicious and amazing strawberry frozen yogurt. I am just kicking myself for not making this earlier in the Summer.

If you can still find berries by you and you have an ice cream maker, you must do this!

Strawberry-Vanilla Frozen Yogurt
16 oz fresh strawberries, washed and halved
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 tbsp Chambord or other fruit liqueur
1 tsp fresh lemon juice
2 cups low-fat vanilla yogurt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 ice cream maker

Take your berries and add them to a pot with the liqueur, sugar and lemon juice. Heat over medium heat until the sugar melts, boils and you get a good amount of strawberry liquid in the pot. Let cool for about 30 minutes.

Add berries and liquid to a food processor or blender and puree.

Add yogurt and vanilla and blend until combined.

Store in a container in the refrigerator until very cold.

Add to your ice cream maker and…uh…make frozen yogurt! Scoop it out, place into a freezer-safe container and freeze for an hour or two until more firm. I like to place some plastic wrap right down on top of the ice cream and then put the lid on the container.

Scoop and enjoy!

I know they’re healthy, but quite honestly, I really like bran muffins. Chewy and dark and dense. Especially with tasty things in them liked dried peaches, pecans and brown sugar.

But, they are still good for you because they have apple sauce instead of oil. Now, go make some.

Whole Wheat Peach & Pecan Bran Muffins
Adapted from a recipe in Bon Appétit
Nonstick vegetable oil spray
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup wheat bran
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup diced dried peaches (they have these regularly at Trader Joes — you can also use dried mangoes, dried apples, dried figs, or other dried fruit of your choice)
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
1/3 cup apple sauce
2 large eggs
1 1/4 cups reduced-fat (2%) buttermilk (or use 1 1/4 cup of regular milk soured by the juice of 1/2 a lemon)
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1 tsp grated lemon peel
Topping: 1 tbsp wheat bran + 1 tbsp brown sugar

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. This will make about 12 muffins. Spray muffin cups with nonstick spray.

Whisk next 7 ingredients in bowl. Stir in figs and pecans. Whisk sugar and apple sauce in large bowl. Then add eggs, then buttermilk, vanilla, and lemon peel. Add the wet ingredients to the bowl with the dry ingredients. Mix until just combined.

Divide batter among cups. Sprinkle a little wheat bran/brown sugar on each muffin.

Bake muffins until browned on top and tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 18 minutes. Cool on rack. I only have one muffin pan, so I used a small baking dish for the remaining batter. It came out like a big muffin top. Excellent.

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Oh look! Neat-o. I won the Clams Root Source Challenge! Hooray!

Oh! Garlic! This is the Weekend Cookbook Challenge I was born to post about. I love the garlic. Thank you so much to Carla at Chocolate Moosey for hosting this month and choosing one of my most favorite things in the whole world!

This is a crazy, old school recipe from a time, to paraphrase Gourmet Magazine, when tons of butter was the norm and one clove of garlic was scandalous. Now? Uh, not so much. Bring on the garlic! As it is 2008, I reduced the butter slightly and upped the garlic. This will feed 2 people as a small (but not sensible) dinner or be split in one bigger dish for more as a shared first course.

I used medium sized shrimp. You can totally use jumbo shrimp, but you will want to boil it for a minute or two first to start it cooking and give it longer cooking time in the oven. For my 31/40 ct shrimp (mine were probably closer to the 40) the 10-ish minutes plus 2.5 minutes under the broiler was absolutely perfect.

And damn! The garlic…mmmm! I used 1 huge clove and 1 medium clove in each. If I had to guess, I would say each single serving had about 1.5 teaspoons of garlic. Too much? Hell, no.

Oh and this is supposedly a Chicago recipe that originated at the De Jonghe Jonghe restaurant, many years ago. I remember getting it at Ki’s Restaurant in Glendale Heights, IL while growing up anytime we would go there for a special, family dinner. Anyway, it’s super garlicky and buttery and delicious. If you don’t smell like garlic the next day, you didn’t use enough.

Shrimp De Johnge Jonghe
Adapted from a recipe in Gourmet Magazine, by Jane and Michael Stern
18 - 20 Medium Shrimp (31/40 count is what I used for this, if you use larger shrimp see above)
1 stick of butter (yeah, seriously — I know, but it’s not like you’re eating this every night)
1/2 cup fine dry bread crumbs (I made my own from a hunk of sourdough bread, crusts and all)
2 handfuls minced fresh parsley leaves
2 tbsp dry Sherry
4 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 teaspoon salt
dash of cayenne
dash of paprika
Freshly ground black pepper
Garnish: lemon wedges

You can either make single serving portions in individual baking dishes or a large portion to share in one dish. If you make the individual portions, just divide the ingredients into two groups.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. and butter two small casserole dishes just large enough to hold 9-10 shrimp in one layer.

In a bowl stir together 4 tablespoons butter, 1/4 cup bread crumbs, a handful minced parsley, 1 tablespoon Sherry, 2 cloves garlic and 1/4 tsp salt, with a dash of cayenne, until blended. Stir together the remaining amounts of the ingredients in another bowl.

Place half the shrimp in one casserole dish and spoon bread-crumb mixture over them.

Repeat with the other baking dish. Give each a nice sprinkle of paprika and black pepper.

Bake shrimp on upper rack in oven (2nd highest position), 10-12 minutes until butter is melted, shrimp is pink and crumbs are starting to turn golden brown. Okay, now it’s time for fire power. Turn on the broiler and give it 2-3 more minutes until it’s all sizzling and toasty. Serve with lemon wedges.

Holy crap. So good. Now, I must go walk 3 miles or something. Uh, I mean watch TV. Damn you USA with your House marathons.

Thanks again to Chocolate Moosey for hosting this month!

But we ate them instead. Damn, these were huge. But so very good. Instead of baguette, which I thought would be too hard for the fish, we used 2 sandwich rolls. They worked quite well. Basically, look for bread that is of like size and shape to your fish and you will be fine.

The herb-mayo that I made included a few hamburger pickles that we had in the fridge, giving it more of a tartar sauce appeal.

You will get this on your plate and think, man, there is no way that will fit in my mouth. Well, you will be right, but I found turning it on its side a bit and approaching it like a taco worked. Also, it looks like a lot of ingredients below, but it’s really not. You probably already have half of them, just go get the fish and rolls! You will not be sorry. Ah, and I bet this would also work just fine with cod, if that’s what’s available to you.

Awesome and Huuuuge Halibut Sandwich
Adapted from a recipe by Tyler Florence
Fish:
3/4 - 1 lb of wild halibut fillet, sliced into 2 pieces of the same size
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup milk
1 cup panko bread crumbs
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Extra-virgin olive oil
Herb-Mayo:
1 cup mayonnaise, store-bought
1 lemon, juiced
1 handful fresh parsley leaves, finely chopped
1 handful fresh basil leaves, finely chopped
1 handful chives, finely chopped
Optional: 3-4 dill pickle rounds, chopped
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Sandwich:
2 tbsp olive oil
2 sandwich rolls slightly bigger than your fish pieces, sourdough if you can get them
2 handfuls arugula leaves
1 ripe avocado, cut in thick slices
1 beefsteak (or other variety, for instance, we used 2 romas from the garden) tomato, cut in thick slices
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F and put a large sheet tray in oven and heat it for 1/2 hour.

Begin by patting the halibut fillet dry. Set up a breading station with flour, beaten egg and milk, and bread crumbs in separate containers. Season with salt and pepper. Dip each fillet into the flour, egg mixture, and then panko.

When I bread, I like to use gloves so I don’t end up with egg/breadcrumb mittens…

Set aside on a tray at room temperature to let the coating set. I let mine set for about 5 minutes.

Pull out sheet tray from oven, add a 2-count of oil and transfer breaded fish to tray. Sprinkle with olive oil. Bake for 10 minutes and flip over. Check after another 10 minutes. If fish doesn’t seem like it’s goldening up enough, increase oven temperature to 400 and give it 4-5 more minutes. I was super happy to discover after cooking this way my halibut was perfectly cooked! I was afraid I was going to dry it out trying to get a bit more color but it was perfect.

Split the rolls in half horizontally, but leave it connected by a hinge on one side. Open it up and toast it in a hot oven until just warmed through, about 2-3 minutes, while you finish cooking the fish. Remove the fish and bread from oven.

Combine lemon herb mayonnaise ingredients in a bowl and blend until well combined. For a creamier mayo, you can also put all the ingredients in a food processor and *whir* *whir* for a few seconds. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Smear each half of the bread with lemon herb mayonnaise and stack up arugula, tomato on one half. Top each with a crispy panko fish fillet and avocado. Fold over with the other half of bread. Serve with more lemon-herb mayonnaise on the side.

jwa models his tasty halibut sandwich

See — it’s huge! I made it through about 2/3’s of mine before I gave up and just ate the fish, avocado and tomato off of mine.

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Trying…..so…hard…not…to…post…anything…political….but….I can’t stop myself anymore: FactCheck.org *

Plus, I think it goes without saying, but Tina Fey is so awesome.

*The Annenberg Political Fact Check is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. The APPC was established by publisher and philanthropist Walter Annenberg in 1994 to create a community of scholars within the University of Pennsylvania that would address public policy issues at the local, state, and federal levels. They are a nonpartisan, nonprofit, “consumer advocate” for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. They monitor the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews, and news releases.

I recently watched an episode of the Jamie Oliver* show on Food Network and he made this. I was transfixed. And even though jwa is not crazy about zucchini, I knew we would be having this soon. Wow. This was good. I used some diced pancetta from Trader Joe’s and zucchini I got from the farmers market.

Sure there’s cream and egg yolk and pancetta in it. But hey! There’s also zucchini. Eat up.

Zucchini Carbonara for Two
Recipe from Jamie Oliver
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 small - medium green and yellow zucchini
1/2 pound penne (or other tube shaped pasta)
2 large free-range or organic egg yolks
1/4 cup heavy cream
2 good handfuls freshly grated Parmesan
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Olive oil
6 thick slices pancetta or lean bacon, cut into chunky pieces
A small bunch fresh thyme, leaves picked and chopped, flowers reserved (if you can get hold of flowering thyme)
Optional: a few zucchini flowers

Jamie says: “Before you start cooking, it’s important to get yourself a very large pan, or use a high-sided roasting pan so you can give the pasta a good toss.” I agree, a very large pan is awesome. Go get one. We’ll wait.

Okay, boil a large pot of salted water on to boil. Halve and then quarter any larger zucchini lengthwise. Cut out and discard any fluffy middle bits, and slice the zucchini at an angle into pieces roughly the same size and shape as the penne. Smaller zucchini can simply be sliced finely. When the water is boiling, so add the penne to the pot and cook according to the package instructions.

To make your creamy carbonara sauce, put the egg yolks into a bowl, add the cream and half the Parmesan, and mix together with a fork. Season lightly with salt and pepper and set aside.

Heat a very large frying pan (you know, the one you just got), add a good splash of olive oil and fry the pancetta or bacon until dark brown and crisp.

Add the zucchini slices and 2 big pinches of black pepper, not just to season but to give it a bit of a kick. Sprinkle in the thyme leaves, give everything a stir, so the zucchini is coated with all the pancetta-flavored oil, and fry until they start to turn lightly golden and have softened slightly.

When the pasta is cooked, drain it, reserving a little of the cooking water. Immediately, toss the pasta in the pan with the zucchini, bacon and lovely flavors, then remove from the heat. Drizzle the reserved cooking water to the creamy sauce, whisking together quickly.

Now, take that sauce and add it to the big pan of pasta and zucchini. Toss and serve.

* I think I need to pre-order Jamie at Home. But, probably at amazon, as it’s cheaper.

Blue Heron taking off in Yachats, OR

We went to the coast last weekend to celebrate jwa’s birthday and here are some pictures. That’s about it. More food coming soon!

Heron before flight. We happened upon him just hanging out in the river bank. As more people started walking by he took off, flying a few yards away to a less congested spot.

We stayed in Yachats at the Shamrock Lodgettes (silly name) in one of the spa cottages. It was nice. Dinner was at Yachats River House (tasty) and the next morning we started a leisurely drive home along the coast from Yachats to Cannon Beach, then cutting inland on 26. But not before…Breakfast!

Egg, sausage and pesto panini sandwich from the Green Salmon Coffee House. But, it gets better…

Here’s the view! We got the sandwiches and fancy coffee drinks to go and then drove a couple of blocks to the ocean, parked the car and had an awesome breakfast.

A seagull hopped on the hood of my car to check us out. Actually, I was kind of concerned he was going to try and fly in my open window and steal my sandwich.

Me by the tide pools and rocky coast part.

Tide pools

Waves crashing

Coastal flowers that succumbed to the wind and cold

The long sandy beach at Rockaway Beach, during a stop along the drive home,

One day, it would be nice to have a cute, little place on the coast where we can go anytime we want and where I would have more wall space to hang more art…

We’re going to start exploring more coast areas…next up, I think we’ll head towards the Long Beach area of Washington and maybe drive up the peninsula.

This was really good. I bought grapes specifically for this recipe. That’s a lot of pressure, man. My original thought was also to make my own dough — that didn’t work out. Not because of a kitchen disaster but because it was too easy to just grab a package of pizza dough at Trader Joe’s when I bought the grapes.

I originally saw this on Everyday Italian. But I added cheese, added more garlic and upped the oven temp. I like to make the grapes go *pop*.

Printable recipe pdf!

Foccacia with Rosemary and Grapes
Adapted from a recipe by Giada De Laurentiis
2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
Coarse sea salt, for sprinkling
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 shallot, cut into thinly sliced rounds
1 tbsp fresh rosemary leaves
1/2 cup green grapes
1/2 cup red grapes
a big handful of grated Parmesan cheese (okay, okay, 2 handfuls)

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Roll or press the pizza dough into a rectangle on a sheet of parchment paper or slightly olive oiled aluminum foil. Place the dough and the parchment/foil on a baking sheet.

Using a pastry brush, cover the top of the dough with olive oil. Sprinkle the dough with coarse sea salt. Sprinkle the dough with the garlic, shallot, and rosemary. Spread the grapes over the top of the dough and push down into the dough. Sprinkle top with cheese.

Bake the focaccia until golden brown, about 20-25 minutes. Cut into slices and serve. Excellent with a salad. As a main course, if we are all being honest, two people could devour this quite easy.

I made this a few weeks ago and both jwa and I really loved it! My friend Vanessa got me some marzipan (no, not this marzipan), while she and her husband were in Norway and now I am looking for marzipany things to do.

I saw this recipe and literally made it the next day. I think my tart pan is 9 inches though. I had too many plums. And too much crumble. Not a big deal. There are many worse things to have extras of — toes, pets, bad habits, etc… Anyway, I used pastry dough from the Dorie Greenspan book — the extra dough from my blueberry pie in fact. Defrosted, rolled out and ready to go!

You can use your favorite pastry recipe for the bottom crust or go the store bought route.

The return of — Printable Recipe pdf!

Plum Tart with Marzipan Crumble
From Bon Appétit magazine
1 pastry round big enough for an 9″ or 11″ tart pan

Crumble:
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup (packed) almond paste (about 5 ounces)
1/2 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
6 tbsp (3/4 stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1/4 cup sliced almonds

Filling:
2 1/4 pounds plums (about 12), halved, pitted, thinly sliced
1/2 cup sugar
2 tbsp plus 2 tsp cornstarch

Press over bottom and up sides of your tart pan with removable bottom. If it’s a 9″ pan, you’ll have enough to crimp nicely. Pierce all over with fork. Chill at least 2 hours and up to 1 day.

Preheat oven to 400F. Bake crust until golden, pressing with back of fork every 5 minutes if crust bubbles, about 25 minutes. I needed to pull my crust out after about 10 minutes and press it back as the sides kept wanting to fall down. When done, transfer crust to rack; cool. Reduce oven temperature to 375F.

Blend flour, almond paste and sugar in processor until almond paste is finely ground. Add butter and blend, using on/off turns, until coarse crumbs form. Transfer crumble to bowl; mix in almonds.

Combine all filling ingredients in medium bowl; toss to blend well.

Sprinkle 3/4 cup crumble over cooled crust and top with plums.

Sprinkle with remaining crumble.

Bake tart until filling bubbles thickly and top is golden, about 40 minutes. Mine leaked a little on the cookie sheet. Do not forget to place your tart pan on a cookie sheet or you may cry when the plum juices leak in your oven and burn. If you use a cookie sheet to catch any leaking, you will be happy.

Cool 10 minutes. Push up pan bottom to release tart. Cool. (Can be made 8 hours ahead. Let stand at room temperature.)

Delicious! I think an almond cake is next.