May is National Strawberry Month! I have many a strawberry-filled recipe on my blog (like this recipe for Strawberry Shortcake Cupcakes) but most are desserts. Strawberries are considerably more versatile than I give them credit for and can be used in all sorts of recipes from breakfast, to drinks, to dinner. Driscoll’s recently contacted me to highlight National Strawberry Month so I decided to make a more savory recipe this time around!
The sweet strawberries in this recipe help offset the spiciness of the jalapeno and work really well with the creaminess of the avocado to bring a super balanced salsa.
This recipe for Tortilla Crusted Fish with Strawberry Avocado Salsa is adapted from two separate recipes; a blue tortilla crusted fish recipe from Food Network, and a Strawberry Avocado Salsa recipe from Cooking Light.
Ingredients:
Fish:
the juice of 1 lime
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
Salt and freshly ground pepper
12 ounces corn tortilla chips
4 mahi mahi fillets (about 6 ounces each), or any other white fish you prefer
Happy National Blueberry Pancake Day!! To celebrate, I partnered with Driscoll’s to bring you a really delicious spin on traditional blueberry pancakes: Lemon Ricotta Blueberry Pancakes.
Adding ricotta to your pancakes doesn’t make them taste like ricotta (no worries!), but it does make for a super moist, almost pudding-like center that is so decadent and delicious!
If you prefer dairy free pancakes, I have a homemade pancake mix recipe here. Add the blueberries to the batter once it has been added to the pan.
I adapted this recipe from a Bobby Flay recipe on Foodnetwork.com.
The Republic of Tea is one of my favorite tea companies, their tea is so good! (One of my go-to’s is their Earl Greyer Tea) I also really like their packaging; the tins make it easy to transport and keep the tea bags more fresh than they would be in a box.
What makes this tea particularly noteworthy is that the caffeine content of this tea is enhanced with green tea extract and pure caffeine isolated from premium tea leaves, so it’s a great morning pick-me-up. This tea also has a natural coconut flavor and a touch of licorice flavor, making for quite the tasty tea! It’s really yummy with a splash of milk. To really enhance the coconut flavor, add a little turbinado sugar to your tea too. (You can now understand why my boyfriend stole this tea from me!) The HiCAF Toasted Coconut Black Tea is also gluten free, carb free, with no added sugars.
I love using tea and coffee in recipes and the flavors of this tea just begged to be used in a dessert! The inspiration for this recipe was a Sunset recipe for a Blackberry-Black Tea Sorbet. Because there is already a flavor of coconut in the tea, I wanted to further enhance that by turning this recipe for a sorbet into a vegan ice cream using coconut milk.
Making ice cream is really easy but it takes quite a bit of preparation. First, you need an ice cream maker. (Luckily my mom had one!) The bowl of the ice cream maker has to be frozen for at least 24 hours before it’s ready to use. For this particular recipe, the tea bags need to be steeped in the coconut milk, cooled, and refrigerated before making the ice cream. Plus the whole ice cream mixture needs a few hours in the fridge to get cold. Whew!
So, if you’re making this, be sure to prepare ahead!
#spon: I’m required to disclose a relationship between our site and Sara Lee. This could include the Sara Lee providing us w/content, product, access or other forms of payment.
I’m so ready for spring. I am trying to will the warmer weather to be here ASAP by making a bunch of spring-themed posts. Sara Lee must have read my mind because they contacted me about using their yummy pound cake in a recipe — what better way to show off Sara Lee Pound Cake than with a trifle?
These mini berry trifles use fresh berries, pound cake, and fresh whipped cream with lemon curd, making a yummy and bright spring dessert. I made them in mini trifle bowls but you can adapt this recipe to go in a traditional trifle bowl.
Ingredients (makes 4 mini trifles):
2 cups heavy whipping cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 jar ( roughly 11 oz) lemon curd
1 Sara Lee pound cake, defrosted
strawberry jam
1 pint blueberries
1 pint raspberries
2 strawberries, halved
#spon: I’m required to disclose a relationship between our site and Sara Lee. This could include the Sara Lee providing us w/content, product, access or other forms of payment.
Each year, my mom makes a beautiful trifle for Christmas. I’m pretty sure at one point, she was only making one, but as the popularity of her trifle grew, she is now up to making 6+ for different holiday events, friends, and family. My sister and I grew up begrudgingly helping my mom make these trifles but we both have grown to love them and look forward to a bite of trifle every December.
A trifle is just a layered dessert that is usually made with cake pieces, cream, pudding, and fruit. My mom tops her with a beautiful design of fruit: kiwi, peaches and raspberries. I wanted to make some trifle to share with this blog but a normal trifle can serve a whole family, so I made a mini version! To prepare a regular trifle, the process is just the same.
I highlighted Driscoll’s Berries in my trifle. I absolutely love their raspberries and blackberries so I wanted to have a higher ratio of berries in my trifle than may normally be used. Driscoll’s also sells really beautiful Strawberries and Blueberries that I have used in many many of my previous posts. Berries always add such beautiful color and flavor to a dish!
Note: Driscoll’s sent me coupons for free berries to make this recipe; my opinions are my own.
I was at a restaurant on Long Island that had a drink they called a “lushee” which was basically a frozen sangria. And I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. Pure brilliance. I told a friend about this and we knew we had to make our own, what could possibly be more refreshing on a hot summer day? I was recently sent a cookbook that actually one-upped the concept of the lushee: a White Wine Sangria Popsicle.
The book, Poptails, by Erin Nichols of Erin Cooks, is filled with sixty pops inspired by your favorite alcoholic beverages. Recipes range from classics like a gin and tonic to fancy favorites like a cosmopolitan.There are even some awesome dessert pops like cherry cheesecake and banana split.
I was in love with this book before I even received it. What an amazing idea! Who wouldn’t want their favorite drink in iced pop form? The recipes had me imagining all of the lovely get-togethers I could have: a brunch with iced coffee and bloody Mary pops, a pool party with strawberry basil martini pops, or Christmas in July with spiked eggnog, mulled wine, and Christmas cheer pops. Sigh.
Anyways, I kept thinking back to those lushes and knew I had to try the white wine sangria pops.
I tweaked the recipe within the book a bit. For the original recipe, pick up a copy of this fun book!
Ingredients:
1 bottle white wine (I used Sauvignon Blanc)
1 liter flattened seltzer water
1/4-1/3 cup cranberry juice (I used cranberry hibiscus)
1 tablespoon simple syrup, or to taste
1 pint raspberries
1 pint blackberries
1 pint blueberries
Note: You’ll need ice pop molds and Popsicle sticks to make these.
I wanted to start this post with the definition of seltzer, club soda, tonic water, and sparkling water. Because I always manage to mess these drinks up. And no wonder: club soda, seltzer and sparkling water are all water infused with carbonation. These can all be interchanged. Tonic water is something a bit different, it is still a carbonated water, but quinine is dissolved into the water as well. It’s quite a bit more bitter so be sure to use club soda/seltzer/sparkling water in this recipe. Or for a bit more sweetness, a lemon-lime soda would work.
Make sure to allow your seltzer water to flatten. Don’t forget this step! Unflattened carbonated beverages will explode when frozen. And that sounds like an awful waste of white wine sangria if you ask me. The book suggests opening your seltzer 8 hours prior and popping it into your fridge in a place it won’t spill.
Combine the wine, flattened seltzer water, cranberry juice, and simple syrup. I used lemon simple syrup to give a touch more flavor. Feel free to add some lemon zest to add a little extra.Add whatever mixture of berries you’d like to the pop molds. I went for one raspberry, one blackberry, and a few blueberries per pop.Fill each mold ¾ of the way full with the mixture; you need to leave a small amount at the top to allow the liquid to expand.
Note: you’ll have some extra sangria that won’t fit in the pop molds. This is so you can enjoy your creation before waiting 24 hours 🙂
Add popsicle sticks, cover, and freeze for approximately 24 hours.
To remove from the molds, fill a bowl larger than your pop molds with warm (not hot) water. Add the mold to the bowl for 15 seconds then gently pull on the top of the ice pop stock. If the pop does not release, add the mold back to the water for another 15 seconds, repeat this process until the pops come out of the molds.
These pops were refreshing and a little bit tangy. I wanted a bit more sweetness though, I might add more simple syrup next time I make them. I also would add a bit more cranberry juice so that the pops turn a very light pink color, which would probably look really nice.
What’s nice about this recipe is how adaptable it is. You can add or subtract whatever fruit makes you happy. You could use a sweeter wine, or even a (flattened) champagne. My friend made this recipe using white grape juice instead of cranberry.
There are plenty of other creative pop recipes within the pages of this book. I love the element of fun that the popsicles add and can’t wait to try more of these yummy recipes!
1/4-1/3 cup cranberry juice (I used cranberry hibiscus)
1 tablespoon simple syrup, or to taste
1 pint raspberries
1 pint blackberries
1 pint blueberries
Instructions
Make sure to allow your seltzer water to flatten. Don’t forget this step! Unflattened carbonated beverages will explode when frozen. And that sounds like an awful waste of white wine sangria if you ask me. The book suggests opening your seltzer 8 hours prior and popping it into your fridge in a place it won’t spill.
Combine the wine, flattened seltzer water, cranberry juice, and simple syrup. I used lemon simple syrup to give a touch more flavor. Feel free to add some lemon zest to add a little extra. Add whatever mixture of berries you’d like to the pop molds. I went for one raspberry, one blackberry, and a few blueberries per pop. Fill each mold ¾ of the way full with the mixture; you need to leave a small amount at the top to allow the liquid to expand.
Note: you’ll have some extra sangria that won’t fit in the pop molds.
Add popsicle sticks, cover, and freeze for approximately 24 hours.
To remove from the molds, fill a bowl larger than your pop molds with warm (not hot) water. Add the mold to the bowl for 15 seconds then gently pull on the top of the ice pop stock. If the pop does not release, add the mold back to the water for another 15 seconds, repeat this process until the pops come out of the molds.
Berries and Cream in Vanilla Dessert Cups is the perfect quick dessert for guests, or just to fulfill a sweet tooth in a pinch. I found the vanilla dessert cups in Whole Foods and immediately knew I was going to fill them with fresh berries and homemade whipped cream. This recipe for Berries and Cream in Vanilla Dessert Cups is easily adaptable to account for what is on sale or what looks freshest, any berry or fruit will do.
There are so many fantastic food bloggers out there. One food blog I regularly check is Cookin’ Canuck. Dara makes the most appealing looking recipes and her photos are always stunning. She has also cooked her way healthy and has a wonderful post about her journey. Dara has a great recipe for Low Fat Granola Bars with Bananas, Dried Cranberries, and Pecans that I just had to try. I switched it ever so slightly, but you can find the original recipe here.
Ingredients:
3 1/2 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup pecan pieces
3 ripe bananas
2/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 tablespoons honey (to make vegan, substitute agave nectar)
3/4 cup dried berries (I used Trader Joe’s Golden Berry Blend)
Recipes can tell you a lot about the time period in which they were written. I have always been interested in how recipes change over time to meet tastes, availability and personal income. A few months ago, I went to an event at the Historical Society of Philadelphia about a Civil War era cookbook they found within their documents. The cookbook, written by Ellen Emlenwas written around 1865 and is really well organized, especially for the time. Mrs. Emlen, a Philadelphia housewife, put a lot of time into the cookbook, organizing it into thirteen categories including over 200 recipes.
Some of the fun facts that I learned:
If you think Americans have a sugar problem now, you should see some of the amounts of sugar that used to go into recipes! Most recipes would have to be altered to include less sugar to make palatable to us today.
Despite their not so wallet-friendly prices now, oysters used to be “poor man’s food” in nineteenth century Philadelphia. The Delaware River used to be teeming with them! Because of that, there are some ridiculous-sounding recipes for things like “how to pickle 1,000 oysters”
It’s quite amazing how some things haven’t really changed. There is a recipe for eggnog in the book that is comparable to today’s recipe.
The affluent families of Philadelphia (Mrs. Emlen included) really had a thing for saffron. So many dishes include it in the ingredients!
The event was really interesting and we all were given a copy to take home with us! (Expect some posts including adaptations of her recipes in the future).I also picked up another book while I was there, 35 Recipes from “The Larder Invaded”, which also included historical recipes from local Philadelphians. I used a recipe from that book for this Blackberry Pudding, with a few slight changes.
I’m sure some of you just looked at that photo and thought to yourself “that is NOT pudding.” It’s actually an English pudding. Although in the U.S., pudding is usually a milk-based custard type dessert, pudding in the United Kingdom can be used for any sweet dish after dinner (think: Christmas pudding or “figgy pudding”).So, this recipe is actually more of a bread or cake.
Ingredients:
1 pint almond milk, plus more for glaze
3 1/2 cups flour plus more for dredging the blackberries
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
1 tablespoon melted butter or margarine to make dairy free
2 heaping teaspoons baking powder
1 pint blackberries
powdered sugar
To make this recipe a bit more my own, and bring it into the 21st century, I decided to try this with Vanilla Almond Milk. I thought it might add a nice extra flavor to the whole dessert. Feel free to use normal milk.
Beat the eggs together until light.
Add the almond milk and flour and mix to combine. Add the melted butter, salt and baking powder and mix to combine.
Wash the blackberries and dredge in flour.
Add the blackberries to the pudding and mix to combine.
The original recipe wanted me to put the batter into a pudding tin (I have no idea what a pudding tin is) and then place that in a pot with some boiling water and cook it this way, replenishing the water when needed, for 3 hours. Yep. Not happening.
Instead, I preheated my oven to 350, added the batter to some Pyrex bowls (I used one medium and one small to use all the dough) and baked them for 40-50 minutes.
Because I have a ridiculous sweet tooth, I decided to add a little bit of a glaze to the top of the dessert. Combine 2 parts powdered sugar to 1 part milk. (I made 1 tablespoon powdered sugar to 1.5 teaspoons almond milk).
So how was it? Delicious of course! Look at that beauty!
I was a bit afraid of how this would turn out because I messed with the method of preparation. But it looks fine to me! I enjoyed the glaze on top to give it an extra pop of sugary goodness. The blackberries were nice and tart, so it was a good contrast. I was really happy with the almond milk in it as well!
Best thing about this recipe is that it can easily be adapted to include any kind of berry you choose. It’s a wonderful base recipe to let your creativity run wild.
I actually had a really hard time taking these photos; I kept trying to eat the pudding!
3 1/2cupsflourplus more for dredging the blackberries
1/2teaspoonsalt
3eggs
1tablespoonmelted butter or margarine to make dairy free
2heaping teaspoons baking powder
1pintblackberries
powdered sugar
Instructions
Beat the eggs together until light.
Add the almond milk and flour and mix to combine.
Add the melted butter, salt and baking powder and mix to combine.
Wash the blackberries and dredge in flour.
Add the blackberries to the pudding and mix to combine.
The original recipe wanted me to put the batter into a pudding tin (I have no idea what a pudding tin is) and then place that in a pot with some boiling water and cook it this way, replenishing the water when needed, for 3 hours.
Instead, I preheated my oven to 350, added the batter to some Pyrex bowls (I used one medium and one small to use all the dough) and baked them for 40-50 minutes.
Let cool.
To make the glaze, combine 2 parts powdered sugar to 1 part milk and drizzle over the pudding while it cools.
New Years Eve is a great time to add a little bit of glitz and glamor to your life. I, naturally, feel the need to do that to my drink. This is actually a take on a local restaurant’s delicious champagne option. I hope I remember it correctly, but when I first had this drink at Farmicia in Old City Philadelphia I fell in love. It’s such a girly drink so I had to save it for a special occasion.
Ingredients:
Rosewater
Blueberries
Prosecco
Add about 1/2 teaspoon rosewater to the bottom of a fluted glass. I apparently do not own any champagne glasses (who knew?) so I actually made mine in the martini glass with a bit more rosewater.
Add blueberries or any berry of your choice to the glass. If you’re using a traditional glass, three should be plenty.
Open your sparkling wine and pour into the glass, filling to the top.
Enjoy 🙂
I absolutely love the smell of rosewater. The taste can only be described as what you’d expect a rose to taste like (sorry). The berries add a nice little touch too; I love saving them for last!
I’d suggest adding rosewater to taste. I am very fond of it, so I might have a heavy hand with it. Start with 1/4 teaspoon and work your way up.
I thought I’d step away from cookies and cupcakes for the moment to make… pound cake. I don’t know why I am on such a baking kick, but at least I have the chance to try a bunch of different new recipes! I found this recipe through MyRecipes.com, originally from Southern Living. The recipe sounded absolutely fantastic so I stuck to it for the most part, but I added blueberries because, well, I like blueberries!
Ingredients:
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup loosely packed mint leaves
3/4 cup butter, softened
3 cups powdered sugar, divided
3 large eggs
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 cups whipping cream, divided
2 teaspoons grated lemon rind
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 (12-ounce) jar lemon curd
1 quart fresh strawberries, sliced
1 pint fresh blueberries
I have a serious sweet tooth. To such an extreme, that I cannot have ice cream in my house or I will eat it in one sitting. It doesn’t matter if I buy a pint or a gallon. Sigh. It’s quite an issue I have. So I tend to try to avoid making dessert all together if I’m cooking, but this recipe seemed too good to pass up. Once again, this came from Cooking Light’sQuick & Healthy Menu Maker App to go with the Mango Shrimp Kebabs and the Grilled Corn with Chipotle Lime Butter. I adapted the recipe to work with a bag of mixed frozen berries I had in my freezer.
Ingredients:
1 cup frozen blueberry, blackberry and raspberry mix
Combine the frozen berry mixture, water, sugar, zest and lemon in a small pan.
Bring to a boil and reduce the heat to medium low. Let simmer for 10 minutes.
Stir in butter.
Meanwhile, divide the Greek yogurt among 4 bowls.
Spoon the berry sauce over the yogurt and serve. Top with fresh berries if you have any on hand.
What a perfect way to indulge in a dessert without completely ruining your healthy dinner. The berry sauce is just sweet enough to cut through the Greek yogurt, but not overly so.
As good as it was for dessert, I still had some left over, so I had it the next morning for breakfast. It was just as tasty cold, which is great news because you can make the berry sauce ahead of time. I do suggest adding some fresh berries on top, just so there is some texture to the dessert.
There was a restaurant near my college that served Sauteed Salmon with a Blackberry Butter Sauce and Red Bliss Potatoes. I loved this dish so much, I’m pretty sure I went once a week to eat it while they offered this dinner.
I had a bunch of raspberries and blackberries left over from the Berry Sangria and Berries with Lemon Mint Syrup, so I thought I’d attempt to recreate the recipe, adapting it into this Sauteed Salmon with Berry Butter Sauce and Roasted Potatoes.
Ingredients for Salmon
2 eight ounce salmon fillets, with the skin still on
I have a bunch of fruit left over from my Berries with Lemon Mint Syrup. It’s a lovely warm weekend in Philadelphia which immediately made me think of sangria. What a perfect way to use more of these berries!
Ingredients:
A bowl full of mixed berries (strawberries, hulled, blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, cherries)
1 1/2 cups of triple sec
1 1/2 cups cranberry juice (I used cran-raspberry juice)
