June 2009

Raspberry and Rhubarb

June 8, 2009

Well, I’m back at my laptop in Brazil. A bit groggy and jet-lagged, but settling in okay. Thanks for all the well-wishes regarding my trip!

A few days before I left the US I got the baking bug so I decided to experiment with a few new flavors. I’ve been seeing a lot of rhubarb cupcakes out there and my parent’s still had a ton of it available in the garden. The new raspberries were just starting to come on, but there weren’t enough to do much more with then eating fresh so I turned to some frozen ones from last summer.

Rhubarb and strawberry is such a popular combo, so I thought I probably couldn’t go wrong with raspberry as strawberry substitute. I was right. Rhubarb and raspberry is every bit as good as the old standard.

My experiment started with finding a Rhubarb Cupcake recipe from Coconut & Lime. I wanted mine to be a bit different though. I don’t like chunks of rhubarb so I cooked mine down with just a teaspoon of water and a teaspoon of sugar. The transformation is shown below. Then we had some buttermilk to use as well so I substituted that.

The frosting is a traditional butter cream with some raspberry sauce stirred in. The raspberry sauce came from extra I had left over when making a fresh batch of the Raspberry Oat Bars I posted about a few months ago. I put some of this directly in the frosting and ended up with a vibrant pink cupcake topping that was sweet with an underlying tartness.

Due to the extra moisture from my cooked rhubarb this cupcake has more of a sponge cake consistency. This can be changed by adding more flour if you desire.

I was thrilled with the results and I will make these again. Next time I plan to turn it into a sheet cake. The tartness balances nicely with the sweet flavors and it is a perfect combination of ingredients that represent this time of year well.

Raspberry Rhubarb Cupcakes

Cupcakes

Adapted from a recipe at Coconut & Lime

½ cup rhubarb, chopped
1 tsp water
1 tsp sugar
½ cup sugar
3 tbsp butter, room temperature
1 egg
½ tsp vanilla
½ to ¾ cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
½ cup buttermilk

Place the rhubarb, sugar and water in a small saucepan. Cook at medium high heat, stirring occasionally until the rhubarb cooks down into a jam-like consistency. Remove from heat and set aside.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line a cupcake tin with six liners.

Cream the sugar and butter then mix in the egg and vanilla. Add in the flour, baking powder and salt and mix just until combined. Finally mix in buttermilk and then fold in the rhubarb.
Distribute batter evenly into the six muffin liners and bake for about 15 to 20 minutes, or until cupcakes are lightly browned and an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Let cool.

Raspberry Frosting

¼ cup butter (1/2 stick), room temperature
2 ½ – 3 cups powdered sugar
½ tsp vanilla
¼ cup raspberry fruit filling (from Raspberry Oat Bars)

Beat the butter and powdered sugar until smooth. Add vanilla and raspberry sauce. Beat until all ingredients are combined and frosting is smooth. If making the frosting on a hot day, you may want to refrigerate it until your cupcakes are ready to decorate.

This recipe will serve as my submission to the Let’s Celebrate Event at Ria’s Collection!

Links to a Healthy Weekend

June 6, 2009

Hello, friends!

Even though I had been collecting links all week, I thought I was going to have to skip this installment of links due to my travel. However, here I sit in the airport during an incredibly long layover and I find myself with time to post them.

I hope you are well this weekend. As with most of my comings and goings between the US and Brazil, the feelings are bittersweet. I miss what I am leaving, but excited for what lies ahead (especially my husband!).

I arrive in Brazil in the morning and in our town tomorrow night. I have only four months left of this abroad experience and I have vowed to cook up a storm incorporating all the local ingredients I can so it should be exciting around here in the near future.

Enjoy these great reads and I’ll see you next week!

The Reuben Bread from Food and Life Encounters impressed me greatly. This is actually from last week, but it was just too wonderful to skip over when I found it this week. A Reuben is probably my favorite sandwich variety and this is an incredibly interesting twist.

Creating a Healthier Food Culture for Less Money on Care 2 Make a Difference was a thought provoking post with lots of great tips for how to take the steps to start making your foods from scratch. This one is from last month, but I just discovered it this week and thought it was well worth sharing.

Wheat Berry Salad with Cranberries, Feta and Mint from Not Derby Pie was a recipe and blog I discovered this week when searching out some ideas for how to use my wheat berries.

Eat Local. Die Trying? from Zompaa presents an important question we all have to answer when it comes to where we buy our produce and how it is grown.

Peanut Butter Boy is hosting The Great Peanut Butter Exhibition #6. The theme this time? Barbeque! The deadline is Monday.

Coconut & Lime is hosting a 5 year Blogiversary contest! You need to make one of her recipes or create one using coconut and lime to enter.

Photo of my pug, Macy Mae, taken just a few days ago. One of the things I will miss greatly the next few months.

Savory Wheat Berry Salad

June 5, 2009

Well, I’ve finally crossed over into the world of wheat berries. You know, I get to experience a lot of new foods due to my living abroad, but at the same time I miss out on some new and upcoming things here in the US. Wheat berries have been all over food blogs the past few months and I have yet to find them where we live in Brazil. So during this visit I picked some up to cook and to take back with me so I can experiment some more.

I tried them for the first time a couple weeks ago. I was in Whole Foods and needed a quick, to-go dinner so I stopped by their deli and decided to get a bit of their wheat berry salad made with curry. The consensus – love them! Not that I had any doubts. I’m a huge fan of grains and grain-based salads.

Because wheat berries are the whole wheat kernel without the hull they provide the nutritional benefit of the bran, germ and endosperm, much of which is missing from the processed variety. Wheat berries are a very good source of fiber and manganese, and a good source of magnesium. The presence of the germ also gives you a boost of B vitamins and vitamin E.

Some other interesting research that has arisen the past few years is that whole grains may hold as much antioxidant power through phytochemicals as fruits and veggies. Phenolics are a group of antioxidants present in whole grains in their bound form, unlike those in fruits and veggies which are free. What may have been overlooked in the past is that the bound phenolics in whole grains are released during digestions so we still benefit from them.

It took me a while to decide what to make with my wheat berries. There is no shortage of recipes on the web and I loved the curry flavor in the salad I had from Whole Foods. What I didn’t like was the added fruit. I’m not a big fan of golden raisins in grain salads. I wanted something that was savory all the way. So using some things from the garden this is what I came up with.

Savory Curry Wheat Berry Salad

1 cup wheat berries
3 ½ cups water
1 cup grape tomatoes, chopped
1 spring onion, sliced
1 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
3 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp curry powder
Salt and pepper to taste

Place wheat berries in a large sauce pan and cover with water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer, covered for 45 min to one hour. Drain and rinse with cool water.

In a bowl whisk together olive oil, lemon juice, curry powder, salt and pepper. Set aside.

In a serving bowl toss together wheat berries, tomatoes, onion and parsley. Pour dressing over salad, toss to coat and serve. Makes about six servings.

More on the health benefits of whole grains and references for this post – WHFoods: Whole Wheat

Why Eating Real Food Is Important to Me

June 3, 2009

I went for a family visit today. My mom and I stopped by to see my Great Aunt and two of my Great Uncles. They still live in and near the house of my Great Grandparents and although they are in their 80s we drove up to find them working in the yard and nearby garden.

As we talked about the family and looked through some old pictures I was reminded that much of my roots reside there – the recipes I ate through my childhood and have since learned how to make in my adulthood as well as using the land for food and keeping it plentiful during the winter months through canning. My mom tells me stories about collecting the chicken eggs and watching cows being milked as a child.

While I didn’t have exposure to such extreme farm life during my own childhood, I was exposed to extensive gardening through my Dad and home cooking through my Mom. This visit brought memories of days passed which always bring me to the present and how I currently feel about food.

Getting to the point of supporting the growth, cooking and consumption of real food was a long journey for me, but here I am. Days like today get me thinking about why I’ve evolved into this person, this place. I realize again and again that it really isn’t about health for me. My interest in health made me take the path in my life that I have traveled, but my real reason for supporting natural, sustainable foods is memories.

These memories I have are not all that common anymore and growing rarer by the day, especially for upcoming generations. I know that everyone can’t live on a farm, but everyone from toddlers to adults can take a break from this multi-media reality we live in and experience a portion of this old fashioned life. We just have to make a bit more of an effort. It can be growing your own garden, supporting a local agribusiness through a u-pick adventure or simply walking through a farmer’s market and talking with local producers.

When I think about my family who lived long before I showed up I realize that this wasn’t a choice for them. It was a necessity. In addition, when they were my age those now popular fast food and soda companies were just coming into view. However, as opposed to being known for their greedy efforts to take over the world that now seem so prominent, they were still viewed as entrepreneurial endeavors, part of the American dream.

Oh how things have changed, for the worse of course, but lately I also think they are changing for the better. Why? Just take a look through all the fabulous food blogs out there using natural, nourishing ingredients eliminating our need for processed ingredients.

I’m fortunate to have these memories because they are what keep me wanting to learn more about real food, to make the extra effort to prepare it and to share that with others. I know we can’t go back in time completely, but we can pull those positive things from the past to our present way of living.

Why is eating real food important to you?

This post has been submitted to Food Renegade’s Fight Back Friday.

Apples, Carrots and Zucchini in One Tasty Bread

June 2, 2009

I am a huge fan of zucchini bread. What better way to enjoy a vegetable, right? While I’ve also had apples in bread as well as carrots, I can’t say I’ve combined them all together before. Well, until yesterday.

We came across this recipe for Garden Harvest Cake in the April 2009 issue of Cooking Light. My mom and I (well more my mom than me) decided to give it a try. Since we didn’t change the recipe at all I will leave it as link for you to check out.

Although the recipe says it is a cake it has every characteristic of a quick bread. I always come across recipes that call for applesauce instead of oil and I’m never incredibly impressed with the results. However, as opposed to applesauce, this recipe uses a fresh Granny Smith apple to cut the amount of oil a bit and the results are fantastic! You will end up with a moist, tender bread full of cinnamon flavor with the slight crunch of toasted walnuts. A great breakfast for a hot summer morning.

Newer Posts

Raspberry and Rhubarb

Links to a Healthy Weekend

Savory Wheat Berry Salad

Why Eating Real Food Is Important to Me

Apples, Carrots and Zucchini in One Tasty Bread

Thanks so much for reading!

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