Raw Juice: Spinach, Carrot, Beet, Avocado, Peach, Strawberry and Banana

Raw juice made with strawberry and vegetables is tastes great and gives you a great energy boost in the morning. I'm reposting this Raw Spinach, Carrot, Beet, Avocado, Peach, Strawberry and Banana Juice recipe this week  because I'm in New York and it's about 30 degrees warmer than I'm used to in San Francisco and I need some relief!

I'm thinking of juicing every day, in addition to the great food my parents are making for us, and will start with this recipe as soon as I get everything together.

Here's what you'll need. Make this juice, or any other combination of fruits and veggies you may have around. It'll cool you off from the summer heat.

Raw Spinach, Carrot, Beet, Avocado, Peach, Strawberry and Banana Juice

Ingredients

• 1/2 avocado, skin removed, cut into chunks
• 15 to 20 spinach leaves (a small handful)
• 1 beet, skin removed, sliced
• 2 carrots, skin removed, cut into rounds
• 1 small peach, pit removed, sliced
• 1 banana, sliced
• 2 strawberries, hulled, sliced
• lime juice (about 1/4 of a lime)
• 1 cup coconut water
• Ice cubes

Method:

1. Put all the ingredients in a blender or drink mixer with a good blade.
2. Pulse on high until everything is chopped up.
3. If you want the juice to be thinner, add more coconut or regular water to the mix.

Enjoy!

Raspberry-Peach Jam from The Feed: America's Test Kitchen

Thank you Lori Galvin for posting this wonderful recipe for raspberry-peach jam. I'm fairly new to jam making (especially when actually following a recipe). This one is great! It was super easy to make, and I never once felt like it might not get to the thickening stage, as so often happens.

The sights and smells that fill your kitchen while making this great jam will bring home Summer. Beautiful colors and flavors mix to make a slightly tart spreadable fruit. I love how little sugar this recipe called for, it's as close to eating just fruit as I've gotten when making jam.

My 10 year old nephew, Giovanni, helped me out. He loved when one of the peaches fell out the window while I was shooting a picture. He was a great help in measuring out the sugar and checking the recipe to make sure I was actually following it. Gio was in charge of testing out the thickened jam on the back of the frozen spoon. He's a maker of robotic things, magician, stop-motion animator and a great guitar player. He also has an interest in all kinds of crafts and is game for helping me with a variety of projects.

I added three vanilla beans split open to the jam during cooking. Every time I make jam, I love to add a little something extra like vanilla beans or jalapeños. It makes the jam turn out just a little bit different and everyone knows that it was made by me.

You can find the recipe here, at America's Test Kitchen's The Feed. Thanks again to Lori Galvin for sharing!

Juice...Grapefruit, Avocado, Beet, Watermelon...The List Goes On

Hello and welcome to another juice recipe. I'm no longer on my juice cleanse, but I loved the juices I made so much, that I decided to continue making them.

This week's juice has a few ingredients I haven't included in previous juices: watermelon and grapefruit. Wow! The watermelon is just the right sweetness to offset the earthiness of the beets. The grapefruit's sour tartness tastes just right against the smooth, bright flavor of the avocado. Topped off with fresh coconut water, this juice is my favorite so far.

It's a lot thinner than the other juices I've made, not in a bad way, but in a really refreshing way. I thought I liked the juice to be more of a pureed salad, but now really want more of a liquid texture. Now that I'm making juice on a more regular basis I'm learning that I need to trust my instincts when it comes to flavor mixing. Juice after juice, I've been really pleased with all of my combinations.

Raw Beet, Avocado, Nectarine, Strawberry, Watermelon, Grapefruit Juice

Ingredients

• 1/2 avocado, skin removed, cut into chunks
• 1 small nectarine, pit removed, sliced
• 1 grapefruit, skin removed, cuts into chunks
• 4 small strawberries, sliced
• 1 beet, skin removed, sliced
• 3 small pieces watermelon, cubed
• 1 cup coconut water
• Ice cubes

Method:

1. Put all the ingredients in a blender or drink mixer with a good blade.
2. Pulse on high until everything is chopped up.
3. If you want the juice to be thinner, add more coconut or regular water to the mix.

Mother's and Daughters: Thoughts for Mother's Day

   Mother's Day is just around the corner. It's one of my favorite days. My daughter always makes me feel very special and does a great job celebrating me.

On the holiday, Isabella has made me a nice breakfast on her own for the past four years. She's an inspiring daughter, and at thirteen is more than capable of making breakfast,. I loved it when a few years back she asked me to close my eyes, come into the kitchen, and turn the oven on for her. Or when she was five and made me a grilled cheese sandwich in the microwave, because she was not old enough to use the oven. I cherish her Mother's Day breakfasts and can't wait to see what she has on offer this year.

The extra-special part for me is that this is our day together to just be mother and daughter. I am a single parent, so whenever Isabella is at my house, it is just the two of us. But Mother's Day is a day when we put aside all our day-to-day madness, bickering and chores and enjoy each other.

I always knew I'd have at least one child.  I love kids and babies. They make me feel happy and secure and I know how to communicate with them on their own level. Kids and babies are just small people, and I tend to treat them as equals to adults. They are smart, funny, insightful and loving. This is why I became a mother.

And I'm very glad I did. I love being a mother enjoying my child and treating  her with  patience and understanding, regaling her with silliness and offering unbridled love. As Isabella gets older, I have to adjust the way I use these traits, but they are all still necessary. Patience is way at the top of the list these days, so is silliness (however, not in front of her friends, thank you very much). I find that with every passing year, we come to an understanding of how we relate and move into these new roles, sometimes with ease, sometimes not.

Gran Fran (my very own mother) and I are not always on the same page, but we talk or IM almost every day. We collaborate on food projects and discuss ideas for upcoming work that we're doing. There is bickering and eye rolling a-plenty, but I will say that we are as bonded as ever. Though we live on opposite coasts, we are incredibly close.

We may not always see eye-to-eye on everything, but Gran Fran does have good advice on many of the stagesIsabella is going through. Having raised five kids, four of them girls, Gran Fran and Joe have seen it all. If Isabella and I start  bickering when we are with Gran Fran, she helps defuse  the situation by gently (which for Gran Fran means yelling instructions at top voice) reminding me that I was no cakewalk at thirteen and to give the kid a break.

From my echo (Isabella) my shadown (Gran Fran and me, here's to Mother's Day and all of the fabulous moms out there. May your kids treat you well more often than not and celebrate you always!

You can find recipes for my first installment of Mother's Day here.

  

Mother's Day: Corn Muffins, Minted Strawberries, Iced Almond Milk Cappuccino

A wonderful Mother's day breakfast created by three generations: me, mymother and my daughter. It's not a complicated meal, but it is delicious and means a lot to me.

My daughter usually makes me corn muffins on the big day. I've always loved them, and she knows it. She generally serves them with a side of strawberries.

When I serve strawberries, I like to soak them in a simple syrup infused with mint. That's my contribution to this meal.

As for my mother, Gran Fran, no matter how long it has been, to me Spring and Summer at her house mean iced blended cappuccino drinks.

Please enjoy this with your family and let Mama put her feet up and relax while you scurry around and meet her every need.

Isabella's Corn Muffins

Ingredients

• 1 stick, 8 tablespoons, unsalted butter, melted
• 1 cup almond milk
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup gluten-free flour (recipe found here or pre-packaged mix found here)
• 1 cup corn meal
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup sugar

Method

1. Heatoven to 400 degrees.
2. Melt butter.
3. Brush some of the melted butter on 12-cup muffin tin.
4. Place tin in oven.
5. Mix together milk, melted butter, and eggs
6. Mix together dry ingredients.
7. Swiftly stir wet ingredients into dry; do not overmix.
8. Carefully, spoon ingredients into hot, buttered  muffin tin
9. In lower third of oven, bake 25 minutes or until golden brown.
10. Remove from tin; wrap in dishtowel in dish or basket if serving immediately.
11. Otherwise place on wire rack, wrap individually in foil, seal in plastic freezer bag. Reheat before serving.

Natasha's Mint Marinated Strawberries

Ingredients:

• 6 mint leaves minced
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1/2 cup water
• 4 large strawberries cut into pieces

Method:

1. Put mint, sugar and water in a small saucepan over medium heat.
2. Stir constantly until all the sugar has dissolved.
3. Pour the mint simple syrup over the strawberries and let them sit for five minutes.

Gran Fran's Almond Milk Blender Cappuccino

serves 1

you will need a blender (ok, seems obvious, but thought I should mention it)

Ingredients:

• 2 cups hot coffee, if it’s winter; cold if it’s summer
• 1 cup almond milk (Gran Fran uses whole milk)
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 6 ice cubes if it’s summer
• Cinnamon, optional

Method:

1. Place all ingredients in blender; adjust amounts to fit capacity of blender.
2. Hold down cap of blender with a dish towel.
3. Turn blender on high.
4. Blend until frothy and creamy.
5. Pour into glasses or cups. Sprinkle with cinnamon if desired.
6. Serve immediately.

What to Bring to Dinner: Apple and Pear Crisp

What were the odds that I would happen to have a piece of fabric with apples and pears on it to present this lovely crisp? Slim to none, I'd say.

I hadn't pre-planned including the pears in the crisp, but as luck would have it, I ran out of apples and had to combine the two fruits. The mix of the flavors turned out well: one bit might be all apple, the next all pear, or you may get two-for-one!

I've never made a crisp before. We were invited upstairs to dinner with our fabulous neighbors. When they came down to invite us over, I asked what I could bring. Somehow, the topic of a crisp came up and knowing that they liked my granola, I offered to make one.

Pastry dough and I aren't generally friends, but I am good at cutting and mixing things, so this was the perfect project for me. And, I found a funny little knife that made the fruit into crinkle cuts. I think it's meant to be used for potatoes, but it worked just fine on my pears and apples. You can't go wrong with the combination of flavors here: butter, vanilla, lemon, cinnamon, fruit and oats. And it's the easiest thing I've made for a dessert in a long time.

The neighbors loved it. I think this will go into my regular rotation of easy, take-along desserts. Hope you like it.

Apple and Pear Crisp

adapted from Simply Recipes

serves 4

Ingredients:

• 2 medium Pears, cut into chunks
• 2 medium Apples, cut into chunks
• 3 tsps Lemon Juice
• 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
• 1 cup Brown Sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground Cinnamon
• 1 cup Rolled Oats
• 1/2 cup Butter, room temperature
• 5 to 10 almonds, crushed
• 5 to 10 Walnuts, crushed

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
2. In a mixing bowl, combine fruit, lemon juice, and vanilla. Toss to combine.
3. Put the pear and apple pieces into a baking dish. I don't really layer, just put them in there, and any baking dish will do here, I used a souffle dish.
4. Mix together the dry ingredients (oats, cinnamon and brown sugar) with the butter.
5. Using a pastry blender or a fork, chop up the butter until it is in small pea-sized pieces.
6. Cover the fruit with the oat mixture.
7. Place the nuts on top of the oat mixture.
8. Set in the oven for 45 minutes.
9. Bake until the topping looks crunchy, being careful not to burn the nut topping.
10. Serve with ice cream on the side.