Red almond smoothie

I've been making smoothies for a long time. My husband used to make them as a cold summertime treat but after I fell and broke my teeth four years ago, my blender and I became more intimate.

Now I use my smoothie skills to combat two phenomena: when I'm too lazy to eat  (drinking is easier) and when I can't motivate myself to eat fruit. 

Today's smoothie is based on the success of yesterday, but cooler and more tart.

For one big smoothie:

- about 3/4 cup plain yogurt

- 1 packet vanilla carnation breakfast essentials

- about 1 cup frozen strawberries and cherries

- about 3/4 cup unsweetened organic cranberry juice

- about two tablespoons black chia seeds 

- about 1/2 cup ground raw almonds

Cherry pancakes

My husband tricked me into making vegan pancakes. Or at least mixing a batter. I don't handle the holidays well and this year has left us with fairly empty cupboards since my daughter had a double ear infection and some unexpected medical expenses.

This batter was fairly pasty and we're still adding almond milk to thin it out.

- about 3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
- 1 cup organic white flour
- 1/2 cup ground flaxseed
- 1/4 cup coconut flour
- 1/4 cup sourgum flour
- 2 tablespoons blackstrap molasses
- about 3 tablespoons liquid coconut oil
- 2 tablespoons baking powder
- pinch salt
- about 2 cups vanilla almond milk
- 1 cup cherries

The flavor is delicious!

Bâtard and quince

A few more weeks and my last full semester at Lafayette will end. My daughter is drowning in her phlegm and her ear tubes are falling out. Target opens at 9 p.m. on Thanksgiving. We're still barely making ends meet.

But hey, no sense complaining. This is life.

Today I stopped at Wegmans because my poor daughter wanted ice cream and I'm restricting her dairy right now because of her allergy/ear issues.

I got her coconut milk cookies and cream ice cream.

She also wants to cook dinner tonight so I got vegan ravioli, one butternut squash and the other roasted red pepper. She suggested ravioli for the meal.

I also got salad greens and Health is Wealth Pizza Munchees which are also vegan.

And sushi. Because I can't make it through Wegmans without a serious impulse buy.

I also got bâtards, a small type of French bread, because I've craved a bâtard with butter and quince jam for months. A few weeks ago, I discovered Lebanese quince jam at the Mediterranean Deli. Imagine my delight when I found bâtard bread today. The flavors bring me back to Tunisia.

I also made myself a smoothie of vanilla maple yogurt from Klein Farm, frozen pitted dark cherries, a fresh banana and a splash of sour cherry nectar from Turkey. (Another find at the Mediterranean Deli.

My belly celebrates.

Cherry Clafoutis

Today we made a clafoutis based on a recipe from Bon Appetit, listed here:

http://m.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Cherry-Clafouti-365670

Apparently, a true cherry clafoutis would leave the cherries unpitted to change the flavor of the baked dish. I pitted mine because between my dental woes and my eight-year-old pits seem risky.

I am contemplating a gluten free clafoutis, using almond flour instead of the white flour, but first I have to research whether or not almond flour would set the custard. I also must make it a priority to get to the farm for eggs.

My daughter did 90% of the work for this as it is a belated Fathers Day treat for Papa.

So-- our recipe--

- 1 pound cherries, fresh, pitted
- butter, to grease a deep dish pie pan
- 1/3 cup unsweetened almond milk
- 1/2 cup half and half
- 1/2 cup milk
- 4 eggs
- several generous splashes Fra Angelica
- 1/2 cup flour
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1. Preheat oven to 375

2. Pit cherries and mix in some alcohol, let sit.

3. Grease pie pan

4. Combine eggs, sugar, flour, salt and extracts and whisk until smooth and homogeneous

5. Combine milks and heat over low to medium heat until simmering.

6. Pour into egg mixture and whisk together

7. Pour cherries and alcohol into pie dish, top with custard

8. Bake about 35-40 minutes until custard sets and edges pull away from sides, with some browning

Mango cherry smoothie

I'm addicted to those Bolthouse Farms Immunity Boost Mango smoothies. At Target, they are $3.99 for 32 ounces (which after my employee discount and red card savings drops to $3.41) while the same bottle at Giant is $4.29.

So, I decided to try and make my own.

- I started with organic frozen mango chunks because I couldn't find any other frozen mango and wasn't sure when I was shopping when I would attempt this and didn't want fresh mangoes to rot. I used about 2 cups.
- I added about 5 ounces of that nasty Bolthouse Farms mango protein smoothie
And grated, blended to a fine pulp
- I added about 3 teaspoons frozen orange juice concentrate
- 15 or so fresh cherries
And grated, blended to a fine pulp
- then I added a mango Greek yogurt

Fred the Bread II

Anyone who has hang-ups regarding following a recipe and letting their creative juices flow should bake with a small child. Small children are good, in general, for any hang-up adults have. But that's another story.

My friend Gayle has been working diligently keeping "Fred the Bread" alive... This is the earlier post on Fred:

http://angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com/2009/12/fred-friendship-bread.html

I told her I would gladly take some Fred to bake, not to nurture into more sourdough starter. I asked for enough for three loaves. I got three cups, which is twice what I asked for. To make things more fun, my husband rearranged my kitchen and we could only find two loaf pans.

So we made "Fred the Fruitcake" and "Fred in a cake pan."

In addition to the help of a five-and-a-half year old child, I also ran out of oil.

So Fred the fruit cake turned out to be a loaf with dried cherries and slivered almonds, nutmeg, and funky applesauce. I ran out before I was content with the fullness of the second loaf pan so I added some of "Fred in a cake pan," which was a loaf with butter instead of oil...

Turkey and Brie sandwiches

Today's lunch was a subtle variation on last night's dinner.

Today, we had simple turkey sandwiches with brie and lettuce, on multigrain sandwich bread from Giant, and seedless red raspberry jelly from Wegmans. Then for a side we had the leftover Dole Italian Salad with chianti vinaigrette and I added dried cherries for a new flavor.

Fabulous. Heavenly. So simple and so cheery.

Coffeecake and Egg sandwiches

So, we had coffeecake from Friday for breakfast yesterday and today. Yesterday we finished the blueberry and today we started on the nut and the plain. For lunch yesterday, we had the rest of the salad my friend Kim made me for lunch Friday (it was huge) and peanut butter toast. The picnic we attended for July 4 started at 2 p.m., so I didn't want a heavy lunch.

For dinner Friday night, we had leftover pizza from my daughter's birthday I had frozen.

Today. while my husband took our daughter to the park, I brewed some green and pomegranite teas to make iced tea. For lunch we had egg sandwiches with eggs from Klein Farm on my homemade rye-sesame rolls. I fried the eggs with parsley from the garden. Some cheddar cheese on the eggs. We all had different condiments. I had French dijon mustard. My husband had vegan mayo. My daughter had ketchup. I served with some salt and vinegar potato chips and blueberries and cherries.

Yogurt Parfaits

For dinner, my husband took this morning's leftover decaf and made iced coffee with raw milk. For dinner, we had some Klein Farm lemon yogurt with my own homemade granola from the other day with fresh pineapple, local cherries and blueberries.