Strawberry Vinaigrette

Rating: 5 stars

Prep time: Super easy

Someone gave us some beautiful garden spinach the other night, but since we haven't eaten much salad in the past year (it hasn't done well with my stomach issues) we didn't have any dressings on hand. Though Mahon and I are both diehard Ranch dressing fans, we wanted something quick and easy the other night to eat our spinach with. We both also happen to be diehard fruit vinaigrette fans, so I took a few nearly-dead strawberries in our fridge and whipped up this strawberry vinaigrette! It turned out PERFECT, and was so easy to make!

1/4 cup mashed strawberries

Just under 1/3 cup vinegar (we used red wine vinegar because that's what we had; I would imagine it would also be good with white wine vinegar, balsamic, or maybe even apple cider—anything but regular white, probably)

1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Honey to taste (I probably used a little under a tablespoon)

Mash strawberries with fork until they are well mashed and separated, but not pureed. Add vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper and mix vigorously with a fork until liquids are combined. Add honey a little at a time until the dressing reaches the desired flavor—it shouldn't be sweet, but it shouldn't be take-the-roof-of-your-mouth-off sour, either. Add more salt and pepper if desired. Serve over any kind of salad—it was to die for on our fresh spinach!

Strawberry Lemonade

Rating: 5 stars!

Prep time: Easy

It's that time of summer when I find myself craving cold, fruity drinks all day long. Tonight I came up with this delicious creation to assuage that thirst, and it was perfect! I will definitely be making it again. Also, if I've calculated it correctly, it's only got a little over 7 grams of sugar per cup. Then again, I never said I was good at math....

1 cup water

3/4 cup sugar

1 cup finely chopped or pureed strawberries (I used frozen strawberries and just put them in the blender while still frozen to chop them up)

1/2 cup lemon juice

5 cups water

In small saucepan, combine sugar, water, and strawberries. Heat until boiling; reduce heat and simmer for three or four minutes. Cover and let stand in refrigerator for about 15 minutes. In pitcher, combine water and lemon juice. Add strawberry syrup and stir; serve over ice (if you serve the lemonade right away, it will still be warm from the syrup, so don't skimp on the ice!). Enjoy. I also would love to try this with blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, etc... the options are endless!

Fresh Strawberry Tarts/Pie

Rating: 5 stars

Prep time: Easy-medium

My mom always makes fresh strawberry pie in the spring, when NC strawberries are abundant, delicious, and cheap. I was just dying for some strawberry pie this spring, but we just didn't have enough in the budget for the 4 pounds of strawberries it would take—plus, two people don't exactly need a whole pie to themselves. Instead, we created these darling strawberry tarts. I won't tell you how many of these we've eaten in the past week....

For those more interested in the pie, I've put the pie measurements in parentheses. The tart recipe is intended to yield one dozen tarts, but it totally depends on how thinly you roll your pie crust—the first time I didn't roll it out very thinly, and we only ended up with 7 or 8 tarts.

1 9-inch pie crust (I used this recipe)

1/2 cup mashed or pureed strawberries (1 cup)

1/2 cup sugar (1 cup)

1 1/2 t. cornstarch (1 T)

1/4 cup water (1/2 cup)

1 oz cream cheese (3 oz)

1/4-1/3 t. sugar (1 t.)

1/2 T milk (1-2 T)

1 lb chopped strawberries (app. 4 lb strawberries, whole), less the amount you used for the puree

Whipped cream (I definitely recommend using real, freshly-whipped cream! Then again, I recommend that for just about anything) for topping

For tarts: Heat oven to 375. Roll pie crust as thin as possible (really, as thin as you can get it without it falling apart on you). Punch circles in pie crust with the biggest cup or other circle you can find—we used a 32oz hospital mug, which I think is about 5 inches in diameter. Gently stretch circles with your fingers, and place into cups of muffin tin. The edges of the crust should be at least as tall as or taller than the edges of your muffin tin. Prick crust with fork (including sides) and bake for 8-12 minutes or until very lightly golden. Once crusts are done baking, gently remove from muffin tins and let cool on a plate. While crusts are baking, mix sugar and cornstarch together. Fold in pureed strawberries and combine. Add water; heat until mixture has boiled for 1 minute (on the stove or in the microwave, either works—if you heat it on the stove, be sure to stir regularly). Let cool. Combine cream cheese, sugar, and milk. Once crusts are cooled, spoon a dollop of the cream cheese mixture into the bottom of each crust. Spoon a few of the chopped strawberries into crust (don't overdo it—these will fill up fast!), using the spoon to pack them in if necessary. Gently spoon or pour glaze over the strawberries. Top with another layer of chopped strawberries. Add a dollop of whipped cream, and enjoy! They can be eaten right away (and trust me, we did), but the next-day leftovers are even better.

For pie: Heat oven to 375. Roll out pie crust and place in pie dish. Prick bottom and sides with fork and bake for 8 minutes (or until done). While crust is cooking, mix sugar and cornstarch. Fold in pureed strawberries and combine. Add water; heat until mixture has boiled for 1 minute. Let cool. Combine cream cheese, sugar, and milk. Spread over bottom of (cooled) pie crust (if you don't let it cool a little, it will melt the cream cheese... ask me how I know!). Spread one layer of strawberries, sliced in half, over bottom of pie (cut sides up). Layer glaze over strawberries. Continue to layer cut strawberries and glaze until pie crust is full; top with whole berries. Serve with whipped cream.

Green Smoothies

Rating: 5 stars—even my super picky sister likes these

Prep time: Easy

This is not so much a recipe as a method. Really, you can use any combination of greens/fruits that suits your fancy; you can also add sugar (although that would totally kill the nutrition factor), honey, agave, or another sweetener if you so desire. For me, the 100% OJ concentrate, plus the banana, sweetens it up just fine. This is the smoothie that I make every morning; it yields 4 cups.

Here are the steps:

1. Fill blender with 1 1/2 cups warm water

2. Add fresh greens in until blender is almost all the way full (but not packed)—I alternate using baby spinach and spring mix salad right now

3. Peel and chop one medium carrot; put chopped carrot on top of greens

4. Pulse in blender until carrots are somewhat chopped up; then allow to blend on highest setting for 1-2 minutes, or until you can't see anymore leafy bits and it's all liquified. (My blender is really enthusiastic and tends to throw stuff up onto the sides while it's blending, which leaves me with a lot of carrots and spinach chunks... not what I want to be eating with my smoothie! While the blender is going, I'll usually take a spoon and scrape down the sides so that all the chunks get integrated.)

5. Turn the blender off. Add in 1/2 banana (fresh or frozen), 1-2 Tbsp 100% orange juice concentrate, a handful of frozen strawberries (I probably do about 6-8 strawberries), and some frozen blueberries (I probably do about 1/4-1/3 cup blueberries). Pulse blender again to get the big chunks broken up, then blend on highest setting for another minute until smooth. If the smoothie gets too thick to blend, add in another tablespoon or two of hot water, stir it up, and blend it again. When it's done, I usually taste it to see if it needs something else—more OJ, fruit, etc.

Like I said, this can be done with any combination of fruit. I use the berries and banana because they are a) cheap and b) very flavorful, and make a great balance to the spinach. I know my mom sometimes puts apples in hers, but apples are a precious resource in our house and aren't getting wasted on any old smoothie! When peaches & pears are in season, though, I plan to add some of those in as well.

One last note—I do my grocery shopping every 2 weeks, which means it's hard to keep all the fresh stuff fresh. At the beginning of my grocery period, I will pull out some of my fresh spinach and put it into ziploc bags to freeze for the end of the grocery period, when the spinach tends to get wilty. Also, I will usually get about 7 bananas, enough for 2 weeks worth of smoothies. For the first week, I'll use half of a fresh banana every day, and freeze the other half... then when the second week rolls around (when the bananas would be brown), I use the frozen halves.

Tres Leche Cake

Rating: 5 amazing stars

Prep time: Medium

Source: The Pioneer Woman (slightly altered by me)

We will be serving this at birthdays, Cinco de Mayo celebrations, and every other place we can think of for the rest of our lives. Period.

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 1/2 t. baking powder

1/4 t. salt

5 eggs

1 cup sugar

1 t. vanilla

1/3 cup milk

1 cup evaporated milk

3/4 cup sweetened condensed milk

1/4 cup heavy cream

1 pint heavy cream (I just used what was rest after subtracting that 1/4, and it was plenty)

1 1/2 T sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees; spray 9x13 cake pan. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in large bowl. Separate eggs. Beat egg yolks with 3/4 cup sugar on high speed, until yolks are thick and pale yellow. Stir in milk and vanilla. Pour yolk mixture over flour mixture and stir very gently until combined.  

Beat egg whites on high speed until soft peaks form. Continue to mix while pouring in remaning 1/4 cup of sugar and beat until egg whites are stiff but not dry. Fold egg white mixture into batter very gently until just combined. Bake for 30-45 minutes or until toothpick in center comes out clean. (The original recipe says to bake 35 minutes minimum, but I did that and my edges were definitely overcooked. Next time I would start checking at 25 minutes.) Turn cake out onto a rimmed platter (or, if you are ghetto like me, a rimmed cookie sheet!) and allow to cool completely. The cake will not be as thick as a normal cake—this freaked me out at first, but once it was iced with lots of whipped cream, I decided it was actually a good cake-to-whipped-cream ratio. However, if I wanted to serve more than 12 people, I would probably do 1.5 times this recipe to make a thicker cake.

When cake is cool, combine sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, and 1/4 cup heavy cream. Pierce surface of cake with fork several times. Slowly drizzle ALL of the liquid onto the cake—I stopped too soon last time, and the middle of my cake was too dry. This cake can hold a LOT more liquid than you think it can! Next time I will saturate the cake in installments... drizzle some liquid, wait 10 minutes, do some more, wait 10 minutes, etc. That way it can all soak in. (Note: the Pioneer Woman's recipe says to discard 1 cup of the liquid, but that offends my miserly sensibilities, so I just subtracted 1 cup of the liquid to begin with.) Cover cake with plastic wrap and chill until you are almost ready to serve it (at least 30 minutes). Don't ice it until you're ready to serve it—that way the cake won't absorb the whipped cream frosting.

To ice the cake, place remaining whipping cream in mixer with 1.5 T sugar and beat on high speed until very thick and fluffy. Spread generously over top and sides of cake. Top cake with maraschino cherries (a la the Pioneer Woman) or chopped strawberries (our preference!). Try not to eat the whole thing! This cake yielded 12 slices for us.