Spring Gazpacho

Gazpacho

I made this at our 2014 Easter dinner, combined from several recipes on the web.

INGREDIENTS

6 ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped
1 red onion, finely chopped
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded, chopped
1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1 large or 2 small zucchini, chopped
2 stalks of celery, chopped
1-2 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley
2 Tbsp chopped fresh chives
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
2 TBS freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 tsp sugar
Salt and fresh pepper
Tabasco (6 dashes or to taste)
4 cups tomato juice

DIRECTIONS

Combine all ingredients. Blend or food process slightly, to desired consistency--leave chunks and do not process it into mush. Cover tightly and refrigerate for a few hours or overnight so that the flavors can blend.

Garnish Gazpacho with diced vegetables or seeds

"Healthy" Pumpkin Muffin Recipe

Pumpkin Muffin Recipe ("Healthy")

Healthy is in quotes, because are any of these really healthy (maybe just "healthier")? 

I just love pumpkin and we have made these in the Spring too - not just Fall! The recipes with 1 cup of oil are too much for me as is 1 entire cup of sugar, so I cobbled this together from various recipes I saw online and they turned out really good (at 10,000 feet, no less!). Less sugar and a lot less oil.

Ingredients

2 apples, cored and sliced very thin and cooked in a pan, adding water to prevent burning, until they are soft, but not applesauce - you want full pieces.

1 15-oz can of pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 TBS milk
2 TBS vegetable oil

1/2 cup brown or white sugar
1 3/4-2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 scant tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp ginger
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup mini chocolate chips (optional)
1/2 cup pecans or other nut (optional)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350. Grease bottom of muffin cups. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. Mix well. Then, combine wet ingredients in a medium bowl. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients, and do not over mix. Add in chocolate chips and pecans and mix in carefully (to avoid over mixing the batter).

Spoon into muffin cups and bake until muffins are slightly puffed and golden brown and a knife or toothpick comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Makes 12 - 18 muffins.

Recipe: French "Secret" Chocolate Mousse Recipe

For why this recipe is "secret" look here and here. I have never asked anyone in France for the recipe, so don't know if all my friends and relatives use this same recipe as well!

 (Sorry - you have to be able to read both French and English for this version of the recipe. Check out the recipes linked to above if you want an English-only version.)

Thanks to Caitilin W. for the photo!

If you can't get a hold of the Nestle Dessert Noir chocolate, apparently, it contains about 52% cacao.

And thanks to my friend Sara S. for this extra info on how to fold in the egg whites successfully.

In the recipe above, when you get to adding the egg whites to the yolk/chocolate and add then carefully fold in 1/3 of the beaten egg whites to the chocolate mixture. You then gradually add the remaining egg whites, carefully folding in using a figure eight movement to mix in all the chocolate without losing the air incorporated in the whites (since that's the whole greatness of mousse).  Allow the mousse to set in the fridge (covered) for at least 3 hours before serving (Sara's tip is to allow it to set overnight if possible) and she says the secret is in the fold.  If you have a large spooned spatula type utensil, those work great (like the Pampered Chef kind).

Here is a nice video on folding (my phobia, but it does not look that hard):

Recipe: German Grandma's Stollen

Recipe: German Grandma's Stollen

When I was growing up in Alaska, one of our neighbors used to bring us her homemade stollen every Christmas. I have searched for years for a recipe that was not impossible to make and is true to the one my neighbor made. Lucky for me, a translator friend provided me this authentic recipe from her mother in Germany. It worked very well for me and is forgiving (in the Colorado altitude). See my notes below as well. And best of all, it reminds me of the one of my childhood. Success!

Since this recipe is straight from Europe, it uses metric measurements. I have a scale that uses both metric and US measurements, so conversion was easy. You can also look online for conversions, but weighing the ingredients will probably be the most accurate.

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees C (or 475 F)
Reduce to 180-200 degrees C (or 375) when baking.
Bake for 30-40 minutes (middle rack) until done (or under bake so the middle is still yeasty and moist, as my friend suggests).

Ingredients for bread dough: 

• 500g flour
• 60g fresh or cake yeast (to use dry yeast instead, note that this equals about 1.3 oz of dry yeast - this is what I used and it turned out fine, but the original recipe called for cake yeast)
• 100g sugar
• 1 pack of vanilla sugar  (you can get these in international stores -- I have some from the last time I was in France. I see you can also get it on Amazon.)
• 1/8 liter of milk (lukewarm)
• 2 eggs
• 150-200g butter (no substitute)
• 1 pinch of salt

Ingredients to add into prepared dough:

• 50g candied lemon peel 
• 50g candied orange peel 
• (or candied cherries, other candied fruits that you like) 
• 200g slivered almonds (yes, that many)
• 200g raisins (yes, that many) - I used dried currants because I don't like raisins that much

Directions: 
Prepare a yeast dough using the ingredients above, using your favorite method. I let my bread maker do the work through the first rise. For the first rise, let the dough rise sufficiently in a warm place (this can take 1-2 hours).

After the first rise, punch down and work in the fruits you have selected and the almonds, again, using your preferred method. There were too many fruits/nuts for my bread maker to handle, so I have done it by manually kneading in the fruits/nuts and also by using the kneading attachment on my stand mixer. There are a lot of ingredients to mix in at this stage, so make sure they get worked in well.

Once you have worked in the fruits/nuts, shape the dough into a long loaf (stollen style) on a buttered cookie sheet. Let the dough rise again, in a warm place. I do not seem to get a lot of rise the second time around, but it always ends up fine in the end, once baked.

After baking, brush the loaf with melted butter and then coat it with powdered sugar.

Enjoy!