Berry Ambrosia

Thanks for stopping by!  For the most recent content, you can find me at A Housewife Writes.

The inspiration for this recipe came from my Good Housekeeping Cook Book, written in 1955. I found it in the "dessert" section, but like all good desserts, it doubles beautifully as a breakfast. Ahem.

It's one of those "no recipe" dishes that you can toss together when you haven't thought ahead, y'know, like today, for instance. Sometimes I think we make food more complicated than it needs to be. I most often use a variety of summer berries, sometimes out of the freezer and partially frozen. It's nothing revolutionary, as you can see, but the best part is the creamy, tangy, slightly sweet topping.

Here is the "recipe":
sour cream
powdered sugar or honey
vanilla, all mixed to taste. The original recipe includes grapes with coconut flakes sprinkled on top as well. I usually make up individual bowls, but you could also do as the recipe suggests, "Serve buffet style, in pretty bowl; top with small blobs of sour cream." (I subscribe to the "big blob will do ya" school myself...)

I made my own pop!

Or soda, if you're one of those more refined types.  I am Super Excited.  I started a little experiment about 10 days ago, and I finally know that it worked.  My experiment?  Making my own fruit juice pop without carbonated water or even yeast.

I've run across articles here and there on the internet for directions on making something called a ginger bug.  After reading enough that I felt a little ginger buggy myself, I just tried it.  And this is how I did it.

I started with fresh ginger that was really fresh looking, not wilted or wrinkled.  I peeled and minced it and added it to a jar with water and a little sugar.

Ginger Bug

2 t. minced fresh ginger
2 t. sugar (I used refined white)
3 c. water

Every day I added 2 more teaspoons of ginger and 2 more teaspoons of sugar.  I covered the jar tightly with a canning lid and screw top, but I think I should have covered it loosely, with a cloth and a rubber band. Regardless, it worked, even without proper airflow. (It probably worked because I opened it up and checked it 24,000 times a day for bubbles.) 

After a week or when you notice bubbles, strain out the ginger bug and add it to fruit juice or sweetened tea.  (As I understand it, sugar is essential. Some of it is "eaten up" in the fermentation process so you're not drinking all the sugar.)  Use a ratio of 1/4 c. ginger bug to 1 c. juice/tea.

ginger bug--ready to use



grape juice



For my first try, I used my home canned grape juice.  (It's cloudy because I never strained it.)  I mixed the two, closed the jar tightly and let it sit on the counter for 24 hours.  And just like the different directions I read, the mixture didn't look fizzy or anything at that time.  I transferred it to the fridge for another 24 hours-whew-and finally tried a sip last night.  It's Really Pop!  And it's fizzy!  And it tastes real!  I tried another sip at breakfast this morning and it's even fizzier, much like sparkling grape juice.

Captain Awesome has his own rating scale for my experiments.  He's not conscious of it, but I've learned the subtleties of his compliments.  "It's all right" is a polite non-compliment.   I have to ask questions and decipher anything labeled "OK."  "Not too bad" means the recipe is a keeper.  But this experiment got a "that's pretty darn good."  That's wildly successful.  I'm not sure if it's replace-Pepsi successful, but I'm on the right track.



You can't see much of the fizziness, but it's there!

I know it's significantly healthier than regular pop, but I'm going to look into this a little more to see how much sugar is used in the process.  I saw some warnings about not letting it sit on the counter too long, because it could turn wine-like, so the sugar does get eaten up.   Honey should not be used, I learned, because the antibacterial qualities of honey retard the fermentation.

It's also much, much cheaper.  I think I've used about $.25 worth of ginger and probably the equivalent in sugar.  And the juice was from my own grapes, so that cost is negligible.

This is only the beginning.  I want to try this with many more fruit juices and teas and of course, figure out the biggie--root beer.  So stay tuned!

Cut back on sugar week--Almond Crunch Candy

Honey is such a tricky sweetener.  It is a liquid and a humectant, meaning it helps to attract and maintain moisture, so it gives a different, not always so desirable quality, to baked goods.  It browns faster and darker and cookies made with honey are soft instead of crispy.  But in candy it's a different tale.  I should have called it "honey week" because as I look over the posts, honey's been the only sweetener I've used.

I found this recipe for Almond Crunch Candy several years ago in my 1978 Rodale's Naturally Delicious Desserts and Snacks cookbook.  It's one of my favorites from the book.

Melt 1/3 c. butter and 1/4 c. honey in a skillet.

Chop 3/4 c. almonds and add to the mixture in the pan. 

Cook over medium heat and keep stirring for about 7-9 minutes, or until mixture turns golden brown.  The picture above was taken early in the process--it's fairly pale colored.  When it begins to brown, pour it quickly into an 8x8 pan and cut right away into 36 itty-bitty pieces (cut 6 by 6).  They may seem small, but you'll find that it's a good size.  If you cooked it to just the right temperature, it'll cool to a crunchy, toffee-like texture, if it was slightly underdone, they'll be more of a caramel texture.  It will be hard to be disappointed, either way.

Lunch is served!



or the snack size serving...



Almond Crunch Candy

1/3 c. butter

1/4 c. honey
3/4 c. slivered almonds

Butter an 8x8 square pan. 

Melt butter in heavy frying pan; stir in honey.  Add almonds.  Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until mixture turns golden brown (about 7 minutes--judge by the color more than the time).

Spread mixture in prepared pan, working quickly, while still very hot.  With buttered, sharp knife, cut into squares immediately.  Cool. 

Chill in refrigerator and store in covered container. 

Yields 36 pieces. 

So there you go. Five ways to eat sweets without touching that bag of white sugar.  I'll have to do another series of these sometime!

Cut back on sugar week--Applesauce leather

This treat is a new for me; actually it was a successful experiment just this week.  I'm sure I'm not the first person to think of it, though.

I've made fruit roll-ups (fruit leather) before, but only with fresh grape puree.  As you can imagine, those are long gone and have been since, oh, 12 hours after I made them last fall.  Last week I happened to look at the jar of home-canned applesauce in the refrigerator and wondered if I could dehydrate it like my grape "sauce."  I'm not suffering from a shortage of applesauce so I thought I'd give it a try.

I don't have any of those dehydrator trays made just for drippy sauces and since I hadn't thought ahead to borrow them, I thought I'd try parchment paper instead and cut them to roughly fit the tray.

I mixed applesauce with some cinnamon using the dump-til-it-looks-good method:

I spread about 3/4 of a cup of applesauce on the paper.  I wasn't sure if the applesauce might become permanently stuck to the paper, so I sprayed one piece of parchment paper with olive oil. 

A few hours later it was dry to the touch.  It didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would. 

The apple leather on the ungreased parchment paper peeled easily from the paper and the leather on the greased paper separated from the paper as it dried, so it's not necessary to add the olive oil.  That was really good news.  I'm so glad that I don't have to buy those plastic dehydrator trays now!

Talk about simple.  Unsweetened applesauce with a little cinnamon.  And it's so easy--cutting parchment paper into circles is the longest part of the process.  But it makes applesauce a little more interesting and conveniently packable--nice for traveling!

Linked to Old-Fashioned Friday and Homestead Barn Hop.

Cut back on sugar week--Granola Bars

These are Captain Awesome's favorite--yummy and portable.  We packed them hiking to Acadia National Park a few years ago and snacked on them all week. 

I like them best with chocolate or carob chips, but....refer to the title of this post.  Sigh...

2/3 c. butter
2/3 c. honey
4 1/2 c. rolled oats
1 c. flour
1 t. baking soda
1 t. vanilla
up to 2 c. chocolate chips, raisins, nuts, and/or dried fruit

Combine all in a big mixing bowl.  The main trick with these is to press the mixture firmly into the pan.  (If you don't get it pressed in firmly, save the crumbles for topping for pudding or something like that.) Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until golden in a greased 13x9 pan.  Makes 36.


Mixing it up can get a little messy....



My peanut/raisin version.  They're pretty good, even without chocolate.

Shared on Simple Lives Thursday.

Cut back on sugar week--Fudge Stars

Thanks for stopping by!  For the most recent content, you can find me at A Housewife Writes.

I adapted this recipe from a post on the Passionate Homemaking blog.  Oh, do I love these little candies, if you want to call them that.  Pure cocoa and raw honey with all their nutrients and coconut oil with the saturated fat we need--eat it for medicinal purposes, if nothing else.  Sweets made with honey are more satisfying than those made with sugar, so even just a few of these make a nice dessert.  Who needs sugar with these around?!

Fudge Stars

1/2 c. cocoa powder (I substitute 1 T. or so of carob powder for even more nutrition)

1/2 c. coconut oil (the unrefined kind, that tastes like coconut)

1/4-1//3 c. raw honey

Mix together (I recommend a food processor or blender to make it smooth).  It's not necessary to melt the coconut oil.

When blended, it has the consistency of frosting.  Spoon it into a piping bag or decorating tube.  Lick the spoon and processor bowl thoroughly.  Don't get your tongue caught in the blade.

Use a tip with a jagged top like this one, that makes stars.

Pipe stars onto parchment paper and set them in the freezer to harden.  And that's it!  Keep them in the freezer since coconut oil melts at 76 degrees.  This recipe makes 60+ stars.

Cut back on sugar week- Fruit Tapioca

Good ol' sugar--we all love it.  I just read over the weekend that it's nearly as addictive as cocaine.  Before you scoff at that, think of the last day you went without any.  Or the last meal that contained no sugar, for that matter.  It makes me wonder if it's a little more addictive than we'd like to think. 

For awhile there, I was doing pretty well.  I was cooking with minimal white sugar and instead, using unrefined sugar cane, honey, and molasses and eating fewer sweets, period.  I found that I felt SO much better with less sugar.  But somehow I fell off the wagon without realizing it--a birthday, a sale on ice cream, and some dessert experiments in the kitchen didn't help.

And then a few days ago, a friend of mine and I were talking about sugar and she asked how I managed to cut back.  "Easy," I said between mouthfuls of an ice cream sandwich, "it's just a matter of pacing yourself."  (No, really, I wasn't eating an ice cream sandwich while I was on the phone.  It's important to focus on one thing at a time.)  But Captain Awesome and I decided that starting Monday, we were going to renew our efforts to cut back on the sugar.

Just cutting out sweets altogether is not the way to go.  At least, not for a cheery home.  So for the next five days I'll be sharing some of the non-white sugar recipes that I'll be making this week and in the future to get us back on track.  I realize that fruit and honey are both sugars, but we must start somewhere, however small.

Today's recipe is Fruit Tapioca, adapted from my 1950 Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book.  I make this regularly and it's a nice simple dessert.  I freeze fruit like raspberries, cherries, and strawberries in 1 pint boxes during the summer. 

When I thaw it, I let the juice drain into a measuring cup.  Here is a pint of thawed cherries draining.  I only had about 1/2 c. of cherry juice, so I added grape juice to make up the 2 1/2 cups of liquid.  

To the juice I added tapioca.  NOTE:  Check carefully to ensure that you grabbed the bag labeled "tapioca" and not the bag labeled "pretzel salt."  They may look amazingly similar, but as you stir it, you'll notice the "tapioca" disappearing and you'll become so confused that you'll taste it.  Then you'll wish you hadn't.

Then the honey...

Bring the mixture to a boil, add the chopped fruit and chill.

Fruit Tapioca

Mix in a saucepan:

2 1/2 c. fruit juice, with tea or water added as needed to make the full amount
1/3 c. honey
1/4 c. quick cooking tapioca
1/8 t. salt

Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until mixture boils.  Remove from heat.  Cool and fold in

1 c. drained, cut-up fruit.

Mix and match the fruit and juice--I've never had a disaster!

Linked to Natural Living Monday, Traditional Tuesday, Simple Lives Thursday, and Old Fashioned Friday.

Ham Potato Quiche

The gooshy, spongy, eggy texture of a quiche just doesn't thrill me, but I tried this after my sister promised that it didn't taste like a quiche.  (And a quiche that doesn't taste like one is the best kind....)  I like this dish for any meal of the day.

 
This recipe is adapted from the More with Less Cookbook (1976).  That's new compared to the rest of my cookbook collection and since I was copywritten in the '70s myself, I'd consider it hot off the presses.  But it's the kind of cookbook I like, basic ingredients and good food.  If you are looking for recipes that don't involve a lot of money, this is the perfect cookbook for you.

Ham Potato Quiche

2 T. fat
3 c. shredded raw potatoes
1 c. grated Swiss or cheddar cheese
3/4 c. ham (or sausage or chicken)
1/4 c. chopped onion
2 eggs
1 c. rich milk (I used a mixture of whole milk and heavy cream)
1/2 t. salt
1/8 t. pepper
1 T. parsley

Pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees and melt the fat (I used tallow) in a 9" pie tin.

I don't peel my potatoes before shredding them. Mix the potatoes with the melted fat and pat it into the sides.

Remove from the oven after 15 minutes and layer on the cheese, meat, and onions.

Mix the eggs with the milk, salt, and pepper and pour over the pan.

As an aside....can you guess which egg came from a real farm and which one came from an egg mill? It's a little reminder of why farm eggs are worth their weight in gold. 

 Instead of parsley, I used dried, crumbled kale. (Sometimes you have to be sneaky with the vegetables.)

Leftovers are great! The best way to enjoy them is to pop the tin into the oven at 250 degrees or so. Go outside while it's still dark and shovel snow from the latest blizzard until every little body part aches. By the time you drag yourself into the house, it will be hot and just as nice as it was the first time around. And it will hit the spot like no other breakfast you've ever had.

Shared on Simple Lives Thursday.

And the breakfast award goes to....

Pear Crisp.  Yes, for breakfast.  I could eat it several times a week if I had an unlimited pear supply but at the current rate, my supply is on its way to being very limited.... 

What is a crisp?--fruit and oatmeal, essentially, and traditionally considered a dessert.  I used to make my crisps with pie filling, but with an added step, I can make use of my lightly sweetened home-canned fruit.  Captain Awesome eats his morning oatmeal dutifully and politely, but without anything resembling enthusiasm. Instead of serving a heap of mushy oatmeal with a sprinkling of fruit, I've begun making fruit with a crispy smattering of oatmeal.  It's not an entirely new idea, but it is to us and has added a spark of interest (and warmth) to our winter breakfasts. 

I used a quart of pears that I canned with an extra light syrup.  I measured about 2 T. of cornstarch into a saucepan, then drained the pear juice into the pan and whisked it together. 

I then added 1 tablespoon of quick-cooking tapioca. 

In a few minutes it was thickened, and no additional sweetener was necessary. 

I gently mixed in the pears and poured it into a small casserole.

The topping

I started with about 1 cup of rolled oats.  I then added and combined together--

a few T. of butter

a sprinkling of sucanat (unrefined sugar)

some ground almonds

(and when I remember) spices, like cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves

I sprinkled the mixture over the top and baked at 350 degrees until it bubbled around the edges.  As you can see, this is a vague "recipe" and can be made differently every time and with a variety of fruits.

Bubbling hot and crispy, a pear crisp is one of the nicest ways to start a winter day!

This post has been linked to Simple Lives Thursday