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Filtering by Tag: whole wheat

blueberry scones with lime glaze

Andrea

I hold a firm belief that berries + citrus are one of the best combinations ever. Right up there with caramel + sea salt, peanut butter + banana, tomatoes + pasta. It's a shame that their seasons are opposite each other, with citrus at its height mid-winter and berries abundant mid-summer. That won't stop me, though. Be it berry jam, cobbler, tart, or muffin...it will involve lemons, limes, or oranges.

Also, I am a big fan of scones. If they are the right scones, that is. No dry, crumbly, lumps that turn to paste in the mouth for me. I like them softer; closer to the product of a marriage between scone and muffin. Easy to grab and eat in the car on the way to work, without the spray of crumbs across the lap when you arrive. 

These particular scones, made moist with buttermilk and bright bursts of blueberry, still hold a hearty texture thanks to the white whole wheat flour. I like to think that makes them a healthy breakfast treat, even if all that whole grain goodness does is cancel out the sugary glaze drizzled over top (shhh...just let me have that...please?). If you'd like an even fluffier texture, substitute all-purpose flour for the white whole wheat. And be careful not to overmix your dough, keeping in mind the same principles applied in biscuit-making...work fast and keep your ingredients cold. 

Happy Monday, friends! Have a lovely week.

Although they are best day-of, these scones can be stored in an airtight container for up to three days.

Blueberry Scones with Lime Glaze

makes 8 scones

Scone Ingredients

  • 3/4 cup buttermilk
  • 1 large egg
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 3 cups white whole wheat flour, or all-purpose flour for a fluffier texture
  • 4 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1 tbsp lime zest
  • 8 tbsp cold, unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
  • 1/2 cup sugar (I used turbinado), plus extra for sprinkling
  • 1 cup fresh blueberries

Glaze Ingredients

  • 1 cup confectioner's sugar
  • 2-3 tsp lime juice

Method

  1. Preheat oven to 375*.  Spray a baking sheet with oil or cover with parchment paper.
  2. Mix buttermilk with egg and extract in a large bowl.
  3. Add flour, baking powder, lime zest and salt to a large food processor. Pulse until blended.  Add butter and pulse until mixture resembles course bread crumbs.  Add sugar and pulse again until blended.
  4. Add flour mixture to egg mixture and stir with a wooden spoon until a soft dough forms. Do not overmix. Add blueberries and carefully fold them into dough.
  5. Turn out dough on a floured board and give 5-6 careful kneads, just until well mixed and cohesive, trying not to crush too many of the berries.  Divide dough into 8 equal pieces and roll into balls before flattening into disks about 4 inches wide.
  6. Bake on prepared baking sheet for 20-25 minutes until medium brown.  Let cool on sheet for 5 minutes before moving to wire rack to cool completely.
  7. To make the glaze, mix the confectioner's sugar with 2 tsp of lime juice. Use a spoon to blend together into a paste, adding more lime juice a bit at a time until the glaze is spreadable.

categories baking, breakfast
tags blueberry, breakfast, charlottesville, culinary photography, food photography, glaze, lime, scones, virginia, whole wheat

happy, happy day

Andrea

Last year at this time I was posting regularly about our backyard vegetable patch. I’d shared potato salad with our sugar snap peas, an earthy, herby frittata, and a rosy beet risotto. The garden was, while a bit overgrown, orderly and walkable. I visited it every day, scurrying through the gate in the morning after my runs to pick raspberries for breakfast, losing myself to daydreams as I stood with a hose each afternoon and soaked the soil under the tomatoes and peppers. I was oh-so-proud of our little plot, and oh-so-excited to share its progress with you all.

In December, after harvesting the last of the carrots for our Christmas dinner, Brian and I mourned the fact that those were probably the last vegetables we’d see come from our current backyard. We were planning to move this Summer, and didn’t think it would be very smart to put a lot of time, money, or energy into a piece of land that would no longer be ours in just six months’ time. It made me sad. Very, very, sad.

March came and went without us ordering organic compost to till into soil already rich from three years of amendment and gardening. There was no sprinkling of lettuce, kale, carrot, or beet seeds; no elaborate map drawn to show the exact location of each plant to come. May 15th, the last frost date for our part of Virginia, rolled by without us spending a Saturday planting tiny tomato, cucumber and pepper plants. The weeds grew, and grew, and grew...and I just let them.

Multiple friends who don’t know our plans to move, but do know the joy we get from growing our own food, have asked “how’s that garden of yours?”. This single question, innocent as it is, elicits a panicked look from Brian, who tries to change the subject before I can launch into our sorrowful (to me) tale. About how, no, we didn’t plant any vegetables in our backyard this year. And no, we don’t think we’ll be moving into a new house in time to establish a new garden. And yes, I am devastated that we’re not spending a portion of our weekends weeding and watering and planting and harvesting. Harumph.

In hindsight, we should have planted summer veggies. Things never move as quickly as anticipated, and our putting the house on the market was no exception. By now we could have been eating our own lettuce, cucumbers, sugar snap peas, and beets. Instead we’re buying them at the farmer’s market, which is the next best thing, but still not quite as satisfying. I’m getting over it. Really.

However...our berries have been AMAZING this year. Strawberries, red and golden raspberries, gooseberries, blackberries. Thank goodness for hardy perennial fruit that grows no matter the neglect it’s received! Those shots at the top of the page are from my visit to the garden last Friday morning, when I first noticed that the blackberries are starting to ripen. I did a little dance, hurried back inside for my camera and a bowl, and proceeded to pick every single fully-black berry on the vine. Happy, happy day.

This cake was actually made with blackberries that we grew last summer and froze. We had 8 quarts in our own freezer, and many more were given to friends. I'm betting that our harvest will be doubled this year, and we're not moving until I am proven right.  Stubborn?  Not me.

Even if you have fresh blackberries on hand, you should still freeze them for at least 4 hours before adding them to the batter. The frozen berries, with the help of the syrup, will stay firmly rooted to the bottom of the pan without rising to the top (which will become the bottom) of the cake.

The whole wheat flour provides the cake with a dense crumb, perfect for picking up between two fingers.  I made it for dessert, but I think it is even better for breakfast.  Not too sweet, hearty with whole grains, a nice compliment to a cup of coffee.

Blackberry Upside-Down Cake

from Sweet and Natural Baking, by Mani Niall serves 10 Ingredients fruit
  • 1/3 cup liquid fruit juice concentrate (or, agave nectar)
  • 2 tbsp canola oil
  • 3 cups frozen blackberries
cake
  • 3 large egg whites, at room temperature
  • 3/4 cup liquid fruit juice concentrate (or, agave nectar)
  • 2/3 cup skim milk
  • 1/3 cup plus 1 tbsp canola oil
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp fine sea salt
Method
  1. Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 10-inch ovenproof skillet or springform pan with vegetable oil spray.
  2. For the fruit:  In a small saucepan, bring the fruit juice concentrate and oil to a simmer. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 2 minutes. Pour into the prepared pan. Immediately arrange the blackberries in the pan in a single layer. Work quickly, as the syrup will harden rapidly. Place in the freezer while preparing the batter. (This will keep the fruit from floating to the top of the batter while baking.)
  3. For the cake:  In a medium bowl, using a handheld electric mixer at high speed, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Gradually beat in the fruit juice concentrate, beating until stiff peaks form. Reduce the speed to low and add the milk, oil and vanilla, mixing until well combined.
  4. In another medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt until combined. Add to the liquid ingredients and whisk until smooth. Remove the pan from the freezer and pour the batter over the fruit.
  5. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Cool on a cake rack for 10 minutes. Run a knife around the inside of the skillet or springform to loosen the cake. Invert onto a serving plate. Let stand for 5 minutes so that the cake can absorb the juices. Remove the skillet of release the sides of the spring form and carefully lift off the bottom. Serve the cake warm or at room temperature.
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categories baking, cake, garden
tags blackberry, cake, garden, local, whole wheat

my kind of [summer] meal

Andrea

Summer is upon us, and I have a confession to make.  I don't cook much from June thru September.  I blame the longer days and the evening activities that come with them.  Cocktails after work with friends on the downtown mall, a few hours weeding and picking and training in the garden, fetch with the dogs and wine on the deck.  By the time I start to think about dinner the sun has fallen in the sky and its past 8pm. goat cheese merge 1 The fresh produce this time of year holds some of the blame as well.  When you're picking sugar snaps straight from the vine outside your kitchen door and have an abundance of fresh lettuce at your feet its hard to imagine doing anything but going straight inside, dumping it all into a bowl and drizzling it with a simple vinaigrette.  Or, when you've just pulled perfect little beets from the ground and realize that you still have some carrots from the farmer's market in your fridge, images of simply roasted root vegetables sprinkled with salt + pepper laid across a bed of lettuce start dancing in your head and eventually wind up on your plate (pictured above).  It can't be helped, really.  And how about brown rice pasta with quickly-sauteed squash from the market?  The quick and simple possibilities are endless. goat cheese merge 2 And then there is my attempt to follow Mark Bittman's Vegan Before 6 diet, although I hate to call it that. The d-word has such negative connotations and forces thoughts of deprivation into my head, when this new way of eating doesn't make me feel deprived in the least.  I've simply been reducing my intake of processed foods and animal products by following a Vegan diet from the time I wake up until dinner time, when anything goes.  If you've read about me, you'll know that Brian and I are very conscious of what we eat and where it comes from, and strive to eat as sustainably as possible.  I've found that switching to a Vegan diet for two out of three meals a day (and many days for all three!) has been a very easy transition because of the way we've thought about food for some time now.  And its especially easy in the summer when my appetite leans towards light salads rather than stick-to-your ribs casseroles. med 2 So, that was a lot of excuses to say that, basically, I like to eat simply in the summertime.  I love salads that I can make on Sunday and eat for lunch the rest of the week, and simple breads that become the star of the meal with very little effort put forth.  The plate above was assembled on an evening when we had a few of those salads in the fridge, fresh lettuce from the garden on the counter and 30 minutes to spend making flatbread.  The roasted red pepper, chickpea and quinoa salad is simple, delicious and filling...just my kind of meal.  And trust me, even on a low-effort dinner night the extra 30 minutes is worth it, because this flatbread is incredible. med 3 I haven't shared the curried tomato salad because I screwed it up the first time we made it and wasn't completely happy with the results.  The concept is a good one though and I assure you that as soon as local tomatoes grace the booths at the market I'll be trying it again. The lentil + brown rice salad can be found here. Whole Grain Flatbread slightly modified from Mark Bittman Ingredients:
  • 1 cup whole wheat flour (I also tried this with 1/2 cornmeal and 1/2 white whole wheat and didn't like it nearly as much)
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1-1/2 cups water
  • 4 tbsp olive oil
  • 1/2 large onion, thinly sliced
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
Method:
  1. Sift the flour and salt together in a bowl.  Slowly add the water and whisk to eliminate lumps, the batter will resemble thing pancake batter.  Cover with a towel and let sit while your oven preheats, or up to 12 hours.
  2. When ready to bake, heat your oven to 450 degrees.  Put the oil in a 12" skillet (if you use a smaller skillet use less oil and give the bread more time to cook), along with the onion and garlic.  Put the skillet in the heated oven and let the oil get hot, but not smoking.  It should just take a few minutes - you'll know when the oil starts to get fragrant.
  3. Carefully remove the skillet from the oven, give the onions and garlic a stir and then pour the batter and return the pan to the oven.
  4. Bake 30-40 minutes (I took mine out at 30 and will probably give it just a few more minutes next time) until the flatbread is well browned, firm and crisp around the edges.  Let it rest for about 5 minutes and then slide it from the pan onto a cutting board to cut into wedges.
Roasted Red Pepper, Chickpea and Quinoa Salad modified from A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen by Jack Bishop Ingredients:
  • 1 cup quinoa, rinsed
  • 1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
  • 6 oz drained jarred roasted red peppers, diced (about 1 cup) - I didn't have any so just roasted a fresh red bell pepper
  • 2 tbsp fresh parsley, finely chopped
  • 3 tbsp lemon juice
  • 1 tsp honey
  • 1 tsp ground cumin
  • 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
  • salt
  • 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Method:
  1. First, if you don't have jarred roasted red peppers, roast your own.  I sliced 1 bell pepper thinly, placed it in a small baking dish, drizzled it with olive oil, sprinkled it with salt and pepper and roasted it for about 30 minutes.
  2. Bring 2 cups of water to a boil.  Add quinoa and bring back to a boil.  Lower heat to a simmer, cover pan and let cook for about 15 minutes, until quinoa is tender but not mushy.  Remove from heat, drain any excess liquid and place quinoa in a medium-sized heat-tolerant bowl.
  3. Whisk together the lemon juice, honey, cumin, cayenne and 1/2 tsp salt together in a small bowl.  Whisk in the oil until the dressing is smooth.
  4. Add the chickpeas, roasted red peppers and parsley to the bowl with the quinoa and stir to combine.  Drizzle the dressing over the mixture and toss to combine.
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categories bread, dinner, lunch, salad
tags chickpeas, flat bread, healthy living links, light, red peppers, salad, simple, whole wheat

it will do

Andrea

Last weekend was the epitome of the perfect Spring weekend.  Saturday was kicked off with a trip to the farmer's market, where a lovely assortment of spring greens, asparagus, green onions and fresh eggs were purchased as we browsed the stalls, cup of coffee in hand.  After that was strawberry picking in the country, where Brian and I desperately tried to find enough perfectly ripe berries in the sea of green-tipped adolescents to make our 25 minute drive worth it.  ginger merge 4 Apparently the field had been picked clean by a gaggle of girl scouts the weekend before and hadn't quite recovered yet.  Now I have nothing against girl scouts, but when they clean out the strawberry field I am left with a few bitter thoughts in my head.  If you've been reading for awhile, you'll know that Virginia's strawberry season is short and I look forward to it all year long.   Luckily my momentary bitterness was nothing a strawberry frozen yogurt and a trip to the reservoir to let the dogs swim couldn't fix. ginger merge 3 On Sunday we continued our celebration of spring weekend by grilling out with friends.  Brian has been working to perfect ribs on our Big Green Egg grill for a year now, with a long hiatus in the middle for those cold winter months.  We thought that this weekend was going to be it, the moment when the ribs would come off the grill after spending hours smoking over low heat, perfectly moist and fall-off-the-bone tender. ginger 5 I anticipated telling you all about them and had their post written in my head.  It was going to be so perfectly coincidental that our first attempt at ribs on the Big Green Egg had been exactly one year prior, on the weekend of my graduation from UVA's M.Arch program, and that exactly 12 months of debates and research and a dozen racks of ribs later I would be sharing with you the perfect rib recipe.  Sadly, it isn't so. ginger merge 2 While their flavor was delicious, as it always is, the tenderness of the ribs just wasn't where Brian wants it to be.  We'll get there, I promise, and you all will be the first to know - after we call all of the friends whom we've been experimenting on to gleefully tell them that we have finally mastered ribs on the Big Green Egg and to please, please, stop by for another taste-test.   Until then, a recipe for ginger bundt cake with ginger-infused strawberries will have to do.  ginger 8 And it will do, I promise, because here's the thing about this cake - it. is. delicious.  I knew it would be a success as I was blending the farm-fresh eggs into the batter and it was turning the beautiful golden color you see above.  The texture was just what cake batter should be, and the color given to it by those vibrant orange egg yolks (which you just can't get from grocery store eggs) was so beautiful that I did a little dance after each addition.  The ginger-infused syrup for the strawberries is so perfect that I can't help but think of cocktail recipes that will utilize it all summer long. ginger 10 This cake fits right in at the backyard barbeque, nestled in between ribs on the grill and the last few games of Baggo.  It has a consistency similar to pound cake, and if you choose to forego the strawberries one could easily eat a piece with their hands without it crumbling to bits.  This would be very helpful if a second serving were desired after the backyard games had begun, which is not unlikely. I hope you'll give it a try this Memorial Day weekend, and if you do, be sure to save some for the next day.  For as good as it is on a sunny afternoon piled high with gingered strawberries and accompanied by a glass of white wine, its even better with coffee the next morning.  Trust me, it will do.ginger 12 The recipe for Double-Ginger Sour Cream Bundt Cake with Ginger-Infused Strawberries can be found here, or in the April 2009 Bon Appetit. The turbinado sugar I dusted on the inside of the bundt pan didn't stay crystalized like the pictures show in the magazine.  Instead the sugar melted and formed a perfect crust on the outside of the cake.  We loved it.   I substituted white whole wheat flour for the all-purpose and it was delicious. ginger 9
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categories baking, cake
tags cake, ginger, strawberries, whole wheat