Patriotic dipped strawberries

July 4th is not complete without patriotic food. America likes to celebrate with food and explosives. No surprise there.

This year is no exception. I've seen this idea for Red White and Blue Strawberries on Pinterest before, and it's really easy. The hardest part is the prep. If everything is prepped right, the process goes pretty smooth.

Patriotic Dipped Strawberries

Step 1: Wash the strawberries and lay them out to dry.

Step 2: Create an assembly line:
-Put a pot of water on the stove to simmer and place a bowl over it. Add in white chocolate chips so they melt while you prepare the other equipment. (Double-check to make sure the GF status. Some may be manufactured on shared gluteny lines.)
-Prepare a cutting board or other portable flat surface by placing a sheet of waxed paper on it.
-Fill a bowl with blue sugar. Make your own by adding blue food coloring to sugar and shaking in a jar or plastic bag.

Step 3: Dip. Dip.
-Dip the dried strawberries into the chocolate. If they're a little damp, dry with a paper towel before dipping or the chocolate won't stick. Leave a little red showing at the top.
-Dip the end of the strawberry into the sugar to make a blue "stripe."
-Lay on the waxed paper to set.
-Repeat.

Step 4: Place the cutting board/wax paper in the refrigerator to let the chocolate harden, and serve!

Step 5: Optional- Take advantage of the fact that you have melted chocolate and dip anything else you can find. Other fruit, GF pretzels, etc.  No sense in wasting it!

While you celebrate today, eating your patriotic strawberries and trying not to get sunburned, remember, always:

Popsicles

It's summer. Well, in Houston it is. And in summer, the popsicle is a staple.

Now, you can get popsicles from the store no problem. Then you can feast on frozen high fructose corn syrup and artificial flavors. Not that I have any issues with that- I've downed my fair share of those delicious popsicles.

But, with an abundance of ripe summer fruits, why not make your own? This way you can combine all kinds of fruits to make the perfect flavor combinations. I remember making 'popsicles' as a kid with orange juice in ice cube trays. They would come out mostly water, as the juice had settled during freezing, but there was a thin layer of orangey goodness at the bottom.

I have come up with some guidelines for making popsicles:

-Use as little water as you can. Avoid using only juices, as it will settle during freezing and leave you with mostly frozen water.

-Stick to fruit purees, and use very ripe fruit.

-Most popsicles from the store have a certain texture to them. To avoid a rock-hard popsicle, you can add a little alcohol [adults only!]. I like to use jello- from the box in the powdered form; not already made. It keeps them bite-able and not like you're sucking on a fruit-flavored ice cube.

-You can freeze them in any container, but popsicle molds are so easy and so convenient, and they're inexpensive. I found mine at the dollar store.

Because popsicle mold sizes differ, it's kinda hard to say how much of what to use- just eyeball it. For the ones I made, I pureed some watermelon and strawberries and added some strawberry jello mix. At this point you should take a taste to make sure it's sweet enough. If it needs sweetening, add honey instead of sugar, as it will dissolve better. However, use sugar if you're not using anything else to keep it from freezing solid- sugar doesn't freeze so it keeps the popsicle bite-able. Once it tastes right, pour it into popsicle molds. A few hours in the freezer and they'll be ready to eat.

You can experiment with practically any flavor, and I've started taking the leftovers from smoothies and making popsicles.

Here are a couple of flavor combinations I've been thinking about:

peach-strawberry
banana-chocolate
something with soda- I wonder how it would turn out?
creamsicle
strawberry lime

Anybody got any other ideas?

A twist on fruit & yogurt

This morning I wanted something like fruit & yogurt. Except, I didn't have any yogurt, nor do I really care for yogurt. While there are plenty of ways to "make" yogurt out of soy milk and all that, I made a bet with myself that even if I did make it, I would probably end up not liking it.

So, in the interest of not wasting time and ingredients, I scanned my fridge. Tucked in the back: applesauce. I rarely eat it, but instead I use it in baking.

It went perfectly with the other fruits, and tasted great with a sprinkle of cinnamon and flaxseed meal. Here's to thinking a little out of the box!

peach crisp

This is possibly one of the most delicious things I've ever tasted.

I went to the farmer's market yesterday and bought a bag of some very juicy, perfectly ripe peaches and wanted to make something with it. My first thought: peach crisp.

Here's what I did:

Cut and peeled the skin off of 8 peaches. Put them in a 8x8 pan.

Combined:
1 c. GF flour mix
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. brown sugar
a few shakes of salt
1/2 t. cinnamon

Cut in 1/2 cup butter and sprinkled the crumbly mixture on top of the peaches. I baked it at 375 for about 35-40 minutes. I immediately scooped out some, let it cool, sprinkled it with some of the leftover granola I had, and dug in.

Seriously. One of the best things I've ever tasted.

'Sorbet'

I had some extra-ripe bananas and I had already made banana bread, so I tried something.

I sliced and froze some bananas, then popped them in a food processer with some frozen strawberry pieces and the juice from a slice of lemon. After a whirl I had this delicious, healthy sorbet-looking thing. Yumm.

I bet you could do it with all kinds of different fruits, so long as the banana is thrown in to add the creaminess.