Happy Breakfasting!

One of my favourite morning drinks is this smoothie!; and I'll show you how I make it.

This makes enough to serve 2 adults, and 3 children and will make a full 10 cups of smoothie. You may need to adjust your amounts according to the size of your family, or perhaps taste if you find it to be heavy on any one fruit, but I think that this is a pretty well balanced and refreshing combination.

Start with:
1 1/2 to 2 cups of ice
2 cups frozen peach slices
2 cups frozen raspberries
2 ripe bananas

 Add:

2 cups of Vanilla Soy Beverage

Start blending on low.......I find that I need to add some carbonated water to get things moving.

Once you see things moving, speed up your blender to high and wait until your smoothie is well blended and "smooth"....This is thick, which is one of the reasons why I love it so much. Yes, you can still manage a straw with it. Serve and use immediately....the soy will darken if left too long unused.

Other combinations we have tried and like:

Mango/Banana/Raspberry

Banana/Tropical Blend

Peach/Banana/Wild Blueberry

(always with fresh banana and frozen fruits, and vanilla soy)

The kids think that these are great, and there is no added sugar.....also, it's not too cold; I serve this to a two year old with no concerns of ice headaches. 

Happy Breakfasting!

Halloween Cake Pops.....

Well, I gave it a shot.......I was hoping that, even with my limited experience, I would be able to make some ghoulish blood shot eye ball cake pops; but it would seem that would not be the fate of my cake pops.

I did, however, turn out some nice little pops using Halloween coloured, black and orange nonpareils. 

This was my method:

 

Using a double boiler I melted down some melting wafers from the bulk store.  

I inserted the lollipop stick, and turned the cake pop until well coated. I took a cracker box, covered it in tin foil, make holes for my pop stick and kept them propped up there to cool enough that when I dipped them into the sprinkles, they didn't melt them. 

Once finished, and cooled (either by fridge or a while longer on the counter), they are ready to plate for your little monsters.

Donut Cake Pops

My sister has a cake pop maker...envious me!

So I thought that since she was visiting for Thanksgiving, that I could give it a go, and now I'm quite convinced that I too, will be needing a cake pop maker. 

Here is the recipe:

In a medium bowl combine   

3 cups of all purpose flour

1 Tbsp of baking powder

1/2 tsp pie spice

pinch of salt

In a smaller bowl

1 cup 18% cream

1 tsp vanilla

In your mixer

3 eggs

1 cup granulated sugar

The Method

Beat the eggs and sugar until they get frothy and thick.

Slowly add the cream and vanilla.

Lastly, add the flour mixture by the spoonful until combined.

Dough will be sticky.

  Move to fridge for about an hour.

 

Prep your cake pop maker according to the appliance specifications.

For this maker, I did not prep the surface with any oils, and despite what the lights on the top of the machine were doing, I left each batch in for a timed 4 minutes. I recommend putting on a pot of coffee, dig up some good magazines, and pull up a chair......this will be a while. In total, with a couple rejects, this made a good 48 cake pops.

These have a great consistency, and a nice light flavour. Next I will have to try my hand at decorating.

Happy Thanksgiving! Roasted Autumn Soup

This year we will be hosting our family's Thanksgiving Meal....if you are like me, you would have purchased a collection of colorful and interesting squash for decoration. Rather than add those toss those gourds into the compost heap, try out this delicious seasonal soup as an appetizer or something other than left over turkey this week.

This is a very straight forward soup and well worth the extra effort of roasting and eventually pureeing. I chose to use all the squash I had on hand (1 medium sized Butternut, and 3 small to medium ornamental) and several large yams. Wash the vegetables, taking the seeds from the squash and wrapping the yams in tin foil.

 I use glass dishes, baking the vegetables in a convection oven 350 degrees until you can easily pierce through the center of the yam. Allow some time for your squash to rest so they are not too hot to handle.

 

I find it helpful to hold the squash in clean tea towel while removing the fleshy part. It keeps my hand safe while allowing me to remove all the squash from the skin with little waste. I transfer the squash, and yams into my large crock pot along with 2 (or more to taste) Roasted Red Peppers and a package of Vegetable Soup Mix (never mind the peas....we will be pureeing at the end). The amount of water you use will vary depending on the amount of squash you use. I started with 3 cups....and you will use quite a bit more while pureeing.

After everything is heated through and your soup mix has become tender, break out your immersion blender, and a fair amount of water and start pureeing. I ended up using another 5 cups of water, so 8 in total.

After you have pureed to the texture you prefer, leave on auto or low until ready to serve. This made a lot of soup for me, but it freezes well, or could be preserved in Mason Jars to share with friends and family this Thanksgiving Season.