For many, warmer weather means eating lighter and healthier. Here’s a quick, new recipe for a Summer Delight Salad. The sliced almonds help to give it a Mediterranean accent.
Summer Delight Salad
3/4 cup Sunkist® Almond Accents® Honey Roasted sliced almonds
8 cups torn spinach or mixed greens
1 (5-oz.) pkg. yellow teardrop tomatoes
1 cup quartered fresh strawberries
1/3 cup sliced red onion
1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese
raspberry vinaigrette dressing
In large bowl, toss half the Sunkist® Almond Accents® Honey Roasted sliced almonds and the next 4 ingredients. Arrange onto salad plates; top with blue cheese and remaining Sunkist® Almond Accents® Honey Roasted sliced almonds. Drizzle desired amount of dressing over salad.
Makes 4 to 6 salads.
Preparation Time: 10 min.
Almonds are nutrient dense, vitamin rich and have long been used to add flavor and crunch to dishes from different parts of the Mediterranean. Sunkist® Almond Accents® are dry roasted with no added oil and have no cholesterol, no saturated fat, and just 1-2 grams of carbohydrates per serving. And now, using almonds in any dish may earn five lucky contestants a trip to Spain.
A Culinary Adventure
A seven-day, six-night epicurean adventure for two to Barcelona, including round-trip airfare, hotel, optional cooking lessons, food and wine tastings, excursions to wineries and local food producers and guided tours of historic sites, is the grand prize in a contest that celebrates the variety, flavor and health benefits that dishes that use almonds have to offer.
A Slice Of Spanish Flavor
Sunkist® Almond Accents® will send five grand-prize winners of its Barcelona Culinary Sweepstakes on the all-expenses-paid trip for two to Barcelona, Spain.
Two hundred first prizes, consisting of a set of hand-painted, hand-thrown dishes, will also be awarded.
Though the health benefits of whole grains are well known, plenty of people still can’t get over the taste.
Accustomed to the puffy softness of white breads, some people balk at the strong flavor and chewy texture that comes with whole grains, especially in whole-grain breads. There are easy ways around this.
First, try baking whole-grain bread at home, where you have more control over the consistency of the final product. Second, try a transitional recipe, one that blends whole-wheat and white flours.
Johnson & Wales University baking instructor Peter Reinhart has developed an innovative technique that makes it relatively simple to produce whole-grain breads with rich flavors and pleasant textures.
Reinhart uses a two-day method and creates two “pre-doughs” that separate the functions of flavor development and leavening. On the second day the two doughs are combined into a final dough, which then is formed into loaves and baked.
This technique gives you more flexibility. Traditional bread must rise several times, then be baked without delay. With Reinhart’s method, you can create the two pre-doughs, called the soaker and the starter, in little time, then hold them in the refrigerator for up to three days before combining them into a final dough for baking.
This recipe for Transitional Cinnamon Raisin Bread from Reinhart’s book, “Peter Reinhart’s Whole Grain Breads,” looks daunting but requires less than an hour of hands-on time.
The resulting bread is moist with a crisp crust and pleasant texture. Whole-grain skeptics and lovers will appreciate the comforting cinnamon flavor and the personal touch that goes into home baking.
Transitional Cinnamon
Raison Bread
For the soaker:
21/4 cups whole-wheat flour
5/8 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons milk, buttermilk, yogurt, soy milk or rice milk
11/3 cups raisins (optional)
For the starter:
21/4 cups unbleached bread flour
1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
3/4 cup milk, buttermilk, yogurt, soy milk or rice milk, at room temperature
1 large egg, slightly beaten
For the final dough:
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons whole-wheat flour
5/8 teaspoon salt
21/4 teaspoons instant yeast
1 tablespoon honey
1/4 cup melted butter
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup cinnamon sugar (3 tablespoons sugar mixed with 2 teaspoons cinnamon)
To make the soaker:
In a large bowl, combine flour, salt and milk. Mix for 1 minute, or until all the flour is hydrated and the ingredients form a ball of dough. If using the raisins, knead them into the dough.
Cover bowl loosely with plastic wrap and leave at room temperature for 12 to 24 hours. If it will be more than 24 hours, refrigerate for up to 3 days. Remove it 2 hours before mixing.
To make the starter:
In a second large bowl, mix bread flour, yeast, milk and egg until they form a ball of dough. Knead the dough for 2 minutes in the bowl. The dough should feel very tacky.
Knead it for another minute. Cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 8 hours and up to 3 days.
About 2 hours before mixing the final dough, remove the starter from the refrigerator.
To make the final dough:
On a lightly floured counter, use a metal pastry scraper to chop soaker and starter into 12 smaller pieces each. Sprinkle pieces with flour to keep them from sticking together.
In the mixer bowl of a stand mixer, combine the dough pieces with flour, salt, yeast, honey, butter and cinnamon. Mix with the paddle attachment (preferable) or dough hook on slow for 1 minute to bring the ingredients together into a ball. Switch to dough hook and mix on medium-low, occasionally scraping down the bowl, until everything is well-combined, 2 to 3 minutes. Add more flour or water as needed until the dough is soft and slightly sticky.
Dust a work surface with flour, then roll dough in the flour to coat. Knead by hand, incorporating only as much extra flour as needed, until the dough feels soft and tacky, but not sticky, 3 to 4 minutes. Form into a ball and let it rest on the work surface for 5 minutes while you prepare a clean, lightly oiled bowl.
Resume kneading dough to strengthen the gluten and make any final water or flour adjustments, about 1 minute. The dough should have strength, yet feel soft and supple, and very tacky. Form the dough into a ball. Place in prepared bowl, rolling to coat with oil. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let dough rise at room temperature until it is about 11/2 times its original size, about 45 to 60 minutes.
When dough has risen, lightly coat 2 standard loaf pans with cooking spray.
Dust work surface with 1 tablespoon flour and gently transfer dough to work surface with a plastic bowl scraper (try not to rip or tear the dough).
Divide dough in half, then roll each piece into an 8-inch square about 1/2-inch thick. Sprinkle each square with some of the cinnamon sugar. Tightly roll up each square. Place loaves into pans.
Mist tops of loaves with cooking spray, then cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature until the loaves crest above the pans, about 1 hour.
Meanwhile, heat oven to 400 degrees. Place pans on middle rack of oven, lower temperature to 325 degrees, and bake for 20 minutes. Rotate pan 180 degrees and continue baking, until the loaves are a rich brown on all sides, sound hollow when thumped on the bottom, and register at least 195 degrees at the center, another 25 to 40 minutes.
Transfer loaves to a cooling rack and allow to cool for at least 1 hour before serving. Makes 2 loaves.
Crab Dip #1
1/2 cup mayonaise
1/2 cup sour cream
1 celery
1 green onion
3/4 lb mock crab, flaked
1 dill
Take mock crab and flake it into small pieces, place in a bowl. Cut up enough celery and green onions to add to mixture. Shake an ample amount of dill into mixture. Add mayonaise and sour cream. Chill thoroughly. Best if chilled overnight. Stir just prior to serving.
Serve on crackers. Great dip!!
Crab Dip #2
1 lb crabmeat
1/2 cup mayonnaise or salad dressing
1 garlic salt, to taste
2 tablespoon onion, grated
2 teaspoon prepared mustard
2 teaspoon powdered sugar
2/3 cup white wine
Mix together all ingredients except crabmeat. Heat slowly. Add Crabmeat. Serve warm with crackers.
Yield: 1 servings
3 lb venison cubed/course ground
3 cn kidney beans as extender
3 cn tomato sauce
2 cn tomato paste
1 lg onion
1/4 lb butter
1 lb fresh mushrooms
6 garlic wedges
1 cn stewed tomatoes (optional)
1 c barbeque sauce
1/2 c sugar-more or less to taste
1/2 c water
3 tb red pepper
6 jalapeno peppers – diced
3 tb louisiana hot sauce
4 tb worcestershire sauce
2 tb oregeno
1/2 bell pepper-finely chopped
1 other spices that look good
1 that you have a mind to use.
Brown the venison (or other wild game) with some butter. Venison tends to be somewhat dry, so add butter as needed. Drain well. Add to 6-8 quart slow cooker. (A large pot on the stove will work, but overnight cooking is preferred). Add other ingredients, mixing well. Add only enough water to prevent burning. Cook covered for 2 hours at boil. Reduce heat to ~200 degrees and cook until you can’t keep everyone away. Consistancy should be fairly thick.
Cook uncovered if too thin.
Top with shredded cheese of choice and serve with fresh cornbread.
Freezes well if any left over.
“Melkkos” is one of my favourite dishes ever. I do honestly not know what it is called in English, but if I had to translate it, it would be something like milk food. It is a dish with its main ingredient being milk, to which you add some flour and butter.
It is a great traditional dish that can be enjoyed all year round. Try it in the winter, it warms you up from the inside!
Nothing tastes nicer than a bowl of “melkkos”, sprinkled with cinnamon sugar on the top.
What can be nicer, I ask you all! If you have never tried it, I would say it is time.
Ingredients:
1 cup of flour
1 1/2 tablespoons of hard butter
A pinch of salt
2 1/2 cups of milk
Method:
1. Rub the butter in with the flour, using your fingers. Add the salt and mix some more.
2.
Bring the milk to the boil on the stove and add the butter and flour mixture a little bit at a time.
3. Turn the heat right down and let it boil for about 5 minutes. Make sure you stir the mixture often.
4. Sprinkle cinnamon sugar on the top and enjoy it warm!
You will not be disappointed with this recipe. Try and enjoy. Believe me, you will.