Breakfast Lemon Squares

Lemons are lovely, especially when you pair them with oats and almonds and eggs and call them breakfast. Baked goods (or leftover pancakes) are my favorite things to have for weekday breakfasts since they require zero work first thing in the morning. Fifteen minutes of effort once or twice a week can provide you with hearty, healthy breakfasts that will make you want to get out of bed so you can enjoy them!

Muffins are my go-to standard — they’re endlessly versatile, and you can make a batch of 12 in less time than it would take to go to the store to buy “enriched” stripped-out bagels that will give you an ill-advised sugar rush and then leave you hungry an hour after you’ve eaten them — but this time I decided to revamp an old sugary favorite to come up with a new lightly sweetened and highly nutritious breakfast: the beloved lemon square. Here, almonds, oats, and sorghum have replaced refined flour, and the tartness of the lemon is offset by a touch of honey. You might just want to double the recipe and make a 9″x13″ rather than an 8″x8″!

Breakfast Lemon Squares
Makes an 8″x8″ pan, or double the recipe for a 9″x13″ pan.

1/2 stick butter, preferably from grass-fed cows, melted (Kerrygold is a great choice)
1/2 cup oat flour (be sure to use gluten-free oats if you want a gluten-free breakfast; I run my g-f rolled oats through my coffee grinder to make my own flour)
1/2 cup almond flour (that same coffee grinder sure comes in handy for turning sliced almonds into fresh almond flour)
2 T. powdered sucanat (the coffee grinder strikes again!)
1/2 cup sorghum OR millet OR brown rice flour*, divided
3 eggs, preferably from pastured hens
1/2 cup honey
Zest of 1 lemon, preferably organic since you’re using the zest
1/4 c. lemon juice (1 organic lemon tends to give you 1/4 cup juice)
1/2 tsp. baking soda

Preheat oven to 325F and get out an 8″x8″ glass pan. Melt the butter in a small pot over low heat, then pour into a medium mixing bowl and mix well with the oat and almond flours and the powdered sucanat. Add 1/4 cup sorghum flour and stir until well-blended, using your hands to to mix if you like. (Butter is a great skin moisturizer!) Press into the bottom of the glass pan. Bake for 20 minutes.

While the crust is baking, whisk together the eggs, honey, lemon zest and juice, and the remaining 1/4 cup sorghum flour. When the 20 minutes is up and you pull out the crust, whisk the baking soda into the egg mixture and quickly pour it onto the crust. (The baking soda will start to react with the lemon juice immediately, so you want to wait until the last possible second to complete your topping.)

Put the squares back into the oven and bake for another 25 minutes or until the top is turning a light golden brown and you can see dimples forming on the surface. These lightly sweetened squares make a great breakfast, or serve them with fresh fruit and/or ice cream and a drizzle of honey for dessert.

Enjoy!

* This is a gluten-free flour. If you’d rather make a wheat-based version, use kamut, spelt, or whole-wheat flour in place of the sorghum.

Sheep's-Milk Yogurt with Grapes & Honey

I’ve been on a yogurt kick lately, and there’s a darned good reason for that: I finally found sheep’s-milk yogurt! Old Chatham Sheepherding Company sells their sheep’s-milk yogurt in various grocery stores to the lucky folks on the East Coast and through their website to sheep-curious shoppers who aren’t within shouting distance of New York.

Even though the shipping costs as much as the yogurt — it has to be shipped in cold-packs — it’s worth the splurge. (If anyone knows of a store in Metro Detroit that sells sheep’s-milk yogurt, please let me know!) Sheep milk is richer than milk given by cows or goats, and it strikes a flavor balance between the mildness of cow milk and the grassy, earthy character of goat milk. And the whey doesn’t separate from the solids the way the whey separates with cow milk, so no need to stir sheep’s-milk yogurt back together. (Although herein lies a tip for the lactose-intolerant: since most of the lactose is in the whey, draining it off will leave you with a decreased-lactose yogurt. The cultures gobble up the lactose to live, too, so the more cultured the yogurt/dairy product is, the less lactose it will have.)

Incidentally, most yogurt made in the Mediterranean is from either sheep or goat milk, not cow — cows don’t do well in rocky, hilly terrain where vegetation is sparse. Sheep and goats do. So if you’re having Greek yogurt in Greece, odds are you’ll be eating sheep’s-milk yogurt. But since plenty of the States are dairying areas and since cows give much more milk than sheep and goats do, practically all yogurt in the U.S. is made from cow milk.  Let’s hope those of us who adore sheep’s-milk cheese and yogurt can change that!

[Sheep's-Milk] Yogurt with Grapes & Honey
This recipe is sized for an individual serving, but feel free to make as many servings as you like! Makes a delicious and easy breakfast, snack, or dessert.

1/2 cup whole-milk yogurt, preferably made from sheep milk, but whole-milk yogurt from cow milk works, too (Fage Greek yogurt is a great choice)
Drizzle of honey
Splash of vanilla extract (about 1/4 tsp.)
12 small red grapes

Stir honey and vanilla into yogurt and taste to see if you’d like it to be any sweeter. Be careful about adding too much vanilla — a little bit goes a long way. Start with 1/4 tsp. and work your way up. And remember that the grapes will be sweet, so don’t overshoot with the honey, either. Add grapes and serve promptly.

Lemon & Basil Ice Cream

My basilophilic nature (yep, just made up that word) has spurred me to figure out yet another way to use my favorite summer herb: in ice cream. Freezing basil is pretty much only way you can chop, slice, or otherwise cut basil and still have it be green rather than chop, slice, or otherwise cut basil and have it turn black — cut basil quickly oxidizes at room temperature. Granted, judicious drying can preserve the greenness of whole leaves if you’re lucky, but drying basil takes time. Blending basil into milk and cream and then freezing it, on the other hand, is a snap.

Incidentally, basil is very high in omega 3 fats (4:1 ratio of omega 3s to omega 6s). Mint is, too (7:1). If you make this ice cream with milk from grass-fed cows* and yolks from pastured hens, you’ve moved your ice cream far out of the “junk” category and firmly into the “health food” category, especially since you’re using raw honey rather than white sugar and you’re including a heaping handful of fresh basil or mint. It’s all about the quality of the ingredients we use, folks, not what category the dish has traditionally been placed in. (Healthy ice cream vs. junky salad, for example; both are possible.)

Lemon & Basil Ice Cream

1 1/2 cups cream, preferably from grass-fed cows
1 1/2 cups whole milk, preferably from grass-fed cows
2 egg yolks, preferably from pastured hens
15 large basil leaves OR 20 large mint leaves
1 tsp. vanilla extract
Zest of 1 lemon OR 1 lime (it’s worth getting organic since you’re using the outer skin)
1/3 to 1/2 cup honey depending on how sweet you’d like your ice cream to be

Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until completely smooth. Immediately pour into an ice cream maker and follow the manufacturer’s instructions to freeze your ice cream. Since this ice cream is not too high in fat (you’re cutting the cream half/half with milk) and it’s low in sugar (you’re using honey instead of white sugar, plus you’re using less of it overall — ah, the beauties of making your own ice cream!), it will be softest when it’s freshly made. If you have leftover ice cream to put in the freezer, you may need to take it out 10 minutes ahead of scooping it the next day so that it has time to transition from almost-sorbet-hard to scoop-able. You could use all cream rather than a cream/milk blend to make your ice cream thicker and smoother-scooping, but I prefer a lighter approach to such a summery-tasting ice cream.

Enjoy!

* Remember that the legal definition of “organic” has nothing to do with whether an animal is grass-fed or is fed the conventional corn-and-soy blend. Many grass-fed operations — i.e., actual farms — do go to the trouble to be certified as “organic,” but we’re talking two different concepts here. Those of us living in Metro Detroit have the extreme fortune of having grass-fed Calder Dairy products available in our local markets. Organic Valley is another good choice.

Goat Yogurt & Almond Muffins

As promised in yesterday’s post, I’m back with more ways to use goat’s-milk yogurt!  This time, I paired goat with oat in the form of muffins.  And since I used honey instead of sugar, these muffins are very moist and slightly crunchy on top — honey caramelizes more readily than sugar does, so baked goods made with honey get more golden brown on top.  (When I say “readily,” I mean at a lower temperature.  Honey-sweetened muffins brown more quickly at 400F or even 350F than sugar-sweetened muffins do.  So will honey-sweetened cookies, quick breads, scones…you get the picture.)  Meanwhile, the oats lend the interior a slight chewiness.

And you know what the best part is?  When you’re talking muffins made with high-quality ingredients — whole-grain flours, eggs from pastured hens, probiotic dairy products, natural sweeteners, unrefined fats, nuts, seeds, etc. — you’re talking a satisfying, delicious, healthy breakfast.  Spend 30 minutes making muffins on Sunday, and you’ll have an entire week’s worth of grab-and-go breakfasts.  The advent of muffin cups has made muffin-making so darned simple that there is no excuse not to make them, really.  I guarantee that you can make your own muffins in less time than it would take to go to the store and find a box of decidedly-less-healthy, muffin-like edible items.

Goat Yogurt & Almond Muffins

These are gluten-free muffins, but you can make wheat-based muffins by substituting whole-wheat flour (or spelt or kamut flour) for all or part of the gluten-free flours.

Dry ingredients
1/2 cup almond flour (I make fresh flour by briefly grinding sliced almonds in my coffee grinder — it’s easier, cheaper, and tastier than buying almond flour)*
1/2 cup sorghum flour*
1/2 cup millet flour*
1/2 cup brown rice flour*
1 T. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 cup rolled oats (make sure they’re gluten-free oats if you’re making g-f muffins)
1/4 cup sliced almonds
Dash of sea salt

Wet ingredients
2 eggs, preferably from pastured hens
1 cup goat’s-milk yogurt OR 1 cup standard buttermilk
1/2 tsp. almond extract
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Preheat oven to 400F and line a muffin tin with muffin cups. I find that I almost always wind up with more than a dozen muffins, so I usually use two trays and 16 muffin cups.

Whisk together dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Whisk wet ingredients together in another mixing bowl, then stir them into the dry mixture. If you’re using wheat-based flours, just stir until barely blended; if you’re using gluten-free flours, you can stir all you like and you won’t ruin the muffins by making them too tough. (Overdeveloping gluten makes for tough baked goods, but g-f bakers don’t have to worry about that. Yet another perk of baking g-f.)

Pour batter into tins and bake for 18 to 20 minutes or until muffins are golden-brown and pass the toothpick test.

Enjoy!

* Or use whole-wheat flour, or spelt or kamut flour.

Goat & Honey Ice Cream (in a repurposed ice cream container)

I have a new favorite ingredient!  (Although I’ll admit that as a recipe developer, I tend to have a new favorite ingredient every two weeks or so…)  I’ve been using my Ingredient of the Month in everything from desserts to dinners to baked goods.  What’s my latest culinary love?  Goat’s-milk yogurt.  It has that distinctive goaty tang that I enjoy in goat’s-milk cheese, plus it has a very smooth texture that makes it easy to drizzle and blend.  And neither the commercial goat yogurt I bought at Trader Joe’s nor the goat yogurt I bought directly from my farmer separated the way yogurt made from cow’s milk does.  That’s kind of handy when you’re scooping the yogurt directly from the container to the ice cream maker…

Given the Greek penchant for combining honey with cheese that’s made of goat and sheep milk, I thought that ice cream made with goat yogurt and honey would be an unusually delicious flavor.  I added some almond extract, too, figuring that nuts and honey are another natural pair.  And you know what?  They are!  This was one of the most exotic yet easiest desserts I’ve ever made — all you need are three ingredients and an ice cream maker.  Since all of the ingredients are more or less liquid, you can just pour them straight into the ice cream maker without blending them first.

Goat & Honey Ice Cream

4 cups goat’s-milk yogurt (usually sold in 32-ounce containers; 32 ounces is 4 cups)
1 cup honey
2 tsp. almond extract
2 egg yolks (optional)

Have the ice cream maker running. Pour in yogurt, then honey, then extract. If you want a softer ice cream and you have a trusted source of fresh eggs — i.e., eggs that you don’t mind using raw — add the yolks. I skipped the yolks in my batch and still had velvety, rich ice cream. The biggest difference the yolks will make is that the ice cream will remain softer after several days in the freezer. Another option is to invite a bunch of pro-goat friends over and eat the ice cream when it’s freshly made; at that point, it has a soft-serve consistency. (I love freshly made ice cream!)  Finish making the ice cream according to the ice cream maker manufacturer instructions.

On the rare occasion that I buy ice cream, I always save the containers, wash them, and reuse them for my homemade batches of ice cream. If you don’t have a leftover container handy, you can freeze your ice cream in freezer-safe plastic containers.

If you like, you can garnish your Goat & Honey Ice Cream with some slivered or sliced almonds and a dusting of cinnamon.

Enjoy!

Brown Rice Crispy Treats

Is there anyone who didn’t love Rice Krispy Treats as a kid?  Even the thought seems un-American.  Rice Krispies and S’mores: the two best desserts you could make yourself, both entailing minimum fuss and maximum delight.  Nowadays, even though I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, I still savor the memories of crunchy RKTs.

It finally occurred to me that what I really liked about RKTs was the texture, not the taste.  (There really wasn’t much taste beyond “SWEET!”)  Given that brown rice cakes are also crunchy — and more flavorful and far healthier than heavily processed Rice Krispies — why not use them as a base?  And seeing as trail mixes are also crunchy and even occasionally chewy/soft from thanks to dried fruits, I thought it’d be fun to throw some of that in, too.  The final texture kick would be keeping the Crispies in the freezer, where they’d get even crunchier…and be a fun alternative to ice cream once in while.

Brown Rice Crispy Treats (a.k.a. Frozen Trail Mix Deluxe)
You can double or triple this recipe as you wish.  I wound up nibbling on the amount specified here for several days, so I would say it’s about 5-6 servings.

1/2 cup hazelnuts, chopped
1/2 cup honey, preferably local/raw
1/4 cup cocoa nibs (optional, but delicious!)
1/4 cup raisins, preferably organic Thompsons
4 brown rice cakes, broken up by hand

Note: you could use any combination of chopped nuts, including walnuts, pecans, almonds, cashews, macadamias, etc. Likewise, you could use coffee beans instead of/along with the cocoa nibs, or any kind of dried fruit instead of/along with the raisins. Dried unsweetened coconut would also be a tasty inclusion.

Place a piece of parchment paper over a baking sheet OR grease the sheet well. Set aside.

Dry-toast nuts in a large skillet over medium heat for 3-4 minutes or until nuts are fragrant and slightly browned. (Different nuts take different amounts of time.) Stir in honey, lower heat to medium-low, and let cook another minute or two. The honey will lightly bubble and will become thinner. Stir in remaining items, cook for one last minute, and turn mixture out onto baking sheet. Let dry for at least an hour, then gently tuck the cooled Crispies — still on their parchment paper — into a freezer-safe tin or container. If you didn’t lay them out on parchment paper, you might want to line the tin or container with wax paper.

Crispies will keep for several weeks in the freezer, although I doubt they’ll last that long.

Enjoy!

Cranberry-Orange Relish

When I was a kid, I thought cranberries were sweet — after all, cranberry juice sure was!  But then I finally tasted an honest-to-goodness whole cranberry and realized that good ol’ Ocean Spray had added a fair amount of sweeteners to make the juice palatable for the American tongue.  Now that I’ve veered off the Sweet Track and onto the Street of Deeper Flavors (my current chocolate preference is 90% cocoa, and I finally made the switch from Riesling to Rioja), I rather enjoy the extreme tartness that a cranberry offers.

When making a dessert relish/sauce (or a raw breakfast compote), though, unadulterated cranberries are even a bit much for me, which is why I thought I’d recreate the wintertime Cranberry-Orange Relish classic in a way that would still be a little bit sweet but that wouldn’t require cup after cup of refined white sugar.

The solution?  Simple:  just use honey instead.  And seeing as orange juice is pretty sweet on its own (so are cocktail grapefruits), you can also squeeze an extra orange and add more fresh juice to counterbalance the acidity of the cranberries.

Here’s a quick formula to get you started:  1 cup whole cranberries (frozen or fresh) + juice of 1 juice orange (or cocktail grapefruit) + 2 T. honey. Just place all in a blender and whirr until you have the desired consistency.  (You can also add a teaspoon of spice — cinnamon is a good choice, or you can blend it with nutmeg, ginger, cloves, or allspice so that you wind up with a total of 1 teaspoon.)  Taste to see if the tartness is to your liking and add more honey if it’s still too sour.  Blend and repeat until your tongue is happily tingling.  Bear in mind that you might want to taste the relish when it’s still rather coarsely-ground in case you do have to keep repeating the blending step (which will make the berries smaller and smaller each time); also, bear in mind that the relish will sweeten slightly upon standing and that you can always stir in more honey right before serving.

Enjoy!

Blueberry-Cinnamon Ice Cream

Ice cream has to be one of the true joys of summer.  (If you’re like me and love pumpkin ice cream, it’s also one of fall’s pleasures.)  As much as I enjoyed the occasional scoop or two, however, I was getting dissatisfied with commercial ice cream–waaaay too much sugar and way too many unnecessary additives.  (Guar gum?  Monodiglycerides?  No, thanks.)  True to form, I got obsessed with the idea of making my own.  The result was membership in a cowshare program to get local, grass-fed, raw milk and cream; research into alternative natural sweeteners like honey, agave, and maple syrup; and a $35 investment in an ice cream maker.

The good news is, you don’t have to go quite that far to make some top-notch ice cream.  What you do need is the maker itself and then various proportions of the following:

* good-quality milk (whole, from grass-fed cows, preferably unhomogenized)

* good-quality eggs (from pastured hens)

* whatever fruit you might like to include (it’s easiest to work with frozen fruit that’s thawed out in the fridge overnight)

* whatever sweetener strikes your fancy (preferably honey, agave, or maple syrup)

* any other flavoring you’d like to add (vanilla, cocoa powder, cinnamon, top-notch chocolate, etc.)

Follow the directions given in your ice-maker kit in terms of proportions and churning/freezing time.  (I make a bit less than a straight substitution for the sugar to a natural sweeter:  if it calls for 1/2 cup of sugar, I use 1/3 cup of agave/maple/honey.)  The easiest way to prepare the base is to blend the fruit in a blender or food processor and then add enough milk and cream to reach whatever amount of total liquid the recipe calls for.  Then add your eggs, sweetener, and whatever other ingredients you’d like to include except for chunky/whole ingredients.  Those go in at the tail end of the freezing process.  Blend everything and pour the mixture into the ice cream maker.  Continue per the manufacturer’s instructions.

Note:  homemade ice cream gets harder than conventional ice cream.  When first made, it has the texture of a curling soft-serve cone, but freezing will make it harden more than what you’re used to.  I actually prefer the texture of it–it’s more refreshing somehow, plus I know that the reason it isn’t perfectly scoopable is because of all the chemicals and fillers that aren’t in it.

Enjoy!

The good news is, it’s very simple to make your own cereal. It consists of a mix of grains, nuts, seeds, and fruit. You can add spices and natural sweeteners (honey, agave, maple syrup) as you see fit. Here’s a basic recipe to try:

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Mix together in a bowl:

3 cups of grains (any combination of quick oats, rolled barley, or wheat flakes)
1/2 to 1 cup of seeds (any combination of sunflower, sesame, pumpkin)
1/2 cup wheat germ
1/2 to 1 cup of nuts (any combination of pecans, almonds, peanuts, walnuts, cashews)
1/4 cup of extra-virgin olive oil
1/3 cup to 1/2 cup of honey or maple syrup
1/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut (optional)
Pinch of sea salt

You may have to mix the ingredients together with your hands. When thoroughly incorporated, spread out in a baking pan that has high enough sides to keep the granola from spilling out. Bake for about 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes with a wooden spoon to prevent granola from burning. Granola will turn golden brown and fragrant. Remove from oven and let cool. If desired, stir in dried fruit such as raisins, dried blueberries, dried apples, dried pineapple…whatever you like.

Experiment with adding a teaspoon of almond or vanilla extract to the mixture before baking to get a different flavor! You can also try shaking on some spices (cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg) before baking or when serving to add flair. Top with Greek yogurt, serve with nut milk (hazelnut is my favorite!), or splash with coconut milk–the choice is yours. The granola mixture will keep in an airtight container for several weeks.

Ceres, I’m sure, would be delighted with your breakfast!

Metro Detroit is fortunate to be home to a premium meadery: B.Nektar Meadery. Owners Brad and Kerri are friendly, professional, and make a half-dozen varieties of high-quality mead. (My favorite is the Vanilla-Cinnamon!) And if their opening sales are any indication of their future success, I’d say this area will remain one of the lucky few in the nation to play host to an honest-to-goodness meadery. There’s a list of where to buy their mead on their website, or you can order it off several Detroit-area restaurant menus. The light honey taste is refreshing, aromatic, and unique–try it once, and you might just find yourself reaching for that cobalt-blue bottle instead of your usual Sauvignon Blanc!

www.bnektar.com

Natural Sweeteners: Tapioca Syrup, Blackstrap Molasses, Maple Syrup, Raw Agave Nectar, Creamed Honey

When I was living in Costa Rica, I visited a sugarcane and coffee plantation.  Standing in the 100-degree sun surrounded by bamboo-like sugarcane and bright red coffeeberries was an amazing experience…and so was tasting a piece of raw sugarcane that one of the workers snapped off and handed to me.  Now I know what sugar is supposed to taste like.  Now I can appreciate sucanat (“sugar cane natural”) even more over its refined white cousin, which has been stripped of its nutritious properties and reduced to nothing but flavorless, empty carbs.  Because unprocessed sugars (including honey, agave, etc.) still possess their nutritional content and character, they’re much better to use when cooking and baking.  Here are a few you might wish to try:

• Agave nectar is made from the agave cactus, the same plant that is used to make tequila.  The nectar is similar to honey, but with a lighter, more flowery taste, and the consistency is a bit thinner.  Try it drizzled on fruit and oatmeal for breakfast!
• Molasses is a syrup that results from the sugar-making process (the sugarcane juice is boiled to make the sugar solids crystallize).  There is light molasses and blackstrap.  The blackstrap has a more pronounced flavor and is a good source of iron, calcium, magnesium, and potassium.  It’s wonderful in dark breads (such as pumperknickel and pumpkin) and in chewy, flavorful cookies like gingersnap.
• Honey comes in many different forms:  raw, comb, and the syrupy liquid form that we generally see.  The comb is best spread on toast, but the raw and liquid forms work well in recipes.  Honey has strong antibacterial properties and will not go rancid; if it crystallizes, just heat it to make it liquid again.  Caution:  don’t feed it to very young children, and be aware that some people have honey allergies.  Also, if you’re going to substitute it for white sugar, bear in mind that honey is the sweetest of the sweeteners–you might want to decrease the amount.
• Maple syrup is the sap from maple trees.  It has a wonderfully unique flavor and works well as both a sweetener and an addition to savory dishes such as barbequed ribs and maple-glazed chicken.  Grade B is darker, has a more pronounced flavor, and has more nutrients than Grade A, which has been filtered and is a lighter color.
• Brown rice syrup and tapioca syrup are far less sweet than sugar and have intriguing flavors.  Brown rice syrup works well in spiced/dark baked goods (such as gingerbread, pumpkin bread, brownies, etc.) while tapioca is interesting to try in hot chocolate–it has a malty, full flavor.  When baking, consult the labels before using these to find out how the other ingredients will be affected.  (Since brown rice syrup is less sweet than sugar, for example, you’ll typically increase the amount of sweetener called for by 1/4 cup and then decrease the amount of liquid in the recipe by 1/4 cup.)
• Sucanat is the less-refined cousin to white sugar.  Good-quality sucanat–especially organic–has a taste similar to that of light molasses.  I much prefer the flavor of sucanat over white sugar, and I always substitute it 1:1 in recipes.  (Like molasses, sucanat still contains high levels of minerals such as iron and potassium.)  The only time I would resort to white sugar would be if someone begged me to make angel food cake–the heavier sucanat would weigh down the cake and make it much less delicate and airy.  Also, icings work better with powdered sugar; any other type would be too grainy.  But then again, I’d rather have an earthy, dense cake bursting with flavor than a pallid angel food cake any day.