An Apple a Day...

Today was the day of our bake sale. We had so much food it was ridiculous, it couldn't all fit on the table. It was incredible. Unfortunately, the event had little to no people attend. It was a bit of a flop and so disappointing. We had all this food laid out so pretty and no one to buy from us. I came home with a lot of leftovers and a sad heart. We have decided to have another bake sale on Monday to try and sell off the mass amount of unsold baked goods. Everything is so delicious and I would be sad to see it go to waste. So, one more plug for the last bake sale. Monday at the CoM Lobby. Come eat our delicious treats! Here is photo proof of how amazing the bake sale looked:

I've decided to write about one of my favorite treats that I made for the bake sale, and probably the most healthy thing too. This is a recipe straight out of Dr. Weil's cookbook called The Healthy Kitchen. I bought this after I attended the Nutrition and Health Conference in May. I haven't made much out of it, but I thought this recipe looked pretty good and it's actually really healthy too. It only has 3 Tbsp of sugar and 3 Tbsp of butter--that's almost nothing in the baking world. The cake gets its sweetness from the apples and dates. Shredding the apples can be a bit of a pain. I peeled and cored them and then threw them into my food processor using the grater attachment. It was super easy, but I know if you don't have a food processor that can be a bit tough. I used red delicious apples only because they were on sale, but you could use virtually any type of apple. This cake is not too sweet with just a hint of spice from the cinnamon and nutmeg. I also used fresh milled flour from our CSA wheat berries. Sprinkle these will a little powdered sugar and they are so pretty. Don't be scared of healthy recipes, this one is a keeper!

Apple Cake Squares
from The Healthy Kitchen by Dr. Andrew Weil

1 cup flour 1/4 teaspoon salt 3/4 teaspoon nutmeg 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon cinnamon 3 tablespoons sugar 3 tablespoons softened butter or Spectrum Spread 2 eggs 2 cups apples, peeled, cored, finely shredded (about 2 1/2 medium/large apples) 1/4 cup finely chopped dates 1/4 cup confectioners' sugar

Preheat oven to 350°F. Mix the flour, salt, nutmeg, baking soda, and cinnamon together in a medium bowl and stir thoroughly. Cream the sugar and butter together in a large bowl. Beat in the eggs and whisk until smooth. Stir in the shredded apples and dates until they are completely distributed throughout. Slowly stir in the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly into the batter. Spray the bottom and sides of a 9-inch square baking pan with nonstick cooking spray, or grease it with 1/4 teaspoon of butter and pour in the batter. Bake in the preheated oven for about 45 minutes. Put the confectioners' sugar in a sifter and dust it over the cooled cake a few times until all the sugar is gone. Cut the Apple Cake into 9 squares and arrange each one on top of a decorated plate and serve.

True Blue

I have been a baking monster the past couple of days. Yesterday was cookie day and today I made a wonderful apple cake and a blueberry crumb bars. Today, we will talk about the latter and we will come back to the former another day (I feel like I should throw some biochemistry in with all these latters and formers...).

Blueberries are one of my favorite foods, not only because of its flavor but also because of its health benefits. They are super rich in antioxidants like anthocyanin, vitamin C, B complex, vitamin E, and vitamin A. They are also high in zinc and iron which can boost your immune system and prevent infections. But that's not all. They also help to preserve vision and prevent heart disease. They do much more and you can read about it here. Those cute little blue spheres are pretty amazing.

With all of those health benefits, they are perfect for an integrative bake sale treat. I found a great recipe for a blueberry crumb bars that is so incredibly easy. To be honest, it has quite a bit of butter in the crust, so it's really not the healthiest treat. But in my opinion, everything in moderation, plus you're getting those super benefits from these bars being loaded with blueberries.

Rather than fresh blueberries, which can cost an arm and a leg, I bought a bag of frozen blueberries. I got about a 6 cup bag for approximately $4. Last night I took them out of the freezer and let them defrost in the fridge. And voila, today I had perfect blueberries ready for baking. I imagine you could use almost any kind of fruit in this crumb bar, just make sure it gets nice and gooey so it will congeal and hold together. You could also mix additional fruit with the blueberries. I think it would be great to throw some tart cherries, or cranberries, or even chopped strawberries or mango. Get creative, that's why baking and cooking are fun.

By the way, JC rated these little guys a perfect 10. Delicious.

These delicious little bars will make their debut appearance at the Integrative Medicine Club Bake Sale tomorrow (Friday) from 1:30-3 PM. Come visit me at my table under the homecoming student showcase tent and taste some delicious homemade goodies.

Blueberry Crumb Bars
adapted from gimme some oven

• 1 cup sugar (plus extra 1/3 cup for blueberries)
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• zest from one lemon
• 1 cup unsalted butter
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 4 cups frozen or fresh blueberries
• 3 Tbsp. cornstarch

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Grease a 9×13 inch pan.

In a medium bowl, stir together 1 cup sugar, baking powder, flour, salt, and  lemon zest. Use a food processor or pastry cutter to blend in the butter, egg and vanilla.  (Or if you don’t have these appliances, you can always just use your hands) Dough will be crumbly. Pat half of dough into the prepared pan.

In another bowl, stir together 1/3 c. sugar and cornstarch. Gently mix in the blueberries. Sprinkle the blueberry mixture evenly over the crust. Crumble remaining dough over the berry layer.

Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes, or until top is slightly brown. Cool completely before cutting into squares.

Food as Medicine

This Friday the Integrative Medicine Club is having a Healthy Integrative Bake Sale. We held the first healthy bake sale at the end of last year and are continuing this great event. Our healthy approach has been so popular it has even been mimicked by a variety of other organizations. Although at first I was a bit saddened to see our original idea taken by other groups, in the end I am really happy that our club has taken the entire concept of a bake sale on a 180 degree turn. I am glad that our idea was so popular that other people wanted to do it as well. I say no to obese med students! Who made it a rule that baked goods had to be fatty and loaded with unhealthy ingredients? The Integrative Medicine Club strives to educate and demonstrate the importance of nutrition on health. We are really the only club that addresses this topic and the reason why we love our healthy bake sales. Simply put, food is medicine.

I have been busy working in the kitchen all day. I made three batches of cookies today: chocolate almond, matcha green tea, and ginger cookies.

We'll focus on the ginger cookies. Ginger is a great food and has a variety of health benefits. It has a long tradition of helping to relieve gastrointestinal distress and is also loaded with antioxidants and anti-inflammatory compounds. Gingerols, the anti-inflammatory compound, may help to alleviate the pain in patients with arthritis. These cookies also do not contain any white sugar. Rather, the sweetness comes from brown sugar and molasses. Sweeteners like refined white sugar and corn syrup are void of virtually all nutrients and artificial sweeteners like saccharine and aspartame do not provide any nutrients and may cause health problems. Molasses is a sweetener that is rich in nutrients such as manganese, copper, iron, calcium, potassium, and magnesium. So basically, these cookies are sort of good for you.

The original recipe called these cookies "gingersnaps" but I would change the name to "gingerchews." These are definitely not your normal crispy gingersnaps that actually snap when you break them. Instead, these are soft and chewy, which I definitely prefer. I rolled the cookies in some sugar to give them a little shine, but it would be even prettier to use to larger grain turbindo sugar. These don't have a strong taste of ginger, to be honest, I don't really like the flavor of ginger. There is more a flavor of the nutmeg, cinnamon, and ginger mixed together with the molasses. It's a nice combo. These are really yummy cookies and so easy to make.

Quick plug: These will be featured at the Integrative Medicine Club Bake Sale this Friday from 1:30-3 on the plaza between COM, CON, and COP. Find our table under the tent to taste all of our tasty treats!

Gingerchews
adapted from Sweet Pea's Kitchen

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground cloves
• Pinch of salt
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 large egg
• sugar for rolling

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, spices, and salt. In another bowl, combine together the brown sugar, molasses, vegetable oil, and egg until smooth. Mix the flour mixture into the brown mixture, stirring until dough comes together. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for 20 minutes.
2. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Roll into ball by heaping teaspoonfuls and roll the balls in sugar and place on the greased baking sheets 2 inches apart. Bake 8 minutes.
3. Remove from oven and leave on the baking sheet several minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Cookies will be very soft when removed from the oven but they will firm up.

This dish gets an 11

Today is going to be a terrible day, I can already tell and it's only 10:30 in the morning. It is cloudy and gloomy outside and I have a LONG day of studying ahead of me. At least the day started off well, 100% on TL, hip hip hooray. Before I dive into this bottomless pit, I thought I would write a little bit about dessert last night.

The boys spent a whole day climbing outside while I was a prisoner in the house with my head in my book. As my mini-break, I decided to whip up a pie. I had some leftover buttermilk from the fried green tomatoes, and one of my favorite things to do with buttermilk is make pie (oh and red velvet cupcakes). Buttermilk pie is so easy and it's really delicious. It reminds me more of a custard than a pie because it doesn't have a crust. Once you bake it, the top gets a nice crust and is so yummy. Joey and I have a silly ritual of rating our dishes after we make them. It's a 1-10 scale and really doesn't have any strict criteria. 1 means it's absolutely horrible (luckily, nothing has ever been given this rating) and a 10 means it's one of the best dishes you've ever had. Most things get a 7 or 8, occasionally we have a 4. Joey's rating for this buttermilk pie is an 11, it's officially one of his favorite things in the entire world. Yeah, it's that good.

I recently acquired a mass amount of peaches from a good friend (thanks A!). I thought it would be nice to make some kind of peach syrup over the buttermilk pie. I found a great recipe for peach lavender syrup that I thought would compliment the pie wonderfully. The original recipe called for use of vanilla beans, but those little guys are so expensive, so I just substituted a little vanilla extract. I am hesitant with lavender because sometimes it can give off an overly floral taste. I wish that this dish actually had more lavender flavor. You could definitely smell the aroma, but I think the overly sweet taste of the sugary syrup overwhelmed the delicate lavender. I would probably decrease the sugar a bit and let the lavender seep longer. Also, I would just spoon the peaches soaked in syrup over the pie and not drizzle extra syrup on top. It makes the pie too sweet. Just a bite of pie with a bite of peach, divine. Another option would be to reserve some of the syrup and mix it in with some whipped cream to serve over the pie. Delish.

Okay, enough distraction from studying. Here's the recipe. Off to JAK STAT, phosphatidylinositol, Ratkhe's pouch, Hashimoto's and other things I don't completely understand yet...

JC's Buttermilk Pie with Lavender Peaches
adapted from Olivia's Buttermilk Pie and First Look, Then Cook

For the Buttermilk Pie

• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup biscuit mix (recommended: Bisquick)
• 1/3 cup (5 1/3 tablespoons) butter, melted
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 3 eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9-inch pie pan. Put all ingredients in a bowl and blend for 1 minute with a handheld electric mixer. Pour mixture into prepared pan. Bake for about 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes.

For the Lavender Peaches

• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 3 tablespoons dried lavender blossoms
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 medium firm but ripe peaches, pitted, cut into 3/4-inch wedges, skins removed*
• 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Combine 2 1/4 cups water, sugar, lavender and vanilla extract in a saucepan. Boil, stirring until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat; cover and let steep 10 minutes. Strain syrup into medium bowl; discard lavender. Return remaining syrup to same saucepan; add peaches and lemon juice and bring to boil. Reduce heat; simmer about 5 minutes. Transfer peaches to bowl. Boil syrup in pan until reduced to 1 cup, 12 to 14 minutes. Pour over peaches. Chill uncovered 2 hours.

*Here's a trick to easily remove the skins from peaches: Place the peaches in boiling water for 2-3 minutes and then immediately remove them and place them in an ice bath for a few minutes.The skins should peel right off.

Fried Green Tomatoes (not a very creative title...sorry)

Instead of studying for my test next week, I was busy being interrupted by Stacy and my dog multiple times.

As a result, I was persuaded into going to Fry's (Ghetto Groceries Inc.) and making Fried Green Tomatoes....yes like the movie. Although, I must admit that I've never actually seen it before.

In any case, the deep fried and green tomatoes were bomb.com

Fried Green Tomatoes

• 3 lbs green tomatoes (6-8 medium tomatoes)
• 3 large eggs, beaten
• 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 3 cups vegetable or peanut oil
• 3 batches of dredge (recipe below)
• Kosher salt (You should buy this and not use regular iodized salt. You'll thank me later)
• Lemon Juice (if needed)

Slice the tomatoes into 1/4 inch think slices. Note: Don't use slices that include the stem. You'll regret it.

Next, whisk the eggs and butter milk together in a small bowl and place it to the side

Now, make the dredge (Fancy word for: flour and other crap that makes a very tasty and crunchy crust post frying). How do you do this? Technically you need to sift all the ingredients together, twice. But, if you are not a baker or do not shop compulsively at Ikea's cooking section like someone I live with, a fork will suffice to mix it all together in a wide shallow bowl or a plate.

Dredge Recipe

• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons corn meal (can be found in baking aisle)
• 2 teaspoons of salt
• 1.5 teaspoons of ground pepper (freshly ground preferable)

Now that all of your mis en place is ready, pour the oil into a 12 inch skillet or a normal frying pan. Turn on the heat to high. Typically you want to have a candy or digital thermometer around so you can maintain the oil at 365 F. I'm too cheap to buy one, so I just heated it up until the oil started to sizzle when I threw some flour into it. 

Note: Taste your tomatoes. They should taste tart. If not, sprinkle a little bit of salt and lemon juice onto them.

Once your oil is more or less at temperature, cover your tomatoes in dredge; try to dust off excessive amounts. Then coat the tomatoes in the egg/milk mixture and then re-dredge them again. Re dust off excessive amounts of dredge and throw...I mean gently place the tomatoes into the frying pan. 

Flip the tomatoes once they turn golden brown with a spatula. This should take 1-2 minutes on each side depending on how hot your oil is. Be sure not to let them burn because you left the kitchen to watch the Oregon vs Stanford game like I did. 

Once done, take your spatula and lay the tomatoes on a plate with paper towels on it. I had extra Trader Joe paper bags around, so I just used that.

Let them cool, and enjoy! If you are one of those types who needs to always have dips for their appetizers, I would suggest peppercorn ranch dressing.

I'm Stuffed.

This is one of my favorite comfort dishes. Stuffed shells are so easy to make and are so filling. They also freeze really well, so if you make a big batch of these, you can tuck them away for another night. This is my mom's recipe, but I adapted it a bit to use some of the stuff I had around the kitchen. We used a spicy pork sausage, so it has a bit of a bite. I also decided to throw in some leftover pesto sauce from pizza night. It's also nice to add some fresh chopped parsley if you have it on hand, I didn't so I left it out. For my vegetarians out there, this recipe can easily be made without the sausage as well. One more note, I thought I would be economical and buy the really cheap pasta shells from Fry's. Don't do this. I opened the box and about half of the shells were already cracked, and after cooking them, another quarter were stuck together and ripped apart. Just buy the good quality shells to make sure they are fit for stuffing.

Spinach Cheese Stuffed Shells
adapted from Mama A

• 1 box jumbo shells
• 1 package pork sausage (mild or hot)
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 small container of ricotta cheese
• 1 small box of chopped frozen spinach, defrosted and drained
• 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
• 1 egg
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 3 Tbsp pesto sauce
• 1 bottle spaghetti sauce (any flavor)

Prepare the pasta shells and set aside. In a pan cook the pork sausage and add the onions. Drain the fat and cool a little. Mix the spinach, ricotta, egg, parmesan, nutmeg, and pesto. Mix in the meat and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a casserole dish, spread some spaghetti sauce on the bottom. Stuff the shells with the filling and arrange in the casserole dish. Pour the rest of the sauce on top and sprinkle some more parmesan cheese. Place in oven to cook for about 30 minutes.