Strawberry Rhubarb-Rhubarb Galette

Galettes are the pie world's cookie. They're free form, they're relaxing, they're whatever you want them to be.
I find galettes liberating.
Really, I do.
My mom's the kind of person who needs some liberation. A lawyer, a mom, a high stress individual who prefers birthday pie to birthday cake. Her favorite pie is strawberry rhubarb. Unfortunately, she was born in late July (the 2nd to last day) and by now, rhubarb is long out of season.
This high stress individual has an obsessive daughter. The kind of daughter who bought all the rhubarb she could get her hands on, flash cooked, and froze it in anticipation of July 30th. This daughter needs a galette.

Strawberry rhubarb pie is a taste of my childhood. Some people have memories of chocolat chip cookies and meat load, I have memories os rhubarb and spaghetti alla puttanesca. My sister, Dad, and I would hunt one down every July, always literally leaping for joy when we found one at Peterson's (the best pie in town) Now Peterson's is closed and we always get one in June from Eileen's Pies and Otherwise (If you go to Martha's Vineyard, find her, buy her warm pies, and spend the rest of your days in pastry-induced bliss)

Getting ready for a Dinner Picnic

I love the way the rhubarb cuts through the sickly sweet childhood taste of cooked strawberries,  love the way the cinnamon lends a much needed depth, and the way the honey plants the desser firmly on the ground. The nuttiness of whole wheat flour and slight tartness of Greek yogurt in the dough doesn't hut either.
This recipe works just as well with fresh rhubarb as frozen, though I don't recommend prepackaged frozen fruit because strawberry-rhubarb combinations tend to be pretty runny, and the frozen stuff gives off juice like you wouldn't believe. I know most of you will have to wait close to another year to make this exact recipe, but subbing 1 cup of rasberries, 1 cup of strawberries, and 1 cup of peaches will work just as well!

Strawberry Rhubarb Galette
Serves 6-8

2 c rhubarb, sliced thin
1 c strawberries, sliced thin
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp lemon zest
1/3 c corn starch
2/3 c turbinado or other raw sugar, plus more for sprinkling

2 c whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 c skim Greek yogurt
3-4 Tbs ice water
2 Tbs milk

For Crust: 
In the bowl of a food processor, pulse salt and flour until light. Add the yogurt 1/4c at a time until just combined. Add water slowly, until the dough just begins to form a rough mass. Form into a ball and chill while making filling.
For Filling:
Combine Lemon, flour, and cinnamon in a medium bowl. Add fruit and sugar and toss to thoroughly combine, making sure the fruit is evenly spread, and that the flour is not clumping.
Construction:
Transfer dough to a floured surface and roll out to a 10x15 rectangle and move to a parchment lined baking sheet.
Spoon the drained fruit filling into the middle, leaving about 2 inches around the sides.
Fold in the shorter edges, then the longer sides to overlap.
Pinch the corners closed. Brush with milk, sprinkle with the extra sugar and bake, at 350ºF for 45 minutes, cover with foil if the crust gets too golden and the fruit is not yet finished.
Cool for 20 minutes, cut and enjoy!

Honey Almond Cookies with No Refined Sugar

Sometimes you want  need a cookie. A lot of times, it's too hot, or too fancy an occasion, or you've just already eaten too much to grab for your favorite chocolate chip or peanut butter buddy

(yes, cookies are friends, not food.) 

These cookies bridge the gap between satisfaction and grace perfectly. They're nutty, spongy, and so subtle sweet, they'll make you swoon like a real lady. And, you can have more than one and still feel like gliding, not thumping (or rolling)

Honey Almond Cookies
Makes about 24 cookies

1 1/2 cups almond meal
3/4 cup wildflower (or your favorite type) honey
4 egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1/4 tsp powdered ginger (optional)

Preheat your oven to 350ºF, line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper, and move the rack to the bottom of the oven.
In a bowl, mix almond meal, honey, and ginger until well combined
In another very clean glass bowl, whisk egg whites and cream of tartar until the eggs form stiff, shiny peaks, usually about 5 minutes, but it depends on your eggs, bowl and kitchen.
Fold 1/3 of the egg whites into the almond mixture until just combined. Add the rest of the eggs and fold gently. Spoon with a real table spoon (the kind you use for eating) onto the lined baking sheets and pop them in the oven.
After 2 minutes, lower the temperature to 300ºF and continue cooking for 8-12 minutes or until golden and fragrant.
Enjoy!

July Beauty Favorites

Hey all! I hope you had a wonderful July and are getting pumped for an even better August. Here are my 7 favorite beauty products for the month of July.

Get ready for my non-beauty favorites. There are far more than 7 and I'll give you a hint, one has to do with swimming pools, rings, and a whole lot of gold.

Talk to you all soon!

Greek Yogurt Cupcakes with Grapefruit-Orange Curd

I'm really not much of a cake eater.
I prefer cookies. And Brownies. And pies. And anything with the words browned and butter living happily next door to each other.
I even prefer the savory salty things to cake. Yep, it's true.

 

However, I fond a cake that I'm really really really liking. This may be a problem
It may be a problem because now when I bring cake to events, I'll scarf it. That's why I tend to bring cupcakes to events I'm staying at and cookies as gifts. You can't scarf a gift--that's just plain rude.

 

This cake is different, though because it's a little bit dense, not at all grainy, and has a little bit of tart to counteract the sweet. Oh, and all the equipment you need to make this is a bowl, a spoon, and something to bake it in. So don't worry about making cupcakes and a curd. You won't have to do nearly as many dishes as you thought.
Another reason I don't do cake is because I'm not a frosting girl. I know, weird again. I've never frosted this cake, though, and I've never wanted to. It's really already that good. I've tried a couple of variations on it that have been absolutely spectacular, so watch out for those. They'll probably all pop up in December because I have an unusual knack for befriending people born in the fall and winter. 
So here it is in all it's simple glory.


Yogurt Cupcakes with Grapefruit-Orange Curd
Makes 24 Normal Cupcakes

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup cake flour (you can use all AP f you don't have cake flour lying around)
2/3 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 cup plain Greek Yogurt
2 Tbs milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt


Preheat oven to 350ºF and line 2 muffin tins with paper liners.
In a medium bowl, mix the flours, sugar, baking powder and salt. 
In another bowl, mix the eggs, milk, yogurt, and vanilla.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet, and stir just until combined and lump free.
Bake at 350ºF for 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Cool the Cupcakes and make the curd.


Grapefruit-Orange Curd
Makes 1 1/2 cups


1 cup fresh grapefruit juice
1/4 cup fresh orange juice
3 Tbs honey (or 1/4 c granulated sugar)
4 Tbs butter, room temp
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
1 tsp grapefruit zest
Pinch of salt


In a small sauce pan, bring the grapefruit juice to a boil and reduce by half. Remove from the heat and add the orange juice, zest and salt, cool to room temperature.
In a medium bowl, cream the butter and honey until fluffy and light. Add the yolks and eggs--alternating--one at a time, until they are totally combined. 
Gradually add the mixed juices.
Put the bowl on top of a double boiler (the pot from earlier is perfect) and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly.
The curd is done when it coats the back of your spoon. If your heat is gentle enough, you shouldn't have any curdling and the mixture should be thickened after about 10 minutes of cooking. 
Pour the mixture into another, cool bow and chill to room temperature.


To Fill:
Using a piping tip, knife, or apple corer (my favorite) make a 1" deep hole in the center of each cupcake.
Using a baggie or piping bag with a plain tip, pipe the curd into the center of the cupcake, coming just above the top lip, so the curd pokes out and takes the place of frosting.
Filled cupcakes will keep well over night and into the next day, but will get soggy if left uneaten for more than 2 days, so feel free to divide the cake recipe and keep the extra curd in the fridge. It's great on top of toast or more Greek yogurt.
Enjoy!

July Favorites and Other Things that Made me Happy in July

Hey all! Here are my Non-beauty July favorites and then just a few things listed below that weren't favorites, but made me happy anyways!

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Strawberries: They taste like my childhood. They’re not my favorite thing in the world, but a slightly over ripe strawberry in July makes me very, very happy. They also make fantastic galettes, popsicles, and are especially fantastic in award-winning strawberry ginger jam, which will come around very soon.

Slippery Slope Shea Butter Lotion: I went on vacation. I got super tan. I can back and resumed working in a sunless office with an over active air conditioning unit. My skin is dry as heck. That’s where this little tub of love is coming in hugely handy. It smells like earth, it saves the world, and it stops me from turning into the lizard man from Spider Man, which brings me to…

The Amazing Spider Man: Andrew Garfield was fantastic in Boy A, he was perfectly creepy/sweet in The Imaginarium of Dr. Pernassus, he underestimated Tommy’s character in Never Let Me Go, he was the best and most brilliant Peter Parker ever. And I’m a harsh critic because Spidey’s my favorite super hero.

Greek Yogurt: I’ve been using it in everything from pie dough, to salad dressing, t cheesecake, to regular cake, to big bowls of peaches. It worked wonderfully in all of the above.

Grapes: Roast them. With rosemary. Eat it. Smile.

Pound cake: I’m not a cake person, but I’ll eat a little of this. Just a little. I love making them, though. There’s something rustic about them. If my grandma cooked, she’d make pound cakes. I’m making a whole bunch of these guys because they freeze well, and that’s going to be increasingly important in the next two weeks of cooking. We’ll get to the reason why in 3…2…1…

Post-Its: I keep an Idea Book at all times. It’s a Moleskin where I write down the things that are taking up a lot of space in my brain. I have a lot of clutter up there right now. I’m going to college in the fall, buying new clothes (no dress code!) and trying to squeeze all the summer things I planned into a 2 ½ week period. PostIts are cheaper than Moleskins, and they stop me from filling up something I keep for fun with stressful deadline lists. You can also stick them to the counter and edit recipes as you go.

 

Some Clarifications

I think my last blog may have caused a little bit of confusion and I need to clear some things up.

I do not need to diet because I eat unhealthy food.

I am not going to be doing anything fad-ish

The recipes I am going to be posting for the next couple weeks are not different from the way I like to cook.

My diet is simply this: No sweets for 30 days. It’s the way some people live their lives every day. It’s just a little break because I’ve been a little over excited by honey recently.

 

Now onto using whole, natural foods:

I think eating whole and natural foods is hugely important. In every recipe on this blog, I use white whole wheat flour or whole wheat pastry. I use turbinado or another form of raw sugar unless I specify white or powdered.

 

I will be updating the posts this week to specify these details (even though any recipe calling for just flour will work very well with plain unbleached all-purpose flour)

I am very sorry that I did not go into these details earlier on (2 months’ notice may have been nice, I know)but I think this is all part of the balanced approach to life that Sunday Sweeties promoted. Occasional indulgence, making pastries and gooey treats is healthy. It prevents you from feeling deprived and going crazy, it’s creative and artistic, and fun. You can make it healthier if you use whole grains, more natural sweeteners, and fats whose origins are easy to understand (where the heck does shortening come from?)

I hope everything’s been clarified for you, I hope you’re not too confused about recipe formulation, and will revisit the edited recipes.

Have a fun, healthy weekend, and I will see you on Sunday!

Healthy Things? and Andrea's Banana Quinoa Muffins

Today is August 1, 2012.
Today, I am beginning a diet.
Today I decided to lose 10 pounds in a month--challenge.
Today I looked up how many calories I have to burn each day to do this--scary.
Yesterday, I went all out at a friend's birthday party because I knew today was Diet Day 1. (A ton of tiramisu tastes good. A ton of tiramisu feels sick)
Yesterday I realized that I could not leave you all stranded without any baked goods for a month.
Today I made healthy muffins that taste fantastic.
Tomorrow I will have one for breakfast.

This whole diet deal is forcing me to create good recipes that are conservative. I love messing around and making rules for myself. I have to say, I've pieced together some good vegan, dairy free, gluten free, nut free concoctions, but for the first healthy recipe, I decided an old stand by would be best. While it's a very rare thing for me to make a carb/fat/calorie-loaded savory dish (I just don't eat that way) I tend to get a little excited when exposed to butter, sugar, and an oven. I've been working with different fats and sweeteners recently, and started replacing most of my flour with whole grain varieties, but fat really does seem to be fat and sugar really does seem to be sugar. Oh, and I can't do carob. I refuse. Don't even talk to me about it.
They're not great for you.
That makes me exceptionally sad.

But, these muffins are not carob. They're the twin's favorite, super easy, protein filled, and adaptable beyond belief. I added sunflower seeds to these ones just because I had a bunch lying around for scones I never really got around to makeing, but you can throw in whatever you want or nothing at all. Plain happens to be my favorite with these.
The nuttiness of the quinoa blends really well with the coconut oil, so you get a nutty bite without actually biting into any chunks, or having to grind almond meal. There's not much more I can say, other than Bananas, quinoa, honey, and coconut is a great combination, and these make a great, filling breakfast that leaves you satisfied, even if you're a habitual lunch-skipper, like me.

If you're feeling reckless, feel free to add an extra 1/4 cup of brown sugar, and use browned butter instead of coconut oil. Because when formerly white foods turn brown, everything is right with the world. Am I right?

Oh, and don't get me wrong, I'm still going to be baking treats for you (every day for the next 20 days, actually) but they're going to be kicked out of the house as quickly as possible. Grandma, coworkers, friends, and anybody else who crosses my path in the next 3 weeks will be presented with food.

Banana Quinoa Muffins
Makes 18 Muffins
Some of my muffins look a little wonky. They're just free form. I had enough batter for 6 more muffins but didn't feel like taking out another muffin tin, so they were just dumped into the liners and arranged on a baking sheet. They cook in the same time and are even more fun to eat.
1/2 cup melted coconut oil
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup raw sugar
2 large eggs
2 large, ripe mashed bananas
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour (AP works too)
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 cup dry quinoa
1/2 cup sunflower seeds or your favorite add-ins
1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk mixed with 1/2 cup fat free Greek yogurt
(or 1 cup of buttermilk)

In a medium bowl, combine the eggs, oil and honey until smooth. Add your mashed bananas and vanilla, stirring well.
In a larger bowl, combine the flour, seeds, salt, spices, baking powder and quinoa with a whisk.
Make a well in the center and add your wet ingredients, mix until they are about half way combined.
Add your yogurt-milk and whisk until combined but still slightly. A slightly lumpy batter makes puffier muffins.
Fill your muffin tins about 3/4 of the way full and bake for 20 minutes, or until golden on top and  a toothpick comes out of the center clean.
Enjoy!