Category — Food for Thought

I was making my morning smoothie, and when I grabbed a fresh mango from the fruit bowl, it looked sort of yellow: whoops, it’s a papaya, not a mango. I love fresh papaya, but I’ve never bought a papaya… until now. It was shaped like a mango, so I decided to used my mango cutter to cut open the papaya, and was surprised to see so many little black seeds!

I was ready to throw the seeds away, but suddenly I thought of kiwis: we don’t throw kiwi seeds away, we eat them as part of the fruit. So I googled: “can you eat papaya seeds?”

Basically, after reading 5 different sites, I discovered that yes, papaya seeds are edible:

• papaya seeds have a peppery taste, and are often substituted for black pepper
• many cultures used papayas seeds as a natural contraceptive and to kill internal parasites
• papaya seeds are considered a health food, and are a treatment for liver cirrhosis, salmonella and staph infections, and digestive ailments

So, instead of sending them down the disposal, I added about 1/3 of the papaya seeds (the sites caution against using too much) to my smoothie, and blended:

• the color wasn’t appealing: in addition to little black flecks the smoothie took on a grayish tone
• the flavor was too peppery: I had to add a little honey and lime to finish the smoothie

Next time? The seeds go down the disposal, I don’t like a peppery taste to my morning fruit smoothie.

moi tip:

I will be using that mango slicer to cut open my papaya again: most of the seeds did stay in the center, and it halved my papaya very evenly.

Share and Enjoy

My favorite crêpe restaurant in Delray Beach has sadly closed, so looks like I’ll be making crêpes to celebrate Chandeleur at home. Thanks to Pinterest, I found a new crêpe recipe to try by delia creates:

Lemon Strawberry Crêpe Cake

February 2 is the French holiday La Chandeleur, a Catholic feast honoring the Virgin Mary. Tradition says that the Pope offered crêpes to pilgrims who came to honor Mary. And the French have been eating them ever since.

Crêpes are a very large thin pancake with all types of fillings and rolled (like a sausage) or folded (like a blini) or stacked (like a cake) for serving. Crêpes are a popular dish through out France. Sweet crêpes (crêpes sucrées) made with wheat flour are filled with fruits, preserves, or moi favorite nutella, and are served as a dessert or snack (not typically breakfast); and savory crêpes (crêpes salées ) are made with buckwheat and filled with vegetables, cheese, meats, seafood or eggs: sort of pizza-style!

But this year, I’ll be making a breakfast crêpe cake with lemon cream cheese filling between the layers, and garnished with fresh Florida strawberries. And if I’m super lazy, I may just buy a package of ready-made crêpes at Whole Foods, and just assemble!

Voila! Bon Appetit!

 moi tip:

Lemon strawberry crêpe cake would make a great breakfast or dessert for Valentines Day! If you need more crepe tips and info on buying ready-made crepes, I talked about that last year.

Share and Enjoy

Always on the look-out for anything and everything French, we tried out a French spot in Boca Raton, Bakery of France.

croissant aux amandes: superb
Croque-Monsieur: delicious
Salade au chèvre chaud: perfection

Hard to find in a hidden strip mall, Bakery of France is worth the effort. A small interior cafe, we ate outside on the patio, sheltered by plants and a brick surround that minimized nearby traffic.

But the highlight of our visit: nutella cappuccino.

As a well-documented nutella-holic, why haven’t I made this at home? We make cappuccinos at home nearly every day, and there’s usually a jar of nutella in the cabinet ready for toast or crepes or pretzels sticks. National Nutella Day is Feb 5. Have a nutella cappuccino to celebrate!

Nutella Cappuccino Recipe

1 cappuccino
1 spoonful of nutella

Twirl, and serve!

Share and Enjoy

Every day is hot tea day chez moi: I start every morning with a chai tea latte, made with Tazo chai tea concentrate and skim milk. I often have a 2nd chai tea latte at Starbucks: tall, extra hot, extra shot, extra water with a straw, or iced.

For my at home morning chai I shop around for the best price on the Tazo chai tea concentrate. Sometimes I buy it at my Starbucks store, but at $5 per carton its not a good price. Luckily, I can also buy Tazo chai concentrate:

• at Target, usually $3.75 per carton. Target has good sales, and I can sometimes buy it for $3 per carton.
• at Costco, usually 3 cartons for $7.50 – but they’re frequently out of stock, and my local Chicago store doesn’t stock it so I have to go to the burbs. Luckily, my SoFlo Costco does stock it.
• at Whole Foods, usually $5 per carton. Again, not a good price but convenient if I’m already there.

WalMart sells Tazo chai concentrate in bulk online, but doesn’t stock it in the store. But I keep asking. Amazon also sells Tazo chai concentrate. Delivery has benefits…

Share and Enjoy

Paris is well-known for it’s bread and pastries, but I lived there several years before I discovered croissants aux amandes: delicious croissants filled with almond paste and covered with slivered almonds and powdered sugar. This became my all-time pâtisserie favorite, even passing tarte citrone. My favorite pâtisserie was Paul, a high-quality chain with several locations in my neighborhood. When I left Paris, I looked in vain for similar almond croissants in the US: but they didn’t even come close. I thought living in NYC I’d find an almond croissant that was nearly as good as those in Paris, but every lead turned up tasteless.

Paris under the palm trees at Paul

Then, I was rewarded: Paris under the palm trees. Paul opened several locations in South Florida, the closest about 20 minutes from us. Well worth the drive. So leisurely mornings were spent in South Beach at the Lincoln Road Paul’s, in beautiful café chairs, with croissants aux amandes and café au lait. So far, Paul has added locations in the Washington DC area, although they keep telling me they have plans to expand in the US.

In Chicago, I found several bakeries that made a decent almond croissant: Alliance Bakery on Division and on Julius Meinl on Southport – a short walk from us. Both serve Parisian-style croissants aux amandes, and both have great coffee…and outdoor seating, always welcome when we’re walking Mignette.

Then, the Trader Joe’s flyer arrived in the mail and announced: frozen almond croissants: 4 for $3.99! 5 minute walk, always in the freezer. I got my coat.

1. 5 minute walk + $3.99 = 4 frozen almond croissants

2. Thaw over night: they will double in size.

3.  Bake, sprinkle with powdered sugar.

5.  Bon Appetit!

Croissants aux amandes and Trader Joe’s: it makes me happy!

Share and Enjoy

Holiday catalogs are starting to fill my inbox, so of course moi thoughts are turning to my annual Christmas bake-a-thon with Julie. This year we’re trying something different: instead of baking in her massive gourmet kitchen in Omaha, she’s coming to Chicago and we’ll bake in my mini condo kitchen. (why you ask: Christmas shopping in Chicago is on Julie’s to-do list this year!)

Baking in a small kitchen requires organization and creativity: and alot fewer kitchen gadgets. But one thing I don’t want to do is make multiple runs to the store for baking ingredients, cookie sheets and kitchen supplies. So this year I’m planning ahead and having the grocery store deliver my flour, sugars, and baking ingredients, and having Global Sugar Art deliver all my baking supplies.

Global Sugar Art was started by a chef to sell cake making supplies, but has grown and expanded to over 10,000 items for all types of baking. Bonus: GSA now ships worldwide, so my friends in Europe can get all the latest baking tools and gadgets delivered to their door too! With all their baking supplies, online tutorials, and great prices, Global Sugar Art is a must for experienced and amateur bakers.

This holiday season my baking shopping list includes:

• gift boxes for all those cookies, candies, and cakelets we’re baking (no, we’re not eating it all ourselves!)
• silicone holiday molds for easy baking and clean-up (I like the snowflake cookie mold)
• sanding sugars and sprinkles (I like blues and whites and silvers and golds, Julie has young kids so she prefers the greens and reds)
• cookie sheets and cake molds (time to replace the grungy ones in my drawer)
• candy thermometer (mine disappeared: and we make alot of caramels and fudge)

And that’s my list today… I’m sure it will grow the closer we get to the holidays!

Moi Tip: not only will Global Sugar Art deliver to my door, but I can also get coupon codes for Global Sugar Art on HaveDeals. I shop I can get free shipping, discounts on baking supplies, and always there’s Global Sugar Art’s overstock and bargains items.

bon appetit!

Share and Enjoy

My son asked me if I wanted to try a juice cleanse: he had a new client and wanted to try out their products. Seemed like a good idea: a long summer of ice cream (thanks TBG!), chocolate chip cookies (thanks Queen Mum!) and Crumbs black and white cookies (thanks…oh, I bought those). It turned cold last week and I put on a pair of last year’s jeans: a 3 day juice cleanse to detox and get in shape before the holidays would be a great jump-start to losing a 5 pounds I’d added and getting rid of my sugar craves. I’ve never tried a juice cleanse: how bad could it be?

ugh

I spent 2 weeks getting psyched to start my juice cleanse on Sunday: then MC said he wouldn’t have the juice for 2 more weeks.  I was psychologically ready for the juice cleanse. TBG was out of town for 10 days. It’s gorgeous weather for long Fall walks. Hmmm… I decided to do my own homemade juice cleanse. 1 day? 3 days? 5 days? Let’s see how it goes…

Day 1

Of course I’d done zero preparation. But we had a freezer full of strawberries and bananas for TBG’s morning smoothies. And frozen grapes for his hot summer day snack. A huge jar of peanut butter. Skim milk. Fage Greek Yogurt. A drawer full of salad fixings. A blender. Ice. Sounded like enough to get started!

• Morning: Tazo Chai Latte concentrate with skim milk (yes, I know it has caffeine. I don’t care.)

• Breakfast: 1 frozen banana, 1 cup frozen strawberries, water. Blend, pour and drink

• Lunch: tall coffee light Frappuccino from Starbucks (I wasn’t home, so it seemed easy: liquid and lo-cal and convenient)

• Dinner: Run to the convenience store and buy V8 low sodium. Drink huge glass – 16oz

• Evening: decaf coffee with skim milk and sugar-free vanilla syrup

Day 2

Need to step it up a little:

• Morning: Tazo Chai Latte with skim milk

• Breakfast: 1 frozen banana, 1 cup frozen strawberries, tablespoon of chunky peanut butter, water

• Lunch: spinach, broccoli slaw, 1/2 green apple, teaspoon of fresh ginger. Ugh: looked and tasted like chunky grass. With a little ginger. But I drank it…

• Dinner: V8 juice – 16oz

• Evening: frozen banana, scoop of chocolate protein powder (that TBG uses in his smoothies), water. Blend, pour, drink. Tasted pretty good!

Day 3

In answer to all my friends’ questions:

No, I am not starving. In fact, after my green juice experiment I am not even hungry.

Yes, I sip water all day but there is so much water in my juices that I’m very liquid.

Yes, I have to stay near a bathroom: lots of liquid.

Yes, I can tell I’ve lost some size: the jeans I wore Sunday I’m wearing again today: definitely looser.

No, I don’t know if I’ve lost weight: I don’t have a scale.

No, I don’t have a headache and I slept fine.

And no, I haven’t decided if I’m going to do 3 or 5 days: we’ll see how I feel Thursday morning.

• Morning: Tazo Chai Latte with skim milk

• Breakfast: 1 frozen banana, 1 cup frozen strawberries, tablespoon of chunky peanut butter, water

• Lunch: 1 cup frozen green grapes, 1/2 green apple, water. Blend, drink (hey, it’s green!)

• Snack: V8 juice – 8oz (the grape juice didn’t hold me over)

• Dinner: V8 juice – 8oz (last of the V8 bottle)

• Evening: frozen banana, scoop of chocolate protein powder (that TBG uses in his smoothies), water

I feel fine! Let’s see what I decide when I wake up in the morning…

Moi tip: I didn’t foresee how much I’d hate washing the blender 4 times every day! But I did do some research online, and fresh homemade juice is definitely preferable to bottled. I’ll continue to make the fruit juices, but for the vegetable juices: I’m buying V8: convenient, inexpensive and it has vegetables. It’s only a few days…

btw: I researched juice recipes online and decided that what I already had in my freezer and fridge made as much sense as the recipes. Again: it’s only a few days. If i was doing it longer, I’d add more protein and veggies.

Share and Enjoy

Last Sunday I was wasting time on Pinterest waiting for TBG to get ready for our morning walk. Pinterest is perfect for time-wasting: you can spend 5 seconds or 5 minutes or 5 hours and new stuff just keeps popping up. Finally he was ready, so I quickly re-pinned PB ‘Nana Cream Bites from nom!nom!nom!blog. Without Pinterest, I would never have found this. And with out my addiction to Banana Bites from Trader Joe’s, I would never have pinned it. And without my typically browning stash of bananas in the salad bowl (for banana bread in winter, for smoothies in summer) I probably wouldn’t have made them. But during and after our walk I was obsessed. Homemade banana bites. Too easy. With peanut-butter. Too good. So I made them: 10 minutes to slice and spread and melt and dip, then into the freezer.

Today, all gone.

So this morning I made another batch. And mixed it up a little.

I didn’t have to buy a thing, just grabbed a browning banana and a few staples from my cupboard, and 10 minutes later: rich and creamy banana slices hardening in the freezer. Perfect for this afternoon’s 93° with humidity feels like 97° afternoon snack. My twist: dulce de leche and speculoos spread.

Frozen Chocolate Covered Peanut-Butter or Dulce de Leche or Speculoos Spread Banana Slice Recipe

makes 16-10

•  slice banana into bite size pieces
• spread each piece with a smear of peanut butter, dulce de leche, or speculoos spread (speculoos spread is made from Dutch speculoos cookies: Nutella would have been great: except we’re out)
• melt 3oz chocolate in microwave 30 seconds, stir until smooth and creamy (melt 15 seconds more if needed). Use whatever melting chocolate you have on hand: I’m still using bits leftover from Christmas baking, today I used a few squares of Lindt dark chocolate and 1 square of Almond Bark.
• dip each piece into chocolate to coat
• put on silpat mat or wax paper
• freeze, then transfer to a freezer bag; store in freezer
• pop, and enjoy!

If you look at nom!nom!nom!’s photos, they’re much prettier than mine. But my lumpy slices were fast and easy and I’m sure just as good.

Bon App!

Share and Enjoy

What’s a beertail? Beer and a mixer: the perfect light summer cooler! We developed our love of beer cocktails summering on the French Riviera. Yes, the oh-so-chic French love beer cocktails: especially panaché.

Our 1st visit to St Tropez, sitting under the umbrellas at le café, we ordered what the table next to us was drinking: panaché. When the pale yellow tall cold drinks arrived and we took our first sip, who knew: the French love beer and lemonade mixed! Since that 1st beertail, we’ve enjoyed many more throughout Europe, and now back in the States, we enjoy making this light refreshing low-cal cocktail for long hot summer days. Of course we cheat and use easily found American ingredients: we could buy 1664 bier or bubbling limonade, but it’s summertime and the living must be easy!

Voila! Here are a few French beer cocktail recipes to get you started. Santé!

Panaché (aka Shandy in the UK and Radler in Germany or Champú in Spain) You can even buy bottles of panaché pre-mixed at la marche!

• 1 bottle light beer: your preference
• 12 oz Crystal Light lemonade: keeps the calories low
• Mix, enjoy! Makes 2

Monaco (aka Potsdamer in Germany)

• Panaché with a touch or grenandine ( abt 1/4 tsp per glass)

Tango

• beer and grenadine

Be creative! Throughout Europe, South America and the Caribbean beer is commonly mixed with other non-alcoholic drinks including

• coke (a Diesel or Mazout in Germany),
• cider (Diesel in the UK)
• ginger ale (Shandygaf in Japan)
• orange juice (Brass Monkey: its American!)

Moi tip:

Grenadine used to be made from pomegranate juice (and in fact is based on the French word for pomegranate: grenade). Now grenadine is primarily made from artificial colors and flavors. Personally, I don’t stock it. So for any recipe calling for grenadine I substitute pomegranate juice: there’s always a bottle of Pom in moi fridge. Cheers!

Share and Enjoy

Last year my go-to gifts for kids was a Zoku pop maker; this year the Zoku is perfect for adults!

We’re having a heatwave in Chicago… hot and humid and a holiday squeezed between 2 weekends equals lots of parties and picnics. Looking for a fun way to cool-off the adults? Zoku pops: spiked with a little something extra!

To make adult pops:

1. fruit juices: mango, strawberry, peach, blueberry are a good start
2. your favorite mixer: vodka and rum are always good, try the flavored mixers too
3. mix 3 cups of juice to 2oz alcohol: alcohol doesn’t freeze, so be sure to measure!
4. pour in your Zoku machine (or other popsicle mold, or even dixie cups with sticks)
5. freeze, and serve

Party in a pop! If you’re looking for ideas there are lots of adult popsicle recipes on the internet: including the Zoku blog! Guest of a Guest has some tres fab alcoholic pop recipes too.

Note: Be sure to color-code or separate your pops if there are children nearby: you don’t want them accidentally eating the spiked pops!

Share and Enjoy