Blood Orange Lemonade

I think I've finally found the perfect drink. 

Seriously, if you like lemonade and oranges, you will absolutely love this. The best part is that it only takes about 10 minutes to make start to clean up. 

On this nice sunny Sunday morning, I wish I had more of it to enjoy with my blood orange scone (coming soon). In fact I think I'll go make some more right now...

Blood Orange Lemonade

(from Food Network Magazine) 

1c sugar

1c blood orange juice

1c lemon juice

1 lemon

1/2c water

3c club soda

1 blood orange

Make a simple syrup: Mix the sugar and water in a saucepan on medium heat until sugar is dissolved, about 5 minutes. Let cool.

Mix orange and lemon juices, simple syrup, and club soda in a pitcher.

Slice the lemon and orange into rounds and put in the pitcher with the lemonade.

Serve over ice with another splash of club soda.

Dill

Another one of those ingredients that I've never used before is dill. I didn't even know what it looked like when I went to the store. It ended up coming in such a large quantity that I made more than one recipe with it. First...

Lemon Dill Green Beans

serves 10

2 1/2lb green beans

3T chopped dill

2 1/2T minced shallot

2 1/2T olive oil

2 1/2T lemon juice

2 1/2T whole-grain mustard

3/4t salt

3/4t pepper

Steam green beans.

Whisk dill, shallot, oil, lemon, mustard, salt and pepper. Add green beans and toss.



You can definitely taste the dill in these, so don't try if you know you don't like dill. I thought they were good, and I would make them again, but they definitely weren't nearly as good as these lemon herb butter green beans.

Blackberry Lemonade

Blackberry Lemonade

2c blackberries

1 1/2c sugar

2c fresh lemon juice

Make simple syrup:

Bring 1 1/2c sugar and 1 1/2c water to a boil, stirring until dissolved. Let cool.

Make lemonade:

Muddle 2c blackberries with 2c simple syrup in a pitcher. Stir in 2c lemon juice and 2c water. Add ice and lemon slices before serving.

Cupcake Hero

One of the blogs I follow, I heart cuppycakes, holds a competition each month called Cupcake Hero. The competition is hosted each month by the person who won the previous month. Here's the link to this month's competition. The ingredient is raspberries, and since I just picked some really yummy ones up from a local farm (Wilson Farm) I thought it was time to get baking and enter the competition for once instead of just reading about it. I couldn't decide on one idea so I made two different kinds of cupcakes.

Chocolate Cupcakes with Raspberry Whipped Cream

For these cupcakes, I used this cupcake recipe, which I've used before.

For the raspberry whipped cream:

1c whipping cream

1T sugar

1T raspberry sauce

Whip the cream and sugar for about 2 minutes, until it begins to thicken. Add in raspberry sauce and continue to whip until soft peaks form.

For the raspberry sauce, I used some of the filling from my other recipe below. You can also mash the raspberries and use the juice and small raspberry pieces from that. More or less raspberry sauce can be added to taste.

Raspberry Lemon Cupcakes

Makes 6

For the cupcakes (adapted from Love and Olive Oil):

1/2 + 1/8c all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/4c sugar

1/8c light brown sugar

1/8c olive oil

1/2c 2% milk

1tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp lemon juice

For the raspberry filling:

1/2 pint raspberries

1/3c sugar

3T lemon juice

1T cornstarch

For the butercream:

1/4c butter

1.5c confectioners' sugar

1.5T raspberry filling

1tsp lemon juice

1/2 T 2% milk

Preheat oven to 350. To make the cupcakes, mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, sugar, and brown sugar. In a separate bowl, whisk together oil, milk, lemon juice, and vanilla. Mix into the dry ingredients. Fill cupcake liners and bake about 20 mins.

To make the filling, mash berries and add to a saucepan along with sugar, lemon juice, and cornstarch. Stir constantly as mixture boils and thickens. Allow to sit at room temperature until cool and thick.

For the frosting, cream the butter until fluffy. Add confectioners' sugar 1/2c at a time. Add lemon juice, raspberry filling, and milk, and mix until light and fluffy. If too runny, add more sugar. If too thick, add milk.

Mini-Dinner Party

This weekend I was lucky enough to have a few of my friends from school visit. As soon as they told me about this a few weeks ago, I decided it was time to try out some new recipes and put my new cooking abilities to the test. For dinner we had roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, and green beans, with lemon bars and a low fat cheesecake for dessert. Check out the recipes and pictures below (special thanks to Shari for taking them).

Roasted Chicken

From March 2010 Food Network Magazine

2 tablespoons olive oil

4 boneless, skinned chicken breasts

2 heads garlic

4 sprigs fresh rosemary

Preheat the oven to 425. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Season the chicken breasts with salt and pepper and cook skin-side down in the skillet for about 5 minutes. Flip the chicken, add the garlic (separate into cloves but do not peel) and rosemary to the skillet and transfer to the oven. Cook for about 20 minutes.

Cheesy Mashed Potatoes

From Mixingbowl.com magazine

2 pounds potatoes, peeled and cubed

1/2c light whipping cream

1/3c shredded cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 350. Cook potatoes in a large saucepan, covered, for 15-20 minutes (until tender). Drain and mash. Add salt and pepper to taste. Spoon potatoes into four individual (10oz) baking dishes. In a mixing bowl, beat whipping cream until soft peaks form. Stir in cheese and spoon over potatoes. Bake 15-20 minutes.

Green Beans with Lemon Herb Butter

Courtesy of Loveandoliveoil.com

5tbsp butter, softened

3tbsp parsley

2tsp fresh thyme

1.5tsp lemon zest

1tbsp fresh lemon juice

2lb green beans

Stir together all ingredients except butter in a small bowl until combined, along with 3/4tsp salt and 1/4tsp pepper. Cook beans in skillet until warm and crisp, then add butter until melted.

Unfortunately, I was a little behind on timing and had to put the girls to work when they came, not to mention the chicken was a little slow to cook. We ended up digging into the potatoes and green beans while we waited.

 

After dinner we were all so full that it was hard to think about eating more, but dessert looked too tempting... we didn't even get the cheesecake cut before we started eating it. Earlier in the week, it had been a coworker's birthday so I made lemon bars (always a good excuse to bake) for that so we tried some of those leftovers too!

Lemon Bars

From March 2010 Food Network Magazine

1.5 sticks butter, diced

2 1/3c all-purpose flour

1/4c light brown sugar

1/4c confectioners sugar

1/4tsp salt

4 whole large eggs + 2 egg yolks

2c sugar

1tsp lemon zest

1c fresh lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350. Line a 9x13 inch pan with foil and grease with oil or cooking spray. Pulse butter, 2c flour, light brown and confectioners sugars and salt in a food processor or with a mixer until it sticks together. Press into the bottom of the pan, making sure there are no cracks. Bake about 25 minutes, until golden. In another bowl, mix the eggs (and yolks), sugar, and remaining flour until smooth. Whisk in the lemon zest and lemon juice. Remove the crust from the oven and pour the filling over it. Reduce the oven temperature to 300 and make 30-35 minutes. Let the bars cool until room temperature, and then refrigerate until firm. Dust with confectioners sugar before serving.

 

Low-Fat Cheesecake

From March 2010 Food Network Magazine

9 low-fat cinnamon graham crackers

2tbsp unsalted butter, melted

2.5 8oz packages Neufchatel cheese, softened

12oz fat-free cream cheese

1.5c sugar

1c fat-free sour cream

2 large eggs + 3 egg whites

2tbsp flour

1tsp vanilla extract

1tsp lemon zest

Preheat oven to 350. Pulse graham crackers in a food processor (or with a mixer) until crumbled. Add 2tbsp water and the butter and pulse until mixed. Wrap the outside of a springform pan with foil (to prevent leaks). Coat the inside of the pan with cooking spray. Press crust mixture onto bottom of pan and bake about 8 minutes, until browned. Remove from oven and let cool about 10 minutes. Beat both cheeses and the sugar until smooth, then beat in sour cream on low speed. Lightly whisk the 3 egg whites then add to the cheese mixture. Also add whole eggs, flour, vanilla, and lemon zest and beat until fluffy. Pour over the crust. Bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes. Turn off the oven but leave the cheesecake inside for 20 minutes. Transfer to a rack and cool completely, then chill until firm.

(the cheesecake after we devoured it)

Needless to say, we were all completely stuffed by the end of the night... (and they're probably going to hate me for making this picture public)

 

And completely unrelated to this dinner party but equally as awesome... for all you bakers out there, check out loveandoliveoil.com -  they're having an great giveaway right now for some amazing baking supplies!

Chocolate/Raspberry/Lemon Cupcakes

This weekend I tried making some chocolate cupcakes with raspberry filling and lemon buttercream frosting.

I used my favorite chocolate cupcake recipe, which I adapted from the cookbook Sweetness.

Chocolate Cupcakes

 2/3c dark chocolate cocoa powder

2/3c boiling water

1c cake flour

1 1/4c sugar

2tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp salt

12 tbsp butter, softened

3 eggs

1 tbsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350. Mix cocoa powder and boiling water in small bowl, then set aside and let cool. In a large bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl, mix eggs and vanilla, then add 1/2 of the cocoa mixture. Add the other half of the cocoa mixture and the butter to the dry ingredients. Finally, add the egg mixture to the dry ingredient mixture in two stages. Bake 17-20 mins.

 

I cut out the centers of the cupcakes to fill them - I cut them in a cone shape and saved just the top portion of the cone to replace the top.

Raspberry Filling

1/2 package frozen raspberries, thawed

1/6c sugar

1.5 tbsp cornstarch

1/2 tsp fresh lemon juice

Drain liquid from package of raspberries into a measuring cup. Add water to fill the measuring cup to 5/8c. Combine all ingredients except raspberries in pot. Mix well as mixture heats to boiling and thickens. Let cool and then stir in raspberries.

I made a lemon buttercream frosting to top the cupcakes. I've tried several buttercream recipes and they always seem to come out too runny, even when I try adding more sugar/less liquid. It's still yummy, but I have to store these in the fridge.

Lemon Buttercream Frosting

(originally from The Cupcakery)

1 stick softened butter

2 3/4c confectioner's sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 tbsp milk

1tsp vanilla extract

1.5 tbsp fresh lemon juice

Cream butter and salt together. Add half of the sugar and milk to the butter and beat until combined. Add the remainder of the sugar, vanilla, and lemon. Beat on high until frosting is fluffy.

This whole recipe made about 18 cupcakes for me. They were definitely very sweet, and a glass of milk was needed, but the flavors worked really well together.