Baking Without Artificial Colors and Trans Fats

"Eat All the Junk Food You Want as Long as You Cook It Yourself"  --Michael Pollan

Nothing makes me happier than baking up something sweet and delicious. Whenever possible, I try to eliminate artificial and unnatural junk from whatever I'm making. For the longest time, I thought it was impossible to decorate baked goods without having to use colorful chemicals and/or hydrogenated junk, but over time, I have found a few tricks that have allowed me to bake and decorate without chemicals and trans fats. It wasn't as hard as I'd originally thought it would be, and it all tastes so delicious!

My daughter and I just made these bunny cookies for her class for and Easter treat. I used a sugar cookie dough recipe found here, but I only used half the sugar. Since I'd planned to decorate them, I knew they'd still be plenty sweet, and the end result was perfect - just sweet enough and very satisfying.

So, what do I use in place of artificial colors in sweets?

These are my favorites: Matcha Green Tea Powder (Green), Tumeric (Yellow), Beet Juice (Pink), and Blueberry Juice Concentrate (Purple). You might think these flavors sound disgusting, but if you're tinting something sweet like icing or melted candy, the sweetness overwhelms the other flavors, and no one even notices! With each of these tints, only a little bit is needed to get a nice color, so you aren't really adding enough for the other flavors to come through.

Anytime I need to use black or brown, I just melt chocolate chips or use dark cocoa powder to tint. Yum!

We used the leftover dough to make round sugar cookies, and I drizzled the leftover melted green, yellow, and chocolate candy on them for a bit of color.

When it comes to avoiding trans fats, these are the best products I have found when making and decorating sweets:

Neither of these contains hydrogenated oils, so no trans fats! It's important to read the ingredients on the label, even if the front says that a product has 0 Trans Fats, because that might just mean, "per serving." Always double check to make sure that you don't see the word, "Hydrogenated __anything__" in the ingredients!

I use both of these for all my frosting, candies, and cookies. I always use the CandiQuik in place of icing on sugar cookies, too! I just melt it and spread on the cooled cookie, then melt more and tint it for decorations - so easy!

Make Your Own Peeps (Without All the Bad Stuff!)

Growing up, I always found a few Peeps in my Easter basket on Easter morning. I looked forward to it all year long...that crunchy sugar coating with soft marshmallow inside. Now, we can buy Peeps all year long, as they're usually themed for every holiday and not just Easter. While they're cute (and still just as delicious!), I thought it might be fun to make our own for a change, leaving out the artificial colors, corn syrup, and preservatives.

Peeps are pretty simple: shaped marshmallow covered in colored sugar. So, I started by making my own marshmallows. I'd never made marshmallows before, but I'll try most anything at least once. I found this recipe online and thought it sounded fairly straightforward. I didn't want to use corn syrup, though, so I substituted honey in its place. The only problem with using honey is that the marshmallows were honey-flavored. This is fine if you and your family like the taste of honey, but if you don't, you might want to try this recipe instead. I found it after I'd already made the marshmallows, and I'm definitely planning to use it next time I make something that calls for corn syrup.

Making the marshmallows was a lot of fun, and yes, it was messy, but not as messy as I thought it'd be!

Next, I picked out my cutting shapes and got the colored sugar ready. For the shapes, I just used my Spring cookie cutters, but you could also put the soft marshmallow into a decorator bag and use a piping tip to pipe chick shapes.

To make the naturally colored sugar, I used orange juice for yellow, strawberry preserves for pink, and blueberry juice concentrate for purple.

I simply put some sugar into a plastic bag, then added a bit of each juice until I got the desired color. I did like the results, and the juices gave the peeps a subtle flavor that was an unexpected surprise.

My marshmallows turned out a bit thick, and with my large-sized cutters, they made some huge Peeps!

Once I had the shapes, I just sprinkled them with the colored sugar. I then melted a bit of dark chocolate to add some detail, and used a toothpick to create the eyes and lines.

That's it! I used the extra marshmallow and cut it into smaller pieces, and drizzled the leftover melted chocolate on them. Both the Peeps and the marshmallows here a big hit with the family, and with me!

Quinoa and Black Bean Casserole

All this talk of Meatless March has inspired me to try out some new vegetarian dishes. I came across a vegan quinoa and black bean casserole that used non-dairy cheese, and I decided to use a few of my ingredients on hand to come up with a spicy version of my own.

Ingredients

-1 large Sweet potato, raw and diced 

-Whole Grain Quinoa, 1 cup dry or 2 cups cooked 

-2 cups cooked black beans 

-Ground tumeric, 2 tbsp  

-2 cans Cut Diced Tomatoes with green chiles 

-1/2 tbsp ground Oregano 

-6 oz. shredded Cheddar Cheese 

-1 tbsp Basil 2 oz shredded Mozzarella Cheese, part skim milk

Directions

Cook Quinoa and Black beans according to directions on label.

Spray a 9" x 12" casserole dish with non-stick spray and spread Quinoa into the pan.

Combine everything else, except the Mozarella, into a mixing bowl and stir to mix. Spread the mixture onto the Quinoa, then top with the Mozzarella.

Bake at 375 degrees for 40 minutes.

Serving Size: Makes 6-1 cup servings

Nutritional Info

• Servings Per Recipe: 6
• Amount Per Serving
• Calories: 380.1

• Total Fat: 13.3 g
• Cholesterol: 35.1 mg
• Sodium: 398.4 mg
• Total Carbs: 46.6 g
• Dietary Fiber: 9.9 g
• Protein: 19.7 g

It was so yummy! I think it would be great on a bed of fresh greens. I'll have to try that with all the leftovers!

How to Throw a Mad Men Party, Part 3 of 4: Menu

The menu for our Mad Men party was a mix of old and new. While some 60's party foods are still considered delicious, let's face it: not many people look at a shredded chicken and Jello salad these days and think to themselves, "Let's dig in!" So, I didn't think any of our guests would mind if we broke with the period and threw in a few modern snacks as well.

Drinks

My handsome husband was daring enough to volunteer to be the party's bartender for the evening. Since neither of us have experience with cocktails, we picked out six for our drink menu, from which the guests could all choose. I have to say, he did an excellent job and all the drinks were delicious!

I printed out the menu and we kept it at the bar for our guests. I used this font, to give it a retro feel. We also printed out a recipe list and instructions for each drink, so my husband would be able to mix them for us. This was our menu:

1. Old Fashioned: bourbon served on the rocks with muddled cherry, orange and Angostura bitters
2. Manhattan: Rye Whiskey, sweet vermouth, and bitters
3. Gin Martini: Gin and vermouth, garnished with an olive
4. Chocolate Martini: Godiva chocolate liqueur, creme de cacao, Vanilla vodka, and cream
5. Gin Fizz: Gin, sweetened lemon juice, and sparkling water

We also included several varieties of beer and soda (including Heineken, placed in a silver ice bowl on the dining table as a nod to Betty's "Trip Around the World" party).

Food

Our Mad Men themed snacks included:

• Cheese and Grape Kebobs
• Several single serving sized bags of Utz potato chips and Mixed Nuts (Placed beside each other with an "Utz is better than Nuts!" sign)
• Jello salad - just Strawberry Jello, canned pineapple chunks and walnuts, presented on a bed of lettuce
• Candy Cigarettes

To round out the food, we had meatballs, quiche, fruit, veggies, hummus, crackers, and four types of dessert verrines.

Everything was a big hit, except for the Jello salad (and I didn't expect it to be eaten, to be honest - it was more for decoration).

Valentine's Day Dinner

Heart-shaped pizza - it doesn't get any easier than this. Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Day Cake Pops

Earlier today, these cake pops popped into my head and it took my sugar-deprived body a couple of hours to shake it. I made them two years ago, when I was going through my cake pop phase. I usually go with the standard Bakerella recipe - combine a baked cake with frosting, mix it all together, then shape, chill, and dip (or in the case of these... cover in marshmallow fondant).

To make the heart-shaped pop, I used a heart-shaped cookie cutter and filled it with the cake/icing mixture, added a stick and chilled it in the freezer. Then I covered it with fondant, and used tinted fondant and a smaller heart-shaped cookie cutter for the smaller heart decoration.

I've noticed that you can buy cake pop baking pans now, and it kind of makes me sad. I applaud the inventor's moxie for identifying the market and getting out the product, but it's just baking regular cake on a stick, right? Regular cake on a stick will never, ever be as moist and delicious as the original cake/icing combination.

New World Pumpkin Soup

This is my favorite pumpkin soup! I came across this recipe a couple of years ago, and it's best with freshly cooked pumpkin.

This is the original recipe. I modified it to accommodate the ingredients I had on-hand:

-Pumpkin, cooked, 4 cups, mashed 

-Chorizo sausage, 12 oz 

-Garlic, 3 cloves 

-Milk, canned, evaporated, 1 can (13 oz) 

-Chicken Broth, 2 cup (8 fl oz) 

-Oregano, ground, 1 tsp

1. If using fresh chorizo, take it out of the skin and break it up into the pan. Cook until sausage is brown. 2. Add garlic and stir until fragrant, 30-60 seconds. 
3. Add the rest of the ingredients, ending with the chicken broth. Add as much broth as you need to make it the thickness you want. Salt to taste.

Serving Size: Makes 7-1 cup servings

Nutritional Info

• Servings Per Recipe: 7
• Amount Per Serving
• Calories: 305.0

• Total Fat: 22.3 g
• Cholesterol: 58.3 mg
• Sodium: 1,074.6 mg
• Total Carbs: 10.3 g
• Dietary Fiber: 0.9 g
• Protein: 15.9 g

Christmas Veggie Wreath

My friend, The Domestic Goddess (or at least pretending to be), posted this recipe and I thought it sounded perfect to take to an upcoming Christmas party. I changed it up just a little (cheated, actually, by using the philly veggie spread), but overall it was super easy to make, and it was delicious! It was also a big hit at the party, and we only brought a tiny bit home. 

Here is my recipe, modified from the original (linked above):

2	tubes (8 ounces each) refrigerated crescent rolls
1	container Philadelphia brand Garden Veggie spread
1	– 1½ cups chopped fresh broccoli florets
1	cup finely chopped celery
1	finely chopped red bell pepper
A few	red cabbage leaves or lettuce leaves

Remove crescent dough from packaging (do not unroll). Cut each tube into eight slices. Arrange in an 11-in circle on an ungreased 14-in pan. Bake at 375 for 15 – 20 minutes or until golden brown. Cool for 5 minutes before carefully removing to a serving platter; cool completely.

Spread the cream cheese over wreath; top with broccoli, celery and red pepper. Form a bow garnish with cabbage or lettuce leaves. Yield: 16 servings

And here is the finished wreath! I love the colors - it all looked so festive!

This Kitchen Experiment Was a Failure

I love meringue cookies. Not only are they tasty and sweet, they're mostly air so they're low cal. And they're supposed to be crispy, at least on the outside.

I decided to make a batch tonight using this recipe. I made 1/2 chocolate (without the chips) and 1/2 with pumpkin pie spice. Ever since I read the book Anticancer: A New Way of Life, I have tried to substitute Ideal brand sweetener for sugar whenever possible. Most of the time, it works out great, whether I'm baking, cooking, or just sweetening something. Not this time, though.

The meringue batter looked and tasted great. They even had that shine that you only get once you sweeten meringue. I popped them into the oven, and when they were done, the edges were nice and lightly browned, as usual. Once they'd cooled for a minute, though, I picked one up to try it, and it felt like one of those foam squeeze stress-relief balls that corporations give to their employees. They tasted okay, but the texture kind of ruined it for me.

So, why are my meringue cookies chewy and not crispy? A little research confirmed that it's the sugar that makes them crispy. Luckily my four-year-old daughter likes them, and she ate quite a few. I ate a few, too, just to satisfy my craving for something sweet. It'll be the last time I use a substitute for sugar in meringues, though!

How to Freeze Fresh Apples

Apple season is coming to an end, and if you have a giant heap of apples that are starting to go bad, you don't have to work yourself to death cooking applesauce and canning apple butter. With just a little bit of preparation, you can freeze them for later use - in cooking or (my favorite) cut into small pieces in my microwaved oatmeal each morning!

All you really need are apples, a knife, 1/4 c. lemon juice in 3 c. water, a couple of bowls, a flat pan or cookie sheet, and freezer bags. I used an apple corer/slicer to make the job easier, but if you don't have one, you can just slice and core the apples with a regular knife. The lemon juice is the trick to keeping your apples from turning brown, so don't slice and freeze without it!

Get everything ready by mixing the lemon juice and water and thoroughly washing all your apples.

Core and slice your apples, removing any bad spots as you go. If you prefer, peel your apples prior to slicing. I like to leave my peels on, but that's just a personal preference.

Dunk each slice into the lemon juice mixture, then place it onto a flat baking sheet. Once you have the sheet filled in a single layer, place it into your freezer. Leave it there overnight to ensure everything is frozen.

The following day, place all the frozen pieces into a freezer bag, label the bag with the date and contents, and place back into your freezer. Whenever you need some apples, you'll be able to just take out and use the amount you need and leave the rest in the freezer.

Now, you can enjoy your fresh, local apples any time of the year!

Roasting Pumpkin Seeds

In my last post, I mentioned that you might want to roast the pumpkin seeds that you removed prior to cooking your fresh pumpkin. It's easy to do, and fun for kids to help (and eat)!

First, separate the seeds from the pulp as much as possible. Then, place the seeds in a strainer and rinse them in cold water, removing any remaining pulp as you rinse.

Next, spray a baking sheet with non-stick spray (or coat with olive oil if you prefer), and spread the seeds in a single layer on the sheet. Add salt and pepper and place into a pre-heated 325 degrees F oven.

Bake for 25 - 30 minutes, stirring with a spatula every 10 minutes. The pumpkin seeds will be done when they're light brown and crunchy. Store them in an airtight container until they're all gone. Enjoy!