recipes

Wellness Wednesday :: Strawberry Banana Smoothie Recipe

Posted by Ginna on Apr 18, 2012 | 15 comments

I’m a sucker for a good smoothie. When I was in high school, my friends and I used to go to Juice Shop in Greensboro (anyone been?) and get one of their huge smoothies for lunch. It’s such a filling, refreshing drink, especially on a hot summer day. But when you’re in high school, $5 for a smoothie added up, so I decided to learn how to make my own and find the best combo.

I’ve tried a lot of them out there, but this one remains to be my favorite because it’s a) easy (how can it get easier than three ingredients?) and b) incredibly healthy but tastes like a dessert (best combo ever, right?). And since we’re talking about strawberries this week, I couldn’t let the week go by without sharing my favorite recipe with you guys.

Ingredients:
1 cup orange juice
1 frozen banana, peeled and chopped
handful of strawberries (4-5 depending on size; fresh or frozen)

Throw it all in a blender for a minute or so.

–

See, I told you it was easy. I like to freeze my bananas so that it acts as ice and thickens your smoothie. You can also throw in any other fruit like raspberries, blueberries, mango, etc., for variety, but this simple three-ingredient gem is my fave. Enjoy!

What is your favorite smoothie recipe?
Do you prefer yogurt-based smoothies or OJ-based?

Strawberry Pie Recipe

Posted by Ginna on Apr 17, 2012 | 4 comments

Q: What do you do with 4 pounds of freshly picked strawberries?
A: Make strawberry pie, of course!

Strawberry Pie
from my mother-in-law

Ingredients:
1 quart fresh strawberries
6 T. cornstarch
2 c. sugar
2. c. water
dash of salt
1 (3-oz) package of strawberry Jello
2 store-bought pie crusts
whipped topping

Directions:
1. Cook pie crusts, according to your directions
2. Whisk sugar, water, salt and cornstarch over medium heath until mixture thickens, about 5 minutes.  Add Jello and mix until it dissolves
4. Chill mixture in the refrigerator until it cools
5. Wash, hull and cut strawberries and put in pie shell
6. Pour cooled mixture over strawberries and refrigerate until set (usually an hour). Serve chilled with whipped cream.

Makes two pies… one to enjoy yourself, one to brighten a friend’s day.

Candy Bar Cake

Posted by Ginna on Mar 7, 2012 | 3 comments

In honor of my dad’s birthday yesterday and my sister Carrie’s birthday today (happy birthday guys!), I’d like to share my very favorite cake. I made it this past weekend for our birthday celebration and as always, it was a crowd-pleaser. It is easy but tastes decadent, and is versatile enough to mix and match with whatever kind of candy bar you want. Oh, and a shout out to my best friend Allison who discovered it first years ago when we were in college. :)

Candy Bar Cake

Gigi’s Fabulous Caramel Cake

Posted by Ginna on Feb 22, 2012 | 10 comments

One of the things on my 30 before 30 list is to make my grandmother’s caramel cake. Now, you may think baking a cake is a simple task and not worthy of a four-year countdown, but this is no average cake. (Okay, actually the cake is pretty easy. The not-so-average part I’m talking about is the icing. It take major skills [and for me multiple hands on deck] to help pull off this rich, caramel icing.)

But y’all, the end result is totally worth it.

I remember my grandmother making this cake every holiday growing up. I would sit at her kitchen bar watching her would whip up the caramel on the stove and manage to perfectly ice the middle, top and edges of the two-tiered cake. I wasn’t that impressed until I saw failed attempts by my aunt, mom and cousins and then marveled at how perfectly Gigi managed to ice it (sorry guys, no one can make it as pretty as Gigi could — me included!).

This year, Gigi wasn’t able to make it to our Christmas so I decided to honor her at our family gathering with caramel cake for dessert. It didn’t turn out as pretty as I wanted, but everyone there said it tasted exactly like her’s so I’m calling this a success. :)

Fun fact, my step aunt is a professional chef and published the recipe in her book Southern Cakes. Look for it in the next Williams Sonoma you visit and see if you can find “Gigi’s Fabulous Caramel Cake”. :)

Gigi’s Fabulous Caramel Cake

3/4 cup butter
1 cup milk
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
2 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups light brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
7 tablespoons evaporated milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 325. Grease and flour two 9-inch round cake pans. Combine butter and milk in a small sauce pan and cook until the butter melts. Let cool. Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl and mix well. In a large bowl, combine eggs and sugar, beat well at high speed until smooth and thick. Stir the dry mixture, egg mixture, milk mixture and vanilla together with a wooden spoon until smooth. Pour batter in to prepared bake pans. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Let cool.

In a sauce pan, combine the brown sugar, butter, evaporated milk and vanilla. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Adjust the heat so that the frosting oils and bubbles gently. Cook for 7 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool for 5 minutes.

Beat the warm icing until it thickens. Place a cake layer, top side down, on a cake stand or plate. Quickly spread some icing over the top and cover it with the second layer, top side up. Ice the top quickly and then spread the remaining icing over the sides. If the icing become too hard to spread, warm gently over low heat add a spoonful of evaporated milk and then scrape and stir well until the icing softens enough to spread again. Dip a table knife in very hot water to help soften and smooth icing out once it is spread.

Banana Frozen Yogurt

Posted by Ginna on Nov 15, 2011 | 3 comments

For the past few months I have been reading on various blogs and websites about this mysterious banana frozen yogurt. Apparently all you need to do is just freeze bananas, pop them into a blender or food processor and tada! it magically turns into a creamy banana ice cream.

The pictures looked so delicious and the raves were so high that I decided to ignore the chocolate chip brownies leftover from the evening before, and try a healthy snack with some of my frozen bananas.

Mmm! It’s starting to look good!

I took my first taste. YUCK. I don’t know why I expected it to taste differently, but while the texture looked like creamy, smooth ice cream, the taste was most certainly all banana.

So I decided to add in some nutella and chocolate chips to cut down on the banana taste.

I kept adding more and more until it had a hint of chocolate in it. Here is the final product:

Looks great, right? It was still too banana-y. So the only way to make the dish bearable was adding the brownie that I originally wanted to eat, before I opted for the banana frozen yogurt experiment.

That certainly helped, but the snack was now more calories than what I originally intended. So, be warned. This recipe is not for the faint of heart — if you don’t absolutely LOVE bananas, stay away and eat regular frozen yogurt instead. Or half of a chocolate chip brownie.

Homemade Granola

Posted by Ginna on Nov 10, 2011 | 4 comments

I love granola. I love it as a cereal, in my yogurt, paired with fruit, or even by itself with some chocolate chunks as a snack. I just hate how expensive it is to buy it! So last weekend I looked up the ingredients and found out that I had absolutely EVERYTHING to make my own batch. Huzzah!

Mmm, doesn’t that look tasty? :) Pair it with yogurt and fruit, and it’s the new breakfast of champions! I used a mix of a few recipes I found online to come up with this combination below. Enjoy!

Ingredients:
4 cups old fashioned oats
1/4 cup ground flaxseeds
1/2 cup chopped almonds
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup maple syrup
2 Tbls brown sugar
1/4 cup peanut butter
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon

Directions:
Preheat oven to 250.

Mix together the oats, ground flax, almonds and sunflower seeds and set aside. Mix together the vegetable oil, maple syrup, brown sugar, peanut butter, salt and cinnamon and bring to a simmer on the stove. Cook for three to five minutes. Pour over the dry ingredients and toss well to coat.

Spread out granola on two lined sheet trays and bake for 30-40 minutes, stirring occasionally.