Honey Grapefruit Yogurt: 3 ingredients and 3 words.

They have that Häagen-Dazs ice cream which is called "Five" because it only boasts 5 ingredients - no fillers, no stabilizers, just pure ice cream. And it's pretty good.

But I just beat you oh-esteemed-ice cream maker, because just made something so yummy with only THREE ingredients. Yes. Three. One. Two. Three. And it is fat free. Refreshing. Delicious. In honor of my three ingredient frozen concoction, I thought I'd try to come up with a three word slogan for this deliciousness.

Eat this now. (nah.)

Make this now. (eh)

Refreshing, good, smooth. (sounds like a beer)

Come and eat. (Slightly dog-or-pet food reminiscent)

I'll leave it to you my dear readers to leave me something clever to describe this concoction. But it really is must delicious and SO easy, that I'm almost cheating by posting it.

Honey Grapefruit Frozen Yogurt
Makes about 1 quart

Ingredients
1 cup freshly squeezed grapefruit juice (pink would be nice, but I only had regular and it was good)
½ cup honey
2 ½ cups Fage Greek yogurt

Method
With a blender or a hand blender, blend together grapefruit juice, honey and yogurt. Pour contents into ice cream maker and turn on for 25 to 30 minutes, until mixture is stiff and bunching into the blades.

Remove all frozen yogurt from ice cream maker and store it in another container. Freeze for an additional 2 hours. Serve.

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Spicy Asparagus Turkey with Tofu: How do you say thank you?

For JEL, LKL, JSJ, HK, and my CCC family

Over this past weekend, I ended up in a pretty huge pit of despair and difficulty and for several dark hours could not see a way out of this pit.  I broke down crying several times and felt like there was NO way I could accomplish what needed to be done.

In the midst of that despair came many wonderful helping hands.  Friends reached out and called me.  Other people came over to help me.  Still others made me wonderful freshly ground, freshly brewed coffee to give me energy and determination to finish the job.  My church body embraced me.  And still others offered their assistance and support however they could.  Thankfully, I got out of that pit of despair and made it back up to where I wanted to be.

So how do you thank those many many helping hands and voices and words?  As a person who is pretty talkative and likes to write, I'm speechless.  I am moved to tears when I think about the small tiny actions that a body of loving people showed me.  So, to quote my friend CJR, "Just saying thank you is important."

So thank you all.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.

(And I know that there are many out there who are SO CURIOUS as to what this incident was?  I'm happy to share.  Just not on the blog.  You can email me if you are dying to know.)

I'll leave you all with this really delicious simple dish.  I made this for one of my wonderful helpers, friend JEL, who did for me what I might not have been able to do for others.  And she did it cheerfully.  I tossed this together at the last minute using what I had in my fridge, and we both agreed...it's like mapo tofu, only healthier.

**if you want to share it with your kids, simply take out their portion before adding the sambal.

Spicy Asparagus Turkey with Tofu
3 to 4 servings

Ingredients
1 lb ground turkey (dark meat)
1 lb asparagus, tough ends trimmed, and cut into ½ inch bits
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 tablespoons garlic, finely chopped or put through a press
2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 to 4 tablespoons sambal oelek (up to you)(Chinese chili pepper paste)
2 teaspoons sesame oil
salt to taste

1 package medium firm tofu, sliced into squares or large chunks.

Method
Heat a heavy fry pan over medium high heat. Add oil, turkey, ginger and garlic all at once. Stir, breaking up turkey until it is fully cooked. Add asparagus bits and soy sauce, cooking until asparagus is bright green and tender, about 4 minutes. Add sambal and cook until fragrant, another minute. Drizzle sesame oil all over. Season with salt if necessary.

In a small saucepan, add tofu and about ⅓ cup of water. Bring to a boil. Serve together with spicy turkey asparagus.

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a small way to say thank you 

Peach Gelato and Blackberry-Blueberry Sorbetto: Anticipation with a side of worry

In about two weeks, I am leaving behind my caps of motherhood and wifehood - the ones that say toothbrusher, butt-wiper, nose-wiper, cook, chauffeur, practice task-master, teacher, homework helper, boo-boo soother, bedtime buddy and errand girl, and going to celebrate ME.  Just me.  Joanne.  Not Joanne the mom, or Joanne the wife, but just Joanne.  Girlfriends from around the US, (NY, NC, TX, CA) are coming together.  Eight of us in all are all leaving behind motherhood and wifehood to just celebrate womanhood.

I worry however, that I will not be able to carry on a coherent conversation.  After all, for the past 7 years, most of my conversations have been interrupted by a child or a need.  I'm also wondering if I even know how to enjoy my food and eat slowly, as normally I'm scarfing down my food with my left hand, as I assist children with their meals with my right.  (Motherhood has forced ambidexterity on me.)  I'm not quite sure how I'll manage to NOT think about Family, as normally they are always at the top of my mind 24 hours a day.  What will I do with myself becomes the question?  I also worry, can Husband really handle it?  He is taking days off from work in order to be my stand-in, and of course I will have food prepared in the refrigerator for the family to consume, but I still worry.  Will he wake up on time to get the girls to school?  Will he remember to pick them up on time?  I begin getting agitated and worried about all the things that need to be managed while I am away.  (Husband, if you are reading this, do NOT be insulted.  It is simply my own worry getting the better of me.)

As much as I anticipate this weekend, my mind starts whirling a million miles a minute with worry.  I have found solace from this craziness in making sorbettos and gelatos.  And I like making them in pairs.  I like the contrast between flavors just as much as the anticipation of my weekend as a woman is heightened by my worries of what will happen back at home.  I paired this super creamy, rich peach gelato with the tart, dark, refreshing blackberry-blueberry sorbetto, and it was a match made in heaven.

Now, why gelato?  I love custard based desserts is the primary reason and a custard-based ice cream can only be better.  It does require that you take the extra step of making custard and as this custard needs to be chilled a day in advance, it also requires you to plan ahead a bit.  But those things aside, a gelato makes for a special texture in the ice cream and fresh from the maker, it has an almost gooey luscious quality that is in short, quite spectacular.  With the delicious subtlety of peach baked up by the richness of custard - it is, in short, just yummy.

Peach Gelato
adapted from Ciao Bella’s Book of Gelato and Sorbetto
Makes about 1 quart

Ingredients
2 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
4 large egg yolks
⅔ cup of sugar
1 lb of peaches, peeled and roughly cut (about 3 cups of fruit)
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Method
In a heavy saucepan add milk and cream.  Place over medium-low heat and cook, stirring occasionally so a skin doesn’t form, until tiny bubbles start to form around the edges.

Meanwhile, in a medium heat-proof bowl, whisk the egg yolks until smooth. Gradually whisk in the sugar until is well incorporated and the mixture is thick and pale yellow. Add ladlefuls of the hot milk mixture into the egg mixture whisking continuously. Continue adding milk ladleful by ladleful, quickly whisking until egg mixture is no longer cold. Pour in remaining hot milk mixture and whisk. (This is called tempering the eggs, so as to be sure that you don’t SCRAMBLE the eggs with the hot milk mixture.) Pour entire egg milk mixture bag into the saucepan. Cook, stirring frequently with a wooden spoon, until the custard is thick enough to coat the back of the spoon. Do NOT bring to a boil.

Pour mixture through fine mesh strainer into a clean bowl and let cool to room temperature, stirring every so often. Once completely cooled, cover and refrigerate at least 4 hours if not overnight.

Once custard is cooled, puree peaches and lemon juice with hand blender or blender. Carefully pour peach puree into custard and mix to incorporate fully. Pour contents into ice cream maker and turn on for 25 to 30 minutes, until mixture is starting to come together and gathering under the blade. Remove all gelato from ice cream maker and store in another container. Freeze for an additional 2 hours. Serve.

Blackberry-Blueberry Sorbet
Makes about 1 quart

Ingredients
¼ cup sugar
¼ cup water
¼ cup honey
5 cups mixed blackberries and blueberries, washed and picked over
Juice of 1 lime

Method
In a heavy saucepan add sugar, water and honey. Over medium heat bring to a boil, dissolving the sugar and honey altogether. (Use a larger pan so as to avoid messy sugary overflow, which I experienced.) Remove from heat. Cool, and then refrigerate until syrup is cool.

With a blender or a hand blender, blend together cool syrup, blackberries and blueberries and lime juice. Pour contents into ice cream maker and turn on for 25 to 30 minutes, until mixture is stiff and bunching into the blades.

Remove all sorbet from ice cream maker and store it in another container. Freeze for an additional 2 hours. Serve.

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Cantaloupe Sorbetto and Kiwi Sorbetto: Not-So-Guilty pleasures

While living in Korea, Husband definitely loved the Korean dramas while I tried to find ways to watch Oprah and US TV shows.  I always ended up watching the dramas because Husband liked them and time after time, although I hated myself for it, I would become very wrapped up in whatever story line, throwing things at the TV when the evil-mother-in-law character would do something horrible to the beautiful-loving-sweet-angelic protagonist.  And even though each drama would have many predictable elements like cancer, a break-up, a forbidden love and a series of misunderstandings between man and woman, it still made for good entertainment.  After intensely focusing on a series, I would tel Husband, "That's the last one I'm watching" because I would become too overwrought and too involved.  Korean dramas were very stressful and not good for me.

After moving back to the Bay Area, Korean dramas fell by the wayside as 3 children competing for my attention simply out-competed dramas which wanted my attention.  Husband too stopped watching them, although every so often he'd mention that maybe we should go rent a series, to which I adamantly always said no.  I liked my sleep, and having a series that we stayed up to late to watch just seemed like a bad idea.  Therefore, for 4 years, I have not watched a Korea drama.

Until the weekend I was with my parents in Southern California, I did not even remember that I used to watch the dramas.  But Father and Mother were getting very involved in one, and suddenly, every evening, after Children were in bed, I found myself in front of the TV, getting vaporized into the drama on the big TV.  The final night, before I left, I begged Father to get as many episodes as we could watch so that I could try and finish the story.  The final evening, as I sat watching and bawling my eyes out (in my defense, so did Mom) over the hopeless love between a girl and a boy, I remembered all the times I watched dramas and how much I enjoyed them.  It was and is now, very much a pleasurable experience, and I won't even call it a guilty pleasure.  It is a good pleasure, to watch something, to engage with the characters, and at the end of the series to have some sort of release from all the emotions.  (Some in Korea have been known to call a good series "therapy" as the emotions that are locked inside of you get gushed out through a good drama.)

With the arrival of my new ice cream maker, I've been trying to find ways to make things that are delicious in them, but that I am happy to feed my kids.  I've discovered that owning your own maker means that you can make healthier versions of sorbets (sorbetto), reducing sugar and increasing fruit.  Daughters love them and Son is now hooked to the cantaloupe version.  And the elation on their faces as they enjoy this pleasure, a pleasure that I don't feel guilty giving them, is worth the small effort to make it.

The basic method of sorbets is to make a syrup, blend it with some fruit, and then pour it into the ice cream maker and let it do the rest.  Simple, straightforward, but produces lots of yummy refreshing goodness.  My recipe is less sugar than other recipes ask for, and an increase in the fruit.  If you're using fresh, seasonal, ripe fruits, the natural sweetness of the fruit will be the star of the sorbet, and not refined sugar.  YAY!! A not-so-guilty pleasure!  The cantaloupe version is sweet and mild while the kiwi is tart and bright.  Making both means that you get a little bit of goodness from both sweet and tart.

**Cooking notes: Here's a quick tip to peeling your kiwi - use a spoon.

Cut kiwi in half and stick a thin spoon (I like this Korean spoon for this) in between the flesh and the skin and rotate the kiwi around until you go around the entire fruit.  (This works best with fruit that is starting to ripen.)

Honey, Lime, Cantaloupe Sorbet
Makes about 1 quart

Ingredients
¼ cup sugar
¼ cup water
¼ cup honey
5 cups of cantaloupe, cut and chilled (Tuscan melons are sweet with extra flavor)
Juice of 2 limes

Method
In a heavy saucepan add sugar, water and honey. Over medium heat bring to a boil, dissolving the sugar and honey altogether. (Use a larger pan so as to avoid messy sugary overflow, which I experienced.) Remove from heat. Cool, and then refrigerate until syrup is cool.

With a blender or a hand blender, blend together cool syrup, cantaloupe and lime juice. Pour contents into ice cream maker and turn on for 25 to 30 minutes, until mixture is stiff and bunching into the blades.

Remove all sorbet from ice cream maker and store it in another container. Freeze for an additional 2 hours. Serve.

Kiwi Sorbet
Makes about 1 quart

Ingredients
¼ cup sugar
¼ cup water
¼ cup honey
5 cups of peeled and cut kiwi
Juice of 1 lime

Method
In a heavy saucepan add sugar, water and honey. Over medium heat bring to a boil, dissolving the sugar and honey altogether. (Use a larger pan so as to avoid messy sugary overflow, which I experienced.) Remove from heat. Cool, and then refrigerate until syrup is cool.

With a blender or a hand blender, blend together cool syrup, kiwi and lime juice. Pour contents into ice cream maker and turn on for 25 to 30 minutes, until mixture is stiff and bunching into the blades.

Remove all sorbet from ice cream maker and store it in another container. Freeze for an additional 2 hours. Serve.

Printable recipe

the ice cream that I'm using.













Williams Sonoma has a great deal on the same ice cream maker with TWO bowls.  (so you can make two kinds of sorbets as once.)  They also have a very cool looking stainless steel cuisinart with great reviews on special.  Link here.

Frozen Honey, Blueberry, Coconut Milk Dessert: Different personalities

When I look at my children, I see many bits and pieces of Husband, Family, and me all mixed up in them and it is interesting to see how every child holds a bit of our personalities in them. 

Daughter #1 is the one with whom I often find myself most at odds with.  She embodies very much all the things I want in a child - her work ethic, her drive, and her determination, but coupled with that she has a level of sass and fire that I always say is like Husband.  There are many days when I argue and fight with her and the fights play out EXACTLY like fights between Husband and me.  If I have fights with both Husband and Daughter in the same day, it feels like I have been fighting with the same person all day long.  I don't understand her at many moments and Husband understands her far better than I do.

Daughter #2 has my personality when I was young.  Some say she also has my mom's personality, being somewhat reserved and shy, but I know what I was like when I was little and I didn't say much, unless with family, and chose to be very very soft-spoken.  She has similar fears as I did and isn't as fearless as I would want her to be.  However, she also has a super super soft, generous heart and is constantly giving whatever she can to people.  The big joke is that if she had underwear, and found out that someone didn't, she is likely to strip off her own underwear to give it to someone.  

Son has many aspects of my current personality.  He has a keen wit and knows how to use it.  (I never expected a 3.5 year old to have this kind of thing.)  Husband purports that Son's humor comes from him, but I do beg to differ.  (I BEG to differ.)  He looks the most like me (or one Brother) and gets my humor and my personality more than Daughters do.  He knows how to be helpful (like me) and goes to great lengths to be my right hand man.  He's also possessive (like me - one of my traits I am least proud of) but is learning to share.  (For the record, I'm possessive about people, not about things.)

Now where ice cream is concerned, Husband is the king of all things frozen and creamy, and Daughters have caught this love from him.  I do like ice cream, but I'd rather have a cake, pie, caramel or a cookie before ice cream.  Son also is not a huge lover of frozen confections and even with the things he can eat, like sorbet or coconut milk based frozen desserts, he isn't keen on the cold.  He has asked me on numerous occasions to WARM UP his frozen dessert.   When I got a surprise gift of an ice cream maker from the J family, thanking me for teaching their daughter MJ, I was intrigued.  Would I be able to create things in it that ice cream loving Daughters and Husbands would like?  

With that challenge, and my sassy bright-red-like-a-racecar ice cream maker, I set out to make something that the entire family, including son could enjoy.  I chose to go with a coconut milk based dessert, and decided to also not have any refined sugar in it.  The result was a refreshing, coconut, not-too-sweet dessert that I felt good feeding the kids. Once again Son was not keen, but our guests as well as Daughters loved it.  I gave everyone the option of squirting honey on top to make it a bit sweeter if they felt like they wanted.  The honey hit the frozen dessert and took on a really thick and luscious quality that also added to the experience.

  

If you are expecting creamy just like dairy ice cream creamy, this is not for you.  It has a more sorbet texture, slightly icy despite using full fat coconut milk. However, if you like coconut, and want something refreshing and different, you can try this.

**Make sure you chill your ice cream bowl well ahead of time.  (24 hours if you can.)  The colder the bowl, the better your results.

Frozen Honey, Blueberry, Coconut Milk Dessert
Makes about 1 ½ quarts

Ingredients
2 cans coconut milk, chilled (just stick the can in the fridge)
1 ½ cups washed blueberries
½ cup of honey

Method
In a blender or with a hand blender, blend together all ingredients. Pour into pre-chilled ice cream maker bowl. Run machine for 25 minutes, until contents are thick and partially frozen. Remove all frozen coconut milk to another container and freeze for an additional 2 hours.

Serve with optional honey drizzle on top.

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a little special treat for my special personalities

Spicy Garlic Asparagus: Simple things

For SS - you inspired this dish.

Top 10 simple things that I can't get enough of

10.  Dahlias

9.  Toilet-trained children

8.  Playing my favorite game with my favorite people.  (SETTLERS BABY!)

7. Dinner plates licked clean

6. The smell of babies

5. A beautiful song

4. Corny jokes told by Husband

3. Smiles on Son and Daughters' faces

2. Uninhibited laughter

1.  Uninterrupted 60 minutes alone.

Of course such simple things are often in short short supply.  I try and appreciate those simple things as much as possible and in a celebration of the joy of simple things, I made a simple dish for dinner this evening for gluten-free friend SS.  Her food allergies forced me to make a dish with fewer ingredients and the result was a simple yet delicious dish.  The plates was licked clean and the diners appreciative of the dish.  I, too, was more than pleased with simplicity.

Spicy Asparagus
3 to 4 servings

Ingredients
1 ½ lbs asparagus, tough ends trimmed, and cut into 2 inch pieces
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped or put through a press
2 tablespoons sambal oelek (Chinese chili pepper paste)
2 teaspoons sesame oil
salt to taste

Method
Heat a heavy fry pan over medium high heat. Add oil and asparagus all at once. Cook, stirring until asparagus begins turning brighter green and becomes slightly tender. Add garlic and continuing stirring another 2 to 3 minutes. Add sambal oelek and stir, coating all the asparagus. Drizzle sesame oil all over the dish and taste. Add a sprinkle of salt if necessary.

Serve hot.

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Peach Cupcakes with Peach Cream Cheese Frosting: Laughter

Saturdays Children know to give me a few more minutes alone in the morning.  I'm not in a hurry to do anything, to go anywhere, to pack a lunch, to pack a bag, to rush the kids out the door.  Mostly I'm in a hurry to stay in bed, dawdle and perhaps, if I'm lucky, read a few pages of a book. It is really the ONLY day of the week I'm not in a rush to go somewhere and do something.  I can just be.  In my skin.  And one of my favorite things to do is listen to Daughters and Son laughing in their rooms.  They always find some game, some silly act and something funny to enjoy in the morning.  And it is a sweet sweet sound to my ear.  It is especially sweet because I can hear it from my prone position on the bed and just enjoy it for the sheer sound.

Inevitably the laughter ends with someone crying and getting upset and I'm forced to leave my secure haven and meet the needs of the kids.  But no matter.  I had my few moments of enjoyment and then it is back to mommy business.

But that initial sweetness is so perfect and wonderful - like these cupcakes.  They are moist, lightly peachy, and simply taste of laughter and the sweetness of summer.

I bought these dehydrated peaches at Target.  Pulverize the peaches right before they are needed, as they really like to suck the water out of the air.

Peach Cupcakes with Peach Cream Cheese Frosting
Makes 24 cupcakes

Peach Cake
Ingredients
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2 ⅔ cups all-purpose flour
2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1.75 oz (49 grams) freeze dried peaches, pulverized in a mini food processor
3/4 cup low-fat buttermilk
1/2 cup pureed fresh peach
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Method
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cupcake tins with liners.

Mix together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. In a large measuring cup or bowl, mix together buttermilk, peach puree and vanilla extract. Set aside until needed.

Using an electric mixer, beat butter and granulated sugar in a mixing bowl until pale, about 2 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Mix in pulverized peaches.
Mix in flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two batches of buttermilk mixture. Mix until just combined, scraping down bowl as needed. (I like to mix the last bit by hand using a spatula to make sure I get all the stuff at the bottom.) Scoop batter into cupcake tins.

Bake until golden brown and a toothpick inserted into center of cake comes out clean, about 21 to 24 minutes. Allow cupcakes to cool in tins for 10 minutes, and then remove cupcakes and place them on a cooling rack.

Peach Cream Cheese Frosting
Makes enough to frost 24 cupcakes

Ingredients
1 cup of butter, softened
8 oz of cream cheese, softened
1.75 oz (49grams) freeze dried peaches (Target has Archer Farms brand), pulverized in a mini food processor
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3-5 cups of confectioners sugar

Method
In a large mixing bowl, mix butter until it is softened and uniform. Add cream cheese and beat together until it is uniform. Add vanilla extract and mix. Add pulverized peaches and mix. Add 3 cups of sugar to the mixture and mix. Add more sugar if necessary. Mix again until mixture is creamy and spreadable. Add more sugar if necessary, otherwise prepare to frost cake.

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Something delicious to laugh over