Balsamic Vinaigrette

by Julie // July 29, 2011 // No Comments

My sweet friend, Lisette Bourgeois, a native of Mauritius who currently resides near Paris, shared this homemade dressing recipe with me. She just tossed the ingredients together without measuring, as I usually do, so feel free to tweak the amounts of each ingredient to match your personal taste.

Ingredients:

3 Tbsp Dijon mustard

½ cup balsamic vinegar

1 cup extra virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

1. Whisk together all ingredients and serve with your favorite salad. [Or try it on the CPK Dinner Salad.]

[photo courtesy of vociferous on Flickr]

“Lower Fat” Spinach and Bacon Quiche

by Julie // July 28, 2011 // 4 Comments

In honor of an overnight stay from my mother, I would like to dedicate this quiche to her. My husband and my dad have not, and will never enjoy one bite of a quiche. “Bless their hearts.” Since the boys were out of town and I was cooking for just my mom and myself, I decided to make her favorite and alter the ingredients (just a bit) for a lower fat version. By lower fat, I mean that there is no crust.

Ingredients:
5 eggs
1/2 cup skim milk (because that’s what we keep in the fridge)
1 cup ricotta cheese (you may use part-skim if you prefer)
1/2 cup Swiss cheese
6 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
Half of an onion, chopped
6-ounce bag of baby spinach

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray a 9-inch pie plate with nonstick spray.

Cook bacon in a pan until done and crisp. Reserve about 2 tablespoons of bacon grease.
Saute onion in grease until tender, about 5 minutes. Add spinach and continue cooking until just wilted and liquid is evaporated, 3-4 minutes. Remove from heat.
Whisk eggs in a bowl until lightly beaten. Add milk and ricotta and whisk until incorporated.
Stir in spinach mixture, Swiss cheese and bacon until combined.
Pour into greased pie plate. Bake until top, center is golden brown and a knife inserted into the center comes out clean, 35-45 minutes.

Limey Guacamole

by Julie // July 26, 2011 // 5 Comments

If you like lime–you’ll LOVE this guacamole! Over the past 3 years I’ve been on the hunt for the best guacamole recipe; this one is a combination of several. The real secret to this guac is the fresh style salsa. With the fresh ingredients already chopped and the flavors already mingled, it’s easy and unbelievably tasty!

Ingredients:
4 large, ripe hass avocados
1 heaping cup of fresh salsa (with onions, and cilantro)
(I recommend Italian Rose from Sam’s Club)
1 tsp. minced bottled garlic
2 tsp. coarse kosher salt
1 T lime juice (I use bottled most of the time…but fresh is always best!)

1. Peel and pit avocados, mash into a semi-chunky consistency
2. measure and add all other ingredients, stir until blended.
3. Serve with your favorite tortilla chips!

How to choose avocados for guacamole
How to peel an avocado

Mind Fields

by Julie // July 24, 2011 // 5 Comments

“The mind is like a field: you will harvest whatever you plant in it if it is nourished.”
–Grant Von Harrison, Drawing on the Powers of Heaven

One of the main ideas in the book Drawing on the Powers of Heaven is that learning to control our minds is vital to our success and what we are able to accomplish in this life. Harrison says, “Your life is influenced more by your thoughts than anything else.” And really, he’s right. We become what we are thinking. Our thoughts influence how we handle challenges, relationships, faith, self, prayer. It takes a sustained mental effort to think positively and be believing, especially over a long period of time or during a particularly challenging trial. Thinking negatively, however, is as easy as pie and requires no effort.

Negative thinking, or stinkin’ thinkin’ as Zig Ziglar would say, has been a particular challenge in my life. A natural-born editor, I tend to very quickly see what is wrong or needs to be fixed. It’s just so easy to point out the negative, so natural. Yes, so much the “natural man“. And when we don’t make a real effort to control our thoughts we are “prone to dwell on petty feelings (e.g., resentments, offenses, jealousies, anxieties, strife, contempt, self-pity)”. Stinkin’ thinkin’, indeed.

“Look unto me in every thought;”

—Doctrine & Covenants 6:36

How can we overcome this? A constant prayer in the heart and a conscious desire to change. And faith, looking to the Lord in all our thoughts, which is part of what it means to pray continually. Lots of faith that the Lord really can help us have a new heart, and a new mind where this stinkin’ thinkin’ is concerned. I really think that is a recipe for success. In fact, I know it is. It worked for Enos; it can work for us, too.

So what are you nourishing in your mind field?

3 Ingredient Ice Cream

by Julie // July 19, 2011 // No Comments

I have a Cuisinart counter-top ice cream freezer and it doesn’t hold much. This recipe is just enough to have a small scoop of ice cream over a brownie for each person in my family (7). I have never gotten around to remembering to refrigerate the condensed milk, and it always turns out fine. I’m sure it would set quicker, though, if I did.

Ingredients:

1 c. cold heavy cream
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 (14-ounce) can cold sweetened condensed milk

1. In a mixer, whip heavy cream just until it begins to thicken.
2. Add vanilla and whip until soft peaks form.
3. With mixer running, slowly pour in condensed milk and whip until high peaks form.
4. Transfer into freezer “can” of ice cream freezer and allow machine to run until ice cream has thickened.
5. Transfer this to a freezer container and freeze until it’s “ice cream hard”. (I was too impatient to wait for mine, so it looks pretty soft in the picture above; but it will freeze hard.)

Source: The New York Times