Pink Saturday - Buttermilk Pomegranate Sorbet

I am excited to be one of the Pink Saturday bloggers being featured today! Thanks for stopping by my blog! I have a great summer recipe to share with you.

I received an email from POM Wonderful offering to send me some pomegranate juice. Who could pass up an offer for free juice? Thanks, POM Wonderful. Until a few months ago, I'd never had a pomegranate or pomegranate juice. If you enjoy flavored vodka, you'll like this Pomegranate Infused Vodka. When squash is plentiful in the Fall, give this Butternut Squash, Sweet Potato and Pomegranate Soup a try.

Having tried a cocktail and a main dish with pomegranates, I decided to try a dessert. I love the smooth and creamy texture of this sorbet. Using this recipe as a guide, I made Buttermilk Pomegranate Sorbet. The pomegrantes give it a nice tart flavor with just a hint of sweetness.

Pomegranate Sorbet
Makes approximately 7 cups

3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup pomegranate juice
1 tablespoons lemon zest
2 cups buttermilk

Stir sugar, pomegranate juice and lemon zest in a medium bowl. Add buttermilk, stir until sugar is dissolved. Chill until cold, at least 4 hours. Process mixture in ice cream freezer, approximately 20 minutes. Transfer to contained with lid; freeze. (Can be made 3 days ahead.)

My notes on this recipe: I added about 1/4 cup of vodka to this recipe. I drizzled it into the mixture while it was freezing. You know how homemade ice cream can be hard to scoop? The alcohol keeps it from freezing too hard.

Mom's Beef Stew - Foodie Friday

Have you ever purchased any "used" books on Amazon? If you haven't, you should check it out. That's how I've purchased several of my most recent cookbooks. Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook was a real bargain, $2.68, plus $3.99 shipping. You can't even tell these books are used.

I love my crock pot/slow cooker. It's funny how slow cookers seem to come and go. I've always been a slow cooker fan. Anytime I can come home after a long day at work and dinner is waiting is a good day for me.

I thought the flavors in this stew sounded interesting and delicious. I decided to omit the potatoes and serve over noodles. I totally forgot the peas, until after we'd started eating. I guess I am not used to adding anything to the slow cooker at the end of the cooking time. This was a delicious, thick stew, tasting much better than this picture looks. When I asked Tim what he thought he said, "It was okay but I like your other stew better!" Me, I liked this stew as well, if not better than the other stew. The Refrigerator Stew has a much thinner broth, almost like a chunky soup. This stew was thicker and almost had no broth. It's a comforting and easy weeknight meal.

Mom's Beef Stew
Recipe courtesy of Not Your Mom's Slow Cooker

8 to 12 small, flavorful potatoes, such as Yukon Gold
4 large carrots, cut into 1 to 1 1/2 inch lengths
1/2 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 to 2 1/2 pounds boneless beef chuck, trimmed of any excess fat, cut into 1 1/2 inch chunks
1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil, as needed
1 large onion, cut into a total of 6 or 8 wedges
1 large rib of celery, sliced 1/2 inch thick
6 to 8 medium sized mushrooms, cut in half
2 cups beef broth
1/4 cup tomato paste
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon sugar
Pinch of ground cloves
Salt and pepper to taste
1 small bay leaf
2 sprigs flat parsley
One 10 ounce package frozen peas, thawed

Place the potatoes in the slow cooker. Top with the carrots.

In a zippered top plastic bag or a bowl, combine the flour, paprika, salt and pepper.
Toss the beef in the mixtures, shaking off any excess, and transfer to a plate. Repeat with the remaining meat.

In a large skillet, heat 1 tablespoon of the oil over medium high heat. Add the meat, being careful not to crowd the skillet. Turn to brown on all sides. Once the meat is brown, using a slotted spoon, transfer to slow cooker.

When all of the meat has been browned and placed in the slow cooker, add the onion, celery and mushrooms. Stir gently to distribute, trying not to disturb the potatoes and carrots on the bottom.

In a bowl or 4 cup glass meausre, stir together the broth, tomato paste, soy sauce, vinegar, sugar and cloves. Pour into the cooker. If the broth is unseasoned, add salt and pepper to taste. Tuck the bay leaf and parsley sprigs into the stew. Cover and cook on LOW for 8 to 9 hours or HIGH for 4 to 5 hours.

Discard the bayleaf and parsley. Stir in the peas, cover and cook on HIGH until peas are hot, 10 to minutes.

I am linking this to Foodie Friday at Designs by Gollum.

In My Garden

The first of my zinnia's, isn't the color beautiful?

Not everything "In My Garden" is always pretty. We've had so much rain. Whenever we have a lot of rain, we find stink mushrooms in the garden. I thought this one was pretty fun looking. Tim says they really smell...I didn't get close enough to tell.

Red Wine Balsamic Grilled Chicken

I am always looking for new ways to grill chicken. A few weeks ago, I spotted this recipe over at Good Things Catered and bookmarked it for future grilling. Katie's recipe called for chicken breasts. I used skin on chicken thighs. This is a quick and easy recipe to put together. The balsamic vinegar and honey give the chicken a wonderful flavor.



Red Wine Balsamic Grilled Chicken

Ingredients:
4-5 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, about 3 lbs
(I used chicken thighs)
1/4 c. balsamic vinegar
1/4 c. red wine vinegar
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp honey
Juice of 1/2 a sweet lemon (or orange)
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp dried mined onion
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp cracked black pepper

Directions:
-Pound chicken breasts down to uniform thickness throughout (about 1-inch thickness throughout)
-Place in large, deep dish and top with remaining ingredients.
-With tongs, flip chicken and move around to coat evenly.
-Cover and place in fridge for at least 1 hour and up to overnight.
-When ready to cook, remove chicken from fridge and place on sideboard to remove chill while starting grill.
-Preheat gas grill on high for 10 full minutes.
-Clear grates, turn heat to medium-low and place chicken on grates n a diagonal.
-Cover and cook untouched until nice grill marks form, about 5 minutes.
-Flip and continue cooking until cooked through, about 10 minutes.
-Flip one more time, on opposite diagonal, 2 minutes before cooking is complete to obtain grill cross-marks, if desired.
-Remove from heat and let meat rest, covered, on cutting board for 3-5 mins before cutting and serving.

I am linking this to Tempt My Tummy Tuesday's, Tasty Tuesday's and Tuesday's at the Table.

Chocolate Orange Macaroons - SMS

I've never made Macaroons. Aren't they one of those cookies you either like or you don't, maybe because of the coconut? I don't love coconut so I am sure that's why I haven't made them before. This worked out well because I needed something to bring to a baby shower at work.

What a fun and easy recipe to make! Anytime you can mix with you hands, it's just so theraputic! The instructions called for a fine chop on the chocolate. That's hard to do. I ended up with a few pieces that were bigger than others but in the end it was fine. I loved the way the orange and coconut looked together. When I first mixed the egg whites into the mixture, it seemed dry. As I continued to mix, the mixture became more moist.

Seems I always cut SMS recipes in half. This week I made the whole recipe and ended up with 21 cookies. Does anyone ever get the exact number the recipe says? I made one sheet on parchment and one sheet on a silpat. They turned out much better when baked on the parchment. They didn't seem to crisp up as much on the silpat. The bottoms still seemed a little wet.

Of course, I had to taste one. I liked them but wish they had less orange and more chocolate flavor. I loved the texture and richness of the cookies. Next time I would like to try the recipe with lemon zest.



This week's recipe was chosen by Ellen of Blue Tree Green Heart. You can find the recipe on her site. Check out the rest of the SMS bakers macaroons here!

Pink Saturday

Happy Pink Saturday! We're at Tim's family reuinion this weekend in New Ulm, Minnesota. I will visit everyone's blogs when we return!

Rhubarb Pie - Foodie Friday

What do you think of when you think of Rhubarb? Everything I’ve been reading recently describes rhubarb as the pie plant. When I think of pies, I think of custard and chocolate. I can’t make a good pie crust, so I don’t bake many pies. Pie crust is on my list of cooking challenges to conquer.

Our good friend, Lynn gave me a large bag of rhubarb from his garden. The night he gave it to me, we discussed what we thought of when thinking of rhubarb. Lynn’s answer was pie. When I think of rhubarb pie, I think of strawberry/rhubarb pie. I asked Lynn and he said nope just plain rhubarb. I chopped it all up and began contemplating what to make. I made a Rhubarb Betty and had enough to make Lynn his plain rhubarb pie.

I started searching for rhubarb pie recipes and was amazed at how simple they all are. I settled on Martha Stewart’s recipe. I liked that it had a crumble topping instead of a second crust. I wish I could say, I worked on conquering that fear of pie crust with this pie but not so much! When you give someone a pie, you want it to be good, right? To be sure the crust was good; I purchased the ready made kind in the box.

I had leftover rhubarb mixture and crumble, so I made a couple of crumbles. Not being a big rhubarb fan, I wasn’t sure if I would like the crumble. I enjoyed this dessert. It was tart but not too tart and had a nice flavor. Lynn said the pie was awesome and wondered what I was bringing him for dessert next week next week.



I am linking this to Foodie Friday at Designs by Gollum.