Mommy Cooks

Fruit Shakes

"Mom, can we have another snack?"

So we made the Fruity Morning Shakes from our "Cookbook of the Month" this afternoon, when hunger momentarily drove the girls out of their little pool we'd set up in honor of the suddenly-summery weather.

This is one of the starred recipes in The Kid's Cookbook, those noted as being "super-easy!", and it sure is -- quick, too.  We had some strawberries in the freezer (about 2 cups' worth), so we used those instead of fresh fruit -- I thawed the fruit only partially, so the shakes were extra-cold. 

Laura was even brave enough to run the blender herself!

Fruity Morning Shakes

8 oz. vanilla yogurt
2 teaspoons sugar
6 strawberries OR 1 small ripe peach OR 1 cup blueberries

Wash the fruit.  Hull the strawberries, if using, or remove the peach pit and cut the fruit into small chunks.

Put the yogurt and sugar into the blender, and add the fruit. 
Cover, and blend until smooth.

Serve over ice, if you like, or as it is.

Makes 1 or 2 servings (about 16 oz.).  Total preparation time, less than 5 minutes.

Recipe adapted from The Kid's Cookbook by Abigail Johnson Dodge (Oxmoor House, c2000).

Lemonade

It was very hot today, and our lemon tree is covered with fruit, so it seemed the ideal time for fresh lemonade.

This version requires a bit more effort than simply bunging some lemon juice and sugar into a glass of water, but if you've got a few minutes, it's worth it for the extra depth of flavor that comes from infusing the sugar syrup with the lemon peel.

Lemonade

2/3 cup sugar
4 to 6 lemons, to make 1 cup of lemon juice
fresh mint leaves, if desired

Wash the lemons thoroughly.  With a vegetable peeler, carefully peel off about half of the yellow rind of 1 lemon in strips.  Squeeze enough lemons to make 1 cup of juice.

In a small saucepan, bring the sugar, lemon peel, and 1 cup of water to a boil.  Remove from the heat and let cool.  Discard the lemon peel.

In a large pitcher, mix together the cooled sugar syrup, lemon juice, and 2 quarts of cold water.

Serve over ice in tall glasses, garnished with mint if desired.

Makes about 2 quarts.  Preparation time, about 1 hour.

Apricot Milk

Here is a recipe from The Beany Malone Cookbook, a cookbook based on the series by Lenora Mattingly Weber, that I loved as a girl.  Throughout the dozen or so books, Beany was always cooking for her motherless and perpetually hungry family -- the cookbook is full of rather dated but filling hors d'oeuvres, casseroles, and desserts, with a mid-century America taste.

Julia took one sip of this apricot milk and said emphatically, "This is so good, I want to have it every day."  We haven't made it quite that often since, but it's hard to argue with something that gets them so much milk and vitamin A!  The original quantities made a quite thick drink, with only 2 cups of milk, almost a milkshake consistency, and we thought it was better more like a smoothie, with 3 cups of milk -- this just fit in my little blender. 

The original recipe specified unsulfured apricots, which gave the drink a strange browny-orange color -- I'm afraid that I'm so used to the taste of sulfured apricots that I actually prefer them that way, and the color is definitely prettier -- in fact, now that I look at it, a nice Project Spectrum orange!

Apricot Milk

1 cup dried apricots
2 to 3 cups cold milk

Soak the apricots in 1 cup of lukewarm water, for at least 4 hours, or overnight.

Pour the apricots and water into a blender, and purée until smooth.  Remove the center section from the blender lid and, while the blender is going, slowly pour in the cold milk.

Serve cold.

Makes about 3 servings.  Preparation time, at least 4 hours of soaking; active work time, about 5 minutes.

Fruit Smoothies

I confess that February was going to be "Eat Healthy Month" chez Mommy Cooks, but I fell off the wagon around Day 2.  I'd found a little booklet at Henry's with complete two-week menus that sounded relatively interesting, and cost only a dollar, and so I thought we'd give it a go.  It's not that we eat badly around here, although we don't eat enough vegetables, it's true.  But after a day, I just didn't fancy such a regimented schedule of "eat this at breakfast, eat that for snack," or running around to three different markets to find everything on the shopping list.  I did, however, have this smoothie for breakfast on the first day, which ever since the girls have been smacking their lips over.

I had a bit of reservations about giving the girls protein powder, so I called their pediatrician, who said that the recommended daily allowance for children is 20g, no more than 25g.  The protein powder that I'd bought has 16g of protein in one scoop (32% of the daily values for adults), so it's best to leave the powder out of this recipe if you will be serving it to children.

I often stick the last banana of a bunch into the freezer before it goes off -- usually, I end up making banana bread, but they are good for this smoothie, too.  Put one in the refrigerator the night before, or thaw it in the microwave for a moment first.

Have it with a piece of toast -- dry, if you want to be "healthy". 

Fruit Smoothie

1/2 cup apple juice
1 banana
1/2 cup frozen blueberries or strawberries
1/3 cup nonfat plain yogurt
1 tablespoon honey
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 scoop whey or soy protein powder (optional)

Place all of the ingredients in a blender, and blend until smooth.

Preparation time, about 3 minutes.  Makes one or two servings.

Hot Buttered Rum

'Tis the season -- for sniffles and sore throats.  Hot buttered rum is quickly becoming our grown-ups' drink of choice when suffering from a cold.  I don't suppose it gets us better any quicker, but it certainly makes the time pass by more pleasantly!  It has a wonderful, heady aroma, buttery and spicy with the rich base notes of rum.

There was a funny story on the post where I found the basis for this recipe, that there are two schools of thought in making hot buttered rum, one where you stir in more batter until your arm hurts, and the other where you stir in more rum until your friends panic.  For myself, I am not much of a drinker, so that 2 spoonsful of batter and 1 of rum in a coffee-sized mug will suit me very nicely, thank you.  David increases this by 1 spoonful each.  (Note that there will be sediment at the bottom of the cup, being the ground spices, with the more batter you use.)  Experiment to find the proportions that please you. 

Make the batter ahead of time, and store it in the fridge.

Hot Buttered Rum

2 1/4 cups brown sugar, packed
1/2 pound butter, room temperature
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon cloves
1 teaspoon cardamom
good-quality rum, such as Myer's Original Dark

For the "batter," cream together the butter and sugar.  Add the spices and mix well.  Cover and refrigerate until needed, up to three months.

To make the drink, fill a mug 1/2 to 3/4 full of boiling water.  Add 2 or 3 spoonsful of the batter, according to your taste.  Stir well, until the batter dissolves.  Top off with rum, to taste.

Makes about 3 1/4 cups of batter.  Active work time for the batter, about 5 minutes.