Jul 20

Easy Homemade Peach Sorbet…All Year Round (With Only a Food Processor)

There are few things more refreshing then a Peach Sorbet whether enjoyed on a hot summer day or as a nice simple dessert after a heavy winter dinner. Many of us do not own ice cream maker, but most of us have a food processor in the kitchen. With a food processor, frozen peaches, simple syrup and containers with lids you can be enjoying Homemade Peach Sorbet before you go to bed that evening.

The most important thing to remember is that time and speed is critical to making an easy Peach Sorbet at home in the kitchen with a food processor.

To make Peach Sorbet at home, you will need 6 packed Cups of frozen peeled peaches and 1 ½ Cups of simple syrup. To make the syrup in a small saucepan bring 2 Cups of  water with 2 Cups of white sugar and over medium heat dissolve the sugar into the water, stirring regularly and making sure that the solution does not boil. It is best to make the simple syrup before, with the syrup chilled in the refrigerator. Some recipes suggest using lemon juice, but for this Peach Sorbet it is not required. Whether you purchased frozen peeled and sliced peaches from the grocery store or have prepared your own frozen fresh picked peaches the key is not to allow the peaches to thaw. The frozen peaches can be tempered, but should be more frozen then thawed.

Skin and Stone Removed from Frozen Peaches

Frozen Peaches

Depending on the size of your food processor you will prepare the peach sorbet in two to three batches. Separate the peaches and chilled syrup into equal portions. Add the first portion of frozen peaches and chilled syrup to the food processor and run the machine for 15 – 20 seconds. If the mixture is not smooth, either remove any large chucks of frozen peaches, or fold the mixture into itself and turn on the food processor for another 10 – 15 seconds. The peach sorbet mixture should look like ice slush.

Frozen Peaches and Simple Syrup in the Food Processor

Frozen Peaches and Simple Syrup in the Food Processor being Blended Together

Quickly pour the sorbet mixture into a large bowl and repeat the process for the remaining portions of the frozen peaches and chilled syrup. Once you have finished processing the frozen peaches and chilled syrup, quickly mix the sorbet mixture in the bowl. Then ladle the peach sorbet into containers with air tight lids and place in the back of the freezer.

Homemade Peach Sorbet made in the Food Processor ready to be Frozen

Homemade Peach Sorbet made in the Food Processor ready to be Frozen

Allow the Peach Sorbet to freeze for a minimum of eight hours or more before serving. The result should be a frozen dessert with a small granular texture that has the flavor of fresh picked peaches with just a hint of sweetness. Whether you make this dessert in the summer or for a nice surprise in the middle of winter it does not matter. All you need is a food processor, frozen peaches and to be quick.

Homemade Peach Sorbet in a Bowl

Homemade Peach Sorbet in a Bowl using only a Food Processor

To make this Peach Sorbet more sophisticated and a real adult treat, replace the simple syrup with the same amount of Peach Schnapps or Homemade Peach Liqueur.

 

Jul 19

Mini Homemade Sausage Rolls

A sausage roll is a uniquely British snack, similar to American ‘pigs in a blanket’, Dutch saucijzenbroodjes or the Czech Klobasnek (a kolache filled with meat), however instead of bread or pancake dough the sausage is encased in puff pastry. A little side note, in the UK, ‘pigs in a blanket’ are small cocktail sausages wrapped in bacon.

Recently for our Jubilee garden party we just had to serve mini buffet style sausage rolls. However there is nowhere in the US that sells them. Back in the UK, every supermarket freezer section has them ready for cooking, every deli has pre-made ones, and every baker will serve hot ones as snacks on the go. Given the abundance and availability of sausage rolls, it is no wonder that no one makes them anymore.

You could us any type of sausage meat for a sausage roll, however British pork sausage meat will give the sausage rolls a more authentic flavour. I made some Scotch eggs last year and found a way of creating sausage meat with the correct flavourings, however if you do opt to use pre-made sausages, such as bangers, then remove the meat from the casings, otherwise the sausage rolls will become deformed in the oven.

Mini Homemade Sausage Rolls

Ingredients

  • British Pork Sausage Meat
    • 1 lb (450g) of ground pork
    • 2 tsp ground white pepper
    • 1 tsp ground mace
    • 1 tsp rubbed sage
    • 1 tsp ground ginger
    • 0.25 tsp ground nutmeg
    • 1 tsp salt
  • 2 sheets of frozen puff pastry
  • 1 egg, beaten

Method
Mix together the pork, pepper, mace, salt, ginger, sage and nutmeg. Cover the meat and leave it the the refrigerator for at least an hour. Defrost the puff pastry. On a well floured surface lay out a sheet of puff pastry and gently roll it out to about a 12″ x 9″ (30cm x 23cm) rectangle. Take some pork sausage meat and roll it into a long sausage about 9″ (23cm) long and about the thickness of your thumb. Place the sausage along the shorter edge of the puff pastry, leaving about a 0.25″ (0.5cm) gap along the edge.

Arranging the sausagemeat

Arranging the sausage-meat on the puff pastry

Cut the pastry about 1.5″ (3.5cm) away from the sausage meat along the length of the sausage. Roll the pastry around the sausage and cut it into 4 equal sized sections. Brush some beaten egg along the seam of the sausage roll, press and stick the pastry together.

Sealing the edge of a sausage roll

Sealing the edge of a sausage roll

Place the sausage rolls, seam side down on a greased baking tray.

Sausage rolls ready for the oven

Sausage rolls ready for the oven

Brush each sausage roll with some beaten egg and the cook in a 400F (200C) oven for 20 to 25 mins or until they are puffed up and golden brown. Allow them to cool slightly before eating or serve cold.

Mini Homemade Sausage Rolls

Mini Homemade Sausage Rolls

 

Jul 19

Frozen Peaches…Easy Store, Easy Peel, Easy Stone Removal

Peeling fresh peaches is in pain. There are some recommended suggestions when peeling fresh peaches and these options are good when requiring fresh peaches. However, if you have too many peaches and you are not going to use or process immediately, then I would suggest freeze the peaches whole and then peel the frozen peaches at a later date. To freeze peaches all you require is enough freezer space to store the peaches. You can place them whole in Ziploc bags, but you can also just place them on baking sheets and allow them to freeze. The skin acts as a barrier and will prevent the peach flesh from experiencing freezer burn.

Frozen Whole Peaches

Frozen Whole Peaches

To peel the whole frozen peaches has to be one of the easiest kitchen experiences I have performed in a long time.Under the stream of cold water hold the peach for about ten seconds bottom up.

Frozen Peach Under Running Water

Frozen Peach Bottoms Up Held Under Running Water

Then with your thumbs apply pressure to the skin and pull away from the center. The skin should peel away with minimal effort. It is that easy.

Skin Being Removed from a Frozen Peach

Skin Being Removed from a Frozen Peach, Apply Pressure with Thumbs, Moving Away from the Center

If there is any remaining skin attached to the peach flesh, continue running cold water over the peach and with your thumbs pull away the peach skin.

Skin being Removed from a Frozen Whole Peach

Frozen Peach with Skin Almost Completely Removed

Place the skinned peaches in a bowl.

Skinless Frozen Peaches in a Bowl

Skinless Frozen Peaches in a Bowl

Now that you have a bowl of skinned frozen peaches, how does one removed the stone from the fruit? Through trial and error and found that the easiest way is to allow the frozen skinned peaches to temper (thaw) for five to ten minutes. This allows for the flesh to thaw just enough where you can press down with your thumbs and the flesh will separate from the stone with little difficulty. You can use a knife, but remember to apply just a little amount of pressure when splitting the semi-frozen peach in halves / quarters. If not, you will have a frozen skinned peach flying through the kitchen.

Skin and Stone Removed from Frozen Peaches

Skin and Stone Removed from Frozen Peaches

Now that you have a bowl of frozen peach flesh, with skin and stone removed, what can you make? Peach Sorbet (with Ice Cream Maker or Food Processor only), Peach Ice Cream, Peach Daiquiris, Peach Smoothies, Peach Margaritas and Peach Muffins are the first ideas that some to mind. You could even make Peach Fruit Leather (suggested to not remove the skin, but just thaw and remove the stone) I have read that it is difficult to make Peach Jam from frozen peaches, but I will attempt to defy conventional wisdom at a later date.

 

Jul 18

Low fat, healthy blueberry muffins

Mmmm. I love blueberry muffins. It’s my favourite treat to buy if out shopping and feeling like I need a little boost to keep going. I love how the berries burst during cooking and colour the muffins with the tart purple juice that helps counter the sweetness.

This recipe for blueberry muffins has so much wholesome goodness in it, the resulting muffins must be good for you. For instance blueberries, are very rich in anti-oxidants and contain more than most other fruits, the oats and whole-wheat flour are a great source of dietary fibre, and using low fat natural yoghurt helps cut down on the amount of fat that normal muffins use in their ingredients.

Low fat, healthy blueberry muffins

Low fat, healthy blueberry muffins

Blueberry muffin Recipe

Ingredients

  • 3oz (75g) plain (all purpose) flour
  • 4oz (125g) of wholemeal (whole-wheat) flour
  • 5oz (150g) of golden caster sugar
  • 0.5 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tbsp baking powder
  • 3oz (75g) of blueberries
  • 1 egg
  • 3oz (75g) of rolled oats
  • 2 fl oz (50ml) canola or sunflower oil
  • 5 fl oz (150ml) natural yoghurt
  • 0.5 tsp vanilla extract

Method

  1. First pre-heat the oven to 400F (200C). Line a 12 hole muffin tray with 8 paper muffin cases or an 24 hole muffin tray with 24 mini muffin cases.

    Muffin cases

    Muffin cases

  2. Add the plain flour, wholemeal flour, baking powder, baking soda to a bowl and mix together. Stir in the sugar and most of the oats, leaving some for decorating the tops of the muffins. In a jug, combine the yoghurt, egg, oil and vanilla extract and pour into a well made in the middle of the flour mixture.

    Mixing the muffin ingredients

    Mixing the muffin ingredients

  3. Stir until the mixture is just moistened. Don’t worry, the mixture is supposed to be ‘lumpy’. Carefully fold the blueberries into the mixture.

    Blueberry muffin batter

    Blueberry muffin batter

  4. Spoon the batter into each of the paper muffin cases to just about three quarters full Sprinkle on the remaining rolled oats onto the top of the muffin batter.

    Blueberry muffins ready for the oven

    Blueberry muffins ready for the oven

  5. Bake for 16 to 18 minutes for large muffins or 12 to 14 minutes for the mini ones until risen and a cocktail stick inserted into the cooked muffin comes out clean. Cool or serve warm.

    Blueberry muffins cooling

    Blueberry muffins cooling

 

Jul 18

Arby’s 5 Strip Ultimate BLT, More like BLB (Bacon Lettuce Bread)

I should have known that I was setting myself up for disappointment. The inexplicable very long wait through the drive-through that evening should have been my first indicator that the Arby’s 5 Strip Ultimate BLT was not going to live up to my tempered expectation of a fast food sandwich.

Arby's BLT Sandwich

Arby’s 5-Strip Ultimate BLT

I was correct; the BLT from Arby’s was a true let down. Whereas Arby’s has produced some very good Market Fresh Sandwiches, their BLT did not even come close to some of their other Market Fresh Sandwich offerings. The one highlight to the sandwich was that the bacon was generous and flavorful, but that is where the goodness stopped. What makes a BLT (Bacon Lettuce Tomato) sandwich so good is the perfectly balanced combination of those three primary ingredients combined with the bread and mayonnaise. Unfortunately, there was little presence of the tomatoes and those slices are better described as shaved versus thick cut with the “ripe” tomatoes being the mealy cardboard textured tomatoes that are more often than not served in fast food restaurants. With the absence of the tomatoes, the bread which was not toasted was too dominant.

Cross Section of an Arby's BLT Sandwich

Cross Section of an Arby’s 5-Strip BLT

This is not the first time that a fast food restaurant’s “limited time offering” has failed to deliver the minimum hope and expectation. I am not looking for gourmet food at a fast food restaurant, but I am looking for more than disappointment. I am hoping that I have learned my lesson and when eating at Arby’s will stick with the time tested Market Fresh Sandwiches and stay away from their “limited time offerings” such as the 5 Strip Ultimate BLT and the Reuben.

Arby's BLT Sandwich Wrapped

Arby’s BLT Sandwich Wrapped

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