Kitchen Conundrum

Green Market Baking Book and Giveaway!

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GMBB Cover ImageCongratulations to Lisa @FitintheMidwest! You have won The Green Market Baking Book!

With the incredible increase in interest in eating locally grown and health mindfully, The Green Market Baking Book by Laura Martin is a wonderful cookbook for any kitchen. This book gives people alternatives to baking with refined sugar and artificial sugar products, while encouraging them to support their local food communities. A contributional effort spearheaded by Ms. Martin, this book features 100 mouthwatering sweet and savory baked treats chosen from the best chefs and bakers from across America — all created from locally produced sustainable whole foods using natural sweeteners, and featuring dairy- and gluten-free treats along with vegan and low-fat variations.

The book is broken down into 11 sections beginning with the chapter, Answers to A Few Questions. This section does a great job of explaining why not to use sugar and why you should use organic. Additional sections discuss Ingredients, Stocking the Pantry and Substitutions. There is a great Substitution Chart, helpful in showing you how much natural sweetener to use to replace sugars in your recipes.

The heart of the book are the sections devoted to each season, aptly titled, Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter, featuring how to’s on selecting that season’s ripest produce and recipes highlighting those seasonal flavors we all love.

Some of the wonderful seasonal recipes included in the book are:

  • Alice Waters’s Whole Grain Waffles
  • Dan Barber’s Vegetable Frittata with Potato Crust (wheat-free)
  • Christine Carroll’s Plum–Walnut Upside-down Cake
  • Rozanne Gold’s Yellow Squash and Sundried Tomato “Quiche”
  • Carol Anne Wasserman’s Chocolate Cupcakes with Dark Chocolate Ganache Frosting (dairy-free)
  • Cynthia Wong’s Honey-Figgy Toffee Pudding
  • Terese Allen’s Rosemary Buttermilk Biscuits for Organic Valley
  • Meredith McCarty’s Toasted Almond and Orange Cake with Orange Glaze (dairy-free)
  • Shermer Pecans’ Apple Oat Pecan Drops (vegan)
  • Linton Hopkins’s Rosemary Olive Bread (dairy-free)

Near the end of the book are a few pages highlighting Growing Your Own and Preserving The Harvest. From soil tips to the best freezing and canning methods, this book really leaves nothing out! The Appendix points you to various suppliers for Organic Baking products and how to find your local Farmer’s Markets.

Two of the things I really liked were the Sample Menu page, featuring recipes for nearly every occasion, and the drawings. While I usually love to devour cookbooks because of their beautiful photographs, this book features very lovely hand drawn pictures of fruits and vegetables. It suits the cookbook well.

Here is a very easy recipe from the book for a delicious topping that can be used over Shortcakes, Ice Cream or Pancakes:

 

Honey Strawberry Topping

Ingredients

3 cups local organic strawberries, hulled and sliced

1/3 cup local mild flavored honey (such as orange blossom or wildflower)

Method

Pour honey over fruit and let stand 30-40 minutes until ready to serve.

Reprinted from Green Market Baking Book © 2011 by Laura C. Martin, with permission by Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.

[/recipe]

See? EASY! And yet, so delicious!

There is a delightful recipe for Shortcakes in the book that would go perfectly with this sauce!  You can buy the book HERE, or I happen to have one copy of the book that you can WIN! Yes, win!

Mandatory entry – just leave us a comment here telling us a recipe that you make that uses locally grown produce.

Additional entries can be earned by completing these steps and leaving a comment telling us you did so with your links. Please be sure to leave a separate comment for each entry!

  • ”Liking” Kitchen Conundrum on Facebook.
  • Recommend this giveaway in your status update on Facebook.
  • “Following” @kitchconundrum on Twitter
  • Tweet about the giveaway
  • Subscribe to Kitchen Conundrum’s RSS feed

That’s a total of 6 entries you can earn!

Good luck!

One random winner will be chosen via ‘And the winner is’ plugin. Once the winner is chosen, the winner will be contacted via email and if winner does not respond within 48 hours, winner forfeits prize and another winner will be chosen at random.

This giveaway is open to U.S. residents only. Please be sure to leave a separate comment on this post for EACH entry. All entries will be checked and verified. You must enter a valid email address or Twitter handle so we can notify you of your win, otherwise you forfeit the prize and another winner will be chosen. You have until 11:59pm EST on Saturday, May 28, 2011 to enter.

Disclosure: We received one copy of this cookbook to review and one copy to give away. We did not receive any other compensation for hosting this giveaway.

Good Luck!

Ultimate Fajitas

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We love to make fajitas because the kids really enjoy making their own variations using lots of different ingredients. Then, they can wrap everything up and eat with their hands.  Who doesn’t love to eat with their hands?!  It’s fun for all of them.

We call these Ultimate Fajaitas because we try to get as many garnishes into the wrap as possible without losing anything out the sides. Sometimes, we just have to eat them open faced.

Fajitas-3

I am listing all the ingredients we serve with them- but you can pick and choose what you like to use in yours.

 

Ingredients

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts cut into thin strips

2 tbs vegetable oil

1 large red onion, sliced

4 mild green or red Chili peppers, seeded and sliced into strips

2 Red peppers, cut into strips

2 Yellow peppers, cut into strips

1 Green pepper, cut into strips

8 flour tortilla, warmed

Method

Heat the oil in a heavy skillet; cook the chicken strips over high heat, 5-7 minutes, or until fully cooked. Drain and remove to a plate.

Add the onion and chili peppers to the pan and sauté over high heat for 2 minutes. Add the bell peppers cooking over high heat for 4 minutes or until the vegetables have begun to have a blackened look around the edges.

Return the chicken to the pan and heat until sizzling hot. Serve right away, with warm tortillas, and many, many garnish options.

Small Bowls filled with the following garnishes:

1/2 cup sour cream

Guacamole (preferably homemade!) or avocado slices

1 bunch cilantro, broken up

1 large vine ripe tomato, diced

1 can black beans, heated through

1 can refried beans, heated through

Fresh corn kernels, roasted or 1 can corn, drained completely and heated in a large skillet.

Diced jalapenos

Diced Ancho chilies

Taco sauce

Montery Jack cheese, shredded

Cheddar cheese, shredded

Yellow rice, cooked per package instructions

 

Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cinnamon Buns, A Mother’s Day Treat

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Cinnamon BunsYesterday I awoke to the scent of hot cinnamon buns wafting up the stairs to my room. That smell will send you deeper into dreamy bliss!  They were baking in the oven and soon arrived to my bedside on a plate drenched in a sticky, gooey glaze of sweet goodness.  Along with a fresh pot of coffee and three, very excited children bounding into bed with me armed with homemade cards and gifts, it was a perfect Mother’s Day morning. These were actually even better today once the glaze had time to soak in, making them even sweeter. Ten seconds in the microwave makes them extra gooey all over again.

This recipe begins with a Basic Sweet Dough that can be used for tasty coffee cakes or sweet buns.

 

Ingredients

 

Basic Sweet Dough

½ cup sugar

2 packages dry yeast

1 ½ tsp. salt

7 cups flour

1 ¼ cup apple juice

1 cup butter or margarine

3 eggs, room temperature

1 tsp. Spice Islands Vanilla Extract

1 tbs. vegetable oil

Filling

 

½ cup brown sugar, firmly packed

½ cup walnuts, chopped

2 tsp Spice Islands Cinnamon, Ground Saigon

¼ cup butter or margarine

Glaze

1 cup confectioner’s sugar

4 tsp. water

 

Method for the Basic Sweet Dough

In the bowl of your mixer, combine the sugar, yeast, salt, 2 cups of the flour.

Meanwhile, in a 1-quart saucepan, heat the apple juice and butter until just warm.

Gradually add the warm liquid to the dry ingredients blending with the mixer at a low speed until just combined then increase speed to medium and beat for 2 minutes.

Add the eggs, the Spice Islands Vanilla Extract and 2 ½ cups of the flour. Continue beating for another few minutes. Add a final 2 cups of flour and beat together until combined.

Onto a lightly floured board, turn out the dough kneading for 10 minutes until smooth and elastic. Add additional flour as necessary.

Place the dough in a well oiled bowl and turn the dough to cover in the oil. Cover and let rise in a warm place for about an hour or until doubled in bulk.

When ready, punch the dough down and allow it to rest for 15 minutes.

 

Method for Preparing the Cinnamon Buns

 

Prepare the filling in a medium bowl by combining the brown sugar, walnuts and Spice Islands Cinnamon, Ground Saigon

Melt the butter in a small saucepan over low heat. .

Place the dough on a floured board. Roll it out to form a 12” x 18” rectangle.

Brush the top of the dough with the melted butter and sprinkle the Spice Islands Cinnamon, Ground Saigon and sugar mixture over the top.

Beginning with the long side (the 18” side) roll the dough, jelly roll fashion, pinching the seams to close it.

With the seam sides down, cut the roll crosswise into 18- 1” slices. Pinch the outer seam together on the bottom of each sliced bun.  This way the centers will puff up when baking, but the filling won’t spill out.

Place the rolls into a cake pan, either square or round.  Cover and let rise for about 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.  Bake until light golden brown, about 30-35 minutes.

While the buns are baking; prepare the glaze by combining the confectioner’s sugar and the water.

Remove the buns from the oven and pour the glaze over the top. Serve warm to grand applause and smiles!

 

Disclosure: We recently received several awesome spices from Spice Islands to try and review.  We have been busily creating recipes to go along with all the different varieties of spices and you will see them over the next few weeks as we post about them.

Today’s recipe was greatly enhanced by Spice Islands Pure Vanilla Extract made from beans grown in Madagascar. This vanilla extract is wonderful in that there is no corn syrup added and it is naturally sweet. David Lebovitz wrote an incredibly informative blog post about this extract and the process it goes through to become the great extract it is.

The other spice that graced these sweet buns is cinnamon, Spice Islands Cinnamon, Ground Saigon. Cinnamon is one of my favorite spices.  It imparts a spicy sweetness and warm a aroma that not only enhances baked goods, but several meat dishes as well.  Spice Islands Cinnamon comes from the forests of Vietnam, which is known for its premium cassia (a cinnamon tree). Because this variety of cassia is high in volatile oils, the Vietnamese cassia trees produce a deep, reddish-brown cinnamon with an intense fragrance and a sweet but almost chili like flavor. I can not wait to make my Cinnamon Spiced Baked Chicken and Rice with it and share it with you! Meanwhile, I have to go reheat some Cinnamon Buns. They are calling my name!

Enjoy!