Pudding

Yes, I have hopped on the Chia bandwagon and I really love it. One scroll through Pinterest and you’ll see everyone’s eating Chia now. I’ve been mixing both Chia and Flax into my yogurt and hot cereal for years (with nuts, fruit and granola too!), but now Chia has gone rogue and you can eat it on its own! It’s not just a mix-in! Who knew? Only a million other people, apparently!

For chia neophytes such as myself, I searched for recipes and variations to get some inspiration. There are so many pretty pictures of brightly colored chia puddings out there! I learned that chia is pretty adaptable and can mix with any kind of liquid to create a pudding or mousse like texture. Have some fruit juice? No problem, stir in the right amount of chia and leave it for an hour or two and you’ll have a fruit flavored pudding. Blend up a smoothie and add chia and you’ll have a thick enough beverage to eat with a spoon. Mix it with milks, soy, rice, almond or regular and voilà! It’s so easy!

I am not usually one for “trends”. I ate ramps and loved Sriracha long before it became trendy to do so. You’ll never catch me going gluten free or dairy free, unless a team of Dr’s. tells me I have to. (Give up bread and cheese? Not without a fight!) But this is one trend I can get behind.

Recently, I’ve been experimenting with Superfood powders, because we could all use some extra vegetables and fruits in our diets. Not only can you mix them in smoothies, but you can sprinkle them on salads, or just drink them with water or juice. Most taste terrible. And don’t try to smell them. Trust me on this. But if you hide them in something, you can learn to tolerate them. And some, a rare few, actually taste good. Like this one that I spotted at Whole Foods. I bought a single serve packet of Amazing Grass® Green SuperFood® Berry Flavor Drink Powder and it actually tastes like berry. It was a pleasant surprise after seeing the color- sort of a dull camo green. Looks can be deceiving. So I mixed it up with my half of my Chia pudding breakfast bowl. And yum! This one I will buy again.

The key for me is the fresh fruit and the addition of granola- which is really quick to make at the last minute in the toaster oven. Of course you can make it in the real oven and on a much larger scale too. If I haven’t made a batch and I want some granola for my yogurt or cereal, then last minute in the toaster oven will have to do.

As I try more recipes, I’ll share them. But here is the basic recipe for starters. To this you can add 1-2 tsp of any superfood powder.

Basic Vanilla Chia Pudding
1 cup Almond Milk (I used the Vanilla flavored)
¼ cup Chia Seeds
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 tsp agave nectar

Mix together in a large bowl and cover and let sit in the fridge for an hour or overnight. If your pudding is too thick, just add more almond milk a tsp at a time to thin it out to a consistency you prefer.

Top with sliced fruit and/or berries and granola or anything you would like.

Quick Granola
1/2 cup Rolled Oats
1 tsp Brown Sugar
1 tbs Chopped Pecans (or any other nut)
1tbs Shredded Coconut
1 tsp Maple Syrup
2 tsp Vegetable Oil
Pinch of Salt

Mix all of the ingredients together in a small bowl.

Line your toaster oven tray with foil and spread mixture evenly on top of the foil. Toast until lightly golden browned, keeping a close eye on it because it may burn quickly depending on how well your toaster oven “toasts”.

Remove from oven and cool until you can touch it.

Once cool, add some dried gogi berries or other dried fruit (cranberries, raisins, currants, apricots, etc.) to your liking.

Use to top yogurt or a chia breakfast bowl.

Store unused portions in air tight containers for freshness. Will last up to a week.

This recipe was originally supposed to be submitted to the Food52 pudding contest, but today, while I was making the Candied Orange Peel, I realized that 12am on 2/25 actually meant last night and not tonight. So here I am, a day late, having missed the contest completely. Oh well! I will learn to tell time eventually. I am still enjoying this creamy, very sunny pudding that is reminiscent of the long, hot summer days. I have to credit Ari for coming up with the idea for the Creamsicles. They are his favorite treat at the beach, being the perfect combination of vanilla and orange, creamy, cool and refreshing. Sand optional.

We have oranges on the mind and there has been a lot of discussion between us about Orange Julius’ lately too. (Remember those?) We have been snacking on orange citrus fruits of all varieties this entire month. They’ve been incredibly sweet, juicy and really, just beautiful to look at right now versus all the grey we have been seeing lately. It’s a glimpse of summer in hopes that it comes soon.

The idea of a Creamsicle is a vanilla center surrounded by orange. But we have reversed it and layered the orange pudding between two layers of vanilla pudding and topped it with fresh whipped cream and slices of candied orange peels. The candied orange peel recipe has been adapted from Jacques Torres, Dessert Circus.

Candied Orange Peel

This recipe takes about three hours to prepare, so plan accordingly.

Ingredients

2 Navel Oranges or other thick skinned citrus (grapefruit, lemons, limes)

1 cup Sugar

Water

Method

Using a sharp knife or a citrus stripper cut strips from the orange’s peel about ¼ inch wide. Try to make them the same lengths if possible and leave some of the white membrane on the peels but no fruit.

In a small saucepan, add enough water to cover the peels by about 1 inch. Place over high heat and let the water come to a boil. Once boiling, remove from heat and drain the water. Return the peels to the saucepan and add enough fresh water to cover the peels by about 1 inch. Boil again. Repeat this process four times.

While it seems like a lot of work to boil and drain four times, it really goes fast and is very important as the process removes the bitterness from the peels.

After the fourth boil and drain, return the peels to the pan and add enough water again to cover by at least 1 inch. Add the sugar and stir to mix. Reduce the heat to low. Simmer for 2 hours then remove from heat and let cool.

You will now have a thick syrup filled with translucent, tender peels..

You may now keep them in the syrup and store them in the refrigerator in an airtight container for up to three weeks.

When you are ready to use them, they can be served either in the syrup or drained of the syrup and rolled in granulated sugar to coat them. You can use them as garnish either in strips or cut into small pieces. Once they have been rolled in sugar, they can be kept in an airtight container at room temperature for up to three days.

Creamsicle Pudding

For the Vanilla Pudding:

Ingredients

2 tbs sugar

1 tbs cornstarch

1/8 tsp salt

1 cup milk

1 egg yolk, slightly beaten, in a bowl set aside

1 ½ tsp butter

1 vanilla bean

Method

In a small saucepan, combine the sugar, cornstarch and salt. Gradually stir in the milk.

Cook, constantly stirring over medium high heat until thickened and bubbly. Reduce the heat and cook another 3 minutes. Remove from heat.

Temper the egg yolk by adding a little of the hot milk into the bowl with the egg yolk, stirring constantly so as not to cook the yolk. Pour the yolk and milk mixture back into the pan and return to medium heat and bring to a gentle boil. Reduce the heat to low and add in the butter and the vanilla bean and it’s seeds. Continue stirring and remove from the heat.

Cool for 10 minutes and spoon into your dessert dishes about 1/3 the way up for three layers. Cover the saucepan with the remaining pudding as well as the dessert dishes and refrigerate for one hour.

Meanwhile, prepare the orange pudding.

For the Orange Pudding:

Ingredients

2 tbs sugar

1 tbs cornstarch

1/8 tsp salt

3/4 cup milk

1 egg yolk, slightly beaten, in a bowl set aside

1 ½ tsp butter

¼ orange juice concentrate, defrosted

Method

In a small saucepan, combine the sugar, cornstarch and salt. Gradually stir in the milk.

Cook, constantly stirring over medium high heat until thickened and bubbly. Reduce the heat and cook another 3 minutes. Remove from heat.

Temper the egg yolk by adding a little of the hot milk into the bowl with the egg yolk, stirring constantly so as not to cook the yolk. Pour the yolk and milk mixture back into the pan and return to medium heat and bring to a gentle boil. Reduce the heat to low and add in the butter and the orange juice concentrate. Continue stirring and remove from the heat.

Cool for 10 minutes and spoon (or use a piping bag) into your dessert dishes that already have one vanilla layer. Cover the saucepan with the remaining orange pudding (you won’t need this but save it to eat alone!) as well as the dessert dishes and refrigerate for another hour.

When the orange layer is set, you can use the remaining vanilla pudding to spoon (or pipe with a pastry bag) on top of the orange layer.

To serve, top with fresh whipped cream and diced candied orange peels. You can use either the sugared or non sugared peels.

Enjoy!

Renee & Ari

Kitchen Conundrum