Strawberry Basil Muffins

It's that time of year, when the strawberries are appearing at great prices in the supermarket, and the herbs are growing!  We have an abundance of basil these days, and while our oldest likes to eat it straight (aka freshly picked), I prefer to incorporate basil into my cooking.  I've never put basil into any baking, but felt the need to do so this week.  I knew that strawberries and basil are friends, so I thought I'd like to try the two together in a muffin.  A little internet searching and I came across this recipe, which I modified and updated slightly.  Here is my version:

Strawberry Basil Muffins

1 3/4 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

2 eggs
1/2 cup vanilla yogurt
1/4 cup butter, melted and cooled
1 teaspoon vanilla


1 1/4 cup fresh strawberries, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh basil, chopped

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Beat eggs, add in the melted butter, yogurt and vanilla.

Combine the dry ingredients, add to the wet ingredients.  Stir just to combine.  

Mix in the strawberries and basil, again, stir just to combine.

Spoon batter into prepared muffin tins (I use paper liners).

Bake for 18-20 minutes, or the muffins start to brown and a toothpick comes out clean.

VERDICT:
Another hit with my boys!  Next time, I might just add in a little more basil just to see how the flavour changes.  

P Double B Turkey Burgers

Burgers, burgers, burgers.  I am sure that my boys would eat burgers, burgers, burgers a few times a week!  Don't get me wrong, I too love a good burger, but not all.the.time.  I like variety!  After all, it's the spice of life, isn't it? ;-) 

With the frequency of grilling slowing down now that the weather is changing, I thought it timely to try a little variation on our usual burger.  And, since it's Thanksgiving (Canadian), I figured also a good time to try a little turkey, maybe inspire some folks to try somthing a little different!

This time I came up with what we've called the "P Double B Turkey Burger"...read on to see what the P and B's are!

1 lb ground turkey
1/3 cup panko/dried bread crumbs
1 egg
1/4 cup basil (fresh) - chopped
3 slices bacon, cooked (crispy)
1/3 cup parmesan cheese (fresh, grated)
Pepper - to taste

Cook your bacon, remove from pan, pat with paper towel and allow to cool.

In a large bowl, mix the turkey, panko, egg, basil, parmesan and pepper.  Use your hands, get in there and mix it good!  Crumble the bacon and mix into the turkey mixture.  Form patties. 

Preheat your grill.  When you are ready to put your patties on the grill, be sure to oil them with a little olive oil (on each side).  Grill, and serve!

VERDICT:
These were a nice change from beef!  I am a beef fan, but every once in a while it's nice to shake things up.  We could really taste all the flavours - the parmesan, the basil, and of course, the bacon! (P...double B). 

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Pesto

Would you believe that I have never made pesto before?  It always sounded so "foreign" to me...just the name sounded complicated.  Boy was I WRONG!

I had an abundance of basil this year (we love our basil!) and I wasn't sure what to do with it.  I do have plans to freeze some for winter use, but I wanted to use up some of the fresh basil too.  Enter the idea of pesto.  Pulled out some cookbooks just to read what goes into a basic pesto, and came up with my own variation.  Simple, basic.  Some of the recipes called for pine nuts, but with a nut allergy in the house and a baby who hasn't been exposed to many nuts, I opted to leave those out.  And especially since I fed my allergic husband alder smoked salmon and apparently he is allergic to alder...I'm on heightened awareness.  Yikes...bad wife.  Though in my defense, I didn't know about alder trees, I only knew about birch trees!

Onto the pesto...

2 cups basil

1/4 cup parsley
3 cloves garlic
1/2 cup parmesan cheese, fresh & grated
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/3 cup olive oil

In your handy-dandy food processor, throw in your basil and parsley.  Chop away!  Crush your garlic and add it to the processor.  Add in the cheese.  In a measuring cup, measure out your olive oil and lemon juice, stir to mix, and slowly add to the processing basil/parsley/garlic/parmesan, until a nice "paste" forms.

Just like that...easy.  it takes longer to wash the food processor than to actually make the pesto!

VERDICT:
Easy and tasty!  If I knew then what I know now...we would have been making pesto for ages!  So good!  And I'm already thinking about what kinds of variations I could try! And what a beautiful, fresh looking green!  Not bad for an unedited iPhone picture!

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Summertime Pasta with Tomato & Basil

My most favourite cookbook series is the Whitewater Cooks series.  A very dear friend introduced the series to me, and she has given me two of the books as gifts.  My husband bought me the other.  The recipes are great, the photos are lovely, and the books are just beautiful.  The author is from British Columbia (the province where I live) and she uses ingredients that we can easily find, even people who are from smaller towns.  It's great! 

Last summer we had an abundance of tomatoes in our garden.  Last year was a stellar tomato crop, our little garden gave us over 1500 cherry tomatoes (4 different varieties)...I stopped counting at 1500 (yes...I counted, I couldn't believe our crop!).  Everyone had a gazillion tomatoes, so I wasn't able to share our bounty as much as I would have liked.  I turned some into salsa (YUM!) and we ate a lot of salads with tomatoes.  Then I found the recipe for Summertime Pasta in the Whitewater Cooks book.  And it became an instant favourite!  Here is the recipe (it is SO EASY):

½ cup olive oil
3 garlic cloves, sliced or minced (or more if you love garlic)
2 cups cherry tomatoes cut in half
Sea salt (to taste)
Fresh pepper (to taste)
Fresh basil, chopped (to taste)
1 cup asiago cheese
1 package spaghetti or other thin pasta

In the morning, cut cherry tomatoes and chop basil, put into a large bowl. Add salt and pepper to taste (we use Epicure’s Chili Garlic Sea Salt and the 4 Pepper Blend). In a frying pan over medium low heat, heat olive oil. Add garlic to the olive oil. Cook for about a minute, just long enough to infuse the garlic and oil. Transfer oil and garlic to the bowl of tomatoes. Cover with plastic wrap and let the mixture sit at room temperature all day.

At dinnertime, cook and drain your pasta. Add the pasta to the tomato mixture and toss to combine. Serve with freshly grated asiago cheese. If you find asiago cheese too strong, try a different cheese, such as parmesan or mozzarella.

We usually serve the pasta with a grilled chicken, makes for all around nice, healthy meal.

VERDICT:
This dish is a HUGE hit in our house, and I can see it being made regularly over the next while with the tomatoes being harvested.  And it is so easy to make - start it in the morning, let it sit all day, cook up some pasta and grill some meat and dinner is done, just like that!

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Italian Cream Soda

At the beginning of the summer, Ann at Sumptuous Spoonfuls shared the recipe for Very Berry Italian Cream Soda.  I picked it as one of my features from Scrumptious Sunday that week...how could I not?  Cream soda, my favourite soda from when I was a kid!  And her photos looked so tasty.  And it was the start of summer, and this summer I made sure we enjoyed all sorts of new summery beverages!  So, not too long after featuring the recipe, we made it....and well...the verdict is below!  Here is the recipe that I used (a little different than the original...we don't have mulberries here, and I didn't substitute any other berries):

Syrup:
Strawberries - approx 1 lb fresh - washed and cut up
Handful of fresh basil leaves - washed
1 cup water
1/2 cup - 3/4 cup sugar (sweeten to taste)
1 teaspoon vanilla

In a saucepan, put the strawberries, basil, water, sugar and vanilla.  Bring to a boil over medium high heat.  Stir occasionally.  Once boiling, reduce the heat to medium and simmer until the berries break down, approximately 15 minutes.  The sauce will be bright red.  Strain the syrup (I strained a few times) and pour into a glass container.  Refrigerate. 

Once the syrup is cool, you are ready to make your cream soda!  Here is what you will need:

Glass
Ice
1/2 cup Club Soda
3 tablespoons syrup (we like ours sweet)
2 tablespoons half & half

Fill your glass with ice.  Add in the club soda and syrup.  Pour the cream over top (and like Ann tells us, watch the beautiful art that the cream makes in the glass!).  Stir, and enjoy!

VERDICT:
These were so so so tasty.  A hit with the whole family!  (well, the baby is too young to have soda)  Ann shared a winner!  We enjoyed several of these over the summer (thanks to a wonderful crop of strawberries and basil in our garden!). I liked mine a little more berry-ful than the orginal recipe - so I often used 3-4 tablespoons on the syrup in my soda.

Baked Not Fried French Fries

My boys have been bugging me for hamburgers for dinner for what seems like forever.  I love a good homemade hamburger, but to me, they are a summer thing.  A juicy BBQ burger, sitting out on the patio, beer in hand....ahhhh...summer, come soon!

Anyways, I finally "caved" today and said yes to their request, so I made my hamburger patties for my husband to grill, and this time I decided to make some homemade fries.  Armed with sweet potatoes and yellow potatoes from the pantry, I put together a little "baked not fried" french fries.  Here's what I did:

1 sweet potato
2 yellow potatoes
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon garlic
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon fresh basil, chopped
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 450F.

Wash sweet potato and yellow potatoes, clear away any blemishes, but do not peel.  Cut into fry-sized pieces and put into a large bowl.

Drizzle olive oil over the cut potatoes.   Add in the red pepper flakes, paprika, garlic, chili powder, basil, salt and pepper, stir well to coat.

Spread onto a foil-lined cookie sheet.  Bake for 20 minutes at 450F.  Take fries out of the oven and flip.  Return fries to the oven, reduce heat to 400F and continue baking for another 15-20 minutes, or until the fries are done to your liking.

VERDICT:
These were oh-so yummy.  We enjoyed them very much, and it was so nice to know exactly what seasonings were on the fries.  They had a little bit of a kick and a little bit of a smoky flavour, which we enjoyed.  Sure, they are a teensy bit more prep than ripping open a bag of frozen fries and baking them in the oven, but they are so worth it!  I'll be doing these again, and am already thinking about other spice combinations to try :-)

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Welcome!

Just passing along a WELCOME to all of you joining me through my new monthly blog at Okanagan4Kids, called Adventures in Cooking.  I hope you enjoy this month's post and recipe for Summertime Tomato & Basil Pasta. 

I invite you to follow me here at Addicted to Recipes, by joining this site via the button on the left.  And feel free to take a look around at all the recipes posted so far, hopefully some will catch your eye! 

Thank you for stopping by, and please come back soon!