yogurt

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I have been trying to bake once a week, and with an abundance of fresh maple syrup from Trader Joe’s and some from my aunt in Vermont, I decided on a Maple Yogurt Pound Cake from the site Not Derby Pie.

Maple Yogurt Pound Cake

The pound cake consists of only a few ingredients with yogurt and maple syrup being front and center. I absolutely positively love using Fage 2% Greek yogurt for everything from breakfast to dips, as a substitute for sour cream, and in baking. It is amazing, and every time I eat it again, I remember that no other Greek yogurt measures up for me.

maple syrup

Mixing up this cake was kind of fun. All of the wet ingredients, except for the oil, went together at once. And when I added the dry ingredients, the batter got REALLY thick.

whisk the eggs

maple syrup

I tried to get a good photo of the maple syrup without my hand, but I couldn’t. I just love the amber color of maple syrup.

maple syrup

Stirring the oil in last was part of the recipe instructions, and because the batter was so thick, it gave me quite the workout!

maple pound cake batter

My one and only loaf pan was occupied with green meatloaf leftovers, so I had to use a pie plate instead for the cake. The batter fit perfectly.

maple yogurt pound cake

In the end, this cake smelled SO good cooking, and it turned out of the pan so easily, thanks to the generous amount of butter I used to grease the pan. Considering most of my baking adventures end with something stuck in a pan, I am happy with this.

The flavors of the cake are great, but when we ate it last night, it was a bit dry. I had a glass of milk with it, but I am wondering if some sort of glaze or frosting might help make it less dry? I wouldn’t want anything too sweet because I do love the maple and vanilla flavors in this cake.

Any thoughts on how to jazz up a dry cake? Have you ever gone to Vermont during maple syrup season to harvest syrup and eat pancakes and do all sorts of fun outdoor things? I have always wanted to do this, but our schedule never seems to match up with the harvest.

Recipe from Not Derby Pie

Maple Yogurt Cake
inspired by Bon Appetit

1/2 cup maple syrup, preferably grade B
3/4 cup yogurt
1/4 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup oil

Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 350°F. Generously butter 8 1/2×4 1/2×2 1/2-inch metal loaf pan.

Combine syrup, yogurt, eggs, sugar, vanilla, and lemon zest. Stir or whisk to combine. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Add to wet ingredients and stir to incorporate. Add oil, and fold gradually until oil absorbs into the batter.

Place cake on baking sheet in oven and bake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 50 minutes. Cool cake in pan on rack 5 minutes. Cut around pan sides to loosen cake. Turn cake out onto rack. Turn cake upright on rack and cool completely. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Wrap and store at room temperature.)

Tags: baking, cake, Food, maple syrup, maple syrup pound cake, recipe, yogurt

When it is this cold out, the only food I want is hot or at the very least warm. We can live on raw salads all summer long, but for the most part, in the winter salads make me feel cold and hungry, wanting more.

As my official entry in the Olivia’s Organics Healthier Holiday Recipe Contest, I decided to make a beet and spinach salad with some fun toppings, wheat berries, toasted, spiced walnuts, and an orange-yogurt dressing.

Ingredients (serves 2)

4 cups Olivia’s Organics baby spinach

2 large beets, boiled, peeled, and chopped into half moons

1 cup shelled walnuts

1 cup wheat berries, prepared according to package directions

3/4 cup European style plain yogurt

juice of 1 orange

1 tsp each brown sugar and cayenne pepper

red beets

I started by boiling, peeling, cutting, and setting aside the beets. Next, I toasted the walnuts in a frying pan on low heat for a few minutes, tossing them at the end with a drizzle of olive oil, brown sugar, and cayenne.

walnuts

While the nuts and beets cooled, I mixed up a simple but flavorful dressing made of plain yogurt and freshly squeeze orange juice. This idea was based on a dressing we had at The Citizen Public House last weekend, and it is now definitely a favorite of mine. So easy!

plain yogurt

navel orange

I had my wheat berries soaking in hot water for the entire day, so I actually didn’t even cook them. I like them to be very chewy, but if you prefer to cook them, the package directions should do the trick.

wheat berries

Once everything else was prepped, I simply wilted the baby spinach in a frying pan with about 1/4 cup of water. I wilted it down for quite awhile, but you can obviously feel free to cook the spinach as little or as much as you would like.  Smile

winter salad

When it was time to plate, I made a mound of baby spinach and carefully laid the beets across the top, followed by a sprinkling of wheat berries. Around the edges of the plate, I sprinkled toasted walnuts and drizzled the orange-yogurt dressing.

winter salad

This is a salad that stands up to the cold, tastes great, and offers quite the nutritional punch with lots of fiber, vitamins, and some protein as well. Beets and spinach together really make this a super salad that is made more lively by the creamy orange dressing. If you need a little more flavor, add some honey! This recipe could easily be increased and served on a big white serving platter to be passed around as a starter to a holiday meal, or like we did, eaten as a meal on its own.

I hope you like my entry for the contest! What are some of your healthier holiday secrets or recipe ideas?

Tags: beets, Food, healthy, Olivia's Organics, oranges, salad, spinach, vegetables, Vegetarian, walnuts, wheat berries, winter salad, yogurt

As long as there is a farmers’ market to photograph, I will be blogging farmers’ market photos. I hope that’s okay with all of you. I never get bored of looking at beautiful food, and it really doesn’t get more beautiful.

This past Friday, as usual, I hit up my normal Copley haunts, Siena Farms and Atlas Farms, in addition to some others for my weekend produce. Since my husband was working all weekend, I wanted to make a little special vegetarian something for myself, and that I did. There are lot’s of photos, but I promise there is a recipe at the end 😉

But first, the market. Siena Farms had this beautiful fennel, perfect for soups and salads.

fennel

Beautiful yellow tomatoes

gold tomatoes

Some of my favorite greens

collards and kale

Garlic, one of those ingredients I can’t live without

garlic

wildflowers

An Epicurious.com cooking demo (that I missed) by Chef Benjamin Knack from Hell’s Kitchen

image

Strawberry, peach, and blackberry tarts that were to die for

image

Little heirloom tomatoes

image

And now a recipe for Zucchini Pancakes with Spiced Yogurt

Zucchini Pancakes

1 large zucchini, grated

2 eggs

1 cup Panko breadcrumbs

pinch salt and pepper

The pancakes are simple. Mix all of the ingredients together. In a frying pan, add a tiny bit of olive oil just to thinly coat the pan. Using a spoon add several scoops of the zuucchini mix to the pan, and use the back of the spoon to pat them down into flatter cakes. Cook on medium heat for a few minutes, 3-4 depending the thickness of the cake. Then flip over to the other side. Keep flipping until each side has a little golden color.

grated zucchini

Top the finished pancakes with spiced yogurt (and hot sauce, if you want to eat them like I did!)

Spiced Yogurt

1 cup Greek yogurt

1 TSP each curry powder, garlic powder, cayenne pepper

3 TSP olive oil

image

The pancakes were so light and fluffy, and the cool spiced yogurt was a perfect accompaniment. I only wish the oil didn’t make it look so ugly. . . really it was delicious!

I enjoyed a nice quiet evening at home with dinner at a book on the deck. I missed my husband, but alone time can definitely be nice!

What is your favorite way to spend your alone time?

Tags: dinner, pancakes, recipe, spices, Vegetarian, yogurt, zucchini

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