Fruit

Pineapple Power Smoothie

~ Marlee And Christie ~ 2 Comments

After a long weekend, the best way to start your day is to enjoy a nice cold smoothie. And who doesn’t love pineapples? Do you know how many different benefits there are to pineapples?

They prevent colds. They can help straighten your gums. Pineapples have tons of anti-cancer properties, they can boost your immune system, they prevent nausea and have tons of other benefits you can read about here.

Pineapple Power Smoothie

Pineapple Power Smoothie 

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 Cup Frozen Pineapple
  • 1 Cup Vanilla Coconut Milk
  • 1 Scoop Vanilla Protein Powder

Step 1: 

Place the pineapple, coconut milk, and protein powder in a blender. Blend on a low speed to break up ingredients.

Step 2: 

Once slighlty blended, turn the blender to high and blender until smooth. About 1 to 2 minutes.

Pineapple Power Smoothie

Strawberry Ice Cream

~ Marlee And Christie ~ Leave a comment

It’s Strawberry season! And what better way to utilize them then to make fresh Strawberry Ice Cream!

Look at how beautiful and plump those are!

Strawberry Ice-cream

strawberry ice cream

This recipe is the perfect fruity treat to cool you down on a hot summer day.

Ingredients 

  • 1 Can Sweetened Condensed Milk (14 oz)
  • 2/3 Cup Evaporated Milk (5 oz)
  • 2 Tablespoons of Sugar
  • 1 1/2 Teaspoons of Vanilla Extract
  • 1 Cup Strawberries Pureed
  • 1 Cup Half and Half
  • 1 Cup Whole Milk or Cream
  • 2 to 4 Drops Red Food Coloring (optional)
  • 1/2 Cup of very finely diced strawberries

Step 1: 

The first thing you want to do is chop and puree your strawberries and set aside in the fridge.

Strawberry Ice-cream

Step 2: 

In a bowl, mix together the condensed milk, evaporated milk, half and half, cream/whole milk, sugar, vanilla and strawberry puree. Mix until all the ingredients are combined.

No pictures, because no matter how much you photograph it, it still looks gross.

Step 3: 

Put in the fridge for at least thirty minutes. But you know how we feel, letting the base sit overnight always produces the best results.

If you’re in a pinch, place in the freezer for 25 minutes and stir occasionally.

Step 4: 

Finely dice your strawberries and sprinkle with a tiny bit of sugar, 1/2 teaspoon to 1 teaspoon should do it. We placed this in the freezer until we were ready to use them, but only put in the freezer while the ice cream is churning, you want them cool, not frozen! 

Step 5: 

When the base is cold, churn to your ice creams manufactures setting. For ours, we churn for about twenty minutes, and then during the last five minutes we add in our cooled strawberries.

Strawberry Ice-cream

Step 6: 

Transfer to a container and freeze for at least three hours before serving.

Strawberry Ice-cream

Strawberry Ice-cream

Meyer Lemon Cake

~ Marlee And Christie ~ Leave a comment

Another Meyer Lemon Recipe? You bet! We love those Meyer Lemons, we’re honestly considering buying a tree so we can have Meyer Lemons ALL THE TIME. Or whenever they’re in season…

Anyways, after we made all that delicious lemon curd, we needed to find recipes that utilized it. And making a mouthwatering lemon cake seemed like the best idea.

What we love about this cake is that there is no frosting and the cake is “naked”. And of course looks very rustic, especially when it’s hot in LA and things tend to get a little melty.

Today’s cake recipe was inspired by the Lemon Velvet Cake from Rock Recipes.

Meyer Lemon Cake

Ingredients

For the Cake: 

  • 1 1/4 cups AP flour (sifted)
  • 1 1/2 cups  Cake Flour (sifted)
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 baking soda
  • 2/3 cup vegetable oil
  • 1/3 cup butter (softened to room temperature)
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla paste or extract
  • 2 teaspoons lemon extract
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1 1/2 cups buttermilk
  • zest of two small lemons or one large lemon (zested)
  • 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
  • Meyer Lemon Curd
  • Whipped Cream

Step 1: 

Preheat the oven to 325°.

Step 2: 

Using baking spray or butter, grease and flour 2 nine inch round cake pans. We use a cake pan with a “arm” so we didn’t have to place parchment paper at the bottom. If you don’t have a cake pan with an arm, place parchment paper at the bottom of the cake pans.

Step 3: 

Sift together both of the flours, baking soda, powder, salt and sugar and set aside in a separate bowl.

Step 4: 

In a stand mixer or using an electric mixer beat together the vegetable oil, butter, vanilla, lemon extract, and lemon juice. If using the a stand mixer, beat on a high speed with a whisk attachment until light and fluffy.

Step 5: 

When the mixture is light and fluffy, add the eggs in one at a time.

Step 6: 

Fold in the lemon zest.

Step 7: 

Always starting with your dry ingredients, alternately mix in your flour mixture and buttermilk. Do not over mix the cake batter, as soon as their are no lumps pour the batter into the prepared cake pans.

Step 8: 

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until the toothpicks come out clean. Allow the cake to cool for 10 minutes in the pans and then remove and let cool completely on racks.

To Assemble: 

After the cakes have cooled completely, poke a couple of holes in the cake  and pour some lemon curd on the cooled cake.

Prepare your whipped cream, once the cream is taking shape beat in two to three tablespoons of your prepared and cooled lemon curd. Once mixed, place in the fridge until cool. If your in a hurry, place in the freezer for 10 minutes.

Now, you can use the whipped lemon curd as the filling and the outside “frosting” or make a fresh batch of whipped cream for the top. We did the whipped lemon curd, and fresh cream on the outside. But it’s really up to you!

Meyer Lemon Cake

Meyer Lemon Curd

~ Marlee And Christie ~ 2 Comments

This curd may be one of the best things we have ever made. And the recipe comes from the Queen Ina Garten, so you know it’s good. And it’s easy.

Last week when we were shopping we saw Meyer Lemons, and this is first time we had seen them in the market so we obviously bought 6 bags of lemons not knowing what we were going to do, but we knew it would be something amazing.

This recipe was the first of many Meyer Lemon Recipes that we will be sharing. We’re honestly looking into buying a Meyer Lemon Tree so we have unlimited Meyer Lemons.

This curd is probably one of the best things you can make with these lemons. It’s so good, you can just eat it with a spoon or on toast.

Meyer Lemon Curd

Meyer Lemon Curd 

What You Need: 

  • A mini food processor (Or Big)
  • Saucepan
  • Wooden Spoon

Ingredients: 

  • 7 Meyer Lemons (3 if using regular lemons)
  • 1/2 cup (from lemons above)
  • Meyer lemon zest (from the lemons used for juice)
  • 1 1/2 cup bakers sugar
  • 1 stick of unsalted butter (room temperature)
  • 4 large eggs
  • 1/8 teaspoon kosher salt

Meyer Lemon Curd

Step 1: 

Because Meyer lemons are smaller you need more to make this curd, zest the lemons and try to avoid zesting the white part of the lemon, which is called the pith. After you zest the lemons cut the lemons in half and juice them.

Meyer Lemon Curd

Step 2: 

In a food processor pulse together the sugar and lemon zest until the lemon zest is fully incorporated to the sugar. The sugar will have a “damp” texture.

Meyer Lemon Curd

Meyer Lemon Curd

Meyer Lemon Curd

Meyer Lemon Curd

Step 3: 

Cream together the butter and then mix in the butter.

Meyer Lemon Curd

Meyer Lemon Curd

Step 4: 

Beat in the eggs one at a time and then add the salt and lemon juice. At this step, the curd is going to look absolutely disgusting, you’re probably going to think you fucked it up. Don’t worry. It’s supposed to look that way. Trust us.

We don’t have pictures for this step, because honestly, when we did it, we (Marlee) thought we screwed up. So we stopped taking pictures, BUT KEEP GOING. IT’S WORTH IT.

Step 5: 

Next, transfer the mixture into a sauce pan. Stir constantly over a low heat until the mixture starts to smooth out and eventually begins to thicken.

Check occasionally with a digital thermometer and when the temperature reads 170° you can remove from the heat. Cool to room temperature and then refrigerate.

Meyer Lemon Curd

Meyer Lemon Curd

Look at how beautiful this is. So smooth, so creamy! So luscious!

Meyer Lemon Curd

Perfect Smoothie

~ Marlee And Christie ~ Leave a comment

Alton Brown says the best way to start your morning is with something purple. And he doesn’t mean Barney. Is that a weird outdated reference? I guess our age is showing.

Anyways, the best way to start your morning is a smootie! A nice big purple smootie!

Ingredients 

  • 1 small container Fage Greek yogurt (we used Strawberry)
  • 1 cup orange juice
  • 1 cup vanilla coconut milk
  • 1 cup pineapple (frozen)
  • 1 1/2 cups mixed berries (frozen)
  • 1 scoop vanilla protein powder
  • 1 banana

Blend together until smooth. This usually makes two perfect servings. You can easily adjust this to how much you need.