My friend Jon challenged me to create a dessert with no flour, sugar, or artificial sweeteners and a maximum of only a teaspoon of honey per serving! Well Jon, challenge accepted!!! I’ve adored tropical fruit ever since I first tasted pineapple and papaya on a lanai with my parents in Oahu and its natural sweetness was perfect for this challenge.
Normally, I’m not a fan of sweet breakfasts. Give me some fresh fruit and cheese or some oatmeal (with salt! not sugar). But for Raspberry Almond Pancakes I’ll make an exception. This recipe combines two of my favorite sweet breakfast foods – fruit pancakes and almond croissants.
Almond croissants take me back to childhood Sunday brunches with my mom at a long-since closed Seattle café, the Surrogate Hostess. And fruit pancakes make me think of another old Seattle restaurant, where I used to get blueberry pancakes as big as my head! In this recipe I’ve replaced the blueberries with raspberries. Their ever so slightly tart flavor is the perfect balance for the sweetness of the almond paste I borrowed from those croissants.
Recipe:
1c Flour Continue reading
This morning I planned to kick off my day with one of my favorite breakfasts, Steel Cut Oatmeal with Orange Supremes and Thyme, however, discovering that every saucepan in the house was in the dishwasher due the previous evenings cooking frenzy put a crimp in that plan. So what to do?
Instead of oatmeal, I cooked up a package of instant brown rice I keep in the house for just such emergencies, tossed in some finely diced fresh pineapple, a few leaves of sliced fresh Basil and my secret weapon, passionfruit vinegar.
Pineapple Basil Rice with Passionfruit Vinegar
You won’t find passionfruit vinegar at most grocery stores, but it’s fairly easy to come by at specialty oil and vinegar stores. Not only did it give the rice that bit of acidity it needed, but it perfumed the whole dish with the scent of the tropics. I find speciality vinegars to be a really handy way to add acidity, flavor and even a hint of sweetness to dishes without adding fat or sugar, so I keep an arsenal on hand. Passionfruit, Elderflower, Strawberry and Lavender are a few of my favorites.
Recipe:
2c Instant brown rice
1c Finely diced pineapple
10 Fresh basil leaves
1/4 tsp Kosher salt
1 tsp Passionfruit vinegar
Prepare instant brown rice according to package instructions. Combine rice, salt and passionfruit vinegar in a medium-size bowl. Chiffonade basil by stacking 5-10 leaves, depending on size, on top of each other, rolling up like a cigar, and slicing crosswise into 1/8 inch ribbons. Add basil and pineapple to bowl, toss gently and serve.
Voodoo Doughnuts is an Oregon legend and one I’ve been dying to try ever since I learned they make a doughnut filled with another Oregon delicacy, Kelly’s Strawbañero Jelly. Strawbañero jelly is exactly what it sounds like, a delightful combination of sweet strawberries with a kick of heat from habanero peppers that tastes amazing with some crusty bread and a hunk of mild brie. It’s become one of my favorite appetizers.
Kelly Strawbañero Jelly with sourdough and brie
I couldn’t wait to try that sweet Strawbañero heat in a doughnut. Unfortunately, it turns out they only carry that particular flavor on Thursdays in their Portland store and I was in Eugene. Not that there was a lack of options, from the a simple Buttermilk Bar doughnut to the No Name doughnut, a raised yeast doughnut with chocolate frosting, rice krispies and peanut butter, to the Triple Chocolate Penetration doughnut, a chocolate cake doughnut with chocolate frosting and coco-puffs, oh my! Continue reading