Topic: Jager's Food Stash

[Jag]

Hello everyone! I'm not very good at introductions. Basically, I'm just here to share my recipes. I like doing a lot of crock pot and one pot dishes. Meal prep too. I don't have a lot of spare time, so meals that take a long time to cook don't work well for me. I realize that a lot of members of Elliquiy have that same issue. I thought it would be nice to share some of my recipes from time to time.

Anyway...just going to get on with it. Please feel free to comment!

Simple Roast with Cherry Tomatoes and Orange Oil

Ingredients
3-4 lbs roast (I use whatever my butcher recommends for that day)
1 pint cherry tomatoes
1/2 cup olive oil
2tbsp orange zest (or you can use orange olive oil if you have it)
1tbsp minced garlic
1tbsp fresh chopped parsley
salt and pepper to taste

Cooking
Marinate roast in olive oil and orange zest for at least 4 hours and make sure roast is room temp before cooking. If you can get it, I recommend using orange olive oil. If you can get orange olive oil, an over night marinate makes it taste amazing.

Preheat oven to 375 and preheat a skillet large enough for your roast.

Sear roast on all sides and place in roasting dish (or crock pot). Pour drippings from skillet over the roast. Salt and pepper lightly over the roast and top with the minced garlic.

Place the cherry tomatoes around the roast.

Cover with foil and cook till internal temp of 165. Time will vary based on size of the roast and your oven. I usually use a 5-6 lbs roast, so mine takes a while.

Allow roast to rest for at least 15 minutes before slicing. Top with fresh parsley.



I serve mine with boiled, small red potatoes, mozzarella fresca, and some greens.

I noted that this could be done in a crock pot. I highly recommend crock pot liners. It makes clean up so easy. For a crock pot, 4-6 hours on high or 8-10 hours on low will suffice.

[Oreo]

That looks lovely Jag. Does the 165 temp get the roast well done?

[Jag]

Yes, that would be well done. I prefer mine medium (145), but hubby and Mini-Jag prefer well done. Thus I am outvoted. ^_^

[Blythe]

Bookmarking! ^^

[Jag]

Fruit Shortcakes

A fairly easy dessert. Only takes the 30-35 cooking time and prep/cool down time. Hour, hour and a half at the most. Sugar free too. It does require some special ingredients. Such as Agave Nectar. I'd never used it before trying it with this the first time, but I use it for a lot of things now.

Shortcake Ingredients
1 cup of sifted flour
2 eggs
1/4 cup of soft butter
1/2 cup of cream
1 tsp. of vanilla
1/4 cup of agave nectar
2 tsp. stevia
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda

Filling Ingredients
2 kiwi
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. stevia
1/2 cup heavy cream (chilled)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a baking tin or 3 ramekins

Beat agave and stevia together until stevia dissolves. Add eggs, cream, and vanilla extract to the agave mix. Mix the ingredients well with a whisk or with a mixer on medium speed for 2 minutes.

Add dry ingredients. Mix the ingredients well with a whisk or with a mixer on medium speed for 2 minutes. Add soft butter and mix lightly.

Pour the batter into the baking tin or ramekins. Bake 30-35 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool on wire racks for 10 minutes.

Take ½ cup chilled heavy cream, add stevia, vanilla extract, and whisk continuously for 2-3 minutes until you get stiff peaks. You may use a mixer, but use it at low speed.

Slice the shortcake in 2 pieces and place the Kiwi slices on the cake.

Spread the whipped cream with a spoon. Top the cake with more cream and kiwi pieces.

Pictured: Kiwi Mini Shortcakes and Full Sized Strawberry Shortcake



Feel freed to use store bought whipped cream if you prefer it. Homemade is just a 'nice touch' to brag about. This is great with all kinds of fruit. You could also put Nutella on the shortcakes or jams or let it go a little stale and use it like breakfast muffins with a little butter.

[King Serperior]

Just wanted to say that you're an artist when it comes to making someone hungry.   

Loving this blog so far, Jag!

[Jag]

I'm glad you're enjoying it thus far, KS. ^^

People should get hungry looking at good food!

[King Serperior]

In truth, I have never eaten a strawberry shortcake.  The one you made makes me want to go out a try one.   

*plants flag*  You have one more food fan.

[Jag]

I like strawberry shortcake, so long as it's not drowning in super sweet strawberry syrup...which is what a lot of people do to it. Pineapples are actually my favorite to use.

[RedRose]

I'll be re-reading that blog

[Jag]

Fruit Pizza

Another simple dessert. Great for a nice day. Several people mentioned Fruit Pizzas lately, so I thought I would share mine. Fruit Pizzas are great and easy to change to your tastes.

Ingredients
Premade Sugar Cookie Dough (though you can certainly make your own)
12 ounces cream cheese, softened
7 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 3/4 cup powdered sugar

Jag's Fruit Choices
Blueberries
Kiwis
Strawberries
Mandarin Oranges
Pineapple
Raspberries

Directions

If using premade cookie dough, set oven to preheat to package temperature.

Press cookie dough into a lightly sprayed or greased, shallow pizza pan. Bake till set, I underbake mine just a tad so it stays soft. For my oven, it takes about 10-15 minutes.

Whip cream cheese, butter, vanilla, and powdered sugar together.

Spread cream cheese spread across cooled sugar cookie crust and decorate with fruit.

Other fruit options are apricots, apples, peaches, grapes, mango, bananas, passion fruit, any just about anything you can find fruit wise. Another nice addition is to take a jar of apricot preserves and thin out a few teaspoons of it with some fruit juice or *cough*rum*cough* and use a brush to glaze the top of the pizza.

Here's the one I made today for my Mother-In-Law:

[Jag]

The Rambutan

So, I was at the grocery store this morning and poking around the fruit section and came across these:

They were labeled as Rambutan and were only $0.59 each, so I got two to try. I like to research food, so before attempting to eat it, I looked it up.

It is native to Malay Countries, such as Malaysia and Indonesia. It is a close relative of the lychee and the longan fruits. I haven't tried a longan fruit, but I have had lychee. The name Rambutan means 'Hair', which makes sense considering how these things look. They are in season twice a year from June to August and December to January.

Further reading states that Rambutan are high in fiber and iron. It has a high amount of Vitamin C for it's small size. It also contains, surprisingly, copper. The human body doesn't really need copper for much, but from what I have found we do use it with iron to help our immune system and to help with the production of red blood cells. The seeds are also used (in some places) as an aid for diabetics. The seeds are ground into a powder and mixed in with hot drinks to help maintain blood sugar levels (please don't go doing this without doctor recommendation though, I'm not a medical professional and neither is the internet).

It is also high in antioxidants and has been used in traditional Chinese medicines to kill intestinal parasites due to it's antifungal properties.

While not typically grown in the states, Florida and California do have a close enough climate to cultivate them. So if you live in those states and want to give it a try at growing them, feel free to look up more information.

Now lets eat it!

I looked up instructions and it said to cut through the skin, peel it open, and squeeze the fruit out. It was simple enough to do. Holding it, it did feel tough, but the skin broke easily. Both of mind had this little seam on it and that worked well. Just be careful because there is a large pit in the center and you don't want to cut into the fruit too much. These things have a lot of juices in them and cutting too deep will make it messy (I totally didn't do that the first time).

It smells sweet, but not overly so. It was like holding a super slippery grape. It was about an inch long and half an inch wide. It's squishy and juicy.

I just ate around the pit, but hubby cut his off the pit. Eating around the pit seemed the better option. Cause as he cut it, it just let out juice and got super messy.

Taste wise, it was kind of bland, but sweet. Very lightly sweet. Very grape like in taste. I generally find grapes to be kind of tart and bitter, so these were more like sweet grapes. It was fibrous, but not hard to chew.

All in all, it was pretty good. Messy, but still good. Will definitely be buying again. Hubby didn't like it, but he's extremely picky about fruit.

I think sliced off the pit, they would be good in a fruit salad. I did find a recipe for Summer Rambutan Curry that I plan on giving a shot. I'll post about it when I try it.

Per 100gram serving, there is only 3 calories per serving. No Cholesterol or Sodium.

[Ket]

Rambutans are delicious, so are lychees! Glad you found some in your market and enjoyed them.

[mh0131]

That sounds delicious

[Jag]

Jag Tries New Fruit

The Quince

So, once again, I was walking around my market and they had something new. It was very oddly shaped. Like a mutated apple. It was labeled as a 'Quince'. It was $1.50, so I grabbed one.

Some googling revealed that is it in the same family as apples and pears. Which makes sense. It feels like an apple and the coloring is similar to a pear. Mine was bright yellow, almost golden in color (which my kindle camera does not photograph well).

There is really not much to eating this thing. You can eat it like an apple or pear. Just slice it up and munch away.

When I cut into it, it immediately smelled like apples. Very fragrant. More so than a regular apple. It was tough to cut, so I used a sturdy knife. At first, I thought there might be a pit inside and so I googled how to cut one and realized that I just wasn't using enough pressure. It's got a fibrous core filled with seeds, like an apple. It's just super tough right there in the center. The seeds are pretty big too. I was amazed at how quickly it started to brown. I can usually get a little bit of time before apples start to oxidize, but this Quince started going brown less than five minutes after I cut into it.

Nutrition wise, from what I've researched, it's good a good amount of Vitamin C in it and a decent amount of fiber. It's also low in calories. About 57 calories per 100grams. Quince is also a good source of calcium, iron, potassium, magnesium and copper.

I've also read that while it is good on it's own, it is better when used in cooking. One site said "Simply wash it, chop it up and squeeze a little lime or lemon juice on it. Put it over a bed of mixed greens with cilantro and it's just fabulous" but most say to use it similarly to an apple. Making pies, apple butter, jellies and jams, and the like.

I ate mine raw, without anything on it. Just to see what it was like.

It was tart. Very tart. It left my mouth a little chalky feeling, but it wasn't bad. I think mine was a little over ripe and dried out. Most of the videos I saw, their Quince were rather 'juicy', but mine wasn't. It wasn't terribly dry, but I couldn't squish it an get juice out with my knife like some of the videos I watched. That might be where the chalky feeling comes from. Still, it was tart. Not a bad tart. Maybe a bit like an crab apple.

Over all, not bad. Not something I would consider getting often, but mostly because I don't like apples.