Posted on | July 8, 2010 | 5 Comments
That’s right! It’s a double feature! I figured since we had the materials for both of these, why not do them together and have a strawberry flavored post? Strawberries have always been one of my favorite fruits. They’re definitely my favorite of all berries. I always eat too many and get what my friend, Kat, calls the “strawberry tummy ache.” When I was a kid, every candy I ate had to be strawberry flavored. Strawberry Bubble Yum was my gum of choice. Strawberry Fruit by the Foot was my favorite snack. As fake as those flavors were, they stemmed from my immense love for strawberries.
I don’t remember how I came across Jenn Cuisine and her wonderful blog. However, I do remember that she instantly became one of my favorites. Jenn isn’t gluten free but her husband is, so while her blog isn’t entirely dedicated to gluten free cooking, the majority of it is and the rest of it can be pretty easily switched around to be gluten free. Most of the time, she’ll even suggest ways to do so. Like me, Jenn has a bit of an obsession with strawberries, which means when strawberry season rolls around, Jenn is first to put up some really awesome strawberry recipes. But even when she’s not writing about strawberries, she’s an amazing blogger. As much as I’ve loved food my entire life, I feel as though there are so many different flavors that I haven’t tasted yet. Jenn’s words and amazing photographs make me want to try everything she writes about.
I have to admit; I’m usually pretty boring when it comes to making salads. When I’m at school and making my salad in Daly’s I stuck to the standard Caesar dressing with feta cheese. It’s delicious, but it gets boring after a while. The same goes for when I’m home. I usually stick to my childhood favorite, for I will always have a soft spot for Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing. Needless to say, I had to try something new. That was when I came upon Jenn’s post, Salad Dressing of Strawberry Balsamic Reduction. Since I have such a love for strawberries, I wanted to try this so badly. I actually meant to a long time ago and never got to it. So when I was choosing the recipes I wanted to use for my summer project, I thought of this one almost immediately. I’ll say right now, I’m glad I did.
Jenn’s recipe for the dressing is really easy, but I made a few changes to it. While she heats part of her concoction in a pot, I just threw everything in the Cuisinart food processor and let it do all the work. But I plan on going back and doing it Jenn’s way, just to see if there’s a difference. There probably is, but I’m pretty happy with the way mine came out. Actually, I’m elated. If you go to Jenn’s post, you’ll also see that her recipe makes two cups. Knowing that I was going to be the only person to consume the dressing, I made one cup.
The recipe (2 cups) calls for:
1 pint strawberries
1 tbs. lemon juice
1/2 c. balsamic vinegar
fresh thyme
salt
pepper
1/4 c. honey (variable to desired sweetness)
equal volume of extra virgin olive oil
I’ll admit that I was being a bit lazy when I decided not to heat it up. What can I say? I was hungry! I put the strawberries, lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, fresh thyme, salt, pepper and honey in the Cuisinart. Since we didn’t have fresh thyme, I used dried thyme. My mother advised me to rub the thyme in my hand before adding it into the mixture to bring out the flavor. She also helped me with the next step.
The Cuisinart has holes in the top so while I processed the ingredients mentioned, my mom poured in the olive oil. We eyeball a lot when we’re cooking. I’m not too good at it yet, but I’m learning from the master of eyeballing, so I’m getting there.
We then poured the concoction into a jar. I was a little wary of it at first. Like I said, I’m used to my boring salads. I was scared that I wasn’t going to like the strawberry balsamic combination and fail at being a strawberry lover (I was going to say number one strawberry lover, but Jenn wins that one).
(Haha, we were watching Golden Girls while cooking.)
And I still had plenty of strawberries left over for our next recipe! The dressing, as you can see in the jar to the right, was a brownish color, which scared me at first. I dipped my finger in to take a taste and was pleasantly surprised by the flavor. It wasn’t too fruity, just enough to taste the strawberries. And the balsamic wasn’t overwhelming as I had expected it to be. It was the perfect mixture of the two.
So we made the dressing and then I discovered…we had no salad! So while I tasted it by itself, I didn’t get to actually have it on salad until today.
As Jenn says in her post, this isn’t the type of dressing that you want to drown your salad in. This was another reason I was worried about whether or not I was going to like it. I’m always the one putting more dressing, or ketchup or mayonnaise, or whatever condiment is available. So I drizzled a couple of spoonfuls of the dressing onto my salad, mixed it up and gave it a try. I already knew that I liked the flavor, but I found that on the salad, it was everything I could have hoped for in a salad dressing. Strawberry and balsamic is such a great combination! It had been a risk, changing around the recipe a bit as well as trying something that was completely different from anything I’d ever had before, but it was a risk well taken. The jar of dressing still sits in my refrigerator, waiting for me to finished ever last drop. This recipe will be really useful when I’m back at school. I can just make jars of it and it’ll be an easy fix.
Thank you Jenn for your kindness, your love of strawberries and this great recipe!
When I was finished making the dressing, I thought a smoothie would be the best way to finish off the strawberries, as well as to fight off the summer heat that has been burning Jersey to a crisp. I was eager to get started on
Gluten Free Goddess’s Strawberry Hemp Milk Smoothie.
Gluten Free Goddess was one of the first blogs I started reading once I got into the blogging world. Again, I don’t remember how I first stumbled upon Karina’s blog, but I do remember drooling over the photographs of her food. This was towards the beginning of my gluten free life, so at this point, I hadn’t found a lot of good food that had real substance. I had many snack foods and lots of the regular junk food that just happened to be gluten free (I’m a potato chip hound). But when I saw her photographs and read about the food she was making, I thought to myself,
Why can’t I be eating like this? I very slowly began to understand that I could. Once I got out of school and didn’t have to worry about a dining hall, I could eat just as well as Karina and Shauna and Jenn and all of my favorite bloggers.
Karina posts many
Vegan and Vegetarian recipes, which is pretty awesome for those of you who are either of those in addition to being gluten free. The
Strawberry Hemp Milk Smoothie is a vegan recipe, but since I’m not vegan, I switched it up a little bit. I would have liked to try the hemp milk (and still hope to) but I couldn’t find it anywhere! Amazon was even sold out! Karina mentions how healthy hemp milk is, how it’s packed with vitamins and nutrients that I could certainly use in my diet. So I’m on the lookout for it so I can make the smoothie again. For now, I had to replace the hemp milk with something else:
I used
Farmland Dairies’ Lactose Free Skim Plus milk instead. This is what I drink and put in my cereal on a normal basis. I’m not technically lactose intolerant, though I find that I’m more sensitive to it when I’ve been contaminated with gluten (in fact, we thought I was lactose intolerant up until I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease). I have a very sensitive stomach in general, so I like to stick to lactose free products for the most part.
Farmland Dairies is my favorite because they don’t add any hormone or antibiotics.
The recipe for the smoothie includes:
1 cup ice cold Vanilla Hemp Dream
1 cup chilled ripe organic strawberries, sliced
1 teaspoon raw agave nectar
, or honey, to taste
As I said, I replaced the hemp milk. When it came to the agave nectar, I opted for honey mostly because it was already present in my household (it was a sudden decision to do both of these recipes at once). Plus, I love honey. The first time I had honey was in kindergarten. Our snack was honey on crackers. It sounds weird but I remember loving it (along with the milk in a plastic bag that every kid spilled when they tried to stick their straw through).
Basically, we threw all of the ingredients in a blender and let her rip.
And look! We still had some strawberries left (which I devoured pretty soon after). When I took the first sip of my smoothie, I found that mine was lacking something. It wasn’t sweet enough. The consistency was nice though and the taste of the strawberries was definitely there. I think the hemp milk might add a little more flavor. My mom suggested that we might use sugar instead of honey. Or maybe the raw agave nectar will really make a difference. Perhaps I didn’t use enough honey (I eyeballed again). I’m definitely going to play around with it, especially if certain ingredients become available soon (cough cough, hemp milk cough). Once I find the perfect combination for my taste buds, this is going to be an extremely useful recipe for at school. I can just imagine it. When I’m stressed out, I’ll just make my favorite smoothie! It would also make a nice breakfast.
Thank you Jenn and Karina for allowing me to use your recipes. I love both of your blogs can’t wait to try out more of your recipes now that I’m finally in the kitchen!
Miel
Category: gluten,
gluten free,
gluten free goddess,
jenn cuisine,
karina,
salad dressing,
smoothie,
strawberry,
strawberry balsamic,
strawberry hemp milk smoothie,
summer,
summer blog project
Comments
July 8th, 2010 @ 5:47 am
It looks wonderful! I'm so glad that you liked it!! Both the dressing and the smoothie look great!! Thanks so much for trying out my recipe and yay for it being a success!
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July 8th, 2010 @ 6:37 am
Yay for strawberry season. And how fun, doing two strawberry recipes. Your versions look delicious. Enjoy every strawberry bite- the season goes by too quickly. Thank you for your lovely words about my blog.
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July 8th, 2010 @ 9:51 am
world best fruit juice monavie
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July 9th, 2010 @ 2:36 pm
I must agree, strawberry season is legit the BEST season. Balsamic and strawberry is such a lovely combination and you honestly can't beat homemade dressing; there's nothing like it. And smoothies? Fugettaboutit. Awesomeness! I love how you made it pretty with the strawberry on the rim of the glass; you're such a crafty gal.
Yaaaaay for summer foodie projects!
P.S. I think you should know that your blender is quite beautiful. LOLLLL.
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July 19th, 2010 @ 5:37 am
YUMMMM!!! I'm so hungry now!
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