I’m more of a veggie lover than a fruit lover. One fruit that I do like once in a while is grapefruit. I discovered some time ago that if you broiled the grapefruit halves they loss some of the bitterness that is usually associated with them. Give this a try sometime and see if you like it too.

Broiled Grapefruit

1 Grapefruit…..I used a red grapefruit

1 tablespoon sugarfree maple syrup

1 packet sweetener or sweetener to taste if desired

ground cinnamon

Start by washing the grapefruit then cut it in half. Place the halves on a cutting board and, using a sharp knife, run it down the side of each grapefruit segment. You want to separate the fruit from the skin. It makes it much easier to scoop the fruit out if you do this. Once your done setting each segment free run the knife around the edge but don’t cut through the bottom of the grapefruit. If you do all the delicious juice will leak out.

Place the grapefruit halves on a broiler pan or, if you have a counter toaster, set them on the plan that came with it. If you prefer to sweeten the halves a bit sprinkle one packet of your favorite sweetener over the tops. I usually skip this because the little bit of tang they have is fine with me. Drizzle the sugarfree maple syrup over the tops. Split the tablespoon of syrup between the two halves. You don’t want them swimming in syrup. Sprinkle the ground cinnamon over the grapefruit. Yes, grapefruit and cinnamon taste great together. If your not sure about how it will taste start with a little and add more to taste.

Broil the grapefruit for 5 to 7 minutes. At least that’s how long I broil them in my toaster. If your using the oven broiler watch them carefully. You want them warmed up and the edges of the rind might become a bit golden but you don’t want them dried out and burnt.

Remove from broiler, allow to cool slightly and dig in with a teaspoon. It’s the perfect size and shape to get the segments out.

Now you don't....

It’s still apple season here in Massachusetts. Granted most of the local farms are pretty much done with their picking and have resorted to trucking in apples from the other side of the state. But that’s still better then apples from some place like the other side of the country. Plus they still have Honeycrisp apples for a good price. That means it’s time to keep on canning and dehydrating before apple season is over and prices go up.

If your still getting apples just recently picked (when they taste the best) then it’s time to make some pie. Skip the pie crust and replace it with a streusel like topping. It’s super quick to make and tastes great! If you double the recipe you can make it in a 13 X 9 inch pan.

EASY APPLE PIE

3 medium to large apples, peeled, cored and sliced

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 cup Quick Mix

1/2 cup granulated sugar (or other type of sugar)

1/2 cup milk

1 tablespoon butter or coconut oil

2 eggs

Topping

1/2 cup Quick Mix

1/4 cup chopped nuts (almonds, pecans, walnuts, etc)

1/4 cup quick oats

1/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/3 cup butter

* Preheat oven to 325 F. Grease a 9 inch glass pie plate or an 8 X 8 inch square pan.

* In a bowl mix the sliced apples, cinnamon and nutmeg. Spread in pie plate or pan.

* In bowl stir quick mix, granulated sugar, milk, butter and eggs together until well blended.  Pour over apples in pan. In a small bowl blend together the topping ingredients until crumbly. Sprinkle over the filling in the pan.

* Bake for 40 to 45 minutes or until a knife inserted comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before serving.

TIPS: if you do not want to make your own homemade quick mix you can substitute Bisquik in its place. You can also use various other types of sugar in place of granulated sugar – palm sugar, rapadura, sucanat. For those who may be interested you can even replace the sugar with a sugar substitute such as splenda.

This post is being linked back to the following blogs. Stop in to check out all the other great recipes, tips and ideas:

Fight Back Friday at Food Renegade

Growing up the only apples I ever remember eating were McIntosh. If it was the holidays then there might be some big Red Delicious apples around because they came in a fruit basket or were on sale so you could make your own fruit basketsto give as gifts. Granny Smiths were for baking. That’s about it. There may have been other varieties but, if there were, we never bought them.

Fast forward twenty something years and now the grocery store seems to have a whole section filled with apples. Sure there are the plain old Mc’s, Granny’s, Red and Golden Delicious. Now there are Pink Lady’s, Cortland’s, Empire’s, Jonagold’s, Crispin’s, Ginger Gold, Macoun’s, Winesap, Gravestein, Fuji and some that I’ve only seen put on display once so I don’t even remember their name. Out of them all, the apple that makes us count the days until the local apple harvest is ready, is the Honeycrisp.

Once thought to be a cross between the Macoun and Honeygold, DNA testing has now shown that the Honeycrisp gets it’s juicy white, slightly tart flesh from neither apple. Personally I don’t care where they came from but I’m sure glad they are here. To me they are the most perfect, all purpose apple.

* They keep well on the counter

* They keep even longer in your refrigerator or a cool area

* They make great applesauce or apple butter (haven’t tried canned slices yet)

* They are great in baked desserts. They hold their shape and don’t turn to mush. They are just the right combination of sweet/tart

* They are the most incredible eating apple

Locally, apple season started early this year because the summer has been drier then normal. The local farms have said that their apples are smaller but much sweeter then years where there is more rain. So, if your looking to pick apples get them NOW. If your local farm has Honeycrisp pick a few. You won’t be sorry. At least not until you run out. Then you will cry. If you haven’t eaten all your Honeycrisp apples then give this recipe a try. It uses a homemade version of Bisquik.

Spiced Apple Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Frosting

1 1/2 cups Homemade Quick Baking Mix

1/2 cup sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 cup apple cider or apple juice

2 tablespoons butter or coconut oil

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 egg

1 medium apple peeled and chopped

* Heat oven to 375 F. Place paper baking cups in muffin tin. If you are not using baking cups then grease muffin tin.

* In a large bowl beat all the ingredients except the chopped apple with an electric mixer on low speed for 1 minute. Scrape the sides of the bowl. Increase the speed to medium and beat for another 3 minutes scraping the sides occasionally. Remove the mixer. Fold in the chopped apple with a spoon.

* Evenly divide the batter between the 12 muffin tins.

* Bake for 17 to 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cupcake comes out clean. Remove the cupcakes and allow to cool.

* Eat as they are or top them with the frosting recipe below

Salted Caramel Frosting

1/2 container of your favorite vanilla frosting

1/3 cup caramel ice cream topping

1 teaspoon kosher salt

Mix the caramel topping into the vanilla frosting. Frost the cupcakes. Sprinkle the salt over the top of the cupcakes. Sounds weird but tastes good. 

We don’t normally have frosting or ice cream topping hanging around. It was sitting in the refrigerator from a previous birthday party so I don’t know what brand they were. I would imagine just about any type of vanilla frosting, including homemade, would work just fine. My 8 year old daughter Rachel frosted all the cupcakes. Here’s what was left after we taste tested them:

This post is being linked back to the following blogs. Stop in to check out all the other great recipes, tips and ideas:

Real Food Wednesdays at Kelly The Kitchen Kop

Two mangoes are all that are left from the 15 purchased late last week. They were already turning pretty soft so it was time for them to be eaten and quickly too. After eating the fresh fruit for a couple of days no one was interested in that. Perhaps it would work better to disguise the fruit with other items. Tropical Smoothies did the trick.

Tropical Mango Smoothies

2 mangoes, fruit removed, diced and frozen

1 can of pineapple chunks (including juice), also frozen

1 cup of milk

1 cup of greek yogurt

1/2 can of coconut milk

juice of 1 lime

Add the milk, coconut milk, yogurt and lime juice to the blender. Give it a quick whizz around to blend it. Add in the frozen fruit pieces. Blend until the mixture has thickened and becomes smooth. I ended up adding in more coconut milk because it got a bit too thick at one point. You could always allow the fruit to partially thaw before blending to avoid this problem.

Pour into cups and enjoy!

I haven’t tried it yet but I bet this would make great homemade popsicles. Just a thought

I’m contributing this post to the Two For Tuesdays  Blog Hop over at A Moderate Life

Since my kids have now discovered their love for mangoes (thanks again Shakira!) I can finally make some exotic flavored jam or fruit butter. So far they usually only eat apple butter, strawberry, blueberry, raspberry and peach jam. With my current abundance of mangoes and some fresh peaches from the farmers market it’s time to make a test batch of peach mango butter. Hopefully it will get thick enough to be a butter. If not then at least I will have several jars worth of jam.

Hopefully the same method used for making apple butter in the crockpot will work for this peach mango butter. If you’ve never made crockpot apple butter check out this site for some great directions.

* Start heating a pan of water. You will need the boiling water to help remove the skin from the peaches.

* While the water is coming to a boil cut the mangoes and remove the fruit. Place the diced mango into the crockpot.

* When the water in your pan comes to a boil carefully drop several peaches into the pot.

* Prepare a container filled with cold water and ice cubes. Once the peaches have been in the boiling water for 1 minutes transfer them to the other container. Wait 1 minute for the peaches to be cool enough to handle. The skins should be easy to remove from the peaches.

Carefully cut the peach in half and remove the pit. Dice the peaches and add the fruit to the crockpot. Set the crockpot to low. The first step in making fruit butter is to cook the fruit until it’s soft enough to mash or puree. I’ve never made fruit butter with anything except apples. The apples needed to cook overnight on low to make them nice and soft. I will be checking the peach/mango mixture every hour because they are already very soft. It probably won’t take as long.

Check back for part 2 of making peach mango butter. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this will work and I’ll get some incredible tasting fruit butter without having to use lots of sugar.

Have you had success making fruit butter from something other then apples or peaches? If so I’d love to hear about which fruits you used.

This post was submitted to the following blogs:

 Fight Back Fridays at the Food Renegade blog 

 Monday Mania over at Healthy Home Economist

 Two For Tuesdays  blog hop over at A Moderate Life

 Stop by and check out all the other real food related posts.

Shakira Loves

Celebrities are good for more then music and entertainment. Sometimes they also get you to try a new fruit.  In Shakira’s case it was mangoes.

I do my best to introduce new things to my kids. Sometimes it works and at least one will eat the item. Usually it’s the oldest. So imagine how surprised I was to have my 8 year old daughter Rachel began asking me to buy mangoes.

Did she try one at a friends house? No. Did she try one at school? No. Perhaps her grandmother had given her a mango flavored dessert and she wanted to try the fruit? No. Turns out she wants to have a mango because Shakira, who is now Rachel’s most favorite singer, LOVES mangoes with a little sprinkle of salt. Or at least that’s what one fan site claims. So if Shakira loves mangoes then it most certainly must be worth trying right?

The next time I went shopping I brought home two mangos so everyone could try them. Amazingly everyone liked them! Fresh mangos are quite good even though they are a bit of a pain to cut. With a taste that seems to be a blend of peaches and oranges it’s well worth it though. If you’ve never cut a mango here’s a few links to help you out:

* How to cut a mango including step by step pictures

* How to choose a mango with tips on selecting, ripening and storing them

Thanks Shakira for getting my kids to try a new fruit. Glad you love mangoes and not some highly processed treat.

For those who may be reading this post via RSS feed please click through to this post to see a YouTube video of Shakira’s song Waka Waka…..currently my daughter’s favorite video!

As I was busy preparing strawberries for the kids I got to thinking about exactly what is one serving of strawberries. A quick check through my sources revealed that there is several answers to that question.

1 food pyramid serving = 1/2 cup fresh fruit

1 diabetic fruit exchange = 1 1/4 cup fruit (with skin, core, etc)

1 food package serving = 6 whole strawberries OR 1 cup of halves

Hmmm….not completely helpful. Then again strawberries are made by nature and come in various sizes and shapes unlike commercially produced packaged foods which are manufacturer to an exact weight. So here’s some strawberries and possible serving sizes:

6 whole strawberries is also equal to:

1 cup of strawberry halves

Which, as far as I can figure out is equal to:

2 food pyramid servings

1 diabetic fruit exchange

1 food package serving