Baked Apple-Cinnamon Crêpes and Chocolate-Strawberry Crêpes

Tags

Apple-Picking, Food, Fruit, Local, low-calorie, Sweets

Part two of using all those gorgeous apples I got apple-picking brings me to a favorite of mine – crêpes. Crêpes are really popular back home in Germany, especially during the upcoming holiday season – we’ll have little wooden food shacks pop up all over town that prepare crêpes to go. Typical toppings on the sweet side (which is what you tend to get at these shacks; restaurants will also serve savory versions) are cinnamon-sugar, Nutella, banana-chocolate, strawberry-chocolate and Grand Manier.

I get cravings and homesickness attacks, but most of all, my wife fell in love with the crêpes in Germany. We had to find a way to make them without fancy crêpe plates and knives, and preferably find a way to make them low-calorie!

So here’s what we came up with, a wonderfully delicious, easy crêpe recipe that my wife (she’s the crêpe-maker in the household) makes at least once a week:

Ingredients:
for the crêpes:
– 1 cup skim milk or light plain soy milk
– 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
– 1/3 cup all-whites eggbeaters (or 3 large egg whites)
– 1/4 tsp salt
– 1/2 tsp nutmeg

for the toppings:
– 4 apples (I used Golden Delicious and Red Delicious)
– 16 oz strawberries
– cinnamon to taste
– 1/2 cup sugar-free syrup
– 4 tbsp sugar-free chocolate syrup
– Splenda or other sugar substitute to taste

Steps:
1. Combine all batter ingredients in a small mixing bowl and whisk until bubbly and no clumps remain

2. Let stand for 15 minutes and use that time to slice fruit and pre-heat a griddle or large non-stick pan
3. Spray the hot griddle with PAM (don’t be shy, otherwise the crêpes might bake to the griddle!), pour 1/4 cup of batter in, swirl to get a thin layer

4. Cook for 2 minutes, flip, cook for another 2 minutes

5. Meanwhile microwave the slices apples for 4-6 minutes until soft
6. Top 4 crêpes with strawberries, sprinkle on Splenda and top with 1 tbsp chocolate syrup per crêpe

7. Top 4 crêpes with hot apples, sprinkle on Splenda and cinnamon and pour on 1/8 cup syrup

Yields 8 crêpes (4 apple-cinnamon & 4 strawberry-chocolate). One untopped crêpe comes in at only 45 calories using milk, and even less using a light non-dairy substitute. So dig in! 🙂

(Notes: When you sprinkle on the cinnamon, make sure it’s cinnamon, not ground, roasted red pepper. Yeah. Also, we once used red curry powder instead of nutmeg in the batter. Let me tell you, either mix-up makes for surprising first mouthfuls. What are some of the worst kitchen accidents you’ve had?)

What are some of the things you crave during the fall from when you were growing up?

Chinese Starfruit – Gorgeous and Tasty!

Tags

China, Chinese, Food, Fruit, Starfruit

While I was aware of the existence of starfruit prior to our trip to China, I’d never actually had one. Well, when I saw them at a fruit stall in Beijing, I just had to try!

Starfruit are fruit of the Averrhoa carambola tree, are longish, and star shaped in cross-section. They originally are from Southeast Asia, and early travelers called them “Chinese starfruit”. In Chinese they are called yangtao. By now they are commonly eaten outside of Asia, especially in South America, and some are even grown in the United States.

The skin is somewhat waxy, but the entire fruit is edible and doesn’t need to be peeled. The flesh is firm and not very juicy, and the fruit tastes a little tart. Since I am a sweet kinda gal, I sprinkled mine with a little sweetener:

Starfruit are very low in calories because they don’t contain a lot of sugar, an average fruit clocks in at about 30kcal. They are rich in antioxidants and Vitamin C, and as you can see above, they are gorgeous to look at and make for a great edible garnish when you need your food to look pretty.

I liked starfruit a lot, but I’d recommend them more to those that enjoy tart flavors. For the rest of us, they are still wonderfully refreshing with a little sweetness sprinkled on! Have you had starfruit? I know it’s grown and easily available in California!

Pitaya Plus – Dragonfruit In A Bottle!

Tags

Dragonfruit, Fruit, Juice, Pitaya Plus, Review

Remember how I was saying I’d pay outrageous amounts to have dragonfruit again? Turns out I don’t have to!

I was kindly provided with promotional samples by Pitaya Plus, a brand-new company offering dragonfruit Super Juice with a bit of coconut water and other dragonfruit products to the American market.

(Image from Pitaya Plus website)

Pitaya Plus has a solar-powered facility in Nicaragua, where red-fleshed dragonfruit are grown and harvested for them by local single mothers from poverty-stricken communities in an effort to support these families. The fruit are then directly shipped to Pitaya Plus’ Californian headquarters and made into delicious juice.

The juice is all-natural, contains zero added sugar, 25% of your daily recommended fiber, plenty of antioxidants and more than your daily need of Vitamin D3, all courtesy of the lovely dragonfruit. It also contains coconut water, and comes labelled with a warning: “Don’t drink our juice if you are looking for that sugar tooth feeling that you get from every other juice in existence. Prepare yourself for a juice that will taste so refreshing and different, you will actually want to drink more of it!” Naturally, I couldn’t wait to crack a bottle open and see whether I would really be able to re-experience that dragonfruit flavor I’ve been craving.

First thoughts: Yep, definitely dragonfruit! Rejoice! The coconut flavor is definitely detectable, and I’m not sure I need it in there, but then I’m usually a fruit flavor purist and eat my fruit salads in groups of fruit rather than mixed. The warning also definitely holds true when it comes to sweetness – it’s pleasantly tart, or, as my wife put it, it “tastes like juice from a fruit, not juice from a bottle.”

Pitaya Plus juice is available online, or at Whole Foods and some select health stores in California.

(Image from Pitaya Plus website)

Bottom line? I love the flavor, it’s as close as I can get here to a fresh dragonfruit. (I am extremely excited to try out their dried fruit and smoothie packs, once those become available). The nutritional stats are stellar at 70kcal per 10.5oz bottle, and clearly it’s healthy juice for you! On the down side, $2.50 for a (small) bottle is pricey, but many comparable products in terms of health (and especially at Whole Foods), are. I’d probably leave out the coconut water component, but even with it, I love it. I’d say definitely, definitely give it a try, you won’t regret it! 4.5/5 from me.

Disclaimer: Pitaya Plus Super Juice was kindly provided by Pitaya Plus, LLC. This blog receives no payment or other compensation for reviews of products or services.

Spicy Flavor Beans at Yusty’s in Chengdu

Tags

Chengdu, China, Chinese, CSA, Food, Recipe, Vegetables, Yusty's

While in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China, we decided to take the day off and just laze. We ended up seeing Pirates of The Carribean 4 in a theater in Chengdu, since we failed to find a place showing one of two commemorative movies dealing with the Sichuan earthquakes released for the 2nd anniversary of the catastrophe. Fortunately, most movie theaters in China let you choose between dubbed and subbed versions!
Regardless, we had dinner afterwards in one of the many restaurants in the mall next to our hotel. The place was called Yusty’s and consisted of a very long hall with different stations serving themed foods (seafood, sushi, desserts, noodle soups, etc.), and I ended up at the traditional vegetable dish station.

Here is what was advertised:

The dish translated roughly as “Spicy Flavor Beans” and a large pot came for 16 yuan, or $2.51. Food in China is wonderfully cheap.

What arrived looked a bit different, but was SO tasty!

Now, spicy in Sichuan means hot-as-hell on average, but this was actually very pleasant. The metal pan stayed sizzling hot and the flavors were wonderful. I loved it so much, I had to try and recreate it at home!

Spicy Flavor Beans Yusty’s style:

Ingredients:
1/2lb green beans (I used heirloom beans from my CSA haul)
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp dark rice vinegar or balsamic vinegar
1 clove garlic
peppercorns to taste
Sichuan peppers to taste (alternatively use jalapenos)
2/3 cup water

Steps:
1. Slice the peppers thinly, chop the garlic.
2. Spray a pan, preheat to medium-high heat.
3. Add garlic, peppers and peppercorns.
4. When browned, add the green beans, stir-fry briefly.

5. Add water, soy sauce and vinegar, turn heat to high and bring to a boil.
6. Lower the heat, simmer for 20 minutes stirring frequently until liquid is mostly reduced.
7. Enjoy as a side or main course!

What are some dishes you’ve encountered on your travels that you just had to recreate? Where you successful?

StrEAT Mobile Bistro – A Gourmet Food Truck Set On Feeding You!

Tags

Food, food truck, Local, Review, Soup, StrEAT Mobile Bistro

Have I recently mentioned that my wife’s work is awesome? Yes, well, it is even more so, now that a second weekly food truck visitor has been established: the StrEAT Mobile Bistro.

There are actually two food trucks run by a team (Manager Izzy Schachner, Chef Kelly McGlathery and Daniel Talty) that came together to launch this enterprise in early Spring 2011 and have been serving ravenous (Greater) Clevelanders faithfully come rain come shine. They offer a variety of dishes inspired by locally produced ingredients, which is always a plus!
So today I braved the rain as well and made the trek to meet for lunch.

We were welcomed by Dan and a most promising menu, which had been made available online one day in advance on Facebook and Twitter.

My wife zeroed in on the four cheese Mac-n-Cheese, a pretty tasty dish topped with breadcrumbs. Maybe our expectations were too high – it was a very solid, creamy Mac-n-Cheese dish, but not necessarily a revelation as to what all other Mac-n-Cheese should aspire to be.

I could not make up my mind between the two soups offered, and Dan immediately accommodated me and offered me a sample menu of both. And am I glad he did – because both dishes were absolutely delicious.
I started off with the harvest stew (winter squash, white beans, sweet potatoes, chickpeas, & Moroccan spices), a slightly sweet, hearty stew topped with golden couscous. It was wonderful! With the couscous stirred in, it had just the right amount of bite.

But I think my favorite dish of the day was the spicy, creamy, perfectly balanced tomato lentil soup. I could have consumed buckets and buckets! The only way to improve upon this dish would have been warm flat bread to dip into it. Oh wait! That was supplied as well. Literally one of the best things I’ve eaten since our China trip in May.

The dishes left me very sated and kept me warm and cozy all the way back to work through the rain. Perfect rainy Cleveland Fall weather food! And very portable as a “to go” meal.

Bottom line? Find them so they can feed you! Good to amazing food, fair prices, beautiful use of produce and an incredibly friendly and gracious crew. 4.5/5 from me.

Thank you so much again to Dan and Kelly for the treat and the eye-opening lentil soup! Man, I wish I even knew where to start on trying to make it myself…                      

Apple-Picking and All-Natural Applesauce

Tags

Apple-Picking, Apples, Fruit, Local, Recipe, Sugar-Free

I’m German. I only came to the U.S. in 2005, and there are many traditions I’ve never experienced, many foods I’ve never tasted, that make up a significant portion of U.S. American culture and everyday life. One such thing is apple picking at an orchard (and no, I have never been to a pumpkin patch, I haven’t been to a haunted hayride, and, alas, I’m too old to ever trick or treat), which my wife and American friends informed me could simply not be tolerated.

My first ever apple-picking adventure thus happened last weekend at Patterson Fruit Farms, in medium heavy rain and shin-deep mud, but we had an absolute blast. I got 15lbs of apples, a nice mix of Idared, Golden Delicious and Red Delicious apples. Regardless of the variety, the price for U-Pick apples was 96 cents per pound. My wife was hoping for tarter varieties such as Granny Smith, but we seem to have missed their season. Nevertheless, the apples we did get were wonderful!

When we got home, I immediately had to get going with applesauce making using my Idared haul, while the rest of the gang attacked the baking of apple pie! All in a tiny kitchen courtesy of our chauffeuring friend Larry, but it was a very fun afternoon.

So here goes, basic all-natural, no sugar added applesauce!
Ingredients:
– 6 lbs apples
– 3 cups water
– 2 teaspoons cinnamon
– 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
– half a lemon

Steps:
1. Get peeling, coring, and roughly cubing! If you like your apple sauce with some bite, leave up to half the apples unpeeled.

2. Add the apple cubes to one or more large pots, slice the lemon and add the slices, pour water into pots and add cinnamon and nutmeg.

3. Turn heat to high to get a good boil going:

4. Cover, reduce heat to medium and boil for 20 minutes (apples should be soft) with frequent stirring. The end result should look somewhat like this:

5. Fish out the lemon slices and process everything else in batches to a food processor or blender if you like your applesauce smooth, otherwise use a potato masher.

And that’s it! Yields about 12 cups of sauce, and you can easily half or double to recipe according to your needs and kitchen space.

Chinese Mystery Melons

Tags

China, Chinese, Fruit, melon

China is full of small fruit stores, fruit stalls, and fruit carts attached to bicycles that you wave over and can peruse at your leisure, provided you don’t get hit by a car/bike/scooter/bus/angry pedestrian first while trying to get there.

I bought two little melons and a dragonfruit on my first night in Beijing:

I had one of the little mystery melons like an apple for lack of utensils, since the rind was not hard like in the Western cultivars* I am used to. To be honest, I wasn’t sure it would be a melon until I ate it, even though my friend insisted the girl working in the fruit store called it melon. The melon was mostly round and about the size of a really large apple or pear. It tasted crisp and less sweet than expected, really more like an incredibly juicy apple.

The other melon was a bit larger and was easier to identify as a melon, despite being more pear-shaped. The rind was also harder and the flesh sweeter and softer:

Unfortunately they are truly mystery melons, I haven’t been able to find any more information on these online or elsewhere, so if anyone can tell me anything, please do! I’d more than appreciate it.

Update: Thanks to Gatti, we’ve been able to figure out that this appears to be a subspecies of the Chinese musk melon, also known as xianggua, which literally means fragrance melon. Thank you!

*My wife says nobody knows/uses the word “cultivar”. Do you?

Umami Moto – An Asian-Inspired Foodtruck on a Mission!

Tags

Asian, Fish & Seafood, Food, food truck, Poultry, Review, UmamiMoto, Vegetables

My wife’s work is awesome. Why? Because once a week, Umami Moto rolls in during lunchtime and feeds the hungry masses!

Umami Moto, owned by Jae Stulock and Sandy Madachick, is an aptly named foodtruck (loosely translated from the Japanese as “savory car”) that has been on the prowl in Cleveland, OH and surroundings since last winter, bravely weathering lake effect snow (which lasts a good 5 months a year) without a hitch. As you might guess from the name, most of their offerings are Asian-inspired, with an emphasis on Thai and Vietnamese cuisines. Obviously I had my wife treat me, no?

We actually went on two different occasions (yes, it was that tasty!), and here’s what a menu will look like:

The menu varies daily, and gets posted on facebook and twitter in the morning, messing with my poor little head and making it hard to focus on my work rather than which dish to try.

On our first vist I ended up going with fish tacos (not on the pictured menu) with a lime aioli that was absolutely divine and changed my world view concerning all things fish taco. Co-owner Jae Stulock informed me that the secret ingredient is lime simple syrup!

My wife chose a Vietnamese chicken curry served over rice (see the menu above), that reduced her to repeated “Man, this chicken is great. No, it’s so good!” comments in between bites.

So when I returned today (armed with a camera rather than an iPad), I decided to give the vegan snap pea and mushroom stir-fry served over white rice a try, and it was wonderful. The seasoning was spot-on and complemented the earthy mushroom flavor perfectly. I could have easily left the rice for a few more servings of the veggies alone!

I tip my hat to the chefs! Another great thing about Umami Moto is their efforts to use locally produced ingredients, plus all their food containers are made from recycled materials. A+ for responsible business.

Bottom line? When in Cleveland, try to catch Umami Moto. Great flavors, creative dishes, friendly personnel and fair prices. 5/5 from me.

I’ll leave you with a picture co-owner Stulock, who was gracious enough to pose for me with his tasty, tasty vehicle.

Chinese Sugar-Free Chewing Gum

Tags

Chewing Gum, China, Chinese, Snacks

If you are anything like me, sugar-free chewing gum is a major food group for you, if only to keep you from nibbling on everything else that you might encounter. Let me tell you, the Chinese rival the Americans in gum availability and selection, even the sugar-free kind!

The flavor profile is definitely different than what we typically see here, but the brands are similar. Above is a selection of Chinese Wrigley’s Extra! gums, including cantaloupe, grapefruit, strawberry and blueberry flavors. And that ominous looking bottle happens to be Pepsi Max, if you’re wondering. But more on diet drinks in China some other time.

Now this is a bit off the beaten track, and I was only able to find these gems (in my opinion) in the small town of Wenchuan, that was completely rebuilt after the 2009 Sichuan earthquakes. Lotte is a Korean brand that also is everywhere in Japan, and here you see sugar-free coffee-flavored gum and drops. Most people I know have judged this to be completely disgusting, but I *loved* this stuff back in Japan and was ecstatic to find it again in China, if only once.

As with tea, the Chinese are big on flower, or hua, flavors. On the right you can see some rose-flavored sugar-free gum, and I’ve also seen lotus and lilly flavors. On the left is another Lotte variety, “Black Black + X”, which seemed to be mainly caffeine with an unidentifiable flavor that may or may not have been meant to be licorice. Not one I’d recommend…

This is another cantaloupe-flavored sugar-free gum, with actor/singer Wang Leehom on the front (kudos to my friend living in China, who adds that his face also graces water bottles!). This gum came in little chewy cubes with blue pieces meant to help clean your teeth. Not bad! I only came across this brand once, though, in Chengdu.

And mentos! Mentos were everywhere, and this particular version was shaped like the mints, but consisted of sugar-free gum with a liquid sour juice center. Very refreshing! The bottle had three mixed flavors, my favorite was the green gum filled with red juice.

This final example was a mixed box of mango, peach and rose sugar-free gum, and came with the most gimmicky dispenser mechanism I have ever seen:

You had to pull up the top, let it drop down again, and you’d end up with one or two pieces of gum resting atop a center column that wasn’t mobile. Not too practical, but a fun discovery nevertheless.

As you can see, you won’t have to import your gum if you go to China and are afraid you’ll go into withdrawal.

Most nutritional information is given per 100g, as is also common in Europe, so it will be difficult for you to just check calories to determine whether a bottle of gum is sugar-free or not. A few of the bottles/packs will have the English word “sugar-free” printed on (see for example those little cubes with the actor on the bottle), but the easiest way to identify them is to check the ingredients. If it says “Xylitol”, you know you’re looking at artificially sweetened gum. By the way, most artificially sweetened items in China are made with xylitol rather than the sweeteners we’re used to see in the United States (mannitol, sorbitol, aspartame, stevia, sucralose, etc.). Xylitol is used here for dental care products with a sweet flavor though!

So, what crazy gum flavors are your favorites, or what would you like to see explored on the Western gum market? I sure vote for coffee…

Healthy Foodie… Eats Locally?!

Tags

CSA, Food, Fruit, United States, Vegetables

While I love traveling, I am neither a travel guide nor stinking filthy rich, and therefore have to eat mostly at home. To keep food exciting and support local farmers, I decided, at the urging of my wife, to join a CSA this year.

A CSA? What? Yeah, that’s what I thought. CSA stands for community-supported agriculture, and generally works in a way that an individual pays in advance for the season (typically June through October) to obtain a weekly share of the farm’s harvest. Shares tend to come in “single” or “family” sizes, and most farms expect you to come pick up the share during a designated time period.

The benefits of joining a CSA are vast: You support local farmers and jobs, you ensure responsible farming techniques to protect the environment, you usually save a good deal of money for super-fresh, gorgeous produce (my personal savings amount to somewhere between 10 to 20 US dollars each week, and I get a family share), the produce you do get it fresh, often organic, much richer in nutrients than store-bought fruit due to freshness and no time spent in travel, and, probably the biggest tickle factor for me, it challenges you to eat in season, discover new produce and mix up your weekly cooking. Since you get a share of whatever is harvested, you don’t chose what fruit and vegetables you will get, and it’s typically a big surprise box. Then you need to adapt, try new recipes, discover new favorite foods, and have a foodie-gasm, if you’re like me! For some more info, see this great post.

I joined a set-up called City Fresh that is slightly different than regular CSAs in that it’s run by the New Agrarian Center, a local food initiative that buys produce from 30 farms in a 75 mile radius around Cleveland, where I currently live, and offers pick-up of your share at a variety of locations close to your home (11 locations in my county, alone!). That’s really the deciding factor for me, because I don’t own a car and can’t easily visit farms that are a minimum of 30 minutes driving time away. My stop is only 15 minutes by foot from where I live, and is run by an awesome volunteer team:

I’ll be adding a “local food” section on Mondays that will show some of the most beautiful produce I get every week from my CSA and include recipes and recommendations on how to recreate some of my favorite foods encountered on various travels at home. Are you a member of a CSA? What would you like to see featured? Any other great local food recommendations you want to share? I’d love to hear all about it!