Posts Tagged ‘Apricot’

• Fruit and Nut Couscous

  Date: 2010.02.18 | Category: Side Dish, Snack, Sweets | Response: 10

  Please head on over to Chef It Yourself and vote for your favorite!  Voting ends February 24th!

  Earlier this month I signed up for this great food challenge hosted by a local Houston Foodie, Anamaris of Chef It Yourself. This is my very first Top Chef It Yourself Challenge and I was excited when I found out what the secret ingredients were; dates, ginger and couscous!! I’m a big fan of couscous but the family isn’t, well Alyssa likes it but no one else.  I knew I was going to make my recipe sweet but wasn’t sure what to do.  After thinking about it for a few days I finally had a recipe in mind and it turned out great.  I loved it and so did Alyssa.

  

  Fruit and Nut Couscous
  Printable Recipe

  Ingredients
  1 10 oz box of Original Plain Couscous *I used the Near East brand
  1 cup water
  1 cup apple juice
  3 Medjool Dates, diced
  3 tablespoons crystallized ginger, chopped
  1/2 cup *cranberry fiesta mix (dried cranberries, coconut, walnuts, pecans and almonds)
  1/4 cup honey, save a little to drizzle on top
  1/4 cup apricot preserves

  Directions
  1. Prepare couscous according to package using 1 cup of water and 1 cup of apple juice.
  2. While couscous is cooking, chop the dates and ginger.
  3. Move couscous to a large bowl, while it’s still warm, add the dates, ginger, craberry fiesta, honey and apricot preserves. Gently stir until well combined
  4. Serve warm with a drizzle of honey.

  *A little side note. I shop at H.E.B and they have this great healthy living section that has bulk containers of fruits, oats, nuts, just to name a few. You are able to scoop the amount of product you want, put it on the scale, weigh it and it prints out the barcode for you. I love this little section of my store. For example, Medjool dates were $10.99 for 1lb in the produce section, they were $6.99 in the natural food section. I didn’t need a pound I only needed a few so I bought four big fat dates and it was only $1.40, great deal!! I also bought the ginger and cranberry fiesta is this section. I bought .10 lb of ginger and it was $0.45 and I bought .31 lb of the cranberry fiesta and it was $1.70, take about great deals. I’m sure you could buy a trail mixer to substitute for the cranberry fiesta. I would have spent a lot more if I went straight to the baking section for everything.

• apricot morning muffins….yummm

  Date: 2009.04.18 | Category: Breakfast | Response: 6

  

  Printable Recipe

  As you all know breakfast is my favorite meal of the day.  I don’t know what it is about breakfast, I just love it.  I would make breakfast for lunch and dinner everyday of the week, love, love, love breakfast!  Here lately the kids have wanted nothing put pancakes for breakfast, I think I made pancakes 5 morning in a row last week!  The kids love pancakes!  I was sick of making pancakes so I was on the hunt for muffins.  I used to make muffins all the time from the little premixed packages at the store, just add milk or water….those packages.  Nothing wrong with that but I wanted to make muffins from scratch.  While on my hunt I checked out The Pioneer Women website and she just posted her morning muffins recipe. Her recipe called for orange marmalade and orange juice…and I have to be honest, not a big fan of orange marmalade, I love orange juice but not marmalade.

  

  I got to thinking about what I could change because the muffins looked really good. Then I remembered I had a jar of apricot spreadable fruit in the fridge and apple juice…we always have apple juice.  So I headed to the kitchen to get started on the muffins.  I halved The Pioneer Women’s recipe and came out with 20 muffins and added oatmeal into the topping.  I love apricot but the kids have never tired it, I was worried that they would not like it.  I let them try one fresh out of the oven and they loved them!  Tyler had two for breakfast this morning and a tall glass of apple juice and Alyssa and Kameron had one.  Everyone liked them and I have to say I was a little surprised that they liked the muffins, I’m glad they did!  I can take a break from making pancakes!

  

  Ingredients (Muffins)
  2 cups of flour
  1/4 cup sugar
  1 tablespoon baking powder
  1/4 butter
  1/2 cup apple juice
  1 10oz jar Apricot spreadable fruit (I used Smuckers)
  1/2 tsp vanilla
  1 egg

  Topping
  3/4 cup sugar
  1/2 cup oatmeal
  1 teaspoon cinnamon
  1 teaspoon nutmeg
  1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon melted butter
  1/4 teaspoon salt

  Directions
  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
  2. Spray muffin pan with cooking spray or use cupcake cups. (I sprayed the pan and the muffins did not stick)
  2. Sift together flour, sugar, and baking powder, in a mixing bowl. Use a pastry cutter or two knivies to mix in butter
  3. Mix apricot fruit, apple juice, and vanilla in a seperate bowl and pour into dry ingredients.
  4. Beat egg and pour into the bowl.
  5. Mix all ingredients together gently, carefull not to over mix or muffins will be tough.
  6. In a small bowl, mix topping ingredients.
  7. Fill muffin pans with batter. Sprinkle 1 heaping teaspoon of topping ingredients over each muffin.
  8. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes until done. Remove from pan and cool on wire rack.

  Makes 20 muffins