Delicious Blueberry Compote-slash-Syrup

This is great on pancakes, ice cream, angel cake, and as a topping to spice up less flavorful fruits like cantaloupe.

It is an excellent way to use frozen berries, which are much cheaper than fresh, and available year-round. They may also be more nutritious, since they haven't been sitting on a shelf, but instead were frozen and preserved right after being picked.

Ingredients:
1 bag frozen wild blueberries (about a pound)
1/4 tsp cinnamon
Sweetener to taste
Optional: Lemon zest, OR orange zest, OR 1/4 tsp orange oil

Place the blueberries and the cinnamon in a small pot over medium heat. No need to thaw the berries first. Cook and stir.

The berries will burst and give up a lot of juice. As long as you keep stirring, the berry syrup will become thicker and thicker. There is a "sweet spot" where the berry syrup has become concentrated and intensely flavorful, but hasn't become too thick or gritty from the seeds. Exactly how thick is up to you. Just keep spooning some out and looking at it. You will know when it's done because you will look at it and say "I wanna put that on my ice cream." (When it's too thin, you will look at it and say "Ick, that looks watery.")

Take it off the stove and add the sweetener at this time. It doesn't matter what kind you use, but do make sure it has cooled before you add nutrasweet (phenylalanine) if that's what you use. The flavor of the berries is strong enough to cover up the flavor of stevia if you choose to use it. How much you need will depend on the sweetness of the berries, which varies from bag to bag. Start with 1/4 cup (or equivalent) and taste.

If you chose to use the zest or flavoring, add it now.

NEXT: Some people like this as a compote, which means there are whole berries floating in a relatively thin syrup, while other people like it better as a thick syrup with no chunks, ie. a smooth puree. I like puree, Ariel likes chunks, so I puree half of it and then store the results in separate jars.

Note that this syrup is different from store-bought in that it has no preservatives. This will keep for only 2-3 days in the fridge. If you want it to keep for longer, then take it out every day or two and bring it to a boil, then cool and return to the fridge. Every time you boil it, you stop the bacteria and yeast from growing, and reset the shelf life.

WHY AND WHEREFORE:

Why wild blueberries? They are higher in antioxidants and have a stronger flavor, and are a little more tart, which I like. They are also a little more expensive, so feel free to use regular blueberries if the wild ones are too pricey.

Why cinnamon and citrus? That's just the traditional "berry cobbler" combo. You can also use 1/4 - 1/2 tsp almond flavoring, which is sophisticated and a nice treat. Also, you can include other berries, such as blackberries, to make a more complex flavor. Ginger and lemon is another fun twist. I haven't tried it, but I have seen fruit recipes that use 1/4 cup of zinfandel wine, too.

Italian Cauliflower Casserole

From Cooking Light but edited to make it a more filling meal for active folks like us. To make it lighter you can reduce the amount of beef and/or cheese. To make it non-dairy just use Veggie Shreds for the cheese. You can leave off the breadcrumbs if anyone is gluten intolerant or can't have carbs.

Ingredients:

1 head cauliflower, cut into bite sized florets
1 large yellow onion, minced
4 garlic cloves or equivalent garlic powder
1 tsp sriracha or ground red pepper to taste
1/4 tsp salt
1 pound lean ground beef
1 1/2 cups tomato sauce, ideally a garlicky or herby one
1/2 cup grated garlic and herb cheddar
1/2 cup grated parmesan
1/3 cup bread crumbs

Steam the cauliflower 5 minutes or until it's crisp-tender. Drain and place in a large casserole dish. Sprinkle with cheddar.

Saute the onion in olive oil over medium heat for a couple minutes until it begins to soften. Then add the beef, stirring to crumble, and raise the heat to medium-high. Keep stirring and cooking the beef until it is all browned. Add the garlic, salt, and pepper while the beef cooks.

When the beef is done, stir in the tomato sauce and heat through. Pour the meat mixture over the cauliflower and stir to combine, gently so the cauliflower doesn't crumble.

Sprinkle the parmesan and bread crumbs over the top of the casserole. Broil for 4 minutes or until golden, and serve.

Bouillon is Better than Broth

Because frankly, I have better things to do with my time than boil soup stock, and better things to do with my money than buy canned broth. Not to mention the fact that homemade broth ruins all those vegetables, and you have to throw them away. That, plus the short shelf life, is a recipe (heh heh) for waste.

I hate waste. Can you tell? Wasted time, wasted money, wasted ingredients. Hate, hate, hate.

A good quality bouillon tastes as good as canned broth (to me), at a fraction of the price AND a fraction of the pantry space. When your kitchen is as small as mine (remember your college dorm room? About 1/4 that size), pantry space is at a premium.

Also, and people don't often realize this, bouillon can be mixed mixed to any strength. Ordinary recipes call for broth to be boiled down to make it stronger (a waste of time!), but with bouillon, you can skip that step and just mix the broth the strength you want it! Example: Recipe calls for 2 cups of broth to be boiled down to 1 cup. Instead, add 1 cup water and 2 cups' worth of bouillon.

Furthermore, bouillon can be mixed with anything, not just water. When a recipe calls for, say, a cup of half-and-half (for creaminess) and a cup of broth (for flavor), you can instead mix the bouillon into TWO cups of 2% milk, and the result is not only better-tasting, but healthier, too. (I don't like wasting calories, either. If I'm going to have cream, it's going to be ICE cream, not chowder.)

I use this brand, which is ironically named Better Than Bouillon.

Here is a recipe to get you started thinking creatively about bouillon.

Swedish-Style Gravy - Great on IKEA's Swedish meatballs and way less fatty than their own gravy!

2 cups milk
1/4 cup flour
2 tsp Better than Bouillon beef flavor
1 tbsp butter

Whisk the flour into cold milk. Then heat over medium-high heat, stirring constantly. When it's warm, add the bouillon. When it bubbles, cook and stir for another 20 seconds, then remove from heat and drop in the butter. Whisk vigorously until the butter melts.

Incidentally: Adding cold butter to finished sauces is called "mounting" the sauce, which I think is hilarious. I do this instead of making a roux because it imparts the buttery flavor with less butter. A roux would have required at least twice as much butter, maybe more. Authentic French cooking uses this method to add MORE butter, essentially over-saturating the sauce with butter to make it hold more than it could have otherwise by emulsifying it. Oh, those crazy French!

Enjoy!