Lemon Ginger Tea

Lemon Ginger Tea is the perfect early morning pick-me-up. It leaves you refreshed and awake without the 3 o’clock caffeine crash that comes from drinking coffee.

It’s also the perfect drink when you’re feeling sick. At the first signs of a stuffy nose or scratchy throat, brew up a big pot of this tea and relish in its immune system boosting properties. Lemon juice has high quantities of vitamin C, while ginger and cayenne pepper help to clear the sinuses.[1]

Ingredients:

a small knob of ginger, grated

½ lemon, juiced with the seeds removed

1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper

Method:

In a small pot, boil enough water to fill a tea mug. Add the grated ginger into the boiling water and allow to simmer for 3 minutes. Pour the lemon juice into the mug. Pour the boiling ginger water into the mug and sprinkle cayenne pepper on top. If the tea is too bitter, add a small spoonful of honey. Serve hot.

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[1] http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/fruits-and-fruit-juices/1938/2

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Chocolate Truffles

These truffles are the perfect pick-me-up snack when you’re feeling like something sweet. They’re easy to make and keep for a long time, making them the perfect dessert to store in your freezer for unexpected company – if you can resist them long enough. I'm not proud to admit it, but I’ve been known to eat these truffles for breakfast.

CHOCOLATE DATE TRUFFLES

Ingredients:

15 large dates, pitted

1 cup raw almonds, chopped

5 tbsp. cocoa powder

2 tbsp. coconut oil, room temperature

2 oz. unsweetened baking chocolate

Optional Flavoring Suggestions:

Orange Juice/Zest

Coffee Extract

Mint Extract

Hazelnut Extract

Suggested Toppings:

Unsweetened Shredded Coconut

Cocoa Powder

Chai Powder

Rolled Oats

Mixed Nuts

In a small double boiler**, melt the baking chocolate and coconut oil. In a food processor, mix the dates until they form a gooey paste. Add the almonds, cocoa powder, and melted chocolate and coconut oil to the food processor and mix until combined. Add any optional flavorings. Remove the food processor’s blade and place in the refrigerator for 10 minutes.

Then, form 15-20 small round balls in your hands and coat each truffle with one of the suggested toppings. Place in the freezer for 20 minutes before serving. 

**If you don’t have a double boiler, boil water in a small pot and place a medium-sized metal bowl on top of the pot. Place the chocolate in the bowl and allow it to melt. Using the double boiler method allows you to melt chocolate without it burning or seizing.**

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Bran Muffins

The Danish word hygge has no direct English translation. If you ask any Dane, they’ll give you a list of near-synonyms like coziness, security, fellowship, or well being, but they’ll always follow it up with the assertion that none of these words could ever hope to describe hygge correctly. Hygge is a way of life, they’ll tell you. It’s the Danish culture.

When I lived in Denmark last year, I experienced many things that were totally different than anything I had ever done before. But the culture of hygge was a constant in my life, following me from New York to Copenhagen. To the Danes, hygge means lighting a few dozen candles, inviting your friends and family over, sitting in front of a crackling fire, staying up late talking and laughing the night away, and most importantly, eating good food. At the end of the night, when you’re all exhausted and ready to pile into the car for the drive home, you give your hosts a big hug and say “Tusind tak. Det var hyggelig.” 

Even though my parents and siblings had never heard that word until I brought it back with me in May, I can’t think of a better way to describe our family dynamic. Many nights at the Campanelli house are spent next to a roaring fire, a cup of mint tea in one hand and a muffin in the other, with the five of us reading together at the kitchen table. This is what family is to us. Our recipe has evolved over the past ten years, just as we all have. But to me and Julia, there’s nothing more hyggelig in the world than walking through the front door to smell fresh bran muffins baking in the oven.

BRAN MUFFINS

Ingredients:

Dry:

2 cups raw bran (Bob’s Red Mill or Kellogg’s All-Bran Cereal)

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour

1 tbsp. baking powder

½ tsp. salt

½ cup unsweetened shredded coconut

½ - ¾ cup raisins

3 tbsp. cinnamon

1 orange, zested 

Wet:

1 ½ cups rice milk

½ cup olive oil

1 egg

1 tbsp. almond extract

1 tbsp. vanilla extract

Method:

Preheat the oven to 400F on convection bake. In a large bowl, mix dry ingredients together. Add the wet ingredients to dry. If the batter looks too dry, add more rice milk and oil in proportion.

Bake for 26 minutes.

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Mini Apple Pies

Our brother Jonathan is a picky eater. Like us when we were 13, he likes plain pasta, French bread pizza, and not much else. He’s also our biggest critic and he doesn’t sugarcoat his feelings – if something’s not sweet enough, he’s the first to pull out the chocolate ice cream. “It just needs a little something to accent the flavor,” he says as he piles spoonful after spoonful on top of our delicate creations. But there’s one thing he can’t resist, and that’s a delicious apple pie. Whenever we come home from college, that’s the first thing he asks me to make – no chocolate ice cream necessary.

Thanksgiving is tomorrow and we’re drowning in desserts, but Jon had a craving for apples. I told him that if I was going to make him a fleet of baby pies, then he would have to help me. So we ran to the grocery store, picked out eight perfect Golden Deliciouses, and set to work peeling and coring and slicing.

In the end, he was a great sous-chef and our pies turned out great. I only had to bribe him with the promise that he could get any girl to date him if he knew his way around a kitchen. 

Maybe, like us, he’ll outgrow his picky habits and turn into a food lover. And if not, at least he now knows how to make a mean apple pie (or at least direct his future girlfriend to this blog post).

PIE CRUST

Makes dough for two single-crust pies, or 12 4-inch ramekins

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Check out her Rolling and Crimping Tutorial while you're at it!

Ingredients:

2 ½ cups white flour

1 tsp. sea salt

2 sticks unsalted butter, cubed and very cold

2 tbsp. ice water

Method:

In a food processor, combine flour, salt, and butter in a food processor and pulse for 5 seconds. Add the water one drop at a time until the mixture starts to combine. Place mixture in a big bowl and kneed until dough-like.

Divide the dough in half and place each half on large pieces of plastic wrap. Shape the dough into a flattened disk and allow to sit in the fridge for at least one to two hours. 

MINI APPLE PIES

Serves 12

Ingredients:

8 golden delicious apples; peeled, cored, and sliced

1 cup raisins

¼ cup shredded coconut, unsweetened

2 tbsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. nutmeg

1 tsp. ginger powder

1 tbsp. vanilla extract

1 tbsp. almond extract

1 pie crust recipe

Method:

Preheat the oven to 375 F (200 C).

In a large bowl, combine cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger powder, vanilla and almond extracts. Add sliced apples, raisins, and coconut, stirring until the spice mixture fully coats all of the apples.

Remove the pie crust dough from the fridge and divide into 12 pieces. Roll each piece until ¼ inch thick, lay it on top of a ramekin and press the dough lightly into the bottom. Place 3-4 spoonfuls of the apple mixture on top of the dough, pressing down gently to fill the ramekin. Cut off the excess dough around the edges and re-roll the dough. Cut the dough into 6 thin strips and arrange in a lattice pattern.

Bake for 45 minutes, or until the crust turns golden brown. 

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Cannoli

There are some foods that I’ve always loved, but have been terrified of making for myself. Whether it’s French macarons or sprouted bread, I’ll gladly shell out money for someone else to take the trouble to beat egg whites until their arms hurt or lord over a farm of sprouting wheat berries and lentils.

            There’s also the issue of “healthifying” these recipes. Often, the ingredients that we want to change are the ones that give the dish its defining characteristics. I mean, have you ever tried to make sugar-free, vegan marshmallows? (It goes about as well as you might expect.)           

So naturally, we thought that making cannolis would go down in same disastrous way. And since buying premade shells was obviously out of the question, we had resigned ourselves to live cannoli-free for the rest of our lives.

So you can imagine our surprise and delight when we found this recipe with easy to follow, step-by-step instructions on how to create those delicious, flaky shells. The following recipes are not complicated, but the assembly takes a little bit of finesse. Our best advice is to invest in a stainless-steel cannoli shell form. It’ll cost you no more than 6 dollars on Amazon and (unlike us) you’ll save yourself from breathing toxic plastic fumes all night (the things we’ll do in pursuit of the perfect picture). If you’re dying to try these sugar-free cannolis and just can’t wait for the UPS guy to arrive, cut the dough into small chips, deep fry them, and use the mascarpone filling as a delicious dip.

Atlantis wanted to make a cameo.

CANNOLI

INGREDIENTS

CRUST

1 1/3 cups white flour

2 tbsp. butter

1 pinch salt

white wine (sweet or dry)

vegetable oil

FILLING

16 oz. mascarpone cheese

18 dates

1 tsp. almond extract

3 oz. unsweetened baking chocolate, minced

METHOD

CRUST (Adapted from Food.com)

In a medium sized bowl, mix together flour, butter, and salt. Add enough wine to create a stiff but workable dough. Roll the dough into a ball and let it stand for about 1 hour.

After 1 hour, roll the dough until it’s ¼ inch thick. Cut the dough into 5x5 inch squares. Place the tube in the diagonal middle of the square and wrap one corner around the tube, then wrap the other so it overlaps the first. Press to seal the seam.

Pan-fry each shell until golden brown, turning as necessary to keep any one side from burning. Remove from pan and allow to cool completely before removing shell from the tube. Fill with mascarpone cheese.

FILLING

In a food processor, blend dates into a paste. Add almond extract and mascarpone cheese and pulse until smooth. In a medium bowl, mix the cheese with the minced baking chocolate. Fill shells.

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