Category Archives: Food

Honey-Sweetened Meyer Lemon Curd

Our citrus tree is bursting with Meyer lemons. Baby Bird, who is 14-months-old and walking, loved picking the lemons. Meyer lemons are sweet and juicy and made a great lemon curd.

honey sweetened meyer lemon curd

baby bird picking meyer lemonsI have been trying to feed us less refined sugar this year. I find that our taste buds are slowly adjusting. For example, my husband and I don’t sweeten our coffee anymore. Meyer lemons are naturally sweeter than a conventional lemon. This recipe came out delicious sweetened with just honey, and I used a fraction of the amount of sweeteners other curd recipes use.

honey sweetened meyer lemon curd over blueberry pancakes

Little Bird is 3-years-old now and is quite the pro in the kitchen. She loves cooking projects. She loves to taste all of the ingredients, but at one point I had to pull the honey away from her. I think she ate half the container. (So much for limiting our sugar!) The lemon curd was perfect over Papa Bird’s famous gluten-free blueberry pancakes. I also used it to make a quick lemon-meringue tart with a (gluten-free) cashew/almond crust. Since my curd uses only egg yolks, a meringue was a perfect way to use up all of the whites.

Honey-Sweetened Meyer Lemon Curd
Author: 
Recipe type: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
Serves: 3.5 cups
 
This version of a classic lemon curd uses honey to sweeten. I used grass-fed butter, but it could also be made with coconut oil for a vegan version. I recommend using organic citrus anytime you are using the zest or peel.
Ingredients
  • 1 tablespoon lemon zest (from approx. 5-6 lemons)
  • 1 cup lemon juice (the juice of approx. 5-6 lemons)
  • 8 oz butter, room temperature
  • ½ cup honey
  • 8 egg yolks
Instructions
  1. Rinse the lemons and use a microplane to grate the zest of the lemons. Set aside.
  2. Juice the lemons until you have about 1 cup of juice. Set aside.
  3. Place water in a 2 quart saucepan on the stove and bring to a boil. Place a double boiler or bowl on top of it.
  4. While the water is coming to a boil, place the butter in the bowl of a mixer. Beat until light and fluffy. Add the honey and beat well. Then add the egg yolks one at a time and mix in. Then slowly add in the lemon juice. It is okay if it is not totally smooth in the mixer, because the butter will melt in the next step.
  5. Pour the mixture into the top of the double boiler or the bowl over the pot. Occasionally, stir gently with a heat proof spatula. Heat the mixture until it comes up to 170*F. At that point it should be smooth but not necessarily thick.
  6. Pour into jars for canning, a crust for a meringue, or store in the fridge. Allow to cool completely. It will thicken as it cools.
  7. Keeps in the fridge for 1 week and freezes well.
Notes
From this size recipe, I used two cups of the curd in a tart/lemon meringue pie and used the remaining 3 pints as curd. If you want a super smooth texture, strain the curd after taking it off the heat to remove the zest. I left it in and liked it.

meyer lemon curd ingredientsGet all of the ingredients for this recipe ready ahead of time and then it will be easy to throw together. Just watch out for three-year-old honey swipers!

No fancy equipment is required, but a kitchen-aid mixer helps get a creamy texture and a microplane make zesting citrus much easier. A double-boiler let me not worry about scorching the bottom while it cooked and a thermometer let me know exactly when to take the curd off the heat.

Click here to pin this recipe on Pinterest.

Honey-Sweetened Meyer Lemon Curd from @BabyBirdsFarm

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Butternut Squash, Chick Peas and Black Rice with a Clementine Shallot Vinaigrette

We finally have fall weather here in San Diego and I’m enjoying autumn vegetables. This side dish features butternut squash, chick peas and black rice, and is warm and cozy. The clementine vinaigrette gives it a sweet bite and pine nuts make it extra rich. I love the bright and warm combination of citrus and fennel. To me it tastes sunny and cozy and wintery all at once.

Butternut Squash, Chick Pea and Black Rice

A fellow food blogger invited me to participate in a recipe challenge from Melissa’s. Melissa’s sent us a box of fresh and seasonal produce and we were challenged to come up with a recipe featuring at least 2 or 3 of the items, sort of like “Chopped.” Fresh Produce from Melissa's (FCC Disclaimer: I received the box for free, but have not otherwise been compensated. Opinions and recipe development are entirely mine.) I immediately gravitated to a beautiful butternut squash, pine nuts and cranberries. Unfortunately, Little Bird also gravitated to the cranberries… and ate the entire bag in a few minutes.

Butternut Squash, Chick Pea and Black Rice1I decided to add the garbanzo beans for extra protein. I usually cook with dried beans, and start from scratch, but the convenience of the vacuum sealed beans was nice and the taste was a step up from a can. Apart from throwing the rice in the rice cooker, the only “cooking” was chopping and roasting the squash.  Little Bird enjoying shaking up the vinaigrette in a jar.

Butternut Squash, Chick Pea and Black Rice

Keep reading for a printable recipe plus more fall dishes.
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Sweet Potato Pecan Pie from Chef Matt Gordon

While learning about the Mama’s Kitchen Pie in the Sky fundraiser, I had the opportunity to watch Chef Matt Gordon of Urban Solace and Sea and Smoke demonstrate his recipe for Sweet Potato Pecan Pie. He gave me permission to share the recipe below. Chef Gordon also dropped lots of pie knowledge and tips during the demonstration. Fortunately, I took furious notes and share his best tricks and tips for making pie here.

sweet potato pecan pie

Don’t forget that you can save yourself the time and trouble of baking by having Chef Gordon and other top San Diego restaurants and bakeries make a pie for you. Purchasing a pie for $25 will provide over 8 healthy meals to neighbors in need. That’s a win-win-win. You can also donate a pie to clients as well.

chef matt gordon baking sweet potato pecan pie

Chef matt Gordon’s advanced Pie making Tips

  • A cold kitchen and cold hands are best for pastry. The butter should never melt. The chef said that he sometimes goes into their walk-in refrigerator on hot days. Interestingly, he shared that the best pastry chefs often have naturally cold hands.
  • Use parchment paper between the dough and your rolling pin to roll out the dough more easily.
  • Adding egg yolks to the dough (as this recipe does) is called an “enriched” recipe. It is great for wet batters (such as pumpkin pie and pecan pie) when you don’t want to pre bake the crust. Although this recipe calls for brushing the crust with egg white before putting the filling in, he says it isn’t necessary for an enriched crust.
  • Citrus zest adds great flavor to any baked goods, such as this crust.
  • Wet finger can band aid together a tear in the crust. As you want to handle the dough as little as possible, never ball it up to roll out a second time.
  • Many home cooks have spices in the cupboards for ages. Fresh spices make a huge difference. (I love grating fresh nutmeg with a microplane.)
  • Use raw pecans. (I had always wondered which was better for pie!)
  • Setting the oven to 325ºF (instead of hotter) can prevent over browning the crust. You can use a bit of foil, too. (I use a pie shield.)
  • Don’t use the fan if you have a convection oven. A conventional oven is actually better.
chef matt gordon baking sweet potato pecan pie
Continue reading for a printable recipe.

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Easy Cranberry Clementine Sauce

My sister Marjorie has been making a fresh cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving since she was a teenager. She shares her recipe for easy cranberry clementine sauce every year, since I never write it down. I’m happy to share it here because now I will be able to look it up next November, too! This is also a fun recipe to make with kids.

easy cranberry clementine sauce recipe

Easy Cranberry Clementine Sauce
Author: 
Recipe type: Thanksgiving
Cuisine: Easy Vegan
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
 
An easy homemade recipe for cranberry sauce made with clementine juice and peel. Perfect for Thanksgiving.
Ingredients
  • 12 ounces of fresh cranberries (1 bag)
  • 1 clementine orange, juice and peel
  • 1 cup of water
  • 1 cup of sugar
Instructions
  1. Rince cranberries. Juice the clementine and chop the peel in a small dice.
  2. Place all of the ingredients in a small sauce pan. Bring to a boil and cook for 10 minutes. Cool slightly and serve.
  3. May also be refrigerated up to one week and served cold.

Pin the recipe to save. Please follow my Thanksgiving board on Pinterest for more ideas!

cranberry clementine sauce

Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

As promised, here is the recipe for cinnamon cream cheese frosting, the perfect topping to the gluten-free Pumpkin Smash Cake and gluten-free pumpkin cup cakes shared yesterday. Both the cake and the frosting have greatly reduced sugar. I think our tastes must be changing, because I used a quarter of the sugar others use in this frosting and it still tasted sweet to us. I do not like to use sugar substitutes, but prefer to just add less sugar.

Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting on a Pumpkin Cake

Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe

Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting
Author: 
Recipe type: Dessert
Prep time: 
Total time: 
 
Ingredients
  • 8 ounces of organic, full fat, cream cheese
  • 4 ounces (1/2 cup) of grass-fed butter
  • 1 cup of powdered sugar
  • 2 teaspoons of cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
  • (optional) 1 tablespoon of pumpkin puree
Instructions
  1. Let the cream cheese and butter come to almost room temperature.
  2. Place all of the ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer. With a wire whip attachment, mix on the highest speed until light and fluffy.
  3. Use on Baby Bird's Pumpkin Smash Cake.

Use on Baby Bird’s Pumpkin Smash Cake.