June Cocktail of the Month: Watermelon Martini

In honor of the new title of my blog, I've decided to feature a different cocktail each month! This month's is a Watermelon Martini. Last weekend I hosted a small dinner party for my sister's family and a friend. I thought watermelon would be a great easy side dish. OK, the real reason was so I could use this awesome watermelon bowl I picked up ages ago. Needless to say we had a ton of watermelon left over. I noticed all this juice collecting in the bottom of the bowl and figured there must be some drink that calls for watermelon juice and of course there is.

I started with this recipe from allrecipes.com, but I didn't have the right ingredients (namely watermelon schnapps), so I improvised and used peach schnapps instead. I also added twice as much alchohol by accident (whoopsie!). I confused tablespoons with ounces, and this was even before I had a sip, so I have no excuses. Sigh....However, we ended up loving what I concocted. How could we not? So here is my version:

Peachy Watermelon Martini

white sugar, as needed

1/2 cup watermelon juice

1/4 cup vodka

1/4 cup peach schnapps

2 Tbsp. simple syrup

1 Tbsp. lemon juice

1. Moisten the rim of 2 martini glasses with piece of watermelon. Place sugar on a plate and dip each glass into the sugar.

2. Pour the watermelon juice, vodka, peach schnapps, simple syrup, and lemon juice into a cocktail shaker over ice. Cover, and shake well. Strain into the prepared glasses. Garnish with a piece of watermelon and lemon or lime slices.

Up to my Eyeballs in Rhubarb

So, I was doing pretty well with my "no-sugar" thing. I went a whole month without baking any sweets. Then we went to visit my

in-laws and somehow came home with a huge bag of rhubarb. I don't know why, but these things just tend to happen when visiting family. The thing with rhubarb is that it's so tart, you have to use lots of sugar with it (although I have heard that the newer varieties are less tart, but whatever). So you see, I had to bake sweets. It was a necessary evil.

I had so much rhubarb, it was enough for three different recipes! The first recipe I made was one of my own, only I tweaked and improved it. A few years ago I came up with my own recipe for Strawberry Rhubarb Bars. I decided to add blueberries (they were buy one, get one free at the store, so that was a given) and some cinnamon to the crust. The results were great, if I do say so myself! These bars feature a cinnamon shortbread crust, a fruity sweet-tart filling and a crunchy oat crumb topping. The best early summer has to offer!

Very Berry Rhubarb Bars

by Dianne

Ingredients

Crust:

2 cups flour

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1 cup unsalted butter
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
 Filling:
4 eggs

2 cups granulated sugar

1/2 cup flour

1/2 tsp. salt

4 cups diced rhubarb

2 cups sliced strawberries

1 cup blueberries

Crumb Topping:
1/4 cup melted butter
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup oats
1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Directions
1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 13x9-inch pan. For crust, combine the 2 cups flour, brown sugar and cinnamon. Cut in the 1 cup unsalted butter until crumbs form. Press into bottom of pan. Bake for 15 minutes.
2.  For the filling, blend eggs, sugar, the 1/2 cup flour and salt. Fold in rhubarb, strawberries and blueberries. Carefully spread onto crust. For the crumb topping, combine the melted 1/4 cup butter, 1/2 cup flour, brown sugar, oats and cinnamon. Sprinkle the crumb topping on top of the rhubarb mixture. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes, until lightly brown and filling has set.
***Note: You can make a thinner bar by baking in a jelly-roll pan and reducing the baking time accordingly.

The other two rhubarb recipes I made were both from Allrecipes.com and they were both fantastic! I love rhubarb and have since I was a little girl. My mom grew it her garden and would make her famous Rhubarb Meringue Pie. The first was a cake: Rhubarb Spice Cake with Lemon Sauce. I had one piece and sent the rest with my husband to his work. It got rave reviews from his coworkers. They were pleasantly surprised at the flavor combination and thought it had just the right amount of lemon. The only thing I didn't like about the recipe was that it made too much lemon sauce and ended up throwing a lot of it out. I would recommend halving the sauce.

The third recipe was Frosted Rhubarb Cookies. I ended up taking these to a potluck and they were a big hit. I love the addition of the coconut. I decided to toast some coconut and sprinkle on top, which made them very pretty. I would have never thought to combine rhubarb with coconut!

So what is the verdict on rhubarb? It seems to be a very divisive ingredient. Either people love it or hate it. I love it! How about you?

Same Blog, New Title

Six months ago when I started my blog, I had no idea what to call it. I decided on "Photo Foodie Girl" because I love photography, I love food and I'm a girl. But it never quite felt just right. Even though I enjoy it, I'm still a little insecure about my photogrpahy (mostly because of a lack of a "fancy" camera and equipment) so I didn't really want the emphasis to be on my photography. Plus, I kept remembering a guest lecture we had in our college dorm about female equalitiy and empowerment. The lecturer said that we shouldn't let ourselves be called "girls," we are grown women. I guess that's always stuck with me. I am a grown woman, not a girl. I am 36 years old, strong, smart and independent. Roar!

Here's how I came up with my new name. A couple of weeks ago, I was realizing how mundane and serious my life was feeling. Sometimes I tend to take things too seriously and don't have any fun. Then I came across a YouTube show called "My Drunk Kitchen." I laughed my ass off. I realized how good it felt. This chick is not taking cooking seriously, why should I? She was having a blast and cracking me up. It reminded me of a scene from my family Christmas a couple of years ago. I was in the kitchen with my dad cooking some soup on Christmas Eve. I had a cosmopolitan in one hand, and I was stirring the soup with the other hand. I admitted that sometimes I pretend in my head that I am the star of a cooking show when I'm cooking. The others piped in from the dining room that I should call my show "Cooking and Cocktails with Dianne." In my show I would drink my cosmos, cook, and act all cute like Julia Child and misplace things like an entire chicken.

So there it is, the perfect name for my blog, six months after starting it! I figure it is a good reminder to not take it all so seriously. To just have a drink, cook, and have fun. Thank you all for joining me in on my fun!

PS  I would also like to introduce you to my new dishes. I got an amazing deal on them at Kohl's. They are Pfaltzgraff Taos. Pfaltzgraff is my favorite brand of dishes and they go so well with my decor. I have a lot of deep reds, black and beige in my house. Some women buy shoes. I buy plates.

Scenes from My Kitchen

Meet my kitchen. It doesn't have granite counter tops or stainless steel appliances and it's a little small, but that's OK. We get along pretty well. I still manage to make some pretty fabulous food. Tonight I was cooking Crispy Oven Fried Tilapia and Zucchini Pasta. I've got the fish all set to go in the oven, my pans ready on the stove and veggies all chopped. I've also got my gin on the rocks, which is my drink of choice while cooking. There's my evil microwave (once again the darned thing makes it into my blog). You can see Allrecipes.com open on my laptop in the corner. It's actually my old laptop, since I made the mistake once of bringing my shiny new laptop in the kitchen and spilling balsamic sauce in the keyboard. Ugh. But I really don't want to talk about that.....



Here's my super-full, but relatively organized pantry. I love having a big pantry because I tend to buy lots of stuff at the grocery store. I love grocery shopping (and did I mention that I work at the store too? Rather convenient, maybe a little too convenient.).












And here's me, looking all cute and chef-like for my hubby, who's taking my picture, while I sautee zucchini and boil pasta (yeah, so I'm bragging a little about doing two things at once). Not too bad, although I would like to loose about 10 pounds. Not sure if that's ever going to happen, seeing how stubborn my genes are. My jeans, however, are not stubborn, they are quite stretchy actually. Gotta love the Gap's Long and Lean.




So anyways, the results of my adventures in my kitchen tonight. Voila!

Giving Up Sugar

I have a confession. A month ago I gave up sugar. Not completely, that's almost impossible, but I've limited myself to 25 grams of sugar a day. That still may sound impossible for most people, and it was difficult at first, but I've gotten used to it. So what spurred this no-sugar kick? I watched this 90 minute video called "Sugar: The Bitter Truth." I highly encourage everyone to watch this video. It makes so much sense. A light bulb went off in my head. Why have Americans continued to become obese despite efforts to cut back on consuming fat? The answer is that they are consuming way too much sugar. Sugar is what is making our country fat. More specifically, it's fructose.

I'm not saying you shouldn't eat fruit. In fact, consuming fructose in whole fruits is pretty much the only way you should be eating fructose. It comes in this great package with fiber, vitamins, and antioxidants. However, table sugar, and of course high fructose corn syrup, is what you should be staying away from. Ordinary table sugar is called sucrose, a disaccharide. Which means it it composed of 2 monosaccharides: glucose and fructose. When you consume sugar in a can of pop, for example, the fructose goes straight to your liver where it is metabolized into fat. Consuming too much fructose can lead to insulin resistance and fatty liver disease. As well as diabetes, heart disease, metabolic syndrome and obesity. I'm probably not doing the greatest job of explaining this, so just watch the video.

Watching that video precipitated in me doing even more research into diet and exercise. I've signed up with Dr. Mercola's website and started doing his Peak 8 exercise two times a week, in addition to lifting heavier weights and my regular elliptical routine. I've been eating more protein and leafy green vegetables. I also have stopped baking. I'm kind of known for my baking around here, so people have been really surprised to hear this. (I ended my month-long streak of not baking anything today, which I will blog about later.) Instead of using eggs to bake with, I've been eating them hard-cooked in salads or scrambled in some olive oil. I do let myself have a couple of small pieces of dark chocolate every day.

I really feel great and have more energy. No more sugar highs and lows to deal with. I have lost about 5 pounds this month and our grocery bill is down about $30 per week, even after increasing the percentage of organic products we buy! Why didn't I do this sooner? I've also noticed that my skin is glowing. I recently read on Dr. Mercola's website that eliminating fructose, sugar and refined carbohydrates from your diet is the number one way to clear up adult acne.

Giving up sugar has also helped cure my allrecipes.com addiction. Instead of spending hours searching for sugary things to bake and photograph, I've been researching and reading up on healthy foods, nutrition and exercise. I'm definitely feeling more balanced. I'm still on allrecipes, but just very briefly to figure out what to cook for dinner. I've been a lot more creative too, making up more of my own recipes to suit my tastes and diet.

Now, I just need to work on giving up my other weaknesses, the white wine and gin......

Right now I'm working on getting my husband to eat less sugar. He eats my homemade granola for breakfast every morning, so I've modified to contain less sugar and also added a new ingredient, chia seeds! Yes, those are the same seeds as in the famous Chia Pets. It turns out they are a nutrition powerhouse, full of fiber and Omega-3s and easy to digest.


Here is my new recipe for reduced-sugar granola, which has about 1/3 less sugar than my original recipe. Each 1/2 cup serving contains approximately 12 grams of sugar.


Reduced Sugar Granola with Chia Seeds

4 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup sliced almonds
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup ground flax seeds
1/4 cup chia seeds
2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup sweetened dried cranberries


Directions
1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C). Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. In a large bowl, mix the oats, almonds, walnuts, flax seeds, chia seeds and cinnamon. In a 2 cup measure, mix the canola oil, honey, maple syrup and salt. Add to oat mixture and mix thoroughly. Spread evenly over the prepared baking sheet, pressing down lightly with the back of a spoon.
3. Bake 40 minutes in the preheated oven, or until lightly browned. Allow to cool completely.
In a large bowl, break the cooled granola into large chunks. Mix in the raisins and cranberries. Store in an airtight container.