Fruit Pizza

Sue and I have been a little sporadic with our posts this summer because things have been crazy around here. Sue has been working all summer and I recently went back to work after having several months off. Hopefully things will be getting back to some sort of a routine and we can get back to posting a little more regularly!

I wanted to share this pizza before summer was completely gone as summer fruit is perfect for decorating it with. Any kind of fruit will work - just be sure to use fresh and not frozen. Frozen tends to bleed into the crust and make it not as pretty. 

Fruit Pizza

Ingredients

Crust

1 batch Sugar cookie dough (homemade or store bought)

Sauce

1 8 oz brick cream cheese, room temp

1/4 cup butter, room temp

1/2 cup icing sugar

2 tsp vanilla

Toppings

your choice of fruit 

Glaze

1/3 cup apricot or crab apple jelly (or any very light/clear jelly)

Directions

Press your sugar cookie dough onto a parchment paper lined pizza pan. Bake at 350 until cookie is lightly browned on top - about 12 - 15 minutes. (You don't want to over bake it or your crust will be crunchy.) When done, remove from heat and let cool completely. 

Prepare sauce - beat together the cream cheese, butter, icing sugar, and vanilla until smooth. Spread evenly onto the cookie crust. 

Now comes the fun part! Decorate with your fruit. I used strawberries, blueberries, pineapple, green grapes, and mandarin oranges. When you have it decorated how you want it heat up the jelly in the microwave for about 20 seconds - just enough to have it liquefy. Using a pastry or basting brush, brush the jelly over the top of the fruit, letting the extra drip down on to the pizza. (You may or may not need all of the jelly. Once all the fruit is covered you can stop.)

Chill until ready to serve. 

This is such a pretty dessert and a great recipe to get the kids involved. They love putting the fruit on top. Use your favorite fruits to change it up... you could even add a few little extras like chocolate chips or nuts or coconut if you wanted to. 

A simple treat that is still impressive enough to bring to your next family gathering! 

Grape Streusel Cake

If you've never used grapes in baking before you have been missing out. Our Grape Cream Pie (Link HERE) is sooooo good and very different from the usual. So is this grape streusel cake. You could use pretty much any fruit to make it but the grapes just have such an unusual flavor and texture it is worthwhile giving them a try. 

I compare this to a coffee cake, especially with that tasty crumb topping. I put it in a 9 X 9 pan but if you wanted it a bit thicker you could bake it in an 8 X 8 pan - you'd just have to adjust your cooking time a bit. 

Grape Streusel Cake

Ingredients

Cake

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup sugar

1 Tbsp baking powder

pinch salt

2 Tbsp oil

1 egg

1/2 cup buttermilk

2 tsp vanilla

2 cups seedless grapes

Streusel

1 1/4 cup flour

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup butter, melted

Directions

Preheat oven to 350. Line a 9 X 9 pan with parchment paper, set aside.

Prepare the cake - Stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. In a second bowl, whisk together oil, egg, buttermilk, and vanilla. Stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until just mixed. Do not over mix. Spread evenly in prepared pan.

Top with the grapes.

Prepare streusel - In a mixing bowl, combine flour, brown sugar, and butter. Toss with a spatula until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle over the grapes.

Bake at 350 until topping is golden brown and toothpick inserted near center of cake comes out clean - about 30 minutes. 

You can leave it in the pan BUT I like to use the parchment paper to lift the cake out of the pan so I can serve it on a serving platter. 

Let cool completely before serving. Don't forget the ice cream or whip cream!

I love simple cakes like this that are perfect for so many things. Tea time, girl's night, after school snack, brunch... all the things. This does freeze well too. Just make sure it is completely cool before covering with plastic wrap (or airtight container) and freezing. 

Concord Grape Ice Cream

Concord grape ice cream is a fantastic idea, in case you were wondering.

The flavor is subtle yet very recognizable. 

I served it at Thanksgiving with some chocolate black out cake that I made for dessert.

Don't mind the color in that photo. It really is more purple-y (like in the first photo). I am pretty sure the lighting at Sue's house is to blame. 

Anyways..... it went marvelously with the cake. 

And on it's own. 

The entire batch was consumed during dessert. 

This ice cream does not freeze that hard so you don't want to leave it out of the freezer too long. 

If you don't have an ice cream machine then I recommend getting one. Making your own ice cream opens up a whole new level of ice cream flavor and texture experiences. 

Concord Grape Ice Cream

Ingredients

Grape syrup

2 cups grape juice (from Concord grapes)

1 cup sugar

Ice cream

2/3 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 cup whipping cream

2 cups half & half

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups grape syrup (recipe above)

Directions

Heat grape juice and sugar in a medium sauce pan. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for  approximately 20 - 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. It will reduce a bit BUT you still want to have 2 cups of syrup at the end.

After it has simmered, remove from heat and let cool a bit.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat sugar and eggs until well combined. Beat in cream, half & half, and vanilla on low speed. Slowly add in the grape syrup, beating continuously, until well mixed.

Chill mixture in fridge for about 2 hours. 

After it is thoroughly chilled, place in ice cream maker and process according to manufacturer's directions. 

Store, covered, in freezer until firm. 

This is definitely one of those unusual ice cream flavors that people will remember and ask you to make again and again.

*Note* - We used the juice from grapes in our garden. You don't want to use a store bought grape juice filled with sugars. Just steam the grapes to open the skins and then press the grapes to get the juice out. You can discard the skins after pressing them. 

 

Be sure to stop by Easy Life and The Inspiration Network for some great links!

10 Fun and Funky Salads

We thought we would share a collection of ten of our salads that are a bit more fun than the usual green salad. 

Myself, I do not like green salad. Sue must have been a bunny in a previous life because she can eat salad like nobody's business. 

We both agreed though that these 10 salads could convince even the most die-hard salad hater to give salads another chance. 

Just click on the name of the salad - above each photo - to get to the recipe.

1. Broccoli Salad

Hearty and delicious. Looking for a good crunchy salad that will fill you up and not leave you wanting more? Give this tasty broccoli, cashew, and bacon salad a go!

2. Carrot and Green Grape Salad

This one is definitely funky. Don't be scared though! The combination of carrots, grapes, poppy seeds, and cheddar cheese is surprisingly tasty.

3. Spicy Chinese Chicken Salad

Who says salads have to be boring?

Spice things up with some Chinese Chili Garlic Paste in a fantastic homemade dressing and some crunchy noodles. This can be a side or it can be your complete meal!

4. Israeli Couscous Salad With Lime Curry Dressing

This is one of those recipes that will make you the hit of the party. 

Seriously.

Bring this to your next gathering and you will have everyone asking you for the recipe. The Lime Curry Dressing is crazy good!

5. Cucumber Salad

Our dad created this recipe years ago and apparently it is very similar to some old Eastern European/European recipes. This has turned into one of our site's most visited recipes. 

Taste it and you will understand why!

6. Spinach Strawberry Salad With Pecans And Sesame Seed & Poppy Seed Dressing

Normally I am not a fan of fruit in my salad but this combination just works.

There is only 3 ingredients to this salad BUT the flavors and textures are amazing.

7. Beet And Carrot Slaw With Poppy Seed Vinaigrette

I'm always impressed by how colorful this salad is. Put this on a table full of food and I guarantee that it is the one people will be talking about. 

First for the appearance...and then for how crazy good it tastes!

8. Layered Macaroni Salad

Here's an idea to fancy up your regular macaroni salad. 

You can use whatever your favorite veggies are but present it layered, in a bowl or serving dish, and suddenly everyone's asking "Ooooh! Who made this dish?"

9. Quinoa Salad

What's that? You want a super simple salad that takes about 2 seconds to make.

How about this delicious quinoa salad?

Simple, quick, tasty - everything you could ask for in a salad. Oh yeah, it's good for you too!

10. Apricot Couscous Salad With Spicy Apricot Vinaigrette

Last, but certainly not least, of our 10 fun and funky salads is this funky concoction of couscous, apricots, veggies, and a to-die-for vinaigrette. 

You definitely have not had anything like this before. You should probably make it right now. :)

Drop us a comment and let us know if you have tried any of our salads. We would love to hear from you.

 

Be sure to stop by The Mandatory Mooch and Adorned From Above and Blissful and Domestic for some great links!

Carrot & Green Grape Salad

Okay....don't run away screaming. Carrots and grapes really do go well together. 

I know...

I know...

I was skeptical too.

Our cousin, Karen, shared this recipe with us years ago and I was never brave enough to try it until just a little while ago. Let me tell you....I've been missing out.

As weird as the ingredients in this salad sound; this works. The flavors combine magically to make a tasty tasty salad. 

I can sense you still have some doubts. It's okay. I probably wouldn't believe me either. 

The only way to find out for yourself? You need to go make this. You probably have all the ingredients in your house already. Nothing fancy called for here. 

Go...make it....and then let us know if you liked it. I'm guessing you will.

Carrot & Green Grape Salad

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups shredded carrot

1 cup shredded, aged, light cheddar cheese

1/2 cup onion, finely diced

3/4 tsp poppy seeds

1/2 cup green grapes, quartered

2 Tbsp French vinaigrette dressing

3 Tbsp light Mayo

Directions

 Put all the ingredients into a medium size mixing bowl.

Stir until well combined.

Chill at least 30 minutes before serving. (If you are making this before hand you will want to squeeze as much moisture out of the carrots as possible using a cheesecloth as the liquid will settle in the salad and make it mushy. If you are serving it right away this is not necessary.)

According to Myfitnesspal for 1/2 cup serving (of which, the recipe makes 8) the info goes like this:

95 calories, 7 carbs, 6 fat, 5 protein.

This is a really pretty dish to go on a plate. An interesting, inexpensive dish to take to your next BBQ. 

Go on...don't be scared...

 

Be sure to visit The Mandatory Mooch and Adorned From Above for some fun links!

Burnt Grapes

Here is the final grape recipe to close out Grape Week here at joandsue.blogspot.com

This is the only grape recipe this week that wasn’t a “new” recipe. This has been a family favourite for several years now. Granted, the presentation is a little sketchy, but the taste is unbelievable. You could also call these caramel grapes if you don’t like the “burnt” connotation. (A rose by any other name...)

Our big sister, Orra, submitted this recipe as her entry in the grape contest last weekend. There was another dish there that was kind-of similar but had orange peel and a few different ingredients thrown in. Messing with perfection is what I say. This 6 ingredient dish is fantastic as is. Unfortunately, it didn’t place in the top 3 but that doesn’t mean it won’t continue to be a family favourite.

Orra calls it “grape crack” implying its addictive nature. It really is hard to stop eating it once you start. For the sake of your waistline, you had better have a few people to share this with when you make it or else you will eat it all!

Seriously...just warning you....

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Burnt Grapes

Ingredients

2 cups sour cream

1/2 cup icing sugar

1 Tbsp vanilla

5 cups seedless green grapes

1/2 cup butter (don’t use margarine)

1/2 cup brown sugar

 Directions

In a large bowl, mix together sour cream, icing sugar, and vanilla. Stir in grapes. Set aside.

In a medium saucepan, combine butter and brown sugar. Stir constantly and cook over medium heat until mixture starts to thicken. It does not need to boil.

Pour brown sugar and butter over grape mixture and stir until well blended.

Chill for at least 2 hours before serving.

Interestingly, when I Googled this recipe to see how others made it, most people don’t mix the brown sugar/butter into the grapes but rather pour it on top and let it harden like that. I didn't care for it as much that way.
As you can see in the above photo the crust that forms keeps all the caramel goodness on top.
It's not bad that way...BUT...I definitely enjoy it more all mixed in!
 Preparing it our way (mixing everything together) produces a wonderfully sweet caramel custard sauce for the grapes that is AMAZING. In fact, we often double the butter and brown sugar to 1 cup each just because we loooooooooove the sauce.

Not the healthiest thing to do but... sometimes you have to splurge!

We hope you enjoyed our grape inspired week this week :)

What is your favorite grape inspired recipe?

French Vanilla Grape Swirl Ice Cream

This is the recipe I really, really wanted to enter into the grape cooking contest. I wanted it to be spectacularly grapetastic. It wasn’t. Don’t get me wrong, it was fantastic – very smooth, creamy, incredibly decadent - it just wasn’t grapey enough.

It was originally called Concord Grape Swirl Ice Cream. My problem may have been that I didn’t use Concord grapes. I used Sovereign Coronation grapes because that is what my dad grows. I am thinking maybe they don’t pack the flavour punch of Concords. Oh well, regardless, the ice cream that resulted is more of a French Vanilla Grape Swirl Ice Cream – so that is the name we are sticking with.

By the way, the winner of first place in the grape cooking contest that I was attempting all these recipes for was Grape Ice Cream. It was a beautiful dark purple color and must have tasted amazing!

.

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French Vanilla Grape Swirl Ice Cream

 Ingredients

Jam/Syrup

3 cups stemmed grapes

1/2 cup sugar

Custard

7 egg yolks

2 cups whipping cream

2 cups half & half

12 Tbsp white sugar, divided

½ vanilla bean, seeds scraped

¼ tsp coarse salt

Directions

Make the jam and syrup: Mash grapes with sugar. Cover bowl and let sit at room temp for an hour (or can be refrigerated overnight).

Transfer grape mixture to small saucepan and bring to boil over med-high heat. Reduce heat and simmer approx 10 minutes. Strain liquid through fine mesh sieve into a bowl, this is the “syrup”. Set sieve over another bowl and, using plastic bowl scraper, press the grapes through the sieve to remove seeds and skin to create a “jam”.

You should have approximately 1/2 cup syrup and 3/4 cup jam.

Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour. (Can be up to overnight)

Make the custard: In a large bowl beat together egg yolks and 6 tbsp sugar until pale yellow, set aside.

In a large saucepan, whisk together cream, half & half, remaining 6 Tbsp sugar, vanilla bean and seeds. Bring mixture to a boil over med-high heat. As soon as mixture begins to rise up the sides of the pan, remove from heat. Remove bean pod from cream and reserve for another use.

Very slowly whisk ½ cup of hot milk mixture into the egg yolks. DO NOT do this too fast or your yolks will curdle! Continue to add in hot milk a little at a time until completely combined. Whisk in salt.

Cover and chill custard until very cold, at least 8 hours and up to overnight.

Add grape syrup to chilled custard and whisk to combine. If desired, strain through fine mesh sieve.

Transfer grape jam to a large metal bowl and transfer to freezer. Freeze until firm but not solid. (I put it in the freezer while the ice cream was in the ice cream machine and it seemed to be firm enough.)

Transfer custard to ice cream maker. Freeze according to manufacturer’s instructions. Transfer ice cream to a large bowl and fold in half-frozen jam with a spatula. Transfer to airtight container and freeze.

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I know, I know....it’s a pain in the butt. It is worth it though if you are looking for the smoothest vanilla ice cream on the planet. I would love to try this again minus the vanilla bean and using Concord grapes as the recipe originally called for. I have learned that using vanilla bean seeds instead of vanilla extract totally changes the flavour. I was told by my father that using Concord grapes would change the taste as well as make the color much deeper purple.

Oh well, this version still looked pretty and tasted great. Just not the award winning GRAPE recipe I was looking for. It did go very well served with the Winemaker’s Grape Cake I blogged about yesterday.

Winemaker's Grape Cake

This is recipe number two during Grape Week here at joandsue.blogspot.com. This recipe is more subtle than my Grape Cream Pie recipe that I blogged as our first recipe.

It is a very beautiful looking cake and using olive oil in the recipe certainly adds another level of flavour. If I had to choose one word to describe this cake it would be – sophisticated. I don’t usually use that word to describe food but it really fits here.

I went back and forth a million times, trying to decide whether to enter this recipe or the Grape Cream Pie as my official entry in the grape cooking contest. I decided on the pie simply because it had more “grape-iness” than this cake. I convinced my mother to enter this cake just to see how it would fare. Turns out it didn’t place in the top 3 but we did hear that everyone loved it. (Whew, glad I went with the pie!)

Winemakers Grape Cake

(Adapted from Martha Stewart)

 Ingredients

2 large eggs

2/3 cup white sugar

1/4 cup melted butter

1/4 cup olive oil

1/3 cup Silk (Or could use milk)

½ tsp vanilla

1 Tbsp lemon juice

1 ½ cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp orange rind

Pinch of sea salt

1 cup grapes (seedless, small), stemmed and washed

Icing sugar for dusting

Directions

Preheat oven to 350. Spray an 8 or 9 inch springform pan with cooking spray.

In large bowl, beat together eggs and sugar until thick and lemon coloured (about 3 mins). Add melted butter, olive oil, Silk, vanilla, and lemon juice. Mix well.

In medium bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, orange rind, and salt.

Beat dry ingredients into wet ingredients until just combined. Scrape down sides of bowl and mix briefly again. Allow to sit for 10 minutes.

Stir about3/4 of the grapes into the batter. Spoon batter into prepared pan. Smooth top with spatula.

Bake about 15 minutes. Sprinkle remaining grapes on top of cake.

Bake until the top is golden brown and toothpick inserted near center comes out clean, about 40 minutes. (Depending on what size pan you use you may have to cover cake with tinfoil to finish cooking without browning too much)

Remove from oven and let cool 5 minutes. Run a knife around edge of pan. Remove sides of springform pan. Let cool on wire rack.

Slide a metal spatula under cake to remove from bottom of pan. Place on serving platter.

Dust with icing sugar. Cut into thin wedges.

Why it is called “Winemakers” Grape Cake I have no idea. It does make it sound fancier though so I decided to keep the name. It is a nice, dense, moist cake that would go very well with tea and coffee at lunch time or with a glass of wine after dinner.

There is a sneak peak at the next blog in one of the photos on this blog. Can you see what it is? If not, stay tuned for Grape Week blog number 3!

Grape Cream Pie (or Tarts)

I am not a very competitive person. In school when they picked teams for sports I was always chosen last. Everyone knew I was not going to be of much help to their team in terms of winning. They knew it, I knew it, we accepted it, we moved on.

I think my lack of competitiveness is a fear of failure. I am pretty sure that there is always going to be someone out there who is better than me at whatever it is I am trying to do at that particular time. Don't get me wrong, I know I am a good cook or a good photographer or a good ....whatever..... I'm just willing to admit I am not the best. I don't need to enter a competition to find that out. If I don't compete I can continue to believe that I am awesome and what I have done IS the best in the world.

That being said, this is my roundabout way of saying I entered a competition this weekend.

A cooking competition.

A cooking competition where grapes were the focus of the recipes.

Not exactly my forte.

I prepared all last week by scouring the internet for interesting grape recipes and prepared several of them to find my entry.

So, with great fanfare (insert trumpets blaring here) I officially announce this week to be Grape Week here at joandsue.blogspot.com.

I will be posting the recipes I tried all last week, starting today with my official entry - Grape Cream Pie!

Grape Cream Pie

Ingredients

1/2 cup white sugar

6 Tbsp cornstarch

pinch salt

1/8 tsp cinnamon

2 1/2 cups grape juice

(I used fresh juice from grapes in our garden - you DON'T want grape juice with a lot of sugar in it)

1 Tbsp lemon juice

1 9 inch, baked pie shell (or 24 tart shells)

2 cups whipping cream

Directions

Whisk together sugar, cornstarch, salt, and cinnamon in a medium saucepan. Slowly whisk in grape juice - do not whisk in fast or you will create foam which makes the grape pudding go a little weird.

Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until thickened.
Remove from heat. Add lemon juice.
Pour into prepared pie shell or tart shells. 

Makes one pie or approx 24 tarts. 

Let sit until completely cool.
When cool - whip the cream until stiff peaks form and place on top of pie/tarts.

You can use extra grapes for decoration, if desired. 

Chill until ready to serve, at least 2 hours. You can make this a day ahead and it is fine. The crust will start to get soggy after about a day though so don't make it more than a day in advance.

Put as much or as little whipped cream on as you like. 

The color is very pretty. 

This was a really, really good pie. I'm glad I was inspired by the grape contest to try new recipes outside of my normal realm. If I had to compare it to another pie I would have to say lemon meringue pie. It is quite tart - which is weird because seeing that purple color lead me to believe it would be really sweet.

ADDENDUM: In case you were wondering, I did place third with this recipe. Yay! I do like to win, I'm not going to lie. I just don't like having to compete in order to win.
Stay tuned for more grape recipes this week!