Frosty Strawberry Squares

These are delicious and easy! THe trickiest part is separating the egg whites.

CLICK HERE FOR THE ORIGINAL RECIPE

I modified the recipe slightly.

What you need:

- 1 cup flower
- 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
- 1/2 cup chopped almonds
- 1/2 cup margarine
- 2 egg whites
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 cups of sliced strawberries *
- 2 tbsp of lemon juice
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream, which is whipped **
- 1 tsp of vanilla. (I added that. I thought it would go well with the strawberries and almonds)

Notes:

* I used some strawberries that I had frozen earlier this summer. Thawed strawberries become very mushy, because they contain a lot of water. So what I did was actually mash them with a potato masher.

** I realized as I was making the recipe that I had forgotten to pick up some whipping cream!!! So I hurried to the nearest convenience store and sadly, all they had was coffee cream (18%). See below for results.

Ingredients (except the sugar)

Mix the sugar, flour, butter and almonds. Keep mixing until everything is slightly crumbly.



Crumbly mixture


Next comes baking the bottom of the squares. You can use a shallow pan, but if you don't have one, you can make a temporary one by spreading some aluminum foil, rolling the sides to make sides for the temporary dish.

Preheat the oven at 350F.
Bake for about 20 minutes, on the middle rack.

Preparing the crumble crust for baking

While the crust is baking, mix the rest of the ingredients in a bowl EXCEPT THE CREAM until well blended. Using whipped cream, you would fold it gently in, not mixing too much to keep it stiff. Because I used cream, it was still liquid so it didn't matter.

Strawberry mixture

When the crust is baked, take it out and allow it to cool down a bit into the pan. I left mine a little bit too long and it cooked slightly too much. But still good! Not burnt.

Baked crust

Transfer the crust to the serving dish, about 9 X 13 in size. You're supposed to save a third of the mixture, but I forgot and put it all in. You're supposed to keep the rest to sprinkle on top. But anyway, this not being made with whipped cream, would have sunk in anyway. :P

Crust in the dish

Pour the strawberry mixture over the crust. Put into the freezer for at least six hours.

Mixture added on the crust


The squares, frozen and well-eaten!

Eat the squares still frozen. Very sweet and tasty!

Squash and Potato Soup

This is a slightly modified version of a recipe I found online.
This recipe requires a blender, a hand mixer or a food processor, because it is a puree.

Click here for original recipe


WHAT YOU NEED:

- A decent size spaghetti squash. About 2 lbs. (The original recipe called for butternut squash, but this worked out fine too)
- A medium sized onion, sliced
- 2 tbsp of butter or margarine
- 2 cloves of garlic, sliced
- About 2 litres of chicken broth
- 2 potatoes, peeled and cubed.
- 1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
- 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
- Salt and pepper
- 1/4 cup cream cheese. (I had this left over. It's optional, but gives it a nice thick texture)
- 1/2 cup sour cream. (The recipe suggest a dollop upon serving. I decided to put it in right off)

Spaghetti Squash

TIP: To make sure that your squash is ripe, check the skin. It should not have any soft spots and the squash should sound hollow when slightly tapped.


Preheat the over at 375F.

Cut the squash in half, lengthwise. Use a cookie sheet or baking dishes with rims. Put a thin layer of water in them (about 1/4 inch) and put the squash face down in the water.
Bake them in the oven for about 40 minutes or until the flesh is soft.
Take them out and let them cool down a bit. Scarpe-off the flesh and separate the seeds. Put the flesh aside in a bowl.

Spaghetti squash, cut in half. Before cooking.

In a large pot, melt the butter and add the onions and garlic. Sautee them until they're tender.

Onions and garlic

Pour in the chicken broth. Add the potatoes and bring to a boil for about 20 minutes, until the potatoes are soft.

Added the broth and potatoes

When the potatoes are cooked, add the saved squash and mash the whole thing. Then, using a hand mixer, puree the whole thing until smooth. I don't have one, so I had to use a food processor. Which means that I had to transfer smaller quantities back-and-forth. That was a messy pain. Anyone want to send me a hand mixer? :D

When all is smooth, add all the spices, salt and pepper and cream and bring the whole thing to a simmer for about 20 minutes.

TIP: I usually don't add very much salt to my recipes. People's tastes are different and it's easy enough for them to add salt to taste. Not so easy to take it out. ;)

Final soup!

This soup is delicious either warm or cold as left-overs.

This recipe makes a lot, so you can put some aside in air-tight containers and frozen to be enjoyed later! It will just be a bit more liquid, because of the freezing process. It's a great fall/winter soup for warming you up.

Cheese Blintzes

Looking at ideas for a potluck, I found this on allrecipies.com and it looked interesting and different.

Cheese Blintzes recipe is here.

They don't seem like true blintzes, since it uses a shortcut of sliced bread. But it seemed pretty easy as a finger food and I like trying new tastes.


Using an entire loaf of white bread, cut off the crusts for each slice.

TIP: Save the crusts to make a meatloaf with some ground beef.

Cutting off the crusts

Next you flatten each slice with a rolling pin. I don't have one yet, so I use a large bottle.
Works just as well!

Flattened bread slices

Mix the sugar and cinnamon in a bowl and set aside.

Sugar and Cinnamon mixture

Mix the room temperature cream cheese, milk and vanilla in a large separate bowl.

Filling mixed

Spread the filling generously on each slice and roll up. Cut off the ends if you want to make it look nice. I also cut each piece in two, so they would be smaller.

Filling spread


Blintz rolled up with the ends cut off

The whole batch

Dip each blintz in melted butter and roll in the sugar cinnamon mixture.

The video cuts a little bit short. I ran out of memory in the card. You get the idea though.

Put all the blintzes on a cookie sheet. I love parchment paper. So easy for no sticking!!!

Prepared to go into the oven

Put into the pre-heathed oven at 350F for 10 minutes.

Coming out of the oven

Serve them with a dollop of sour cream. They're not an overly sweet desert. A little bit tart.

EDIT: They went like CRAZY! Everyone seemed to love them. And they never knew that the cream cheese and the sour cream were low-fat. Shhhhhh! ;)