Lime-Mint Granita

Hmmm, haven't posted a recipe in, oh, about ten days...a definite departure from my previous regularity. I must confess that we've ordered a bit more take-out in the past couple of weeks than usual with a lot going on in the Goodwin household. The most notably is my return to work (part time). True I am working mostly from home, only going into the office once a week, but nap time and night time blogging has become work time, so posts may be less frequent for a while. Okay, enough about that.

Today is my eight year wedding anniversary! My husband's favorite food of all time in Mexican, in any shape or form, he loves it. He says he could eat Mexican every day of his life and not grow tired of it. In fact, when we took a trip once to the Yucatan and literally ate Mexican every meal for a week, he was in heaven. So. I decided tonight I would make chicken enchiladas (post to follow) and a lime granita.

This treat is a wink and a nudge to one of my favorite cocktails, the mojito...ah that Cuban delight. I typically make it virgin, as I did this time, but add a little rum (as indicated) and you've got yourself the real thing...just frozen. 

Lime-Mint Granita

1 cup boiling water

1 box JELL-O Lime Flavor Gelatin

1 cup lemon-lime soda (i.e. Sprite)

1/4 cup  rum (optional)

2 T finely chopped fresh mint

2 T lime juice (fresh if possible)

Add boiling water to gelatin mix in medium bowl; stir 2 minutes until completely dissolved. Stir in remaining ingredients.

Pour into an 8-inch square dish and freeze for at least 3 hours. Spoon the frozen mixture into large bowl or stand mixer. Beat with mixer on high speed until it has a snow cone'esque appearance. Use an ice cream scoop to scoop out granita into a small bowl and serve immediately. 

Any leftovers can be returned to the freezer; I put the leftovers in a blender with some milk a few days later and made lime sherbet smoothies, yum! 

Follow this same method for any flavor you like, really. Pick your JELL-O flavor, pick a fresh herb or some fruit, and pick your juice to match and voila! For example, try a strawberry JELL-O mix with fresh mint or even sweet basil and pineapple juice, or blue raspberry JELL-O with blueberries and lemon juice...you get the picture.  

Jalapeño Dressing

Tonight's dinner was just a Southwest style salad, nothing too exciting. But the dressing I made up was definitely the star of this otherwise boiler plate dinner salad. We eat a lot of salads in this house, and in fact when there are often consecutive postless days it is because we've been eating dinner salads that would seem anemic compared to some of the other flashy or robust recipes. Where is this going? 

I was tired of our usual suspects in terms of dressings. I almost exclusively use home made salad dressings, and all I had available was honey mustard, pomegranate vinaigrette, and orange poppy seed. All fine choices that have grown slightly chronic. So, I fished around in the refrigerator and came across some jalapeño jelly. Hmm, what could I make with this? Turns out a really nice accompaniment to what became a Southwest salad:  

Jalapeño Dressing

1/3 cup light mayo

3-4 T jalapeno jelly (perhaps try a few jarred jalapenos and a bit of sugar if you don't have jalapeno jelly)

1 T lime juice

A few dashes of hot sauce

Combine all ingredietns in a small food processor and mix until smooth. Add more or less hot sauce and/or jalapeno for your tolerance to spicey food. These ratios will give a slight kick, but nothing too hot. 

I served this, as I mentioned, Southwest style with corn, beans and chicken tenders.. and some chow mein noodles for a nice crunch, although I would have used crushed tortilla chips if I had any. I'm not purist.  

The jalapeno jelly I have is the Knott's brand; I found it at Target so I feel confident that most grocery store jelly sections will carry this type of jelly. 

Whole Wheat Waffles

Another Brinner in the Goodwin household: waffles! Breakfast for dinner may quite possibly be my favorite dinner option; it's quick, easy and comforting (as long as you don't serve fruit loops that is). We were trying to decide between eggs and waffles, so we turned to our (almost) two year old. He responded with a resounding "waffles!", so waffles it was. Trouble was we were out of all purpose flour. I usually use a combination of all purpose and whole wheat, but we had to try and make it work with 100% whole wheat.

I added some vinegar and a bit more baking powder to lighten up the batter, and it worked. These were hearty and delicious waffles. Now. If you don't eat whole wheat flour a lot or don't like the hearty flavor, you probably will not like these. Since we eat whole wheat almost exclusively (baking, rice, pasta, etc) we loved these. Simply use half all purpose and half whole wheat if you're not up for 100% wheat.

Whole Wheat Waffles
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 T sugar
1 T baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
4 T canola oil (you could also use melted butter)
1 1/2 cups milk + extra to thin batter if needed
2 T white vinegar
1 tsp vanilla


Place the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl and whisk to combine well. 


Add the eggs, oil, milk, vinegar and vanilla; beat with the whisk just until smooth. Add more milk as needed to thin the batter if needed, but keep it fairly thick. 


Heat waffle iron and bake according to manufacturer’s directions. Serve immediately. 

Granola

This recipe has been changed so many times I have no idea where it originated ... I always seem to throw it together a different way every time. The base recipe is pretty consistent, you can pretty much add in any spice combination and/or add-in combination you like (coconut flakes vs. nuts vs. banana chips, etc...). I made this a bit healthier by reducing the amount of oil and honey you would typically see in a granola recipe. It still tastes just as good, it's just a bit looser without those covetous clumps everyone loves. 

Granola
4 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup whole almonds, measured then chopped
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1 cup banana chips, measured then chopped
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1-2 tsp spice (cinnamon or ginger or nutmeg or pumpkin pie spice; whatever flavor you like)
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup canola oil



Preheat oven to 250 deg F. 


In a large bowl, combine the oats, nuts, sunflower seeds, banana chips, brown sugar, salt and spice; mix well. In a smaller bowl, whisk together the oil and honey then add to the dry mix and combine well until coated.


Pour the mixture in an even layer onto a large baking sheet. Cook for about an hour, stirring every 15 minutes to achieve even color.


Allow to cool, and add in any dried fruit if you want (raisins, apricots, craisins, etc). Store in an airtight container. 


If you want a maple flavor, substitute the honey with maple syrup.