In our kitchen, we picked up the pace around March. Picking up the pace meant that we tried to avoid processed foods containing high fructose corn syrup as well as other ingredients that you can't read or understand. So one March Morning the mutts woke up and our standard honey-nut cheerios was out. The kids sat at the table with empty bowls and excited smiles after The Mister of the House stated he was off to the store to buy more cereal.

They wept bitter tears.

This isn't breakfast of course, but you get the idea.

Another fallout from our food revolution was fruit snacks. I'm not sure why I got on that bandwagon to begin with, perhaps because it's an integral mormon ritual every Sacrament Meeting to keep your kids quiet.

After reading the amazing book "In Defense of Food", The Mister and I now joke about whether something is food or "food-flavored product". I like to think of how the food came to be, and if someone was wearing goggles and a labcoat, then maybe it's a scientific product instead of a food one.

So like most of those kid-loving cereals, fruit snacks got the axe at our house. No wonder when the ingredient list for Wal-Mart's Great Value Fruit Snacks is this:

Corn Syrup, Sugar, Fruit Juice Concentrate (Apple, Grape, Strawberry, Orange, Lemon), Modified Cornstarch, Canola Oil, Malic Acid, Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C), Natural And Artificial Flavors, Mineral Oil, Blue 1, Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Carnauba Wax.

And so it was, with the onslaught of lemons from our food co-ops, I decided to try my hand at candied lemon slices. Still sweet, and still a treat. But I don't need a lab-coat to make them, and neither will you.



Ingredients: Lemons, Sugar, Water. You will also need ice water for the recipe.





So here's the deal with lemon slices. The white rim is called pith, and it keeps your treat bitter and gross unless you boil it out. I digress, you don't actively boil. You throw them in water that was just boiling, but that has been pulled off the heat source. So still pretty hot. I used Martha's recipe as a guide, but keep in mind some basic citrus rules! If you are doing a BIG BATCH, consider doing a couple rounds of the boiling water, changing the water in between. Got it?


This picture has 3 or 4 lemons in it. Prepare boiling water, pull it off, throw in your lemons and let them sit for 2-3 minutes. If you want to be safe, throw out the water and do it one more time. (I just did it for one round by the way, and they turned out good...but they were better when I did a smaller batch. You get the citrus rules applying here right?)



So you "boil" them, and then plunge them in the ice-water bath. This is what they look like after this step.

Let those lemons enjoy their ice-bath while you prepare the syrup. Equal parts sugar to water. I went 2 cups of each, and heated over medium-low heat until the sugar is dissolved. YOU DO NOT WANT YOUR SYRUP TO BOIL. Just get your sugar dissolved, and then throw your slices in there to simmer for a complete hour. Going an extra 15 or 20 minutes isn't a big deal AS LONG AS IT DOESN'T BOIL.





So during the cooling process, you have some options. Roll in more sugar for a grainy treat, or dip in melted semi-sweet chocolate.



And yes my kids eat them! They are a bit chewy, but a little work with a sweet treat does a kid good. Here's Rainbow Girl after eating a chocolate one, and I snapped this pic before she had any idea she had choco-lips.



Oh and in case you're wondering, my kids all have these happy faces when eating their granola as well. Boo-yah!



I'm thinking cupcake toppers! What do you think?

Since Mrs. Olsen has been yapping SaladThis and SaladThat I thought I should try to lighten up a little. Although I think it's an excellent idea, I am not completely off of sugar. My family is enjoying our little food revolution with whole foods and fruits & veggies, and so I'm feeling good about the occasional splurge. When my co-op baskets included avocados and limes recently, I decided to dig up an old ice cream recipe in this fabulous recipe book.

I'll be honest, this ice cream is not loved by The Mister of the House. So I only make it every couple of years, and try it out on fresh palettes so I can feel like a gourmet chef. So that book inspired me, but I changed it up a little to see if I could tone down some flavors and hopefully win over some new lovers of this beautiful green ice cream.

So yeah, there are eggs in this recipe. It's a common thing in ice cream, and totally freaks my mother out.







Get it back to 160 (with the eggs), then the food freaks can chill out.

This was a basic alteration of the recipe. Some ice cream recipes want you to heat up the cream with granulated sugar. I have found that sweetened condensed milk saves you the trouble of messing with cream that could get too hot while allowing your sugar to be perfectly dissolved. It makes a perfect flavor base for other ice creams like chocolate or peppermint. Anyway, back to our green dream...

Pull that pan off when it hits 160, then let it cool down to room temp. Then throw it in the fridge to chill. While that's happening, you can get your flavors ready.



After the custard base is cooled down, mix it in with your avocados, lime, and cream. Here's a picture of all of it together in my ice cream machine canister. I gave it one last stir before I rigged my old school machine up.



So my ice cream machine uses ice and rock salt. There are lots of newer and more expensive and cooler machines you can use. The good thing is, it's not even necessary to own an ice cream machine to make this recipe. I'll spill it out in the end when I give the actual recipe. Deal?



So then my moment of yearning for approval was upon us. I decided to let some tasters in on my gourmet ice cream with these simple rules:

Rule #1) You must take 3 bites before you decide how you feel about it.

Rule #2) You must use only 2 words to describe this ice cream.

Here's my tasters:

Aahhh. Dangit!

Sheesh. I thought the female would pull through for me. She said she liked it, but "guacamole-ey" didn't really convince me. It's okay Sara, keep feeding me every week and I'll get over it.

Mr. Gourmet Ice Cream Lover wasn't a huge fan. His word choice was....hmmmm, polite. We'll just say that much.

Aw crap. But alas, some of my blood came through for me!



So since toddlers are sugar freaks and will eat sugar granules if it's available, I wasn't feeling too gourmet-like when The Buddha Baby was the only one who really "yiked it".

Fortunately, the next day I played volleyball. My friend Toshia had asked me for this recipe, so I said "Hey, come over and taste it for yourself. But I have some rules while you eat it" and she said Deal!

So my last and final taster was Toshia.



Phew! So maybe I'm not completely nuts. This ice cream isn't for everybody obviously, but I think it's fun! Here's the recipe:

AVOCADO LIME ICE CREAM

3 RIPE AVOCADOS
4 SMALL LIMES (or 2 REGULAR LIMES)
1 (14oz) CAN SWEETENED CONDENSED MILK
4 EGG YOLKS (save the egg whites if you do not own an ice cream machine)
2 1/2 CUPS HEAVY CREAM

Put yolks in a bowl and beat until runny. Set aside. Heat up milk on medium heat until it reaches 160 degrees. Slowly drizzle egg yolks into milk and whisk while doing so. Get temp back up to 160 and then pull off to cool. Stir it up every once in a while.

Meanwhile, mash your avocados and grate the rind off of your limes. Then squeeze the juice from the limes as well.

Once your egg base is cooled, mix it together with your mash as well as your cream. Stir together in your canister and let the machine go to work!

VARIATION: If you don't have a machine, mix all the stuff and then put in freezer safe container. Pull out ever 15-25 minutes and beat up so ice crystals don't form. In one of your pulls, stir in reserved egg whites that are beaten stiff. Continue to pull out and beat until the entire mixture is at least soft-set (all frozen, but still soft). At this point, just let it continue to freeze and harden in your freezer.

Enjoy!

This recipe title includes "side" in it because it is a perfect compliment to a meal. It is flavorful and doesn't require heavy sauces. Yet it is mild enough to marry lots of flavors on your plate. Last night we ate it with salmon and mango relish, and it blended all the flavors wonderfully. I keep cold leftovers and use them other ways as well: with stir-fry veggies rolled up in tortillas, or warmed up and thrown on a cool, crisp green salad. I'm using leftovers for another Citrus Week Recipe later this week (or next?...where did this week go).

Here we go!


Throw these portions together in your rice cooker:

2 cups brown rice
4 cups chicken stock
1/2 cup water
full bunch green onions chopped, green to white...use all of it!
1 TBL of olive oil
Zest of 1 lemon
After zested, cut up that lemon and throw in the pot as well (feel free to squeeze the juice out of some or all of them)
1 tsp. lemon pepper



Here's the deal with rice. If using brown rice, double the water at least. I added an extra 1/2 cup of water because of all the extra stuff in there and wanted to make sure the rice got done. Also, expect it to take around one hour for the water to cook out and the rice to be done. If using white rice (I recommend Jasmine) then you could 150% the liquid and it should cook up quicker for you.



When it's done, you have just a little more work to do.

Limes take the stage for our first citrus week recipe. This is the first official home-made salad dressing I've made this year, and I say It's about dang time. So here's the deal with this recipe, it came from a book of recipes beloved by my sister Monica. I wish you could come and eat at her house, because it would be healthy, delicious, and from scratch. She's also a wizard cause she figured out how to make that blessed salad dressing from our favorite FreshMex restaurant Cafe Rio.





Here's our ingredient list:


Throw these portions in your blender:

1 1/3 cups sour cream
3/4 cup mayonnaise
4 TBL. green salsa
juice of 1 large lime (or 2 small limes)
1 bunch cilantro
1 pkg. dry ranch dressing mix
2 cloves garlic
1/8 tsp. tabasco sauce



I mixed it all together and this is what I got!





And on a sidenote, since viewing Food Inc. we have been watch-dogging the ingredient list on our food. This salsa wins! I could understand what ALL of the ingredients were, and so will you. Ingredients include: Tomatillos, Roasted Anaheim Green Chiles, Salt, and Garlic.



I bought it at Smith's Marketplace for $2.99. Thanks El Pinto!