Sharing with readers recipes for healthful foods that taste so good, that kids might even happily ask for seconds of those nutrition-rich recipes, is a main goal for Kitchen Kapers.
Good health-protecting and health-building recipes have been a major request from readers through the years and Kitchen Kapers tries to provide that from our community cookbooks.
This is so essential in homes with growing youngsters and is just as much a goal of older generation home chefs dedicated to keeping themselves healthy all the way to their hoped-for 100th-birthday celebrations.
So many requests for healthful recipes have, through the years, been the most frequently received communications from this column’s readers, so doing our best to provide that always has been a primary objective of Kitchen Kapers.
Greatly appreciated are all the contributors of health-sustaining recipes for Apopka’s many locally created cookbooks as well as the column’s many readers who have made it clear via their frequent and very specific requests for recipes which can help them create meals that are as good for us as they are great tasting.
All this interest seems to be creating a larger focus on eating healthily. In keeping with that smart local tradition, this week’s column again, as always, focuses on vitamin-rich, cholesterol-free and low-fat-as-possible veggie-based recipes selected from our hometown cookbooks.
Salads are, most times, the starter for a day’s main meal and, on occasional busy days, may even be the only mid-day quick dietary intake, especially if you happen to be vegetarian as are so many busy Apopkans. Therefore, salads are high on Kapers’ topics for this issue.
Enjoy, in good health all the recipes here from a few of our community cookbooks (We’ll get to all of the many others as well, as soon and as frequently as possible).
Please let this newspaper know if you or your group or church has recently published a new local cookbook, or is planning one so your best recipes can be included here.
Meanwhile, enjoy the edible delights below, from your Apopka-area neighbors’ kitchens to yours.
In summary, healthful meals are this week’s and every week’s continuing focus, with a treat of ice cream or other dessert delight included following the greens, beans, carrots and peas, spinach, beets and broccoli and other providers of our dietary sustainers of life. With well-planned and nutritionally well-balanced daily meals, and the occasional treats making our daily challenges all worthwhile, everything works together to create a beautiful life for us.
NANCY COLTON COMITO’S
SWEET AND SOUR
SPINACH SALAD
Recipe from Episcopal Church of the Holy Spirit’s
Favorites for all Seasons
Spinach, amount of your choice
Mandarin orange slices and fresh strawberries, amounts of your choice
Crumbled roasted almonds
Bacon, crisp and crumbled
Fresh mushrooms
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon poppy seeds
2 tablespoons sesame seeds
1/4 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1/4 tablespoon paprika
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
Mix together the sugar, sesame seeds, poppy seeds, Worcestershire sauce, paprika, extra virgin olive oil and apple cider vinegar. (This dressing will keep in refrigerator for several weeks.)
Mix together the spinach, strawberries, oranges, crisped bacon, almonds and mushrooms. Toss with dressing and serve. Recipe makes six servings.
CAROL AUSTIN BOGAN’S
FLORIDA SALAD
Recipe from Apopka Citizen Police Alumni Association’s Cookbook
1 head Bibb or Boston lettuce
1 (11-ounce) can mandarin oranges, chilled and drained
1/2 medium avocado, peeled and thinly sliced
1/2 coarsely chopped, oven toasted pecans
2 green onions, thinly sliced
1/3 cup light Italian dressing
Pepper (amount to your taste), coarsely ground
Combine all ingredients. Toss lightly with dressing just before serving. “Delicious!” this cookbook promises.
DEBBIE MILLS’
ACORN SQUASH WITH APPLES
Recipe from Episcopal Church of the Holy Spirit’s
Let’s See What’s Cookin’
2 acorn squash, both with hint of yellow on skin
2 apples
4 tablespoons brown sugar
Cinnamon (amount you wish)
Cut squash in half from stem (top) to point (bottom). Clean out all seeds and stringy material. Peel and chop apples into tiny pieces. Fill each cavity of squash with the chopped apple, then top with one tablespoon of brown sugar and a dash of cinnamon. Place squash in shallow baking dish and add about 1/4 inch of water in dish. Bake at 350 degrees for one hour. Test with a fork to see if squash is soft. If still slightly firm, continue baking until soft. Recipe serves four.
MARLENE RUIZ’S
BANANA NUT BREAD
Recipe from Calvary Church of the Nazarene’s A Harvest of Recipes
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
4 medium bananas
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup chopped nuts
12 dates (optional)
Mix well the butter, sugar, eggs and bananas. Add the flour, baking soda, nuts and dates. Mix well. Pour into greased baking pans. For a single large bread pan, bake at 325 degrees for one hour. For two small bread pans, bake for 45 minutes.
CAROL AUSTIN BROGAN’S
BRAZILIAN BANANAS
Recipe from Apopka Citizen Police Alumni Association’s
Sharing Our Finest Cookbook
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
Dash of vanilla
4 medium sized bananas, sliced lengthwise and then halved
Vanilla or coffee-flavor ice cream
Cool Whip (optional)
In a large non-stick skillet, heat the butter, sugar and vanilla until the mixture bubbles. Then lay in the banana slices. Cook bananas lightly on both sides, coating with sauce. Transfer bananas to warm serving dishes.
Top with a scoop of ice cream (see following recipe) and drizzle sauce over all. Top with Cool Whip, if you like.
“Easy spectacular dessert,” sums up the recipe’s contributor in a line beneath this definitely different dessert recipe.
CONNIE TOUCHTON’S
HOMEMADE ALMOND-VANILLA
ICE CREAM
Recipe from Apopka Citizen Police Alumni Association’s Sharing Our Finest Cookbook
6 eggs
Pinch of salt
1 pint of whipping cream
2 cartons of Half and Half
2 cups sugar
4 teaspoons vanilla
1/4 teaspoon almond flavoring
1 quart milk (if needed)
For other flavors, add fresh fruit or chocolate to the above list of ingredients.
To make the ice cream, whip the whipping cream. Separate the eggs. Add salt to the egg whites and beat until stiff.
Beat the yolks. Add sugar, one cup at a time. Continue to beat until creamy, then add the beaten egg whites and flavoring, then the whipped cream.
Beat mixture ingredients together until all is well mixed, then transfer from mixing bowl into a a hand-held freezer and add the Half-and-Half. Then fill the empty space in freezer with milk, bringing mixture up to within an inch and a half of the handheld freezer’s top.
Freeze the mixture and enjoy the homemade ice cream it will turn into.
Christmas eggnog fans may especially enjoy this summer cooler even more when the Yule season rolls around again in the not-so-far-away now.
On a fall season’s still hot day, it likely may be most appreciated as a really good and refreshing, great-tasting, late-summer/early-autumn cooler.
