Mom's Smoothies

My favorite smoothie is homemade, but not by me. My mom makes them on the weekends, which is conveniently when I am most likely to visit.


Orange juice, banana, vanilla yogurt and lovely ruby colored raspberries... (The flavor is predominately raspberry.)

Ingredients

1 banana, peeled and chopped
1/2 cup crushed ice
1 cup orange juice
1/2 cup vanilla yogurt
3/4 cup frozen raspberries

Combine ingredients in blender and whirl until smooth.

Makes three 1 cup servings (or one 3 cup serving!)

D Bar Desserts

D Bar Desserts is a new addition to Restaurant Row, and the creation of celebrity chef Keegan Gerhard. Offerings at D Bar range from cookies and chocolate candy-studded rice krispy treats, to prepared desserts like tiramisu, to the (somewhat pricey) desserts assembled, sushi-bar style, at the dessert bar.

A friend and I tried the tiramisu ($4.50) on a recent visit to D Bar. Tiramisu is one of my favorite desserts; I love the ladyfingers soaked in espresso and liqueur. The tiramisu at D Bar looked beautiful, but was somewhat unbalanced in terms of flavors. In particular, there was a disappointingly small amount of my beloved ladyfingers, and a disproportionate amount of mascarpone. However, the coffee which we ordered to accompany the tiramisu was excellent, and provided a much needed contrast to the excessive amounts of mascarpone in the tiramisu.

While I will be getting my tiramisu elsewhere, I will likely be back at D Bar to try one of the dessert bar creations. These include helado domingo (flan, plantains 2 ways, ice cream, rum cream and caramel sauce - $9), "tasting of strawberry" (almond lavender cream, sable breton shortbread and strawberries 6 ways - $10), and liquid center chocolate cake with cherries and ice cream ($10).

Dessert may be taken on the patio out front, at one of the few tables inside, or sitting at the dessert bar itself.

D Bar is open from 11 a.m. to midnight.

D Bar Desserts
1475 E. 17th Ave (near 17th & Humboldt)
Denver, CO 80218
303-861-4710

Take Two on Hibiscus Tea

Still drinking hibiscus tea. . . Sometimes with mint, sometimes with ginger, and sometimes plain, or with lime.

To make hibiscus-ginger tea, peel and thinly slice a one inch square piece of fresh ginger, and simmer the sliced ginger with the dried hibiscus flowers in place of the mint.

My preferred method of sweetening the tea is still agave nectar. However, on the days when I accidentally leave my bottle of agave nectar at work (where I use it to sweeten hot tea), I add 2-3 tablespoons of sugar to the pot to simmer with the hibiscus flowers.

The instructions on the package indicate that you can also stir in the sugar (to taste) after the tea has been removed from heat and cooled.

Taste Testers: Meatless Meat Products

Serving Tofurky was a mistake that I will never repeat (thankfully, my dad has a good sense of humor).

I do want to try to soy chorizo.

Beans & Greens

When a co-worker brought me fresh rainbow chard and arugula from her garden, I knew exactly what I was going to do with it: there's a recipe for Italian Beet Greens and White Beans in Gil Mark's Olive Trees and Honey cookbook that I've been wanting to make for a while now. Unfortunately, even combining the arugula and chard, I had nowhere near the two pounds of greens called for in the recipe. And so, I tweaked things a bit, while attempting to stay true to the original.

While you can use broth in place of the water in the recipe, the greens, sautéed onion, beans and tomatoes create their own broth while simmering.

Although the beans take some time to cook, I suspect that you can sautée the onions, toss them with the greens, and then transfer everything to a slow cooker to simmer during the day, while you're at work (or gardening... or hiking...).

Ingredients
3/4 cup dried Great Northern or cannellini beans, picked over, soaked for 8 hours, and drained
4 cups greens, washed and chopped (if using beet greens or chard, tear the green portion of the leaves from the center veins before chopping)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 yellow onion, washed and chopped
ground black pepper to taste
1 and 3/4 cup chopped tomato (or 1 14 ounce can chopped tomato, of the no-salt-added variety)
3 and 1/2 cups hot water
1 teaspoon salt

Heat the olive oil in a large pot, over medium heat.
Add the onions and sautée about 5 minutes, until soft.
Remove from heat and stir in the greens and pepper.
Remove half the greens from the pot, and place in a bowl.
Pour the beans over the greens remaining in the pot, and top with the greens from the bowl.
Spread the tomatoes over the beans and greens mixture.
Pour the hot water over the greens, beans and tomatoes.
Bring to a boil, then cover and reduce to a simmer (for me, this was medium-low).
Cook the beans, without stirring, for an hour.
After an hour, add the salt and simmer, uncovered, another 30 minutes.
Serve warm, with slices of fresh multi-grain bread.

Serves 4-5.

A Department Store Cookie

I was assembling the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies when I realized that I only had one of the two sticks of butter needed for my recipe. Halving the recipe would require more math than I cared to use on a Saturday morning, so I jumped on Google and searched for chocolate chip cookie recipes using only one stick of butter.

The first hit on Google was for Neiman Marcus chocolate chip cookies. The department stores in my hometown didn't serve cookies, but then again, we didn't have Neiman Marcus either. I was also intrigued by the fact that the recipe called for the cookies to be baked at 300 degrees for 20 minutes, instead of 375 degrees for 10 minutes. I had most of the ingredients -- except espresso powder -- and so I decided to see what department store cookies would taste like.

Since I didn't have espresso powder, I used cinnamon, which is something my grandma put in her chocolate chip cookies. I also threw in a handful of oats (for texture) and some chopped pecans.


The result was a cookie that is crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside. I really liked the technique of cooking the cookies longer at a lower temperature, and expect to use that when baking other cookies in the future. (It might be the altitude or my oven, but the cookies seemed to need about 23 minutes instead of the 20 called for in the recipe.) However, I'm not sure I'll use this exact recipe again, as the cookies are almost too sweet for my taste. Eating the cookies with milk helps cut the sweetness.

As for using only one stick of butter - the recipe also yielded about half the cookies that I usually get.

Edited to add: The history of the Neiman Marcus chocolate chip cookie recipe can be found here.

Gyoza: Easy to Eat, Hard to Pronounce

With their green wrappers, puffy centers and half-moon shape, Taki's vegetarian gyoza dumplings resemble giant snow peas. The resemblance ends there, however. The gyoza wrapper is made of dough, not plant fiber, and instead of peas, a tasty mix of vegetables and tofu is tucked inside. Taki's serves the dumplings with rice (although yakisoba noodles can be substituted), vegetables, diced tofu, pickled ginger and a spicy soy-sauce for dipping.

I'm told that "gyoza" is pronounced "gyoh-zah;" however, it's been my experience that you can successfully order the dumplings even if you bungle the pronunciation.

Taki's
341 E. Colfax (corner of Colfax and Logan)
Denver, CO 80203
303-832-8440