Caramelized Cipollini Onions

I love caramelized onions. For these, I sliced 5 cipollini onions and sautéed them in 3-4 tablespoons of olive oil for 30-40 minutes. I started out on medium-high heat and then kept turning it down every 5-10 minutes until they simmered on low for the last 15 minutes. Just keep your eye on them so they don’t burn.

Cipollini Maple Mustard Dressing

When I’m running low on mustard, I like to add salad dressing ingredients directly into the almost-empty mustard container to make sure I get good use out of every last drop. Cipollini onions are in season here in Boulder, so I picked some up at the market and have been adding them to everything lately.

For this dressing- Chop one cipollini onion and sauté in a few tablespoons of olive oil until fragrant and golden brown. When cool, transfer to a food processor and blend until it thick and kind of pasty. Add this to your almost-empty mustard container (honey mustard, german mustard, etc). Then add some maple syrup, some cider vinegar, a dash of soy sauce, and some hot sauce (I used Sambal Olek, available in Asian food stores). Shake well and enjoy. Store in the fridge and use within a week or two.
It is going to be up to you how much of each ingredient you add because it all depends on how much mustard is left in the container. In general, there will be more olive oil than mustard, more mustard than maple syrup, more syrup, than vinegar, etc. You see where I’m going with this, I’m sure.

Summer Apple Cinnamon Pancakes

There are some sweet, small, golden summer apples in season right now in Colorado, and they inspired my pancakes this morning.

Ingredients:
  • 1/2 cup unbleached white flour
  • 1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
  • 1/2 cup oat bran
  • 1 tsp evaporated cane juice (the apples are sweet, so you don’t need to add much sweetener)
  • 1/2 TB cinnamon
  • 1.5 tsp baking powder
  • pinch of sea salt
  • 1 1/4 cup plain rice milk
  • 1 egg
  • 1 TB walnut oil
  • 1/2 cup finely chopped apples
Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl. In another bowl, mix the wet ingredients and the apples. Pour the wet into the dry, mix, and cook (like all pancakes- 350-375 degree skillet).
Serve with real, pure maple syrup.

Strawberry Yogurt

Why buy yogurt with added coloring and chemically enhanced flavor? Just throw some plain yogurt in the Vita-Mix (or a food processor)with a few strawberries and enjoy.

Shrimp and Veggies in a Quick Peanut Sauce

This is a quick peanut sauce. I personally enjoy making a traditional Indonesian peanut sauce, but that can take up to an hour. In just a few minutes you can have a delicious sauce, so I will cheat every now and then.

The heat in this sauce comes from the fire roasted peppers I bought from Ollin Farms. If you don’t have peppers like these, you will need to substitute with chili peppers or hot sauce.

Ingredients:
  • 1 TB peanut oil
  • 1 small yellow onion, finely chopped
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 3 large fire roasted peppers, chopped
  • 1/2 cup peanut butter (please use the real stuff- nothing with an ingredient list that goes beyond peanuts and salt)
  • juice of 1/2 lemon
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 2 TB soy sauce
In a sauce pan, heat the peanut oil to medium high heat. Add the onion and saute until golden brown. Add the garlic and cook another couple minutes, making sure nothing is sticking or burning. Then add the rest of the ingredients, one by one, stirring well as you go along. That’s it for the sauce.
I added veggies to mine, and I prefer my fresh veggies to be more raw than cooked, I basically just coated some green beans from Ollin Farm and some local carrot (chopped) in the hot peanut sauce. I also sautéed some shrimp in peanut oil for 3-4 minutes and added them to the veggies. This is optional. You can add whatever vegetables you want, so, experiment.
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