Recipes for New Moms

Sautéed Shrimp with Tropical Fruit Salsa

With tropical fruit like mangoes and kiwi, you’ve got to eat the fruit just at the right time of ripeness. Under-ripe kiwi is suck-your-face-in-puckery-sour and over-ripe mangoes are blah and mushy.
So what to do with imperfect fruit? Slightly cook them for a warm, tropical fruit salsa, “Floribbean” style. (Yeah, it’s a dumb name, but restaurants in Florida use it all the time. It basically means Florida + Caribbean style, if you haven’t guessed already. These days, it really just refers to a tropical dish.)

Peel and dice the kiwi, mango, and pineapple and cook them along with sugar, a pinch of salt and a dash of chili powder. Other fruit like papaya are also fabulous too.
You’ll have to adjust the amount of sugar on your own, as it’s based on how sweet or sour your fruit is. I always like to have just a slight tang in the salsa, so a simple squeeze of lime at the end is perfect. Again, the amount of lime juice is based on taste.
And to top it all off with something a little extra special is toasted sweetened coconut flakes! Welcome to paradise.

Sautéed Shrimp with Tropical Fruit Salsa Recipe

Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes
Yield: Serves 4

Want to have extra flavorful and juicy shrimp? Brine them for exactly 30 minutes first, in a brine of 1 quart water, 1/4 cup sugar, 1/4 cup kosher salt (or 3 Tbsp table salt), and 1 cup ice. Dissolve the sugar and salt into the water first, before adding the shrimp and ice.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup sweetened coconut flakes
1 Tbsp cooking oil (coconut oil or canola oil)
1 pound raw shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 mango, peeled and diced
1 cup diced pineapple
2 kiwi-fruit, peeled and diced
1/4 cup finely diced red or sweet onion
1 teaspoon sugar, or to taste
1/4 lime
1/8 – 1/4 teaspoon chili powder
Salt and pepper
3 fresh mint leaves, thinly sliced

Vanilla Frappe Macarons

Let’s see mornings in a new light with Nespresso VertuoLine Breakfast Coffees, Solelio and Giornio and some breakfast cookies.

A-yup. Breakfast cookies by way of French Toast Macarons and Vanilla Frappe Macarons.

Thank gawd for the little pleasures in life like morning coffee and cookies. If you are a regular reader around here, then you know I’ve been a long time fan and partner of Nespresso. Their new VertuoLine Breakfast Coffees, Solelio and Giornio are my new go-to blends. The Solelio has red fruity notes, while Giornio has white floral notes—both are light and medium in roast.

What really makes this coffee shine is that Nespresso’s coffees and espressos are topped with a silky and generous layer of naturally-formed crema—a sign of superior, high quality coffee. And if you are a coffee and espresso drinker like me, then you will love how the VertuoLine Evoluo machine brews both large-cup coffee and authentic espresso with one easy touch of a button. But foam—where is the foam to this at-home barista machine you ask? No worries there, because Nespresso has you covered with its Aeroccino4 milk frother, which helps you turn hot or cold milk into barista-worthy foam.

Look at how airy and tight that foam is.

Beyond that, Nespresso makes it easy to recycle the 100% aluminum capsules with a pre-paid Nespresso UPS bag, so go ahead and indulge in some Nespresso and don’t forget the breakfast cookies to go with it!

Vanilla Frappe Macarons

Ingredients:

Macaron Shells

60g almond meal
120g confectioner's sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla powder
20g granulated sugar
60g egg whites (about 2 eggs)
2 tablespoons vanilla seed powder (optional)

Filling

55g white chocolate
90g butter room temperature.
30g confectioner's sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla bean paste

Bacon-Wrapped Shrimp

Looking for a crowd pleasing-appetizer? Make bacon-wrapped shrimp! Kinda ridiculously good.
I blame the bacon.
Seriously, this one is really easy and crazy good. Bacon and shrimp make a very happy couple. For this recipe we are coating the shrimp with some lime and chili powder, and then wrapping them in slices of bacon, and either oven baking or putting on the grill.
Here are a couple of tips that can help make these even better.

First, especially when grilling shrimp, we highly recommend brining them first for 30 minutes in a sugar, salt, water solution. The brine helps the shrimp hold onto its moisture on the high heat of the grill. The shrimp remain plump and juicy.
Second, make sure to pre-cook the bacon a bit before wrapping them around the shrimp. (We microwave the strips.) Otherwise no amount of brining will keep the shrimp from drying out in the time it takes for the bacon to be cooked.

Bacon-Wrapped Shrimp Recipe

Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 10 minutes
Yield: Makes 12 pieces

Figure 1 strip of bacon for every 2 shrimp.
Shrimp cook so quickly that to help keep them from drying out whether grilling or oven roasting, we recommend brining them first.
Just whisk together 1/4 cup of kosher salt, 1/4 cup of sugar, and 4 cups of water until the salt and sugar dissolve. Add the ice and the shrimp, and let sit for 30 minutes (no longer).

Ingredients

1 pound (12-20 count), raw, peeled and deveined shrimp (tail on)
2 Tbsp olive oil
Zest from 1 lime
2 Tbsp lime juice
1/2 teaspoon chipotle powder or chili powder (less or more to taste)
6-10 strips thin bacon, cut in half (half as many pieces of bacon as there are shrimp)
Skewers (for grilling) or toothpicks (for oven)

Optional brine:

4 cups water
1/4 cup kosher salt
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup ice

Fingerling Potatoes with Herb Vinaigrette

Why should russets and yukon golds have all the fun? Here’s a quick and easy potato recipe, for a side or salad, depending on if you serve them warm or cold, using fingerling potatoes or new potatoes.
The approach is simple—quickly boil halved fingerling potatoes and douse them in vinaigrette.
But that’s not all. Two simple tricks will elevate this dish to make it company worthy.
First, soak thinly sliced red onions in the vinaigrette while the potatoes are cooking. The vinaigrette will “pickle” the onions, taking away some of their oniony edge.

Fingerling potatoes

Second, sprinkle the potatoes with dry vermouth as soon as they are done cooking, so the potatoes soak up the wonderful flavor of the vermouth. This is an idea I picked up from Cooks Illustrated years ago and it adds great flavor to the potatoes.
You can of course, skip the vermouth if you want. But if you have it, use it!
These potatoes can be served warm, room temp, or cold. Chilled, they are perfect for hot summer days.

Fingerling Potatoes with Herb Vinaigrette Recipe

Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes
Yield: Serves 6-8

Ingredients

2 pounds fingerling potatoes, or small new potatoes, scrubbed and halved
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon minced fresh thyme leaves
1 teaspoon minced fresh oregano leaves
1/2 teaspoon of Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
1/4 cup dry vermouth
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

Read More: Fingerling Potatoes with Herb Vinaigrette

Magic Bars

These bars go by a few different names, like 7-Layer Bars or Hello Dollies, but I’ve always known them as Magic Bars.
They are a pure Midwestern treat for me, often brought to potlucks to round out a shared meal. All the names for the same dessert might seem confusing, but luckily, there’s nothing confusing about making them.
The true magic of these rich, sweet Magic Bars is how easy they are to make. There’s no mixing, no creaming butter with sugar, no adding the eggs one at a time.

Instead, Magic Bars are pretty much assembled from a pantry of stock ingredients, which are then sprinkled and layered one on top of the next. (Usually there are seven different ingredients, which explains at least one of the alternate names!)
Bake in the oven until toasty brown and the bars are done.
The one essential ingredient in the whole recipe is sweetened condensed milk. This sticky, gooey, honey-thick condensed milk is what binds all the ingredients together. It also caramelizes in the oven, giving a sweet depth to each bite similar to dulce de leche.
Also, make sure you read the labels and buy sweetened condensed milk, not evaporated milk—the cans look very similar.

Magic Bars Recipe

Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 30 minutes
Yield: 24 bars

These bars are so rich and sweet, you can cut them into 24 small bars and still feel satisfied.
I like to add a sprinkle of flaky Maldon salt on top to add some crunch and help cut the sweet richness. The salt is totally non-traditional, though, so omit if you want that nostalgic, ultra-sweet Magic Bar experience.

Ingredients

2 cups (225 g) graham cracker crumbs
1/2 cup (115 g / 1 stick) melted unsalted butter
14 ounces (396 g / 1 can) sweetened condensed milk
1 cup (185 g) semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup (185 g) butterscotch chips
1 cup (115 g) chopped pecans
1 cup (105 g) shredded sweetened coconut
1 teaspoon flaky sea salt (like Maldon), optional

No-Bake Nutella Cheesecake

Happy 4th of July, everyone! I’m going with a simple no-bake Nutella Cheesecake for today’s holiday dessert. I know, it’s not red, white and blue. I didn’t have time to make a 4th of July dessert, because my days as of late have been crushed with the manuscript.
But big news—I’m done! I finally submitted it to my editor. I can breathe again – for a little a bit at least.

So if you get overwhelmingly, busy and you aren’t able to make layered cakes like this, this, this or this, it’s always a good thing to have a few easy to-make, no-bake cakes like this.

And in keeping with today’s holiday vibe, I’m keeping this short so I can be outside with the family. Have a great holiday everyone! See you Wednesday.

No-Bake Nutella Cheesecake

Ingredients:

1 envelope unflavored gelatin
3/4 cup fat-free milk
2 8 ounce packages reduced-fat cream cheese (Neufchatel), softened
1 8 ounce package fat-free cream cheese, softened
1 8 ounce carton fat-free sour cream
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
4 ounces Nutella

Chocolate Whipped Cream

1 cup whipping cream
1 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder

Topping (optional)

10-12 marschino cherries
2 tablespoons sprinkles

Peanut Butter Balls (Buckeyes)

The combination of chocolate and peanut butter is an obvious winner for anyone who has ever tasted a peanut butter cup, and buckeyes are no exception.
Named for their resemblance to the nut of the buckeye tree, these chocolate-dipped peanut butter treats are easy to make at home with very little work.
Even though I grew up in the Midwest, where Peanut Butter Buckeyes are popular, I was strangely oblivious to them until I moved to California. One day, a coworker at my day job brought a tray of buckeyes into the office, and I quickly devoured a few too many, rendering myself relatively useless from the sugar aftershock for the rest of the afternoon.
I remember going home and proclaiming my love for this new confection to my partner. He gave me the side eye. “How have you never heard of these before?” was his response. Apparently I have been missing out all my life.
These chocolate-coated rounds of sweetened peanut butter look nearly identical to the nut from a buckeye tree, a tree native to the midwestern United States and the state tree of Ohio. This explains why the confection is so popular in Ohio and the surrounding states like Indiana, where my partner is from.
The candy looks so much like the nut that, when he was a kid, my partner’s parents would always instruct him, “Now, remember, you can eat these peanut butter candies, but don’t eat the actual nuts on the ground!” To this day, he still remembers that warning and repeats it every time he eats one.
My own warning is to to limit yourself to eating just a few buckeyes at a time. Otherwise, you may find yourself falling into the same sugar aftershock that I did when I initially discovered my love for them!

Peanut Butter Balls (Buckeyes) Recipe

Prep time: 12 minutes
Chill Time time: Chill Time
Yield: 48

It may sound fussy, but make sure to sift the powdered sugar into the peanut butter using a strainer or you'll wind up with clumps in your buckeyes.
Also, keep in mind that you need to chill the peanut butter balls after forming them, and again after you dip them in the chocolate, so plan accordingly.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups (390 g) smooth peanut butter (not "natural")
1/2 cup (115 g / 1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
3 1/2 cups (400 g) powdered sugar
3 cups (525 g) semi-sweet chocolate chips