Summer Solstice Recipes

Litha Old Fashioned Root Beer

Source: "Excellent Recipes for Baking Raised Bread", from the
Fleishman
Company, 1912.

Ingredients:
1 cake, compressed yeast
5 lbs, sugar
2 oz, sassafrass root
1 oz, hops or ginger root
2 oz, juniper berries
4 gallons, water
1 oz, dandelion root
2 oz, wintergreen

Procedure:
Wash roots well in cold water. Add juniper berries (crushed) and
hops. Pour 8 quarts boiling water over root mixture and boil slowly 20 minutes. Strain through flannel bag. Add sugar and remaining 8 quarts water. Allow to stand until lukewarm. Dissolve yeast in a little cool water. Add to root liquid. Stir will. Let settle then strain again and bottle. Cork tightly. Keep in a warm room 5 to 6 hours, then store in a cool place. Put on ice as required for use.

1/2 cup unsweetened pineapple juice
3 medium apples unpeeled cored and cut up
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup dark raisins
1 tablespoon sugar or to taste
Popsicle sticks

Process apples, juice, cinnamon and raisins in blender or food processor
until smooth; add sugar to taste. It will taste less sweet when frozen.
Spoon into 3-4 ounce paper or plastic cups or frozen sucker molds. Place
in freezer. When partially frozen, insert a stick in each cup and finish
freezing.

1 cup milk
4 oz lavender honey
2 egg yolks
1/2 cup heavy cream

Bring the milk to a boil, and add the honey. Stir and bring back
to the boil.

Meanwhile whisk the egg yolks in a bowl for 1 minute, add the cream,
whisking until mixed.

Add the boiling milk-honey mixture and whisk vigourously (you can
do the last two steps in a food processor)

Color it with a very little food coloring, or blueberry juice, if
you must.

Strain into an electric ice-cream maker, and churn and freeze until
the mixture sets. Alternatively (and not as good a texture) freeze
in a shallow plastic container, taking out and whisking well when
half frozen.

Things to serve it with:

Almond tuile

Red summer fruits (and a raspberry coulis)

Poached pears with chocolate sauce as a filling for profiteroles
or choux pastry eclairs/choc sauce

1 egg, lightly beaten
1/4 cup Half & Half
1/2 cup milk
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon honey
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup "quick-1 minute" oats
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 medium-size, tart apple; peeled, cored and diced. About 1/4 cup.
2 to 3 tablespoons raisins
2 to 3 tablespoons unsalted, sunflower nuts

Mix the first five ingredients and set aside. Combine the next six
dry ingredients. Add apples and raisins to dry ingredients and mix
until the fruit and evenly distributed. Add the egg mixture to the
dry ingredients and stir. Heat heavy frying pan on stove, place
sunflower nuts in pan and stir for a couple minutes. Add the
sunflower nuts to the batter and stir until well mixed, cover the
bowl and let stand for 15 minutes. If batter has become too stiff,
thin with milk.

Heat frying pan to 375 degrees and add margarine to cover. Pour just
less than 1/4 cup of batter per pancake. Serve with maple syrup.
Makes six to eight pancakes.

REMEMBER: Anyone can make round pancakes, if yours come out not
perfectly round that's more interesting.

Midsummer Iced Tea Recipes - Lady Sheelin

Honey Apple Iced Tea
4 black tea bags
1/3 cup honey
3 cups unsweetened apple juice
3 cups boiling water
lemon slices

Makes 6 to 8 servings
In a 2 quart pot, brew tea bags in boiling water. Remove bags, add
honey and apple juice. Stir well. Pour over ice.

Fruit Tea Punch
1 cup honey
1 cup orange juice
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
1 cup fresh fruit, crushed
1 1/2 cups fresh, strong tea
1 pint ginger ale

Makes 6 to 8 servings
Mix all ingredients except ginger ale. Just before serving add ginger
ale and crushed ice. If the punch is too strong for your taste you
can dilute with ice water or more ginger ale.

Apple Cinnamon Tea Cooler
1 1/2 cups boiling water
6 Cinnamon Apple tea bags
3 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 cups cold water
1 cup grape juice
2 teaspoons lemon juice
Club soda, chilled

Makes 6 to 8 servings
In teapot, pour boiling water over teabags; cover and steep 5
minutes. Remove bags; stir in sugar and cool. In pitcher, combine
tea, cold water and juices. Serve in ice-filled glasses with a splash
of soda. Garnish, if desired, with lemon slices.

Refreshing Iced Mint Tea
4 tea bags
10 sprigs fresh mint
5 C boiling water
1/2 C sugar (You may substitute non-sugar sweetener, if desired)
3 C boiling water
2/3 C fresh lemon juice
1/3 C fresh orange juice

Makes 10 Servings

Put tea bags, mint and 5 cups of boiling water in a large, covered
container. Let sit for 30 minutes.

Mix sugar and 3 cups boiling water in a smaller container and stir
until sugar is dissolved. Add lemon and orange juices. Remove tea
bags and add sugar and juice mixture to tea mixture. Stir to combine.

Refrigerate until ready to drink. Strain and serve over ice.

Mint Tea Punch
8 tea bags
8 fresh mint sprigs
1 C sugar
2 quarts boiling water
2 1/2 C pineapple juice
1 can (6 oz.) can frozen lemonade concentrate, thawed

additional mint springs for garnish

Makes about 3 quarts

Combine tea bags, sugar and mint sprigs. Pour boiling water over tea
mixture. Cover and let steep for at least a half hour.

Remove and discard tea bags and mint springs. Transfer to a large
pitcher or punch bowl and add pineapple juice, cold water and
lemonade concentrate (undiluted). Stir well, serve over ice garnished
with mint sprigs.

Dandelion Muffins

2 cups flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 tbsp sugar
1 egg, well beaten
1 cup milk
3 tbsp oil
1/2 cup dandelion petals
1 tsp nutmeg
2 tbsp sugar

Combine the flour, baking powder, salt and 3 tbsp sugar into a bowl and mix well. In a sepeate bowl combine egg, milk and oil, Add to dry ingredients and stir gently.Using your fingers, breat apart dandelion petals until fine, and mix with nutmeg and 2 tbsp sugar. Stir into batter. Finish stiring batter until the dry ingredients are moist but still lumpy. Spoon batter into greaed muffin pans, filling pans only 2/3 full. Bake at 425 for 20-25 mins depending on size of muffins.

Makes about 18 medium muffns.

from   http://www.fieldsweknow.com/lir.html

Shoo Fly Pie & Apple Pandowdy
By Cheri Sicard

Cheri Sicard is the editor of www.FabulousFoods.com, a comprehensive online cooking community. She lives in Los Angeles.

Shoo Fly Pie and Apple Pandowdy, the song by Dinah Shore was one of the best selling records of 1946. Lately a new generation has been introduced to the catchy tune due to its use in a popular automobile commercial. Unlike their older music loving counterparts, most of today’s generation has never had the pleasure of eating either of these two old fashioned desserts -- despite the fact that Dinah just couldn’t get enough of them.

Shoo Fly Pie is a traditional Pennsylvania Dutch dessert. Brown sugar, molasses, shortening, salt, and spices were all non-perishable ingredients that could survive the long ocean’s crossing to America made by German immigrants. The pie’s unusual name is said to be due to the fact that pies were traditionally set to cool on windowsills, and because of the sweet ingredients, the cook would constantly have to shoo the flies away.

Apple Pandowdy is one of a family of simple desserts, known in different parts of the world as cobblers, duffs, grunts, slumps and pandowdies. While these desserts have subtle variations, the base of all of them is fruit baked with a sweet biscuit or cake top.

The exact origin of the name Pandowdy is unknown, but it is thought to refer to the dessert’s plain or "dowdy" appearance. Looks can be deceiving, apple pandowdy is delicious, especially topped with a bit of ice cream or whipped cream.

Both these desserts are super easy to make, yet win rave reviews from diners. Try some tonight. Your dinner guests just won’t be able to get enough of that wonderful stuff!

Shoo Fly Pie

Crumb topping is a bit of misnomer as the crumbs will be absorbed into the liquid bottom layer. Don’t worry of it looks strange going into the oven, it will all firm up as it bakes. You can make this pie using a full cup of molasses instead of the molasses/corn syrup mixture, but I find the flavor to be a little stronger than my liking, which is why I recommend the mixture.

1 unbaked 9" pie crust

Crumb Topping:
1 C flour
1/2 C light brown sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/3 C butter

Liquid Bottom:
1 C boiling water
1/2 C light molasses
1/2 C dark corn syrup
1 tsp. baking soda
1 egg, beaten

Serves 8

Preheat oven to 325 F.

Mix the crumb topping ingredients together with a pastry blender until well mixed and mixture resemble fine crumbs. Set aside.

Mix molasses and corn syrup, add boiling water and stir to mix. Add baking soda and beaten egg and mix well. Spoon into an unbaked piecrust. Spoon the crumb topping mixture over the top. Place pie on a foiled covered baking sheet (trust me, if pi shell overflows you don’t want burning sugar syrup all over your oven) and bake for about 40 minutes or until pie is medium set and dark brown. Serve warm or chilled.

Apple Pandowdy

Topping:
1 ¼ C butter
2/3 C sugar
1 egg

1 C milk
2 ½ C flour
3 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt

4 C peeled, sliced apples
1/3 C brown sugar
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg

whipped cream or ice cream for garnish

Serves 8

Combine flour, baking powder and salt, set aside. Preheat oven to 350 F.

Butter a 9" square baking dish. Place sliced apples in buttered baking dish and sprinkle with a mixture of brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg.

Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Mix in egg. Add flour mixture, alternating with milk, beginning and ending with flour mixture to make a stiff batter. Spread batter evenly over apples and bake for about 50 minutes or until golden brown. Cool for at least ten minutes before serving. You can serve it right out of the pan, or invert it onto a serving plate like an upside-down cake, warm or at room temperature. Top with whipped cream or ice cream.

Cheri Sicard is a self confessed dessert-a-holic and the editor of FabulousFoods.com, where you can find lots of other great recipes, cooking articles, holiday and netertaining ideas, celebrity chef interviews and free cooking newsletters.

http://www.fabulousfoods.com