Make Monday Marvelous with a Cherry Float

Hi all!  We wanted to share one of our first blog posts that is perfect for this beautiful week ahead. This is a must try for your family and friends, courtesy of Cool. Enjoy!!!!!!

It's "What the What?" Wednesday and that means it's hump day! It's the middle of the week and everyone could use a simple "cool" and sweet recipe that makes the week go by a little faster. The type of recipe that is a great "go to" recipe when you want to impress your friends and family and trick them into thinking you have been in the kitchen for hours! The type of recipe that others offer to do the dishes if you make it. The type of recipe that is so good that people might say "What the what? Why is this so good?"

You should be happy you're reading this because I have just that recipe for you. It is such a sweet treat. It was the official start of summer Saturday so what better recipe for this week than one that had frozen yogurt in it. I know most people think of ice cream but at our house yogurt wins by a landslide. It is one easy recipe that will make your summer a little brighter and make you smile a little bigger.

I feel like I am not a brand specific person usually but lately I find myself finding small differences in competing brands that make me more brand specific, and make me spend the extra money because it's worth it. I will tell you that the Kemp's vanilla bean frozen yogurt is delicious, it is so light, creamy, and full of vanilla flavor.

With that being said.... the ingredients and set up!

What the what? Is that all? Only 3 ingredients and one appliance? You betcha, that's all! A cold bottle of cream soda, frozen sweet cherries, and Kemp's vanilla bean frozen yogurt is all you need!

I will also let you know that if you enjoy blueberries, you can substitute them out for the cherries and it is also amazing! Yes you can use fresh fruit, but just remember that if you use fresh cherries you have to pit them which makes the frozen cherries so much easier and with being Wednesday we all deserve a simple easy treat for making it this far in the week!

All three ingredients in the blender waiting to be all mixed up and made into something REAL special!

Aaaahhhhhhhh, can't you just taste it? So good! So delicious and so refreshing!

I hope you try this recipe out for your friends and family and let me know what you think!


-Cool


Cherry Float Shake

All you need:

1 (12oz) bottle cream soda

2 cups frozen sweet cherries

5 scoops of Kemp's vanilla bean frozen yogurt

All you do:

Place the ingredients in the blender in the way they are listed and blend on high. Serves 3-4 people.

Start your year out right with Greek Salmon

Did you decide to make a New Year resolution?  Is it along the lines of lose weight, eat better, or try new foods?  Well you're in luck if it was because I have an easy weeknight meal but nice enough for a cook at home date night meal.  Plus, it tastes like a gyro without the bread!  I wrote last week that one of my resolutions was to start phasing out foods that might be causing my stomach some havoc so that is why I went for no bread, but doesn't it look so pretty?

Alright so the recipe is fairly simple.  We first start out making the sauce and cutting the cucumber and peeling the skin off of it.  You can keep it on if you don't mind it, or even buy an English cucumber, but I went for the cost effective one and put a little more prep time into it.  

Again it's your recipe, and I don't need the cucumber to be peeled perfectly so now we slice it down the middle, lengthwise.

Take a spoon and remove the seeds. The seeds give off a lot of moisture and I don't want that in my sauce so I remove them. 

Now we only need about 1/2 of the cucumber so I just cut it into long thin strips and then crosswise to give it a small dice.  You want to have the crunch throughout each bit of the sauce. 

Now throw in the Greek yogurt to a small mixing bowl.

Add in the cucumber, dill weed, minced garlic, celery salt, and black pepper to the yogurt and stir until all combined.  Set aside.

Now I have to admit that I started with one idea for the recipe and presentation for the salmon but then midway cooking and picture taking, I went another direction.  For that I will give you a little cooking tip:  When cooking salmon you can remove the skin before cooking of remove after cooking.  Once the skin is cooked the skin is very easy to remove.  

I had originally planned to do a salmon gyro so I was going to flake the salmon when cooking so I removed the skin before.  As soon as I took the skin off I had another idea and nixed the bread portion of the recipe.  

So here is a helpful picture if you want to remove the skin before cooking.  You make a little slit between the fish and the skin so that you can get your knife in there.  As you are carefully running your knife along the edge in the skin, pointing the knife away from you, pull the salmon skin that has been separated from the meat towards you to create tension and to help you knife guide along the skin.  

This is what the skin of the salmon will look like.  No meat on it.  Now throw the skin away.

In a hot skillet add in the salmon, skin side down or "use to be" skin side down, and cook for about 4 minutes.

Get your spatula, and carefully flip over the salmon.

Look at that pretty crust!  Now cook for another 3 to 5 minutes depending on the size of your salmon steaks. 

The salmon will be done when it is opaque and is flaky.  As you can see it flakes very easily.  

Now put the salmon on the plate, top with the yogurt sauce, kalamata olives, tomatoes, and feta cheese. 

Greek Salmon

Serves 4

1/2 c. Cucumber, peeled, diced small

1 c. Greek yogurt, plain, non-fat

1 Tbsp. dill weed

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tsp. celery salt

1/4 tsp. black pepper

1 Tbsp. olive oil

1 lb. salmon

1/2 c. Kalamata olives, pitted, halved

1/2 c. grape tomatoes, halved

1/2 c. Feta cheese, crumbled

 To prepare the sauce, in a medium bowl add the Greek yogurt, cucumber, dill weed, garlic, celery salt and pepper and stir until all combined. Set aside. In a medium skillet over medium high heat, add in the olive oil and salmon and cook skin side up for about 4 minutes.  Turn the fish over with a spatula, and cook another 3 to 5 minutes until the salmon is opaque and flaky.  Transfer salmon to plate and top with cucumber yogurt sauce, olives, tomatoes, and feta cheese. 

-Cool