By Family Features
SPECIAL TO THE EAST COUNTY CALIFORNIAN
Food is a gift from the heart. It’s one-size-fits-all, and you don’t need to fight the crowds at the mall or worry about blowing your budget. Whether for holiday presents or hostess gifts, receiving something homemade is truly what the season is about: sharing comfort and good cheer.
By Family Features
SPECIAL TO THE EAST COUNTY CALIFORNIAN
Food is a gift from the heart. It’s one-size-fits-all, and you don’t need to fight the crowds at the mall or worry about blowing your budget. Whether for holiday presents or hostess gifts, receiving something homemade is truly what the season is about: sharing comfort and good cheer.
For a festive twist to your delectable goodies, look no further than your freezer. Aside from their bright, joyful color, frozen red raspberries’ sweet and tart flavors make them versatile from a culinary standpoint, complementing and enhancing a wide range of ingredients. These jubilant rubies are also nutritional powerhouses, boasting the most fiber and the lowest natural sugar content compared to other berries.
These recipes are sure to warm your friends’ and family members’ hearts with the taste of the holidays. Find more recipes worth sharing this holiday season at redrazz.org.
Raspberry Greek Yogurt Bark
Recipe courtesy of NourishRDs.com.
2 cups plain, reduced-fat (2%) Greek yogurt
1 lemon, zest only
2 tablespoons honey
1 cup frozen raspberries
1/2 cup shelled pistachios
1/4 cup slivered almonds
Line small baking pan with aluminum foil.
In medium bowl, combine first 3 ingredients. Stir until well incorporated.
Add berries, pistachios and almonds to mixture. Fold in until well incorporated. Spread mixture in baking pan and place in freezer for about 2-3 hours, or until hardened.
Once hardened, remove bark from pan and either cut or break up into pieces. Allow to thaw about 5 minutes before eating.
Notes: Store remaining bark in freezer. You can experiment with any ingredients you have on hand, such as frozen cherries with dark chocolate chunks, frozen blueberries with unsweetened flaked coconut or dried cranberries with pecans.
Red Raspberry Fruit Leather
1 package (12 ounces) frozen red raspberries, thawed
1/3 cup sugar or honey
1 teaspoon lemon juice
Heat oven to 170 F.
Line two baking pans with parchment paper or silicone mats.
Combine all ingredients in blender and puree until smooth. Pour raspberry mixture on both pans and smooth into thin layer, less than 1/8-inch thick.
Bake 3 hours or until mixture is no longer wet, but still slightly tacky, rotating every hour and alternating levels.
Cool pans on wire rack to room temperature. Remove parchment paper (if using), place on cutting board and cut (or tear) into chip-size pieces. Store with fresh pieces of parchment paper between fruit leather layers in airtight container.
