The Blintz Shake for the Fourth of July

A Quickie Snack, Nutritionally Dense, Ready in Under Thirty Minutes

Red, white and blue, that’s the color scheme of this shake from the Jewish kitchen. What is a blintz, but a soft crepe filled with sweetened ricotta cheese or farmer’s cheese and fruit, usually cherry or blueberry. I use blueberry in the recipe, but you could easily use cherry. This shake is rich, creamy and delicious with the hint of tart fruit in the shake and on the spoon. The person with dysphagia, or swallowing difficulties, is right in the swing of the celebration with family and friends. This is the way out of patient boredom. We eat with our eyes. The shake is not one uniform taste – it has layers of flavor.

Ingredients

This Quickies for Caregivers snack is made from high quality, go-to ingredients. I use Ratner’s frozen blintzes from the ethnic section of the supermarket freezer section. There are several other good brands. The trick is to cook the blintz low and slow, so that it does not get too brown, but remains soft. The recommended sauce, St. Dalfour’s, is not made from white sugar but from agave nectar. It is available in markets or from Amazon.

Equipment

For this dish, use either a high speed blender or nutrition extractor, for the simple reason that you want the skins of the fruits to be totally liquefied, so that they are safe for the swallow. If you use a regular blender, before you add the instant thickener, put the shake through a mesh sieve with a silicone spatula to remove any fruit skins.

Technique

You make a blueberry blintz shake or a cherry blintz shake with a dollop of sour cream. In a separate dish, use St. Dalfour’s Organic Fruit Sauce, blueberry, raspberry or strawberry as a dipping sauce.

Recipe

Blueberry Blintzes with Raspberry Sauce and Sour Cream

Prep Time: 5 minutes Cook Time: 16 minutes Level: Easy

Yield: 1 serving is 2 blintzes with 2 tbsp. low fat sour cream and 1/4 cup blueberry sauce

This is a family favorite from the old days of eating breakfast out on Sunday on Miami Beach in one of the great old time restaurants, Wolfie’s, on Lincoln Road and Collins Avenue, now long gone. It’s South Beach, now, but the memory of this great comfort food lives on. This is a festive berry shake.

Ingredients

Package of Ratner’s Blueberry Cheese Blintzes (or Cherry Cheese)
Raspberry Sauce (St. Dalfour’s Organic)
Low fat sour cream
Splash of milk, almond milk or other non-dairy milk to create the shake

Directions

To prepare the blintzes:Either defrost the blintzes and brown them on each side for four minutes in a little butter or non transfer margarine, or paint the frozen blintzes with vegetable oil and bake on a sheet pan lined with parchment for eight minutes on a side. Then, place them on a plate and allow to cool.

For the Purée

When the blintzes have cooled, break up one or two in the bowl of a mini food processor.

Add a generous tablespoon of sour cream for each blintz. Pulse five times to break up and incorporate. Puree until smooth, ten seconds.

Add the splash of milk to get the correct consistency for the shake. Add a scoop of instant thickener or a pump of gel thickener to stabilize the shake.

Place in the fridge for three minutes to allow the shake to reach its full thickening potential. This shake may be frozen.

Place the dipping sauce, the blueberry, raspberry or strawberry flavor, in a small dish. The bite consists of a teaspoon of shake dipped into the sauce.

Tip: Whenever you puree a dish with ricotta cheese, the volume increases because of the air. Two blintzes increases in volume and looks like a larger serving. The food is light in taste and texture as a result, but is the same nutritionally and in terms of calories. Thanks to the noted speech language pathologist Jonathan Waller, founder of the Dysphagia Cafe website, for the suggestion. For more Quickies for Caregivers recipes, see The Purees of Summer.

Swirl Away!

Featured photo credit: natan10 via Pixabay, cc