A Birthday Celebration

James turned 61 last week - a cause for celebration! He always likes to have a cake made with lemon so I found a recipe for Lemon Ginger Bundt Cake online. I think our baking powder may be past its prime because the cake didn't rise as much as I would expect. It was still good. No one complained.

For the birthday dinner I prepared Creamy Fish with Mushrooms and Bacon from the New York Times cooking pages. We picked up some Halibut from our favorite fishmonger Kyler's Catch in New Bedford. I substituted sour cream for the heavy cream but otherwise followed the recipe. The meal was served with Kyler's fresh baguette (a must whenever we go). It was enjoyed by all.

Berry Clafoutis

The recipes in the New York Times Cooking Pages often have names that tell the main ingredients (e.g. Roasted Salmon with Miso Cream; Uncooked Tomato and Mint Sauce with Poached Eggs). Clafoutis, however, was a mystery to me. Since I have harvested a lot of berries (both blueberries and blackberries) from my yard this summer I was on the lookout for berry recipes so I investigated this Julia Child egg-based dessert. 

This was rather easy to make. The eggs, milk, and 1/3 c. of sugar were blended together. A small amount was put in a pie plate and then heated on the stovetop until it began to harden. I imagine this step wasn't absolutely necessary. Berries and more sugar were added, then the rest of the egg batter. It was all placed in the oven at 350 and baked until ready. Mine took longer than the 50 minutes called for in the recipe. I find this is often the case when I bake. The final touch as a sprinkling of powdered sugar, which really does enhance the flavors.

This was a not-too-sweet treat, with a definite egg-y flavor.

Skillet Chocolate Chip Cookie

 The description of this New York Times recipe begins "Skillet cookies are perfect for lazy nights when everyone wants something sweet but no one wants to work that hard for it." This really was much easier and faster than making a batch of cookies. I will probably never make regular chocolate chip cookies again. I had everything I needed in the pantry, and the cookie baked beautifully in my indispensable cast-iron skillet. Some friends had invited me to dinner and I offered to bring dessert. This was well received, especially when topped with vanilla ice cream - after all it was National Ice Cream Day!

photo from New York Times Cooking Pages

A very lemon-y meal

We recently bought some lemon-infused olive oil, as well as some white balsamic vinegar, so we've been on the look out for lemony recipes. (This post describes a meal by Pamela and a dessert by James; Pam writes first.)

I chose Lemon Chicken with Garlic-Chile Oil from the New York Times Cooking Page for last night's dinner. The recipe is clear that the garlic oil be cooked slow so as not to burn, and then removed from heat, but I admit to simply adding my chicken breasts to the cooked oil, and then keeping the heat low. This did mean that the chicken took longer to cook, but the garlic never burned and the chicken was tender and flavorful in the end. As a side dish I prepared Greek Lemon Potatoes (made with the lemon olive oil) and topped it off with some of the Lemon Bundt Cake James made for Easter dinner.

James continues (writing a few days later) ...

I did indeed prepare the lemon Bundt cake, based on the New York Times recipe Pam mentions above. But I took the lemon-ness to a higher level -- incorporating all of Yossy Arefi's excellent ideas and adding some of my own. In fact, my intentions for this cake were what had gotten us to the oil-and-vinegar store the week prior. (It does not take a lot to convince us to go to these stores, and in fact we have two, in Marion and in Fredrick.)

Photo: Yossy Arefi

I must first recognize Arefi's most important contribution. Step 4 of her recipe looks complicated at first, but it is an elegant way to make sure that every lemony part of the lemons ends up in the cake, with the pithy white part between the rind and the fruit removed. Standing the lemons on end as she suggests makes this easy.

The recipe calls for 3/4 of a stick of butter, plus 1/4 cup of neutral oil, by which I assume she intends canola or the like. I substituted the lemon-infused olive oil that Pam mentions above, raising the lemon quotient just a bit.

The real difference is in the glaze. I remembered the glaze that helped us win an award from Marley Coffee for my mocha cake, and simply lemonized that concept. I substituted lemon-infused white balsamic vinegar for some of the juice in the glaze. I might never make a glaze without balsamic again!

Depression Era Spice Cake (fail!)

Although tomatoes are among my favorite foods now, I famously did not like them as a child. Nor did I like tomato soup, so I was surprised once when my mother suggested that we make a spice cake that had condensed tomato soup as one of the ingredients. I remember that the cake turned out moist and tasty which is why I attempted it again for this year's Thanksgiving dessert contribution. Used the recipe I found on this page - the one labeled Tomato Soup Cake (One Bowl Method). It really seemed simple enough, and I do believe I followed the recipe as written, but I ended up with two very thin layers, so thin that when placed one on top of the other and frosted they were barely the same height as one typical layer. I've decided to blame it on old baking powder. I did indeed serve the cake along with the other desserts that folks made. Mine was not a favorite. I ended up throwing most of it away. 

Blackberry Budín

August 1 is Lammas, so we got out The Wicca Cookbook, and easily determined that we should make Blackberry Pudding. (We call it Budín, as it is called in Spanish, and also makes for a nice alliteration here.)

We have an abundance of blackberry brambles in our yard which did not produce at all last year. I expect they simply needed to be fallow, and chose their own time. This year we are once again enjoying their bounty.

Ingredients listed are as follows:

1 1/4 c. almond milk
1/2 c. ground almonds
1 1/4 c. water
1 pint fresh blackberries
1/3 red wine
2 T. rice flour
1/3 t. sugar 
1/2 t. salt
1/8 t. ground ginger
1/8 t. ground cinnamon
1 T. butter
2 T. red wine vinegar
1/4 c. currants or raisins.

I adjusted the recipe a bit. It called for almond milk, but I just used regular old milk. It also suggests using red wine vinegar, but since I had blackberry-ginger vinegar on hand it seemed like an appropriate substitution. I also used regular flour in place of rice flour. I misread teaspoon as tablespoon for the sugar, and even so it wasn't very sweet. I'd add even a bit more next time. I did not measure either of the spices. I simply dumped in as much as I thought would be good. Again, next time I will use even more. I added more raisins than called for as well, for sweetness.

I started by soaking the blackberries in the red wine, meanwhile since I had whole almonds I used the blender to grind them. I then added the blackberries, other liquids, flour, sugar, salt, and spices. Once it was all liquid I poured it into a saucepan and stirred until it came to a boil. I let it boil to thicken for a few minutes, then removed from heat and stirred in the butter and vinegar. I chilled the pudding in the refrigerator for about two hours, and we had it for dessert, topped with some vanilla yogurt. 

It is a bit grainy, and the blackberry seeds got stuck in my teeth, so those who are bothered by these textures may wish to forgo this recipe.

A Birthday Celebration that created quite a lot of Dishes

A mid-week birthday during final exams means a low-key celebration for James as he enters his sixtieth year. James made his own birthday dinner of an old favorite: Puerto Rican Chicken Fajitas from the Well-Filled Tortilla cookbook. My role was to bake the birthday cake. When I asked James over the weekend what kind of cake he would like he said something with lemon and raspberries. The New York Times Cooking page had just what the (Ph.D.) doctor ordered! Lemon Sheet Cake with Raspberry Whipped Cream.

This recipe is a 12-step program, beginning with preparing the pan. The instructions call for use of a non-stick spray, but I used Crisco shortening. I did follow the instructions to coat the pan, then cover in parchment, and then coat the parchment, which seemed like overkill, but I must say that I have never had such an easy time removing a cake from a pan when it was time to serve. The recipe also calls for vegetable oil. I used lemon-infused olive oil, which really was the right thing to do.

The recipe also calls for an electric mixer in steps 2, 4, 5, 6, 10, and 11. Still don't have one, so a spoon, a whisk, and some strong arms were put to good use.

Lemons needed to be zested and juiced, and raspberries needed to macerate (a word I did not know before) and then strained. Cream needed to be whipped and flour sifted. We used every mixing bowl in our cabinet, one of which had to be rinsed out so it could be used again. We also used more of our utensils than we usually would with one recipe.

The result was a delicious yellow cake with a thick pink topping. This isn't very sweet, so the flavors of lemon and raspberry come through more than we expected, although neither is overwhelming. 

Photos show our sink after we'd already put round one of dishes into the dishwasher, and our "Julia Child" pegboard with lots of space as as all the utensils were being washed. Unfortunately the photograph of the cake turned out blurry, so I won't be posting it here.

So many dishes!

This is after I'd already washed the flour sifter and put it back in its place. We really did use a lot of utensils.

Pi Day Pie

Mmm...Good pie!

We were quite pleased with ourselves last Sunday for remembering that Pi Day (3.14) was coming up, and so we got out our Teeny's Tour of Pie cookbook, from which we selected the decadent Bourbon Bacon Pecan Pie. James was in charge of making the crust, cooking the bacon, and whipping the cream for the topping; Pam was in charge of making the filling and baking.

Ingredients for this one include:

6 T butter at room temperature

1 c. packed light brown sugar

2 eggs (the recipe says 3, but I discovered that when a recipe calls for three I can use two to good effect)

1/2 t. salt

1 t. vanilla extract

3/4 c. dark corn syrup

2 T. bourbon

3 cooked slices of bacon (the recipe says four, but we only had three so that's how many we used)

8 oz. chopped pecans

Whole wheat crust (recipe follows)

James steps in here to describe his pre-dinner efforts...

Before starting the crust, I cooked three thick slices of bacon, cutting them into small pieces as they cooked. I let them cook over low heat until crisp and then let them drain on paper towels.

This was a simple, basic crust. I did kitchen math on Teeny's Whole Wheat Crust recipe, because it is for a double crust and we would have no need of a top crust or second pie very soon. (Maybe next year we'll do a quiche and a pie on the same day.

The inclusion of a bit of whole wheat allowed us to pretend this dessert was a bit less decadent than it actually was. After cleaning and thoroughly drying the counter top on our Gilligan (kitchen island), I sprinkled a bit of white flour on it. Then I combined 3/4 cup all-purpose flour, 1/2 cup whole-wheat flour, 1 tsp salt,  and 1 Tbsp sugar. I then cut in 3/8 cup (3/4 of a stick) unsalted. butter and 1/8 cup (2 Tbsp) shortening.

I sometimes use two knives for this, but I have had success lately with a pastry cutter, pausing periodically to clear the gaps between its blades. Once I had that elusive crumbly texture, I kneaded in cold water and cold vodka, just a bit of each at a time, totalling only 2T of vodka and 4T of water. I rolled the dough into a ball, and then flattened it to a thick disk.

I then used a stone rolling pin to roll the disk out until it was a bit wider than the pie pan. I pressed it into the pan and put it in the fridge while I made dinner. After we ate, it had been chilling for well over an hour, making it ready for Pam' part.

Back to Pamela ...

The butter and brown sugar were mixed together and then the eggs were added (one at a time - stirring after each one) then the salt, vanilla, corn syrup and bourbon. Most of the chopped pecans went in, along with the bacon, but enough pecans were saved to put a layer into the bottom of the pie crust. Once these were placed, the rest of the filling was poured into the crust, and the pie was baked at 350 for 50 minutes. It then set and cooled for another 50 minutes. 

The bacon and the more-than-usual amount of pecans cut down on the sweetness of what can be an overly sweet pie.

James again ... for the first time ever, I used a small mixing bowl and small whisk to make the whipped cream. As we say, rather than a mixer with a mixing attachment, we use a whisk with a rower attachment. Coastal rowing has given me some forearms! I combined about 1/3 cup whipping cream, 1 Tbsp confectioner's sugar and 1/2 tsp vanilla and whipped until peaky. We put this on each slice, and I also splashed some bourbon on top of mine.

We had this for dessert following a simple dinner of fried rice. We did not want to overdo things!

 

Red Wine Cookies

I saved this recipe earlier this year when it showed up on my Facebook feed expecting that at some point I would have an open, but unfinished bottle of red wine. Although an unfinished bottle of wine is a rare event at our house, it does occasionally happen. We actually ended up with two open bottles at the same time when we had one at each of our houses. Since the recipe indicates that you can use any type of red wine we figured mixing would be fine. Once we had both bottles in the same place I began the process of reducing the wine, following the instructions to use the same pan in which I first melted butter until foamy.

I also mixed the wet and dry ingredients separately (as indicated), and then together which really made for a lot of dishes. The beach house has a rather small dishwasher so we had to wash these in two rounds, as well as wash the cookie sheet by hand, a difficult task in the rather small sink that goes with the rest of the rather small house.

This recipe demonstrates the importance of having a well-stocked pantry. You don't want get caught with leftover red wine and find that can't make cookies out of it because you are lacking the rest of the ingredients.

The cookies were rich, chewy, and not too sweet.

Dinner by the sea

Yummy Haddock

James was scheduled to row with his rowing club on Thursday night, so we drove down to the sea together with the intention of picking up some fresh fish at Kyler's Catch for Pam to prepare at our beach house while James got his exercise. Little did we know that the row had been canceled earlier in the day. While James was disappointed when he arrived at the marina, we did not despair. We still had fish to enjoy, plus which it was also National Cream Cheese Brownie Day!

We went to our classic 1980s era Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook for a fish recipe and selected Baked Fish with Mushrooms (because we had mushrooms). The recipe also called for bacon (which was also on hand). We decided to substitute the shallot we had for the green onions. 

The first step involved cooking the bacon - a rather straightforward instruction. Unfortunately, our electric stove has three different sized burners nested in concentric circles, with each having settings from Low to High which are all part of a single dial. The "low" setting on the smallest burner (which I did not intend to set) is next to the "high" setting for the middle burner (which I did intend to set). I put the bacon in the skillet, turned the dial, and waited wondering why the two slices wouldn't cook at all. I eventually discovered the problem and reset the dial, but what I didn't realize was that the middle sections (the only part getting any heat) of each slice had in fact started to cook, so that when the rest of the bacon was heated it heated unevenly. By the time the ends were cooked the middle sections were burned. They looked like long figure 8s. I threw out the burned parts and used only the ends.

After removing the bacon I sautéed the chopped shallot and the chopped mushrooms in the bacon fat and added 3 T. butter and some dried oregano. The fish (Haddock) was placed in a baking dish, topped with the mushrooms, shallot, butter and oregano and baked at 350 for 15 minutes. The bacon was crumbled and added to the top. We served with a spinach salad and paired with a buttery Chardonnay.

Cream Cheese Brownies: The secret is to 'spray with spray'

I don't always celebrate the food holidays I learn about on National Day Calendar. I imagine I would "fall away to a ton" (as my grandmother used to say) if I did, but I could not resist National Cream Cheese Brownie Day. I started with a recipe I found on spendwithpennies.com, but had to make a few substitutions, so my revised recipe follows:

For the Brownies:

12 T unsalted butter

1/2 c. semisweet chocolate chips

1/2 c. cocoa powder

1 1/4 c. sugar

2 eggs

a dash of vanilla extract

1/2 t. salt

1 c. flour

For the Cheesecake Swirl

1 8 oz. package cream cheese

1/4 c. sugar (I had used up all the granulated sugar we had in the brownie mix, so I had to crush up a bunch of sugar cubes)

1 egg

a dash of vanilla extract

The instructions specifically said to "spray a 7x11 pan with baking spray". I ended up using a 9x13 pan because I didn't have the size recommended. Fortunately I did have plenty of my eponymous baking spray.

I melted the chocolate chips and butter together in the microwave (stopping every 30 seconds to stir). Cocoa powder, sugar, eggs, salt, vanilla, and flour were added and mixed together to form a batter which was poured into the well-sprayed dish. I also saved out 1 dollop of the batter as indicated in the recipe.

The cheesecake topping was made by mixing the cream cheese with the sugar and mixing by hand. The recipe says to use an electric mixer, but we don't own one. Next I added the egg and the vanilla extract and stirred until well mixed. I poured the smooth cheesecake batter on top of the brownie batter already in the pan, then plopped the reserved brownie batter on top of that and used a knife to swirl everything together. This baked at 350 for 25 minutes. It cooled a bit before we sliced it, but it was still warm and creamy when we ate it. So good. Not too sweet with a wonderful mouth feel, warm and chocolatey.

National Cookie Day - Brownie Cookies (with coffee!)

Saturday (December 4) was National Cookie Day according to the National Day Calendar. For me cookies are homemade (or go home!) so I took a gander at the subset of cookbooks we keep at our weekend house and found a seldom used coffee cookbook which I assumed would include a choice of dessert items. Indeed it did, and I selected Brownie Cookies mostly because the ingredient list included nothing I would need to run to the store for. Although I did notice that it called for instant coffee, as did most of the other recipes. We never have instant coffee on hand, but since the instructions said to dilute one T. of instant coffee granules in 2 T. hot water James and I determined that brewing a small amount of super strong coffee would bring the same result - an excellent use for our Melitta single-serve pour-over brewer.

As cookies often do, this recipe required two mixing bowls. I mixed the dry ingredients together, and then everything else except the eggs and chocolate chips in a separate bowl as instructed. However, I accidently then put the eggs into the dry, rather than wet bowl at which point it seemed that the better part of valor was to simply beat everything together. 

The cookies did have more of a consistency of chewy brownies than crunchy cookies. A bit on the sweet side. I usually cut the recommended sugar in a recipe by 1/3 to 1/2 which I neglected to do. It really is something I need to remember.

Measurements for flour are 2 1/2 c.

for cocoa powder 1/3 c.

for brown sugar 3/4 c.

for chocolate chips 1 1/2 c.

Bake at 325 for 9-11 minutes

6.28 or Two Pies

We were happy this Thanksgiving to get back to our usual tradition of having dinner with our friends Lisa, Rob, and their children. Last year's Thanksgiving "lite" was better than not getting together at all, but for us spending the day together cooking and laughing is just as important as the enjoying the meal. 

As is often my role in this annual celebration, I made dessert. I like lots of kinds of pies, but my favorite is key lime. However, I discovered from Atlas Obscura that in fact Sour Orange Pie predates  key lime as Florida's favorite. I don't think I'd ever heard of Sour Orange Pie before, and I don't know where I would even find sour oranges, but luckily the recipe explains that equal parts orange juice and lemon juice can be substituted for the sour orange juice. The pie is much like a key lime pie, with a citrusy-custard filling and load of whipped cream on top. 

This calls for a graham cracker crust "either pre-baked or store bought". I of course made my own crust. Luckily James found that our local grocery store actually sold graham cracker crumbs for just such an occasion. Whenever I've made a graham cracker crust in the past I've had to crush the crackers myself, and always wound up with rather inconsistent crumbing.

The pie was sweet and tart. It turned out that I liked it as much as I do a good key lime.

The very first pie I remember liking was a chocolate pie. I think I had only had store-bought fruit pies up to that point in my then-short life, and they were nasty. Pies of all sorts can make me happy now, as long as they are not store-bought (even bakery pies rarely thrill me). I like mine homemade. As an adult I have always enjoyed pecan pie (even though it is often cloyingly sweet). When I saw a recipe from the New York Times for Chocolate Pecan Pie it seemed like a perfect celebratory dessert that brought together two of my favorite types of pie.

This one has a flaky crust. Crust making always feels like a major project to me, but must needs and all. This recipe calls for putting the crust ingredients in a food processor, which I do not own. So, I did what I always do in this situation, I used my blender. The crust ultimately turned out flakier than any other I've made, so I may follow this process in the future. And my resolve not to purchase a food processor remains in tact.

Image: shamelessly lifted by James
from Texas Smokehouse

The filling calls for bittersweet chocolate "to give depth to what is traditionally an achingly sweet pie". James went to the store on Monday before Thanksgiving to buy the ingredients we needed, which included bittersweet chocolate. He called me from the grocery to ask if chips would be okay, to which I responded that if he could find bittersweet chocolate chips that would be great. When I was ready to make the pie on Wednesday I noticed that there was a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips, and asked if he also bought bittersweet chocolate. No, he hadn't. Did it matter, he wanted to know. Of course it matters. We don't want our pie to be "achingly sweet" after all. Back to the store he went for the appropriately sweetened chocolate. The pie was very good not only because it wasn't too sweet, but the filling also included bourbon to give it a "grownup finish", plus more pecans than many recipes call for which gave it better texture as well as a better flavor.

Zucchini Banana Muffins

What does one do when one has some extra-ripe bananas and a zucchini on the edge? Look for something to bake that uses both ingredients of course! A simple Google search using the words yielded me plenty of results from which I selected this recipe for Zucchini Banana Muffins from "Baked by an Introvert". Except for the optional banana chips (which I did not use) I had everything I needed to make these super moist muffins in my pantry. Beyond the oil (I used lemon-infused olive oil) and the eggs the liquid mostly comes from the water in the zucchini, so there is no milk or water called for.

The only change I made to the recipe was to use 1/2 cup of brown sugar, rather than 3/4 cup. I almost always use a bit less sugar than what is called for, especially when baking with fruit. I find that the rest of the flavors are more likely to come through this way.

We will be enjoying these treats for a few more days.

Tres por uno

 

Dining out does not matter.
But the pins do!
2017 Valentine Day from the Archives

We established a tradition decades ago of preparing Valentine's Day dinner together rather than eating out at a crowded restaurant. In fact, this is probably the reason we have several ribald cookbook titles on our shelves. While we have had some good meals in restaurants on the lovers' holiday, we more often spent our time struggling to find a table, perhaps finding one after a long wait ... and/or much driving around ... and getting a meal barely as good as something we could make at home. Or giving up all together and making something subpar late in the evening. Since we are apparently never going to get the hang of reservations, we just opt for treating each other to a nice meal at home.

Good thing too since a global pandemic made an in-home celebration a necessity this year. We selected three recipes, one from each of three different cookbooks: main dish, side dish, and dessert. Pam was in charge of dessert. James took on the other two. (Applies to the preparation and to the authorship of the next few paragraphs.)

A tomato dish accompanied by ... a tomato dish!

When we met, I was the tomato eater. I grew up eating tomatoes all summer. On hot days, we lived on sugary iced tea and sandwiches made of white bread, Real mayo, black pepper, and huge slabs of Mr. Foster's tomatoes. My brother and I would walk to the end of Owl's Nest Road and then up his long driveway. On his porch were baskets of tomatoes, stacks of paper bags, a scale and a money box. I dod not even remember what he looked like -- he was in the field, and the money box took care of itself. Prices early in the summer were 2 pounds/dollar, steadily decreasing. The highest number I remember was 13 pounds/dollar, after which people were encouraged just to take as much as they were willing. My mother canned a lot of these for use all year. But eating them fresh was best.

Again, when Pam and I met, I was the tomato eater and it was serious. I hardly think of the fruit at all (it is a fruit, just like coffee) without thinking of how central it was in our northern Virginia summers. Pam, however, was not a fan. Ketchup, pizza sauce, sure. But fresh tomatoes? No way.

Over the years, I maintained my prior level of interest in Solanum lycopersicum (though I learned the Latin name only about 8 seconds ago), while Pamela evolved from resistant to tolerant to obsessed over the course of a couple decades. She not only likes tomatoes: she now has a ranked-order list of tomato varietals she prefers ... and we cook with them often.

All of which I am including not only as a rebuff to those who foolishly wish for brief posts on food blogs but also as an explanation for including two fairly simple tomato-based recipes in a Valentine dinner and having the nerve to call them special.

The main course was rosemary-scented lamb over pasta from Intercourses (see what I mean about titles?). Except that I cannot bring myself to cook lamb, and so used locally raised chicken breast instead. I am certain this resulted in a huge departure from the original intent of this recipe, but we liked the result very much. The preparation probably took less time that it took me to write what you've read so far (if you are still reading). I sautéed minced garlic with strips of chicken and bell pepper. I then deglazed the pan over high heat with white wine and added crushed tomatoes and a sprig of rosemary. Once heated through, I reduced the heat and stirred in salt, pepper, and two tablespoons of heavy cream. I tossed all of this with warm, freshly cooked rigatoni and garnished with Parmesan and freshly chopped rosemary, sage, and oregano. Yum!

Meanwhile, I somehow managed to prepare roasted Parmesan tomatoes from A Taste for Love. I heated the broiler, applied Pam (the cooking spray) to a shallow baking dish, and filled it with 1-inch thick slices of tomato. Given the small tomatoes on hand, this amounted to tomato halves. In a small bowl, I mixed chopped shallots, fresh oregano, and shredded Parmesan. I sprinkled this mixture on each tomato slice, drizzled olive oil over all of them, and placed it in the boiler (not to close) for several minutes, checking frequently. When the cheese was just browned, they were perfect.

Dessert: Three-Quarter-Pound Orange Cake

We have a favorite dessert from Molly Katzen's The Moosewood Cookbook: our award-winning variation of the Mocha Swirl Coffee Cake  and while we considered replaying this recipe for Valentines Day we opted instead to try something different. I read out loud to James the Table of Contents for Katzen's dessert section and after considering a few options chose Orange Cake (I added the "three quarter pound" designation to the heading since it used three sticks of butter rather than four).

I made a list of everything we would need for the recipe and dutifully added them to our grocery list. And, we actually remembered to pack them all up when getting ready to go to our beach house for the three-day Valentines weekend. What we forgot, however, was the bundt cake pan. We normally wouldn't run out to the store for one forgotten item so we made a short list of other things so we could justify the trip out. James successfully returned with not only the necessary cake pan, but some elusive frozen hash brown patties as well. 

I started by buttering the pan and then mixing three softened sticks of butter, and 1+1/3 cup sugar (the recipe calls for 1+3/4 but that seemed excessive). Once the butter and sugar were well mixed I added four eggs (beating after each one). Next I added 1 tsp orange rind and 1 tsp vanilla.

In a separate bowl I sifted together 3 c flour and 1 T baking soda, and 1 t salt. And in yet another bowl I wisked together 1 c. plain yogurt, 1/2 c. orange juice. Each of these mixtures were added to the butter and sugar mix by alternating dry with wet, stirring after each addition, until everything was well mixed. 

Once everything was mixed together it went into the Bundt pan and baked for an hour at 350.

The cake was left to cool while I mixed and cooked the glaze of 1/2 c orange juice, 1 T sugar, 1 T lemon juice, and 2 T Triple Sec. I put all ingredients into a saucepan, brought to a boil and then simmered for 3 minutes. When the cake was cool I turned it onto a plate and poured on the glaze. 

This made a lot of dishes and a lot of cake. We will be enjoying this for a while still.

Bundt Cake GIF from Bundt GIFs

Lagniappe

About those pins in the photo above. We found them very early in our marriage, at a pharmacy near our home in Oxford, Ohio. Being on graduate stipends at the time, they probably set us back half a day's pay at the time. We have cherished them ever since. We wear them occasionally throughout the year, but especially on two days: Valentine's Day and our anniversary. We love the compliments we get about them throughout those days. This year we forgot to bring them to our weekend house and then realized not much was lost -- as nobody else would see us to comment! Hence the file photo. 

Two Thanksgiving desserts

A Covid Thanksgiving

Our usual Thanksgiving tradition involves dinner with friends. Typically three families get together, with occasional additions. Most years we arrive around noon and begin cooking and drinking wine until dinner is ready at 3:00 or 4:00. After our meal we take a walk and then have our dessert - a selection of pies, cakes and other delectables. This year we maintained our tradition with a much scaled-back version. It rained all day on Thursday, so we moved our celebration to Friday when the weather was better and we could eat outside. It was about 60 degrees out - let's hear it for global warming - so it was actually a nice day dining al fresco. Rather than spending the entire day together James showed up at our hosts' home with the turkey in the morning and he and Rob got it started on the grill, then James came back home and prepared the dressing and we went returned at 3:00 with our offerings.  I had planned on making some cranberry sauce but Lisa said they already had three different kinds, so I made two desserts instead. 

Just like the lunch lady used to make

Growing up and attending public school in Baltimore County in the 1970s I usually wasn't thrilled with the hot lunch offered in our cafeteria, and opted instead to bring my lunch. Exceptions to that rule were pizza day and open-faced turkey sandwich day. In the case of the turkey it wasn't so much the main course that I was interested in as the dessert that came with it - "peanut butter confection". 

I've often thought about how much I liked that crumbly, sweet dessert and it seemed this year was a good time to try to find a recipe (and, after all, we were having turkey). On a bag of confectioners sugar I found a recipe for Peanut Butter Fudge that seemed like it might allow me to create reasonable facsimile of what I remembered. It was a simple recipe with only four ingredients (confectioners sugar, milk, marshmallow fluff, and peanut butter) and I did end up with a super sweet '70s treat that was exactly as I remembered.

Is it cake or pie?

My second dessert came from the New York Times cooking page. I told our hosts that I would bring pumpkin pie, but this recipe is called "Pumpkin Skillet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting" It has no crust, and is made with flour, so it probably is more of a cake than a pie. Nevertheless it was delicious and baked right in our indispensable cast-iron skillet.

This year there were only six of us enjoying our Thanksgiving dinner together. Here's hoping that next year we will be able to return to our usual festivities with everyone in good health.

Buckeyes

 

Last year when I cleaned out my refrigerators (one at my primary residence, and the other at our beach house) I found one partially-used, expired jar of peanut butter in each. We'd already been empty nesters for a few years and this one-time staple in our household had apparently become superfluous. Our only child came to visit for a few weeks over the summer and requested that we purchase a jar. Unlike some of his other food requests he actually ate some of the peanut butter, but there was still quite a bit remaining after he left. I decided not to wait until this jar expired and instead went looking for a recipe to use it up. I found this recipe for Peanut Butter Balls on the New York Times Cooking page.

These were easy to make. The only "cooking" involved was melting the semi-sweet chocolate chips in the microwave.  A super-sweet, fun treat.

Apple Cake

 

Last spring the Bridgewaters' One Book One Community Read was Thanks A Thousand by A.J. Jacobs. This memoir recounts the author's attempts to thank everyone who brought him his daily cup of coffee beginning with the barista at his local coffee shop and ending with a trip to South America to thank the farmers. Ultimately he thanks about a thousand people, while realizing he didn't even get to everyone. 

As a children's selection along the same theme we found Dawn Casey's Apple Cake which features a young child thanking all the people, plants, and animals who provide the ingredients to make Apple Cake. A recipe is included in the book, so in honor of the start of fall I made it. I made my own almond flour by grinding almond slivers in the blender. The cake is dense and not too sweet although it has 3 cups of honey.

Peach Blueberry Cobbler

 

I love the late summer when peaches and blueberries are in abundance, and I love that these two flavors taste so good together. I was able to get fresh peaches and blueberries at the farmer's market last week and used them to make a fruit cobbler. 

Before I get into the recipe though I must offer this explanation about the differences between a cobbler, a crumble, and a crisp: a cobbler has a biscuit topping; a crumble has a topping of butter and sugar; and a crisp has a topping with butter, sugar, and oats. Additionally we have buckles and Bettys. Buckles have the topping and fruit baked together (causing them to buckle); Bettys (like crumbles) have no oats, but the fruit and crumble are layered (source The Farmer's Almanac) 

And now, back to our recipe. I got this one from the New York Times Cooking Page. It calls for hazelnut flour which I did not have, but I did have some almond flour in the cupboard which I was able to substitute effectively. Otherwise I followed the recipe as written. James whipped some cream for us as a topping. A lovely dessert to complement our pasta dinner made with fresh pesto. So much goodness from the garden.

Birthday Cake

May is usually a time of celebrations for us. Both of our birthdays and our wedding anniversary fall in this merry month. While we don't typically have big parties for any of these events, we do generally have a few friends over for a nice dinner and some cake. We understood that for the greater good even our low-key celebrations would have to be toned down this year, so yesterday James' birthday was recognized with a favorite dinner and a small birthday cake for just the two of us. I made what our family refers to as "The Best Chicken in the World" - so named by our only child many years ago. The recipe comes from a small plastic spiral-bound cookbook that I got as a thank-you gift for doing a slide-presentation about Puebla, Mexico to a group in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas about 25 years ago. We blogged about this recipe 6 years ago. You can find the post here.

The "nueva receta" part of this post comes from the infrequently used Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook which has nice divider tabs like we used to use in our loose-leaf binders.

I found the tab for "Cakes" and selected "Busy-Day Cake", although yesterday wasn't so much a busy day, as a we- have-all-the-ingredients-for-this-and-we-ain't-going-to-the-store-day.

The only change I made to this was that I used a 9-inch round cake pan instead of a 9-inch square pan. We apparently do not own the requisite square sized pan.

I also made cream-cheese frosting from the same cookbook, under the same tab.

I should also point out that both of these recipes call for the use of an electric mixer. We still don't own one, so the cake and the frosting were mixed using the energy from my arms. 

For a final festive touch I added some multi-colored sprinkles I found in the cabinet. There were no candles though.

A perfect cake for two people. We also still had some ginger ice cream in the freezer which tasted divine with this otherwise basic cake.

Simple recipes from a classic cookbook.

And now, a rant.

When we moved into our house 18 years ago all the houses on our street were occupied by either single people, couples, or families. Now we live between two student rentals. The level of aggravation in dealing with this changes from year-to-year as new students come and go. As it turned out one of our next-door neighbors also had a birthday yesterday and decided to have a biggish party in the backyard complete with ignoring of social-distancing guidelines, loud music, and no masks. They did provide paper party hats to their guests though. The party went on for hours. Police were called. You'd think a house that had a drug bust not so long ago would try to keep a low profile, but you'd be wrong.

Mint Mocha Milkshake

James bought these funky flavored coffee beans a few weeks ago for fun. As coffee snobs it is anathema to us to do much with coffee flavors, but he knows I like mint chocolate ice cream, and I also like the visual appeal of the color combination of mint green and chocolate brown so he made an exception. We drank the coffee for our morning beverage the weekend before last, but didn't finish all the beans so I got the idea to use them in a milkshake (aka a "coffee cabinet") since we had some coffee milk (for those who don't live in Massachusetts or Rhode Island this is a specialty in these parts) and some vanilla ice cream. I ground the beans then added them to a blender with the ice cream and milk. I had hoped the grinding along with the blending would reduce them to something that wouldn't be noticeable in the final product, but in fact they left a rather grainy texture to the shake. It was good in any case and a fun way to use the beans.