Plum Cake (with apologies to Melissa)

America's test kitchen is a PBS show which meticulously tests its recipes, creating may variations in a quest for the exact perfect recipe. All so people like me can buy their "best of " magazine in the airport and start substituting. This is based on the Rustic Plum cake featured in The Best of America's test kitchen 2009, with variation by me. I'll leave their original in normal font with my variation in italics.

2Tbs red currant jelly (apricot jam)
3 Tbs Brandy (Rum)
1 lb prune plums halfed and pitted (a bunch of under-ripe plums and peaches pitted in pieces)
1 tsp cornstarch
3/4 c sugar
1/3 c slivered almonds
3/4 c flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
6 Tbs butter, softened.
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp almond extract

1. mix jelly and liqour in a pan over medium heat until just thickened. Add the fruit and cook until they shed juices and thick syrup is formed about 5 minutes (cover because the peaches are too hard, wander off to discover plums have disintegrated, add cornstarch to deal with excess water)
2. grease and flour 9 in springform pan (any cake pan) preheat oven to 350
3. mix almonds and sugar in a food processor until finely ground. Add flour, salt and baking powder and pulse to combine. Add the butter, and mix until batter resembles coarse sand. Finally add eggs, flavorings and process until smooth. Batter will be thick.
4. spread the batter into a thin layer on the bottom of the pan. Arrange the plum halfs skin side down on the surface of the batter (arrange recognizable peach slices in a pretty circle, fill in the rest with a thin coating of peach/plum/apricot sauce)
5. Bake until cake is golden brown and wooden skewer comes out clean, about 40-50 min. allow cake to cool in pan on wire rack for 30 min.
6. sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve.

Red Beans and Rice

This is my creation and based on what arrived in my co-op food order this weekend. so far we have
1 c dry red beans
1 1/2 c rice
1 pkg mild italian sausage
1 green pepper
1 onion

soaked the beans overnight and just put them on to boil with 1 tsp salt. Sausage is thawing on the counter.

It came out well - here's the rest
1 boil the beans until soft - about 2 hours.
2cook rice with 3 cups water in a separate pan until done.

3 Chop the onion and saute with olive oil in a large pan, chop the pepper and add it. Cut the sausage into peices (about 8 per sausage) and saute. Add
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp paprika
liberal sprinkle of ground black pepper
1/2 tsp cumin

and cook until the sausage is done. combine sausage mixture with red beans and rice and mix well.

makes about 6 servings.

Banana Bread

New weekend, new post, new recipe (well perhaps new to you, old and used to me) The bananas were turning a dark brown on the counter signaling the time to get out the Jane Brody cookbook for Banana bread. The 10-year-old me is turning over in her swimsuit at the thought I would voluntarily cook from the ever-present "healthy-eww' cookbook of my childhood. For those needing reading from the library, it is Jane Brody's good food book (also Good Food Gourmet) tagline - 'Living the high-carbohydrate way' you can tell she didn't live in LA in the last 10 years, . .

This delicious bread gets its crunch from Grape Nuts Cereal, it also has much less fat and sugar than most banana bread recipes (but don't tell kids!)

pg 585 Banana Bread
3/4 c whole-wheat flour
3/4 c all purpose flour
1/3 c sugar
1/2 c nonfat dry milk
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 c Grape Nuts Cereal (or Nutty Nuggets, Kroger brand)
1/2 c rasins (I always omit these, even before I married a rasin-hater)
2 eggs
1 cup mashed bananas (2-3 medium)
1/4 c melted butter, margarine or oil
1/4 c water

1. combine the dry ingrediants in a large bowl
2. beat the eggs, add the banana, melted butter, and water and mix well. I throw in 1 tsp vanilla too.
3 add wet to dry stirring until just moistened
4. place in a oiled and floured loafpan
5. bake at 350 for 50-55min (longer sometimes) allow the bread to cool in the pan for about 10 min before you take it out.

Yum!

cheese cake

I've been craving cheesecake, and what could be better than something that has 2 billion calories and uses every appliance and dish in the house?

Coffee-Chocolate Swirl Cheesecake
(adapted from the internet by me)
In a large bowl combine
2 8oz pkg cream cheese
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
1/4 cup strong coffee
1/4 cup flour
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
Beat well, very well, you're not done yet, keep beating.

Crust: combine
1 1/2 packages graham crackers (so 1/2 of a normal size box)
1/4 cup butter
1 tsp cinnamon
throw it in the food processor or otherwise crunch it up into even crumbles.

Spread the crust on the bottom of the cheesecake pan and
-sprinkle with cocoa.

Whip about 1/2 cup heavy cream until stiff peaks form. Fold this into the rest of the batter.
Pour the batter over the cocoa coated crust in the pan.

Melt about 2oz dark chocolate with 1 Tbs butter. Drizzle the chocolate into the cake- make about 3 big blobs. Then take a toothpick and lightly swirl the chocolate in. Bake at 300 until the middle is stiff.

*****Disclaimer*** It's still in the oven so who knows how it will set, but the batter sure did taste good!

Black Beans

So it's raining which means it's time to cook long slow hot foods.

1 1/2 c dry black beans
1 onion chopped
3-4 cloves garlic
1 jalepano pepper
3/4 cup ham chopped, or 3 slices bacon

Cover the beans with cold water and bring to a boil with 1 tsp salt. Turn the heat off when the water boils and let the beans sit for 1 hour - or as long as it takes to deal with the other ingredients.

Chop the remainder of the ingrediants and saute with a generous coating of vegtable oil.

Drain and rinse the beans, and put the beans and the sauted veggies in the crockpot. Bring 4 cups water to a boil and pour over the beans and veggies in the crockpot. Leave the crockpot on high for 4-5 hours until beans are soft.

Pizza on the grill

So I was just reading about Melissa's baking adventures in Ottawa and it inspired me to come back to this blog. Yesterday I made pizza on the grill, and it was a big sucess. We did get a pizza stone as a wedding gift, but it was too heavy to bring on the plane and is thus still in NH. Never-the-less this grill pizza turned out amazing. In fact it's definitly going on the menu for my future resturant.

I shamelessly stole the recipie from "cuisine at Home" which I received free in the mail (pay no money now, this issue is your to keep type thing). First the dough. I've never been big on allowing pizza dough to rise too much, possibly because I've never been big on planning that far ahead to make pizza, but this is recommended.
combine:
1 cup warm water
1 Tbs yeast (recipie says 2 1/2 tsp, but I say what's a 1/2tsp betwee friends)
1 Tbs sugar
let sit for 5 min while the yeast proofs

In the mixer bowl combine
2 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 cup cake flour (since I belive cake is all purpose food, I of course used all purpose flour)
1 Tbs salt (yes, that's a lot, just do it)

Add 2 Tbs olive oil to the proofed yeast and then add all the moist ingrediants to the flour. Knead with a mixer dough hook for 10 minutes. (N.B. I am sure you can knead things normally too, but since I just got a mixer about 2 weeks ago I now use it for everything)

coat a bowl with oil and place the ball of dough in it to rise for 2 hours. cover dough with plastic wrap while it rises.

punch the dough down, and shape into 4 little balls and coat each with oil and cover with plastic either
--> follow the directions and let rise for 1 hour before going on or
--> follow my impression of the directions and leave them in the fridge for 4 hours while you run errands, go to a birthday party, etc.


Pre-chop all your toppings now. Yes, I never pre chop things, but I did this time, and it was worth it as these pizzas cook fast and you'll want the toppings handy. We used
-leftover spegheti sauce
- bbq sauce
- garlic
-cilantro
-fresh mushrooms
- red onion
-leftover ham (yes from Easter, but it had been in the freezer so don't get all worried)
- shredded moztarella cheese
- feta cheese

turn on the grill to medium to let it warm up (there were all sorts of details about grill temperature but I just threw the hibachi on medium and it worked great)
take one ball of dough and roll it out into a 12in circle. throwing around the patio is encouraged. brush one side of the dough with olive oil and put it oil side down on the grill. cover and let cook 3 minutes or until the bottom is crunchy - it takes a bit longer than you'd think. burned sections are fine, they end up tasting good.

Now either turn down the heat and be super fast or take the pizza off onto a plate, and put toppings on the side that was down on the grill (i.e. the cooked side) go wild, it's all yummy. then put the pizza back on the grill for another 3 mintues- you may need to turn the heat down to get the cheese to melt.

Amazing. that's all I have to say. My next dinner party is grilled pizza hands down. And not really very hard despite my long explanation.