Mexican Chocolate Cake with Nana's Frosting

Another co-worker is moving on to...different things. And that means I had to make something for the going away shindig. Yes, had to. I went with a fairly simple recipe for a Mexican Chocolate Cake. Mix the dry ingredients, add the wet ones, mix until smooth. 25 minutes in the oven and it's done. It was.

The picture doesn't really show the cake part. Just the frosting. And that Dear Reader is the point. The frosting recipe comes from my paternal great-grandmother, known to us all as Nana. She used it on her oatmeal cookies. I do too. And as cake icing. And to make a marvelous peanut butter and frosting sandwich. It is true. A fairly simple recipe. Butter, powdered sugar, cinnamon, and coffee. Caffeine and sugar. This gets one going in the morning. You'll just have to trust me.

I found that the cake, with chocolate and cinnamon, goes beautifully with the cinnamon and the coffee in the frosting.

Bon appétit!

Chicken Pot Pie

Comfort food on a Friday evening. Life is good. I decided yesterday to make a chicken pot pie for dinner tonight. From scratch. Mainly. I was looking for an easy way to put together something that Susie and I would really like. Puff pastry sheets to the rescue. Susie stretched the sheets to fit the pie pan while I cut up onion and potatoes. Adirondack
Blue potatoes. I followed a recipe, loosely, for the gravy: butter, chicken broth, flour, salt & pepper. When it thickened, I added the spuds and onions, some frozen mixed veggies, and a couple chicken breasts that had been diced.

I poured the mixture into the pie pan and turned it back over to Susie to add the top of the crust. Before she covered it, I snapped this picture. Check out the blue potatoes! Although they look more purple than blue. Then into the oven for 30 minutes at 400. Or until the crust was golden.


The verdict was unanimous. We both loved it! But we also agreed that an additional 10-15 minutes in the oven would improve the pie. Next time. And there will be a next time.

Bon appétit!

Rainbow Cake

My grandmothers were my inspiration for cooking. They still are. My mom too, to be fair. All equally. Let's get that straight right away. The recipe for Rainbow Cake comes from my maternal grandmother. Typed with little annotations between lines and in margins. A true heirloom. It is essentially a butter cake batter with a twist. The batter is divided and dyed with food coloring. No two come out the same. Ever. They all come out looking pretty groovy. The picture here is a file photo from my archives. Today's version, still in the oven, has four colors. The pink, green and yellow seen here, plus blue. Blue food intrigues me. As kids we would eat one color, then the next and so on. Technically, we played with our food.

Bon appétit!

Berry Cobbler

Again with the cobbler? Yes. Again with the cobbler. I am becoming convinced that just about any fruit or berry can be made into a cobbler. This time I used something called "Berry Medley" from Fred Meyer. I had a coupon. Blackberries, raspberries and blueberries. The fruit mixture seemed a bit high in the baking pan so I am glad I thought to put a pan under it. Just in case of overflow during baking. It did, but I achieved the same old result: delicious!

Bon appétit!

Roasted Asparagus

While the salmon is resting after coming out of the oven, this dish, another favorite for entertaining (and eating) can be nearly completed, assuming a wee bit of prep work is done.

I take a handful, or more, or less, of my dried tomatoes and soak them in hot water for at least an hour before I am going to bake. Trim the asparagus. The best way I have found is to grab each stalk at each end, with thumbs and forefingers. Bend until they break. Asparagus is quite cooperative in snapping at just the right place. Discard the tough bottoms and lay the remaining spears in a baking pan. Drizzle with a little olive oil. Season with a little pepper. (I am a bit arrogant so I use fresh crushed black pepper). Place in a 400 degree oven for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and shuffle the spears a bit, sprinkle the drained, semi-reconstituted tomatoes over the asparagus and return to the oven for about 7 more minutes. Could this be any easier?

Bon appétit!

Baked Salmon with Pesto Crust

This is one of my favorites. For serving when we have guests. And for eating. Elegant and so very, very simple. All you'll need is some salmon, dried bread crumbs, and pesto. OK, four, a little olive oil for the pan.

I buy pre-cut portions of salmon at Fred Meyer. They are uniform in weight, and in shape. (Important for baking time). I buy cheap packaged bread crumbs. The pesto will add the flavor. And I have pesto that I made and froze. The trip to the store is the most difficult part of this recipe!

Now the easy part. Mix the pesto and bread crumbs until a thick paste is formed. No measuring required. Just eyeball it. Then set the salmon portions on a working surface and blot them dry with a paper towel. This will allow the pesto crust to adhere better. Grab some of the crust mixture and work it onto the top surface of the salmon. As thick or as thin as you'd like. Just be even so cooking will be even as well. (See picture).


Place the crusted salmon portions in a baking dish that has been oiled and bake at 400 degrees for approximately 25 minutes. Let the fish rest for 5-10 minutes after removing from the oven. Just do it.

Bon appétit!

Strawberry Cobbler

Never heard of it? Me neither. Blackberry. Yes. Peach. Sure. Why not strawberry? Why not indeed.

Thicken the berries over heat with a little corn starch, a couple cups sugar, and a a splash of lemon juice. Pour berry mixture into a 9 x 13 inch baking pan and spoon the cobbler dough on top. It will expand so don't worry about covering the whole surface. In fact, you can't completely cover the surface. There isn't enough dough for that. Don't forget to sprinkle the top with a little sugar for a sweet, crunchy crust. 25 minutes in a 400-degree oven and it's done. Ready for vanilla ice cream to melt over it, blending with the berries. Mmmmm.

Now for the test. Delicious. I will reduce the amount of berries a bit next time. It's just a little too saucy. But then again, who would complain about too many strawberries?

Bon appétit!

Tomatoes

What are we supposed to do with tomatoes? Lots of tomatoes. Even though it was an off year, due mainly to mediocre soil preparation on my part, I have harvested a lot of tomatoes. It certainly could have been a lot worse. (Did I really mean worse?) But I did plant 19 different varieties of tomatoes and, even though each individual plant was by itself a little disappointing, I have picked a lot of tomatoes. I ask again Dear Reader: What am I supposed to do?

Answer: dry them. After tiring of tomato sandwiches and BLTs that is. I discovered drying tomatoes last year. Soaked in warm water for an hour or so before using them in cooking, the concentrated flavors of the reconstituted little gems is unparalleled. Really. Truly. Honestly. And it is such a simple process!

Step one. Pick tomatoes. Check. (A sample of one of my harvests is above).

Step two. Cut tomatoes. There is no set thickness, or size, or anything. Granted, cutting a large tomato in half might require a week to dry. And we don't want that now. Do we? We don't. They don't even have to be uniform. They will all get dry in time. We have a simple dryer and I spread the fruit on the trays, place the tray on the dryer, and plug it in. 130 degrees for however long it takes. All day. Overnight. It depends.

When they are thoroughly dry, I place them all in a resealable bag and pop them in the freezer for a couple days. This takes care of any lingering nasties.

Finally, I place them in an airtight storage jar. Ready to use at will or whim. They look lovely too. Especially when there is a mix of red, yellow and green. One of my favorite uses for these is in roasted asparagus, but that will have to wait for another day and another post.

Bon appétit!

Basil

One cannot have too much pesto. It serves so many purposes. Pasta sauce. Crostini spread. I have even used it as a hot dog condiment. So, it should follow that one cannot have too much basil. But I grow close to a hundred basil plants each year. So unless I am prepared to make pesto for an extended period, I had better come up with a way to deal with that much basil.

I have heard that one can put basil in a blender, add water, liquefy and pour into ice cube trays. I could have cubes of frozen fresh basil to drop into sauces and soups the whole year round. It sounded so easy that I began, without checking any reference as to how to do this. Where would the fun be in that?

For batch one I placed about 2 cups packed basil leaves in the blender, added 2 cups water and pushed the button. It was that easy. I went to pour the results into an ice cube tray and found it was just a wee bit too much for a single tray, and not near enough for two.

Back to the beginning. Two cups basil leaves and this time, three cups of water. Liquefy and voilà, green goo. Without making too big a mess, I managed to get most of the aromatic liquid into the ice cube trays. Comfortably.

After the cubes are frozen, I'll put them into an airtight container and have a reason to make soup this winter.

Bon appétit!

Fried zucchini

Across the street from the main gate of Hellenikon Air Base there was, and may still be for all I know, a little restaurant. A taverna called The Onion. It was the first place in Greece outside a military dining facility at which I ate. Twenty-three years ago. There was prepared the best zucchini I have ever eaten. Zucchini slices fried just until crisp. I don't know why I wanted to try to recreate them after this many years. Maybe just so I could have something with which to begin this blog.

I started by slicing a zucchini, about 1 1/2" in diameter, into slices about 1/8" thick. I poured olive oil, about 1/4' deep into a frying pan and turned the heat to high. When the oil was hot, I took the zucchini slices and dredged them in semolina flour and placed them in the hot oil. Don't crowd them in the pan. I counted out 10 per batch. After a little while I could see the sides darken and turned the slices, one at a time, and let them cook on the other side for a couple minutes. Remove them from the oil and place on a paper towel to drain excess oil. If desired, sprinkle with a dash of salt.

They came out pretty good. Not great. Just pretty good. I ate them just as they cooled and didn't try any condiments. Thickened yogurt with garlic would be pretty good. Maybe ketchup if that is your thing.

Were I to try this again, I might use semolina, instead of semolina flour, for a better texture. Maybe run through an egg wash before that. Maybe not.

Suggestions?

Bon appétit!