Buttermilk Cake Doughnuts

The Husband is a devoted fan of The Simpsons. (Quite frankly, show me a male who isn't...) Like Homer, The Husband is also a devoted fan of doughnuts. As Homer once wisely observed, "Donuts-- is there anything they can't do?"

Since I am a devoted fan of The Husband (Quite frankly, show me a female who isn't...), I thought I would once again try my hand at homemade doughnuts for our Saturday morning coffee/newspaper time together. I had tried a time or two previously, and not had a lot of success. But one must perservere, so I found a new recipe to try. It went fairly well this time but, just like in previous attempts, the dough was extremely soft and I had to add much more flour than what was called for. However, once I got the dough to a workable consistency they cut out nicely and cooked up just as the recipe said they would. Like so many of my odd kitchen gadgets, I found my doughnut cutter at a garage sale somewhere along the way. Certainly not something I've used much but it came in handy today!

Buttermilk Cake Doughnuts

2 large eggs

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup buttermilk

3 Tbsp butter, melted

3 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp salt

1 Tbsp baking powder

1/4 tsp ground allspice

1/4 tsp ground mace

Vegetable oil for frying

Confectioners sugar and cinnamon sugar for dusting doughnuts

(I cut this recipe in half from the quantities listed above as two dozen doughnuts seemed a bit excessive for the two of us. (Though Homer and The Husband would argue this point, it worked fine.)

Whisk the eggs until light and lemony in color. Gradually add the sugar, whisking constantly until mix is thick and ribbony.

Stir in the buttermilk and melted butter. Add the sifted dry ingredients into the egg mixture and stir until combined. IMPORTANT: Do not overwork the dough. Let the dough rest in the refrigerator for 20 minutes.

Pour oil to the depth of 2-3 inches into a large heavy pot. Heat it to 375 degrees. While oil is heating roll the dough on a lightly floured surface to about 1/4 inch thickness. Cut doughnuts out with a doughnut cutter or a biscuit cutter. Fry the doughnuts in small batches until golden brown. Turn once after 1 1/2 minutes per side. Use a slotted spoon to take them out and drain on paper towels. Check the oil before putting in new batches to ensure it is at correct temperature. Dust the doughnuts while still warm. Makes approximately 2 dozen doughnuts and doughnut holes.

Cherry-Poppin' Tomato Sauce

The Husband tore down the garden on this gorgeous Fall day and there was still an amazing quantity of produce left on the vines to deal with. The corn on the cob was blanched, thrown in ice water for a few minutes, wrapped individually in plastic wrap and then put in freezer bags for the deep freeze. These lovely ears will be enjoyed in the dead of winter and we will remember our bountiful garden in the summer of 2008.

Above: Corn fresh from the garden.
Above: Corn in their blanching bath
Above: All wrapped up and ready for the freezer

As for the many cherry tomatoes, I opted to roast those and they too will be frozen and enjoyed later in the year when we are facing day after day of gloomy weather and there won't be a decent tomato anywhere to be found. I wish I had smell-o-computer so you could all enjoy the aromas in my house right now. The garlic and spices have permeated every corner of every room and it's divine. This sauce will be so delicious mixed with a delicate angel hair pasta, a few sprigs of fresh basil and some generous shavings of Parmesan cheese. We might not be able to wait until winter to devour this creation!

Cherry-Poppin' Tomato Sauce

5 cups cherry tomatoes

4 cloves finely minced garlic

4 Tbsp. olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Italian Seasoning to taste

Chili Pepper flakes to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Wash and take stems off cherry tomatoes. Put in single layer in a baking dish. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, Italian Seasoning, chili pepper flakes and minced garlic. Pour olive oil over all of the tomatoes and gently toss with a spatula.

Bake in oven for 45 minutes. Let cool completely. Put in freezer bags or eat immediately as a sauce with pasta. This would also be good over toasted Italian or French bread slices.

A Corny Tip

Corn on the cob is a delightful eating experience but let's face it, sometimes you just don't feel like getting all messy and having to pick corn from between your teeth for the rest of the evening can be so unbecoming. On those occasions and also if you need fresh corn kernels for a recipe, it is necessary to cut the kernels off the cob.

The Husband has grown some wonderful corn this year and in the past I have taken on the tedious, somewhat dangerous task of holding the cob of corn precariously perched on a cutting board and de-kerneling it. This usually results in corn flying all of the kitchen, not to mention nearly cutting off a finger or two.
Not to long ago while watching the Food Network I saw someone (sorry I can't remember which show) utilizing the following technique: Take the husked ear of corn and place the small end down into the center of a bundt pan and slice the kernels off. It is a superb technique. The ear is secure and the kernels go down directly into the pan, alleviating the flying corn throughout the kitchen problem. A neat, tidy procedure.

The October Garden

As I have mentioned in earlier blogs, the garden has been extremely late in production this year due to a most chilly Spring. Here it is October 1st and we are just harvesting our corn and tomatoes. We also only had one cucumber plant which seemed to be in critical condition for weeks and we doubted there would be a harvest. Well, the plant perked up with TLC from The Husband (or was it the Miracle Grow?) and it produced some lovely bounty.

One of cucumbers was extremely long; approximately 18 inches. Most impressive indeed. A favorite recipe for cucumber in my repertoire is Tsatsiki, a refreshing Greek dip which is delicious with toasted pita bread wedges or as part of a Greek or Middle Eastern dinner. The dip is simple to make, refreshing and very tasty. Give it a try sometime when you are trying to figure out what to do with an 18 inch cucumber!

Tsatsiki (Greek Cucumber Dip)

2 medium (6-7 inches) or 1 VERY LARGE cucumber

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup sour cream

1 cup plain yogurt

2 medium cloves garlic, minced finely

Peel, seed, and coarsely grate the cucumber.

Combine everything in a bowl and mix well. Cover tightly and refrigerate until very cold. Serve as a salad, appetizer or a dip.

I usually drain my yogurt overnight when I use it in dips to get some of the excess moisture from it. To do this, I line a fine mesh sieve with either paper towel or a coffee filter and put the yogurt in this, over a bowl in the refrigerater overnight. It really makes a difference in making a thicker dip.

Dried Cherry Biscotti

It's been a baking kind of weekend. Cookies and cake. Cookies for The Husband and cake for a last of the summer Bar-B-Que at the Mother-in-Law's. I'll start with the cookie recipe and talk about the cake in another entry. A favorite in our house is cherries. Cherry jam, cherry pie, cherry turnovers, plain cherries and dried cherry biscotti (I sound like Forrest Gump - fried shrimp, boiled shrimp, etc.....).

This recipe makes very good biscotti and they are fairly easy to make but are messy as I have found that when mixing the ingredients together it is far more effective to use one's hands then a spoon. They also take some tending to when baking them as they are twice baked and have to be cooled a bit after the initial baking and then cut, and then baked again in two 5 minute sessions. The end result is worth it though. They turn out crunchy, not too sweet and with nice sour bites with the dried cherries.

Dried Cherry Biscotti

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 cup sugar

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

3 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

2/3 cup chopped dried cherries (dried cranberries also work)

1 cup ground almonds

Sugar for the top (optional)

Lightly grease one cookie sheet. Preheat oven to 35o degrees.

Blend flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Add eggs and vanilla, beating until dough is formed. Stir in almonds and cherries.

Turn dough out onto lightly floured surface and kneed several times. Using the greased cookie sheet as a surface, divide the dough in half and form into two flat logs about 9 inches long by 3 inches wide. I like to press some sugar onto the tops for an added sweet crunch.Bake for 25 minutes or until lightly browned on top.

Let cool directly on baking sheet resting on a rack for 10 minutes.

Lower heat to 325 degrees. On a cutting board, cut the logs on the diagonal into 1/2 inch thick pieces. Put back in oven for 5 minutes. Turn over and bake 5 more minutes. Remove from cookie sheet and cool on a baking rack. Store in an airtight container.

Dulce Delicious

The Husband likes my homemade ice cream. He devours it by the Gladware tubful. I make the most simple ice milk recipe which I made up after much trial and error (he doesn't like it too creamy) and named it Ice Ice Baby. It is just 1 quart of whole milk, 1/2 cup of half and half, 1/2 cup of superfine sugar and 1 Tablespoon of vanilla. No cooking of custard is involved and it turns out hard as a rock and did I mention, HE LOVES IT.

Well today I decided to make ice cream that sounds good to me. It's called Dulce de Leche ice cream and it is delicious and ever so simple as it too requires no cooking. If you have an ice cream maker, give it a try. You'll be glad you did.

Dulce de Leche Ice Cream

2 cups whole milk

1 cup heavy cream

1 2/3 cups canned dulce de leche (found with the evaporated milk or in the Hispanic section of the grocery store).

1/2 tsp vanilla.

Bring milk and cream to a boil in a saucepan, lower heat and whisk in the dulce de leche until melted. Add the vanilla then place the mixture in a bowl over an ice bath until chilled.

Mix in ice cream maker following manufacturer's instruction. My ice cream was fairly soft when done so it required a good 4 hours to harden in the freezer.

A Garden Update

The corn on 7/22/08 and the corn on 8/22/08

The garden is thriving. Soooooooo many beans to be picked I have to make two trips to the kitchen to deposit the filled colander. The corn is nearly ready to start harvesting I can't wait! And the cucumbers (all three of them) are ready to pick. That plant was very sad for weeks due to the cold weather we had this spring. But it perked up and we will definitely have a cucumber harvest of sorts.

Now about the tomatoes. We are harvesting the cherry tomatoes but I am having my doubts about the Big Boys and whether we will get any off that plant. Many green ones but none starting to ripen that I can see. The Husband usually has great luck with tomatoes but again, I think the cold spring weather was very detrimental to our tomato harvest.

When I was growing up we had no garden whatsoever. It is so satisfying to be able to step out into my back yard and pick vegetables. I know it sounds so simplistic but it gives me great enjoyment!

Grandma's Tarts

My English grandma always had a large decorative tin of tarts ready for us when we came to visit. There were of maids of honor (so named by King Henry VIII for Anne Boleyn who was a lady in waiting to his first wife Katherine of Aragon), coconut tarts, and jam and lemon curd filled tarts, with each layer separated in the tin by wax paper. It was such a treat to sit at my grandparents dining room table with cups of tea and the delicious tarts. My mother also made tarts, but with her busy schedule it was usually at Christmas or at times when she baked a pie she would make jam tarts with the leftover pie dough.

I am very pleased that I was able to get my grandma's recipes for her various tarts and I try to make them at least once a year. When finished, I too always put them in my favorite tin which is decorated with tart pictures and the poem about the Queen of Hearts and her tarts. I hope my nieces will learn how to make them as it would be a shame for those traditional recipes to be lost.

Since I made my gloriously successful berry pie, I decided to throw together a few jam tarts with my leftover pie dough. I was able to do so primarily because The Husband was at work and not stealing and eating the raw dough before I can get to the rest of my baking.

Above: Tarts ready for baking.

For these tarts there is no recipe other than taking leftover dough, rolling it out and cutting into circles to fit the muffin tin, filling each tart with approximately 1 teaspoon of a jam, jelly, or lemon curd and baking at 350 degrees for approximately 12 minutes until crusts are light brown. Let tarts cool in tin for 10 minutes or so, until jam sets then remove and cool them on a rack.

Above: Tarts baked and ready for their special tin.

A Pictorial Study in Green Beans

It was 98 degrees yesterday. It will be 100 degrees today. It's hot. The house is hot. I'm hot. But the garden likes the heat and the many, many bean plants are thriving so I was up at 6am this Saturday morning to go harvest and put up some beans before it becomes unbearable in the kitchen.

The process is so easy and will produce garden fresh beans all winter long with just a little effort now. Here's what I do in a brief narrative and I'll let the photos tell the whole story.

Freezing Green Beans
Use fresh beans (if you're lucky enough to have a nice spouse like The Husband who grows a garden) or go to your local farmers market and purchase some local produce.
Cut of tops and ends then wash thoroughly and drain.
Put in a pot of boiling water for 3 minutes (either left whole or cut to your liking).
Drain.
Immediately submerse in a bowl of ice water until cool.
Drain on paper towel.
Spread in single layer on cookie sheet and place in freezer until frozen.
Put in freezer bags and put date on bag. Enjoy all year long!

Above: Fresh picked and cut.

Above: Beans blanching in boiling water.

Above: Beans being shocked in ice water.

Above: Beans ready for flash freezing.

A Garden of Delights

The Husband has a wonderful vegetable garden going this year so I thought I would share a picture of the season's first tomato, almost ripe and ready for picking. We have plum and Big Boy tomato plants that will go so well with the sweet basil which is thriving. Many bush bean plants were put in the ground and we should be ready to harvest some in the next couple of weeks; small, tender haricot verts, left on longer to become long crunchy green beans. These are perfect steamed and then seasoned with salt and pepper or sauteed with a few small bacon pieces then dressed with a couple dashes of balsamic vinegar.



The corn couldn't be better than just cut directly off the cob, steamed for a matter of a couple minutes and a sprinkle of salt and a pat of butter applied. There are also corn puddings to be made and a delightful corn, basil and tomato salad I discovered last year which I hope to share when all my garden elements are ready to harvest.
Of course, every year we have a couple of pumpkin plants which tend to take over the garden; always amazing the tremendous growth from just two little seeds. Halloween Jack-O-Lanterns are always the end goal for the pumpkin harvest and also roasting the seeds to share with Gladys as they are one of her favorite treats.

Each year we have a vegetable garden I am so thankful for all the work and effort The Husband puts into it and the enjoyment we get from its bounty. Thank you dear!

Patience Is A Virtue

The old adage "Patience is a virture" is so true in life, particularly when you are cooking. My blog is subtitled Success and Failure in the Kitchen and today's efforts would certainly fall in the latter category.

I bought some plump local blueberries yesterday and pondered what to do with them. I decided on a pound cake (more like 5 pound cake) recipe from one of my favorite old cookbooks, The Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzan. It is filled with vegetarian recipes and includes a number of delicious dessert choices. I have made the following pound cake once or twice before but today I decided to adapt it by adding lemon zest and blueberries to the mix.

This is a project where a large stand mixer is almost a requirement. The cake mix becomes so voluminous as it is beaten through the various stages that it almost oozes out over the bowl. It is quite satisfying to make this particular cake for that very reason. This however is where I made an egregious error. I beat everything with the mixer instead of by hand as directed. I put my cake batter into my prepared bundt pan all the time wondering if it was all going to fit. It did, coming right to the very edge of the pan.I put it in the oven at 350 degrees, set the timer for one hour and went off to putter around the house. Approximately 20 minutes later I started smelling smoke and wondered who was barbecuing outside so early in the day. I wandered back into the kitchen, only to see in horror, smoke pouring out of the back burner. I cautiously opened up the oven door to see a small bonfire burning at the bottom of the oven where big globs of batter were spilling over from the cake pan above and burning away. Quickly I turned off the oven, hoping and praying I wouldn't have to call my colleagues from Fire Station 2 to make a house call, and waited for the flames to die down. I removed the cake, scraped out the bottom of the oven well then turned the oven back on and returned the cake with a cookie sheet safely placed underneath.

The cake was done after another 20 minutes with no more disasters.....or so I thought. Once out of the oven I immediately turned the bundt pan over onto a cooling rack and started shaking at the pan to release the cake. Why oh why didn't I heed the directions which clearly stated "wait 10 minutes before taking cake from pan?? The results below speak for themselves my dear readers.
Oh well, the bright side is the cake tastes fantastic. Okay so it certainly won't find itself on the cover of Bon Appetit Magazine but there were a couple of salvageable hunks I was able to cut off and share with my Mother-In-Law and Gladys and her family and The Husband doesn't really care one way or the other what it looks like, as long as it doesn't contain mushrooms!

Lemon Blueberry Pound Cake
(Adapted from The Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzan)
1 pound butter
3 cups white sugar
6 eggs
1 cup milk
2 tsp vanilla extract or lemon extract
1 Tbsp. baking powder
4 cups unbleached white flour
2 cups blueberries
zest from one lemon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a full sized bundt pan.
Cream together butter and sugar with an electric stand mixer at high speed until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time and beat well after each addition. Remove from mixer and add sifted dry ingredients alternating with milk and vanilla combined, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Mix thoroughly WITH A WOODEN SPOON just enough to blend without excess beating. Add blueberries and lemon zest and mix until combined. Pour into prepared pan and bake in oven (with a sheet pan on lower shelf to catch any drips - (PLEASE HEED MY WARNING ON THIS ONE!) Bake for one hour or until wooden toothpick inserted into center comes out dry. Cool cake for 10 minutes in pan (HEED MY WARNING ON THIS TOO!) before turning out onto a plate. Cool completely before slicing.

The Best Food Shopping in The World

No recipe today dear readers. It wasn't that I was lazy this weekend and didn't cook because I did. Despite the fact that it was 100 degrees on Saturday in June for pity sake. I just couldn't muster up the energy to do anything new or different that would entail turning on the oven.

Today, on this lovely Monday that I have off, my dear friend Gladys and I hit the freeway and went to the Whole Food Market some 30 miles away. Worth every expensive gallon of gas it took to get there. I Love, Love, Love shopping at that store. Around every corner there is a wonderful product to see, prepared take home food to decide over, or a beautiful piece of fruit or vegetable to covet. Unfortunate for those of us in Salem who appreciate the finer things in life that we must drive so far to obtain them.

Whole Foods is one of my guilty pleasures that I must either do alone or go with Gladys. The Husband just cannot see the point of it all and on the few occasions that he has reluctantly agreed to go (read between the lines: was nagged and nagged until he gave in), he did not appreciate all they had to offer and in fact, went up and down the aisles making caustic, rude comments about the prices and the clientele. Well, his passive-aggressiveness paid off as he knew it would and he is no longer included unless he changes his evil ways, baby.

Today's trip was not for anything in particular so we just perused the store, putting lovely things in our baskets, some of which are pictured above. I appreciate that there are so many local offerings, particularly produce, and that it is so well identified. I am trying very hard to purchase things that are grown locally (within a 50 mile radius) if possible.

For the past few years we have purchased our pork from a co-worker who raises his own pigs and our beef from his father who has a few head of cattle, all locally grown and butchered 10 miles from here. We know it is raised humanely, without chemicals or hormones and it helps support the local economy. I also try and buy my eggs from co-workers who have their own hens whenever I can. What a difference these fresh farm eggs are from the store-bought eggs. The yolks are such a vibrant orange compared to the pale yellow of store bought.

During this time of year too, I try to get to one of the local farmers markets on a weekly basis to buy the freshest of produce. This is such a bountiful time with the wonderful strawberries, cherries and other fruits. They just don't have the same quality when you buy them from a big box store and they have been shipped from Argentina and have been sitting in cold storage for a few months.

Back to Whole Foods. I also appreciate the values and philosophy of the store and their obvious awareness of the environment and how they do their part to help, such as no longer using plastic shopping bags, donating money to local causes and the other green strategies they use throughout their store. Their employees are also always totally customer service oriented in my experiences with them. It is always such an enjoyable experience to shop at Whole Foods stores.

I Smell Hot Buttered Gingerbread

The Husband thinks a grandma lives in our house because occasionally I like to make good, old fashioned desserts. Sunday dinner with Mother-In-Law beckoned for such a dessert so I combined a couple of wonderful flavors together, gingerbread and apples. I usually serve gingerbread with applesauce but today I dug out Julia Child's The Way to Cook cookbook and made her delicious baked apples to compliment the cake.

I must admit, I cheated with the gingerbread and used a boxed variety which couldn't be easier. On occasion I have made a lovely cake called Treacle Cake from an English cookbook I have in my collection which is a much more complex flavored gingerbread than what we make in this country. Alas, no treacle in the cupboard today so I went the lazy route.

Gingerbread

1 Box gingerbread mix

1 egg

1 cup water

Preheat oven to 350 deg. In medium bowl mix gingerbread, egg and water just until well moistened. Pour into lightly greased 8x8 pan. Bake for 30-35minutes.

Baked Apples

3 Granny Smith apples peeled and cut into wedges approx 1/2 inch wide

4 tablespoons melted butter

1/4 cup sugar mixed with 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Mix apples with sugar/cinnamon mixture then pour melted butter over and stir well

Put into baking dish and bake for 35-40 minutes or until apples are tender throughout but not falling apart.

Serve a wedge of gingerbread and the apples and some of the buttery cinnamon sauce drizzled on top with a nice dollop of whipped cream and think of your grandmas!