Saturday, October 29, 2011

Pumpkin Cakes!

Need a last minute recipe for a Halloween potluck? These are my all time favorite Pumpkin spice cakes! Combine with a cinnamon spiked cream cheese frosting for a perfect pumpkin pairing.
This recipe is about as simple as they come and aside from the pumpkin, most of the other ingredients are probably hiding out in your cupboards as we speak....err......read.

You will need:
15oz Can-O-pumpkin
2 cups white sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

2 cups four
2tsp. baking soda
1tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
a dash of pumpkin pie spice

1. Combine the pumpkin, oil and sugar until smooth. Then add eggs one at a time, mixing each egg until combined. Finally, throw in that vanilla.

2. Mix all the dry ingredients in a separate bowl, then combine slowly into wet mixture. Mix for 2 minutes then plop the batter into your pans.

3. Bake your cakes at 350 for about 20 minutes, The cake should be a golden brown and spring back slightly when poked.

4. let the pans cool on a rack for about 10 minutes, then remove cakes from pan and cool another 20-30 before attempting to frost.

For the frosting, I whipped up a simple cream cheese and added a bit of brown sugar and some cinnamon.  Here's what I used:

2- 8oz packages of cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter, also soft
2 cups confectioners sugar (that's powdered yo)
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. lemon juice
1 tbsp. cinnamon (Use less if yours is fresh ground or higher quality than the generic stuff I used)

1. Cream your butter, cream cheese, vanilla, lemon and brown sugar
2. Add in the confectioners sugar until nice and smooth.
3. Shake in your cinnamon and do a taste test!

Keep in mind, cream cheese frosting is not going to hold up a shape as well as a buttercream. So don't set your heart on making a nice swirly pattern on top of each cake. The frosting will just "relax" into a less prominent swirly pattern. It still looks pretty tinted and sprinkled, and I can promise you it will be much more delicious.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

The Sunday Simmer

One of my favorite things about Fall is hanging out at home, while a big pot of something delicious simmers on the stove. I love the way it makes the whole house feel warm and cozy and fills the room up with the savory scent of whatever I'm cooking. 
Today, we happen to be cooking a family favorite! Spaghetti! 
Side Note: Does anyone else think it's weird that we refer to this dish by the name of the noodle, when really it's all about the sauce? It's a little late to change the name and all, but in my house I like to think of it as red gravy, as the Italians would. 
Back to the subject at hand: It seems like most people have a family recipe for marinara, or spaghetti sauce or red gravy. I didn't growing up, my parents would just throw some Prego in a pan and add a bit of onion and garlic powder. It was always thin and watery and didn't stick to the noodles like I wanted it to. So as I got older I began experimenting with my recipe and realized it's all about what you use as a base. I always thought it was the meat that made the sauce thick, but over time i've come to realize that it's much more than that. 
So, I'm going to share with you my sauce recipe. Don't be scared by all the vegetables, they are what makes the sauce thick and savory and tasty! Just get out your food processor and trust me. 

You will need:
Extra virgin olive oil. 
half an onion
2-3 celery stalks 
3-4 cloves of garlic 
5-6 sweet peppers. Red, orange or yellow will work. 
1 pound ground meat (use whatever you prefer) 
2- 26 ounce cans of tomato sauce (give or take a few ounces) 

1. Clean your veggies as you normally would and remove stems, leaves and other inedible parts. Keep in mind, you can also use carrots and zucchini in this recipe if you wish. 
2. Get your big soup pot out and put it on the stove over medium heat. Put a few tablespoons of olive oil in the pan and let it start heating up. I start by pressing my garlic in the pan. While that cooks, I start sending my veggies through the food processor.  
3. Starting with the onion, cut it into chunks and put it in the food processor. You will want to "pulse" until it's somewhere in between being chopped and pureed. Throw the onion in the pan with the garlic and oil. Next I do the celery, then the sweet peppers, seed and all. Once all your veggies are in the pan you will want to let them sauté for about 15 minutes. I season with pepper, a dash of salt and some chopped basil, then add a pound of ground turkey, or sausage or beef or elk if your feeling wild. Let the veggies and the meat simmer together till they know each other real well--about 10 minutes. 
4. Once your meat's cooked through you will add your sauce. You can use plain old canned tomato sauce, or you can blend up some whole canned tomatoes, or even a jar of basic marinara sauce.  I always use the Hunt's brand plain pasta sauce. Once you've stirred in your sauce, bring the mixture to a simmer and cover. Reduce the heat to low, so that it simmers ever so gently and leave it be for an hour or so. 

After about 15 minutes I recommend tasting the sauce. The meat and vegetables add a lot of flavor, so be careful not to over season. It won't need more than a pinch or two of salt. 
The rest is up to you! Choose your noodle, toast some garlic bread and enjoy! 

You may have noticed this recipe makes a lot of sauce. I always make extra so that I can freeze half for a quick dinner. It's super easy to re-heat, just let it thaw in the fridge, throw it in a pan and let it simmer back to life. 

Monday, October 17, 2011

I loaf Monday's

First of all, sincere apologies to the 10 people who actually enjoy my blog. A near death experience and starting a new job have kept me from posting as often as I should be, and I resolve to....resolve that. So here we go loaf lovers! 

It's squash season! I think 90% of people cringe when hearing the word "squash" and I don't blame them, because these tasty tube shaped veggies are often ill-prepared. Luckily, I have found that there is no better way to introduce zucchini to a veggie weary pal than to bake it up into a nice loaf of zucchini bread! 

Forgive me as I get a little nostalgic, but this recipe started from a copy of The Good Housekeeping Illustrated home cookbook, circa 1970's. I learned to bake because we had a garden that only produced zucchini for whatever reason. It only took a few weeks to realize that we would not be able to pawn off the 20+ a week that were ripening in our garden, so i would bake them into bread and give the loaves to friends and neighbors. I tweaked the recipe, removing the nuts and adding lemon, vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg to round out the flavor. This bread is light and airy and perfect for breakfast or an afternoon snack. 

Zucchini Bread: 
3 cups all purpose flour. 
1 1/2 cups sugar 
4 1/2 tsp double acting baking powder
1 tsp salt
4 eggs 
2/3 cups oil
2 cups grated zucchini 
1 tbsp lemon juice
A few shakes of ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon. 
1 tsp vanilla 

1- Pre-heat oven to 350 and grease 2 loaf pans....or one loaf pan and a mini loaf pan, or muffin tin. I would advise you to bake the mini loaf or muffins separate as they obviously will cook faster and you don't want to disrupt your loaf by opening the oven. 
2- In a large bowl mix flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. shake in ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon an stir until fully combined. 
3- Beat eggs and mix in zucchini, add vanilla, oil and lemon juice. 
4- Stir liquid mixture into flour mixture until just combined. Seriously, if you over mix it, you will ruin it!! Spread evenly into pans.
5- Bake bread for one hour. Let cool on wire rack for 10 minutes then pop the loaves out and cool on rack for another 15 minutes or until cool. 

Enjoy my friends, and don't forget, I loaf you :)