Cold Cucumber Soup

 

It's been a long time since I have added a recipe to my blog. I love this cold cucumber soup, it's so refreshing and versatile. The photo above shows these funny smaller yellow cucumbers which I have been buying at my farmers market. You can use regular green ones, of course. There is also a lot of latitude in the fresh herbs you can use. 

 

Ingredients

2 large European cucumbers, halved, seeded and coarsely chopped

1/2 red onion, chopped

1 garlic clove

1/3 cup loosely packed dill ( cilantro, arugula...)

2 tablespoons loosely packed tarragon leaves ( basil, mint, oregano...)

1/4 cup loosely packed flat-leaf parsley leaves ( cilantro, arugula...)

1/4 cup olive oil, plus more for drizzling 

1  1/2 cups plain Greek yogurt

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Salt and pepper to taste 

 

Instructions

1) In a blender*, combine the chopped cucumber with the dill, tarragon, onion, parsley, ground white pepper, salt, olive oil, yogurt, lemon juice and garlic. Blend until smooth. * I like to start with the garlic.

 

2) Cover and refrigerate for 4 to 5 hours, or until chilled.
 

3) Taste and season the cucumber soup again as necessary just before serving. Pour the soup into bowls. Garnish with a drizzle of olive oil and serve.

Orange Food Part 3: Cake !!

It's certainly citrus season around here. I have lots of my Satsuma mandarins and limes, friends and family are sharing their navel orange bounty.  

It's the perfect time to make this very orange cake. I was surprised when I found it several years ago while searching for a vegan orange cake to serve dinner guests, it was from Joy of Cooking !!

I have made it twice already this year.

The cake is delightful, moist, easy and very adaptable.
Very Orange Cake
1 cup orange juice
1/3 cup canola oil
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
 orange zest from one orange
Glaze
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1-2 teaspoons orange juice
1 teaspoon orange zest or tiny curls of peel

1) Preheat the oven 350 F. Grease and flour  a 9 inch round cake pan.

The original recipe called for an 8 inch pan, the first time I made it this year that's what I used, it overflowed the pan while baking...never a good thing, so be sure to go with a 9 inch round cake pan.

The original recipe also stressed the flouring part. I used spray oil and then floured it. I had no trouble removing it from the pan.

2) Grate the orange, and make juice to one cup. I was lucky and already had  a large jar made up.

3) In a large bowl combine the dry ingredients including the zest.

4) in a smaller bowl combine the liquid ingredients.

5) Add the liquid ingredients into the dry, mix just to blend.

6) Pour into the greased and floured pan, bake for 30 to 35 minutes. Do the toothpick trick to test for doneness. It will be a golden brown.

7) Cool for 10 minutes then carefully transfer to a cooling rack. Allow to cool completely before adding the glaze.
8)  In a small bowl mix 1/4 cup powered sugar, 1 teaspoon zest or tiny curls of peel. Start with 1 teaspoon of juice and add more to get a thick paste.

9) Apply the glaze to cover the top of the cake.

It is the perfect cake for tea time, brunch or dessert after dinner.

Sweet Potato Muffins

I love seeing what's in my fridge and being creative.
The other day I had a friend coming over for brunch, I made a quiche with roasted red pepper I had on hand and sauteed some chard as a side dish. I wanted one more item to complete the menu.
I looked in the fridge and saw one leftover cooked sweet potato... "hmmm I wonder if I can make muffins out of that ? "
As they grow very well in the south, my daughter gets a LOT of them in her CSA( Community Supported Agriculture) boxes, I figured if this recipe worked she would have one more way to use all those sweet potatoes.
I did what I usually do and googled it, up came a variety of recipes and as I usually do I melded a few together with my own twist. I am so impressed with these tasty little muffins.

Laurie's Sweet Potato Muffins

Yield: one dozen

Ingredients

1 cup unbleached all purpose flour
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup cooked mashed sweet potato
1 egg
1/2 canola oil
the zest of one orange

1) Preheat oven to 375 F, grease or paper a muffin tin. I used my silicon muffin cups which I love.
2) In a bowl whisk together the dry ingredients: flour, brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.
3) In another bowl whisk together the wet ingredients: mashed sweet potato, egg, oil and orange zest.
4) Mix the wet ingredients in with the dry, just until moistened.
5) Fill the muffin cups, about half full ( just use all the batter, don't get too carried away measuring how much.)
6) Bake for 15-18 minutes, using the toothpick trick. Mine took 18 minutes.

Serve warm !!

All the recipes called for glazes but I like them just the way they are.

I am very pleased with how they taste even several days later.
I am going to try freezing them too.
Wish I had a surplus of sweet potatoes ;-)

Good Morning: Sour Cream Coffee Cake

A few weeks ago I attended a family weekend filled with games, walks, and of course, great food.
I know my host loves breakfast sweets and I had some sour cream in my fridge, it was time to make this sour cream coffee cake.  Warning: it is full of butter and sugar and sour cream, yum !!
This coffee cake is rich and dense and freezes beautifully, which is a good thing because it makes a huge bundt cake.


Sour Cream Coffee Cake

1 cup ( 2 sticks) butter at room temperature
3 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup sour cream
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 cup sugar
3 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla

Cinnamon Walnut Topping

Stir together all three ingredients in a small bowl.

3/4 cup chopped walnuts
3/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon


1) Preheat oven to 350 F. Butter and flour a 9 inch non-stick tube pan.

2) Make the cinnamon walnut topping and set aside.

3) In a medium bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.

4) In a small bowl or measuring cup, whisk together the sour cream and baking soda. Don't worry if it foams up, that is normal.

5) (Don't do this yet !!)***The original recipe has you beat the butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla all together with an electric mixer.

Which is what I did...

The batter did not get "light and fluffy" as the recipe claimed it would even after more than 5 minutes.

***Instead I would recommend creaming the butter and sugar first for 5 minutes, then adding the eggs and vanilla and beating until that is fluffy.

6) With the mixer on low speed add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with the sour cream mixture in two additions. Mix until just moistened.

7) Spread a third of the batter into the pan, then sprinkle on a third of the topping. Repeat ending with the topping.

8) Bake for 60 to 70 minutes. Cool in the pan for 30 minutes. Complete cooling on a rack.

I didn't get any photos of this beauty sliced, my bad...
I highly recommend making this coffee cake ahead of time, as I mentioned at the beginning, it freezes beautifully and is delightful toasted for breakfast, brunch or with afternoon tea.

You could also add grated orange zest to the batter or use pecans instead of walnuts.

Coffee cake, Betty Crocker's Best

Genna called me the other day to complain that she could not find my coffee cake recipe on this blog. I realized it had been a while since I have made it. Lately waffles have been the fare on Sunday mornings.
So I dug out old Betty Crocker, the cookbook, of course.

I grew up with this cookbook. I can remember leafing through the pages to admire all the colorful baked goods.

Strangely the book opened to the coffee cake recipe ;-)

I went back to this cookbook after my hippie-whole-wheat-in-everything phase in the 70's.
Don't get me wrong I do love whole flour in many things but it can go too far. I found some very simple basic recipes that I modified to fit my own tastes, mostly baked goods.




Here's my version of the coffee cake.

Laurie & Betty's  Streusel Coffee Cake


Ingredients

The batter:
 3/4 cup sugar
1/4 canola oil*
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

The streusel:
1/2 brown sugar
2 tablespoons flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 tablespoons canola oil*
1/2 cup chopped walnuts of pecans.

* you can use melted butter if you prefer.


1) Preheat the oven to 375 F, grease a 9 inch square or round pan.
2) Mix together in a bowl: sugar, oil, and the egg.

3) Add the milk and stir.

4) Whisk together the flour, salt and baking powder.

5) Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir together.

6) To make the streusel, mix together in a small bowl: the flour, cinnamon and brown sugar.

7) Add the oil, mix well.

8) Add the nuts and mix again.



9) Into the greased pan, spread a little less than half the batter to cover the bottom of the pan.

10) Sprinkle half the streusel on the batter in the pan.

11) Now carefully spread or drop the rest of the batter to cover that layer.

12) Sprinkle the rest of the streusel on the top.

13) Bake at 375 F for 30 minutes.


 14) Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 5-10 minutes before cutting, if you can wait that long.

Galette Des Rois

Galette Des Rois is French for Kings Cake. I remember this puff pastry almond tart from my childhood in Paris. Before the 6th of January these galettes would show up in the windows of the local patisserie, along with gold paper crowns. They were made to celebrate Epiphany, the time when the three kings came to visit baby Jesus.

They are also made for 12th Night, the end of the Christmas holiday season or Mardi Gras, the celebration before lent...

What I loved was the ritual and the dense almond filling.

First the ritual. Usually served at a party, the youngest person hid under the table while the oldest person cut the cake. From under the table the youngster would call out who would receive each slice. Once the cake was all divvied up, everyone would carefully begin to eat.
Baked inside the cake was a small ceramic figure, whoever got the figure wore the crown and was king !! ( I can hear mothers and dentists cringing at the potential for expensive tooth repairs ;-). In the recipes I found, a dried bean can be substituted for the figure.

Now the recipe...I had made versions of this cake before but was never completely satisfied.
I looked at a lot of recipes online, most had you make your own almond paste and were very complex. I already had some plain marzipan that I wanted to use up. You can find it at most well stocked grocery stores or Cost Plus in season. Or if you want to make it from scratch try this almond filling from David Lebovitz.

In the past the filling had oozed out of the pastry, so I decided to chill the filling for a couple of hours and make the galette in a pan.
Here's what I came up with.

Laurie's Galette des Rois

Ingredients

1 lbs frozen puff pastry ( 2 sheets)
300 grams plain marzipan (about 10 ounces)
1/2 cup butter at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs + 1 egg for an egg wash
1/2 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

tart pan with removable bottom, 11 inch ( other round pans about this size will do)
dried bean or ceramic figure and crown ( optional)

1) To get the puff pastry ready to use I like to defrost it the night before in the fridge, that way it is ready when you are.

2) To a standing mixer bowl add the butter, sugar and marzipan cut into chunks.

3) Mix well.

4) Add the eggs one at a time on low speed.
5) Continue to beat on high speed for 3 minutes.
6) Gently fold in the flour.
7) Chill the filling for several hours or overnight.

8) Preheat the oven to 400 F.
9) Remove the puff pastry from the fridge.
9) Lightly spray your pan with oil.
10) Lay one sheet of pastry on the bottom of the pan, making sure it comes all the way up the sides.
11) Beat one egg and brush on the pastry in the pan.
12) Carefully spread the chilled filling, use your fingers to work it all over the pan.
13) Brush the filling with egg wash. If you want to add the figure or bean, now would be the time to press it into the filling.
14) Cover with the second sheet of pastry and carefully seal the edges by pinching them together. Sorry I don't have photos, I was too busy improvising ;-)
15) Brush the top with more egg wash. Using a sharp knife score or cut a pattern on the top.
16) Bake for 30 minutes. Allow to cool in the pan on a baking rack for an hour.

 17) Carefully remove from the pan.

This galette would make a great brunch treat as well.

Whole Orange Cake

I recently got an offer from Sunset magazine for a "senior" discount subscription, after my initial indignation, I thought, what the heck, Sunset for a year for $10, why not. One or two good recipes would make it worthwhile.

My first issue happened to be a "food" issue, score !! I saw this orange cake recipe and with my current citrus obsession decided to give it a try.

This recipe calls for two WHOLE oranges, in my first attempt I used two of my mandarins and an orange. I didn't remove the navel or any other parts. I found it to be a little bitter for my tastes but my poker game gave it rave reviews.

On my second attempt I was going for more of a brunch item. I used two oranges and removed the navels and the top end. I added some whole wheat pastry flour and walnut and did not glaze it. I loved this version, very moist, not too sweet but so full of orange flavor. Either way this is a great cake !

Whole Orange Cake
modified from a recipe from Sunset Magazine
"Every good cook needs a nice moist, dense cake in his or her repertoire. This one - loaded with orange flavor and tender flecks of peel, and not too sweet - is perfect from brunch as well as dessert."

Ingredients

Cake
Cooking-oil spray
1 cup butter, softened
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
3 large eggs
2 oranges (about 1 lb. total), ends trimmed, then cut into chunks and seeded
2 1/2 cups flour ( or 3/4 whole wheat pastry flour, 1 3/4 unbleached white flour)
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
2/3 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Glaze
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
2 tbsp. plus 1 tsp. orange juice
zest from one orange

1.  Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Coat a 10-cup Bundt pan with cooking-oil spray.

 2) In a large bowl with a mixer on medium speed, beat butter and granulated sugar until fluffy.  Beat in eggs.

.
3) Remove the navel and ends from two oranges and chop into large chunks.

4)  Whirl orange chunks in a food processor until mostly smooth but not pureed.

5)  Add 1 1/2 cups orange mixture to batter and beat until blended.

6) In a separate bowl mix flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder, add to the orange mixture and beat until smooth. Add walnuts and fold into batter.

7)  Spread batter into prepared pan, it will be thick, don't worry it spreads out as it bakes.

8)  Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with only a few crumbs clinging to it, about 55 minutes.

9)  Cool pan on a rack 10 minutes, then invert cake onto rack and let cool completely.

10)  Whisk together powered sugar, orange zest and orange juice in a small bowl.

11) Drizzle over cooled cake.  Let glaze set, then slice cake.

Here's how it looks without the glaze and with the walnuts. Great brunch fare !!!

Winter Squash Biscuits

It's that time of year, with Halloween over and winter squash abundant in the farmer's markets.
My daughter turned me on to this recipe a couple years ago. Any kind of winter squash will do, I used the puree from the amazing Blue Hubbard squash given to me last year. It works well to do the steaming and puree-ing ahead of time, winter squash puree freezes beautifully.

Winter Squash Biscuits

Ingredients:
2 cups  flour
2-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 cup pureed winter squash, cold
2 tablespoons firmly packed brown sugar
3/4 cup yogurt
2 teaspoons chili powder

2 teaspoons oregano

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. and lightly grease a large baking sheet or cover with parchment.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together 2 cups flour, 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder,1/2 teaspoon baking soda, 2 teaspoons chili powder, 2 teaspoons oregano and 1/2 teaspoon salt.

3) Add 1/2 cup butter and cut into flour mixture...

....until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

4. In a medium-sized bowl, beat 1 cup winter squash, 2 tablespoons brown sugar and 3/4 cup yogurt . 

5) Add squash mixture to the flour mixture and mix lightly to just combine.

 Do not over mix.

6)  Turn biscuit dough out onto a well floured surface, and pat out into a large circle of even thickness, about 1/2-inch thick. I used waxed paper which due to the moisture in the biscuit turned into a bit of a problem once I patted it into the circle. Next time I would use a marble slab, wooden board or some other surface with plenty of flour.

7)  The original recipe called for using a  large biscuit cutter, as you can see I tried both the pie wedge and sort of squares technique with a sharp knife. Do whatever you prefer, the wedges had Bob calling them scones ;-)

8) Place on the prepared baking sheet. I used a metal spatula to lift them off the soggy wax paper.

9) Bake 15 to 17 minutes or until biscuits are golden brown and cooked through.

10) Serve them warm for brunch or with soup for lunch or dinner. They store well in the fridge or freezer, just heat and serve.