A FRIDGE FULL OF FOOD...

Night Shift Birthday Party: Jessica's Cucumber Sandwiches

 

One of the great side effects of work birthday parties is getting to taste new recipes like these pretty open-faced cucumber sandwiches our friend Jessica brought in.  Easy to make, they were delicious, so good Carrianne and I ate almost a container of them by ourselves (luckily, there were three containers so others could indulge too).

By the way, I'm going to start adding Cook's notes to recipes with "use this...or that..." and I've set up a new category to reflect recipes that take substitutions well.   So many times recipes can be equally good using several different ingredients and it can all depend on what you have in the pantry or what you need to use up from the garden.  Not all cooks are adept at making those substitutions the way I was taught growing up in my mother's kitchen.  Quite frankly, we were very poor and running to the grocery store for a $5.00 ingredient was rarely an option so my mother became extremely proficient at still trying new recipes while also still using her pantry items on hand.  For example, most recipes that call for asparagus taste just as great substituting broccoli when asparagus is out of season, zucchini for eggplant, or in this recipe Cavender's Greek Seasoning is a great substitute for fresh dill when you don't happen to have fresh from the garden on hand.

Blueberry & Olive Oil Cake

I'm falling in love with this Olive Oil Cake recipe.   The blueberries, fresh and local from ourCSA are a wonderful additon ot the mix and the sweetness allows the honey to be decreased to 1/3 cup.  

I love the rich taste, the weighty texture, and the purpley stain the berries leave on the napkin and my fingers (who can take time to get a plate down when you have something this delicious sitting there on the cabinet wanting you?)

Clementine (Orange) Olive Oil Cake

I've seen several recipes for olive oil cake and they've intrigued me.  There are many different recipes, some with only orange, some with a ctrus mix, some with nuts, some without, some with a few Tbsp of oil, some with a full cup....a full cup of olive oil in cake?  Usually for cakes and other baked goods, you'd switch over to expeller-pressed canola or maybe even walnut oil, something healthy but with a less persistent flavor but mixed with citrus it sort of made sense that the olive oil would work....  It does.  The cake is delicious.  Gene even made a point of saying he liked it, and that was with knowing it was good for him. 

Does this save you calories as far as diet? No.  The counts are similar to a regular piece of cake, although in this one, because of the olive oil, the fat content is higher. However, does this save your health?  You decide.  Here are the ingredients in a standard boxed cake mix: bleached flour, sugar, partially hydrogenated soybean and/or cottonsee oil, corn syrup, modified corn starch, leavening, popylene glycol monoesters of fatty acids, corn starch, dextose, salt, distilled monoglycerides, dicalcium phosphate, maltodextrin, xantham gum, natural and artificial flavor, dye, nonfat milk.  Here are the ingredients in my cake:  whole wheat flour, honey, eggs, olive oil, orange zest, leavening, salt. It's not always all about calories. BUT if we want to look at those too, here they are side by side:

Boxed cake mix:  Cal: 170, Protein: 2, Carbs: 34, Fat: 3, Fiber: 0

Olive oil cake: Cal: 185, Protein: 3, Carbs: 21, Fat: 10, Fiber: 1

I'm still liking the all natural cake. I see a trade out between white sugar and olive oil, as far as calories.  Olive oil wins.

As far as flavor, we all know what an average cake tastes like. This one is more of what I call I country style cake. The crumb is coarsier and the heft weightier, more like a banana or zucchini bread, and the flavor is phenomenal. Nothing fake or artificial here.  The Tbsp of orange zest, I used Clementines, is powerfully enticing and the olive oil completely complements and enhances the citrus.

All Natural Candy? Sugar Plums

I never thought about "while visions of sugar plums danced in their heads" being a real candy until I read Kate of Kate in the Kitchen's blog post this afternoon about making her own.  It was one of those "no way!" moments for me. After I read the recipe and realized I had everything for them in the house, I decided that I too must make sugar plums dance in my head.

I just really never thought about it. Pushed, I would have assumed sugar plums to be either a sugared dried plum (prune) or a marzipan creation since marzipan fruits were particularly popular in the Victorian era. For more history on marzipan, a centuries old Mediterranean and Arabic traditional sweet, click here:  Marzipan history

The term sugar plum doesn't refer to the fruit, it's a broad term for a boiled sugar/fruit, nut or seed candy shaped as a small round ball .  The confection has been around since the 1600's and the term was used commonly to mean anything that is pleasant.  Also, interesting is that in Victorian times "plum" meant raisins, not the fruit we call a plum today.   

To get the recipe go over to Kate's blog:  http://cooknkate.wordpress.com/2009/12/20/yes-its-those-sugar-plums/   or click to continue the post below.

Like Kate, I used the recipe but subbed a couple of things for what I had.  Having no apricots, I mixed dates and prunes (after all, that is a dried plum) and instead of all almonds, I used a mix of almonds, pecans, and walnuts.  And again, like Kate and funny that I hadn't read her cook's note yet, I also added another spice to the cinnamon, only I went the cardamon route instead of nutmeg. I totally agree with her, though, any combination of those three spices really are each other's best friends.

I really enjoyed these little treats and love the idea that there's nothing processed in them, although I admit that I have a feeling the teens in my family aren't going to be as happy as I was with them.  I can hear them now:  What?  Nuts and fruit? How boring!  As Sydney says:  Psych! More for us, the adults!  Wish I'd thought to put a little spiced rum in them...Oh wait. Then the teens would want them.

Btw, this is my little kitchen Christmas tree. I love it for the primitive look and if you look closely you can see the mini kitchen utensil ornaments:  rolling pin, sieve, pancake turner, ladel, spoon, and whisk.  They are all metal with green, red, or yellow wooden handles.

Creamy Cucumber Dip

 

So simple and yet so rewarding, this is a summer constant in my work lunchbox and snack around the house. Only three ingredients that pack an all-out taste power punch:  creamy for the tongue, crunch for the teeth, and salty herby for the psyche pleasure zone.

It's also one of my favorite orders at Parlor 88, a local pub with two locations in Springfield, where they also serve nummies like curried chicken salad lettuce wraps, jalapeno popper dip, and pulled pork nachos.

Parlor 88 serves the cucumber dip with lavosh (cracker bread) but at home we eat this primarily on good fibrous tough stuff crackers or I love it as a sandwich on wheat or rye bread. Middle-of-the-night Afternoon Tea, anyone?

An added pleasure is anytime the cukes come from your own garden. Sigh.  The best part of summer is the garden!

Channeling My Inner Hippie: Yogurt Cheese, raw honey, & Home-made Granola Redux

Since when did people start making this "yocheese"?  I'd heard of draining yogurt but finally took the time to do it on a whim the other night and then did a google search to see if anyone else was doing it.  You know... I'm always the last to know anything.  I'm always the guy getting excited saying "Hey, y'all, I found this new thing!" People look at me and say "Oh pish, I've been doing that for years."  Sort of takes the wind out of my sails but then I happily go back to my own little world.

From what I've read yocheese has been hot in the Atkins circles for years. Really? That surprised me. I figured it was just a shoot off from the folks who "brew" their own yogurt. Cut me some slack on the Atkins connection.  I never even attempted Atkins mostly because I hate meat. I don't hate it but I don't love it enough to dedicate my life to it.  Purgatory, to me, would be someone sitting me down in a kitchen full of steaks and bacon and saying "Here, eat all you want of this and you'll even lose weight but for all of eternity you can never taste another slice of bread." 

(By the way, the rose is from my garden.  It's gorgeous this year.)

Krispy Kreme Glazed Donut Bread Pudding

When Sher over at What Did You Eat? made Krispy Kreme Bread Pudding, I couldn't get it out of my mind.  Gene loves donuts. Gene loves bread pudding.  What better treat could I make him for Easter dinner than to combine his two favorites? 

You can definitely taste the donuts in a very rich, decadent, delicous way.  Gene has hoarded the rest of the pudding to eat for breakfast with a cup of coffee.  This is one of those recipes you have to try at least once just to say you did it. At my house, I have a feeling, as much as Gene liked it, it's going to become the bread pudding of choice.