Applesauce Cake!

As many of you know, I’m not much of a baker.  I’ve been dabbling in it recently, however, in an effort to sneak more veggies into my kid’s diet.  I made this cake with a batch of homemade applesauce.  That may have been the secret to why my husband exclaimed, “This is the best cake I have ever tasted!”  Or, it could have been the fact that he had been fasting all day.

If you want to make the applesauce, just chop up a bunch of apples (I was using some slightly under-ripe, sour ones from a friend’s tree), skin and all (not the core though!), throw into a pot with about a half inch of water in the bottom, and boil until soft (took about 20 minutes).  I then whirred the mushy apples with the immersion blender until they were the consistency of library paste.  Yes, you could use this applesauce to glue a house together.

Or, just use a jar of store-bought sauce.

This is what I did… as usual, measurements are approximate.

1.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Blend 1/2 a cup of room-temperature earth’s balance margarine in a bowl.

2.  As you mix with the mixer, add, in this order, 1/2 a cup of sugar, 1/4 cup of brown sugar, 2 eggs, 1 grated carrot, 2 teaspoons of vanilla, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, a 1/4 teaspoon of ground nutmeg and a 1/4 teaspoon of ground ginger.

3.  Add two cups of applesauce.

4.  Now add the dry ingredients (you may want to mix these up first separately, though I never do).  1 cup of regular flour, 1 cup of whole wheat flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 2 teaspoons of baking soda.

5.  When everything is mixed up, add 1/3 of a cup of raisins.

6.  Pour into a greased and floured baking pan and bake for 45 minutes to an hour (until a fork comes out relatively clean).

This cake is so unbelievably moist and tasty!  Serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, or top with cream cheese frosting.  You could also bake the batter in muffin tins for a yummy breakfast treat!

Let me know if you try it and how it comes out!

 

Roasted Tomato Basil Soup

When I asked my sister-in-law to bring me some tomatoes from the garden I planted in her (warm, sunny) backyard, I did not expect the incomprehensibly enormous mountain of juicy fruit she arrived with – particularly since I had picked a similar abundance only a week ago.  Something had to be done!  The tomatoes took about an hour to roast, so start them right away while you prep other stuff, like the salad and/or grilled cheese sandwich that you will eat this with!

1.  Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

2.  Oil a baking sheet, put about a dozen ripe tomatoes on the sheet (cut out the green part where the stem came off).  Bake until they start to turn blackened – mine took about an hour.

3.  When the tomatoes are done, saute an onion in a pot until it starts to brown.  Add 5 cloves of garlic and cook another two minutes.

4.  Add a handful of fresh basic, oregano (about a tablespoon of dried), and a dash of salt and pepper (you can adjust the salt and pepper later too).

5.  Add two cups of fresh spinach and four more tomatoes (un-roasted).  Stir it all up and let it cook for about 10 minutes.

6.  I used an immersion blender for the next part.  If you don’t have one, you will have to transfer the soup to your regular blender:  Blend until there are no big chunks of anything!

7.  Continue cooking the soup for another few minutes.  Adjust salt and pepper to taste.

8.  Feel free to sprinkle the top with some parmesan.  Slurp, slurp.  You are not going to believe how delicious this is!   You can also freeze the soup in single-serving-sized containers – great for lunch in a month or two when memories of fresh tomatoes are a thing of the distant past.

Noodle Kugel

I made this for Rosh Hashana last week.  It is great as a side dish (for example, with lox and bagels) or as a snack at any time of day.

1.  Boil a bag of egg noodles.  When they are done, rinse in cold water until cool.

2.  In a bowl, mix:

• 4 eggs
• a tub of cottage cheese
• a small container of plain yogurt (I used Greek yogurt)
• a 15-oz can of crushed pineapple
• a big handful of raisins
• a quarter of a cup of brown sugar
• a dash of cinnamon 

3.  Add the noodles to the bowl and stir up and dump into a greased pyrex baking dish

4.  Bake for an hour or so, covered with tin foil, until the kugel looks cooked-through

5.  Cut into squares and serve!  What a treat!

 

Pizza! Pizza!

Sometimes you just want some good old-fashioned california-inspired hippie pizza.  This came out sooooo good!  It requires a slight bit of grocery-store planning (for your toppings), but other than that, is easy as… pizza pie!

For the dough:

1.  Mix 2 teaspoons of yeast and a tablespoon of sugar in 1 cup of warm water.  Let the yeast “get going” for 10 minutes.

2.  Add in 2 tablespoons of olive oil, a teaspoon of salt, and 3 cups of flour.  Knead until all of the flour is absorbed.

3.  Coat the ball of dough in oil and let it rise in the bowl for an hour.

Toppings:

4.  While the dough is rising, prepare your toppings!  This is the fun part!  Here’s what I did:

– In the food processor, I ground up a bunch of basil with 4 cloves of garlic, a dash of salt, and a handful of cashews.  Once the mixture was a paste, I opened the top of the processor while it was running and drizzled in about 2 tablespoons of olive oil.

– I bought plain chevre goat cheese, a “black costello” blue cheese (very creamy and mild), and a bag of shredded mozarella

– I chopped up some figs, red onion, black olives, and broccoli, and rinsed some baby spinach and arugula

– I had a jar of tomato basil sauce on hand, so I used that too.

5.  When the dough has doubled in size (after having risen for about an hour it should have done so), preheat the oven to 425 degrees.  Then punch the dough down, knead it, divide it in two, and form your pizza crusts.

6.  Add your toppings and bake for about 10-15 minutes (until the crust looks done and the cheese is melted).  My pizzas were roughly:

A.  Pesto, mozzarella, goat cheese, broccoli, spinach, onions, and black olives
B.  Tomato sauce, mozzarella, blue cheese, figs, onions and arugula

7.  I added some extra arugula and spinach on top of the pizzas when they were hot out of the oven.

8.  Slice up and eat!  Yummmmmmmy!  I took a picture, but, sadly, can’t figure out how to upload it.  Anyway, you know what pizza looks like!  If you make this, let us know what toppings you tried!