Apple Cake and Simple Fare

Apples = Good

Cake = Good

Apple + Cake = Greatness

So, I'm doing this post for a very special friend of mine named Wendi. She requested the recipe for my apple cake, and with her being a brand new mommy, how could I not share? But then I thought, what was it I wanted when I was a new mommy? Simple, hearty fare.

My son was born 2 days before Thanksgiving last year, so when we went home on Thanksgiving, there was a ton of food that my mom had lovingly slaved over. So for about a week, we were good on leftovers, but then my mom (known as "Mimi" to the little monkey) went back home and we were on our own.

Now, I don't know if you, dear reader, have ever had a baby, but it's hard those first few weeks. Hell, it's hard those first few months! I think I maybe got an average of 3 hours of sleep a night for the first month, and little monkey didn't start sleeping through the night until he was 7 or 8 months old.

So, for the new mommy, I've decided to include a few really great, simple recipes.

To start, my Irish Apple Cake

For the cake:

1 lb. apples of your choice (I usually up the apple amount because you really can't have enough apples, and I use either Gala or Pink Lady.)

1 and 1/4 c. flour

1 tsp. cinnamon

a pinch of salt

1/2 c. butter, plus extra for greasing your pan

1/2 c. sugar

2 eggs

2 tbs. milk

For the streusel topping:

Generous 3/4 c. flour

6 tbs. butter (diced)

1/2 c. sugar

To make:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees, and grease a 9 inch round pan. I used my white Corningware, and it worked perfectly. Make the streusel topping by cutting the butter into the sugar and flour until crumbly. (I added some nutmeg and cinnamon at this stage, because they're yummy and nutmeg helps your brain function. True story.)

Peel, core, and thinly slice your apples and set aside.

Mix all the other cake ingredients together. Spoon the batter into your pan and smooth the surface (or don't, because no one's going to see it under all those apples!) Gently and lovingly and with the utmost affection and car begin to layer your apples over the cake batter. Use them ALL. It may look like a lot of apples, but trust me, it's SO FREAKING GOOD.

Now, over that gorgeous layer of mouth-watering fruit, sprinkle your streusel topping as evenly as you can. Now, stare appreciatively at your cake-to-be and whisper sweet nothings too it. (No really, do. The more love you cook with, the better it tastes.)

Bake for an hour, then remove from oven and let cool in the pan. If you wish, you can dust the cake with powdered sugar, but I find this step unnecessary.

And that's it! All done! Unless...

If you'd like to gild the lily as they say, please do so by dolloping a big ol' scoop of vanilla ice cream. Or caramel ice cream. Or whatever bloody ice cream you favor the most. Now take a big ol' spoonful of that bright, warm, delicious cake and shove it unapologetically into your mouth.

Now, since we've taken care of the cake, on to the mommy food.

For some delicious, easy soda breads, I always turn to my favorite Irish cook book. I'm a fan of the brown soda bread, because I feel it has a nuttier, fuller flavor than white soda bread. Here is a recipe for brown soda bread.

For some simple crock pot meals and soups, simply scroll down to some previous posts like this one on a Greek chicken and rice dish, or this one on two great soups.

I'm a huge fan of Cook's magazine as well, and as a new mommy, you deserve something to read for those marathon nursing sessions. Luckily, I have a magic fairy godmother (my best friend Evie's mama--my second mother--Ms. Peggy) who gave us a subscription to Cook's Illustrated for our wedding. It's a great gift for the foodie we all know, and for a year of magazines for about $20.00, it's a great investment.

I have a good friend who's Iranian, and her mother makes the most amazing dish that I am slightly obsessed with. And for a little effort, you get a lot of great leftovers. It's called Zereshk Polo. In Farsi, Polo means rice, and the dish is a chicken and rice dish for those that like sweet and savory together. It's fairly easy to find recipes online, but I like this one by Chef Kshar because the video shows you each step.

Now, to some, the thought of roasted marrow bones might be exotic fare, but I love them, as does the hubby. And they're actually really good for you! The marrow has tons of great fats to help baby with brain development, and can actually lower cholesterol. Roasted marrow bones are actually the chosen last meal of my favorite celebrity chef and potty mouth, Anthony Bourdain (or as he's known by little monkey, "Uncle Tony") Here is a good recipe for them.

I'd love to post even more delicious food, but sadly, my little guy has just awoken from his nap and it's time to go back to being mommy again. I hope these recipes and links help all you find some great new foods to try, or some inspiration to create your own recipes. And to Wendi, enjoy this time with your little cowgirl, because they'll be the best days of your life.

As always, until next time, enjoy your loved ones and your life with a Spoonful of Sugar.

Soup for Two

Soup.

Makes you happy doesn't it, that word? Soup. When I was younger I remember the cans of condensed mush that tasted like a tinny salt-lick as opposed to something you'd cherish the memory of. (That being said though, when my throat's a-scratchin' I seek the comfort of a bright crimson bowl of Campbell's Tomato. I know. Ew.)

My husband and I love soups and stews. I think it's the process. Chopping the vegetables, adding the spices, stirring the brew ever so slowly. It's theraputic. As is the result.

Recently, we decided to make two different soups. I wanted to make chicken soup from scratch, because I'd never attempted it and it sounded both thrifty and delicious. We got a whole chicken to boil, about 5.5 lbs, and it produced a LOT of chicken in the soup. I won't go through the recipe for the chicken soup, because it's kind of a 'to-each-his/her-own' thing. We added chicken, onion, garlic, carrots, celery, oregano, parsley, and a lot of black pepper. I chose not to add noodles or rice, finding that even when done properly, the grains suck up too much of the liquid.

Last night, we made Lentil, Kale, and Sausage soup. I based our soup off of this recipe. I told my husband that I didn't like lentils, to which he replied, "You just haven't had them cooked properly then." I could believe this. I'd only ever had them at home, prepared by my step-dad, and let's just say that though we owned a full cabinet of spices, salt and pepper were the favorite sons. The lentil soup he'd prepared for us on numerous occaisions (and that my sister and I had made excuses not to eat) was more of a gruelish mush the color of mud and fog. Not very warming is it?

You can understand my hesitance to trust the hubby about lentils now, yes?

Anyway, we bought some french lentils from Whole Foods and they sat in our cabinet for a week before I found a recipe that looked interesting enough to try. I mean, with sausage in the name of the recipe, what could be bad right?

To the right you will see all of the lovely ingredients that went into the Lentil, Kale, and Sausage soup, here on out called LKS. I decided not to add the balsamic vinegar, because honestly, I don't like it. I'm not a vingar type of gal. I mean, I get why it was in teh recipe, to cut the fattiness of the sausage. But really...why would you want to do that? Here's the part where, if you're on a low-fat diet, you click the X at the top right corner and wonder away to enjoy some rice crackers.

Sausage. Mmmmm. Hate to say it, but it's one of my favorite foods. Kielbasa in particular. And in this recipe, it lends itself SO well to the flavor of the soup. I used no seasoning in this other than the garlic that is called for, and honestly, I think you could even leave that out.

Ok, so you take the kielbasa and cut it into whatever size pieces you wish to have, then sautee it until lightly browned. Don't worry about cooking it all the way through though, because it's going back into the soup. You take the sausage out of the pan and put on a paper towel lines plate. Leave the fat in the bottom of the pan.

Using that fat, you're going to sautee the garlic and onion until tender and slightly transparent. We're not lookin' for caramalized onions here, though if you wanna do that, I'm sure it would be delicious. Also, I added some celery we had left over from the chicken soup as well. Just add it in with the onions if you're using it.

Once the onions have gotten soft, pour over the water and broth. Add the sausage back in and add the lentils. (I doubled the amount of lentils and probably doubled the broth too. I wasn't really measuring, because that's the great thing about cooking.)

Let the mixture simmer for a while, about 30 minutes, then add the kale (de-ribbed) and let it simmer uncovered for about another 10 minutes.

The recipe I used calls for the balsamic vinegar, and if you want to use it, now is the time to add it, and then serve.

When your soup is done, you will have a gorgeous, light broth that's fantastically fragrant and dotted with little brownish green lentils, bright green, leafy kale and tasty pink sausage.


Now is when you take a spoon, dig into that delicious puddle of molten tastiness and moan. Yes, moan. It's alright, no one's going to blame you. So go on and moan, make little whinning noises, even giggle if you'd like to. Pour yourself a glass of wine and relax.

But, if you're really a gluten for punishment, and this just isn't rich and delicious enough for you, then please do as we did and make these. Go ahead, your taste buds will worship you.

Until next time, enjoy your loved ones and your life, with a Spoonful of Sugar.

AUTUMN NUM NUMS!

So, it's officially fall, whether the temperature says so or not. Fall is my absolute favorite time of the year, because it means 3 things for me: pumpkins, apples, and pears.

Pumpkins are one of my favorite-est things in the whole world. They're so versatile and delicious, and they are SO good for you. Jason, my husband, is also a pumpkin lover...mostly when it's baked into his absolute favorite dessert: pumpkin pie. Luckily, we seem to have passed this trait onto our little monkey, so scarfed down some pumpkin, sweet potatoe, and coconut milk for breakfast this morning.

This year, I'm planning on making my own pumpkin puree instead of buying it canned, which they add color too and who-knows-what-else. I've never tried it before, so I'm kind of worried, but if all else fails, it can be baby food!

Apples are another one of my favorite foods. I've always loved apples, but I think my favorites are Gala and Pink Lady apples.

My favorite fall beverage--besides mulled wine (yum!)--would have to be apple cider. We have a juicer, and this year I'd like to make my own cider instead of buying jugs of it.

I'm also slightly obsessed with apple cake. Ok, that's a lie. I'm obsessed with any apple pastry. I recently made an apple galette and almost ate the whole thing. A while back we got a bunch of apples from Whole Foods and I ended up making 3 apple cakes in a week. :/ So. Freaking. Good.

Pears are delicious. There's nothing else to say. You can poach them, braise them, and best of all: they are amazing when you add booze. Port, wine, brandy, whiskey, all of them make pears that much better.

This year I'm planning on buying and trying to replicate some of these. They look amazing. The owner and baker at Tatte's makes a shortbread type of crust into a tart box and fills them with pastry cream, then lays these gorgeous pears on top and bakes it off until they're a luminous golden color. She then showers the already glorious tart with almonds. OH. MY. GOD.

I will make this. But first, I will enjoy shoving that sinfully delicious original tart into my yum-hole and savor every single crumb, even if I have to lick the plate. I've been waiting to try this tart since I first saw it shown on Cooking Channel's Unique Sweets. (Can you tell I'm just a little excited about this?)

Other things I'm excited about that don't involve food (shock!):

1. My son's first Halloween. (This is one of the costumes we're considering! SO CUTE!)

2. The 2nd anniversary of when Jason and I met.

3. Going to visit my family and friends in Memphis.

4. My favorite (non-chocolate) candy being in season once again! (Hint, hint mom.)

Little Monkey enjoying pumpkin and sweet potato soup.

That's it for now. So until next time, enjoy your loved ones and your life with a Spoonful of Sugar.

Inspired Revisited

So it's been a while friends, but I'm back.

I wrestled with the idea of posting this, since I hadn't gotten any sort of comment on the last post, but I decided I would post it anyway.

Our shopping for the past week for groceries was all done in one day: Friday.

We went to 2 stores: Sam's and Whole Foods. (We go to Sam's to stock up on freezer stuff like fish fillets and chicken. And Goldfish for my husband, because he can eat a whole bag in one sitting...)

I've misplaced the receipt from Sam's, but the total amount we spent there (and mind you, this is for 2 weeks total) was $118 and some cents.

At Whole Foods we bought all of our fresh produce and the majority of our meet (and all the baby's food.) We spent $160 even, because we donated a dollar to the school gardening fund.

So in all, give or take, for two weeks of grocery shopping in one trip, we spent $278 and some cents. So, for a week in a household with 2 adults, 1 baby, 1 cat, and 1 dog we spent roughly $139.

So it's not terribly expensive to eat healthily on a budget. We got 3 different types of tofu (mainly for the baby to eat for finger food, but Jason seemed to like it cooked up with some sesame seed oil, soy sauce, red pepper flakes, and Sriracha sauce), a bottle of wine, 2 loaves of organic bread, 3 cans of coconut milk, 3 cans of pumpkin, a bag of frozen chicken thighs, and 3 different types of sausage. And those are just the bigger items.

I have a bit of a cold on, so this is all I can manage for the time being. It might not make much sense, but I'm blaming the Benadryl.

As always, enjoy your loved ones and your life with a Spoonful of Sugar.

Inspired

Tonight I find myself rather bored with a stuffy nose, and therefore stumbling about online looking for new kitchen inspiration. And wouldn't you know--I found it.

www.dailykos.com/story/2008/5/26/102458/137/70/522670

I read and looked at this article and the pictures and was amazed. I won't spoil it for you, because I think everyone should look at this. Everyone in America should look at this and see if they find it as appalling as I do. In Chad, Africa, for a family of 6, the weekly expenditure on food (as in all the food they will eat that week) is $1.23 AMERICAN. That's not even a tall latte from Starbucks, and yet, a family of 6 can live...no, I won't say live, I'll say exist...on that for a whole week. And, existing is not fun. Surviving is not fun.

Inspiration. Right, that's what I was going to talk about.

So, this next week, I vow--I SWEAR--to right down everything we buy (groceries that is) and the price. We live on a budget in our single-income household, a budget that isn't the same from week to week. I think we actually do quite well with our budget, but sadly, we like to eat too well. Yes, I can buy 5 packages of Ramen for $1.00, but I'd rather buy 1 steak for a much higher price, or 1 lamb shank, or a few sweet potatoes.

This week, this week I will take care. This week, I will be meticulous.

No, this isn't a money saving venture, although, if it turns out to happen like that, so be it. If I happen to not buy that bottle of wine after all, or decide that we don't really need more butter, or sugar, or something, than so be it. Maybe that's a good thing.

Maybe it's already a good thing.

My younger sister just went off to college, and I love her to death, but I don't think she has a clue about the cost of living. I know I didn't. I never once thought of how much money my parents spent on food when I was dependant upon them. Now, as a parent myself, I'm already giving up things I would like to get things for my son. I'd rather him have some silly new toy he'll only play with for a few days than a good bottle of olive oil or a bag of great coffee.

I guess I've rambled quite a bit, but I'll go ahead and blame the benadryl on that. Well, I think that's all I have tonight really. Or, that's all my brain can come up with that'll make sense. And, my pillow is calling me.

My little man, showing an early zen for organic, homemade crackers.

Until next time, enjoy your loved ones and your life with a Spoonful of Sugar.

Banoffee Pie!

Good day all! I've been meaning to upload this recipe for quite a while, but, if you read my friends' (Evie and Mel) blogs, you'll know that for a while we were caught up with spending time together after having not seen each other for months and months and MONTHS! Now, to make up for my complete lack of discipline when it has come to posting, I am going to gift you with the most amazing pie recipe I've ever tasted. Ok, that's probably a lie because I'm only slightly obsessed with pecan pie, pumpkin pie, and apple pie. All in a very...healthy...kind of way. (Now that's the lie.)

The first time I ever heard of Banoffee pie, that I can remember, was while watching one of my favorite movies, Love Actually. (Keira Knightly's character offers her husband's friend a piece of it, then calls it a horrific choice of pie, which would lead to many a person not paying it any further heed.)

Banoffee pie is actually, very simple. But in its simplicity lives some of the most fantastic flavors. I am a total sucker for anything involving bananas. Add graham cracker crust and homemade whipped cream and I'm putty. But wait...what is this you say? There's CARAMEL too? Oh god, I can now die a happy woman.

Considering the ingredients of this pie, it's not only delicious, but thrifty as well. If you're like me and on a budget, but you have an insatiable sweet tooth (hello maternity pants, I knew I didn't put you away for a reason!), than this is the pie for you.

To make Banoffee Pie you will need:

1 graham cracker crust, homemade or store bought (I used store bought.)

1 can sweetened, condensed milk

3-4 bananas

1 half pint heavy whipping cream

1 tbsp. 100% pure maple syrup

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

cinnamon for garnish

A stock pot full of water

To begin:

Take your can of condensed milk and remove the label. A bit of adhesive left on is fine though. In your stock pot, bring water to a boil. Place your stripped can of condensed milk straight in there (unopened) and let the water boil for 3 hours. (Yes, I said 3 hours. Hey, I said it was simple, not quick.) Some of the water may boil off if the lid is kept off because you have somehow misplaced it (tee-hee...) but that is simple to remedy. If it boils off and the top of your can is no longer covered, simply pour over some hot water from your tap. (You may have to do this more than once.)

While your can is boiling away, pour your heavy cream, maple syrup, and vanilla into a medium sized bowl and whip it into delicious, fluffy whipped cream. (I didn't add any processed sugar to the cream because the pie is sweet enough without added sweetness to the whipped cream.) Put your whipped cream aside in the fridge so it can stay cool.


After the 3 hours are up, take your can out--preferably with a pair of metal tongs please, don't want any burned fingers--and place it on a cooling rack. Let that cool down for about 20 minutes.

Take out your graham cracker crust and open the can of condensed milk. Now, prepare yourself for what's inside, because it will change your life.

Inside your thouroughly boiled can of condensed milk, will be a delicious toffee sauce that didn't call for any dangerous boiled sugar and constant watching and stirring.

You are now going to take the toffee sauce and spread it around in your graham cracker crust. It's up to you whether or not you use all the toffee sauce. I mean, I did, but then again, I'd have eaten it out of the can if I had a little less will-power.

Now, for just a moment, please enjoy the beautiful, unmarred, golden brown pool of toffee sauce. I think I stared at it for quite a while before even considering adding the rest of the ingredients. Because really, it's toffee and graham cracker crumbs. How can you make that any more perfect?

Bananas. That's how.

Take your bananas and remove the peel. I decided to slice the bananas fairly thin, so that when cutting the pie, the bananas would cut smoothly.

Once your bananas are sliced, begin linning your pie crust with the slices. It's up to you however you place them. I do circles and then just pile towards the center with the leftovers.

After your bananas are all gently placed on their delicious toffee puddle, you're ready for the whipped cream. (Do ya get it yet? Bananas. Toffee. Banoffee.)

Pile the whipped cream on--yes all of it--the bananas. It may seem like a lot of whipped cream, but I love it. It's your pie though, so it's up to you how much whip you put on top, but I think it'd be a shame to waste homemade whipped cream, especially when it has just the slightest maple taste and a clean, vanilla finish. After that, just dust it with a little bit of cinnamon. (Or, if you're a gluten for punishment, I'm pretty sure you could drizzle some chocolate sauce over top.)

After that, just slice and enjoy. (And, just so you know, this pie doesn't slice clean. So, when some of those bananas or some of that toffee sauce is left over, just slip it right onto your plate. You may all have the same sized slice, but somehow your serving is just a bit bigger...)

That's it for now! Until next time, enjoy your loved ones, and your life, with a Spoonful of Sugar!