Monthly Archives: January 2015

Black Forest Cupcakes

Posted on by Laurie

CupcakeBlackForest

These light-textured chocolate cupcakes, served with whipped cream and cherries, are really fun for guests. An added bonus is that you can make the cupcakes ahead of time and freeze them until you have company. Just thaw, top with whipped cream, garnish and serve! Ready to start thinking about Valentine’s Day?

Black Forest Cake Cupcakes

Makes about 24

Ingredients:

2 c. all-purpose flour

2/3 c. Dutch-process cocoa powder*

1 1/2 t. baking soda

1 t. salt

1 c. whole milk (or sour cream for a denser cupcake)

3 lg. eggs

2 t. cherry liqueur

1 c. unsalted butter, softened

1 c. granulated white sugar

1/2 c. light brown sugar, packed

1/2 c. dried cherries, finely chopped

2 oz. semisweet chocolate, finely chopped, plus extra for garnish

Sweetened whipped cream for topping

24 fresh dark sweet cherries

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 12-muffin pans with muffin papers.**
  2. Sift together flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt into medium size bowl. Set aside.
  3. In a small bowl, lightly beat together milk, eggs and cherry liqueur. Set aside.
  4. In a large bowl, beat together butter and sugars on high speed until light and fluffy. Scrape down sides of bowl.
  5. On low speed, beat in 1/3 of the flour mixture. Scrape sides. On medium speed, beat in 1/2 of wet ingredients. Scrape sides. Repeat, beating in 1/3 of  flour mixture, remaining 1/2 of wet ingredients, and then remaining 1/3 of flour mixture, scraping down sides of the bowl in between.
  6. Mix together chopped cherries and chocolate and then fold them into the cupcake batter.
  7. Divide batter equally between muffin cups. Cups should be about 3/4 full.
  8. Bake for 20 –  25 minutes or until no wet spots appear on muffin tops and muffins are firm to the touch. Do not overbake.
  9. Place muffin pans on baking racks for 15 minutes, then remove muffins, and place them on racks to finish cooling.
  10. To serve, top with whipped cream, grated chocolate and a fresh cherry.

Enjoy!

* If you need to, you can substitute natural cocoa, but Dutch-process has better flavor in this recipe.

** I use plain white papers for baking, then slip the muffins into decorative papers or foils for serving.

Spaghetti with Spinach & Peppadews

Posted on by Laurie

SpaghettiWithSpinach4

This is a simple dish to make – done in the amount of time that it takes to cook a box of spaghetti – but it has a delicious combination of flavors and is very rich and satisfying.

Spaghetti with Spinach

Ingredients:

8 oz. package of spaghetti (gluten-free is ok)

3 T. extra virgin olive oil

2 T. dry white wine*

1/3 c. finely chopped yellow onion

3 cloves garlic, pressed or finely minced (about 1 T.)

salt

red pepper flakes + extra for the table

several large handfuls of baby spinach (about 2.5 oz. by weight), washed and larger stems removed

2 oz. (about 2/3 c.) fresh grated Romano or Parmesan cheese + extra for the table

3 marinated peppadew peppers, coarsely chopped

Directions:

  1. Put a large pot (8 qt. pot) of lightly salted water on to boil. When the water comes to a boil, add the spaghetti, stir. Cook until the pasta is almost done – when it needs about 2 minutes more cooking time. Meanwhile, prepare other ingredients. (That is, chop the onion, crushed the garlic, wash the spinach, and grate the cheese.)
  2. Add olive oil, wine, onion, garlic, a couple of dashes of salt and a couple of dashes of red pepper flakes to a large, deep skillet (about 12 x 3”.) Place on burner over medium heat. Stir ingredients. Cook for about 1 – 2 minutes.
  3. Drain the pasta when it is not quite done. Add nearly cooked pasta to skillet. Toss with olive oil mixture several times. Cook for about 1 minute. Add spinach. Toss with pasta several times. Cook for about 1 minute. Add cheese. Toss. Check pasta for doneness. When pasta is the desired doneness, transfer to a serving platter or to individual dishes. Garnish with chopped peppadews. Serve immediately.

Buon Appetito!

* I served the pasta with Feudi di San Gregorio Falanghina and so used that in the dish.

Photography Challenge: Shadowed (Beauty Berries)

Posted on by Laurie

The garden was mostly in shadow the other morning, except for some warm sunlight on my Beauty Berries just after sunrise. From winter’s weather, the berries are a bit faded from how they looked a few months ago, but I am happy to still have even a little color in the garden.

BeautyBerriesInWinter

View my post on Shadowed Roses.

More on the Shadowed Photography Challenge.

Gluten-free Cornish Hevva Cake

Posted on by Laurie

HevvaCake4

I recently came across a recipe for Cornish Hevva cake on FrugalFeeding.com and thought that it looked delicious and also that it sounded like it had an interesting history behind it. I loved the image of the fisherman’s housewives starting to bake as soon as the lookout called that their husbands were returning home. So I made a mental note to give “the cake” a try sometime.

I made a gluten-free version which produces a sweet, crumbly biscuit. It reminded me of a very thin version of Scottish shortbread with dried fruit. It went very nicely with a glass of milk  – for my first piece, which I ate before it had any time to cool – and also with a cup of tea later on.

HevvaCake2

Ingredients

1 1/3 c. (scant) gluten-free all-purpose flour

1/4 c. granulated white sugar + extra for sprinkling

1/2 t. ground cinnamon

1/2 t. ground ginger

pinch salt

7 T. + 1 t. unsalted butter, cut into pieces

8.5 oz dried blueberries

3 T. whole milk, approximately

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Butter a large baking sheet.

2. Whisk together flour, 1/4 c. of the sugar, cinnamon, ginger and salt.

3. Using your hands, work butter into dry ingredients.

4. Mix in blueberries using a large spoon. Then slowly stir in milk until mixture forms a crumbly, stiff dough. (It holds together like a dough when pinched.)

5. Scrape sides of bowl and transfer the dough to the center of the greased baking sheet. Lightly pat into a disk, then roll out to just under 1/2-inch thick.

6. Using a paring knife, score the top of the dough to resemble a fishing net. Sprinkle with a little more sugar.

7. Bake cake for 25 t0 30 minutes or until there are no raw spots. (Because this is gluten-free, it doesn’t really get golden brown.)

HevvaCakeUnbaked

Notes

I made a few minor changes to Nick’s recipe on Frugal Feeding

• I substituted dried blueberries for currants, because I was out of currants.

• I substituted gluten-free flour (Glutino brand gluten-free all-purpose flour) for the plain flour, because I wanted a gluten-free version.

• Nick’s directions call for rolling the dough out on a floured surface, then transferring the dough to a greased baking sheet. I just rolled it out directly on the greased baking sheet. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to mix in any more flour since I had used a substitution and wasn’t sure how that would affect the recipe.

• I sprinkled the sugar on before baking because I thought that would work fine.

• I forgot to cut the pieces on the diagonal for serving. Old habits. I’ve made a mental note to correct that next time – but the biscuits were still delicious!

• I think that American cooks can probably go ahead and use the whole 8 T. of butter that come in a stick. I weighed ingredients to convert from metric measurements and the butter measure came to 7 T. plus 1 t. For my first time making the recipe I wanted to stick to the original measures. If using 8 whole tablespoons of butter, one could probably also use a full 1 1/3 cup of flour. I’ll try that next time.

Thanks for introducing me to Hevva Cake, Nick!

Simple Baked Halibut

Posted on by Laurie

Halibut2

I love to experiment with sauces and flavors, but sometimes they can get in the way of one’s appreciation of the main element of a dish. So whenever I have a really great piece of fish – like this halibut that a friend sent to us from Alaska – I like to keep its preparation simple. That way the fish itself can really shine. Here I served the Baked Halibut with stir fried asparagus, steamed rice and soy sauce mixed with lemon juice and a dash of cayenne pepper served on the side.

Simple Baked Halibut

serves 2 – 3

1 lb piece of halibut cut about 2-inches thick, thawed

1 large lemon

sea salt

mix of black and green peppercorns

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Place a piece of parchment paper on a baking sheet.

2. Meanwhile, pat fish dry with a paper towel. Place fish, skin-side down, on the parchment paper. Lightly sprinkle fish with sea salt and several twists of fresh ground pepper. Cut about 2/3 of the lemon into thin slices. Spread slices over the top of the fish. (You can save the rest of the lemon to squeeze into a little soy sauce, if you like.)

3. Place fish in oven and bake for about 30 minutes or until cooked all of the way through. (The fish will be solid white in the center, not somewhat translucent.) Serve immediately.

Variations:

• Mix a few thin slices of red onion in with the lemon slices.

• Drizzle just a little bit of melted butter or olive oil on the fish before baking.

• Top with a little bit of chopped fresh parsley when serving.

Orange Carrot Soup

Posted on by Laurie

A light, but flavorful and warming soup to start your new year!

OrangeCarrotSoup

Orange Carrot Soup

4-6 Servings

Ingredients

3 T. extra virgin olive oil, divided

1 c. diced yellow onion

salt

fresh ground pepper

2 T. semi-dry white wine, divided

4 c. diced, peeled carrots

2 t. smoked paprika

1 t. ground cinnamon

4 c. vegetable (or chicken) broth or bouillon*, divided

3 T. honey, divided

1 – 1 1/4 c. fresh-squeezed orange juice, to taste

zest from one of the oranges (use a course-textured zester)

croutons or Greek yogurt, optional

*I use 2 “Not-Chick’n” bouillon cubes dissolved in 4 c. boiling water. “Not-Chick’n” can be found in the organic foods section of many grocery stores.

Directions

  1. Place 1 T. of the olive oil in a large skillet. Add onion, a dash of salt, a twist of fresh ground pepper, and about 1 T. of the wine. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until onion is crisp-tender and translucent. Transfer to a stock pot.
  2. Place remaining 2 T. of the olive oil in the large skillet. Add carrots, paprika and cinnamon. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes. Transfer to the stock pot containing the onions.
  3. Add enough of the broth to the stock pot to almost cover carrots. Stir. Cover and cook over medium heat until carrots are tender enough to purée but are not mushy, about 15 minutes. Stir in 2 T. of the honey.
  4. Purée mixture with a stick blender – or transfer mixture to a food processor or blender to purée until almost perfectly smooth, then transfer mixture back to stock pot.
  5. Stir orange juice and remaining 1 T. of wine into carrot mixture, then thin soup to desired consistency with the remaining broth. Stir in orange zest. Taste. If necessary adjust flavor using honey, wine, orange juice, or salt and pepper. Cook over low heat for about 10 more minutes before serving to blend flavors.
  6. Stir soup before serving. Serve in small cups as a starter or light lunch – or in soup bowls for a heavier meal. If desired, garnish with croutons or a dollop of Greek yogurt.

Enjoy! Happy New Year!