A girl (or any person for that matter) can find herself eating alone from time to time—it’s normal, right? Having a set of hubby+kiddies, family in general, and friends promises no guaranties that there will be company at the table at any given breakfast, lunch or dinner.

I work at home and most days I have breakfast and lunch by myself. I don’t eat breakfast with the kiddies+hubby since I’m usually still in my PJ peeling, cutting and serving them fresh fruit (I really must shove it under their noses for them to eat it) and packing lunchboxes and… You know, it’s pretty much the same routine every day. Don’t you just love it?

Besides, I’m not a big fan of breakfast. My breakfast is a slice of toasted bread with something, or half a bagel with cream cheese, or scrambled eggs—so boring. Although lately I do treat myself to freshly squeezed orange juice or, more recently, fresh grapefruit juice—it’s SO refreshing!—every morning after the kiddies+hubby leave the house. (Shoosh, don’t tell them.)

For lunch, I usually don’t bother much since it’s a company of only one, me, so I end up making myself a sandwich (Or heat up leftovers from dinner. That is if I don’t plan on serving them a second time as dinner—lazy me.) Rarely, I pamper myself with something with a bit more kick/wow to it, like my fav sandwich with truffle oil. And now, now I have these swordfish tacos with an S—I had two. It was really, really good.

I love tacos. Don’t you?

Now, I can hear the squeaky noises of the gears in your brain… You must be thinking, “But isn’t a taco a type of sandwich?” I believe you make a good point.

I think they are, sorta. What would a Mexican say? I have no idea.

Well, you got “bread” on both sides with (hopefully) good stuff in the middle.

Broiled swordfish tacos

* 1 lb. of fish steak was enough for 3 servings + leftovers for 1

For the fish:

1 swordfish steak (about 1 lb.)

salt, pepper

olive oil

some sort of rub like BBQ rub or chicken rub

1 Tbs. butter, cut to pieces

Rub the fish with salt, pepper, some olive oil, and spice rub on both sides. Spread the butter cubes on top. Let sit for about 15 minutes in a baking pan lined with aluminum foil. In the meantime preheat the broiler and set the rack in the top 1/3 shelf.

Broil about 8 minutes. The butter will brown and the fat might cause some brunt-like smoke in the oven. If this bother you, grill it outdoors.

For the tacos:

1-2 tortillas/taco (flour or corn, doesn’t matter) + add what you like: avocado is always good, cilantro, grated cheese, a dollop of sour cream, corn, diced veggies, a splash of lemon/lime, etc etc

Enjoy your lunch! Enjoy the company!

This cake is so old. It’s so old that if we had any leftovers they would have been covered with green fuzzy stuff by now.

But luckily, there were no leftovers.

I just got so busy with summer (Well, not really—it’s been mostly cloudy here this June.) and kids outta school… and swim lessons… and stuff… But I still wanted to share this easy cake with you that I have made for my son’s birthday. He liked it so much that I thought it’s worth documenting and adding to the family recipe collection.

So, being busy and all + I don’t have much patience for making fussy cakes

… my little prince had to settle for a vanilla, banana, and whipped cream cake with marshmallows on top that I could make in 15 minutes. The poor guy.

Well, that one and the additional 16 individual dirt cakes + 9 *13 dirt cake I made for his party. I’m such a good mama!

Vanilla-banana cream birthday cake

for a 10-inch tart pan

petite buerre biscuits (or graham crackers, but I think petite buerre taste better and has better crumbs/texture)
1 stick butter, melted
1 package instant vanilla pudding
2 cups cold milk
1 teaspoon lemon and/or orange zest
2 cups heavy cream whipped with 2 tablespoons sugar + 1 teaspoon vanilla extract to medium peaks
2-4 bananas, sliced and mixed with lemon juice to prevent browning
Marshmallow for decorating, or any candy you like
A sparkler!

Grind the biscuits with the melted butter in a food processor. Remove from bowl and press into the tart pan + the sides.

In a medium size bowl, prepare the vanilla pudding, milk, and zest according to the instruction on the package. Chill.

When pudding is chilled, fold gently with the whipped cream.

Scatter the sliced bananas on top of the crust. Pour and spread the cream over the bananas.

Decorate with marshmallow and/or candy. Chill until ready to serve.

Happy birthday!

It’s been…… 4-5 years since the last time I made lasagna. So why all of a sudden did I make it now?

Recently, my kid was on a mid-winter break from school and I had continuous exposure to The Garfield Show and that did it! (In case you don’t know, Garfield is a fat, lazy cat who lives to eat and his favorite foods are pizza and lasagna.) After hearing “lasagna”, “lasagna”, “lasagna”, “lasagna”, “lasagna”, “lasagna”, “lasagna”, “lasagna”, “lasagna”, “lasan-ya”, “lasagnnnnnnnya”, repeatedly, over and over for days—it was like brain wash—I’ve just had it. “Must make lasagna!” “Must make lasagna!” is all I could think of.

Oh, and what’s the lasagna lesson? Don’t ever, ever make a lasagna recipe that has no Béchamel sauce in it!

Béchamel sauce is a milk sauce that is cooked and thickened by a roux (Cooked butter and flour). I’ve made several different recipes in the past years that didn’t include the sauce in the layers. Hmm, maybe that’s why I didn’t miss lasagna so much, now that I think about it… The béchamel makes the whole thing so much smoother and silkier. It’s really fantastic! I will never, ever make lasagna without béchamel again. Never, ever.

It might look like a a lot of work but it really isn’t.

The meat cooks in 10 minutes—not much effort there.

The ricotta only gets to be mixed with the eggs—easy peasy.

The marinara is store bought. Pfff.

The pasta doesn’t have to be cooked, only soaked in hot water for a few minutes to soften.

You layer them all,

and the dishwasher does the rest.

Ta-da. Lasagna, assembled ahead, ready to get baked later before dinner.

And here’s dinner…

Classic  lasagna

My recipe is based on this recipe by Giada De Laurentiis.

For a 13 x x9 inch pan; serves 8-10 people

Béchamel Sauce:
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 cups whole or 2% milk
Pinch freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
Black pepper
__

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 pound ground beef
Salt and pepper
1 1/2 cups (store-bought) tomato/marinara sauce
1 1/2 pounds ricotta cheese
3 large eggs
1 pound lasagna sheets, soaked in boiled, salted water for 2-3 minutes*
3 cups shredded mozzarella
1/4 cup grated Parmesan

Béchamel sauce: In a 2-quart pot, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the flour and whisk until smooth, about 2 minutes. Add the milk and nutmeg, whisking constantly to prevent any lumps from forming. Continue to simmer and whisk over medium heat until the sauce is thick and creamy, about 10 minutes. (The sauce should be thick enough to coat the back of wooden spoon.) Season with salt and pepper and set aside to cool.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (unless you plan to bake the lasagna later that day).

In a large sauté pan, heat extra-virgin olive oil, add the ground beef and season with salt and pepper. Cook the meat, breaking any lumps and continue to cook until it is browned and some of the juices had evaporated. Remove from heat and mix in the marinara sauce. Set aside.

In a medium size bowl, mix the ricotta and eggs. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside.

Assemble the lasagna:

Into the bottom of a 13 by 9-inch baking dish, spread 1/3 of the béchamel sauce.

Arrange the pasta sheets side by side, covering the bottom of the baking dish.

Spread 1/3 of the ricotta mixture, 1/3 of the meat-marinara blend, spoon béchamel on top, and 1/3 shredded mozzarella. (Save the parmesan for the final, top layer.)

Arrange another layer of pasta sheets and repeat the other layers.

Arrange the final layer of pasta sheets and repeat with what’s left of all the layers, plus the Parmesan cheese.

Place the lasagna dish on a large baking sheet, put it in the middle rack of the oven and bake for 45 minutes, or until the top is golden and bubbling.

NOTE:

You can assemble the lasagna ahead, cover and store in the fridge. If you do that, you might need to add 10-20 minutes to the cooking time.

* To soak the lasagna sheets: 1) do this in batches, not all at once, 2) drizzle some oil on a baking sheet, lay the softened, soaked pasta sheets on the greased baking sheet to prevent it from sticking.

This is my first attempt at making artichoke dip.

We LOVE artichokes but I mostly cook them like this—well, those are fresh artichokes ($3-$4 each, anyone?). However, this time the ones I had were the packaged frozen ones so I thought about a dip as the way to go. I always wanted to make artichoke dip. I just love ordering them at restaurants. The dips are so rich and luscious.

And so, I did.

The other night, I made it for dinner. I was floored by its awesomeness and so I had snatched it from the dinner table, from right under my husband’s nose, to take a quick photo, and it looked like this:

… yeah, not so pretty, but I had to be quick!

But the next day I had more time, and there were leftovers—lucky you!—lucky me!—and it looked a lot better in the sun light:

Lunch.

Yum yum, give me some, as my father used to say.

Artichoke dip

So what’s in it?

1 package of frozen artichoke hearts, thawed 3 minutes in the microwave, then coarsely chopped
1/3 cup sour cream
about 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
2 garlic cloves, minced
some goat cheese, crumbled
some grated cheddar cheese
2 handfuls of arugula, optional
salt and pepper
a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon butter, small diced

Gently mix everything, besides the butter, in a big bowl. Place it all in a greased baking dish, scatter some butter on top

Bake at 375 degrees F for 20-30 minutes until hot and bubbly.

A few years ago, when I was trying to promote my (now defunct) personal chef business, I set up a table at my son’s day care center and offered brownies to those people who were interested to hear about it. Then a little girl passed by with her father and commented, ”these brownies look like poopy.” Her father was embarrassed and scolded her about being impolite and such, but she was right. The tiny little brown bite-size pieces did look like poop, even though I put each one in an adorable heart-painted mini cupcake liners. Ah, the honesty of children—so brutal! So pure!

Speaking of poo, I had a pretty crappy day this week. I was in a bad, bad mood because of… never mind. Unfortunately, I volunteered to bake some desserts for a teachers’ appreciation lunch at the school.

Bad mood + making desserts = ?

I guess that maybe because of my bad mood, the desserts didn’t turn out so good… At least not in my mind. Not the kind of treats I felt I could bring to the school and put my name on the tag attached to it.

Mediocre brownies. Bland lemon bars. Mixed nuts cookies which were actually totally awesome only they included a secret ingredient, peanuts!, and I found out about it hours after they were done, packed in a box and ready to go, when I read the fine print, “may contain peanut ingredients”—darn!

Regardless, taste-wise, it sure is a great thing that people cannot taste the emotions of those who were involved in making the food! I keep thinking about this book that I just finished reading. For that reason, that day, I served my children cereal for breakfast.

The kids were SO excited. For them it’s a special treat. They are too young and innocent to know that it is a bad sign. A sign that their mother is either one or more of the following: tired, lazy, emotionally drained, and/or angry. That specific morning, I just didn’t care what they ate, the love was not pouring out of me, so I served factory food .

But the following day was better. I woke up with better energies, clearer thoughts and I was ready to tackle the day, and the desserts that needed some TLC (Tender Love and Care). I had 3 hours to fix things and/or bake something new.

First thing, I quickly made Citrus yogurt cake. That took about 15 minutes to prepare and put in the oven. Great. I love that cake.

Next, I thought about ideas how to make the brownies I made which were sooo meh—It’s the recipe’s fault!—taste better, more exciting. One idea I had was to turn them into rum balls. After reading some recipes, I’ve decided to try something else.

I took a small piece and drizzled cherry brandy, mashed it with my hands and stuck a dried cranberry in it… It tasted good.

But it needed something else, texture. A crunch.

A-ha!

You know these coco puffs?

They turned out to be just perfect.

I mashed and mixed everything,

Rolled them into balls, and coated them with powdered sugar,

(so they don’t look like you know what…)

Pretty, ain’t it?

Yum yum.

I liked it a lot! I was proud of it. I could sure put my name on it.

I thought it was brilliant!

I wish I left some for my family to eat—there was a lot of joy in them. (Ah! The secret ingredient.)

So, teachers and staff, if you happen to read this post, tell me, did you like them?

***

Next post: I’ll tell you what I did to the lemon bars…

I love&hate frosting.

Yes, frosting is sweet, and some can even make it tasty. But after eating 1/2 a cupcake I feel the sugar rushing and gushing in my veins. And after eating 3/4 of a cupcake I feel a sugar intoxication going through my bones and my brains. (And I think about diabetes too…)

This is why I can never bring myself to make frosting at home! But, the other day, there was a birthday. And, a little girl asked for cupcakes. What was I to do?

I considered making a sour cream frosting. It sounded “healthier” and less fatty than cream cheese frosting, and hopefully, I thought, it’ll contain less sugar. See an example recipe for cream cheese frosting (for 24 cupcakes!):

• 2 sticks butter, softened
• 1 pound cream cheese, softened
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 cups confectioners’ sugar

OMG, who eats like that and lives to tell? That’s 2.6 tablespoons of suagr for the frosting only on each cupcake + add the sugar in the cake… Wowza.

(People, I think I’m becoming a “health” fanatic by the second… also see: Orange yogurt cake and… too much SUGAR!)

As I Googled-Binged “sour cream frosting for cupcakes” I found recipes like:

• 1/2 cup of butter (1 stick), room temperature
• 8 oz of Philly cream cheese (1 package), room temperature
• 2 – 3 cups of powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

***

• 1 1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar (add more until it reaches your preferred consistency)
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
• 2 tablespoons sour cream

***

• 4 Tbsp butter, softened
  1/2 cup sour cream
  1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  1/2 tsp lemon juice
  1/4 tsp salt
  2-3/4 cups confectioners’ sugar

***

• 1/4 cup of butter, room temperature
  1/3 cup of sour cream
  2 1/2 cups of powdered sugar
  1/8 teaspoon of vanilla extract
  pinch of salt

***

• 1/2 CUP (1 STICK) unsalted butter
• 3 CUPS powdered sugar
• 1 TEASPOON vanilla extract
• 3 TO 4 TABLESPOONS milk

***

OK, you got the picture. You can’t get away with using less then 2 – 2.5 cups of sugar for 12-24 cupcakes. (I really should try to make one with no more and 1/4 cup sugar and see what happens…. Sometimes in the future…)

I felt discouraged so I figured out let’s just drop off the whole frosting part. But what was I to do?

The solution? Real, homemade, freshly-whipped whipped cream! My favorite!

With a thin layer of red currant jelly (it tasted the best) on top of each chocolate cupcake + 2 tablespoons of vanilla flavored whipped cream (The whole batch of 1 cup heavy cream was made with only 1.5 tablespoons of sugar) + sprinkles + 1 marshmallow (Yeah, I know, marshmallow is not the healthiest choice, but… and… it’s only one) all the kids were very, very happy!

I have finally met her. The pie lady.

I’ve heard so much about Kate McDermott’s Art of the Pie class in the past year. Some people call her “The pie lady”, some “The pie whisperer” but no matter what they call her, all of them love her and rave about her class, and her pies. Especially the pie dough.

In the past two decades I have used the same one apple pie recipe which I have had since 1990’s and the same fruit crostata recipe, and I wasn’t very curious about other pies at all. But I did get very curious to know more about Kate’s pie because all the talk about her around town. Finally, last Saturday I had a chance to participate in her pie baking class at Dish it up!

The thing that touched me the most about Kate’s pie was her relating to the pie almost as if it were a person: a friend, and at times, even as a child. She was talking to it, sending good vibes into it, thinking good thoughts about people she cares about while mixing and kneading it. She patted the chilled dough with her rolling pin, but did not hit it. “You would not do that to a child, would you?”, she asked. I confess, I banged quite a few doughs (but not kids!) that were hard to roll in the past. But no more, no more.

In short, Kate is putting her pleasant, warm personality into the pie. Making her pie was not an act without a thought or emotion, was not an automatic series of actions, although one could have expected it to be just that since she’s been making pies for many, many year. But no, watching and listening to Kate while she demonstrated making her pies was watching an act full of love, care, and warmth.

I must say, I think what I have witnessed was not only the “art” of the pie, but also the “soul” of the pie and its maker.

When we got to taste a freshly baked apple pie, I tried to identify what’s so different about it? I compared it in my head to the ones I had before. Maybe it’s the addition of leaf lard (I have never used it so far), but there was something beyond that. I think it was the love that was put into it.

The filling—it was phenomenal. Kate used many different apple varieties—one of each kind. I think there were 8 of them. Each one with a unique characteristic to add: some turned mushy when baked, some held their shape, some were sweet, some tart, there were greens and reds… And the spices… They were just right, and so gentle. Even though I saw it with my own eyes, I couldn’t help but ask, “Are you sure you put 1 teaspoon of cinnamon in this?”, because usually the cinnamon flavor really stands out, overpowering the fruit in apple pies.

Now what about the dough? It is definitely distinctive but more difficult to describe. I think that compared to an all-butter dough which tends to have a melt-in-your-mouth and crumbly texture, Kate’s dough  has a bite, it’s not very crumbly but more crispy, and crunchy, but most of all, it has layers—not at all a puff pastry but certainly it made me think of one. See?

Kate wrote a blog post full of tips about the pie making process, Flour, salt, fat and water.

There’s also an excellent post with the recipe and more tips here, in this post.

I took many notes during class. Here are the tips I learned:

For the dough:

Rule #1: keep everything cold! Everything—the bowl, the flour, your hands (chill in ice water), the rolling pin, etc. Keep them in the freezer! On hot days, put your mixing bowl inside a bigger bowl with ice.

Kate doesn’t sift and doesn’t take exact measurements. She keeps it simple and feels it with her hands.

Use butter that is sold wrapped in foil. It’s a sign for good, fresh butter.

Stop mixing before you think you’re done. You should still have large pieces of butter—this will create the marbling later on, which translates into layers of flaky dough.

For vegetarian (and Kosher) dough, you can use Earth Balance brand to substitute the lard and butter.

After every addition of water squeeze the mixture to test if it holds and pulls into a ball.

The dough is freezable, unbaked, up to a month. But, before freezing it, put it in the fridge for the gluten to relax.

For the filling:

Use a variety of apples.

Cut the fruit to large dice.

Don’t judge an apple (or a person) by the way it looks on the outside. It might be delicious. Taste it and see.

No need to peel the fruit. It will make every bite a flavor and texture sensation.

Use superior quality fruit! (Go to the market, if there is one close to you.)

To estimate how much fruit you’ll need, put the whole fruits in the pie pan and pile it high. Put it back again after dicing it to measure if you have enough before you proceed with the seasoning.

The amount of spices she used to season her pile of diced apples:

1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
2-3 gratings of nutmeg
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar/lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup flour

When rolling the dough:

Put a good amount of flour on the board

The technique: place the rolling pin in the middle of your “chubby disk”, from the middle, roll up, lift, go back to the middle and roll down. Turn the dough, repeat. Flip to other side, repeat.

Roll it to be as thick as glass.

If the dough tears, use water to glue it back together

Put the pie dish in the freezer

Brush excess flour off the rolled dough, on both sides, before transferring it to the pie dish

Kate doesn’t bother with greasing her pan. (The dough did not stick. Ha!)

The dough has memory. If you stretch it, it’ll shrink when you bake it (Remembering where it used to be.)

Scatter diced butter on top of the filling once placed in the pie dish

After putting the second rolled dough on top of the filling, roll it up, making a “reservoir” so the juices don’t escape out (I’ll add to that, always put your pan in a large baking sheet when you bake!). Also, take it off the edge. If the dough sits on the edge, it’ll melt downwards and it could burn.

If once you finished preparing the pie the dough gets warm, put it back in the fridge to chill before baking

Bake: 425 F degrees for 20 minutes + 375 F, 40 minutes. If it browns too fast, place aluminum foil with a hole in the middle (for the steam to vent), matte side up, to protect the dough.

A tip about ovens: If you want to test and see if your oven has hot spots, place slices of bread on a baking sheet and bake it, see where it browns and when not.

Make “tasties” with the leftover dough.

***

I also found a recipe for Kate’s Shaker Lemon Pie here and her blackberry pie in Saveur magazine, here.

My conclusion: Wonderful Kate makes wonderful pie!

Today I’m going to preach to you. But I’ll keep is short, OK?

It’s about sugar. Wa-aaay too much sugar.

I confess, I never understood what’s the point in eating sugar as is. It might be called a “glaze” or a “syrup” or… whatever, but the bottom line is: it is pure sugar that people are eating. Why? It doesn’t really taste good, it’s just sweet, nothing interesting about that, and for sure, it doesn’t do any good to our bodies. So why, why, why do so many bakeries insist on drenching and drowning their baked good in cups and layers of sugar?

I can’t stand sugar glazed pasties. There, I’ve said it.

I had a little exercise lately. I’ve been cutting the amounts of sugar in baking recipes. And you know what? Nothing bad happened. On the contrary, good things happened.

I won’t name names but with some chefs/cooks/cookbooks I learned that I can automatically omit 1/4 to 1/2 cup sugar from the baking recipes and the cake will still rise and all. For example, last week I made lemon bars. The recipe called for 3 cups of sugar but I used 2 1/2 cups instead and it turned out great—sweet just right.

A few weeks ago I looked for a yogurt cake recipe. You know how a container of yogurt can be pushed to the end of the refrigerator’s shelf and be forgotten only to be discovered one day before its expiration date? So I needed a yogurt cake recipe.

I found recipes in 2 very popular cookbooks—I won’t name names, but keep an eye open when you bump into a recipe named Lemon yogurt cake or French-style yogurt cake. The recipes were 90% identical.

I’ve decided to go with the one that uses more yogurt (1 cup compared to 1/2 cup). Both recipes use a lot of sugar: 2 1/4 cups of sugar in one and 2 1/3 cups of sugar in the other. Now, let me break it down for you:

2 1/4 cups = 36 tablespoons of sugar.

For a cake that serves 8-10 people, that’s 3.6 to 4.5* tablespoons of sugar per slice/per person!!

* If you need more visualization, 4 tablespoon = 1/4 cup. Could you eat 1/4 cup of sugar if it was not hidden in a slice cake?

I was horrified only by the thought of it so I decided to skip the sugar glaze and the sugar syrup altogether and see how the cakes turns out. Instead I used only 3/4 cup sugar total in the cake’s batter, and, what do you know… it turned out perfect!

That’s a total of 12 tablespoons for the whole cake. That’s only 1 to 1.2 tablespoons of sugar per slice/person.

Halleluiah.

I also used oranges instead of lemons for 2 reasons: 1. it looks like lemons are way more expensive than oranges, and 2. oranges are less acidic and sweeter than lemons so I could use much, much less sugar (but regardless, I think it’s better to add other ingredients to balance a lemon’s sour taste than sugar like herbs (Thyme, rosemary, for example), or honey (more natural and rounded).

I also used a thick yogurt, Greek style which has less fluid and the cake was moist.

This cake is so easy to make, you just mix the ingredients, no mixer needed, and it tastes divine!—minus the 1 1/4 extra cups sugar—delicately tangy, so fresh, with a wonderful, light crumb.

Citrus yogurt cake

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup thick, Greek-style yogurt
3/4 cup sugar
3 extra-large eggs, room temperature
2 small oranges/lemons, juiced* and zested
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup canola oil

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 8 1/2 by 4 1/4 inch loaf pan. Line the bottom with parchment paper. Grease and flour the pan.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt into one bowl.

In another bowl, whisk together the yogurt, sugar, eggs, zest, and vanilla.

Slowly whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Whisk the oil into the batter, until it’s all incorporated.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 50-60 minutes, or until a cake tester placed in the center of the loaf comes out clean.

When the cake is done, allow it to cool in the pan for 10 minutes. While the cake is still warm, pour the orange juice over the cake and allow it to soak in. Let cool before unmolding and slicing.

* NOTE: This is optional. Pour the freshly squeezed 1/4 cup fresh orange juice over the baked, cooling, cake, or drink it for your pleasure.

Last week I went grocery shopping. (How exciting is that?) I stopped by the plastic bags dispenser and grabbed two handful of bags, anticipating to fill up my cart with a bounty of fruits. To my surprise, there were no peaches, no nectarines, no plums, no pluots, no… no summer fruits in sight—No summer fruits! (OK, there were grapes.) I slightly panicked.

Two days later, full of optimism, I went shopping again, but to another store on a hunt after some summer fruits. I found nothing. So I had to interrogate the produce guys about the whereabouts of the fruits.

“You got no peaches”?”

“No.”

“No nectarines?”

“Nope, no nectarines.”

“No plums?”

“No”.

“Reeeally??? What about pluots?”

“Oh, we might have pluots. Let me check in the back.”

Yes!

And then he returned with a case of wonderful, red, flowery smelling pluots. I almost bounced with joy—but I didn’t—and I bought 6 lbs.!

Now, what do I do with 6 lbs. of pluots?

Luckily, the day before I stumbled upon Melissa Clark’s Plum Polenta Upside Down Cake. I used nearly 2 lbs. of pluots for my cake.

2 individual pluots made it into the fridge—they softened/over ripened so quickly—and the rest I used to make ice cream. Mmm…

I hope that wherever it is that you live you can still enjoy summer fruit. As for me, I am mentally preparing myself for a few good months of pears, apples, and oranges. Clementines too. They’re nice, I like them, but it’s just not the same thing, you know…

Pluot Polenta Upside Down Cake

Slightly adapted from Melissa Clark: I used less sugar for cooking the fruit and I added thyme and salt. (I know I was tempted to grind some black pepper too but I’m not sure if I did it or not.)

Makes a 9-inch cake, 10-12 servings

1 3/4 pounds pluots, rinsed, pitted, and sliced 1/2-inch thick
1 1/4 cups sugar
2-4 thyme sprigs
Pinch of salt
1 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature
4 large eggs
1/4 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Whipped cream or ice cream for serving, optional

Preheat the oven to 350° F. Line a 9-inch springform pan* with parchment paper and grease the parchment and pan well (I like to use butter).

Cook the pluots and 1/4 cup sugar in a large skillet over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until the pluots are tender and most (but not all) of the liquid has reduced, about 20 minutes. Scrape the pluots mixture into the prepared cake pan.

In a bowl, whisk together the cornmeal, flour, baking powder, and salt.

In a mixer bowl, cream the butter and 1 cup of sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add the eggs one a time and beat to combine. Beat in the sour cream and vanilla. Fold in the dry ingredients, using a spatula.

Spread the batter on top of the pluots and smooth with a spatula.

Bake until the cake is golden and springs back when touched lightly, 45 to 50 minutes.

Allow the cake to cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then run a knife around the edge and release the sides. Invert onto a plate.

Serve warm with whipped cream or ice cream.

NOTE: I know that my springform pan leaks so, to make cleanup easier, I wrap it with foil and place it on a baking sheet.

This was the perfect cake to take to the beach.

***

I really have nothing else to add to that.

I made H. go into the kitchen to bake a cake! With his mom! (The in-laws visited us.We haven’t seen them in a long, long time.) You know, to snoop around and learn her secrets…

But really there are none! It is so simple to make. Besides the carrots’ part.

You grate and grate and grate the carrots… It requires some muscles and hard work.

Unless you have a trick up your sleeve you would like to share with me?

What’s your best cake to take to the beach, or picnic/potluck/party?

Mother-in-Law Carrot cake

(Or, in Romanian: PRAJITURA de MORCOVI)

For a 9.5 inch (28 cm) cake pan, or a 30 cm * 30 cm pan

4 eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup canola oil
1 tablespoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 lb. (500 grams) carrots, peeled and grated
3 oz. (100 grams) raisins or dried currants
3 oz. (100 grams) walnuts, lightly toasted and chopped

Grease a baking pan and line with parchment paper.

Preheat the oven to 360 F (180 C) degrees.

In a bowl of a mixer put the eggs, sugar, oil, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt, and beat (We used the beater attachment but my MIL says she uses the whisk attachment) for 7 minutes on medium-high.

Add flour, carrots, raisins, and nuts, and beat on low speed.

Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 50 minutes.

For easy and safe transport, take it to the beach in the pan.