Eggless Spice Cake

I ran out of eggs, but I wanted something for dessert tonight, so I adapted a Depression-Era eggless, milkless, butterless cake and made up my own (since I had milk and butter.)

It's delicious!

Eggless Spice Cake

Ingredients:

1/2 c. sugar
2 T. butter
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
3/4 tsp. ground cloves
1 1/2 tsp. bourbon vanilla
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 cups milk
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour


Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease one 8 or 9 inch cake pan.

In a saucepan over medium heat, combine the sugar, butter, ground cinnamon, ground cloves, vanilla, salt, and milk. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently, and boil for at least 3 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool. Be careful that it doesn't burn. Let cool.

Mix the whole wheat pastry flour, baking powder, and baking soda together. Add the flour mixture to the cooled spice mixture. Stir until combined. Pour batter into prepared cake pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.

Eat!

Fresh from the garden dinner!

five new potatoes
one garlic scape
a sprig of rosemary
a handful of sugar pod peas
a few leaves of swiss chard

and the only things not from the garden: olive oil and a sprinkling of Ohio-made mozzarella cheese.

Put the olive oil in a hot cast iron skillet. Add chopped rosemary and chopped garlic scape. Let them saute for a while as you are cutting up the potatoes (in slices.) Add potatoes, cover, and let cook. Once the potatoes are about halfway done, add the sugar snap peas. Cook for about five more minutes, or until potatoes are done. Add swiss chard at the very end and cook until the leaves are wilted. Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese. Serve. (Serves 1, but can be expanded easily.)

A twenty minute supper, if you include picking the produce from the garden.

Yum!

(Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture. It was pretty, though!

Gingered Carrot Cake with Orange Cream Cheese Icing

New, Healthier version!

Gingered Carrot Cake with Orange Cream Cheese Icing

Ingredients:

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
4 eggs
3 cups (approximately) finely shredded carrots (see, it's good for you!)
3/4 cup canola oil
3/4 tsp. ground ginger

Orange Cream Cheese icing (recipe at end)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. While you're at it, take out your cream cheese and your butter for the icing, and set them on top the oven so they'll be nicely soft by the time you're ready to make the icing.

Grease bottom and sides of 13x9x2 inch pan. Set aside. In a large mixing bowl, combine all ingredients, dry first, then wet. Mix in the carrots last. Pour batter into prepared pan, bake for 40 minutes. Remove pan from oven when toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let cool for at least 45 minutes.

NOTE: this recipe will also make 24 regular sized cupcakes. Bake @ 350 degrees for approximately 15-17 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.

Orange Cream Cheese Icing

Ingredients:

1 pkg. cream cheese (8 oz.), softened
1/2 cup butter, softened
About 3-4 cups of powdered sugar, depending on the consistency of your icing.
1/4 cup orange juice (fresh-squeezed is best, of course.)
2 T. grated orange peel. (fresh-grated is best here too.)

Mix everything but the powdered sugar together, until blended. Add powdered sugar one cup at a time, blend, and then add the next cup until the icing is the right consistency. (Think chocolate mousse.) Spread icing on cooled cake; refrigerate. Makes 12-15 servings, depending on how big of a piece you really want. (It's very rich.)

Note: DO NOT melt the butter in the microwave. It will make the icing runny. DO NOT try to put the icing on the cake before it cools. It will make the icing runnier.

Variations: Lemon Cream Cheese Icing. Also, you can always add raisins (ugh) or nuts (about 1/2 cup) to the mix. Some people add dried fruit other than raisins as well. Your choice.

Nutrition information: I have no idea, but three cups of carrots is three cups of carrots. How many servings of veggies is that?! :)

Lentil and Spinach Soup

2 cans kidney beans (or the equivalent of 2 cups if you are using dried)
1 cup lentils, dried
8 cups water
1 cup chopped carrots
1 cup corn
4 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 tsp dried sage
2 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried rosemary (of course you can use fresh if you have it)
a sprinkle of seasoned salt
a sprinkle of pepper
3 cups spinach, chopped (I used frozen; you can use whatever is available to you)


Add all ingredients, except for the spinach into a 5qt. pot and simmer on low for about an hour or until beans and carrots are soft. Add spinach, cook for about five more minutes. A very simple, easy, and tasty soup.

Note: I didn't add onions because onions don't agree with me. By all means, if you like onions, feel free to add them. You could also add different kinds of beans/more beans to this as well. I think it would also taste good with chicken. If my pantry had contained any mushrooms, I would have added them as well. Mushrooms would be fabulous in this recipe!

Fresh Apple Mint Tea

"Yum" just doesn't cut it on this one. I tried it earlier in the year and it didn't really have an apple taste. But when I tried it right before it's going to bloom, there's definitely an apple note in there! Fabulous stuff. I'm going to ice what's left and see how it tastes then.

Bagels!

After waffling about it for much too long, I finally made bagels today. Why did I wait so long? They aren't complicated at all! Sheesh.

Okay, so they don't look absolutely perfect, but this was my first time. They taste yummy, though!

Next up: Walnut Rye bread (hopefully.)

Vegetable Bean Soup... with a twist

I wanted to make minestrone today, but I ended up making vegetable bean soup instead.

Ingredients:

1 qt. tomato juice (I used frozen fresh from the garden)
6 cups water (or thereabouts)
1/2 cup carrots, peeled and chopped
1/2 cup green peppers, chopped (I used frozen from the garden)
1 cup leftover Christmas Lima beans (mine were already cooked, of course, but you could prepare them as you would to cook them, and then add them in.)
1 cup various other beans (I used frozen from the garden; not quite dried enough to be dried beans and I did not soak them beforehand.)
3 medium potatoes, cut up (I didn't peel them.)
2 cups frozen chopped spinach (This was the experiment, and it worked wonderfully.)
2 tsp. each dried rosemary, thyme, and basil or to taste. (Fresh: use quite a bit more, I'd think.)
3 tsp. chili powder (or more; the potatoes do soak up some of the flavor, so to taste.)

Put all ingredients into a 6 qt. crock pot (you can easily halve this recipe if needed) and cook on low for 6-8 hours or until beans and potatoes are done. On high, I'd say this should be done in 4-6 hours, easily.

The spinach really did it for this recipe. The spinach flavor complemented the other flavors, and really tied everything together. I'm really pleased with how this turned out.

I also made three seed bread to go with it--two loaves. YUM!