Roasted Plum Cakes

If you can remember Spring here in Pittsburgh (it seems like so long ago), you'll remember the flowering trees and how they seemed to be just loaded with blossoms this year. Well, those blossoms have turned into plums in a friend's yard. I wish I had taken a picture of the tree - the branches were threatening to break from the masses of fruit on each limb, with the branches bending down until they almost touched the ground. And when my friends offered me a bag to fill with plums well, for me, that's like offering candy to a baby! I thought about making one of those beautiful plum tarts with all the slices placed just so and glazed with a shiny coat of apricot jam. But these plums were a little small and I didn' t have the time for a fussy tart. So instead I decided to try the Roasted Plum Cakes from Baking with Julia. They are simple to make and so delicious served warm with a side of vanilla ice cream. You could substitute raspberries, blueberries or peaches for the plums if you had them on hand. I baked one with red raspberries and it was delicious too.



Roasted Plum Cakes
adapted from Baking with Julia

1 stick of unsalted butter at room temperature
2/3 cup brown sugar, divided (I used less for topping)
1/2 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp minced orange zest (I used lemon)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup buttermilk
4 large ripe plums, halved and pitted

Preheat oven to 350. Butter 8 ramekins and place them on a rimmed baking sheet. Cream the butter, 2 T of brown sugar, and the granulated sugar for 6 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add the zest and vanilla and mix well. Add the flour and baking soda and beat on low speed for only 15 seconds. Pour in the buttermilk and beat for 30 seconds more. Remove from mixer and use a spatula to finish blending the ingredients if necessary.

Spoon the batter into the ramekins, dividing the batter among them evenly. Place a half plum, cut side up, into each cup leaving the plum a bit higher than the batter so that the plum will show after the cakes rise in the oven. Sprinkle the remaining brown sugar evenly over each plum. Bake 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the cake portion comes out clean. Cool the cakes 10 minutes. To serve, remove the cakes from the ramekins onto a dessert plate and serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

State of the Garden - August 2008

2008 has been a big year for our small garden. First, Mark put in four 10'X10' raised beds adjacent to the raspberry patch. Second, he built a split rail fence around the now-combined vegetables and raspberries to keep the critters out...



because this is what happens to healthy cucumber plants if you have groundhogs and no fence to keep them out.



But, along with misfortunes in the garden come surprises such as the three very prolific butternut squash plants that are growing out of the compost pile. I have a really good recipe for butternut squash soup which I will share if these make it to harvest time!



Assuming nothing happens to the tomatoes, it looks like we'll have a bumper crop although they seem to be taking their time ripening. I planted 30 tomato plants.



Half of the tomatoes are these Romas which are great for canning and tomato sauce.  I also have eggplants which look completely sad (for the 3rd year in a row!) The four-striped bug, after doing a job on the daisies are now lurking about and multiplying on the zucchini and pumpkins. I'm holding my breath, hoping that they won't completely destroy them. I planted red onions and leeks and it looks like the leeks will be small and the onions seem to have disappeared entirely - I have no idea what happened there! The green beans are in and we're doing our best to consume them, although I am getting some not-too-subtle clues that the kids simply will have NO MORE beans! So that's the State of the Garden for now. It's pretty amazing considering that all of the vegetables except the onions and herbs were grown from seed by my own two hands! My babies are growing up! To remind you of what they looked like as babies, see my previous post here. I can't wait until harvest time!

Grandma's Barbeque Sandwiches a.k.a. Sloppy Joes

Grandma's Barbeque Sandwiches (a.k.a. The Best Sloppy Joe's)

1/2 cup celery, finely chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
2 lbs ground beef
1 small bottle of ketchup
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 Tbsp vinegar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp allspice

Saute the celery and onions in a skillet with a little oil until they begin to soften. Add the ground beef and season with salt and pepper. Cook until the beef is no longer pink, being careful not to brown the celery and onions. Add the remaining ingredients (eyeball the amount of ketchup you need to make just enough sauce for the amount of beef in the pan) and simmer together for about 10 minutes or so. Serve on rolls.

My CSA and Dill Pickles

Aaaaah...Summer's Bounty. This is my fourth year as a member of Kretschmann Farm CSA. Don and Becky Kretschmann have an all-organic farm just minutes from our home here north of Pittsburgh. Not only do they grow fabulous organic produce, but they have to be some of the nicest folks you'd ever meet.

Every Friday afternoon from June through November, I take a drive out to the farm. In just minutes I can be out of suburban Pittsburgh and rolling past cows and corn fields. I pull up past their house and down around the back of the barn where crates of veggies are waiting to be picked up and a kitten or two are waiting to greet you. Business as usual is going on all around - Becky is mowing the grass, Don is busy fixing a drip line or driving the tractor, and their helpers are washing dirt off the lettuce or tending to seedlings in the greenhouse.

Don writes a weekly newsletter and sends it via email to his subscribers. Through these newsletters you'll find the happenings on the farm that week, help in identifying some produce, and, of course, recipes. This week we found out that this is the year of the cucumber... that is a year that his crop produced a surplus of cucumbers.  So the Kretschmanns came through with the cucumbers AND a recipe for dill pickles in this week's newsletter. Who knew making pickles was so easy?  And they are delicious!




Fresh Dill Pickle Spears
from Don and Becky Kretschmann


1. Slice one or two cucumbers into spears and place in a glass quart jar with a few sprigs of fresh dill.
2. Bring to a boil 1/8 cup salt, 1/4 cup vinegar, 2 cups of water and a sliced clove or two of garlic in a small saucepan.
3. Pour the hot vinegar mixture over the cucumbers. Let the mixture cool to room temperature and then refrigerate overnight. (To keep the jar from breaking, run hot tap water over the outside of the jar just before filling with hot liquid.)

Blackberry Scones

Blackberry Buttermilk Scones
adapted from Baking with Julia
makes about 12 scones

3 cups All-Purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 sticks cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 cup buttermilk
1 T lemon zest
3/4 cup fresh or frozen (unthawed) berries
1 egg, beaten with a little water for egg wash
sugar for dusting

Preheat the oven to 425. In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, 1/3 cup sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add cold butter, and with your fingertips, work the butter into the flour until the mixture looks crumbly (small pieces of butter coated with flour). Add buttermilk and zest and mix with a fork until ingredients are just moistened. With floured hands, turn dough out onto a floured board or countertop, pressing the dough in a ball so it holds together. Flatten the dough into a rectangle about 1 1/2 inches thick. Sprinkle the berries on top and very gently fold the dough over onto the berries from all sides like an envelope to mix the berries in among the dough. Spread the dough out again into a rectangle 1 to 1 1/2 inches thick. With a large knife or pastry scraper, cut the dough into approx. 4" X 4" squares and cut the squares into triangles. Carefully transfer the triangles to a cookie sheet lined with parchment or silpat liner. Brush with egg wash and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 12 minutes.

Pizza with Grilled Vegetables

Pizza with Grilled Vegetables 
adapted from Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice

4 1/2 cups (20.25 ounces) unbleached bread flour or all-purpose flour

1 3/4 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon instant yeast

1/4 cup (2 ounces) olive oil

1 3/4 cups (14 ounces) cold water

Semolina flour OR cornmeal for dusting

Grilled vegetables of your choice - zucchini, red pepper, onion, eggplant, mushrooms

Tomato sauce (recipe follows)

Mozzarella cheese, grated

Stir together the flour, salt, and instant yeast in a bowl of an electric mixer. Stir in the oil and the cold water and mix on low speed with the paddle attachment until the flour is absorbed.  Switch to the dough hook and mix on medium speed for 5 to 7 minutes, or as long as it takes to create a smooth, sticky dough. The dough should clear the sides of the bowl but stick to the bottom of the bowl. If the dough is too wet and doesn't come off the sides of the bowl, sprinkle in some more flour just until it clears the sides. The finished dough will be springy, elastic, and sticky, not just tacky, and register 50 to 55F.

Transfer the dough to the counter dusted with flour. Prepare a sheet pan by lining it with baking parchment and lightly oiling the parchment. Using a metal dough scraper, cut the dough into 6 equal pieces. Sprinkle flour over the dough. Make sure your hands are dry and then flour them. Lift each piece and gently round it into a ball. Transfer the dough balls to the sheet pan, Mist the dough generously with spray oil and cover with plastic wrap.

Put the pan into the refrigerator overnight to rest the dough, or keep for up to 3 days in the refrigerator or transfer to individual zip top bags and freeze.  Place frozen dough in refrigerator the night before you plan to use it.

On the day you plan to make the pizza, remove the desired number of dough balls from the refrigerator 2 hours before making the pizza. Place the dough on a floured surface and dust the tops with flour. Gently press the dough into flat disks about 1/2 inch thick and 5 inches in diameter. Sprinkle the dough with flour and cover the dough loosely with plastic wrap and let rest for 2 hours.

At least 45 minutes before making the pizza, place a baking stone either on the floor of the oven (for gas ovens), or on a rack in the lower third of the oven. Heat the oven as hot as your oven will allow.

Generously dust a peel or the back of a sheet pan with semolina flour or cornmeal. 

Stretch the dough out to about 9 to 12 inches in diameter for a 6-ounce piece of dough, lay it on the peel or pan, making sure there is enough semolina flour or cornmeal to allow it to slide. Lightly top it with sauce and then with grilled vegetables and cheese.

Slide the topped pizza onto the stone (or bake directly on the sheet pan) and close the door. Bake for about 5 to 8 minutes or until the cheese is bubbly and the crust is sufficiently browned.

Remove the pizza from the oven and transfer to a cutting board. Wait 3 to 5 minutes before slicing and serving, to allow the cheese to set slightly.

Homemade Pizza Sauce

28 oz can crushed tomatoes

2 T red wine vinegar

salt and pepper, to taste

1 tsp dried oregano

3 garlic cloves (or more to taste), minced

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl. 

Tabbouleh

I found this recipe for tabbouleh when my daughter, in 5th grade at the time, brought home the Children's Quick and Easy Cookbook by Angela Wilkes, which she found at her school library. When I looked through it, I was pleasantly surprised to find recipes other than chicken fingers and pizza. Actually, there were very healthy-looking recipes within a variety of international cuisines using all fresh ingredients. The book was very well laid out with lots of great pictures of every step in the recipe.

Although she and her friend only wanted to try making the goodies in the dessert section (which turned out fantastic if I remember), I was drawn to the recipes such as tabbouleh, falafel, chicken curry, thai kebobs, and chicken chow mein- things I had never tried before. The tabbouleh is delicious and is a great use for the tomatoes and cucumbers from the farmer's market and my bumper crop of parsley and mint. It makes a great, healthy, summer side dish or potluck salad since you serve it cold or at room temperature and it's not too heavy.

Tabbouleh
from Children's Quick and Easy Cookbook by Angela Wilkes

1 cup bulgur
1/2 cucumber
3 seeded, diced, tomatoes
4 scallion
a handful of pitted black olives, optional
1 bunch parsley
small handful of mint leaves
3 T olive oil
3 T lemon juice
salt and pepper


1. Put the bulgur in a bowl, cover it with boiling water, and let soak for 20 minutes until the grains soften.

2. Finely chop the cucumber. Trim the scallions and slice them finely. Rinse, dry, and finely chop the parsley and mint.
3. Drain the bulgur in a sieve over a bowl. Use your hands to squeeze out as much extra water as you can.

4. Put all ingredients in a bowl. Mix together and season with salt and pepper.