Sour Cherry Seed Cake

1 tablespoon butter, softened
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
salt to taste
3/4 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon caraway seed
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
Lemon zest from 1 lemon.

Sour Cherries (pitted)

Preheat oven to 350° F.

Grease and flour the bottom and sides of an 8-inch square cake pan with softened butter. I actually just used the butter wrapper paper.

Sift together flour, salt, and baking powder. Add lemon zest.

Cream 1/2 cup butter and sugar together. Mix in caraway seeds and egg. Add flour mixture and milk, beating well.  Stir in sour cherries. Spoon batter into prepared cake pan. It’s pretty thick and gloopy, but it works.

Bake for about 45 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool.

This is a zingy cake what with lots of lemony flavor from the zest and the pucker power of sour cherries. But somehow it’s just perfect.

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Dutch Baby with Pear Sauce and Yogurt

Leave 3 eggs out overnight so they are room temperature when you make this.

Preheat oven to 450° F.

Heat cast iron skillet on stove top. Add 3 TBSP of butter and melt until bubbling, but not browning.

Meanwhile, beat 3 eggs (room temperature) for about a minute, just to get some air in them.

Add 3/4 cups of milk.

Add 1 TBSP sugar

Add 3/4 cups of flour

Add 1/2 tsp of salt.

Mix together and pour into the melted, bubbling butter.

Put in the oven and bake for 15 minutes, turn the oven off and let sit for another 5 minutes.

While it’s baking, melt a TBSP of butter, peel and dice one pear, add to the butter and cook until tender. Add 1 TBSP of brown sugar and let it melt into the butter, coating the pears.

Cut your Dutch Baby into quarters, put a fourth of your pear sauce on top, with a spoonful of plain yogurt.

This is simply delicious, fast and easy. It’s a recipe that is easy to keep in your head, too. Think of the 3s, 3 eggs, 3/4 cups of flour and milk, 3 TBSP of butter. It’s also not too sweet, the yogurt adds a nice tang that balances any sweetness from the sauce.

 

Lemon Seed Bread

Preheat oven to 325° F.

Grease a bread pan, I just used the wrapper off the butter I used in the recipe.

Cream together butter and sugar.

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• Zest from one lemon

Add

• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup milk

Mix together:

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tablespoon caraway seed

Add to the liquid ingredients. This is a thick batter, almost like a cookie batter.

Put in the bread pan and bake for 30 – 40 minutes, until knife comes out dry.

Very tart and tasty. I love caraway seeds. This is a lovely old-fashioned pastry.

 

Lemon Krumkake

My family sent my late sister’s krumkake irons to me. One is the traditional old-fashioned iron for use on a wood or gas stove. It’s from Nordicware, like the one Mom had, I used to have, and everyone I know has ever had.  The other was a Bethany electric krumkake baker. Bethany is the maker of my lefse griddle, so familiar to me. I was excited to try the electric baker because I am anxious about using the old-fashioned iron on an electric oven. It worked pretty well, though it does not press the krumkake as thinly as the stovetop iron.

So here’s the recipe.  I mixed the dry ingredients first. Then I mixed the liquid ingredients and added to the dry. I heated the iron, brushed it lightly with vegetable oil just for the first cookie, and then started baking the cookies. Each cookie takes about 1 TBSP of batter. This made about 3 dozen cookies.

You can stuff with whipped cream, lingonberries or use with sorbet, but for me, I prefer them plain.

• 1 1/ 2 cups flour
• 1 cup sugar
• Zest from 2 lemons

• 2 eggs
• 1/ 2 cup butter, melted
• 1 cup of milk

 

Roasted Radishes and Carrots with Lemon Dill Sauce

I had far too many radishes from the food bank, so I decided to try roasting them. As you can see they are huge radishes so are relatively mild.

I scrubbed them with a wire brush because the dirt was ground in. It took a lot of work to clean them, but it was worth it. I cut them into halves or quarters depending on their size. I wanted to get them all about 1.5 inches or so. I peeled and cut the carrots to the same size.

This is about eight radishes and 4 carrots cleaned and cut to size.

Preheat oven to 450°. I use paella pan for roasting vegetables. You can use a cookie sheet, bar pan, anything that is on the shallow side. I tossed the radishes and carrots in olive oil and sprinkled with kosher salt. I roasted them until they began to caramelize.

To make the sauce, I heated 1 TBSP butter and 1 TBSP of flour in a sauce pan, stirring over medium low heat for about four minutes until the flour is completely cooked, but not browned. I then added 1 cup of milk. I had low fat milk on hand, so that’s what I used. I stirred until smooth, adding the zest and juice from one lemon and a bit of dill weed. I used a bit more dill weed than I intended because the bag slipped. It was still delicious.

The contrast between the piquant radishes and the sweet carrots with the creamy sauce was delicious. This made four servings.

 

 

Oatmeal Scones with Dried Cranberries and Pecans

These are incredibly easy scones that take less than 30 minutes from start to finish.

Preheat oven to 425° Fahrenheit. Most recipes start with preheat and your oven is heated up long before your recipe is mixed. Not with this, even starting to preheat before you mix one thing, you might have to wait to get to 425.

In a large bowl, mix the following dry ingredients:

• 2 cups rolled oats
• 1 1/2 cup white flour
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries

Combine the following wet ingredients in another bowl. Pour them into the dry. You can make a little well in the dry ingredients to pour the wet in as that makes it just a bit easier to mix.

• 1 egg, beaten until frothy
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 cup of melted butter

Note: This recipe is so forgiving it does not care whether you melt the butter and add it with the milk and egg or if you mix cold butter into the dry mixture by hand until it is crumbly. You can choose. Either method has the same result. It is just slightly easier and faster to melt the butter in the microwave for 45 seconds or so.

Mix the ingredients so all the dry is incorporated. It will be a wet, sticky dough.

Put parchment paper on cookie sheet.

If you are ambitious, you can flour a board and roll it out into two circles about 1/2 thick and cut each circle into 4 pie-size wedges. I think it is just easier to roll out eight balls of dough and press them into 1/2 thick little rounds. Separate them so they are not touching.

Bake 15 minutes in the preheated oven, until risen and browned.

You can serve warm with some butter, jam or cream cheese, but I like them plain with nothing else, warm or cold.

Makes 8 scones.

Hungarian Mushroom Soup

Hungarian Mushroom Soup

• 12 ounces Fresh Mushrooms, sliced
• 2 cups onions, chopped
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 teaspoon dill weed
• 1-tablespoon tamari soy sauce
• 1-tablespoon paprika
• 2 cups water

Clean and slice the mushrooms. Put your soup pot on a low medium heat (2 out of 10 on my electric range) and dry cook the mushrooms for about 10 minutes. This will bring out much richer flavor and keep the mushrooms from absorbing too much liquid and getting mushy. Add 2 TBSP of butter and 2 cups of onions and continue cooking on low heat so the onions sweat, enriching the flavor. Add the dill weed, paprika and tamari sauce and let cook for a minute or two to release their flavors before adding the 2 cups of water. Cover and bring the heat up to about 4 of 10 on the stove, a low-medium heat. Let simmer for about 10 minutes.

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 1-cup milk

While the mushrooms are simmering, in a separate pan melt 2 TBSP of butter. Add 3 TBSP flour and mix into a roux and cook. Raw flour is yucky. It will get a rich golden brown. Add the milk and cook for a few more minutes. (I mix up nonfat dry milk for my cup of milk since I use too little milk to buy fresh.)  Add to the mushrooms, stir in and cover and simmer about 10 more minutes.

• 1/2 fresh lemon juiced
• 1-cup fresh parsley
• Pepper
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1 tsp dill weed

Add the lemon juice, chopped parsley, sour cream, dill weed and pepper. You can serve garnished with parsley or a dollop of sour cream or both.

Per serving: 190 Calories; 14 g Fat (61% calories from fat); 4 g Protein; 14 g carbohydrate; 34 mg Cholesterol; 288 mg Sodium

Yorkshire Pudding

For an easy breakfast that can cook away while you read the paper, try Yorkshire Pudding. This recipe does not call for the meat drippings so it’s not quite as hearty as pudding you might make for dinner. If it sounds familiar, it’s the same recipe as popovers, but made in a different pan. Start it off by putting 4 TBSP of butter in a baking dish and pop in the oven at 450°.

• 4 TBSP butter
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp salt

Mix two eggs and milk together, add salt, add flour. Do not mix past the lumpy stage. Pour into the melted butter in the baking dish and put back in the oven at 450°. After 20 minutes, turn the temperature down to 350°. Don’t open the door and peek. After 20 more minutes it’s done. Makes 4 servings.