Cranberry Pear Snackcake

By Monica on March 27th, 2008

This is one of my favorites from the “Grandma Files”. A versatile little cake, you can easily alter this to fit whatever you have in your pantry at the time. No cranberries? Use raisins, or any kind of fresh berry. Buy too many walnuts? Throw them in! And I truly feel sorry for those who do not have 30+ jars of homemade pearsauce in their cold cellars, but if you don’t, applesauce works too. The combination of delicately sweet pears and tart cranberries is tough to beat though, this is what I always come back to. As usual, Grandma was right.

Cranberry Pear Snackcake
1/2 cup canola oil
1 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cups flour
1t baking soda
1t cocoa
1/2t cinnamon
1 cup pearsauce (unsweetened)
1 cup fresh or frozen cranberries

Cream canola oil and brown sugar. Sift together flour, baking soda, cocoa, and cinnamon, then add to the oil/sugar mixture. Add pearsauce, cranberries and mix until blended. Pour into a lightly greased 9×9″ baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.

In other food this week, I took advantage of affordable fresh asparagus and added it to Joanna’s Penne Alfredo from Yellow Rose Recipes:

And lastly, SusanV’s ridiculously easy, ridiculously delicious Smoky Refried Bean Soup. I have made this twice since she posted the recipe this month!

A Return To College Food

By Monica on March 25th, 2008

Well, almost. Like most people, my undergrad years were filled with unrecognizable cafeteria food and late night take-out garbage. In my years at NIU, the late night, post-drinking, junk food of choice was Beer Nuggets - fried chunks of dough you dipped into pizza sauce and/or powdered cheese sauce. One could purchase an entire brown grocery bag full for about $4, a bargain for any poor, hungry, inebriated college student.

Despite how terrible they must be for you, let’s face it: fried dough tastes good. When I saw Bryanna’s 5 Minute No-Knead Bread & Focaccia, I was immediately inspired to make imitation, healthier beer nuggets. Here is the intact focaccia, made with whole wheat flour, and covered in garlic and fresh dill - luxuries never afforded to the greasy beer nuggets of my memory.

The focaccia was sliced up into approximate nugget form and served with pizza sauce and “Gee Whiz” spread from the Uncheese Cookbook, an idea from Zuckerbaby at ZB’s Vegan Recipes.

Perfectly nuggetlicious, but without all the grease and mystery ingredients. 2 entire focaccias disappeared within minutes; anything dipped into cheez is always the crowd pleaser! Bryanna’s recipe made two focaccias and two loaves of crusty bread, all with no-kneading!

But lastly, if we’re talking about college food, you can’t beat nachos. Here is the heap I prepared for my junk-food loving crowd, using Nacho Cheese Sauce from Yellow Rose Recipes. Certainly not health food, but definitely an improvement with tons of black beans, fresh tomatoes, avocados, jalapeños, scallions, and black olives.

The belated St. Patty’s Post

By Monica on March 20th, 2008

So I’m a few days late, but better late than never! I’ve been waiting for St. Patty’s Day to roll around ever since I first saw this recipe for Corned Beef Seitan on Everyday Dish.

It looks pretty corned ‘beefy’, no? I followed the recipe for the seitan roast, but decided to add a little flare: After cooking the seitan, I coated it in about 4 tablespoons of horseradish and then rubbed it with fresh cracked pepper. Now it really looks corned ‘beefy’!

Into the oven it went, along with a load of cabbage, carrots, potatoes, a couple onions, and about 1 cup of vegetable stock. Covered at 350 degrees, about 45 minutes did it until all the vegetables were tender.

This was good enough to be omni-approved at our St. Patty’s Day feast and made for wicked sandwiches the next couple of days. I’m so glad I have that 25 pounds of vital wheat gluten now; having so much on hand frees me up to try these fun seitan experiments!

Seitan Corned Beef
Recipe from Brian McCarthy, posted at Everyday Dish

1 gallon of water (to boil loaf)

Dry Ingredients
2 cups vital wheat gluten flour
2T granulated onion
2T paprika
2T fennel seed (coarsely ground)
2T caraway seed (coarsely ground)
1T salt
1t ground cloves
1t ground black pepper

Wet Ingredients
1 cup vegetable broth
1/2 cup olive oil
2T molasses
1T vinegar
Cheese cloth (one double thick 24×16″ piece)
2 6″ pieces of string

Instructions
1) In a large pot, bring one gallon of water to a simmer
2) In a large bowl, whisk together the gluten, onion powder, paprika, fennel, caraway, salt, cloves, and pepper.
3) In a separate bowl, whisk together the vegetable broth, oil, molasses, and vinegar.
4) Combine wet ingredients with dry ingredients.
5) Form into a 4″x8″ loaf that will be about 1″ thick.
6) Place corned beef loaf on a cheese cloth and roll-up like a big fat rectangle tootsie-roll (not too tight). Tie each end with a piece of string.
7) Place in simmering water, cover, and simmer for 1 hour and 15 minutes.
Take roast out of liquid and remove cheese cloth. Serve warm or place in refrigerator to make sandwiches with later.

Cake or death?

By Monica on March 12th, 2008

Every time I bake a cake, I get the Eddie Izzard “Cake or Death” skit stuck in my head.  Given that the recipe for this cake came from of all places, a Marlboro cigarette cookbook, I thought “Cake or Death” seemed an appropriate question to ponder.

Shockingly, this One Pan Cake is accidentally vegan and was still included in a Marlboro cookbook.  Someone might want to alert Phillip Morris so that this doesn’t happen again!   They wouldn’t want word getting out that the Marlboro Man likes vegan food or anything…

Marlboro’s One Pan Cake is a version of the Wacky Cake, relying on vinegar and baking soda for its magic.  However, it uses coffee as the primary liquid, so the end result is a very moist coffee flavored chocolate cake, topped with crunchy turbinado sugar and cinnamon.  As an added bonus, you just throw it all in one 13×9″ pan and mix.  Super easy, really good.  Errr, thanks Marlboro!

One Pan Cake
2 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup cocoa
2t baking soda
1/2t salt
2/3 cup vegetable oil
2T cider vinegar
1T vanilla
2 cups cold coffee
1/3 cup turbinado sugar
1/2t cinnamon

Stir together flour, 1 1/2 cups sugar, cocoa, baking soda, and salt, in an ungreased 13×9″ baking pan.
Make 3 wells in the dry mixture; pour the oil in one, the vinegar in another, and the vanilla in another.
Pour in coffee and stir all with a fork until well mixed.  Spread into an even layer.
Combine 1/3 cup turbinado sugar and cinnamon.  Sprinkle half of this over batter.
Bake in a 350 degree oven for 35-40 minutes.  Sprinkle remaining cinnamon sugar over cake.