German Apple Cake

I don't know why I ever doubt Allrecipes.com.  When I am looking at recipes, I often find myself skipping over the links to that site to browse "real blogs" instead.  And why?  It's regular people, home chefs, who want to share their best recipes.  Then literally hundreds of people try it out, rate it, and write comments.  The recipes on there are tried and true.  After all, this is the place that gave me my overnight caramel pecan rolls.   Why am I such a blog snob?

If there is anything I can learn from this apple cake, it is to give Allrecipes more of a chance, because yet again, it proved to be a goldmine of recipes.  After apple picking, my mom had more apples than she knew what to do with, and she requested an apple cake.  I told her to pick a recipe for me, and she chose this one.  Being a snob, I whined about it, but even I couldn't ignore the 849 reviews, or the 4 1/2 star rating.   I decided to give it a try, and I am so glad that I did.  This cake was probably one of the most uniformly-loved desserts I have made in a long time.

My mom was in love with it that night that I made it, and took some home with her.  Then we sent some over to Mark's parents and they loved it too.  A few days later, I noticed that we still had a few pieces, so I cut them up and walked up to my grandmother's, where she had a house full of people who all tried it.  Everyone fell in love immediately and I handed out the recipe to two different people.

And that's the other great part.  This cake was pretty easy and the ingredient list was short.  No weird ingredients - it's just flavored with cinnamon and vanilla, with the apples of course.  That's not to say it isn't flavorful, and moist, and stays good for days and days.  It just lets the apples - 4 whole cups of them, diced - shine without overpowering you with any unneeded spice.

At this time of year, lots of people seem to have the wonderful problem of too many apples.  May I kindly suggest making applesauce (recipe to come soon!) or this delicious German apple cake?

Recipe:

German apple cake
from Allrecipes.com


Ingredients:
2 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups white sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
4 cups apples - peeled, cored, and diced

Instructions:

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease and flour a 9 x 13" cake pan.

2) In a mixing bowl, beat the oil and eggs with an electric mixer until creamy.  Add the sugar and vanilla and beat well.

3)  Combine the flour, salt, baking soda, and ground cinnamon together in a bowl.  Slowly add this mixture to the egg mixture and mix until combined.  The batter will be very thick.  Fold in the apples by hand using a wooden spoon.  Spread batter into the prepared pan.

4) Bake for 45 minutes of until cake tests done.  Let cake cool on a wire rack.

Serve with ice cream, perhaps?

Chopped Brown Rice Salad with Grapes and Pecans

Two posts in one day?  Yup, that's what happens on a weekend when Mark is working both days and I am trying to avoid housework and homework :)

Anyway... speaking of things you don't expect, here's a great salad!  As you know, I'm not a big fan of salads.  I love vegetables, but most salads don't do it for me.  They are boring.  Plus I think I hate lettuce, so if lettuce has to be the star of the show, then it's a show that I don't want to see.  Something else has to be in the spotlight.

In this salad, the spotlight is on juicy, sweet grapes, which are unexpected in a chopped salad where everything is all savory and salty and tangy.  Then there's brown rice, which gives the salad some interesting texture and chewy bites, along with pecans, which happen to be my favorite nut.  The recipe calls for ricotta salata, but that's clearly a cheese that I didn't have on hand, so feta was a good substitute.  A mustard vinaigrette ties it all together.  And yeah, there's lettuce.  But the lettuce is more of a backup singer than the main actor, and so it's okay.

I was actually surprised how much my family liked this salad.  I brought it over to my mother's one day when they were grilling last month.  Mark and my mom especially liked it; Mark happily devoured the leftovers for days.  For any salad to grab my attention, and the attentions of those two, you know it's got to be something special.  It's a good salad for this time of year; grapes are still good, and pecans are so fall-early-winter-ish, and brown rice is just always awesome.  So this is a recipe you probably want to hang on to.  These next couple months are full of times when you are going to binge on unhealthy things, and you just may want a salad to help you detox after that!

Recipe:

chopped brown rice salad with grapes and pecans
from The Kitchn
serves 6 - 8

Ingredients:

For the salad:
1 cup brown rice, long- or short-grained
1 cup whole pecans
1 heart of romaine
2 cups red grapes
1 cup crumbled ricotta salata

For the vinaigrette:
3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoons spicy brown mustard
Salt and pepper

Instructions:

1) Bring a 2-quart pan of water to a boil. Add the rice and a teaspoon of salt. Reduce the heat to low and simmer until the rice is chewy and cooked through. Drain and set aside.

2) While the rice is cooking, heat the oven to 350°F and spread the nuts on a baking sheet. Roast the nuts in the oven for about 10 minutes, stirring once or twice, until toasted a darker shade of brown and very fragrant. When cool enough to handle, transfer the nuts to a cutting board and roughly chop. Set aside.

3) Slice the hard of romaine down its length into quarters and then chop each quarter cross-wise into thin slices. Slice the grapes into quarters.

4) To make the vinaigrette, combine the vinegar, olive oil, brown mustard, a healthy pinch of salt, and a few cracks of black pepper in a small bowl. Whisk to combine, taste, and adjust any of the ingredients to taste as needed.

5) Combine the cooked rice, chopped pecans, chopped romaine, and grapes in a large mixing bowl. Pour the vinaigrette over the salad mix. Stir and toss the salad until all the ingredients are evenly coated. Stir in the crumbled ricotta salata, reserving a few crumbles to sprinkle over the top of the dish. Taste and add additional salt and pepper if needed.

6) Transfer to a serving bowl and top with the reserved ricotta salata. Leftovers will keep for about 5 days refrigerated.

Mini Cinnamon Sugar Pumpkin Muffins

Even as I complain about the fall, I do have to admit that I like cooking and baking with fall ingredients.  Every fall, I roast several sugar pumpkins and try to find interesting ways to use up the homemade pumpkin puree.  The last time I did, I happened to have my family over for dinner and asked them what I should make with my pumpkin.  Kenzie requested pumpkin muffins, and soon we found these: mini cinnamon sugar pumpkin muffins.  They're tiny little muffins made with pumpkin, and pumpkin pie spice (AKA cinnamon, ginger, allspice and nutmeg).  They come out of the oven all fluffy and orange and cute.

But then... the cinnamon sugar part happens.  You melt a half stick of butter and dunk the muffins into it.  Once they're buttered, they get tossed into a cinnamon sugar mixture.  So now they're more like the cinnamon sugar pumpkin muffins (or donuts) that you could get at a bakery or farm.  Sweet, soft, crunchy on the outside, and totally acceptable for dessert or breakfast.  So say I.

And yet, sadly, my mini muffins never got their dunk in butter and cinnamon sugar.  I had fully planned on it, but as soon as they came out of the oven, my family started grabbing them.  The muffins found themselves in bowls of ice cream (pumpkin ice cream from the farmer's market!) rather than bowls of butter.  By the time the pumpkin muffin grabbing spree was over, there were so few left that I didn't feel like going through all the trouble of melting and mixing and dunking for several muffins.

pumpkin muffins, pumpkin ice cream!

With that said, I am disappointed that I got lazy and didn't do it.  I think the crunchy cinnamon sugar coating would have really brought these muffins to the next level.  Just thinking about my refusal to finish the recipe with something that was really not optional has me grimacing.  If you try these babies out, promise me that you will make up for my mistake, and you will melt and mix and dunk.  And then tell me how great they are.

Recipe:

mini cinnamon sugar pumpkin muffins
from Sally's Baking Addiction
yield 20 - 24 muffins

Ingredients:
for muffins:
1 3/4 cups white whole wheat flour (or all-purpose flour)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (or 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon ginger, 1/4 teaspoon allspice, and 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg)
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 large egg
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 cup milk
for cinnamon sugar coating:
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
1/2 cup white sugar
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon

Instructions:

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Spray mini muffin tin with nonstick spray.  Set aside.

2) In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, and nutmeg.  Set aside.  In a medium bowl, whisk together the melted butter and brown sugar.  Add the egg and stir for about 1 minute.   Add the vanilla, pumpkin puree, and milk.  Slowly pour wet ingredients into the dry.  Stir together until just combined.  Do not over mix.

3) Using a small spoon, spoon the batter into the muffin tins, about 2/3 way full.  For ease, spray the spoon with nonstick cooking spray.

4) Bake for 11 - 12 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.  While the muffins are cooking, making the coating.  Combine the sugar and cinnamon in a small dish.  In a separate small dish, melt the butter.  Once the muffins are relatively cool, dip into the melted butter and then into the cinnamon sugar.  Muffins are best eaten on the same day, though they can be stored at room temperature for 3 days.

Pumpkin Seeds

This morning was my town's trick-or-treating.  I know, yesterday was Halloween, but in Westminster, we currently have mosquitos with Eastern Equine Encephalitis, which basically kills you (and horses), so all dusk-time activities have been canceled or postponed.  Trick-or-treating was moved to this morning.  I was all excited to pass out candy in my new home, and got a group of 4 boys right at the start... and that was it.  All the kids go to Bacon Street, where people set up haunted houses and go all out.  The town even collects donations for the families on that road.  I knew that, but I still thought I'd get a few; after all, we figured surrounding towns might come by for two days of candy collecting, and I don't live too far from Bacon Street, so I thought kids might meander down my way. No such luck.  Now I have a bowl full of candy.  I'd better find some recipes for them, since neither Mark nor I are big candy eaters!

With Halloween and October over, now we can look forward to Thanksgiving, and with that, the end of fall.  As you all know, I am not a fan of fall.  I hate winter, but fall is a season I spend lots of time complaining about.  I currently have the heat on and I am not happy about it.  I miss summer and tomatoes and corn and sun.  With that said, even I can admit that fall has some good things.  I like to eat squash and bake with cranberries (and heat the house with the oven).  And I really like to roast sugar pumpkins to make my own puree.  The last time I did this, Mark insisted that I also make some pumpkin seeds with the pumpkin's seeds.  I decided to do a little research to make them perfect... and I have succeeded.  Three different people have asked for my "pumpkin seed recipe" in the past few weeks, so you know they must be special.  To be honest, it is not so much a recipe as a list of steps and tricks, but you should know them, so here we go:

First, use sugar pumpkins if you can.  Their seeds get extra crunchy.  Plus, then you can roast the flesh and make pumpkin puree!  You certainly can still use regular pumpkin seeds after your jack-o-lantern-making sessions; just don't expect sheer perfection.

Second, boil your seeds in salted water before you bake them.  This helps to soften the outer shells, which makes them easier to digest and more crispy when they get cooked.

When it comes time to bake them, I have fallen before into the trap of throwing lots of spices and flavorings onto the seeds.  I've done everything from paprika to garlic powder.  But in reality, pumpkin seeds are delectable little gems.  I don't want to cover up their taste; I want to bring it out and let it shine.  So a little olive oil to prevent them from sticking, and some sea salt and pepper, is really all you need.  Don't overdo it.  This isn't garlic bread.  It's a seed.

Lastly, don't neglect them while they are baking.  You have to stir them at least once, or they will cook unevenly - or burn.  And that would be very sad.  Keep an eye on them; the line between perfectly baked and burned can be thin.

When you have done all these tricks, you end up with such wonderful crispy, crunchy, salty pumpkin seeds!  We devoured the whole pumpkin's worth in two days.  I ate way more than my fair share.  Since then, I have passed on my tried and true pumpkin seed routine to a few different people.  It may add a step or two, but it is so worth it.  Did I mention that pumpkin seeds are healthy snacks?  Full of iron, magnesium, fiber, zinc, potassium, and protein?  I am craving some right now.  Those pumpkins sitting out on my porch, waiting for the trick-or-treaters that never came, better watch their backs.

Recipe:

perfect pumpkin seeds
from Oh She Glows

Ingredients:
pumpkin seeds from a freshly-carved pumpkin (sugar pumpkins are preferred)
olive oil
salt
pepper

Instructions:

1) Clean the seeds.

2) Boil for 10 minutes in salted water.  Add the pumpkin seeds to a medium-sized pot of water along with 1 teaspoon salt.  Bring to a boil, and reduce the heat to a simmer, uncovered, for about 10 minutes over low-medium heat.

3) Drain the seeds in a  colander and dry lightly with a paper towel.  They don't have be bone dry - just a light pat down is fine.  Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

4) Spread seeds onto a baking sheet and drizzle with 1/2 - 1 teaspoon olive oil.  Massage oil into seeds and add a generous sprinkle of sea salt and pepper.  Try to spread the seeds out as thin as possible with minor overlapping.

5) Roast the seeds for 10 minutes.  Remove from the oven and stir.  Roast for another 8 - 10 minutes. During the last 5 minutes of roasting, remove a few seeds and crack them open to make sure the inner seeds are not burning; they should not be brown, just golden.  Cool a couple and test them; the shell should be super crispy and easy to bite through.

6) When done, remove from the oven and add more salt if needed.  Eat and enjoy!

Skillet Eggplant Parmesan

I love eggplant.  It somehow took me about 28 years to figure this out, but now that I know it, I can't get enough of it.  Interestingly, I have never made any legitimate eggplant parm.  I think I'm scared.  I have become such a connoisseur of it and order it any time I see it on a menu.  I am afraid my own won't match up if I don't have the perfect recipe.  I keep making other eggplant parm-y things without attempting the real deal.  Maybe someday :)

For now, however this will do.  And it will do very well.  Because it is delicious.  And far healthier than a fried eggplant parm.  It gets roasted rather than fried (I think the name "skillet" eggplant parm is misleading; it sounds like it gets fried in a skillet; in fact, it gets roasted and then baked in a skillet - or any other baking dish).

There is nothing quite like roasted eggplant.  It's almost creamy, and so flavorful.  So imagine roasted eggplant, nestled in with tomato sauce, melted mozzarella, and freshly grated Parmesan.  Toss some fresh basil on top when you pull it out of oven, and you're done.   This is such a fast and easy - and dare I say healthy? - version of eggplant parm.  No breading, no frying.  If you're in the mood for eggplant, and you don't have enough time (or courage) to do the real deal, this is a great alternative.  Make some spaghetti and serve both and you have an Italian feast.

I've made this recipe twice.  It's a good meal for people who are on gluten-free or low carb diets, which happen to include lots of the people in my family.  It's also just downright delicious no matter what you are eating or not eating.  Just make sure your diet plan includes this roasted eggplant parm this week.

Recipe:

skillet eggplant parmesan
from Annie's Eats
serves 6

Ingredients:
2 large eggplants (about 3 pounds total), sliced into 1/2-inch thick slices
extra virgin olive oil
coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
2 1/4 cups tomato sauce
8 ounces shredded mozzarella
3/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan
fresh basil, for garnish

Instructions:

1) Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Lay the eggplant slices on baking sheets in a single layer.  Brush lightly with olive oil, season with salt and pepper, flip and repeat on the other side of all the slices.  Roast, flipping halfway through the baking time, until slightly soft and golden brown, about 35 minutes total.  Increase the oven temperature to 400 degrees.

2) Spoon 1 1/4 cups of the tomato sauce in a large deep sauté pan.  A casserole dish works just as well.  Layer half of the eggplant slices evenly in the pan.  Sprinkle with a third of the grated Parmesan and half of the mozzarella.  Spread another 1 cup of sauce over the cheese, the remaining eggplant slices, another third of Parmesan and the remaining mozzarella.  Top with the remaining Parmesan.  Bake for about 30-35 minutes or until the cheese is browned and bubbling.

3) Remove from the oven and let cool 15 minutes.  Garnish with fresh basil and serve warm.

Vegan Crockpot Quinoa and Black Bean Chili

I've been on a slow cooker binge lately.  In fact, on Saturday, I used it twice.  In one day.  It helps that I am in love with my Cuisenart slow cooker (it's so big!  And you can program it to stop cooking after a certain amount of time and just keep your food warm!).  In fact, this chili was the first thing I made in my shiny new crockpot, which I got for my bridal shower back in June.  And I will be making it again.  Not only am I excited about my slow cooker; I am excited about this chili!!!!  4 exclamation points excited!  (I sound like an episode of Seinfeld).

Let's talk about the vegetables, first.  Black beans, red and green bell peppers, grated carrot, onion, garlic and corn.  This is no meat and tomato chili, my friends.  Lots of delicious vegetables in there, not to mention the flavor of chili powder, cayenne pepper, cumin and oregano.  And then there's the quinoa.  You throw it in raw, and yet somehow it still cooks perfectly into little nutty bites of protein. It was a genius way to fix the fact that somehow I had three bags of quinoa in the pantry.  It helps to give the chili a little more texture, too.

I was really excited about this chili, in case you can't tell.  It's so easy: just throw everything in there and turn the slow cooker on.  You're eating chili in no time.  Mark was a big fan of this chili; as he usually does with chili, his favorite way to eat it is to dip into it with tortilla chips.  Whether you eat it out of a bowl (or a Tupperware - this reheats wonderfully) or off a chip, just promise me you will give this chili a shot.  You don't have to love quinoa, you just have to love flavorful, delicious chili!

One note: this recipe is vegan, so it calls for vegan toppings like a sour cream made of cashews (I'm not going to post the recipe for that, but if you are interested, click the link to the original recipe!).  You can do that if you so choose, but feel free to stir in real sour cream and cheddar cheese!  I actually found that the chili didn't need any toppings, but top to your heart's desire.

Recipe:

vegan crockpot quinoa and black bean chili
from Jessica in the Kitchen
serves 4 - 5

Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups vegetable broth
1/2 cup uncooked quinoa
15-ounce can black beans
1/2 container 28-ounce diced tomatoes
1/4 cup chopped red bell pepper
1/4 cup chopped green bell pepper
1 shredded carrot
1/2 onion, chopped
2 gloves garlic
1/2 small chili pepper
2 teaspoons chili powder
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon oregano
1/2 cup corn kernels
optional toppings:
chopped avocado
chopped green onions
shredded carrot
cheddar cheese and sour cream

Instructions:

1) Add the broth, quinoa, black beans and tomatoes to the slow cooker.  Stir to combine.

2) Next, add the peppers, carrot, onion and garlic, and stir.  Then add the rest of the seasonings and stir a few times to combine.

3) Set the slow cooker to high for 2 1/2 to 3 hours, or on low for 5 - 6 hours.  For high, monitor the last 30 minutes, and for low, monitor the last hour.

Roasted Summer Vegetable and Rice Casserole

I am sorry to be posting a totally delicious recipe that calls for summer vegetables at the end of October.  I have a bit of a backlog of recipes that I am working on catching up on.  And back when I made this in early September, you could still find fresh, sweet corn and ripe tomatoes at the farmer's market or grocery store, and basil was still growing in Heidi and Jeff's garden.  Now?  We are just a few days away from the worst stage of fall: when all the leaves are down and the trees are bare and everything is brown and gray and ugly.  You certainly aren't going to find delicious summer vegetables waiting to be devoured.  Hmph.

Here's the good news, though: when you roast a vegetable, even if it is the not-so-wonderful non-summer variety, you make it the best that it can be.  The way I see it, most summer vegetables are best eaten raw or prepared simply: raw salted tomato slices, or boiled corn on the cob with butter and salt.  For the rest of the year, most veggies need a little help to make them fabulous, and roasting is quite often the best way to do that.  It makes everything sweet and complex and glorious.

Now let's talk about the rest of the casserole: it's cheesy and tastes indulgent, but it isn't, really.  The secret ingredient is cottage cheese, which I promise you can't even taste or find in there if you aren't a fan.  It's not such a heavy casserole as some cheese and rice ones, and I could even go so far as to say it is healthy (brown rice, only 2/3 cup Romano cheese, lots of flavor from things like garlic and dijon mustard).  You can add shredded chicken - I obviously did not - but I am sure the carnivores would like that.  Mark and I loved it just the way it was - he had thirds, if I am remembering correctly.  There weren't many leftovers for the work week, but it does reheat well.

So go ahead, go buy mediocre zucchini and tomatoes.  Buy frozen corn!  Roasting them will make everything okay.  And adding cheese and rice really makes everything okay, or better than okay, for that matter.

Recipe:

roasted summer vegetable and rice casserole
from Elly Says Opa

Ingredients:
2 medium zucchini, sliced into half-moons
1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes, halved or quartered
1 red bell pepper, sliced
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
2 cups cooked brown rice
2 cups cooked and shredded chicken (optional)
2/3 cup corn (cut from 1 - 2 ears or frozen)
2/3 cup Romano cheese, divided
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil, divided
3 eggs
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 cup cottage cheese
2 cloves garlic, minced
a little milk or chicken broth (optional)

Instructions:

1) Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.  Spray a 2 1/2 quart baking dish with cooking oil.

2) On one rimmed baking dish, toss together the zucchini and red bell pepper with 1 tablespoon of oil and salt and pepper to taste.  On a second sheet, toss together the tomatoes, remaining 1/2 tablespoon of oil, and salt and pepper.  Roast the zucchini/ peppers for about 20 - 25 minutes and the tomatoes for about 15 minuets.  Turn the oven down to 350 degrees.

3) Allow the vegetables to cool for a little bit, and then dice the pepper stripes into bite-sized pieces, and place all the vegetables in a large mixing bowl.  To the bowl, add the rice, chicken, corn, and 2 tablespoons of the basil.

4) In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, Dijon, cottage cheese, garlic, half the Romano, and salt and pepper.  Pour the mixture oven the rice and vegetables, stirring to combine.  If you think it looks a little too dry, you can add a little broth or milk (it should not be runny).  Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and cover with a  lid or foil.  Bake for 15 minutes, remove the foil, and bake for an additional 15 minutes until cheese is golden brown.  Rest for 10 minutes before serving, and top with the remaining 2 tablespoons of basil.