Peach and Blueberry Greek Yogurt Cake

Leaving the cake in my formal dining room might not have been a good idea as that's why I forgot about it until it had gone bad. All in the name of a slightly different backdrop for this picture. 

I like living in an area where I can go to a nearby farm and pick my own blueberries. Not that I've done that yet...but it's good to know I can when I want to. (Assuming it's blueberry season, of course!)

The blueberries and peaches for this cake came from our local farmer's market. Sometimes produce here surprises me. For instance, I'd expect good ole' midwest peaches to be huge but they're not. The store variety are small and even those from local farmers tend more toward the daintier size, as opposed to the huge, dripping with juice variety I'm used to in California.

I've wanted to make this cake for awhile but my craving has hit when the fruits weren't available. Finally, with Terri coming and with lots of blueberries and peaches on hand, I could satisfy my curiosity regarding whether a cake made with yogurt would actually taste good. It's not that I don't like yogurt but there's something about adding a somewhat healthy ingredient to cake that just seems wrong. Cake by it's very nature is meant to be ridiculously yummy but perhaps not so abounding in healthy attributes. Fortunately, this cake manages to be both tasty and, presumably, somewhat better for you than the normal cooked in oil variety. Also, it doesn't hurt that the finished product looks colorful and pretty. (Note: when your company leaves and you forget you still have some of the cake left...it does NOT look nearly as picture perfect a few days later when heat and air have caused a bit of mold to form on the pitifully caving-in cake.  This is definitely a dessert you should eat in a timely manner. Big helpings after dinner and for breakfast the next day would be my suggestion.)

Peach and Blueberry Greek Yogurt Cake
Recipe courtesy of Juliasalbum.com

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 oz. butter softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup Greek yogurt
2 peaches, sliced into wedges
6 oz. blueberries
1 teaspoon granulated sugar

Directions:
Use a 9x3 inch round springform pan

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, with rack in the middle. Grease the side and bottom of the pan with butter or cooking spray. Line the bottom of the springform pan with parchment paper. Grease the parchment paper too.

Stir flour, baking powder, baking soda, together into a medium bowl.

In a separate bowl, beat the butter, sugar and 2 eggs until very light in color and fluffy, 2-3 minutes on high speed. Add vanilla and Greek yogurt and continue beating until very creamy and light in color, for about 1 more minute.

Keeping the mixer speed on low, mix in the flour mix until combined. Do not overmix.

Transfer the cake batter to the springform pan. Top with sliced peaches, and scatter blueberries evenly on top of the spaces between the peach slices. Sprinkle the fruit with 1 teaspoon granulated sugar.

Bake until the cake turns golden and tester comes out clean in the center, about 1 hour, depending on your oven. Midway through baking, you can put some peach slices and extra blueberries on top of the cake for prettiness and return the cake to baking.

When the cake is done baking, let it cool (still in the baking pan) on a wire rack. After cake has cooled for about 40 minutes, release the cake from the pan. At this point, if the cake is cool enough, you can slide your hand under the cake and carefully remove the parchment paper, before placing the cake on a serving plate. Or you can leave the parchment paper attached.

Honey Mustard Chicken Salad with Bacon and Avocado

Do other people make detailed spread sheets listing all activities and meals for when guests come to stay with them? For me, it's either plan every detail to a somewhat obsessive degree or forego all advance thought  and wind up winging it. Middle ground...what's that?????

My friend Terri arrived today from San Diego, laden with luggage and a dream to be here for a thunderstorm. Her longing to see lightning and heavy rain mirrors when I'd go visit Tim and Joy or Emily when they lived in snow country and I didn't. Weeks before the planned trip, I'd be looking up weather conditions and getting all excited when snow was forecast. Inevitably all the reports would be SNOW! Lots of snow on lots of days. The closer the visit came, however, the more those predictions would change, such that by the time I was actually scheduled to arrive, all hope of seeing winter weather would have disappeared. Flash forward to now and Terri's hope of seeing a thunderstorm. Last week it sure seemed like we'd be having rain every day she's going to be here but today, not so much. She'll be lucky to see any kind of precipitation, much less the beautiful drama of thunder and lightning.  (I did, however, take her on a lightning BUG walk this evening. Over by the fourth hole, you can really see all the flickers of the soft yellow lights against the still darkness of the woods. It may not be thunder and lightning, but watching the woods shimmer and shine with tiny orbs of flickering light is a pretty enchanting sight to see.)

Regardless of what kind of weather she winds up experiencing for the few days of her her visit, I've got every minute planned as far as where we'll go, what we'll do, and which foods we'll eat along the way. Her arrival time this evening was 8:30 pm so I had a light dinner waiting for her, knowing she wouldn't have had much to eat on the plane. I'd planned to make popovers and then completely forgot, but she did get this salad, along with a biscuit left over from Cracker Barrel the other night.

I loved the tang of the honey mustard dressing mixed with all the salad fixings and, because the chicken marinaded in that same sauce, it also was nicely seasoned and very tasty. With the chicken, the bacon and the avocado, you do have a feeling of having eaten something a little more filling and substantial than just lettuce greens, yet the salad retains a nice light summery taste too. A keeper for the recipe files.

Honey Mustard Chicken Salad With Bacon and Avocado

Ingredients:
Dressing/Marinade
1/3 cup honey
3 Tablespoons whole grain mustard
2 Tablespoons smooth and mild Dijon mustard
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1-2 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon minced garlic
salt to season
4 skinless and boneless chicken thighs or chicken breasts

For Salad
1/4 cup bacon, trimmed of rind and fat
4 cups Romaine lettuce leaves, washed
1 cup sliced grape or cherry tomatoes
1 large avocado, pitted and sliced
1/4 cup corn kernels (I charred mine over an open flame)
1./4 red onion, sliced (I left this out as we would be eating this fairly late and I didn't want to go to bed with onion breath)

Directions:
Whisk marinade/dressing ingredients together to combine. Pour half the marinade into a shallow dish to marinade the chicken fillets for 2 hours, if time allows. Refrigerate the reserved untouched marinade to use as a dressing.

Heat a nonstick pan or grill pan over med. heat with about a teaspoon of oil and sear/grill chicken fillets on each side until golden, crispy and cooked through. Once chicken is cooked, set aside to allow to rest.

Wipe pan with paper towel. Fry bacon until crispy.

Slice chicken into strips and prepare salad with leaves, tomatoes, avocado slices, corn, onion strips, and chicken/

Whisk 2 Tablespoons water into the remaining untouched marinade/dressing and drizzle over the salad. Sprinkle the bacon over the top and season with a little extra salt and cracked pepper (optional)

Fried Green Tomatoes

Our farmer's market finally has some produce to sell, including green tomatoes. And that's a good thing because I've been hungering for  a walk down memory lane via a batch of fried green tomatoes. There's something about tomatoes in general that makes me think of the best parts of summer produce. I've always loved the taste of summer in foods from a garden, but certainly appreciate fresh produce more since moving to Parkville and living in a world where winter comes and nothing grows.

My mom and her mom could both whip up a perfectly spiced, perfectly breaded (do you call it breaded for tomatoes?) batch of fried green tomatoes, often using tomatoes freshly picked from the Joyces or Whitey and Rosetta's gardens.

The funny thing about this very real craving I've had is that I barely remembered what the dish would actually taste like. Both my mom and her mom could whip up a perfectly spiced, perfectly breaded (do you call it breaded for tomatoes???) batch of fried green tomatoes but as much as I remember loving what they cooked, I wasn't sure I held on to what a fried green tomato really tastes like. It's been that long.  I've had fancy sandwiches made with green tomatoes from places like Claire's on Cedros but adding all kinds of hipster other ingredients sort of dilutes the pure, simple glory of a freshly fried green tomato. I knew I was missing something, even if I didn't fully recall what it was.

My fried tomatoes barely had time to degrease themselves on a piece of paper towel before I was popping them in my mouth. I'd thought about preparing a simple remoulade sauce listed in the Magnolia Table cookbook but, once those tomatoes were looking up at me waiting to be eaten, I couldn't bear to change the simple perfection of eating them as they were, and as I remembered from the past. Some things are every bit as good as you'd imagined them to be and these fried green tomatoes fit that bill. Next week I might go get a new batch and actually make the remoulade sauce to accompany the tomatoes...but don't hold me to that promise.

Fried Green Tomatoes
(I halved this recipe)

4 large green tomatoes
2 eggs
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup bread crumbs
2 teaspoons coarse kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
vegetable oil for frying

1. Slice tomatoes 1/2 inch thick. Discard the ends.
2. Whisk the eggs and milk together in a medium size bowl. Scoop flour onto a plate. Mix cornmeal, bread crumbs and salt and pepper on another plate. Dip tomatoes into flour to coat. Then dip them into milk and egg mixture. Dredge in breadcrumbs to completely coat.
3. In a large skillet, pour vegetable oil (enough so that there is 1/2 inch oil in the pan) and heat over a medium heat. Place the tomatoes into the frying pan in batches of 4 -5, depending on the size of your skillet. Do not crowd the tomatoes - they should not touch each other. When the tomatoes are browned, flip and fry them on the other side. Drain them on paper towels.

Vanilla Ice Cream

I forgot that Brian also got to have his hand at cranking with Al 

And the best part was always the eating of the ice-cream

When your oven isn't working and you're busy looking up non-baking items to concoct, where else would you go but to ice cream recipes!? It's summer, with weather so hot and sticky that it just begs for lots of ice cream to be consumed. With plenty of recipes online, making up a batch (or two) of ice-cream  seems the only logical thing to do.

My cousin Becky was recently telling me about how when it came time to divide up her folks worldly possessions, the girls decided to split the famous Al Beckett ice cream maker between them. Since it would be rather impractical to actually tear down the components of the ice-cream maker and divvy out the pieces, they each take the WHOLE contraption for a period of time. And what a treasure that ice-cream maker is. It's somewhat awe inspiring to think of how many friends, family, and acquaintances have sat out on Al and Janet's back patios over the decades, waiting eagerly for that hand-cranked dessert to be dished out in bowls or on cones. I know it was always the highlight of my summers as a child  - waiting for an outdoor picnic and the promise of ice-cream so good it became legendary. I can still picture Al and an assortment of other family volunteers bending over that machine, often wearing their aggrieved "Beckett Face", and grumbling about some perceived wretched difficulty with this particular batch - yet always winding up with a bowl of summer delight. Somewhere in my stacks of photos to be scanned are precious memories of Tim and Emily helping crank out a batch one summer. Family heritage and history at it's delicious best.

The first ice-cream recipe I tried this summer was one of those Pinterest cheating versions that don't use eggs or a cooked base custard. The result wasn't awful but definitely tasted like a short-cut recipe. And who wants ice-cream that lacks that supremely creamy texture that makes your heart glad and your waist expand????   So, this is a very basic recipe but it does turn out nice and creamy with a true ice-cream texture. I'm going to readily admit that not cranking by hand does probably mean the overall quality of the finished product isn't quite as sublime as what I knew from my childhood, but this old lady isn't up for that kind of vigorous exercise so I'm happy to let Kitchen-Aid do the work for me.

Vanilla Ice Cream

Ingredients:
2 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
6 large egg yolks
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup whole milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions:
1. Fill a medium saucepan about half full with water and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Set a medium heat proof mixing bowl over the simmering water, making sure that the bottom of the bowl doesn't touch the water.
2. In the bowl over the simmering water, whisk together the cream sugar, egg yolks, and salt. Heat the mixture, stirring constantly to avoid scrambling the eggs, until it thickens enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon and registers 170-175 degrees on a candy thermometer, about 6-8 minutes.
3. Set a fine meshed sieve over a second medium heat proof mixing bowl and pour the custard mixture through the sieve into the second bowl. Remove the sieve and mix in the milk and vanilla. Stir the mixture for about 5 minutes, until cooled. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
4. Once the custard is thoroughly chilled, transfer the mixture to the freezer bowl of your ice cream maker. Freeze for 20-30 minutes, according to manufacturer's instructions, until the mixture is the texture of soft serve.
5. Transfer mixture to a freezer safe storage container and freeze for at least 2 hours or until it reaches the desired consistency.

Creamy Herb Chicken

Just this morning, Emily and I were talking about those times in your life when one minor catastrophe cascades into another and pretty soon you're convinced things will never get better and the sky is falling and maybe even God hates you. Well tonight, I'm having a tiny bit of that feeling and it's based on kitchen appliances.

Last week our oven broke. This is annoying because the oven is fairly new and, even in this disposable electronics era really shouldn't be giving out already. More annoying, however, is dealing with the service people. Just for an example - on the phone they asked for info on the oven such as make and model etc...and we provided that. After the appointment was set up, someone called a day or two later to verify that they would be coming out to work on our single oven. Which would be great, except we have a double oven. When told of this fact, the lady on the phone quickly let us know they wouldn't be able to service us as they only work on...you guessed it, single ovens. So now a different day and company had to be scheduled. Finally someone did show up, turned on the oven, acknowledged the fan was, indeed, not working (just as we'd told them on the phone, because the oven told us, via digital read out) and then broke the news that he would have to order the part and it wouldn't be here until the 19th. Really????? In this age of stuff showing up on your doorstep about 10 minutes after you order it online, how can it be that we will have to wait well over a week for a part? And why didn't he bring the part, based on the refrigerator diagnostics????? All aggravating questions.

As if the oven woes weren't enough,  tonight, I went to get something out of the freezer and noticed the interior of my freezer looked a throwback to the 60's, with ice forming all over every thing! We took the various frozen food out, cleaned off all interior pieces, and then put most of the foods back in. Tomorrow we'll know if that "fix" worked or if we're now looking at two relatively new appliances going on the fritz together. A cascade of first world disasters, if you will.

So, all that to say, I'm currently having to cook foods that don't require use of an oven. And, since it's going to be awhile before the part comes in and the oven is, hopefully, fixed, it looks like I better come up with a number of ovenless meals.

This was a good place to start as I had all the ingredients on hand. The chicken turned out moist and very well seasoned. I'd make this again - even if I had an oven that worked!

Creamy Herb Chicken

Ingredients
For the Chicken:
4 chicken breasts, pounded to 1/2 inch thick
2 teaspoons each of onion powder and garlic powder
1 teaspoon fresh chopped parsley
1/2 teaspoon each of dried thyme and dried rosemary (OR, you can use dried oregano and basil, if you prefer that taste)
salt and pepper, to season
For The Sauce:
4 cloves garlic minced
1 teaspoon fresh chopped parsley
1/2 teaspoon each of dried thyme and dried rosemary (Same note as above - you can substitute dried oregano and basil, if you prefer that taste)
1 cup milk or half and half (I used the half and half)
Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
1 teaspoon cornstarch mixed with 1 Tablespoon water, until smooth

Directions:
 Coat chicken breasts with the onion and garlic powders and herbs. Season generously with salt and pepper.

Heat 1 Tablespoon oil in a large pan or skillet over medium-high heat and cook the chicken breasts until opage and no longer pink inside (about 5 minutes on each side, depending on thickness). Transfer to a plate, set aside.

To the same pan or skillet, heat another 2 teaspoons of olive oil and saute garlic, with parsley, thyme, and rosemary, for about 1 minute, or until fragrant.

Stir in the milk (or cream), season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Bring to a boil. Add the cornstarch mixture to the centre of the pan, quickly stirring until sauce has thickened slightly. Reduce the heat and simmer gently for a further minute to allow the sauce to thicken more.

Return chicken to the skillet. Sprinkle with extra herbs if desired. Serve immediately.

Ice-Cream Cake Roll

Unfortunately, the only pic I got was blurry...sorry about that

Summer has definitely come to the midwest, with very warm temperatures to prove it. While the heat can be a bit oppressive I do love the season's thunderstorms (as long as they don't come accompanied by tornadoes!), and seeing lightning bugs come out at night. Looking out my window to so much green definitely boosts my spirits, as does the constant warbling of birds that can be heard. But, you know what best sums up summer? Ice-cream! When I was living in Tucson, Baskin-Robbins came to my neighborhood sometime in the 60's. I can still remember the excitement on Water Street as we waited for  opening day and then our amazement at the idea of one scoop of ice-cream costing sixty cents! What was this heresy, when you could go to Thrifty and get a cone for 10 cents????? We may have had some sticker shock but all the kids in the neighborhood still saved up their coins so we could walk down the street and be treated to 31-derful new flavors. This same store would wind up being my first place of employment at the tender age of 15. I can categorically state that scooping ice-cream for other people isn't nearly as fun as eating your own cones.

The minute I saw this recipe on Smitten Kitchen I knew I wanted to try my hand at creating an ice-cream log to celebrate summer. Overall, everything came together well but I did learn one lesson the hard (or soft) way. Deb tells you to use slightly softened ice-cream for the center of the roll. I got busy talking to Emily and probably let the ice-cream set a tad too long because as I rolled my cake, the ice-cream rolled right along with me...straight on out the end of the log. Consequently, there isn't nearly enough ice-cream inside my roll. The cake is still delicious and I find that if I just dollop a little extra scoop of vanilla on top, everything's all good! I didn't bother frosting this one but when I try this again, I'll definitely put some hot fudge on top.

Ice-Cream Cake Roll
Smitten Kitchen

Ingredients:
4 large eggs, separated
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
Heaped 1/8 teaspoon fine sea or table salt
Heaped 1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/3 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 tablespoons water
1/4 cup dutch-process cocoa, plus more for dusting
1/3 cup cake flour
Heaped 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 to 2 1/4 cups slightly softened ice cream of your choice
Powdered sugar, hot fudge sauce, whipped cream, sprinkles, or all of the above to garnish

Directions:
Heat oven: To 400 degrees F. Grease a 10×15-inch jelly roll pan with nonstick cooking spray or softened butter. Line pan with parchment paper and grease again. Dust with cocoa powder, knocking out any excess, and set aside.

Make the cake: Place the egg whites in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Beat on medium speed, until foamy. Slowly add the granulated sugar in a steady stream and continue beating until soft peaks form. Add the salt and cream of tartar and whip until stiff peaks form. Scoop into large bowl and set aside. (If you’re fancy and have two stand mixer bowls, you can just switch bowls.)

Place the egg yolks in now empty bowl of the stand mixer, still fitted with the whisk attachment. Whisk the yolks on high speed, slowly adding brown sugar, until thick and ribbony, at least 5 minutes. Add the vanilla and water and mix until incorporated. With a rubber spatula, gently fold the whites into the yolks in three additions.

Place a mesh sieve or sifter over the bowl and place cake flour, cocoa powder, and baking powder in it. Sift over batter, then gently fold the dry ingredients into the wet with a rubber spatula.

Gently spread the batter into the prepared pan, using an offset spatula or butter knife to smooth it. Bake for 5 to 7 minutes (yes, that’s it!), until the cake just begins to pull away from the sides of the pan and a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean.

Unmold cake and prepare to fill: [I always have to read this part twice.] Use a paring knife to make sure the cake isn’t stuck to any side of the pan. Sift cocoa powder over top of cake. Place a large (larger than the cake) dishcloth you don’t mind getting dirty over it. Place a cutting board or baking tray or cooling rack over the cloth that’s larger than the cake pan. Grab this board, the cloth, and the cake pan tightly together and flip the cake over, onto the cloth on the board. (The board just supports the cloth; its work here is done.) Lift your cake pan and it should unmold onto cloth. Gently peel the parchment paper off the cake. Use your paring knife to cut a thin edge (about 1/4-inch) off all sides of the cake; it’s easier to roll with softer edges. (My note: It's also nice to get an advance taste of that yummy cake.) Sift more cocoa powder over the back of the cake. Use the cloth it is on to roll it tightly into a spiral, within the dish towel. Rest on a cooling rack, seam side-down, until it reaches room temperature, about 30 minutes.

Assemble cake: Once cake is cool, gently unroll it. Spread inside of cake with slightly softened ice cream. I use a small scooper to drop dollops all over, and a small offset spatula or knife to smooth it. Work quickly so it doesn’t melt too much. Once ice cream is evenly spread, roll cake back up around it (minus the dish towel this time, but you can use it to help nudge cake into a coil). Wrap cake in plastic and freeze for at least 2 hours and preferably overnight, to re-firm the ice cream.

To serve: Decorate the cake as you wish. (I used a dusting of powdered sugar and colored sprinkles. Hot fudge sauce and whipped cream are never unwelcome.) Cut into thin 1-inch slices. Keep leftovers in the freezer, for as long as they last.