Pear-Walnut Mini Coffee Cakes

My husband’s first choice in cakes is easy so I am delighted to throw one together, almost any time, he wants one.  I do want to find some difference, as small as it might be.  His first request is that it should have nuts, the second, fresh fruit.  When, I came upon the pear-walnut cake, I knew this was going to be just right.  First, it was a sour cream cake which is usually more moist and delicious.  Then, it had the required ingredients.  It even had a luscious nutty topping as a bonus.

I got to have the first taste and I love it, too.  Although, my love for chocolate has not diminished, I am enjoying fruit desserts, more than ever.

Pear Walnut Coffee Cake

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Ingredients:

1/4 cup Canola oil
1/2 cup  sugar
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 egg beater
1 cup gluten-free flour mixture (I have been experimenting with KAF instead of making my  own.)
1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sour cream
1 large pear, peeled and sliced

NUT TOPPING:

1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons oil  (Canola)
1/2 c. walnuts, chopped

Topping:  Mix brown sugar, cinnamon, soft butter until well combined. Stir in 1/2 cup chopped walnuts.

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Beat in vanilla, then egg, beating until smooth.

Mix flour, soda, baking powder and salt.

Add to butter mixture alternately with sour cream, mixing just to blend after each addition.

Fold in pears.

Spread in a greased 8 inch square baking pan. Sprinkle evenly with nut topping..

Bake at 350 degrees 40 to 45 minutes or until top is well browned and cake tests done when a pick in inserted near center.

When cool, using medium sized cookie cutter, cut circles or flours and have mini cakes

Linked to It’s A Blog Party Tasty Tuesdays

The Ultimate Recipe Swap

What’s Cooking Today? has a wonderful giveaway and an opportunity to share your desserts.  It is called Delicious Desserts.  I am sure, we will see lots of those delicious desserts during the second half of this month.

Roasted Eggplant Soup with Goat Cheese – Rouxbe Cooking School

I knew this was going to be something new to both hubs and myself .  Although, we like eggplant in certain guises, we do not like it in all ways.  Hubby liked it mildly and I thought it was good.  Of course, I got the extra spices in my soup and he did not.  This is another recipe from Rouxbe Cooking School where I was given two weeks to explore from the Cooking Club.  This is a wonderful experience.  There is a plethora of information for any cook, new or experienced.  The recipes appear to be clear and interesting in terms of flavor and texture.

When I saw the recipe for the soup, I knew I had to try it.  It had tomatoes and onions which I love in soups.  This was an easy soup to put together.  It utilized both roasting and cooking on top of the stove.  There was little cutting up of vegetables. Actually nothing was more than halved.  My immersion blender was the hero though.  It just whizzed those ingredients together to make a creamy soup.  I topped this with goat cheese which melded into the soup for wonderful flavor.  I kept adding more and more goat cheese.  I could have dunked it, I liked it so much with the soup.  

Again, I am not giving away the recipe.  It is not mine to share.  I am listing the ingredients that went into it to give you a better idea of what it was like.

tomatoes, halved

eggplant, halved lengthwise

small onion, halved

cloves garlic, peeled

vegetable oil

chopped fresh thyme

chicken broth   (I used vegetable broth)

heavy cream

crumbled goat cheese

salt and pepper to taste

I have copied another two recipes to try out and I will let you know what I think.  I am indebted to Rouxbe Cooking School.  Maybe, someday, I will be able to sign up.  I hope so.  I have so much to learn and that seems like a fabulous place to do it.

Just as an aside, looking at their short videos on different subjects such as cooking rice and chopping onions can teach most of us something new.  I was glad to find out that I was cutting onions correctly.  I learned a lot about different kinds of rice and since hubby is gluten-free, it is a great help to understand more about the rice, we eat so often.

I still have a few days left to explore although I simply do not have the time.  Teaching is a full-time job and not a place you check in and out of.  The children are with me, in my thoughts, so much of the time.  I am blessed to have the honor of teaching them. Oops, I did get off the subject.

Here is the soup: 

Before Immersion Blender Goes to Work

Linked to MyCulinary Creations, Soup Event.

Rouxbe’s Online Cooking School and Chocolate Chip Cookies

Lucky me received an offer of two free weeks of online learning at Rouxbe’s Cooking School.  I am impressed and if I had the time and extra money, I would sign up in the blink of an eye.  This is a place to master one’s old skills and open doors for new ones.

Although lessons are assigned immediately, I am guilty of browsing, looking at a little bit here and more over there.  There is so much to learn and the only way to find this out is to know what we do not know.  I am finding out there is a lot waiting for me to conquer.

Many of you know of my quest for the perfect chocolate chip cookie and I have been adamant since the beginning that nothing beat King Arthur’s Flour recipe.  Cookies are a matter of choice….chewy, thin, fat, crisp, soft, etc.  There are so many variations, it is hard to hit the perfect one.  Until today, I thought the closest I could come to my dream chocolate chip cookie was KAF.  I believe it was Nigella who came a close second.

Now, I have to re-evaluate.  I made Rouxbe’s chocolate chip cookie and it was everything I could ask for.  Using my oven with its unique quirks, I would shorten the baking time by a minute.  I like them just baked, still pale looking. My cookies were in four batches, the first being the slightly darker than golden.  The second batch was perfect, just done but still soft and chewy.  They were both competition for KAF and perhaps they are the winners.

I have to make both of these again, side by side and have a few people take the taste and texture test.  I am not sure who would win.

I don’t think it would be proper to share the recipe here.  Rouxbe is nice enough to give me two weeks, I think I should keep their recipes private.  I am happy, I found these cookies.  It will be interesting to see what my class thinks of them.  They are good judges although they tell me, everything I make is good.

The  melting of the butter (I used margarine so not to have dairy cookies) before hand is a new trick for me.  Also the use of Fleur de Sel, which I did not have but could only make it better, is another difference.  The cookies were baked at 325 degrees which I think is lower than I usually use.  Whatever the method, it worked.

I used my teaspoon cookie scoop which needs less cooking time than most cookies which call for a larger size.   Also, these did not spread very much.

Menu Plan Monday

Last week did not go too well.  I probably made half the meals planned.  Certainly, it was nice having dinner brought in since we do that, rarely.  I had to have a tooth extracted to get the treat.  Generally, we do not enjoy eating out or I should probably say, my husband doesn’t.  There are no kosher places, locally that have an awareness of gluten-free cooking and trust is hard to come by, in such a situation.

There is one restaurant, we had gone to, which proudly proclaimed that they had a parallel gluten free menu.  That was not true, as starters and my husband got as sick as a dog after eating their gluten free food.  It might be that he just had a virus or something else causes his misery but I would not go back to that restaurant.  As a result, he would rather bring my food in and take leftovers or something from the freezer.

That threw my schedule off as did, coming home, one night too exhausted to put any effort into cooking.  I dug up something and we managed to eat but it was another meal out of the plan.

I hope this week works out better.  I like my new recipes.

Sunday – Pasta with Tomato and Mozzarella

Monday – Roasted Eggplant Soup

Tuesday -  Tomato Temptation

Wednesday - Creamy Penne with Salmon, Spinach and Goat Cheese

Thursday – Tomato Soup with Rice

Friday – Mushroom Latkes and Turkey Loaf

Saturday – Chulent

Wishing everyone good eating this week and every week.

Pear Coconut Family Cake – Baking with Dorie

This week, the Baking with Dorie (BWD) group made one of our favorite cakes.  I first made it with apple with Tuesdays with Dorie and you will find it here at My Sweet and Savory.  I have photos below.

This time, I wanted to make a difference so I made it with pears and it was just as yummy as the first time.  The smart lady who picked out this treat is our very own Mia from Bright Morning Star. If you want to see photos filled with joy, each and every one of them, go on over and enjoy.  The warmth that is spread there is huge.

I made it, right before dinner, so I never got to put glaze on it and the glaze can make a difference.  It is an extra that does it right.  On the other hand, we loved it this way.  I still have a piece or two.  I am thinking of glazing them and checking out which is really better.

Apple cake below before and after baking.

Linked to Tasty Tuesdays

Pan Sauteed Corn and Tomatoes – Poor Girl Gourmet

I have made the combination of corn and tomatoes before and the dish was one, we really liked.  Of course, I would make another featuring the same main ingredients.

This wins for the easiest recipe to make and yet it excels as a side dish.

Pan Sauteed Corn and Tomatoes adapted from Poor Girl Gourmet

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

2 cups corn kernels

1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes

kosher salt

ground black pepper

Method:

Heat olive oil in skillet and fry onion.  (I wanted a crisp onion, browned and even slightly overcooked.  I love them, this way.)

Add corn and cook for two minutes.

Add tomatoes and cook for another 3 minutes.

Remove from eat and add salt and pepper to taste.

Top with shaving of basil.

This is an easy dish that tastes just right.Linked to Decidedly Healthy or

Vanilla Ice Cream —- CSN Review

The first time, I made ice cream, I discovered that I had never really had ice cream before.  The store-bought does not come close to home-made.  When, I made the chocolate marshmallow ice cream, I used the custard method.  This time, I was in such a hurry to use my new Ice Cream Maker (Cusinart), I made the simple method from the Cusinart recipe book.

CSN had asked me to review one of their items.  It is a great challenge to pick one item from their over 200 stores but I managed to do the.  This is the kind of challenge, I could manage daily.

For the longest time, I have been mumbling about getting an ice cream maker but deep down, I did not mean it.  It is one of those gadgets that would be nice to have but why when we hardly eat ice cream.  I also could not imagine where to store it.  Still can’t.

I spoke to Shirley from GFE, a source of all information.  If you have a question about almost anything, go seek out Shirley.  She also has the greatest GF site where you can learn all you need to know about a gluten-free diet.  I went to Shirley about ice cream machines and she gave me badly needed guidance but I still hesitated to get that machine.

This time, I jumped right in and ordered it.  I did not think twice.  The Review gave me the excuse to get it and then live with the lovely consequences.  The machine is easy to use.  It took no time at all to get the cream beaten to the right consistency and the wait for it to harden a little was not bad, less than two hours.  Of course, we ate it soft but formed, immediately.  If you know what kvell means, that is what we did.  We filled ourselves and kvelled. (to be extraordinarily pleased).  It was as if we adopted this wonderful machine.  My husband who has been telling me, for a year now, he doesn’t like ice cream can’t stop raving about fresh ice cream.  Yes Cuisinart gets our vote, thanks to CSN.  Also, a big thank you to Cameron, the rep who led me through this and was a support and guide.

Simple Vanilla Ice Cream – Cuisinart

Ingredients

1-1/2 cups whole milk

1-1/8 cups granulated sugar

3 cups heavy cream

1-1/2 tablespoons pure vanilla extract

Method:

In a medium mixing bowl, use a hand mixer on low-speed to combine the milk and granulated sugar until the sugar is dissolved, about 1 to 2 minutes.

Stir in the heavy cream and vanilla.

Turn the machine on; pour the mixture into freezer bowl, and let mix until thickened, about 20 to 25 minutes. The ice cream will have a soft, creamy texture. If a firmer consistency is desired, transfer the ice cream to an airtight container and place in freezer for about 2 hours. Remove from freezer about 15 minutes before serving.

By the way, you can also make yogurt and sherbet with this machine.  I will be busy for a while, I would think.

Linked to Sweet Sundays Gratistuesdays and Works for Me Wednesdays What’s On Your Plate? Sundae Scoop   Southern in My Heart Not Baaaad Sundays Remodeloholic Mommy’s Kitchen

There is a new group to challenge anyone who wants to join in.  Each month, we select something that we are taking on as a new challenge.  I have my list of “afraid to do’s” and that is what I am going to work off of.  Immediately, I thought of pie crust for sometime in the future. This month, I did ice cream and I hope you all saw how excited I was about making real ice cream.  That was the first time making ice cream in a machine and it felt pretty good.  I hope some of you will want to join in, the fun.

Menu Plan Monday – Poor Girl Gourmet Recipes

I have the cookbook, Poor Girl Gourmet – Amy McCoy.  The recipes are varied and I like the ingredients used.  I decided, I would use as many recipes as possible, for this week’s menus.  I adapted some of the recipes, substituting an ingredient I use for others.  I will put a PGG next to recipes from the book.

Monday- Sunshine Soup (Nigella) and Pea Puree Lasagnanette  PGG

Tuesday  -  Butternut Squash in Maple Cream Sauce  PGG

Wednesday – Honey Balsamic Turkey Cutlets  PGG & Pan Sautéed Corn and Tomatoes   PGG

Thursday – Harvest Salad with Honey Balsamic Dressing PGG & Sweet Sausage with Apple  PGG

Friday – Chicken in Spicy Orange Sauce   PGG

Saturday  – Chulent

Sunday – Spanish Rice with Sole or Flounder

Paris Mushroom Soup FFwD

We are back to a regular schedule at French Fridays with Dorie (http://www.frenchfridayswithdorie.com/ – linky is not working, for the moment.)and the selection, this week, is a warming mushroom soup.  It is the second mushroom soup, I have made this week, the first being from Ellie Krieger.  There is supposed to be a mushroom salad, as well, but we have had enough mushrooms for one week.

This was almost too simple with accessible ingredients and nothing particularly time-consuming, my kind of recipe.  In these crisp cold days, we have been experiencing, soups are just right.  This one certainly does the job of giving one a feeling of well-being.

After the cooking is completed, I used the immersion blender to smooth out the soup although we like some texture, so I did not aim for real smooth soup.  It turned out to be just the right texture and taste.  This is another Dorie WINNER.

Go  on over to French Fridays with Dorie and see what we will be cooking.  I bet, some of you will join in with us and become French cooks.

 

Beef and Mushroom Barley Soup CEiMB

Craving Ellie in My Belly CEiMB

Beef and Mushroom (Rice) Soup

Hosted by the lovely Jennifer of the Rookie Baker

I have two mushroom soups to make, this week, and I am sure it will be interesting to compare the results.  I have not looked at Dorie’s yet and I am looking forward to it.

This recipe was, an easy one.  I did not have the specified meat but used some thin beef steaks.  Everything else was available and went smoothly.  Whiile, I was sitting, at the table, chopping away,  I realized how tranquil, the world appeared.  Chopping does that to me.  It completely calms me and even the obnoxious broadcaster on the radio could not shake me.

I subbed rice for the barley.  I meant to cook the rice in vegetable broth and remembered after I was cooking it in water.  I am sorry about that because my soup was not tasty.  Granted, I  use little salt and pepper but this did not call for much seasoning.  Next time, I would add some vegetable broth to the soup, as it is cooking.  I prefer creamed mushroom soup and thought about adding some Rice milk but decided to follow Ellie’s lead.  Next time, I would adapt this to a cream soup.

I am sure, I did something wrong along the way but I admit, this was the first Ellie recipe that did not leave me cheering. That is a pretty good record for her recipes.