Simplest plum cake
I was down yesterday. Simply, humanly down. The world was all wrong, people bad, everything distorted. With the last spark of common sense I remembered the words of the Working Woman from "The 40year-old Guy" ( Polish cult film), that the best thing for troubles is plum cake. Naturally, in my state I was not up to making a yeast dough, so u took the easiest way out. Perhaps it was not as great as the yeast one, but after the first bite- it helped!
PS. And today, when the sun shines, it is a perfect combination!:-)
"Plum cake"
- 225 g flour
- 3 tsp baking powder
- 140 g sugar
- 90 g soft butter
- 1/2 glass of milk
- 1 egg
- canelle and sugar to sprinkle
- halved plums, with stones removed
Blend butter and sugar in the mixer, add the flour, baking powder, butter, milk, and the egg.
Butter the tin well, pour in the dough. Smooth and decorate with plums skin down. Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon. Bake for 40 minutes in 180 C. You may sprinkle with almonds towards the end of baking.
Apple liqueur
Yes, apples make for an excellent liqueur too. Not to mention the delicious seed liqueur, for which I've been collecting apple seeds for the past half year. Last autumn I prepared a fruit one and I have been enjoying this flavoured addition to coffee, or to any dessert, until today. The guests do not complain either:-)
"Apple liqueur"
- 1 kilo apples without stalks
- 1/2 litre vodka
- 1/2 litre brandy
- 1/4 litre spirits to boost taste (optional)
- 1/2 glass sugar and 3/4 glass water
- a stick of canella or two cloves, optional
Quarter the fruit or cut into smaller pieces, keep the seeds. Put them in a jar, add the different alcohols and leave, tightly closed, for about a month. You may add a canella stick.
After a month dissolve sugar in boiling water, leave to cool and add to the apple and alcohol mixture. Wait for another month.
Pour all into bottles and keep tightly closed for a few months. The longer the better. A good lesson of patience:-)
Potato and beans purée
How to smuggle an unpopular yet healthy dish to the plates of my boys so that they don't notice? You need to hide it in another dish, of course. I've been grateful since long to inventors of mixers and other kitchen robots, which simplified all the tiresome actions (which, by the way, used to integrate people forced to do them, such as creaming the eggs the traditional way;-) into pressing one button. But what was I going to write about?
Oh yes, how to hide beans in potatoes;-)
"Potato and beans purée"
- 1/2 kilo potatoes
- 250 g white canned beans
- 1 finely chopped onion
- 1 large garlic clove
- salt and pepper
- good olive oil
Boil the potatoes, without removing skin, until soft. Peel, add the beans. In the meantime fry onions and garlic in olive oil. Mix all together, add salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot as a side dish or on its own, for dinner for example.
Pear tart
My piano teacher told me to learn only left hand for revolutionary étude by heart. Left ONLY. That's worse than rote learning for three hands! Boring. Everything repeats with only small modifications and I am supposed to remember where. With the right dynamic, of course. So I prepared Bach. Apparently each lesson is to begin with Bach, like in this song;-)
I needed to get rid of this first impression so I baked a pear tart. It will help the lesson start smoothly, I hope:-)
"Pear and yogurt tart"
- 4 peeled pears, cut in halves and deseeded
- juice of one lemon
- 100 g sugar
- 2 tbsp butter
- 230 g wheat flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp powdered chilli
- 2 eggs
- 130 ml thick yogurt
- 140 g butter
- 150 g sugar
- vanilla flavour
Sprinkle the pears with lemon juice and cook in a pot with 2 tbsp of butter and 100 g sugar for circa 15 minutes.
Mix butter and sugar until smooth, add eggs, the other dry ingredients, flavour and yogurt.
Leave the pears to cool down, put in a buttered tin, pour in the rest of the caramel. Place the dough on top and put in a preheated oven. Bake for circa 50 minutes in 180-190 C.
Multicoloured semolina
My sons look down on me. In the physical sense of course... although who knows what they're thinking. Perhaps the taller the wiser? Lets let life itself verify it;-) Still, both of them come to me sometimes asking to cook semolina for them. Seems easy enough. Yet what are the perfect proportions?
"Multicoloured semolina"
Semolina
- 1/2 litre milk
- 4.5 tbsp semolina
- a pinch of salt
- tsp butter
To colour:
- yolk
- red fruit juice
- cacao
Start heating the milk, put semolina stirring continuously to avoid clusters and salt lightly. When semolina starts getting thick add a table spoon of butter to give it velvety flavour.
Yellow: take off the heat and add yolk stirring energetically to avoid clusters.
Brown: add cocoa and stir
Pink: pour in some juice and stir.
Seems so easy yet so much fun. I fed all my small eater cousins with such mixtures. I was only praying they would not ask for blue;-)
Pancakes with ricotta and courgette
Oh, I know that I am repeating myself. Privilege of old age;-) It is so nice though, when friends drop in for dinner! I wanted to prepare something relatively light so that they have room for the cake at dessert. I went along vegetarian path, which turned out a good choice. Not only the cake was appreciated, a small glass of lavender liqueur was too. It made a huge impression. So much so that I am not sure anyone will ask for it again;-)))
"Pancakes with ricotta"
- 300 g flour
- 1/2litre milk
- 3 eggs
- a few chopped mint leaves
- some chopped parsley
- 350g courgette cut in quarters along the length and sliced
- circa 400g ricotta
- 50g almond flakes
- salt, pepper
- 1 glass full cream
- grated cheese to sprinkle
Beat the dough together with the herbs. Leave to rest for half an hour. Fry fairly thin pancakes. On a separate frying pan fry the courgettes in butter, add ricotta and almonds, then salt and pepper to taste.
Place some filling on each pancake and form triangles. Put in a greased container, pour the cream on top and sprinkle with grated cheese. Bake all in an oven for 20 minutes and serve hot.
Chickpea soup
Funny how chickpea disappeared from our tables. When I serve it, everyone asks me what it is. I left one pea for demonstration purposes, what makes everybody laugh. The pea changes hands and is subject to careful analysis. ( It looks like a dry pea with a small tail). And? Still no one knows what it is. To tell the truth, I wouldn't either were it not for Anita's contagious passion for hummus.
"Chickpea soup"
- 1 glass chickpeas
- 2 litres water
- salt, pepper
- 1 branch of thyme, or better two
- 4 garlic cloves
- a jar of tomato purée
Soak the chickpeas in a pot of water during the night. Then cook until soft with 2 garlic cloves and a twig of thyme for nearly an hour. Take out the thyme and garlic together with a few whole peas for decoration later. Mix until smooth. In a small pan heat two tbsp olive oil, add two chopped cloves of garlic and a fresh thyme twig. Fry briefly and add tomato purée. Stir quickly as it tends to squirt! Take out the thyme and add the tomato pulp to the pot with pureed chickpea.
Serve with small pasta, then it is filling and tastes wonderful. Those on a diet may eat it without the pasta, decorated with a few entire peas and a basil leaf.
