Cauliflower Marranca

From the Moosewood. I made this recipe for a Sunday linner with friends. We ate it with sauteed zucchini and fresh bread and cubed watermelon. Delicious for the humid, slightly cool Rochester day.

Ingredients:

1 lbs. mushrooms, sliced
1 large onion, chopped

1 large head cauliflower in flower pieces

3 cups cooked brown rice or millet

2 1/2 cups grated cheese of your choice (I used 1/2 sharp cheddar and 1/2 pepper jack)

Directions:

1) Cook the rice.

2) Saute onion and mushroom in butter with juice of one lemon

3) Saute cauliflower with 3 cloves crushed with garlic, basil, salt and pepper

4) Combine everything. Bake, covered, 1/2 hour at 350F.

Serves 5-6.

Personal note: I want this dish to have sliced red bell pepper and paprika. I also would use the pepper jack cheese again, and did as S. (who helped me make this dish did) and leave out some of the mushrooms and cauliflower and put them on the top of the stirred mixture in the dish to create a more vegetably layer.

I think this dish would also work well for a winter evening.

Moosewood Noodle Kugel

Oh Moosewood. How I have missed you long these summer nights, when feasting from the freshness of the earth I have not had your recipes to guide my hand!

I'm back in Rochester and that means back to the Moosewood and my Vegetable Tuesday adventures. I'm easing back in. This recipe is one I tried last year but never blogged. It is easy and produces a simple, rich dish you can serve as a dessert or an entree. Once you've had a noodle kugel it quickly becomes a comfort food, something you can eat on cold or sad nights and feel warmth inside of your stomach and a little boost to the soul. I'm always surprised to find out that few people seem to have experienced kugel before, but I am always happy to introduce them to such a fabulous new food.

Ingredients:

4 cups raw wide flat egg noodles, boiled in salted water, drained, and buttered

3 eggs
1 1/2 cups cottage cheese
3/4 cup sour cream (or yogurt)
8 oz. cream cheese
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 cup honey
few dashes salt

2 medium cooking apples or 2 fresh, ripe peaches, sliced

1 cup bread crumbs
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 cup wheat germ
1/4 cup brown sugar

Directions:

1) Combine bread crumbs to brown sugar in a separate bowl and set aside as crumb mixture.

2) Combine eggs to salt in a blender and beat together until smooth.

3) Combine buttered noodles, egg mixture, and peaches together. Spread into a well-buttered casserole dish.

4) Top with the crumb mixture and dot with butter. Bake uncovered for 35 minutes at 375F.

5) Serve warm or chilled.


You can omit the sour cream and the butter on the noodles or on the top. The dish is plenty rich enough without it! You can also probably use neufchatel instead of cream cheese for a more low fat version. I like to use wheat noodles in this dish, I feel like it gives it a deeper, healthier flavor. You can also use different flavorings-- for this one I used almond extract and added some sliced almonds to the crumb mixture on the top.

Serves 6-8. Enjoy!

Coffee Cake

Breaking from my PBL-pie tradition, I got up a little early this morning to make a fresh coffee cake for my 8 am PBL group. What a hit! This recipe is a Matheson family classic that originates from the Better Homes & Gardens cookbook circa the 1970s. We girls used to get up early Saturday mornings and fight over who could make it for breakfast. I'm sure our parents loooooved that.

Ingredients:

Cake
1 1/2 C. all-purpose flour
1 C. white granulated sugar (can be reduced for a less sweet cake-- I prefer using 3/4 cup)
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. salt
1/4 C. yellow shortening
1 egg
3/4 C. milk

Topping
1/3 C. brown sugar
1/4 C. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. cinnamon (I like to add in additional spices: ginger, nutmeg, cloves)
3 tsp. butter

Directions:

1. Grease a 9 x 9 x 2 baking pan. Pre-heat the oven to 375F.

2. Mix the topping first by combining the brown sugar, flour, and cinnamon into a small mixing bowl. Cut in the butter using forks or a cutter until you have a uniform mixture. Note: if you use cold butter, you will get a crumbly topping that you can spread evenly on the cake and that will remain on the top of the cake while it is baked. If you use warm butter, you will get a thicker mixture that you have to spread out in clumps on the cake batter-- these clumps will fall into the cake during baking and produce a buttery/sugary strudel on the middle/bottom of the cake.

3. For the cake, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Add in the shortening and cut in with forks or a cutter until uniformly mixed into flour. In separate bowl, combine eggs and milk and mildly beat the eggs. Pour egg/milk into the flour mixture while stirring and stir until completely combined. Note: Do NOT overbeat. Stir JUST until flour and egg/milk are uniformly mixed.

4. Pour cake batter into greased pan. Distribute topping over the top of the cake.

5. Bake for 25-30 min. at 375F or until top is light golden brown and straw comes out clean.

NOTE: I usually make this recipe doubled and use a 13 x 9 x 2 glass baking pan. Baking time is a little longer, maybe 35 minutes.

Serve with fresh peaches and milk. :) Or just eat plain.

Coleslaw

I have never made coleslaw before in my life. I don't like coleslaw. I don't eat coleslaw. But my friend B. is putting on a big surprise bash for her missionary boyfriend who is leaving later this month, and asked for help with the cooking. I agreed to help and was assigned the coleslaw. And as Janie W. reminds, "Friends say When How Will Do and Done." And so it is. I slawed away.

First thing I did was look up on Epicurious for a recipe that fit the ingredients I was given by B. and the other things I had on hand. Also, I wasn't going to compromise and use a recipe that was second rate. If I am going to slaw, I am going to slaw well. I finally found a five-fork recipe that fit my ingredients. The original Epicurious recipe is given first, then how I actually made it. Note, I was cooking slaw for 75-80 people, and made two batches of the recipe given below.

Epicurious

Ingredients:

2 1/2 pounds cabbage, shredded
1 medium onion, chopped
1 large green bell pepper, chopped
1 large carrot, grated
1 1/4 cup mayonnaise
1/3 cup cider vinegar
2 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper

Directions:

Whisk together mayonnaise, vinegar, sugar, salt, and pepper. Pour over cabbage, onion, pepper, and carrot in one large bowl and stir until uniformly coated. Allow to chill at least four hours to give flavors time to combine.

Me

Ingredients:

3 pounds cabbage/carrot mix
1 medium red onion, chopped
1 large green bell pepper, chopped
2 packages grated carrot
1 3/4 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup (overflowing) apple cider vinegar
2 1/2 tsp. sugar
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
Generous dash white pepper
Two generous dashes ground cloves

Directions:

Same as above. Whisk white pepper and cloves in with the mayonnaise mixture.

I'm not sure what ideal coleslaw is really supposed to taste like, and it will be different when the flavors have commingled overnight, but I hope that this coleslaw is tasty... as tasty as a slaw can be.

(This was really quite easy to make. The real trick was fitting two huge catering tin foils of this in the fridge! Now that was a triumph.)