Lightly Lemoned Pound Cake with Mixed Berry Compote

So my husband wanted me to enter the Come For Dessert Contest sponsored by the Egg Council. I feel like you should have an item that is really your "thing" to enter a contest.  Recently I have started to make Pound Cake with Mixed Berry Compote, and it is starting to become my signature dessert. The compote is a great way to use up small amounts of berries, and whatever is in the freezer.

Lightly Lemoned Pound Cake with Mixed Berry Compote

1 c butter
3 c pure cane sugar
6 eggs
3 c all purpose flour
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 c plain greek yogurt or sour cream
juice from 1 lemon (about 2 Tbs.)
zest from 1 lemon (about 1 tsp.)
powdered sugar (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 325.
2. Grease and flour a tube pan or bundt pan.
3. In a bowl, cream butter. 
4. Gradually beat in sugar until light and fluffy, about 5-7 minutes. 
5. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. 
6. Combine flour, baking soda and salt.
7. Combine yogurt, lemon juice and zest. 
8. Add flour mixture alternately with yogurt mixture, beating until just combined.
9. Pour into prepared pan.
10. Bake at 325 for 70 - 80 minutes, until tester comes out clean.
11. Cool for 15 minutes, then remove from pan to cool completely.
12. Sprinkle with  powdered sugar, if you would like

Mixed Berry Compote

2 Tbs Lemon Juice
3 Tbs Butter
4 Tbs Brown sugar
3 cups mixed berries (blueberry, strawberry, raspberry, ground cherry)

Heat lemon juice, butter, and brown sugar until bubbly. Add berries, and stir.  Heat for 3 minutes, until it looks bubbly again. You can serve the compote hot or room temperature.  Let people scoop the compote over their slices of cake.

Did I mention it won 2nd place?

Poached eggs on a bed of braised greens

Greens and eggs are a delicious combination. We've made this with kale, collards, and spinach.  You can use leftover greens from last night's dinner, and have a quick, healthy breakfast.

Poached Eggs on a Bed of Braised Greens

1 bunch greens of your choice, tough stems removed, chopped coarsely
1 or 2 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbs olive oil
1/4 C water or stock
4 eggs

1. Heat olive oil in a large pan.  
2. Add garlic and the chopped greens, and stir fry for a few minutes until the greens are coated and bright green.
3. If the greens are not tender at this point, add water and put a lid on, turn down the heat, and let them steam for a few minutes. (Spinach will likely be done, but collards will probably need to steam.)
4. Make 4 little egg-sized wells in the greens. Put an egg in each of the wells, cover, and cook until the eggs are done the way you like them.
   

Perky Vegetarian Baked Beans in the pressure cooker or crock pot

Everyone likes baked beans. The are loaded with protein, vitamins, fiber. Even though the main ingredient, dried beans, isn't something you think about as being something you would grow, it's easy to do. So far, I have only saved dried beans for seeds, not as a food crop, but it is the same process. Let the pods dry on the plant. Remove the seeds from the pod. Store the seeds in a cool, dry place.

Even though the beans are most likely to be purchased from the store, you can still use your farm-grown produce.

This recipe is sweetened only with molasses and is way lower in sugar than most baked bean recipes. (You can substitute honey if you have it, or prefer the milder taste.) The flavor is perked up with the addition of onion, bell pepper, garlic, barbeque sauce and mustard.

Perky Vegetarian Baked Beans

1 pound dried pea or navy beans
1 chopped onion
1 chopped pepper
1 minced garlic
1/2 cup ketchup (homemade from your own tomatoes, if you can)
1/2 cup barbecue sauce (homemade from your own tomatoes, if you can)
1/2 cup molasses
1 tsp mustard
1 cup water

Cook the beans according to the pressure cooker directions (or the package directions).

Drain the beans and put them back into the pressure cooker. Add the rest of the ingredients and stir. Pressure cook for 6 minutes, then let the pressure release on its own. If your pressure cooker has a "keep warm" function, you can keep the beans on "keep warm" for many hours to let the flavors blend.

Or put the cooked beans and the rest of the ingredients in the crock pot, stir, and cook on low for 6 hours.

Puffed Oven Pancake

I've been making Puffed Oven Pancake as a weekend breakfast for years.  It's easy. It's child-friendly, It's delicious. It has no added sugar.  Most of the ingredients can be locally sourced.

Once when one of my husband's aunts asked him if I was a gourmet cook, he mentioned puffed oven pancake as an example of my culinary acumen. I was surprised.  A puffed oven pancake takes 1/2 an hour to make. This was the same week that I made a daffodil cake, which was also delicious and took several hours. This recipe is so simple it is almost cheating.

Puffed Oven Pancake

Ingredients

4 eggs
1 cup flour (any kind you like. I've used white, wheat, gluten free, and even rolled oats)
1 cup milk (dairy, or whatever non-dairy milk product you like)
3 Tbs butter (I have successfully substituted coconut oil)
1 or 2 apples sliced
cinnamon

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 450.
2. Melt the butter in a 10" iron skillet in the pre-heating oven.
3. While the butter is melting, put the eggs in a blender and blend at high speed for 2 minutes.
4. Add the milk and flour to the blender and blend for another minute.
5. Arrange the apples in the butter in the bottom of the hot skillet.
6. Pour the batter over the apples. Sprinkle with cinnamon.
7. Bake for 10 minutes.
8. Reduce the temperature to 350, and bake for another 10 minutes, until puffy and golden brown.

I was out of apples, the other day, and used frozen blueberries, sliced frozen strawberries, and sliced bananas.  It was delicious.  I've been meaning to try peaches, but oven season and peach season don't overlap much.

When the kids got a little older, I used 6 eggs, 1.5 cups milk and 1.5 flour.  That worked well, but the apples floated around in the batter, and it was a little harder to get it to look symmetrical.

Easy Egg Casserole

I love this recipe. Nearly everything can be sourced locally.  It uses up what vegetables you are harvesting at the moment. You can use up leftovers. You can bake it in whatever casserole dish is clean at the moment. (Yeah, I didn't wash the dishes last night. So shoot me.) If you like cheese, sprinkle some over the top before you bake it. If you like sausage or ham, add some in with the vegetables.

It's so easy and flexible.  The basic method: saute some vegetables, pour eggs over the top, bake.

Easy Egg Casserole

1 tsp olive oil or butter
1 medium onion, chopped
1 garlic, minced
2-4 cups chopped vegetables* of your choice
1/2 - 1 tsp herbs of your choice (thyme, basil, parsley are nice)
8 eggs
1/4 cup milk (or your favorite unsweetened milk-like product)

1. Saute the onion, garlic, and vegetables in the olive oil.  Add the herbs. 
2. Beat the eggs.  Add the milk, and stir until everything is uniform (or whatever).
3. Spray or butter a rectangular casserole dish.  I've used everything from 7"x11" to 9"x13" and it comes out fine.
4. Bake at 375 for 30 minutes or until set in the middle.

 * Here are some vegetable options:

• mushrooms 
• broccoli
• greens (spinach and kale are particularly good)
• leftover cooked potatoes (yum!), carrots, green beans
• grated raw carrots
• peppers
• summer squash

Here's another photo:

French Onion and Mushroom Soup

A new twist on on French Onion Soup! My husband bought a 50 pound bag of onions from the farm stand down the road. Needless to say, we are eating a lot of onions.  This is a fabulous way to use them. And if you don't have mushrooms on hand, make it without.

French Onion Soup with Mushrooms

2 very large onions  (about 1.5 pounds)
sea salt
8 ounces sliced mushrooms
1/4 C butter
6 cups stock (beef is traditional, but chicken or vegetable work as well)
1/4 C red wine
french bread
Swiss cheese

Cut the onions in half and slice thinly. Sprinkle the onions with sea salt, and saute the onions and mushrooms in butter in a stock pot over medium-low heat until the onions are very soft, 20-30 minutes. Add the red wine and stock. Simmer for 10 - 20 minutes. Toast slices of bread. Broil sliced Swiss cheese onto the toast.  Put the cheese toast in the bottom of the bowl and ladle the soup over the bread. Or float the toast on top of the soup.

Tortellini Soup

Here's how to make a delicious tortellini soup.

1 onion, chopped
8 ounces mushrooms, cut into chunks
1 clove garlic, minced
1 pound roma tomatoes, cut into chunks (or home canned)
1 Tbs. olive oil
6 cups stock (home made vegetable stock, if you have it)
1 package fresh tortellini
6 ounces baby spinach (you can also use chard or beet leaves)
3 Tbs fresh basil, chopped

Heat the olive oil in a soup pot.  Add the onions and garlic, and saute for a few minutes until they start to soften. (Okay, I just saute them while I am cutting up the mushrooms.) Add the mushrooms, and saute for a few minutes until they start to cook. (Or for however long it takes to chop the tomatoes.) Add the tomatoes, and stir until they start to soften.  Add the stock and bring to a boil. Add the tortellini. Let the stock come to a boil again, then simmer for 7 minutes.  Add the spinach and basil, and cook a few minutes longer until the spinach wilts.

Sprinkle some Parmesan cheese to serve, if you want.

This is a vegetarian version of a recipe that my daughter learned at cooking camp many years ago.