Italian Squash and Olive Oil Cake with Toasted Walnuts

Since we have been home (3 weeks now) we have been non-stop busy. We have been entertaining as well as visiting with friends, both old and new, I have started teaching cooking classes again, and I have been very busy with the church, plus all the other everyday things that need to be done. I like being busy. For the most part, it keeps me out of trouble, although, rest assured, I can always find trouble; or it finds me. 🙂

We were invited to some of our new friends’ house for a light afternoon gathering after church on Sunday, and I was always taught you never show up empty handed. True to my teachings, I did not. I brought dessert.

As you know, I am always looking to try new recipes. I am open to trying anything and everything too. This time, my new recipe was another olive oil cake, made with squash and toasted walnuts. It was from one of my Italian cookbooks, which was a perfect fit for what we had for our meal.

The recipe called for zucchini. I was sure I had zucchini, but of course when I was looking for it, I could not find it. I did find yellow crookneck though, which worked just fine. Naturally though, once my cake was made, I found that indeed I did have zucchini after all. Murphy’s law in action. So note that when making this cake, either or both zucchini or yellow crookneck will work just fine for this recipe.

Italian Squash Cake with Olive Oil and Toasted Walnuts

The Cake

1 cup walnuts

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ginger

1/2 tsp nutmeg

3 eggs

1 3/4 cups sugar

1 cup extra virgin olive oil

either 2 tsp vanilla or 1 tsp vanilla and 1 tsp lemon balsamic vinegar or lemon extract

2 1/2 cups or 2 small squash, either zucchini or yellow crookneck, or a combination

Toast the walnuts and chop into small pieces. I usually toast my nuts on top of the stove in a dry skillet, but you can also toast them in the oven as well.

Preheat the oven to 350* F or 180* C.

Spray cooking oil into a bundt cake pan and then lightly dust with flour.

Grate the squash in the food processor or with a grater.

Mix all the dry ingredients together well and set aside.

Combine the eggs, olive oil and sugar together and mix until light and fluffy. Then add the vanilla and/or lemon balsamic vinegar or lemon extract. Because I have this wonderful lemon balsamic vinegar, I am experimenting with it in many different ways. It came out great in this cake. Then add the dry ingredients slowly and mix again. I like to add my dry ingredients in batches and mix in between each addition. Make sure you scrape down the sides of the bowl after each addition too. When the batter is done, gently fold in both the walnuts and the grated squash.

When everything is combined, evenly spread the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 50-60 minutes, or until the cake is evenly browned and a toothpick inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean.

When the cake is completely cooled, remove it from the pan and drizzle the glaze on top.

The Glaze

1/4 cup lemon juice

1/3 cup sugar

1 cup powdered sugar

All that is left to do now is to enjoy it with friends and/or family. !Buon Appetito!

Life is short. Always make room for family, friends and desserts. Stay safe and stay well Everyone. ‘Til next time.

Pasta with Sausage & Peppers – Creole Style

I am backtracking a bit on this, since I made this right after we got back from Cozumel. But we have been very busy every since our return home, and I was busy sharing our trip and and our adventures with our friends. Now, it is back to my own cooking again for awhile. I’ll start off with some easy stuff. 🙂

I love sausages of all kinds and we love sausage & peppers too. This time though, I did it a little differently, and made it Creole style. By that I mean I made it with Andouille sausage and some spicy Creole sauce. Before we left, I had made some chicken and vegetable kebabs, and I still had some of the marinated vegetables that needed to be used, and used quickly before going bad. So I turned them into sausage and peppers.

This dish was very easy to make and very tasty, which is my kind of meal.

I added the rest of my marinated peppers and onions, along with some mushrooms, garlic and a jalapeno to my Andouille sausage. I also had a little of my herbed-tomato vinaigrette along with some Creole seasonings that I used for my sauce.

Then I let it all cook down for a bit and served it all over some mini farfelle pasta with a little Mozarella cheese added on top and some warmed ciabatta, and voila! Dinner was done.

I love it when I can creatively use up my leftovers to come up with something totally new and different. I also love it when it is easy-peasy to make too.

Enjoy your day, stay safe and stay well Everyone. ‘Til next time.

A Jelly of a Time

The other day I mentioned that Julia and Bruce dropped off a ton of grapes Lots and Lots of Grapes.

Besides the grape and olive oil cake I made I also made some grape jelly, and I still have more grapes to use. I have not yet perfected my jelly-making procedures, but I am working on it. I am most definitely a work in progress on this one. Believe it or not, this is the first time I have ever even attempted to make jelly.

I followed two different recipes and I am still not completely happy with my jelly. I took bits and pieces from both. They were very similar, but one said to use pectin and the other did not. Even I knew, as the novice, that you needed to use pectin to make it set. But I did like adding the lemon juice to cut down on the sweetness from that recipe. After two attempts though, using both dry and liquid pectin, my jelly still did not set completely. So back to the kettle, to boil it down yet again, adding even more pectin, in hopes of my jelly jellying. So I am just tweaking the process, but the rest I think I have figured out. The flavor is really good though. I am giving you the combined recipe. I hope you have better luck than I did. And if you do, please share your methods. I love to learn new things.

Homemade Grape Jelly

3 1/2 lbs grapes, stems removed

1 cup water

3/4 cup of sugar per each 1/2 lb of grapes or about 7 cups of sugar

2 TBSP lemon juice

1 tsp course salt

4-6 oz pectin, dry or liquid

In a large kettle or cooking pot, cook the grapes with the water over high heat and bring to a rapid boil. Then reduce the heat to a simmer and continue to cook for 10 minutes. Gently mash with a potato masher a few times.

Remove from the heat and and strain in either cheesecloth or in a double strainer with a very thin mesh. Let the grapes drain overnight to get all the juice out. When done, throw away the seeds and skins.

Once you have your juice, add the sugar, a pinch of course salt, and lemon juice and bring to a rapid boil.

Add the pectin and bring back up to a rapid boil and continue to boil for about 1-2 minutes. Skim the foam off the top and discard. I tried both the liquid and the dry pectin. I preferred the dry pectin. It is like working with cornstarch. Let it come to a rapid boil before pouring it into the jars.

When the liquid is ready, pour it into sterile jars and place the jars in a bain marie or a water bath of boiling hot water and let set for 5 minutes. Then place the lids on the jellies and seal tightly. Your jelly should set up nicely and will be ready to use after it sets completely.

Because I had never made jelly before, I followed these recipes exactly, and my jelly never completely set, although it is much better after the second boiling. I am going to have to go through the boiling and pectin process yet again. But at least now I know what I have to do. My moral of the story, don’t follow the rules. Make them up as you go. 🙂

Stay safe and stay well Everyone. ‘Til next time.

Another Cooking Class

Chef Jeanne has been busy with a new cooking class once again. I put on my professional gear once more and taught another cooking class to a new student, Noah.

Noah wanted to learn how to make steak burritos, with salsa and guacamole. OK. Easy-peasy. That’s exactly what we did too. I brought all the ingredients over to Noah’s parents’ house, and we went down to his little studio apartment and made some steak fajita burritos.

We marinated the steak, peppers and onions in lime juice, salt, pepper and cumin first. While the steak was marinating, we then made out pico de gallo.

Noah is a very quick study. I showed how how to properly use his knife and how to cut all the ingredients, and off he went.

We did a quick and easy version for everything. We were on the clock and time was limited. Noah had a piano lesson directly after our cooking class, and he wanted to taste his creations before his next lesson.

Once the pico de gallo was made, we used some of that in our guacamole as well. I do that all the time. We just added it to our smashed avocados and mixed it all together. After all, they are the same basic ingredients. We also added some more lime juice and green onions to the guacamole. You can use either lime or lemon juice, but I prefer lime juice.

When the pico do gallo and the guacamole were finished, it was time to grill our meat and peppers. We had to grill them in small batches because we were cooking everything on a tiny George Forman grill. This was a new concept for me, but everything turned out great and Noah was very happy with the end results. And that is really all that matters. It is all about “customer satisfaction”. 🙂

Noah did a great job. He was having a lot of fun. He also had enough leftovers to enjoy the fruits of his labors for a least a couple more burritos later on too.

I found out later that Noah was wearing his Karate outfit to look more like a chef. I love his enthusiasm and his sense of humor.

It doesn’t take much to put a smile on someone’s face, and once you do, it is a priceless gift. Enjoy your days and help others to enjoy their days too. Stay safe and stay well Everyone. ‘Til next time.

Nature Walks – It’s Finally Fall

I never want to inundate you all with post after post after post, but it is so hard for me not to share things with you all, especially when I have so many good things I want to present.

I love Fall. It is my favorite season of the year. I love the changing of the colors and the cool crisp air. And now, it is here. It is finally Fall! Our trees are beginning to change their colors, but so far this year, our colors are more subtle and are not as vibrant as they usually are. That’s OK. Everything is still beautiful. We have a lot of golds and yellows, but not so much of the oranges and reds this year.

Not only are the colors of the trees changing, but I have noticed a changing of the birds as well, though, so far, they have been rather elusive and hard to capture with my camera. The geese are out in droves again, as they usually are.

I even saw another slippery little fellow, that I would have much preferred NOT to see. It is late in the season for snakes, yet this is the second one I have seen in just a week’s time. The first one was a tiny baby snake, most probably a bull snake, though it had a rectangular head and could have very easily have been a rattler too. We do have plenty of them in our open space. I did not get a picture of him. I did however get a picture of this garter snake slithering across the pavement. I quickly changed directions, and headed the other way. I DO NOT like snakes of any kind!!!!!!