Pear Cake

Note that, for this to be any good, you must use proper canned pears. Do not go to the grocery store and buy flavorless so-unripe-they-are-crunchy canned pears. Ever. Nothing good can come from that.

Cake Ingredients:

1 quart of home-canned pears (in light syrup, ideally).
1.5 cups of (granulated white) table sugar
3 eggs
1/4 cup oil
1/2 cup milk
2.5 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. soda
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. allspice
2 tsp. vanilla flavoring or extract
1/2 cup golden raisins (optional)

Glaze Ingredients:

all the juice/syrup from the pears
plus any excess blended pears (see instructions)
1/2 cup sugar
2 TBSP cornstarch
1/4 tsp. pear extract (optional)
2 tsp. vanilla (optional)

Instructions:

Open the pears and pour the juice off into a saucepan, allowing the pears to drain well. (Not only do you want the juice for the glaze, you also don't want too much liquid in the cake.) Place the pears themselves in the blender and puree them, then divide the results: use up to 2 and 7/8 cups of the pear puree for the cake and whatever remains (if any) in the glaze. (If there isn't any pear puree left for the glaze, that's ok. The juice is enough.)

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Combine the larger portion of the pear puree with the sugar and eggs and beat until foamy, then beat in the oil and milk. Stir the dry ingredients together and then add them to the pear mixture. Beat until smooth. Fold in the raisins (if desired). Pour into a bundt pan. Bake at 350F for about 50 minutes (depending on your oven). When it's almost done, start the glaze (below). Let the finished cake cool in its pan for 5-10 minutes, then invert it onto a plate. Spoon glaze over the top while they are both still hot. If you get the top of the cake coated and a decent amount dripping down the sides and there is still glaze left, it can be spooned over individual slices while it lasts.

Glaze Instructions:

To make the glaze, combine the pear juice, the remaining pear puree (if any), the 1/2 cup of sugar, and the cornstarch in the saucepan. Stir and bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring frequently, until it thickens up. When you are just about ready to spoon the glaze over the cake, stir in the extract.

Peach Cake

I had previously mentioned, when I posted my cherry cake recipe, that I was working on a peach variant. Today I had the opportunity to fine tune it, and I believe I finally got it right. It's a bit more bland than the cherry, but you'd expect that: peach is not such a smack-you-in-the-face flavor as cherry, nor would you really want it to be, I think. In my opinion, the peach has just the right amount of flavor for peach.

Note that, for this to be any good, you must use proper canned peaches. Do not go to the grocery store and buy flavorless crunchy picked-green canned peaches. Nothing good can come from that.

So, without further ado, the recipe for peach cake:

Ingredients:

1 quart of home-canned peaches (in light syrup, ideally).
1.5 cups of (granulated white) table sugar
3 eggs
1/4 cup oil
1/2 cup milk
2.5 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. soda
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/8 tsp. ginger
2 tsp. vanilla flavoring or extract

Glaze Ingredients:

all the juice/syrup from the peaches
about 1/2 cup of the blended peaches
1/3 cup sugar
1 TBSP cornstarch
1/4 tsp. almond extract (optional, or vanilla)

Instructions:

Open the peaches and pour off the juice into a saucepan, allowing them to drain well. (Not only do you want the juice for the glaze, you also don't want too much liquid in the cake.) Place the peaches themselves in the blender and puree them, the divide the results: use about 2 and 7/8 cups of the peach puree for the cake and the remaining half cup in the glaze. (The amount that goes in the cake is the critical measurement; if the glaze gets shorted a little or gets a bit extra, that's okay.)

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Combine the larger portion of the peach puree with the sugar and eggs and beat until foamy, then beat in the oil and milk. Stir the dry ingredients together and then add them to the peach mixture. Beat until smooth and pour into a bundt pan. Bake at 350F for about 50 minutes (depending on your oven). When it's almost done, start the glaze (below). Let the finished cake cool in its pan for 5-10 minutes, then invert it onto a plate. Spoon glaze over the top while they are both still hot. If you get the top of the cake coated and a decent amount dripping down the sides and there is still glaze left, it can be spooned over individual slices while it lasts.

Glaze Instructions:

To make the glaze, combine the peach juice, the remaining half cup of peach puree, the 1/3 cup of sugar, the cornstarch in the saucepan. Stir and bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring frequently, until it thickens up. When you are just about ready to spoon the glaze over the cake, stir in the almond extract.

Monster Cookies

We (the Galion GBC) are hosting a Music Festival (for several churches) on Sunday night, and we (my family) are signed up to bring AT LEAST a gross of cookies, and preferably more.

It's at times like this that you bust out your bigger recipes.


This is one we picked up from Norma Engelberth, when we were at Sidney. (Actually, this is only half of her recipe, believe it or not. We've been known to cut this in half again when not making for a big crowd, but today I'll be doing this whole amount at least, and then probably making a big batch of some other kind of cookies to boot.)

6 eggs
2 1/2 cups brown sugar
2 cups white sugar (mom's note says 1 1/2 cups is enough)
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract (or 1 TBSP imitation)
1 TBSP light corn syrup (Karo)
4 tsp soda
1 cup margerine, softened
2 1/2 cups crunchy peanut butter
9 cups oatmeal
1 bag (14 oz.) chocolate chips (or more)
1 lg. bag (14 oz.) color-coated chocolate candies (e.g., M&M)

If you like you can also throw in some raisins, or small bits of other dried fruits, or whatever kind of nuts you like (broken up), or additional small bits of candy (e.g., cinnamon candies).

(You may note with dismay that I have neglected to list the flour, but that's not an oversight. This recipe is all about the oatmeal. And the peanut butter.)

Mix in the above order. Drop 2 TBSP scoops on teflon cookie sheets, about 4 inches apart. (Where possible, try to avoid having the M&Ms on the bottom of the cookies, since they burn pretty easily against the hot cookie sheet. They do much better on the top of the cookie.)

Bake at 350F for about 8-10 minutes. Do not overbake.

When the cookies are hot out of the oven, they bend and break very easily due to all the peanut butter. So, let them sit a couple of minutes on the sheets, then remove them carefully with a large spatula, trying to get the whole cookie on the spatula. Don't box them up until they've cooled.

The recipe given here is rumored to make up to eight dozen. (Update: yep, just about eight dozen.)

Chicken Veggie Salad

This is based loosely on Rosolli, but we adapted it somewhat for Midwestern-US tastes, and changed it from a side dish into a main dish. Notice that everything except the apples can be prepared ahead of time, and then you can throw it together quickly when it's time to eat.

5 medium-sized potatoes
7 fresh carrots
3-4 apples
2 medium onions (optional, or substitute a few pearl onions)
3 sprigs of fresh dill (optional, or use dried dill if that's what you can get)
1 lb. chicken breast
1 can (20 floz) chunk pineapple
oil for browning the chicken (I use olive oil)
salt to taste

Wash, cut, and boil the potatoes until done but not soft, and the carrots (separately from the potatoes) until firm. (Do not overcook. Everything in this recipe that is cut up should be cut into bite-sized pieces.) Save some of the water from the carrots.

Cut up the chicken and brown it in a skillet.

Drain everything and let it all cool while making the sauce...

Dipping Sauce / Dressing:
½ cup of the carrot water
1 cup pineapple juice (if there's not enough, top it off with more of the water from the carrots)
¼ cup brown sugar
1½ TBSP cornstarch
1/8 tsp ginger
food coloring (optional; a slight peach/orange tinge looks good; don't overdo it)

Mix the sugar, ginger, and cornstarch together, then stir into the liquids over medium heat, stirring until it bubbles and becomes translucent. Cool.

After making the sauce, slice up the onions, chop the dill, core and cut up the apples, and stir it all together, salting if desired. Serve cold, either drizzling the dressing over the salad or leaving it on the side for dipping.

Variation: Scandinavian Style:
Add 7 fresh beets, boiling them with the carrots. Omit the pineapple and the chicken, and replace the above sauce with a mayo-based dressing. This still won't be authentic rosolli, but closer.

Cherry Cake

This is a variant I developed. There's a plum cake recipe that's been a favorite in my family for decades, and I've always wondered about using other fruits. I've been experimenting with peaches, but they're juicier and not as strong a flavor, so that recipe needs more adjustments before it's ready for general consumption. Update: I've since made progress on that.

But the cherry variant turned out great on the first try. In fact, I think I might like it better than the plum. Here's the recipe.

1 quart home-canned pitted pie cherries
1.5 cups sugar
3 eggs
1/4 cup oil
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp almond extract
2.5 cups flour
1 tsp soda
1 tsp cinnamon

For the glaze:
juice from the cherries
1/2 cup sugar
2 TBSP cornstarch

Drain the cherries, reserving the juice for the glaze. Run the cherries through the blender long enough that you can't tell where one cherry leaves off and the next starts.

In a mixing bowl, combine cherries, sugar, and eggs. Beat until foamy, then mix in the oil, milk, vanilla, and extract.

Stir the dry ingredients together then mix them into the wet mixture. Pour into a (greased and floured) Bundt or angelfood cake pan. Bake at 350F for 50-60 minutes. Cool for about ten minutes, then invert onto a plate. Spoon the glaze over the top while both are still hot.

To make the glaze, combine the juice, sugar, and cornstarch in a saucepan. Boil gently, stirring, until translucent.

Canning Season

It's that time of year again.

First, you get a few bushels of these things. We used, when we lived in Canal Fulton and had a large back yard, to grow them ourselves (mainly the roma variety, which give a higher yield of thicker sauce per bushel). These days we buy them, usually from the Amish. Roma tomatoes are preferred, but romas cost 70% more per bushel this year, so we went with the regular kind. Romas are worth more, but not 70% more.

Oh, you'll also want some of these and some of these.
You wash the tomatoes, cut them up, put them in the hopper, turn the handle, and run them through. I put up a short video of this on YouTube.

Out comes the juice, which you boil down for a while.

At some point you cut up the onions and peppers, then put them through the blender, with a bit of the tomato juice just to make them blend easier. They then get added to the rest of the tomato juice (no photo of this step yet), along with possibly some tomato paste for added thickness. (The tomato paste isn't necessary if your tomatoes make a good thick juice in the first place, another reason the roma variety are preferred.)

There are a couple of other ingredients as well. Maybe I'll post up our recipe at some point.

You put the sauce in jars (no photo of this step yet), then load them (again, no photo yet) into the waterbath canner.

Outcome: beautiful, glorious canned spaghetti sauce. Server over vermicelli, with grated parmesan on the side. It's also good for rigatoni, lasagna, practically any pasta, really. We were almost out when the tomatoes came into season this year, so we hope to do seventy quarts or so. You can't buy this stuff at the store. I mean, you can buy stuff that says spaghetti sauce on the label, but you don't want it.

Oh, here's a photo of my mom's new wooden stirring spoon. The old one broke, so we got this one from that place in Winona Lake that sells wooden kitchen implements.