Lemon pound cake.

You may not know this, but a well-made pound cake is a beautiful, tasty, delightful thing. God bless whoever came up with the idea of putting a pound apiece of butter, sugar, flour and eggs (in that order, I understand) together and making a simple cake creation out of it.

Pound cake is nearly a religious symbol in the South. Everyone, and I mean everyone, has a different recipe. You’d think a pound cake recipe wouldn’t have nearly so many variations, but everybody’s grandmama or grandaddy or Aunt Bessie or Cousin Alma or Aunt Ellie who’s not really your aunt but she might as well be family… everybody’s got a recipe. Some call for shortening, some call for butter. Some call for vanilla, some for lemon. Some call for chocolate chips or blueberries or peaches. Some are reportedly best baked in loaf pans, while others are better in a tube pan, and still others only work in a 10-inch bundt. (There are folks who would faint if you baked their beloved family recipe in a bundt. I don’t really know why.) Some recipes turn out a fluffy, pale interior with a barely golden puckered crust, while other recipes produce a dense yellow beauty complete with a toothsome outer dark brown crumb. It all depends on your fat, and your means of mixing, and the time spent mixing wet vs. dry and dry into wet…

Such a simple recipe doesn’t seem so simple, does it?

Hershey’s Chocolate Cake, by request.

I’ve only made this cake twice – once to try it out, which was a huge success, and the second time for Cullen’s 25th birthday, on request. It was actually quite an honor to be asked to make the cake for his birthday. Normally his aunt makes all birthday cakes for the family, but in this case (and under family circumstances), not so much. He got a piece of the first cake and was smitten from the word “go.” When we asked him what he wanted for his birthday cake, he immediately answered: “That chocolate cake you made and took to the office. It was goooood.”

How can you turn down a man with a wish for his birthday cake?

The only difference between the two was the buttercream that I used. I used a recipe for “drier” buttercream the first go-round – that’s the cake that I’ve been teasing you with for weeks on end. Unfortunately for me, I couldn’t remember where I found that particular recipe, so I had to go searching for another one. I finally settled on the SMBC from Joy the Baker, and though it was tasty, I think I screwed it up. It was very soft, and like to never set up properly. Of course, it may have been divine retribution from the Kitchen Gods for using someone else’s Cuisinart mixer versus my own loving KitchenAid to make the damn buttercream in the first place. I’m sure that’s a cardinal sin, written down in the original kitchen Bible. That’ll teach me, won’t it? Maybe next time, it’ll work out for me.

Easy Apple Tart. (And Happy Birthday, baby!)

I’ve been meaning to make this ever since Ree posted it on PW Cooks! And then, lo and behold, TWD up and makes a Parisian Apple Tart…let. Tinier and fancier than Ree’s, but you know what? Who needs cute? I just want dessert – who cares if it’s cute? I’m not a TWD baker for that reason (and, well, I don’t own nor have the disposable cash to buy the book), and besides, I have a country girl-connection with Ree’s cooking. It speaks to me.

As with a great many of my escapades, I ended up making this out of necessity. I had an open box of puff pastry in the deep freeze, in danger of frostbite and infamous freezer burn; and I had four five Granny Smith apples sitting on the counter, threatening immediate rot and revolt if I didn’t go ahead and use them for their intended purpose. Kitchen mutiny! I shouldn’t say that. My kitchen is actually trying to help me stay honest and use up what I already have before I dance off to the grocery for newer, prettier items and ignore the unloved foodstuffs languishing on the counter and in the back of the fridge. Lucky for me that Granny Smiths are much hardier than their cousins Gala and Golden Delicious, or they would’ve ended up in the bin instead of on sheets of puff pastry.

I enlisted Cullen (that’s 354, for those of you that don’t know) to cut up apples. I’m left-handed, and while we’re purportedly rather creative beings, we generally suck at straight lines and vectors. That is to say, I can’t cut in a straight line to save my fingers, nor can I make very teeny tiny slivers of things as I would like without the use of a mandoline. Cullen, on the other hand, is right-handed and rather good in a manly, mechanical fashion, and therefore perfect for slicing up apples into something other than wedges or chunks. While he was slicing apples, I was unfolding puff pastry and slicing a sheet in half, spraying down baking sheets… you know, prep stuff. Oh, and playing on the Internet. Does that make me a horrible person, surfing the Internet while my erstwhile fiancè is painstakingly slicing apples on my behalf? I hope not, ’cause it’s going to happen again. Though maybe not with apples involved. Probably onions.

Red Pepper Fougasse (ABi5!)

To be honest, I would have never made this if it wasn’t for my future mother-in-law’s request. She was perusing the Internet and lo and behold, came upon the Artisan Bread in Five site when the Red Pepper Fougasse was the top post on the frontpage. She fell in love, apparently, and when she showed the office, she said, “I bet Kate can make that. She makes stuff like that all the time!”

So I did, thanks to the wonderful ABi5 folks, Zoë and Jeff, who are kind enough to post their recipes online. I followed the recipe almost exactly, and it turned out beautifully. The only difference I made was in the Master Dough – on a whim, I made a wheat dough (half wheat and half regular all-purpose).

The recipe is posted here, of course, and I highly suggest you try it out, especially if you like savory filled breads. Not only my future mother-in-law, but everyone in the family enjoyed this bread, and these can be some picky people! Red pepper fougasse is not usually served next to green beans and pot roast here! What more of a recommendation could you want?

Blogging is hard, man.

I mean it. HARD. Of course, all the dedicated bloggers know that already. But as a beginner blogger, they don’t tell you that when you start. You just start one up, get a few readers, type a few posts and think ‘Hey, this is easy!’ And it is, as long as you’re not worried about a reader following, or any real subject matter – as long as you’re writing for yourself. It’s like writing a novel that isn’t intended for anyone else to read. It can be misspelled, grammatically incorrect, pointless and inaccurate as to the rule of the world (from gravity to the average speed of human reflexes) because your target audience is none other than yourself.

But that’s not the point of a good blog. A good blog isn’t written for the writer, but for the readers. And some folks start up a blog, continue it for a little while, then quit a few months later. Why? Usually it isn’t because of negative comments, or a lack of readership (sometimes it is), but because the writer is just not committed. My last real post was over a month ago. I’m sorry. I’ve meant to write up something interesting, something worth reading, but I just haven’t been able to manage. Thanks to a life crisis of mild depression from an increasingly poor living situation; then a week and a half of moving; and then a bout with a scary medical emergency that turned out to be a brain tumor (NOT me, just family) the rest of May and this first week of June have been crazy with adjustments and readjustments to living, eating, cooking, sleeping and living in general. Now that everything’s getting back in some semblance of order (more time for martial arts vs. no Internet at home), I can try to get back on track. I have a full kitchen now, and sick family to cook for – one that not only enjoys, but actually requests new, healthy food! There’s no reason why I can’t (in theory) write up a post at night and blog at work during my lunch hour, or early in the morning, or late in the day! …right?

Trouble is, by the time I get home, it’s hard to do anything besides clean, eat a short meal, feed the dogs and go to bed. I’m exhausted. (Cleaning up after a 70-year-old can be worse than with a 2-year-old…) I have so much to do on the weekends – plant new garden beds, mow the lawn, train the dogs, clean the bathroom and our bedroom, wash laundry, put away laundry – phew, is this what it’s like, being a stay at home mom? I have the utmost respect for you. I’m not being the least sarcastic. Plus, I’m job-searching like mad because my current position is up come the end of the month (all of a sudden, and no I’m not kidding about that part) and trying to find even a part-time position in this economy requires an act of Congress signed by God and the Holy Spirit. Plus, other things I dare not speak of for fear that audible speech may ruin the chances of realization are in the works, things that I must pray hard for.

But enough of excuses. No more random updates. No more filler posts of “I suck, sorry.” After this one, I mean. I’m going to put myself on a schedule – once a week blog posts, every Friday, with the occasional bonus just-can’t-wait-for-Friday Monday post. Surely I can come up with something remotely interesting, vaguely delicious, every seven days, can’t I? If others do it more than once a week, there’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to hold up one post a week barring an earthquake, the Internet hitting the end of its limits and the coming of the Messiah. Starting next week with Hershey’s chocolate cake and Swiss meringue buttercream… yum.

I hope you can forgive me.

Cake can be filling (ha ha HA).

Or filler. I’m so funny.

Just a tease:

Sweet potato revelation.

Everybody has the vegetable they loathed as a child, and probably don’t even like now. There’s the infamous Brussels sprout, the terrible broccoli (or cauliflower, in some cases), the despicable beet. I was apparently the golden child of my generation – I ate carrots straight from the soil and beans picked just off the vine. But I had a few that I wouldn’t eat. Lima beans, a favorite of Mom’s. Tomatoes, though ketchup was okay*. Okra in any form.

And sweet potatoes.

I don’t know why ’sweet potatoes.’ One would think it would be a no-contest children’s food – mashed, cubed, easily flavored, often sweet. What more could you want? It didn’t matter. I wouldn’t eat them. Maybe it was the presentation first – the only way I ever saw sweet potato was in casserole or soufflé, topped with marshmallows and browned black on top, rough-textured and cloyingly sweet. I was not a fan, and in fact, am still not a fan of that particular dish. As I got older, I still shunned them in whatever form, whatever color, however prepared. No sweet potatoes, or yams, or anything. No thank you.

Now that I am older still, I’m a little more adventurous. I heard about all the health benefits of sweet potatoes, saw the lovely colors and decided… well, they’re cheap for right now, why not? I took some home and promptly forgot about them. Good thing tubers stay acceptable in the dark and cool of my pantry.

I was hungry right then, so I decided baked sweet potatoes were right out. I didn’t have time to wait an hour or somesuch for baked potatoes. I peeled and cubed them roughly instead, planning on a mashed sweet potato something. I threw my cubes in a pot of boiling water and let them starch themselves out while I put breaded pork chops in the oven and prepared asparagus spears for roasting.

Good morning, world.

Before I got to sit in front of this screen, typing to you, world, I was dressed for work. I cleaned six stalls in thirty minutes, turned 26 horses into their stalls from their pastures and fed them their breakfast. In my world, animals eat first, because they are dependent on your work for their well-being. The world was, and still is, quiet. We’re waiting on the rain reported for today.

The half-pot of coffee that just finished brewing is the first made in my apartment in some months. I weaned myself off when I felt I was getting dependent. Today, I just want the warmth and the taste. It will be strong – five scoops in six cups of water – but I never drank weak coffee. 354 is still asleep in the bed. When I came back from my morning ritual, I took the laptop and sat on the floor. I hate waking him up. I feel guilty, especially when he has to work tomorrow night.

I have food running through my head. French toast, made from slices of the fat loaf I made the other night. I’m on a French toast kick – yesterday I had French toast at IHOP, along with half his pancakes. (He’s never a very big breakfast eater.) I saw my mini-muffin tins a second ago as I was looking for the coffee filters, and brownie tarts popped into my head. Of the Baker’s Banter variety. Will they stay soft and moist, or will the size of the depressions make them firmer? I’m curious to know. I have to cook something for supper, a large Sunday supper, so we can have a few days of leftovers. There are two pound pork loins in the freezer. I need to make a grocery run. I need to pay bills.

Life starts over again tomorrow. Work, barn chores, martial arts, obligations, test day, packing slowly and urgently. My camera is dead, without batteries to recharge it, and I don’t know where the rest of my rechargable ones went. The register for our checking account needs to be updated before I pay anything.

Right now, I have my cup of coffee. It’s as strong as I wanted, and the world is quiet, and I am happy.

A couple of lovely loaves, not long for this world…

I don’t know if I’ve told y’all or not, but here it is, out in the open: I’m a bread fiend. And I’m not kidding – my parents and fiancee will testify that this is the God’s-honest truth. 354 can’t understand how I can eat plain slices of white bread (guilty pleasure). As a kid, up until both Mom’s and Dad’s households figuratively threw out white bread for honey wheat or wheat in high school, one of my favorite snacks was white sandwich slices and a cold glass of milk. I love it to this day. But I have to be careful, or half a loaf will be gone in a matter of minutes. True story.

I love any kind of ‘white’ bread: sandwich bread, French baguettes, soft Italian, sourdough… basically anything non-wheat that you can buy in a grocery store bakery. I’m terrible with all that in the house. It’s gone in a flash. And I don’t feel (too) guilty about it after the fact, either. Thing is, those loaves get kind of expensive, especially at that level of consumption. But not even then did Mom – or I, to be more accurate – delve into bread-baking at home. The thought of anything more complicated than pasta with cream sauce or more time-consuming than open-faced basil-and-provolone sandwiches was foreign to me then. Even as I got more adventurous in college, anything to do with yeast or baking was a no-go. Too scary. Too unsure. Too involved. Then I got into bread, though not necessarily with the no-knead crowd (ABin5 is still on my wishlist). Just baby steps; sticking my toes in the water. Foccacia, sandwich bread, wheat bread, white bread – just playing around.

I always wanted to make baguettes, but didn’t have the special pan. Woe is me, I’d say (or something similar). How could it be a baguette without a baguette pan? I would have to wait out the day I got one, and then the baguettes would fill the house with fragrant, yeasty goodness.

Well, now I know better. Hell with the baguette pan. Baguettes are too small anyway (I’m still getting one at some point, but now I care less about immediacy.) Last night, I made two large loaves. And I ate almost half of one for breakfast this morning. Oh my word, this is good stuff.

Mongolian beef, if in name only.

Whenever I have a craving for bad Chinese food, I always go for Mongolian beef. My favorite used to be sesame chicken, but I had a bad batch once upon a time, and it dropped from the list for a while. Mongolian beef took over. And I won’t lie – I like the overly-sweet, sauce-coated, deep-fried beef strips, greasy onion (I can do without the bell pepper), and of course the ubiquitious crispy noodles. But that’s not going to stop me from trying my own version at home. I bought a couple of good flank steaks from the meat lab down the hall (yes, I work in a building that gives me weekly access to local, fresh cuts of pig, steer and the occasional lamb), a bag of short-grain white rice and some cellophane noodles. I was good to go.

Rasa Malaysia was my chosen recipe source – Barbara Tropp didn’t have a recipe (or if she did, I couldn’t find it). And really, could you pick a better source than RM? Have you looked at those photos? Every time I click on a recipe, I have to wipe the drool off my lip. I was sure I could get by with this one. The recipe was simple. Ingredients list, fairly short. I could do this.

Let’s just say it didn’t turn out like the recipe indicated, but it was still tasty. However, I cannot rightfully call this ‘Mongolian Beef,’ but rather we’ll stick with just ‘Hoisin Beef.’