Category Archives: I Cook, Too

Some of my favorite recipes.

Easy Cherry Turnovers

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It shouldn’t be this easy.

Cherries

These organic Rainier cherries aren’t quite red enough for sale, but they taste amazing. Shame to let them go to waste.

It’s cherry season in Central Washington State and for me, based here, time to come up with new recipes for the nearly limitless supplies of fresh-picked fruit. Last year, I made Easy Cherry Cobbler for One and Cherry Chutney. These Easy Cherry Turnovers are my first successful experiment this season.

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups cherries, pitted and cut into halves or quarters. I (obviously) use fresh cherries; today I used Rainiers that had been left on the tree because they weren’t quite red enough for market. (This is the second year this grower has left behind his excellent organic cherries and allowed me to pick them. I filled two 2-1/2 gallon buckets, shared some with friends, and still have at least 10 pounds left.) Although you can use frozen cherries, if you’re going to do that, you may as well buy Sara Lee frozen turnovers and skip this recipe completely.
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon.
  • Puff PastryPie crust dough, phyllo dough, or puff pastry sheets. A purist would make pie crust from scratch. I’m living in an RV with limited kitchen facilities, so that’s not really an option for me. Besides, I make really crappy pie crust from scratch. Someone with slightly less ambition might use frozen phyllo dough to make a flaky base for the turnovers. I’m not that ambitious. Instead, I used frozen Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry Sheets.
  • 2 tablespoons milk. This is optional, to brush the tops of the turnovers.
  • 1/4 cup brown sugar. This is also optional, to sprinkle on top of the turnovers.

Instructions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
  2. Combine the cherries with cinnamon and stir well to coat. If the cherries aren’t sweet — mine were very sweet — you could add some sugar, but I’d recommend not doing that. Don’t we have enough added sugar in our diets?
  3. If necessary, roll dough to 1/8 to 1/4 inch thickness and cut into squares about 4 inches on each side. This is really easy with the Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry Sheets I used; I just defrosted them, unfolded them, and cut them into quarters. Result: 8 squares.
  4. Cherries in PastrySpoon about 1/4 cup cherries into the middle of a pastry square. Then fold diagonally and seal by pinching two open sides. It’s important to get a good seal if you want the cherries and their juices to stay inside the turnover. Repeat for remaining squares and cherries.
  5. If desired, brush with milk and sprinkle with brown sugar.
  6. On Pie PanPlace turnovers on a lightly greased cookie sheet. (Again, with my limited kitchen facilities, all I had was a pizza pan, which would not fit all eight, so I had to make them in batches.)
  7. Bake for about 45 minutes. Your time will vary. I have a tiny RV oven and the temperature might not be accurate. It’s important to start checking them after about 30 minutes. The tops should be browned when done but be careful not to bake them so long that the bottoms burn.
  8. Cool for at least 15 minutes before eating.

Cherry TurnoversYields: 8 turnovers.

I’m here by myself, so I really don’t need 8 turnovers. I’ll freeze the extras and pull them out for breakfasts over the next few weeks.

If you do give this recipe a try, please share your comments about it here. I’m also very interested in any variations you come up with. I bet it would work nicely with pears or apples if the fruit was cut up small enough to cook.

The Best Pound Cake You’ll Ever Make

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Make this once and you’ll never buy store-bought pound cake again.

I really thought I’d already shared this recipe — it’s one of my favorite things to eat — but I can’t find it in the blog, so here it is.

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 pound (2 sticks) butter
  • 1-2/3 cup sugar
  • 5 eggs
  • 1-3/4 cups flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla

Instructions:

  1. Bring all ingredients to room temperature.
  2. Preheat oven to 325°F.
  3. Butter and lightly flour a 9×5 inch loaf pan.
  4. In a large mixer, cream the butter.
  5. Slowly add the sugar and beat until light.
  6. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well.
  7. On a slower mixer setting, stir in the flour, salt, and vanilla and combine well.
  8. Spoon batter into the prepared pan.
  9. Bake for 1-1/4 to 1-1/2 hours or until inserted toothpick comes out clean. Do not overbake!
  10. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then turn out onto wire rack.

Pound CakeHere are a few additional notes:

  • As you’re mixing this, be sure to scrape the sides of the mixer bowl and blades frequently with a spatula. The mixture must be smooth and consistent throughout.
  • Do not substitute margarine or any other butter substitute product. I think it might cause your oven to explode. If dietary constraints prevent you from having real butter, you shouldn’t be eating pound cake.
  • The original recipe called for 2 cups cake flour. I have been making this recipe for more than 20 years and have always substituted 1-3/4 cups of regular flour. It has always turned out fine. I did try it once with cake flour (just to see if I was missing something) and, in my opinion, it wasn’t any better. Certainly not a good reason to keep cake flour around the kitchen if you don’t otherwise need it.
  • The best versions of this cake were made with eggs fresh from my own chickens. The extra large, rich yolks really made a difference.

Now you might think: Ho-hum, pound cake. How dull. Stop thinking that right now. Serve 1/2-inch slices of this cake at room temperature, topped with fresh berries (strawberries work best, cut into small pieces) and fresh whipped cream made with only a tiny bit of added sugar. People will love it. (Do not put Cool Whip or any other “whipped topping” on this; I think it might cause your hair to fall out.)

If you take this cake and cut it into 12 servings, here’s the nutritional information for each serving. It’s extremely rich, though, so you shouldn’t need more than one slice.

If you make this, let me know what you think.

Easy, To Die For Butternut Squash Soup

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I can’t get enough of this stuff.

One of my favorite things to eat is butternut squash soup. Trouble is, when I have a flavor in your mind and I find myself eating something that just isn’t quite as good, I get seriously disappointed. You know what they say: If you want something done right, yadda yadda yadda.

Here’s the recipe I like. It’s remarkably easy to make, but in case you have a serious case of lazy bones, I’ve included a few shortcuts to make it even easier.

Ingredients

  • 1 medium onion, chopped. I use sweet onions. Lazy? You can buy them pre-chopped in most supermarket produce departments or the freezer section.
  • 2 tablespoons margarine or butter.
  • 2 cups chicken broth. I use canned. Although one can is 15 ounces (I think), that’s close enough.
  • 1 pound butternut squash, pared, seeded and cut into 1-inch cubes. This is probably the most labor-intensive part of the process. Those squash are a real pain to pare. And where have you ever found one less than 2 pounds in size? I usually do it the hard way, but today I stopped off at Trader Joe’s and picked up a 2-pound bag of butternut squash already prepared. (So, of course, I made a double-batch of soup.) You might be able to use frozen squash if it is unseasoned; I’ll leave that up to the seriously lazy cooks to experiment with.
  • 2 pears, pared and sliced. I use fresh pears whenever possible, but I suspect that you could get away with canned pears, as long as you rinse off the sugary syrup they insist on canning them with.
  • 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves. Yeah, like I’ll find fresh thyme in Wickenburg. I use dried but only half as much.
  • 1/4 teaspoon of salt. I usually omit this, especially if the broth does not have reduced salt. You can always add salt later; you can never take it away.
  • 1/4 teaspoon white pepper. I use regular pepper, which I grind as I need it.
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground coriander.
  • 1 cup whipping cream. This is killer stuff and makes the soup very rich. I suspect you could use half and half to make it a little less deadly.

Cooking Instructions

  1. Cook and stir onion in margarine in a medium pot until tender.
  2. Butternut Squash SoupStir in broth, squash, pears, thyme, salt, pepper, and coriander.
  3. Heat to boiling; reduce heat heat and cover.
  4. Simmer until squash is tender, 10 to 15 minutes.
  5. Puree soup in a food processor or blender. You may have to do this in batches. You might also want to wait until the soup has cooled a bit; I cracked my food processor bowl by processing hot soup. I now use my glass blender.
  6. Return pureed soup to pot.
  7. Stir in whipping cream and heat until hot.
  8. Garnish with pear slices and toasted pecans if desired.

Yields 6 1-cup servings.

This is a great soup for Thanksgiving. The squash and pears are in season right now so it’s the perfect time of year to make this. Treat yourself. You won’t be disappointed.

The Best Smoothie I Ever Made

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Here’s the recipe.

I hate dieting, but I love an excuse to make smoothies. If done properly, they’re very healthful and low in calories. They’re also very filling, making a good meal substitute.

I have a basic smoothie recipe I’ve been following, using whatever appropriate fruit is handy. But today’s was the best.

Ingredients
1/2 cup plain, fat-free yogurt
1/2 cup orange juice (I use Tropicana Premium because it’s not from concentrate)
1/2 cup fresh strawberries, halved
1/2 cup frozen mango (I buy frozen because I’m too lazy to peel and cut them)
1 whole banana, broken into pieces

Instructions
Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.

Any combination of berries or stone fruit usually works, but today’s was the best I’ve tasted. There’s no added sugar, but it’s plenty sweet. The frozen mango chills down the mixture, making it almost frosty. I’ve used frozen berries in the past, but I really think it’s the fresh strawberries that made the smoothie so good today.

Total calorie count comes in just under 300; you can read the rest of the nutritional information here. If you give it a try — or make your own version — let me know what you think.

And if you like smoothies, don’t fall for those mixes you’ll find in the supermarket. They usually full of added sugar and other crap. You’ll get a healthier treat if you make it yourself using simple ingredients.

Cherry Chutney

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A twist on my Mango Chutney recipe.

I love chutney as a condiment with grilled pork and roast turkey (instead of cranberries). There’s always a batch of mango chutney in my fridge at home. Unfortunately, when I left with my RV for the summer, I forgot to bring some along. But since I’m currently surrounded by cherry trees with ripe fruit, I figured I’d try making cherry chutney for a change.

Cherry ChutneyI found a recipe for cherry chutney online and made a batch of it. It had some major differences from my mango chutney recipe — for example the inclusion of onion, spices, and mustard seed — and I had mixed feelings about the result.

Yesterday, I decided to try again by simply substituting cherries for mango in my mango chutney recipe. The result was quite tasty. Here’s the recipe as I made it.

Ingredients:

  • 1-1/2 pounds cherries, pitted and cut in half or quarters. I’d picked the cherries the night before, choosing small fruit from the tree since I knew my client wouldn’t pick and sell it. (Shame to see it go to waste.) The small fruit fit well in my cherry pitter and most cherries didn’t need to be quartered; halved was enough. If cherries aren’t in season, you could probably use frozen. Do not use cherry pie filling.
  • 1 cup golden raisins. You can use the regular kind if you can’t find golden.
  • 1 cup packed brown sugar. This is an excellent recipe for using up brown sugar that has solidified in an improperly closed bag. But fresh brown sugar won’t hurt it.
  • 1/2 to 3/4 cup vinegar. I usually use white vinegar, but the only vinegar I had available was apple cider vinegar (from the other recipe). Didn’t hurt this recipe at all.
  • 1 jar (2-7/8 ounces) crystallized ginger, finely chopped. I don’t know what kind of jarred ginger my source recipe is talking about. This time, I found crystalized ginger in a 6-oz bag and used half of it.
  • 1 clove garlic, chopped. I cheated this time and used about a teaspoon of jarred chopped garlic.
  • 1 teaspoon salt. This time around, I skipped the salt.

Instructions:

Place all ingredients in a sauce pan and heat to boiling. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered for about an hour or until slightly thickened. Remove from heat, cool. Place in a sealed container — a canning jar works well for this; I avoid plastic for anything I want to keep long term — and store in refrigerator. It will stay fresh and edible for quite some time. Serve with pork or roast turkey (as discussed above) or Indian curry dishes.

Yield: Approximately 4-5 cups.

Warning: It does not smell good while cooking.