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I only recall making one recipe from an edition of The Joy of Cooking that my mother had (and did not use), and that was for a plum coffee cake in an effort to use up a bumper crop from our plum tree. I have my mother-in-law's copy, which I think is from the 1960s. Hm. I may have used that one for a peach pie this summer, so perhaps my total is two. My mother either went to her red and white checked Better Homes & Gardens, or a bunch of little cook booklets that were in an Encyclopedia of Cooking binder. I have some of those booklets, and I broke down and bought a binder at an estate sale. (One of my sisters has the other one.)
I'm currently going through some stacks of Bon Appetit magazines and pulling out any recipes that I think that I might cook or bake some day. I stopped subscribing in the early 2000s, as there was too much in the magazine that I would never use. Now that we are packing to move at the start of July, I need to lighten the load as much as possible.
On Saturday, I tried a new recipe, a Bundt cake from KAF, titled "Orange Pound Cake with Bourbon Glaze." Cwcdesign had suggested that I could make it with lemon juice instead (I have a lot of frozen lemon juice), so I tried that suggestion. Although the recipe said a 10-cup Bundt pan, that seemed small to me for the amount of batter, so I used my older 12-cup one, and I'm glad that I did because the cake filled it. I will not glaze it. I also baked my favorite oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. The Bundt cake and cookies are for after service snacks at church tomorrow.
Next Day Update: The lemon cake is on the tart side, which is fine for me, but anyone looking for a sweeter cake might want to increase the sugar a bit, being careful not to unbalance the cake. I suspect that because the original recipe used orange juice, which is sweeter than lemon juice, this cake is naturally more tart. People at church did like it. I'm going to serve the remaining slices for our family dinner this evening with strawberry shortcake topping (we found lovely strawberries at the store) and Stonyfield frozen nonfat vanilla yogurt.
On Thursday, I made an enormous pot of soup, using onion, garlic, red bell pepper, mushrooms, celery, carrots, canned low-salt Spam, some beans I had frozen, about 10 cups broth, a can of diced tomatoes, 1 1/2 cups of pearl barley, 1 Tbs. Penzey's Paprika Smoked Spanish Style, 1/2 tsp. chili powder, 1/4 tsp. cayenne, and fresh parsley. I began by sautéing chopped onion and garlic in olive oil, then added the red bell pepper, and mushrooms, and chopped celery. I added the cubed Spam, then the chopped carrots. Then I added the rest of the ingredients, brought to a boil, then simmered for 30 minutes.
I like to do "throw together soups," using what I have around the house. (A can of Spam is unusual.) The hard part for me is figuring out the spices. I've used the paprika blend for pot roast, but after adding it here, I felt it needed a gentle kick, so I added the chili powder and cayenne. Of course, my broth is flavored with rosemary, sage, thyme, and sweet curry powder. I will freeze some of it, but the rest will get me through lunches in a very busy week ahead.
Thanks, Cwcdesign. That cake is perfect for using up a lot of my frozen lemon juice. I'll likely delete the glaze.
Yes, Cindy would have liked baking it. I seem to recall that Michael likes the taste of bourbon, which is why she tested out that one bread recipe--which did not turn out so well, so she saved all of us trying it. I miss her intrepid experimentation in the kitchen. It was always so fun to read her accounts, and I learned a lot, too.
I wish that Marianne would pop in here sometime. My variation of her Grape Nuts Bread has become my husband's favorite bread.
