Kids Dish

I like the idea of bananas because they are portable, filling and healthy, thus they make a great snack on the go. They are also cheap, and while I prefer to buy local produce in the season, we’re not quite at the height of fruit season yet and while the berries are plentiful, the cherries require pitting now that Sam has gone ahead and eaten several pits, resulting in a rather uncomfortable night. There’s not much else around yet so supermarket fruits it is. Of course Sam has decided against bananas again.

He ate half of one last week but the rest of the bunch has been sitting in the fruit basket getting riper and riper. I thought about making some smoothies, but of course I never got around to it. I moved the almost completely brown bananas to the fridge and figured I’d make muffins or banana bread. But I was uninspired by the thought of banana quick bread and remembered a recipe I’d seen online for Elvis cake- a peanut butter banana cake with chocolate chips.

I made it last night and it’s fantastic, but the icing was overly sweet. Here’s the recipe slightly modified- I plan on making it again.

Elvis Cake
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups white sugar
1/2 cup butter or shortening
1 cup milk
3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 eggs
2-3 mashed bananas
1/2 tsp banana extract
2/3 cup mini chocolate chips, more for sprinkling on the finished cake

Mix together the flour, baking powder and salt and set aside. In a large bowl, cream sugar and shortening until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition. Add flour mixture alternately with milk, beating just to combine. Stir in vanilla, mashed bananas, and banana extract. Stir in chocolate chips. Pour batter evenly between two greased and floured 9 inch round cake pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. Let cool completely.

Frosting
2 sticks of butter, room temperature
1 cup of smooth peanut butter.
2 cups of powdered sugar
Up to 2 Tbs milk

In an electric mixer cream together the butter and peanut butter until smooth and fully incorporated. Add the powdered sugar a cup at a time and use milk to adjust the consistency to your liking. Using natural peanut butter will result in a frosting that’s not quite as sweet but it may be a little grainy.

It occurred to me last year that I may be the only person on earth who has never eaten anything with rhubarb in it. At least not that I know of. I never remedied the situation last year, but on our last trip to the farmer’s market, when I saw both rhubarb and strawberries fresh from Lancaster County for sale I couldn’t resist buying them both.

The problem was what to make. The strawberries were so perfectly ripe and sweet we ate one of the two quarts in the car on the ride home. I am not a pie person and strawberry rhubarb pie is the most popular dessert using the two ingredients. But once again, Smitten Kitchen came to the rescue with this fantastic crumble. It’s easy to make and it used ingredients I had in the kitchen except for the Demerara sugar which I substituted with dark brown sugar. Serve it with ice cream.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Crumble
For the topping:
1 1/3 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons Demerara sugar (or turbinado sugar, or Sugar in the Raw)
Zest of one lemon
1/4 pound (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
For the filling:
1 ½ cups rhubarb, chopped into 1-inch pieces
1 quart strawberries plus a few extras, hulled, quartered
Juice of one lemon
½ cup sugar
½ cup flour
Pinch of salt

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Prepare topping: In a mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, sugars and lemon zest and add the melted butter. Mix until small and large clumps form. Refrigerate until needed.
2. Prepare filling: Toss rhubarb, strawberries, lemon juice, sugar, flour and pinch of salt in a 9-inch deep-dish pie plate.
3. Remove topping from refrigerator and cover fruit thickly and evenly with topping. Place pie plate on a baking sheet, and bake until crumble topping is golden brown in places and fruit is bubbling beneath, about 40 to 50 minutes.

Thursday’s box contained two quarts of shelling peas, a bunch of beets, a bunch of baby pak choi, a bunch of lacinato kale, and a bunch of shard. I still had some green onions, the entire bunch of turnips, some of the lettuce and a head of regular sized pak choi left from the week before when I was sick and couldn’t bring my feverish self to the kitchen.

To make sure I’m using all of the vegetables in a timely manner I’ve been making a list on the fridge and crossing the vegetables I use off as I go. We didn’t do too badly last summer and so far we’ve only lost a bit of lettuce to the compost bin. Two heads of lettuce is more than we can eat in a week, but since that box was farmer’s choice I don’t blame myself.

The two year old has become quite the picky eater as of late, subsisting mainly on fruit and noodles. I’m not too concerned. I know that this will pass and until it does I’ll just keep offering. I don’t cook him a separate meal (though we do cook more pasta then we need so we’ll have leftovers at the ready) so he gets what we eat on his plate and if he doesn’t eat it I’ll bring out something from the fridge or cabinet so he won’t go to bed hungry.

So what do you do as an adult if you’re stuck with something in the CSA box you don’t like? I don’t like radishes and last summer our radishes (I ordered them once on a whim) ended up in the compost after a month or two in the fridge. This time I did a search and found a recipe for radish sandwiches. It sounded pretty awful- just baguettes, butter and thinly sliced radishes, but the reviews said they worked. And sure enough they did.

Here’s the recipe from epicurious.com

2 1/2 bunches radishes, trimmed
Unsalted butter, room temperature
20 1/4-inch-thick diagonal slices baguette
Maldon sea salt or coarse kosher salt

Place radishes in medium bowl of ice water and chill at least 30 minutes and up to 2 hours. Drain radishes and slice thinly. (use a mandoline or v-slicer if you have one)
Spread butter generously over baguette slices and sprinkle lightly with sea salt or coarse kosher salt. Arrange radish slices atop buttered baguette slices and serve.

I skipped the chilling, used 3 large radishes and salted butter. I also toasted the baguette. If you have radishes to use up this is a palatable way to do it.

My garage freezer inventory:

* 1 9”x 13” pan of eggplant parmesan
* 3/4 of a large baked ziti in three portions
* 2 8-cup containers vegetable soup
* 1 3-quart and 1 4-cup container of beef stew
* 1 9″x13″ pan of rotini with goat cheese, spinach and red pepper sauce divided into individual servings
* 6 bean and sausage enchiladas (1 dinner and leftovers if Boyfiend doesn’t gorge himself)
* 1 tray (3 meals) chicken enchiladas
* 2 8-cup containers of chicken soup
* half a batch of chocolate chip cookie dough
* 6 cranberry muffins
* 6 strawberry mango muffins
* 18 blueberry pancakes

I’ve also got a bunch of chocolate ricotta muffins I baked tonight that still need to be wrapped and frozen, one more chicken defrosting in the fridge, and three more cups of shredded zucchini. I may just make zucchini cakes for dinner one night instead of more bread or muffins.

The chocolate ricotta muffins were not on the list of things to freeze. I had a huge tub of ricotta and ended up with a few cups left. I made yet another baked pasta dish to get us through dinner for the rest of the week and still had over a cup of ricotta that needed to be used by the 30th of this month, something unlikely to happen if this baby ever pops out. So I turned to Mr. Google and found a lovely recipe for Lemon Ricotta muffins that called for 3/4 cup of ricotta. The recipe called for blueberries which I have and lime zest, which I don’t, but would replace with orange. I was ready to make them but thought I’d quickly look for a recipe that called for a bit more ricotta. When I saw chocolate and ricotta together along with the phrase “chocolate cheesecake,” looked at the recipe and saw it called for more ricotta, I was sold and looked no further.

Chocolate Ricotta Muffins
from Joy of Baking.com

Makes 12 regular-sized muffins.

I was really hoping the baby would come early so I could enjoy a Cinco de Mayo margarita but alas, it is not to be. Instead I will leave you with a few celebratory recipes for margaritas for the parents, sparkling limeade for the kiddos, and snacks for everyone.

The Perfect, Potent Margarita
3 oz Tequila
2 oz triple sec
1 oz fresh squeezed lime juice
1 teaspoon powdered sugar
shake with ice until the shaker is frosty. Serve in a glass with a salted rim with wedge of lime. This is not a drink for amateurs. Serve in a glass with lots of ice and let it get melty before drinking if you’re unsure of your ability to handle it.

Sparkling Limeade
1 cup water
2 cups sugar
10-12 limes, juiced and strained
zest of one lime
sparkling water or club soda
lime wedges

To make limeade you’ll need to make a simple syrup. Bring one cup of water to boil and add two cups of sugar. Stir until dissolved then stir in the lime juice and zest. Let cool and set in the fridge.

For each glass of limeade you’ll need about half an ounce of syrup topped with the sparkling or fizzy water of your choice. Adjust the ratio of syrup and fizz to taste. Serve with a wedge of lime

Guacamole
3 ripe avacodos, halved, pitted and peeled
one small onion, chopped
3 jalapeno peppers, seeded and finely chopped
one small tomato, chopped
juice of 1 1/2 limes
slightly more than half a cup of fresh cilantro, cut into smallish pieces (Do not substitute with dried. Yuck. It is better to omit the cilantro entirely if you can’t get fresh.)
salt and pepper to taste

Mash the avocado with a potato masher or fork then add the remaining ingredients, mixing until everything’s combined. Serve with tortilla chips.

Speaking of tortilla chips, I see no reason not to buy a bag (I’m not affiliated in any way, but on the east coast Tostitos brand are the lightest and crispiest), but if you’re by chance some health nut, feel free to bake your own. You’ll need a package of tortillas, some vegetable oil, salt and chili pepper

Cut the tortillas into 8 wedges, brush with the oil, sprinkle with salt and chili pepper to taste and bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes until chips are lightly browned.

Yesterday, in a quest to fill my freezer with some foods for when the baby arrives and use up the last of the fruits and vegetables frozen last summer, I spent a good portion of the day cooking. I made pancakes and muffins for breakfasts, a baked ziti with local sausage from Meadow Run Farm for dinners, and chocolate zucchini cake to eat, not freeze, just because I wanted to clear out the rest of last summer’s zucchini from my Red Earth Farm CSA. Of course no recipe calls for enough zucchini to clear out the stash in its entirety, and even after adding more than the recipe called for I still have three cups of frozen shredded zucchini ready to bake later this week, but the cake is just so good that I have to share the recipe.

The cake is so good that I think I may have accidentally eaten more batter than necessary, raw eggs and all, and everyone knows that you shouldn’t eat raw eggs, local or not, especially when you’re pregnant. But should you bake this cake you might want to throw caution to the wind and give the batter a little taste- just a little one because you may not be able to stop once you start. And perhaps by tasting the batter (and licking the bowl clean) you’ll be able to stop yourself from eating entirely too much cake once it’s baked, cooled and glazed.

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

Glaze: Mix together 1 cup powdered sugar, 1 1/2 Tablespoons milk, and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla. Beat until smooth. If you really like orange flavoring omit the vanilla and add ½ teaspoon of orange zest.

This cake won’t last long. Now I need to find a good recipe for the last of the sour cherries.

Little by little I’m emptying my extra freezer of the fruits (and vegetables)of last year’s CSA share and the meat we ordered over the summer. I no longer have a deep, chest freezer in the basement. We sadly had to sell it after realizing it was costing us more than $30 a month in electric bills. We just have a regular sized refrigerator in the garage with a regular sized freezer. Our kitchen fridge is a side-by-side model, which I hate, so having the extra freezer space is a necessity. Without it there would be no frozen Trader Joe’s pizzas on hand, whole chickens, and a place to store freezer meals for when the new baby comes next month.

I don’t know when I’m going to be motivated enough to start cooking, or what exactly I’m going to cook. The meat pickings are slim right now, so I may have to stick to mostly pasta based meals, which is fine since they freeze well anyway. I do have a few whole chickens, so I can make some chicken dishes too. I think I’ll make lasagna, a dish of chicken enchiladas, eggplant parmesan, a baked ziti, and a chicken potpie. Other than the potpie, the other dishes can be cooked in advance then frozen in individual or smaller sized portions. That way we won’t have to defrost a lasagna then be stuck eating it for days in a row.

I’ll probably make a few batches of muffins using the last of the grated zucchini and the sour cherries so I’ll have quick one-handed breakfasts. Pancakes also freeze well. If I keep making full-sized batches of pancakes over the next few weekends I’ll be able to build up a nice stash so I can pop them in the toaster oven and feed Sam without too much trouble.

What else do you make and freeze?

Disinterested as I’ve been, I’ve still got to get dinner on the table most nights. Dinner has primarily consisted of boxed pasta and jarred sauce with a boring, steamed vegetable, but that’s about all I can take these days. Last night Bob said he’d make dinner. I’d bought feta cheese last week so I could make zucchini and feta patties with the last of the zucchini from last summer but I figured that would be too complicated for him with the draining, mixing and frying. I had a package of organic spinach so I decided to have him make a quiche with spinach and feta instead. I had him pull a package of puff pastry out of the freezer to defrost before he went to scrape paint in one of the third floor bedrooms.

Close to two hours later I realized that if I wanted dinner on the table before 9 I’d have to make it myself. I preheated the oven to 400 degrees, the temperature on the puff pastry package directions for a fruit dessert, and rolled out the puff pastry a little bit. I knew it was too late to make a quiche, so I wasn’t really sure of what to do with it once I rolled it. I decided to just cut it into squares and make little turnovers. I chopped an onion and sauteed it in a knob of butter. When the onion was soft and slightly browned I added a few cloves of garlic. About 30 seconds later I added the fresh spinach and stirred until wilted. I added about 4 ounces of crumbled feta, some fresh ground pepper, a few shakes of dried basil and oregano,and a pinch of nutmeg to the pan and stirred well. I put a spoonful of the spinach filling in each square of puff pastry and sealed the edges. I thought an egg wash would be nice, but didn’t feel like making the effort so I took out the Misto and sprayed each turnover with a little olive oil and stuck them on an ungreased baking sheet and baked for about 20 minutes, until the puff pastry was golden brown.

Aside from defrosting, the whole thing took about 30 minutes start to finish. The turnovers were delicious. Easier than spanakopita and much quicker.

I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m not so great at baking chocolate chip cookies. For some reason they always come out flat and pancake-like, more crispy than chewy. They always taste fine and get eaten quickly, but they never look the way I want a chocolate chip cookie to look. I stopped trying to bake them myself and switched to an Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Pecan cookie instead.

Then I saw this recipe on Smitten Kitchen for Blue Chip Chocolate Chip Cookies. For some reason it called to me and I couldn’t resist. The first time I made it I used a tiny cookie scoop and came out with more tiny, perfect looking, delicious cookies than I could count. The second time I made them I froze half of the cookie batter and made regular sized cookies with the other half. They were eaten so quickly I had to bake the other batch the next day. Since then I’ve made the recipe a few more times and each batch has been just as perfect as the first. Attractive and tasty. They don’t last long around here.

Blue Chip Chocolate Chip Cookies
from The Great Book of Chocolate

Makes 20 cookies, or more if you use one of these tiny cookie scoops.

1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
1/2 cup (120 grams) firmly packed light brown sugar
8 tablespoons (1 stick) (115 grams) unsalted butter, cold, cut into 1/2-inch (1cm) pieces
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/4 cups (175 grams) all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt or 1/2 teaspoon flaky sea salt (Deb option)
1 1/2 cups (200 grams) semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup (130 grams) walnuts or pecans, toasted and chopped

Adjust the oven rack to the top third of the oven and preheat to 300F (150C). Line three baking sheets with parchment paper.

Beat the sugars and butters together until smooth. Mix in the egg, vanilla, and baking soda.

Stir together the flour and salt, then mix them into the batter. Mix in the chocolate chips and nuts.

Scoop the cookie dough into 2-tablespoon (5cm) balls and place 8 balls, spaced 4 inches (10cm) apart, on each of the baking sheets.

Bake for 18 minutes, or until pale golden brown. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack.
Store at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Some day I imagine I’ll bake and decorate rolled sugar cookies with my kids. It just seems that since I enjoy cooking, it’s the proper thing to do. Unfortunately I don’t particularly like eating them. I much prefer Ricotta cookies, another Easter cookie treat served at my in-laws’ house at their annual Easter extravaganza. These little cookies are soft, fluffy and sweet and kids love them because of their pastel-colored frosting.

ITALIAN RICOTTA COOKIES

1/2 lb. butter
2 c. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 lb. Ricotta
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
4 1/2 c. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda

Cream butter; add sugar and continue creaming until butter is fluffy and light in color. Add egg and Ricotta and vanilla; beat well. Sift together flour, baking powder and baking soda, salt; add to batter. Mix well until all ingredients are combined.

Drop about a teaspoon of dough on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake in a 350 degree oven about 10 minutes until edges are lightly browned. Cool. Frost with icing of your choice or the recipe below.

FROSTING:

2 c. confectionery sugar
1/4 c. butter
3 tbsp. milk
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Mix well. Color with food coloring if desired. Or top with sprinkles, colored sugar, or other Easter confections.

To make the cookie a little more grown up, add the zest of one orange to the batter. A teaspoon of Almond extract is another good addition. A teaspoon of lemon extract in place of the vanilla gives the icing a little zing. Almond extract can also be usied in the frosting.

Italian Easter Pie is something that I’d never heard of, let alone eaten, before I met my husband eight years ago. It’s basically a quiche, filled with hard-boiled eggs, meats and cheeses. I’m not a huge fan of the dish, but each year it grows on me just a little bit more. There’s something about the way his family prepares it that makes it unlike most of the recipes I’ve seen for it. I think it’s the hint of anise in the crust. Someday perhaps I’ll get the recipe, just to pass on the tradition to our kids. But until then, here’s a version I’ve put together from several I found online.

This recipe is for one 12″x16″ (30×40 cm) pie, which is big. It’s enough to feed your extended family for days. But Bob’s family ends up making more than half a dozen 9″x 12″ pies each year so maybe it’s not so big after all.

Italian Easter Pie

Serve hot, cold, or room temperature.

I’m not Irish and I’m not a huge fan of typical St. Paddy’s day fare. Corned Beef and cabbage doesn’t really appeal to me, soda bread isn’t particularly exciting, and as I mentioned yesterday dyed green foods aren’t my cup of tea.

Irish potatoes may be the only St. Patrick’s day food I really love and I’m not sure why. They’re sort of sickly sweet and if you want to get technical they’re pretty much cream cheese frosting with coconut rolled in some cinnamon. I’m not generally a huge fan of cinnamon either, but for this candy the cinnamon really helps cut the sweet. Made with cream cheese, butter and sugar, they’re fattening and addictive and I’m sad to say that since no one offered my pregnant self any this year I may have to make my own. Luckily, aside from the time it takes to chill the ingredients, it’s a very simple recipe

Irish Potato Candy
· 1/4 cup butter, softened
· 1/2 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
· 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
· 4 cups confectioners’ sugar
· 2 1/2 cups flaked coconut
· 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

DIRECTIONS
In a medium bowl, beat the butter and cream cheese together until smooth. Add the vanilla and confectioners’ sugar; beat until smooth. Using your hands if necessary, mix in the coconut. Chill for about half an hour. Roll into balls or potato shapes and chill for another 15 to 30 minutes until firm. Roll in the cinnamon. Place onto a cookie sheet and chill to set. If desired, roll potatoes in cinnamon again for darker color.

I am not usually a fan of pork roasts. I’ve only ever had them with my in-laws, and honestly the majority of the roasts I’ve had their have been cooked for an hour or two too long, making excessive quantities of gravy a necessity. But for some reason I bought a pork roast from my pastured meats buying club on a whim. I think I imagined that I’d make pulled pork for sandwiches from it, but after the roast sat in my freezer for a few months and I looked up some recipes I realized that the boneless pork butt roast was too small, I don’t have a smoker, and it’s not the perfect cut of meat anyway. So it was back to Mr. Google for some recipe ideas.

An Epicurious recipe for Garlic-Roasted Pork Shoulder looked sublime, but it called for a bone-in pork shoulder which I just didn’t have. A recipe from Tyler Florence at the Food Network for Roasted Pork Shoulder seemed to be similar, but for some reason it just didn’t look quite right. So I split the difference. I prepared the roast using the method from the Epicurious recipe and cooked it according to the Tyler Florence recipe. It was superb.

The recipe calls for several hours of marination so I let it sit overnight, but popped it in the oven a bit too late the next day. We ended up eating a quick dinner of pasta and veggies while the roast cooked. When I removed it from the oven, the skin was brown and crisp. I was sorry we’d eaten. The following day I sliced the meat and reheated it in a gravy made from pan juices. My in-laws joined us for dinner and the meat was so tender, so flavorful, they assumed they were eating beef, not pork, until I told them otherwise. My father-in-law who claims to hate garlic ate several servings, not even noticing the garlic paste clinging to the meat.

If I get my hands on a bone-in pork roast I’ll be sure to follow the New York Times recipe exactly (and eat the meat immediately), but for boneless, the compromise worked well. This cheap cut of meat makes an incredible meal.

Garlic Roasted Boneless Pork Shoulder
adapted from the two recipes linked above

1 head garlic, cloves peeled
2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon kosher salt, divided
1 1/2 tablespoons dried oregano
2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 3-4 pound boneless pork shoulder with skin

Mash garlic to a paste with 2 tablespoons kosher salt using a mortar and pestle or side of a large heavy knife, then stir in oregano, vinegar, lemon juice, and 1 tablespoon pepper.

Pat pork dry. Using a small sharp knife, cut a wide pocket at large end of roast to separate skin from fat, leaving skin attached at sides and stopping before roast narrows to bone.

Make 1-inch-deep slits in pork under skin and on all meaty sides, twisting knife slightly to widen openings, then push some of garlic mixture into slits with your fingers. Rub any remaining garlic mixture over roast (not skin). Wipe skin clean, then rub with remaining teaspoon kosher salt (to help it crisp). Transfer pork to a glass or ceramic shallow dish and marinate, covered and chilled, at least 8 hours.

Put pork, skin side up, on a rack in a flameproof roasting pan, discarding marinade, and bring to room temperature, about 1 hour. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Roast the pork for 3 hours, uncovered, until the skin is crispy-brown. Let the meat rest on a cutting board for 10 minutes before slicing. Meanwhile, pour pan juices through a sieve into a fat separator or bowl and discard fat. Add 3/4 cup water to roasting pan and deglaze by boiling over medium-high heat (straddle 2 burners if necessary), scraping up brown bits, 1 minute, then add to pan juices along with enough water to bring total to 1 1/2 cups. Serve meat with pan juices.

When I was young and idealistic I swore I’d never fall into the consumerist, commercial trap of licensed character toys for my child. I still have not succumbed to the temptation, and though I’ve bought him a few Curious George books, all other licensed character items have come from others. I won’t buy them, but we borrow videos and books from the library feeding his licensed character addiction. Worse, I’ve actually suggested exactly which licensed character toys, namely Thomas the Tank Engine, to purchase for my little train-a-holic.

For his birthday I went to the next level. Rather than serving a regular birthday cake I borrowed a Thomas the Tank Engine cake pan from a friend. It was an arduous, painful process, but I colored two batches of frosting, and even made a practice cake in case I screwed up. I will never have a career in cake decorating, but considering my only tools were a small icing spatula, a butter knife, toothpicks, ziploc bags and my fingers, it didn’t come out too badly. The recipe, straight from the pages of Cooks Illustrated, was superb.

Yellow Layer Cake
from Cook’s Illustrated

* Move oven rack to the middle of the oven, and preheat to 350°.
* Grease two 9” round cake pans and line bottoms with parchment paper. Dust pans with flour. (I was using one Thomas shaped pan so I did not line it with parchment fearing I’d lose the details necessary for proper frosting.
* Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and 1 ½ cups sugar in a large bowl.
* In a separate bowl, mix together melted butter, buttermilk, oil, vanilla, and egg yolks.
* Beat egg white in a stand mixer small bowl until foamy, about 30 seconds. Then slowly add the remaining ¼ cup sugar to the egg white while beating. Continue to beat until whites hold peaks, but mixture still looks moist.
* Add butter mixture to flour mixture and beat until just incorporated. Gently fold in 1/3 of the egg white mixture, then add the remaining egg white mixture and gently fold in until fully incorporated.
* Divide batter between two pans, tapping filled pans gently on counter to dislodge air bubbles. (I just used the one pan. A sheet pan works too.)
* Bake 20-22 minutes or until done. (Using the oddly shaped pan this took a lot longer- maybe 34 minutes? If you don’t use a standard sized pan check often to avoid over- or under-cooking the cake)
* Cool 10 minutes before removing cakes from pan. Remove cakes from pan, and cool on a cooling rack for 1 ½ hours before frosting.

I just made a standard white frosting so it would dye well. Cooks Illustrated recommends serving this cake with chocolate frosting. Next time I will.

I love macaroni and cheese, especially the real kind. I like the stuff in a box too, especially Annie’s brand, but the real stuff, baked in the oven is superior. I’ve fiddled with a number of recipes over the years and found two that have stuck out. The first is Patti Labelle’s insanely decadent Over the Rainbow Macaroni and Cheese. This stuff is the real deal, the mac and cheese of legend. The recipe calls for a stick of butter, five kinds of cheese, eggs and some seasoning. There’s no milk, no flour, no breadcrumbs. It’s insanely good, but since I’ve become more aware of what I eat, it’s hard to justify buying processed cheese food like Velveeta when other recipes exist. If you don’t have similar qualms, run out for the ingredients right now and bake this mac and cheese. It’s worth every calorie.

If you do have similar issues about strange orange cheeselike substances, skip Patti Labelle’s heart attack in a greased casserole dish, and give this recipe from the New York Times a go. This is also the real deal, pasta and cheese mixed to perfection using a ratio of 2:1 cheese to pasta. I love the recipe because you don’t have to precook the pasta- it cooks perfectly in the oven. I’ve made it several times now and each time people have raved about it. Yesterday I made a double batch for Sam’s birthday party. I got distracted and left it in the oven for 20 minutes too long, alerted to my mistake only by the heavenly smell of cheese wafting through the house. It wasn’t as creamy as it is ordinarily, but the extra 20 minutes produced a nice brown crust all over. Overdone or not, it was still fantastic.

Creamy Macaroni and Cheese

Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

3. Uncover pan, stir gently, sprinkle with reserved cheese and dot with remaining tablespoon butter. Bake, uncovered, 30 minutes more, until browned. Let cool at least 15 minutes before serving.