Apple, Cranberry, Raisin Stovetop Fruit Torte for One Recipe - another 'steamed baking' experiment.
Topic: Recipes

I had a hankering to try out this idea yesterday. What prompted the idea? Someone had arrived at my blog entry for stovetop chocolate bread by googling "how to bake a cake on a stovetop", according to my traffic logs. I usually replicate such searches to see just where my site turns up in Google. In the process I look into any results that intrigue me. Such a one, and I've found and read this one before, is an article by Ruth Ross on making stovetop steamed breads and cakes in Mother Earth News  from the 1970's. The article reinspired me, gave me the idea to try a fruitcake. I peruse recipes to get a general gist or feel of how to make something. I find it so much more fun to invent my own recipe just to see if I can do it, or to see what comes out. However, I use a mix of eyeball measuring and exact measuring, and only write things down afterwards. I try to hold on to the memory until I get to a pencil. This is much like painting. I cannot know until I see how things mix up if the proportions are right. Everything depends on everything else - as in Life.

I started out by imagining what fruit I had on hand, and did I want to try to make it like a fruitcake or like a pie without a crust or perhaps a cross between the two. Pie without a crust called louder. Would I use the Macintosh apple or the Empire apple - Mac was better for cooking. But wait, this lot of Macs had been so tasty. I had to eat some of it first. Then there was a bowl of cranberries that had never made it into sauce at Thanksgiving. I salvaged a handful of those. And I had some good raisins. This was a perfect combination. The old raspberries in the freezer would have to wait for another experiment.

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Chocolate Cake Recipe for One - or a Kids' Teaparty
Topic: Recipes
For years it has been a private tradition to make myself a chocolate cake on my birthday. It is usually invented on the spot, no recipe.  I try to remember the recipe afterwards and write it down with notes on how it turned out. It is so much fun to cook this way. Try my recipe or make one up yourself. There is nothing to lose in such small quantities. Have fun.

Ingredients 

c. 1 T butter
3 rounded cutlery teaspoons sugar
dash salt
6 heaping soupspoons whole wheat flour
1 soupspoon soymilk powder
2 heaping soupspoons dutch process cocoa
c. 3/4 cutlery teaspoon baking powder
c. 1/2 cup leftover eggnog with some whiskey & dash of nutmeg

Instructions

Cream together butter, sugar and salt in small mixing bowl

Add dry ingredients on top. Mix dry ingredients well without yet mixing into butter/sugar mix. When the dry stuff is well mixed you can start mixing it into the butter sugar mix. Get it thoroughly mixed.

Alternate splashes of eggnog with quick mixing strokes. Mix quickly so as not to develop the gluten in the flour. Add enough eggnog so that you have a loose but not liquid batter.

Grease a small round crepe or casserole dish with butter.
Spoon in the batter.

Set the pan on a low rack in a two quart saucepan 1/3-1/2 full of water.
Cover saucepan. Turn on heat and get water to boil. Turn down heat so that water is at a high simmer. You don't want the dish to rock wildly in there but you want as high a heat as you can get.

Let simmer covered for c. 1 hour 20 minutes
(I think that is how long I cooked it for.) It's deceptive knowing when its done. The steam rises up and dampens the top so it will still be sticky while in the pan. I used the knife test several times hoping I'd get a clean knife. Finally I just said, this has to be done.

Use dishtowels to retrieve the cake/pan from the pot of hot water.
A china dish is harder to retrieve from hot water than a metal pan or a loaf by itself. You want a good grip on the edge of the dish. (Perhaps one should fashion a wire ring with handles onto the dish before setting in the water.)

Turn the cake out by putting a plate on top of pan and turning upside down. The cake should fall out. Quickly and carefully turn it back over onto its bottom. Place on a rack to cool. You can then decorate with powdered sugar, jam, or frosting if you must, or leave plain. This cake was delicious. I have yet to taste better chocolate cakes here in Maine than my own concoctions. Perhaps it is just the butter even though this has minimal butter? Also, this does not have a 'whole wheat' taste. It is as fancy and rich as it can be while still being somewhat good for you. And even though it is quite small, it will last one person for several servings. Or would make a perfect kids' teaparty cake. It is so cute.

Potato, Spinach and Cheese Dish for One - Recipe
Topic: Recipes

One of my own recipes, for one person. Sometimes I make it with one potato, sometimes with two (or a large potato), thin skin variety - I keep the peel on. I find this dish so tasty you'd hate to know how often I've been eating it. See photo recipe of potato, spinach, cheese dish.

Steamed Stovetop Chocolate Bread for One (or Two)
Topic: Recipes

This recipe is completely my own invention and I think it may be a healthy food. I use slightly unorthodox measuring though I've tried to transcribe here. I often experiment in the kitchen to see what I can make for a single serving treat that uses as little as I can get away with. As little sugar, fat, utensils, and cooking heat. If I make a big loaf of something I'll eat it too quickly. So my rule is to make as healthy a goodie that I can that will still satisfy the treat tooth. I long ago stopped using the oven because that was too much heat for a single serving. Nor does my toaster oven work. I usually 'bake' on the stovetop with my cast iron skillet. That almost always burns cakes and cookies no matter how low the flame. My recent solution is steaming. This is a cake of dry texture and quite decent taste. One could always spread jam on it - raspberry or apricot would be nice - if one wanted more sweet. I'm very proud of it. I liked it even better the next day. Not an egg in it and yes it holds together!
Ingredients 2 T butter 2 T* sugar 2 T* cocoa 3/4 t. baking powder pinch salt 3/4 c. whole wheat flour 3 T. soy milk powder (powdered soy milk?) 1/4+c. cold water	T=measuring tablespoon T*= heaping cutlery soupspoon	Cocoa heaps higher than sugar does. I mean Heaping.
Cream butter and sugar using a potato ricer/masher or wisk. Add cocoa. Cream further. Add remaining dry ingredients.	Mix lightly with fork to mix dry stuff without incorporating it (yet) into the fatty mixture.	Alternate sprinkling water into the mixture with incorporating (all of it)quickly using the fork. When it starts to mass, form into a patty, about 6" diameter. Prick through with fork making six diagonals. This keeps cake from warping and/or provides ready made pieces. Place on parchment baking paper cut a bit bigger (so you can use it to lift out the cake later).
Place patty and paper in a medium saucepan (2 quart?) with a rack (for boiling eggs!) and water to just below the cake. I made the mistake of trying to place the cake once the water boiled. The cake slipped and got a bit splashed. I fished it out and positioned it ok. Bring water to a boil, reduce to low/medium flame, cover leaving a steam vent.	Cook 50-60 minutes, checking periodically to replenish water (careful not to splash cake). Water should cook at a fast simmer. I haven't tried to cook it less than this so I don't know yet if it would be done earlier. Carefully remove the cake from the pan, lifting by the excess paper. I suppose it should cool, but I don't remember now.	The cake/bread doesn't have that nice baked look and will look a bit lumpy!. To decorate for this picture I hastily made a wax paper snowflake stencil, placed on top of the loaf and sprinkled some confectioners sugar over it. Had I sifted the sugar it would have been more decorative. I had also already eaten a slice before I realized I could make a prettier picture by powdering the cake.

Squash for Dinner and Recipe?
Topic: Recipes
I've had a plate of delicious sauteed squash three nights in a row. How this came about: A mother in the group of homeschoolers I'm giving an art class to came dragging in a milk crate full of squashes. They're from my husbands garden and no one likes them but him. What kind are they I asked the young son. That's buttercup and thats peanutbutternut squash. No, such a thing doesn't exist! Well....I think so...? What is this? That's acorn and that's butternut. No, acorn is shaped like an acorn with ribs. Well that's butternut there. OK...I took home one of each. My Joy of Cooking told me the 'acorn' was buttercup or turban? and the 'peanutbutter' was butternut. But I was too hungry to go through the trouble of cooking squash. It would have to wait. The next day on NPR someone did a piece with a famous New York City chef known for his Italian cooking and restaurants, Making a Meal With Mario Batali They went shopping at the market, the reporter watched him prepare antipasto while giving his tips and philosophies on cooking and food. And then he gave me my answer. He told how important it was to use things at hand and foods that are freshest wherever you happen to be shopping. One could go into the grocery store and find a pumpkin now and do with it just what he'd done with the warm antipasto he'd just cooked: dice it up, and throw it in the pan with some oil, (olive oil?!), sautee til done and put a little seasoning on it. Perfect, that can work as well with peanutbutternut squash as with pumpkin. That evening I chopped off a hunk of the squash, sliced it into 3/4" slices, easily cut out the seeds, peeled it with the same knife (easily done when squash is in slices), and diced into bite size pieces. Olive oil? I didn't remember if he'd actually said that but he'd used it on the other food and that was all I had. Go ahead, try it, a puddle about 3" by 1 1/2" into the heated pan. Careful not to smoke. Throw in the squash when oil is hot. Toss the squash in the oil so it gets coated. Heat is low medium flame, where it browns but doesn't burn except after a long time. Stir around a few times in the initial stages, then cover and let brown a bit, stir periodically to let other areas cook and/or brown. I don't remember how long it took, 20-25 minutes? I kept testing til I thought the squash was soft enough. Tonight I got involved with something else and cooked a lot longer - I let it blacken and caramelize (pan roasted). When cooked, season with sugar and salt. I used about 1/2 t. sugar and a good sprinkle of salt for this plateful, which was 1/3 of the squash. And yes, the olive oil worked fine - this was the best squash I ever had, and so easy.