Date I made these recipes:
January 1, 2015 – New Year's Day
The Italian Slow
Cooker by Michele Scicolone
Published by:
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN:
978-0-547-00303-0
Recipe: Sicilian Lentil, Vegetable, and Pasta Soup –
p. 32
Camille Glenn's
Old-Fashioned Christmas Cookbook by Camille Glenn, author of The Heritage of
Southern Cooking
Published by: Algonquin Books of Chapel
Hill
ISBN: 1-56512-102-1
Purchased at Arc's Value Village
Recipe: Good Fortune Tea Cake – p. 200-203
Well, Happy New Year, everyone!
As is usual and customary, I decided to make something with
beans (or lentils, as the case may be) to bring good fortune to our household
for the coming year. And then I found
this recipe for Good Fortune Tea Cake
and thought "why not," right?
Can there ever be an abundance of good fortune? I think not.
And though we are far away from baseball season, let me use
a baseball analogy for these recipes:
the soup was a swing and a miss as it lacked any flavor whatsoever, but
the tea cake was a home run. This
concludes my baseball analogy.
Let's start with the Italian
Slow Cooker cookbook. I have a
couple of books by Michele Scicolone and so when I saw this one, I thought it
would probably be fantastic because her stuff usually is. But I sensed going in that this recipe would
not be another home run hit based on two things: 1) using water instead of chicken or
vegetable broth to cook these lentils.
Water doesn't have much flavor, folks.
Broth does. And 2) the
instructions call for you to add salt and pepper but only after cooking the
soup for 7 hours. Um...no. Believe me, I salted and I peppered and it
was still one very bland meal.
Normally, I never alter a recipe for this blog because I
want to evaluate the thing "as is," but this time around, after tasting it midway through, I added a lot
of Italian spices. Still, this only
upped the flavor profile (such that it was) a little bit. And I should have really cheated and used
chicken broth. Live and learn,
folks. Live and learn.
The author also suggests that we add Pecorino Romano to the
dish which is always a good idea, but in my book, the flavor should be there
before adding any accoutrements. So for
this boo-boo, I'm going to have to ding our author. Nothing personal, Michele!
As to other recipes in this book, many sounded good but I
was stuck on the lentil thing to bring us good luck and so there's that. Still, two good things came out of these
experiments from New Year's Eve (previous posts) and New Year's Day: first, deep down, I'm a bread stuffing versus
cornbread dressing gal, and by bread stuffing, I mean my mother's recipe that
includes bread, onions, celery and sage.
No need to get all crazy about this stuff. Second,
as between lentils and the black eyed peas used in Hoppin' John, another
New Year's Day southern favorite, it's lentils every time. I just don't get the point of black eyed
peas. Do not.
But the cake. Oh
people, THE CAKE! My gawd, it was
awesome and so unexpected! And hilariously,
it was from a southerner so I figure that balances out my previous attempts
with cornbread dressing and Hoppin' John.
And although I intended that just my husband and I partake
of this incredible edible, we were invited over to my mother-in-law's for a New
Year's Day open house and so we came bearing gifts. There's nothing like the pressure of serving
all these people a cake we've never made or had yet to taste but they swooned
at first bite.
I suppose I could just tell you all that the making of this
cake was all so simple but that's not how these things go. So here's how this thing went: I was too busy cooking on New Year's Eve to
get around to making the cake the night before so I asked my husband if he
would take out the butter and eggs on New Year's Day to bring them up to room
temp (as directed) so I could make the cake that morning. But when I woke up that morning, I had a
near-migraine and so he ended up making the entire cake. And for the record, no, this was not a
hangover migraine. We ate dinner kind of
late on New Year's Eve, and as soon as we sat down, I was wiped out. In fact, I only had half of my usual and
customary martini and that was all the "good cheer" I was able to
manage that night. I fell asleep at
10:30 and so Andy had to ring in the New Year all by himself and that's my
story and I'm sticking to it.
So I don't know why I had the headache the next day but it
was awful. And so I pressed Andy into service to help out and am I a lucky
gal or what that this man likes to bake?
And this recipe is a bit involved so it took some doing. But to paraphrase the old Shake and Bake commercial "Here's
how I helped:" I pointed to the
cupboards containing the sifter and the grater as well as some of the ingredients
he needed and had already put out the springform pan he needed the night before
so he was all set. But thereafter, I was
on the couch until go time. But PS—I
normally like the smell of oranges and orange peel but that day, the stuff
smelled like that awful Orange Glo
stuff you use to remove stick adhesive and if it wasn't zero outside, I would
have opened a window to clear the air.
Sorry, Orange Glo people.
This recipe makes enough for either two 8 ½-inch springform
pan's worth of batter or one 10-inch and we went with 10-inch. And it makes a ton of frosting, not that
there's anything wrong with that, but we had more than what was needed seeing
as how we made one cake.
This recipe also calls for you to insert randomly two small
blanched almonds into the cake batter with the instruction that whoever finds
the almond in the piece of cake they are given will have harmony and good
fortune in the year ahead. Well folks,
if some is good, more is better, right?
So I bought about a cup's worth of almonds and then blanched them and we
put them all throughout the batter so that everybody got good luck. The New Year is no time to be playing
favorites with the roulette wheel of life.
I was also to have purchased 1-2 tiny mirrors to put in the
center of the cake(s) and before serving the cake, everybody was to look in the
mirror and make a wish. I hate to tell
you but we defied fate and skipped the mirror part. I figured between the cake's name and the
overabundance of almonds, we were good to go.
As to the rest of the cookbook, I may just have to keep this
one at the ready for next year's holiday dinners. I don't normally do that but this cake was so
good and the rest of Camille's recipes also sounded so awesome that I just
may. What I loved about this book is
that she put together suggested menus for the entire season and sometimes you
just cannot beat that.
So, even though the lentil soup was disappointing, the
lentils alone should bring us luck and the addition of the cake into the mix
should have put us over the top.
May all good things come your way in 2015.
Spinach Lentil,
Vegetable, and Pasta Soup – serves 6
*Ann's Note: Please
consider using at least a half and half mixture of water and broth of your
choice. And spices such as basil,
oregano, etc. The author also suggested
you can add a couple of chopped potatoes or two cups chopped green beans,
winter squash or spinach leaves. I used
potatoes but they were just too bland for this dish. Should have gone with the green beans...
1 pound brown lentils, rinsed and picked over
1 large onion, chopped
2 medium carrots, chopped
1 large celery rib with leaves, chopped
2 large tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped or 1 cup
chopped canned tomatoes
6 cups water (*Don't say you weren't warned)
1 cup ditalini,
tubetti or elbows
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Freshly grated Pecorino Romano
In a large slow cooker, combine the lentils, vegetables, and
water.
Cover and cook on low for 7 hours. (Ann's Note:
I don't think that's enough as my lentils were still a bit al
dente. I tried 8 hours and that was a
little better but not by much.) Add the
pasta and salt and pepper to taste.
Cook on high for 30 minutes more, or until the pasta is
tender.
Serve hot, sprinkled with the cheese.
Good Fortune Tea Cake
– serves 6 to 8 per cake
For the cake
2 cups sugar
Zest of 1 lemon
Zest of ½ navel orange
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
4 large eggs, separated
3 cups sifted all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 ½ teaspoons fresh orange joice
1 ½ teaspoons cognac vanilla (see page 29) or 1 tablespoon
cognac
2 whole blanched almonds (Ann's Note: most grocery stores carry slivered blanched
almonds but you need them whole. To do
them yourself, pour boiling water over your almonds, just enough to cover and
let sit for 1 minute. Drain, rinse,
drain again. Peel off the skins. Do not let the almonds sit for too long or
they will be soggy.)
For the frosting
½ cup heavy or whipping cream
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
6 cups sifted confectioner's sugar
¼ teaspoon salt, or to taste
1 ½ teaspoons good-quality pure almond extract, or more to
taste
To make the cake, preheat the oven to 350F. Butter two 8 ½-inch springform pans and dust
them with flour. (You can also use one,
10-inch springform pan). Shake out
excess flour and set the pans aside.
Combine the sugar, lemon zest, and orange zest in a food
processor and twirl until the zest is finely grated (or grate the zest by hand
and add it to the sugar).
Using an electric mixer, beat the zest mixture and butter
together until thoroughly blended. Add
the egg yolks, one at a time, beating until the mixture is smooth and creamy.
In another mixing bowl, combine the flour with the baking
powder and salt; stir well. Alternating,
add the milk and the flour to the egg mixture.
Do not overbeat.
Add the lemon juice, orange juice, and vanilla and blend
carefully.
Beat the egg whites until they hold a stiff peak. Gently fold a third of the whites into the
batter to lighten it. Then fold in the
remaining whites, mixing gently but thoroughly.
Pour the batter into the prepared pans and poke and almond down into the
batter of each pan.
Bake the cakes on the lower rack of the preheated oven until
a cake tester inserted in the middle comes out clean, 50 minutes to 1 hour.
Watch the cakes carefully – if they overbake they will be
dry. Don't let them cook so long that
the cake separates from the sides of the pan – that's too long.
Allow the cakes to cool in the pans for 5 minutes. Then remove them from the pans and set them
on wire racks to cool thoroughly before frosting them.
Frost the cakes:
place a small mirror in the center of each cake and frost around the
edges to seal it in place. Then cover
the remaining top and sides of the cakes with the frosting. Place each cake on a stand or platter and
arrange a few very small edible flowers around the mirrors.
Before serving the cakes, each guest in turn looks into the
mirror and makes a wish. The person who
finds an almond in his slice will have a year of harmony and good fortune –
it's a promise!
The author also notes that "This is one of the best
cakes I know for its "keeping" qualities. Store in an airtight container, it will stay
moist for days. (Ann's Note: this is assuming you have any left!)
To make the frosting, heat the cream in a small saucepan
until it is warm.
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