Brown Sugar Nectarine Cake

If you're like me, summer time is your favorite time to cook because of the countless fresh ingredients available.  There's something about it that just makes me want to grill and eat super-ripe fruit all day, every day.  This cake is a great way to celebrate the fresh fruit of summer.  It's simple, fast, and can showcase any kind of stone fruit you have.  I've been getting a ton of peaches and nectarines in my CSA box and I'm having fun coming up with new things to do with it all.  This cake is one of fun things I've made with the nectarines I've gotten.  I adapted the recipe only slightly from a favorite blog of mine, Smitten Kitchen.  There wasn't much to change as the original recipe is pretty darn good, I just found myself wanting the cake to be a bit more moist, so I added a few tablespoons of sour cream (or you could use plain yogurt).  That and a big dollop of cinnamon-flavored whipped cream and the cake was perfect for a casual dinner with friends.

Brown Sugar Nectarine Cake

You can use any stone fruit you have on hand, I just wouldn't use it if it were super-ripe.  That may make the cake soggy.  Try different combinations of fruit and spices in the cake, like ginger in a cake with peaches or cardomom with plums.

1 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp cinnamon
5 tbs. butter, at room temp
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1/3 cup canola or other flavorless oil
3 tbs. sour cream or plain yogurt
grated zest of 1 orange
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
5 nectarines, halved and pitted

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Butter and flour an 8 inch square baking pan and set aside.

In a stand mixer, beat the butter until it is smooth, about 3 minutes.  Add the brown sugar and cream together until the mixture is light and fluffy, another 3 minutes.  Add the eggs one at a time, mixing for a minute in between each addition.  Then add the orange zest, vanilla, sour cream and oil.  Mix on medium speed until fully incorporated.  Add the dry ingredients and beat on low until just mixed in.  Remove the bowl from the mixer and scrape the bottom with a spatula to make sure that all the ingredients are mixed in.  Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top with a spatula.  Arrange the fruit, skin side down  in a 3 x 3 grid over the batter.  Wiggle each nectarine just a bit to settle it into the batter.  You'll have an extra half left over- a little treat for the cook!

Bake the cake in the center of the oven for 30-40 minutes.  I realize that's a huge time span, but every oven is different.  Mine was done at 35 minutes.  Insert a toothpick along the side of the center nectarine and if  it comes out clean (without any gooey batter on it), the cake is done.  Cool in the pan on a rack.  I made some fresh whipped cream to serve on top sweetened with a bit of sugar and vanilla and flavored with a half teaspoon of cinnamon.  You could also sift some powdered sugar over the top or serve the cake as-is.

Roasted Red Pepper Soup

About 7 months ago, one of my best girlfriends and I went on a mini girl's-only trip to Seattle for a couple of days.  We basically ate and shopped our way around downtown- it was a blast!  One of my favorite meals we had there was on the last day, a little impromptu lunch at a french bistro.  We both had the same thing- red pepper soup with a frisee salad and a slice of french bread with roasted, gooey goat cheese.  To say it was simple is an understatement, but it was perfect in it's simplicity.  Since then I have been on a quest to make a perfect red pepper soup.  I tried doing it the way the waitress at the bistro said they did, with a lot of carrots and simply cooking the raw peppers with the rest of the vegetables.  The reviews of my family were lukewarm.  They said it was bland and too carroty.  So I did a lot of research, looking at my favorite web sites, Epicurious and Food and Wine.  Turns out most recipes tell you to roast your peppers first, so that's what I did.  On a whim, I also decided to throw a head of garlic in the oven to roast while I got the ingredients together for the soup.  The result was a great soup that my 6 year old has asked for again already and it's not even been a week since the first time I made it.  It's the perfect soup for summer and would be great hot or cold.  You can change it up a bit and make it spicy by adding a bit of red pepper flakes to the carrots and onions while sauteeing.  Or add an herb like basil at the end.  I think it's just right all on it's own with a salad and a hunk of crusty bread.

Roasted Red Pepper Soup

6 roasted red peppers, skins removed, seeded and coarsely chopped (you can use jarred peppers, but they are so easy to do and the flavor is so much better, why wouldn't you do it yourself?  The method is after the soup recipe)
1 small onion, diced (about 1 cup)
3 medium carrots, diced (about 1 cup)
1 head garlic
1/2  14 oz. can crushed tomatoes or 2 tomatoes, seeded and chopped
4 cups low-sodium chicken broth or water

Pre-heat oven to 400.  Slice the top 1/4 inch from the head of garlic, place the head on a square of aluminum foil and drizzle a bit of olive oil over the top.  Wrap the foil around the garlic and roast in the oven for about 30 minutes.  You will smell the garlic's sweet aroma and the cloves will be golden and soft.  I actually like a bit more garlic so I throw a few extra cloves still in the skin into the package along with the whole head.

 Meanwhile, heat 2 tbs. olive oil in a large pot over medium-high heat.  Saute the carrots and onions until they are soft and lightly golden, about 6 minutes.  Add in the peppers, any juices from the peppers, the tomatoes, the chicken broth, 1/2 tsp. salt and 1/4 tsp. black pepper.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce the heat to medium and simmer for 20-25 minutes.  The vegetables will be extremely tender.  Squeeze the roasted garlic into the pot with the soup.  Puree the soup in batches in a blender.  CAUTION, hot foods release a large amount of steam when blended.  Always cover the blender with its lid and then hold it down using an oven mitt or kitchen towel with your hand.  You will thank me for this bit of advice- you won't get burned by the steam and your counter won't be covered in soup when the blender lid flies off!  Alternately, you can blend the soup right in the pot if you have an immersion blender. For a silkier texture, you can press the soup through a fine-meshed sieve, but I think it's just fine the way it is.

Roasting the Peppers

There are a few ways to roast peppers, it depends on what you have available.  Personally, I find the easiest way to do it is right on top of the gas burners of my stove, but you can also use a grill or the broiler of your oven.  You just wash and dry the peppers, then place them over the flame (or under the broiler on a cookie sheet).  Keeping a close eye on them, turn them when the skins become blackened and charred.  When the peppers are roasted all the way around, put them a zip top bag and let them cool off.  When cooled, peel off the skins, cut off the tops and pull out any seeds inside.  Save the juices that collect inside the pepper, they're loaded with flavor.

There are so many uses for these peppers, I can only name a few here.  Top grilled bread with them and a smear of goat cheese or ricotta.  Put them in a grilled chicken sandwich or on a burger.  Throw them in a salad.  Make this wonderful soup.

The inspiration for the blog- warm spinach salad and vanilla aprium jam

I love to cook.  It's that simple.  And I love to come up with new meals- cooking the same thing week after week is mind-numbingly boring to me.  My poor family is constantly being subjected to new dishes, some they love and some that are destined to be quickly forgotten.  A few make it into regular rotation, but that doesn't happen very often.  My husband says that his standards have now been set very high by me, so much so that it's hard for me to top myself and every meal I make gets compared to the previous ones.  But I welcome the challenge.  To add to the difficulty, I recently signed up for a weekly CSA (community supported agriculture) box that supplies me with most of my produce for the week, and I don't get to pick what I want.  I have a feeling we're going to need a lot of ways to use up all that summer squash.  My first box led to two new recipes that my family just loved- warm spinach salad and vanilla aprium jam.  My plan is to share the recipes that I come up with as well as some classics from my Italian heritage and maybe even a few of my hubby's favorites from growing up.  As Julia Child would say- Bon Apetit!

Warm Spinach Salad

9 ounces spinach
4 slices of bacon, cut into 1/4 inch pieces
1 large shallot, sliced thinly
2 tbs. balsamic vinegar
4 ounces feta cheese, crumbled
handful of candied pecans

Place spinach in a large bowl.  In a medium skillet, cook bacon until browned.  Remove the bacon and drain on paper towels.  Pour off all but two tablespoons of the bacon drippings from the skillet.  Add shallots to the skillet and saute until softened, 2 minutes.  Add vinegar to the skillet to warm, scraping the bottom of the pan.

Toss together the spinach, bacon, feta cheese, pecans, and vinegar/shallot dressing and serve.

Vanilla Aprium Jam

3 pounds ripe apriums (or other stone fruit such as plums or nectarines)
2 cups sugar
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tbs butter
1/2 vanilla bean

Pit and coarsely chop the apriums.  Place fruit, sugar, butter and lemon juice in a large pot.  With a knife, halve the vanilla bean.  Scrape the seeds from the bean with the back of the knife.  Place seeds and bean in the pot.  Bring to a boil over medium high heat then turn down to medium and simmer for 20-30 minutes.  Be sure to stir often so that the bottom doesn't scorch.  The fruit should soften and the mixture will thicken.

Cool, then place in jars and refrigerate.  Jam will keep refrigerated for two or three weeks.  Makes 3 1/2 pints.