A Cake You Can Always Depend On

We all have them in our kitchens...those classic cookbooks that have been there for what seems like 100 years held together by some combination of tape and rubber bands because of a long storied history.  40 years ago there wasn't a million different cookbooks that you could reference at any given time or websites that with a touch of a button you had 1000's of recipes at your fingertips.  There were the classics: "The Joy of Cooking", "Mastering the Art of French Cooking", "The Silver Palate", and "The Good Housekeeping Cookbook" to name a few and those were what people cooked out of.  I look at the shelves now where my cookbooks are housed in the kitchen and among the many cookbooks on a gamete of topics that I have collected over the years,  there some of my mother's classics mixed into the group.  I don't know what it is but every time I open up one of those old books I become somewhat warm and nostalgic thinking about the meals we would eat growing up.  It's like every time I open up one of the Marcella Hazan's Italian Cookbooks I can't help but run through the sticky-note pages that denoted my mother's favorites recipes whether it be bolognese sauce, the tomato cream "summer" sauce or the veal stew with tomatoes and peas that we've ate for years and I know that we will continue to enjoy for so many years to come. The other cookbook that has come out so many times in our house that it's pretty much a miracle that it still has it pages is "The Good Housekeeping Cookbook" in particularly for the sour-cream coffeecake which page is stained with dried up flour and what looks like vanilla that probably spilled on it at some point during the numerous times we made the recipe over the years.   By no means is the recipe flashy or a show stopper but it's dependable and solid...something you always want when you're looking for a dessert to drop off at someone's house or just a simple sweet to enjoy over coffee.  Well the opportunity presented itself this week for the sour-cream coffeecake to make another appearance and as follows is the recipe for you to enjoy yourselves.

Sour-Cream Coffeecake
(from "The Good Housekeeping Cookbook")

In a small bowl, mix together:
-1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts
-1/2 cup sugar 
-1 teaspoon cinnamon 
Set bowl aside for later use.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a 9-inch tube pan (I like to use a tube pan with a removable bottom because I find that it is easier to get the cake out after it's finished).

In a large bowl, mix together on medium speed until light and fluffy:
-1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter
-1 cup sugar 

On low speed mix in the following ingredients until bended, constantly scraping the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula:
-2 cups all -purpose flour
-1 cup sour cream
-2 eggs
-1 teaspoon baking powder
-1 teaspoon baking soda
-1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Once combined, beat at medium speed for 3 minutes.  

Spread half of the batter into the prepared pan.  Sprinkle half of the nut mixture and then repeat with the remaining batter and nut mixture.  Bake for 55-60 minutes until cake pulls away from the sides of the pan and the knife comes out clean from the center.  Let cool for 10 minutes and then remove from pan by running knife slowly around the sides. 

A Healthy Southern Weeknight Meal

One of the perks of being home regularly is that I now have an opportunity to catch a news cast program more often then not and it's been kind of nice being able to actually know what's going on in the world.  And you sometimes learn when it's a really slow news day because something will take over the news that isn't all that substantial or important...case in point, the big uproar of Paula Deen announcing she is diabetic.  Let me throw the disclaimer out there right now before anything else can be said: diabetes and obesity are serious diseases that affect millions of Americans each year and should not be taken lightly but she cooked up quite the media ploy to announce this news while it very well could have been something that was handled quietly and privately .  I was never a fan of Paula Deen to begin with and I wish her the best but this isn't going to change anything now.  I think she has given southern cooking a bad name (I therefore will not be throwing out my February issue of BA dedicated to all things Southern when it arrives this week) and while I think Anthony Bourdain has gone a little far in his media war with her, I do think he has a good point and of course a few good entertaining lines to come out of it. 

So you are probably wondering, "where am I going with all of this,  is she just going to ramble through an entire post"  but I promise I have a point or a link to tie it all together.  Here's our dinner last night - a healthy Southern supper of Tilapia with Spinach-Pecan Pesto, a couscous medley and some glazed carrots.  The pesto takes all of 5 minutes to make and the great part about it is that you are going to have some leftover for another meal.  It's great as a sandwich spread, on a pizza or tossed with your favorite pasta and it's an easy way for people to eat spinach if they are skeptics.  The recipe for the fish is really adaptable and does well with pantry substitutions.  We ended up having it with flounder last night because it looked better at the supermarket and I used walnuts instead of pecans since that's what I had at home.  I always hear people try to say how hard it is to cook healthy, simple meals at home but don't sell yourself or your health short.  It's the little changes that make the big difference and you don't have to cook with 3 pounds of butter to represent the south. 

the fish about to go into the oven

By the way:  I'm a sucker for inspirational quotes and mantras and I fell very hard for this one.  Check out "Sweet Sugar Spice Candy"  for great lines whenever you might need a little positive pick me up.   My favorite for the day... "Keep your head, heels and standards high".

A New Year, 20 degrees and the sniffles...

The page has been turned and here we are...well hello 2012 and thanks for bringing this wonderful,  nagging sinus cold with you (can't you just sense my sincere sarcasm here)!  I think like many people I was so ready to leave 2011 behind and welcome 2012 with all the newness and promise that it held.  At the second annual New Year's Day "Waffle and Bacon Brunch", we had a meal heavy in the pork department because as we learned, it will signify a year ahead rich in happiness and hey if that's one more easy excuse to eat bacon then we were more then all for it.  Since I was all for any additional element that would bring us luck this year I also read somewhere about the Spanish tradition of eating 12 grapes on New Years where each grape signifies 1 month of the year and as silly as it sounds "if the grape is sweet then you'll have a good month".  So here we were on Sunday morning, eating our 12 grapes each off of the skewers and going through each grape and trying to predict how every month might turn out.  It was fun to recap the different events that we experienced in 2011 and what is ahead of us for the new year and this is going to sound so cheesy but it felt really nice to have this new tradition that I had created with my friends last year.  In the most perfect world, I probably would have wanted us all to go around the table and talk about our goals for the New Year but another bottle of champagne got opened and consumed and the goal talk will have to wait until another day or maybe when the birthdays are celebrated in a few weeks. 

So yes a very nice kickoff to the New Year and then reality set in.  Maybe we've become overly spoiled with good weather so far this winter but it just felt extra cold on Tuesday with the extreme drop in temperature.  Throw in the fact that everyone in my house has been battling the infamous winter cold and it hasn't made for a good week.  I was going to make chili for dinner that night but then with a little urging from my mother, I knew what we really needed to have...a big bowl of pasta ceci soup.    There is something oddly comforting about making soup, where not a whole lot of time and effort goes into the prep work and then letting the pot simmer away on the stove where every so often you get a whiff of this faint classic smell of what you have to look forward to that night.   The soup might not have kicked out our colds, and for that matter the cold pills aren't exactly working fast enough either but I think I convinced myself that it might just be the winter of the soup because it really was a perfect weeknight dinner.  And there is always next week to kick off the new year in the energy it calls for.

Pasta Ceci Soup (adapted from Chef Silvio)

In a large pot over medium heat, saute until tender (about 8-10 minutes):
-2 ribs of chopped up celery
-1 cup of halved grape tomatoes
-4 cloves of chopped garlic
-1/4 cup of chopped fresh parsley

Add about about a tablespoon of tomato paste (I'm a huge fan of tomato paste in a tube so I just usually give it a generous squirt) and season with salt and pepper.  Add in 1 can of drained and rinsed chickpeas and stir to combine. 

Add 1.5 - 2 quarts of chicken stock (I used some of my supply of frozen homemade stock from the fall but a good quality store bought stock will do the job as well) and stir to combine.  Check seasonings and once soup comes to a steady boil, turn it down and let simmer away for about an hour until the chickpeas are tender.   

Finish the soup off with 2 cups of cooked ditalini pasta (the small tube shapes) and a generous handful of grated cheese.