Sarah Jones’s Kentucky jam cakes

Born in 1909, Sarah Jones lived in the small town of Cynthiana, Kentucky. Much of my great-grandmother’s life was spent on a farm, and my mom always likes to tell stories about watching tiny chicks in the incubator as a kid. By the time I came around, or at least as far as my memory goes, the farm was gone. I remember a field of flowers. I remember that we had to take long, winding roads to get to her house, and I would usually throw up because I’m prone to motion sickness. And I remember that she made the only green beans I enjoyed eating as a child.

Then I grew up, and even though the highway made it easier to get to her house, I didn’t see my great-grandmother much. I guess I was busy being a teenager in Cincinnati and then trying to be an adult in lands far away. She died at 98, and the last time I visited her we ate slices of her famous jam cake at the kitchen table, laughing as we picked the blackberry seeds from our teeth.

My aunt recently gave me the recipe, which calls for a large bundt pan, but she said she often makes small loaves to give out to people around the holidays. My friends and I got together for a baking extravaganza and used mini-bundt pans that made individual servings.

Sarah Jones’s Kentucky Jam Cakes

• 1 c butter, softened
• 2 c white sugar
• 6 eggs
• 3 c flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp allspice
• 1/2 tsp cloves
• 1 c buttermillk
• 1 c seeded blackberry jam
• 1 c nuts
• 1 c raisins

In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar and mix in eggs one at a time. In a separate bowl, sift flour, salt, and spices. Whisk baking soda into buttermilk and add to egg mixture. Add flour mixture gradually, beating smoothly, and stir in the remaining ingredients.

Pour into a greased bundt pan. Bake at 325 for 65 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. (I think we baked the mini-bundts for about 25 minutes). The directions say to start out on the bottom rack and transfer to the top halfway through, but we didn’t do this and our minis turned out fine.

You can eat them as is, but they are best with my great-grandmother’s caramel frosting. Actually, that’s the best part!

• 2 c light brown sugar
• 1 c granulated sugar
• 2 tbs corn syrup
• 3 tbs butter
• 2/3 c heavy whipping cream
• 1 tsp vanilla

Mix all ingredients except for vanilla and bring to a rolling boil. Cook 5 minutes and add vanilla. Let cool until it begins to thicken. Frost away!

Admittedly, I couldn’t figure out the best time to frost the cakes. At first, it didn’t seem cool enough–too runny–but then suddenly it was pretty stiff. I was able to go back over the cakes after frosting and smooth them out to some extent. Alternatively, you could try pouring the frosting over the top of the cake while it’s still warm.

If you make miniature versions, pop yours into the microwave briefly before you eat it for a warm and festive New Year’s treat. I’m curious to hear if you have any cherished family recipes that remind you of a special moment in your life.

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Fall vegetable penne with sage-cider cream sauce

Have I told you that fall is my favorite? It’s particularly welcome after a sweltering summer. I’m always excited to switch the oven on and bake, roast, and broil. I love pulling on a pair of corduroys and a thick sweater for a long walk. I love the smell of falling leaves and crisp air. It’s Halloween and Thanksgiving. It’s time to get cozy.

I also love root vegetables. I know they’re not so popular, but I think most people just haven’t bothered to find out how versatile and satisfying veggies like turnips, parsnips, beets, and rutabagas can be. When The Captain and I lived in Poland, we ate loads of root vegetables and never got tired of them. They are full of flavor and perfect for the sort of warm, comforting dishes we require as the weather turns colder.

You don’t often see root vegetables in pasta dishes, but you can pair them with any grain. With a sage-infused cider cream, this dish becomes a showcase for autumn treats. Enjoy it with a crisp reisling or a good hard cider. This recipe serves four.

Fall vegetable penne with sage-cider cream sauce

• 5 cups root vegetables, any combination, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 1 tbs olive or grapeseed oil
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 8 oz. whole-wheat penne
• 1 cup apple cider
• 1 tbs sage, chopped
• 1/2 cup heavy cream

Preheat oven to 425. Put the veggies, olive oil, and salt in a bowl and stir to coat. Plop them onto a baking sheet and cook for about 40 minutes or until tender.

Near the end of cooking time, boil the pasta and start the sauce. Cook cider on a low boil until reduced by half. Turn down heat and add sage and cream. Simmer for a few minutes to let the flavors mingle.

Mix the veggies and pasta together and pour sauce into dish, stirring to combine. Sprinkle some fresh sage over the top.

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Garden sorrel and potato soup

Since the temperature is finally cooler, the greens are raging. The sorrel in my garden looked crisp and vibrant and since it’s soup weather, ready to toss into the pot. This isn’t your average potato soup. It’s creamy and sumptuous, yes, but sorrel is citrusy with a tangy bite. It’s the perfect foil for the cream. You can puree the soup before or after you add the sorrel, but I don’t think it’s necessary. I like something to chew.

Sorrel (aka sour sabs, sour suds, cuckoo sorrow, cuckoo’s meat) is a perennial herb or leafy green. The lemony flavor, which deepens as it ages, comes from oxalic acid, so people with kidney stones should avoid it in large amounts. Young leaves can be used in salads, but older leaves are best for flavoring soups. Sorrel is high in vitamin C and can prevent scurvy, if that’s a concern for you. It’s not easy to find at the market, but it’s easy to grow in the garden.

This is a quick recipe for a comforting soup on a windy fall night.

• 2 tbs butter
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 leek, sliced
• 1 cup celery, sliced
• 1 lb potatoes, chopped
• 4 cups vegetable stock
• 1 bunch sorrel
• 1 cup cream
• Salt and pepper to taste

Melt butter in a large pot and saute onion, leek, and celery until translucent. Add potatoes and stock and simmer until potatoes are tender. (If your stock isn’t very flavorful, you might want to add a dash of tamari, an excellent flavor enhancer.) Stir in sorrel. The verdant green will immediately turn to a drab olive. Add cream, stirring to be sure it’s fully incorporated. Adjust seasonings if necessary and serve with hearty multi-grain bread.

And it makes a delicious treat for lunch the next day.

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Shiitake bacon!

This is my latest obsession. I’ve been a vegetarian for fifteen years, and I don’t miss any meats. None. But I do miss certain dishes like my dad’s grilled ham and cheese and my mom’s turkey chili, so sometimes a meat substitute is called for. Sometimes you just need that extra heft, that oomph that really makes a dish comforting and substantial. This is particularly true of sandwiches. Veggie sandwiches can be wonderful, but sometimes I just want a little more: some good baked tofu, grilled tempeh, Tofurkey. The Night Owl Cafe, a newish little spot in Knoxville’s Old City has a sandwich that is to die for. They layer havarti and arugula on toasted bread, smear it with the most flavorful carrot spread, and top it with shiitakes that have been roasted for so long that they taste like bacon.

Seriously, you must try this stuff. A quick search online gave me a good idea of how to turn mushrooms into bacon. Basically, you marinate them in tamari with a touch of liquid smoke and then roast them at 400 for 30-35 minutes. It’s a bit tricky, and I’m going to have to experiment a bit because I cooked mine a little too long and some just tasted burnt. They also needed more tamari because saltiness is crucial. But while they were cooking, they filled the whole house with a comforting, mapley bacon smell, made all the more satisfying by the knowledge that the smell wasn’t coming from fried pig.

I decided to throw them into pasta. I roasted butternut squash in a pan next to the shiitakes, cooked sliced onions until they caramelized, and stirred a bunch of garden sorrel and softly fried eggs into spaghetti. It was good but not quite what I had imagined. Even though sorrel is supposed to go with each of those ingredients, its strong citrus flavor was too much, so I would replace it with spinach or even kale. Also, I made the mistake of stirring the shiitake bacon into the pan when I should have simply sprinkled it over the top of the dish to keep the mushrooms from soaking up too much liquid and softening. We want crispy shiitake bacon!

If you play around with shiitakes, let me know how yours turn out. I’m curious about what kind of recipes would be best to sneak them into. Keeping that crunch is essential for me. Ooh, maybe a BLT?

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Tomato pie

Last weekend we went to see The Kids Are Alright. It was great, but that’s not the point. In one scene, Mark Ruffalo loads a basket of freshly picked veggies into his truck from a thriving garden he uses for his restaurant. He grabs a bright red tomato, and, just before hopping up into the cab, he takes a giant bite out of the tomato like it’s an apple. So juicy. I coveted it.

To me, tomatoes taste like summer. Here I am in August oven drying cherry tomatoes, slowly simmering too-soft tomatoes into marina sauce, pickling green tomatoes, and slicing Romas into everything I can get my hands on. Slurping a sun-warmed tomato just picked from the vine is the best way to enjoy this delectable fruit, but there’s one dish that best showcases it: tomato pie. So tangy, so luscious, so tomatoey.

This recipe calls for a butter crust, which I think is crucial. The buttery flakes pair up with the acidic tomatoes perfectly. But if you’re making a heavier pie with loads of cheese, you might want to consider a lighter olive-oil crust. Serve with a salad, and do it now while there is a bounty of shiny red tomatoes. This is the kind of thing you’ll crave come winter.

Tomato pie

• 1 stick butter, cold, cold, cold
• 1 1/4 cups flour (preferably white whole wheat)
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup ice-cold water
• Around 4 cups tomatoes, sliced
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 2 tbs fresh basil, chopped, plus extra for sprinkling on top
• 1/3 cup mayonnaise or Vegenaise
• 1/3 cup parmesan

First, make the crust. Dice the butter into little bits. Sift the flour, sugar, and salt together, and sprinkle in the butter bits. Mix with your fingers, a pastry blender, or mixer until the butter bits are even bittier, like teeny pebbles. It’s okay if some are bigger than others because that helps with the flakiness. Mix the water in to the dough. You may end up needing a little extra, and that’s okay. Knead, wrap, and put in the fridge to chill for at least one hour.

Once your crust is cold enough to work with, roll it out and press it into a 9-inch pie pan. Bake crust for ten minuted, remove, and fill with the tomatoes. Sprinkle with salt and basil. Mix the mayonnaise and cheese together and spread over the top. Bake at 350 for approximately 35 minutes.

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Oven-dried tomatoes (just don’t have the same ring, do they?)

The yard share is pushing out tomatoes faster than we can pick them, so I decided to dry some. Drying tomatoes in the sun takes ten to twelve days of dry weather, and although it’s certainly hot enough, we’ve had little baby storms here and there and so much humidity that I feel like I’m taking a hot bath with everyone. Drying tomatoes in the oven takes around six hours, which sounds dreadful on a hot day, but you get to keep the temperature at a nice, low 200 degrees, so your kitchen shouldn’t get too warm.

I find drying foods, like all preserving, really satisfying. When winter arrives and sad, orange tomatoes line the produce aisle, ashamed by their attempt to pass themselves off as something edible, I will rush home to my sun-dried tomatoes for a burst of summer. Drying is a great option for folks tired of letting their excess tomatoes rot on the vine but intimidated by the canning process. Italians used to dry tomatoes on their gorgeous tiled roofs. When The Captain and I were in Greece, my uncle untied a bunch of dried spinach from the rafters of his kitchen and soaked it in olive oil until it was soft enough to eat. Talk about flavor. It was a deep, dark green, like the heart of a forest. That kind of spinach ain’t for the weak.

Collect some cherry or grape tomatoes. Leave the itty-bitty ones intact, and slice the larger ones in half. If you’re using paste tomatoes, cut them into 1/2-inch slices. Spread them out on a wire rack or parchment-covered sheet and pop them in the oven. Mine took six hours, but you’ll want to keep an eye on them and taste on from time to time. They’ll darken, but you don’t want them to brown. The tomatoes are ready when they’re chewy but no longer sticky. You know what a sun-dried tomato looks and feels like. The tasting part is the best because the low heat gives them such a concentrated tomato flavor that it tickles your senses.

Once ready, let them cool, pour into a jar, sprinkle with sea salt, and fill with olive oil until it just covers the tomatoes. Or you can just toss them into a container and stow them in the fridge. Sun-dried tomatoes make almost anything better. You might have to resist the urge to snack on them.

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From the garden

Just a little peek at what we’ve been eating lately from the yard share, our herb garden, and the farmers’ market. Everything was made from scratch in our kitchen. You can see that it’s squash city around here.

Thyme-roasted fingerling potatoes, grilled yellow squash with salmoriglio, and fresh steamed peas with mint. Salmoriglio is a Sicilian sauce of pounded oregano, garlic, olive oil, and lemon juice.

Zucchini bread with lemon-balm ice cream.

Yellow squash and purple potato pizza with farmer’s cheese, thyme, and garlic.

Portobello mushroom and sun-dried tomato pizza with pesto.

The best succotash, with roasted potatoes and patty-pan squash, lima beans, corn, red onion, and chives.

Chocolate zucchini cake.

Steamed purple potatoes, roasted striped zucchini and yellow squash, fresh cherry tomatoes, and multi-grain bread with aioli and herbs.

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Eat both ends of your radish!

Our yard share is rocking, as you can see. We’re knee deep in radishes, beet greens, bok choy, arugula, and an assortment of lettuces. The tomato plants are getting unwieldy, the peppers are flowering, the potatoes are taking over, the corn is getting high, and the groundhogs have miraculously stayed away from the beans, okra, and squash. We accidentally ended up with some datura in the tomato beds, which is fine because they are huge and gorgeous, and there are a few random cucumber and squash plants that have come up from the compost.

I can barely keep up with the radishes, and that’s saying a lot. Raw and peppery with a sprinkle of sea salt or sauteed with garlic and butter, I love a good radish. I’m a firm believer in eating every part of a vegetable that’s edible: broccoli stalks chopped into stir fry, onion skins thrown into homemade broth, carrot tops stirred into wilted greens. You name it, I’ll eat it, as long as it’s not poisonous. (Some leaves are, so please check first!)

Radish leaves are awesome lightly sauteed and used in place of any other green. Last night I threw them into a potato salad with a creole mustard vinaigrette, but what I want to introduce you to today is radish-leaf soup. It’s simple and satisfying, like a spring-inspired potato soup.

Radish-leaf soup

• 1 tbs butter
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 red potatoes, chopped
• 2 bunches radish leaves, washed and roughly chopped
• 3 red potatoes, chopped
• 2-3 cups water
• 1/2 cup milk or soy milk
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Hot sauce for drizzling

Melt butter in a warm pan and add onion and garlic. Saute about five minutes before adding potatoes and greens. Let the veggies cook a few minutes and add water. Simmer until the potatoes are tender. Puree with a hand blender. I don’t like to puree it completely since I prefer a little texture in my soup, but you do whatever you want. Stir in the milk and season to taste. If you want, pour a few drops of good hot sauce (Louisiana is an excellent choice) onto your bowl. You can even top it with minced radishes or green onions if you want to be fancy. This recipe should serve four.

Now for the radishes themselves. The classic way to eat radishes is to slather a piece of good bread with the best butter you can find, lay thinly sliced radishes across the top, and sprinkle with sea salt. This is a perfect 93-degrees-in-spring snack. (On a side note, are you experiencing this crazy hot spring we’ve got down here? It was hot as Hades in the middle of May, and it’s actually supposed to be 93 tomorrow. I’m going to Minneapolis next week, and it can’t come soon enough.)

But here’s a little something else I like to do with radishes. Let’s call it garlicky radish spread.

Garlicky radish spread

• 1 bunch radishes, minced or grated
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 8 oz. cream cheese
• Juice of half a lemon
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Fresh dill, if you feel like it

Mix the radishes and garlic into the cream cheese. Add the lemon juice and season to taste. If you want to add dill, chop it up and add it already. Let sit a couple hours so the flavors can mingle. Serve on Swedish rye crackers (my personal favorite) or any other cracker you want. This is also good on toasted bread with sliced cucumbers.

And if you don’t like radishes after all that, well, I don’t know what to do with you. Thing of their peppery bite as an acquired taste, like when you first started drinking wine, and learn to love them. You’ll thank me someday.

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Pretending we’re in Spain

My sister D was supposed to go to Spain for her 25th birthday, but her trip fell through, so she came to see me instead! Since she missed out on sunny Spain, I thought I’d serve tapas and sangria upon her arrival to hot, humid Tennessee. The sangria was simple: inexpensive sauvignon blanc with chopped apples, tangerines, and green grapes. You can use whatever fruits are in season. I wanted to use apricots and peaches, but it’s too early for that. Let the flavors meld in the refrigerator overnight and then serve in wine glasses topped with sparkling water.

Now for the tapas. I bought roasted almonds, Basque and Catalan olives, and some good bread to serve with Heidi Swanson’s Hummus en Fuego, which was best after sitting for a day.

I roasted yellow, orange, and red bell peppers and mixed them with olive oil, sherry vinegar, and garlic. Then I made Bon Appetit’s Roasted Sweet Onions with Cabrales Blue Cheese.

No evening of tapas would be complete without patatas fritas, fried potatoes, dusted with smoky Spanish paprika and cayenne pepper, and served with alioli, which most of us know by its French name, aioli, or garlic mayonnaise. These were our favorite.

We sat on the porch and listened to flamenco music, imagining we were on the Mediterranean. The rest of the week involved shopping until we couldn’t walk, gardening and wandering around the farmers’ market, cooking pad thai and grilled pizza, accidentally picnicking with both a deer and a bear, and celebrating D’s birthday. It wasn’t Spain, but it was definitely memorable.

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Violet water

Before daily showers and deodorant, women carried violets to protect their olfactory systems from the putrid smells of city life. They wore violet perfume and drank violet syrup for coughs. Violets announce the arrival of spring, and in the language of flowers, they are linked to constancy. If you’ve read about the romance between Napoleon and Josephine, then you know a little something about these fragile purple flowers.

I should have posted this the first week of spring because we’re out of wild violets down here. If you live north of me and don’t treat your lawn, you might still have some violets you can use for this project. It’s simple. Pick some violets, cover with boiling water, steep until you like the flavor/color, and strain. I steeped mine for three days (in the refrigerator after it cooled).

You can use violet water for all sorts of recipes. Mix some with simple syrup and add to sparkling water for a refreshing spring cooler. Use it in desserts, cocktails, and salad dressings. Add it to a fragrant herbal tea such as chamomile or lavender. Pour a few tablespoons into spring orzo salad.

This batch is so deeply purple that I’m curious about using it as a dye for crafts from yarn to eggs. It would certainly make a gorgeous food coloring without the chemical ick of typical food colorings.

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